I had a full blown hissy fit, is there any way back?

[Drakula]

Been dating someone for around a year. He wants to live together but I’m very protective of my space, very houseproud and wasn’t sure if I could handle it so we started spending the odd weekend night at each others houses to trial things.

I found his house utterly depressing. There is no colour, none of the furniture match and it’s all old and plain. And by old I don’t mean tastefully old but decades old Argos style furniture all scuffed etc. It smells funny and nothing seems to have its place. I started making excuses not to go and in the end told him why so he said it’s because he never had visitors so didn’t see the point.

When he stayed at my house I had to regularly remind him to take his shoes off in the hallway, to put the coffee jar back it it’s place after moving it, to bin packets rather than just leaving them around etc

Hes getting desperate to move in so I suggested a trial week where he stayed at mine for a week. It’s lasted 3 days 😱

He arrived on Friday night, by Saturday I’d lost count of how many times I’d told him about the coffee jar. Numerous times I told him to take his shoes off, he left wet towel on the bathroom floor on Saturday night and I snapped, we had a falling out where he accused me of being “OCD” about stuff. I I explained that this is my house and I won’t apologise for the way I keep it clean and tidy. We moved on.

Last night I went into the bathroom to see he’d left the wet towel on the floor, a pile of clothes AND his shoes meaning he had walked upstairs in his shoes. I just lost it, opened the bathroom window and chucked all his stuff out of it. When I went downstairs I informed him that everything he left in the bathroom is now in the garden. He went ape shit saying I was a psyco and I totally lost it and screamed at him to get the fuck out of my house and take all his shit with him. When he left I saw that he’d deliberately moved the coffee jar to the other side of the kitchen.

Since then he’s messaged me multiple times apologising saying he just needs to get used to how I work but I’m thinking this is just not going to work is it? How can you come back from that?

I like your style 😁

He sounds inept and ignorant.

Assuming this is real, it makes a refreshing change to see boundaries asserted at the start of relationship instead of struggling for years.
What a hoot. I laughed out loud about the clothes out of the window.

OP, as you know, he's dreadful, so bin him off. He won't change.

The place for the coffee jar saga - and his sign-off move shows just how deliberate all his bad manners were - reminds me of the short story "Intangibles Inc." by Brian W Aldiss, that involved the placement of domestic articles.

https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/luminist/EB/A/Aldiss%20-%20Intangibles%20Inc.pdf

Enjoy, as weird as the format is.

Shoe cupboard. Closed shoe racks. Shoe racks which double as bench. Planty options, many space saving too

I don't think it's much to ask to expect people to tidy up after themselves.
My 6 year old is able to take his shoes off and put his washing in the basket.
He sounds like a scrub, bin him.

He is absolutely, utterly, not the man for you. Quite understandable, too!

I take my hat off to you. Last week I had a similar fit about ds endlessly throwing his wet towels in to (my new) bath, as he can’t be bothered to hang them on the towel radiator.

I agree.

OP this all sounds absolutely exhausting. I couldn’t live somewhere that I’m afraid to move something. A house is supposed to be lived in. A quick reset at the end of each night where the (wet) towels and clothes are picked up and put in the laundry, coffee jars are put back in their rightful place etc is all it takes, bathroom usually picked up and wiped over by whoever is last in the shower, kitchen wiped down and reset by whoever is last in bed

So you are happy to be a maid and clean up after everyone's messes?
It's not hard to leave a coffee jar in the same place, I really don't see why you would need to constantly move it when you literally just take the lid off and spoon the coffee out.
Why would you leave a wet towel on the floor? Unless it's for other people to use just pick it up and hang it, only takes seconds.
It's about having a basic level of respect for other people living in the same place.

Why are you comparing an adult man to children?

You sound like you have very serious issues and are waaayy too much hard work. I think he dodged a bullet. Let him go to find someone normal. But be prepared to be alone for the rest of your life if this is how you are. Christ!

