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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

If you ask your DH/DP to stop doing something, do they?

61 replies

IHate · 16/10/2025 21:20

Not the big stuff, just the everyday “please don’t do X, it’s annoying” category of domestic crimes.

A friend was recently ranting about her husband using her very expensive face cream. Abandoning his usual pleasant and reasonable persona, he apparently goes in like a man digging trenches, scoops out half the pot, and leaves the lid off so it congeals into some sort of luxury spackle. I said, “Have you asked him to stop?” and she looked at me as though I’d proposed witchcraft. Then she said, quite seriously, “That wouldn’t work.”

In our house, if one of us does something the other dislikes, we say so, the offender stops, and life goes on. But it seems this is not how all relationships operate.

So:

YABU: I wouldn’t ask and/or they wouldn’t stop if I did

YANBU: It really isn’t that complicated

OP posts:
JudgeBread · 18/10/2025 00:41

Yeah he stops, he wants peace and harmony in his home and I am neither peaceful nor harmonious when I'm pissed off by some trifling annoyance.

I do the same for him too so it balances out.

horseplay12 · 18/10/2025 00:42

As much as I do if DH asks me to stop doing something - I would try my best when I remembered but occasionally it is outside my mind.

OSTMusTisNT · 18/10/2025 00:50

My DH has this weird habit of questioning my choices.

E.g - If I decide to have cheddar cheese on a sandwich, he'll say, oh i thought you would be having the Edam we bought yesterday.

If I'm crafting and e.g pick up my crochet shawl to work on he'll say something like oh, are you never going to finish that jumper you're knitting.

It was driving me mad, like whatever insignificant decision I made that didnt affect him in the slightest, he questioned it. It was never important stuff though.

I had to point it out to him as it was driving me a bit mad.

Soppydawg · 18/10/2025 01:53

Cookieandcandy · 16/10/2025 21:24

My OH would stop if I asked him. Couldn’t live with someone who didn’t care that they were upsetting me.

you mean they wouldn’t say ‘no , you’re always telling me what to do, I’m not having it’ ??
Mine would , yes he surprises me with his responses sometimes too!

PennywisePoundFoolish · 18/10/2025 07:38

Whyareyouspoilingthisfunsuckers · 17/10/2025 22:52

I love this! I'm going to do the same. My dh is a petty at times. He rearranges the washing after I've hung it on the airer ir the radiator or sometimes as I'm doing it! Seriously! What man does that? Are any usually that bothered??!! Think he'll be taking a few more jobs over than he thought he would. Excellent.😅🤣😂

Show quote history

My husband also re-pegs and rearranges washing! We should set them up 😭😂

iamthehotstepper · 18/10/2025 12:49

saffy2 · 17/10/2025 20:02

My partner tries to stop. And it’s often not enough and causes an argument, but he does try. And I can tell he tries. Or he doesn’t for a while and then forgets and goes back to his easier way of doing it.
for example, leaving washing on the floor, or glasses around the house, or he likes to keep a toilet roll around the house to blow his nose. I hate all these things and it irritates me, I ask him to stop frequently and he does try to. But often he reverts back, so then I ask again. So I hear what you’re saying, but equally it’s not as simple in my house and just saying please don’t do that. 😂 but not out of malice or anything horrible. Just general laziness or forgetfulness.

Very similar here. Any pointing out of annoying habits like leaving socks on the floor, toilet seat up, all the classic stuff, gets met with a defensive 'well you do X and that annoys me but I never moan about it', a token effort for a few days with accompanied huffing then revert to just continuing to do whatever it is. We've 5 mins ago had a conversation that went:

Me: this bathroom wall is covered in water marks (it really is, like a huge shaggy dog has been shaking itself in there daily, hes the only one that showers in there), if i paint it can you be more careful when you get out of the shower please

DH: no, I can't be held responsible for where water goes when I get out of the shower, that's just ridiculous

If I dare to take it further I'll get 'why are you always looking for an argument, its something I can't help etc etc'. Nothing is ever his fault.

Cathartic writing that down!!

Original poster
IHate · 18/10/2025 13:45

Blarn · 16/10/2025 21:30

Yes, unless it's putting the sharp knives sharp blade side up on the draining board. That for some reason he simply will not stop doing.

I don’t know why, but this made me laugh so much. 🤣

OP posts:
Original poster
IHate · 18/10/2025 13:50

Mandylovescandy · 16/10/2025 22:21

I think it depends what it is - not using someone else's stuff seems easy to achieve. The myriad of specific ways that my DP likes things to be done I try my best but sometimes I don't have the time or I forget because I have a different way of doing things/don't particularly care because somehow despite my 'terrible' way of loading the dishwasher it still manages to clean stuff

I think that’s fair enough.

OP posts:
Original poster
IHate · 18/10/2025 13:53

CarpetKnees · 17/10/2025 00:33

Kind of depends on the 'thing'.

There are some things we do different ways and I find it annoying when he does something one way but he finds it annoying that I do it my way. In those circumstances, no he wouldn't and neither would I, because we both think our way is best. Just because his way annoys me, doesn't mean I'm right anymore than me doing something that annoys him doesn't make him right.

In your example about the face cream, that wouldn't happen because we respect each other's things and wouldn't use something that wasn't ours in the first place. I'm talking more about things like dish washer loading or pegging clothes out on the line or not putting fresh water in the kettle when you've emptied it, or not switching things off in the car before leaving it, type things where we just do things differently.

Agreed. I don’t like how DH chops onions (a deeply petty example, I’m aware), but I wouldn’t insist he do it ‘my way’. As, despite my unshakeable belief that my way is superior, it’s a matter of opinion.

As opposed to ‘stop eating all the snacks and leaving none for anyone else’ (to use a common MN example).

OP posts:
Original poster
IHate · 18/10/2025 13:59

saffy2 · 17/10/2025 20:02

My partner tries to stop. And it’s often not enough and causes an argument, but he does try. And I can tell he tries. Or he doesn’t for a while and then forgets and goes back to his easier way of doing it.
for example, leaving washing on the floor, or glasses around the house, or he likes to keep a toilet roll around the house to blow his nose. I hate all these things and it irritates me, I ask him to stop frequently and he does try to. But often he reverts back, so then I ask again. So I hear what you’re saying, but equally it’s not as simple in my house and just saying please don’t do that. 😂 but not out of malice or anything horrible. Just general laziness or forgetfulness.

leaving washing on the floor, or glasses around the house, or he likes to keep a toilet roll around the house to blow his nose.

Is he leaving used bits of loo paper around after he’s blown his nose? Or am I misunderstanding? 🙁

OP posts:
Original poster
IHate · 18/10/2025 13:59

OSTMusTisNT · 18/10/2025 00:50

My DH has this weird habit of questioning my choices.

E.g - If I decide to have cheddar cheese on a sandwich, he'll say, oh i thought you would be having the Edam we bought yesterday.

If I'm crafting and e.g pick up my crochet shawl to work on he'll say something like oh, are you never going to finish that jumper you're knitting.

It was driving me mad, like whatever insignificant decision I made that didnt affect him in the slightest, he questioned it. It was never important stuff though.

I had to point it out to him as it was driving me a bit mad.

And did he stop?

OP posts:
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