And who do you think would be doing all the picking up and wiping down in this situation? Do you really think this bloke is going to run a cloth over the kitchen worktops before he heads to bed?

And yet the bullet dodger is messaging to wheedle his way back into favour.

Me too. That must have been so satisfying.

I mean, does it really matter if the bloody coffee jar isn't in exactly the right place all the time?

It is not about getting used to how you work it is about having some basic respect for you and your home.

Not leaving wet towels on floor is hardly an unreasonable request !

Who does that? Assuming they're clean already after washing up the dinner stuff, what's the point?

What assume that the coffee is so easily accessible? I suspect that the whole issue is that it has to be taken out of whichever space is allocated to it in order to access its contents. Perhaps the answer would be for OP to find a more accessible place to keep it.

When you live together, you do end up having to let go of certain things the way you like them to allow the other person to be comfortable in their own home too.
However, the clothes and towel on the floor and not binning rubbish make him sound like a man child so I’d let him find someone else to clear up his mess then go out with a friend and enjoy going back to a clean home!

He’d drive me bloody nuts. Pathetic from him. The wet towel on the floor - was it meant to be going in the wash? Or does he put towels on the floor and then reuse them after they’ve been on the ground? I’m asking as I really can’t wrap my head around putting one on the floor instead of back on a hook / rail.

The person who wants it done.

I agree about the towels and the clothes. That suggests a mind set of "oh the maid will do it" but putting a coffee jar back in it's "home" (that was arbitrarily decided by one person) etc, well that's on the the person who insists it has a home.

At the moment it is the OP's place and she gets to decide but ultimately, living with someone is all about compromise and it really doesnt sound like she is able to do that.

Someone mentioned living with kids, well I agree! My mother was like this. Everyone in the house had to live by her rules, including my father who paid the mortgage and all of the bills. According to her it was HER house and therefore HER rules, anything my father said was wrong. Sadly, he was (is) her enabler, so you can imagine what life was like as a teenager with no privacy, no choice and a bully as a mother. And no, we didnt leave towels on the floor.

All that said, he sounds like a lazy bugger who is looking for a mummy, not a partner. So not a good match at all. She needs to find someone who is an equal neat freak.

Absolutely. He knew exactly what he was doing. I’d have reacted similarly as I have no time for idiots like this. If I’d behaved like that as a teenager at home my DM would have slapped me.

So you asked him nicely, more than once, to behave like a decent adult in the bathroom, lounge and kitchen, yet he ignored basic housekeeping ?
Your DP is trying to mark his territory.. into your space now. His is boring so he wants something clean and shiny...don't give in.

If someone has said they don’t want you to wear your shoes indoors, why would you keep doing it? He hasn’t forgotten what he’s been told. It’s just defiance. Like a naughty schoolboy. Wilfully ignoring the instructions he’s been given.

I’m in no way a maid? I don’t know where you’ve gotten that from. we all pitch in in my house. Me, DP and 3 teenage daughters. Wet towels in a bathroom are not the end of the world. Last person in the shower will pick them up and chucks them in the washing basket. They are actually useful to stand on to stop the floor getting soaked

coffee is sometimes left beside the fridge or freezer if someone’s having iced coffee and took it over there to put ice and milk in the glass. Again, not the end of the world. I could even think about going mad at someone for leaving coffee on the wrong worktop

Crumbs from toast or bits of cereal from late night snacks that are on the work top are wiped down by the last person that is down stairs at night. Dishwasher is filled and switched on and if the coffee/tea/sugar is in the wrong place, the butter is out of the fridge or the kitchen roll is beside the toaster it all gets put back at the same time

living with other people means learning to live with each other and getting into a routine. Chucking clothes out of a window over a coffee jar and a wet towel on a, presumably tiled, floor is insanity. Especially after only 3 days

The longer you prolong it, the worse the breakup will be. Living with someone has little do with love. You're totally incompatible.