AIBU or is he (domestic godess issues)

[Feellikescreamingalot]

Have name changed, am regular, moldies, penguingate etc.

I have been with my DP for about 5 ish years and we have been living together for about 3.5 of them. He has always been a slob in terms on cleanliness around the home and I never thought I could change that but AIBU to expect a little bit of consideration?

He can make as much mess as he likes in his study, I don't care, I also don't mind picking his stuff up off the floor, doing all the shopping, most of the cleaning, sorting through the bills, doing the garden etc etc.

His jobs are to do the laundry (so as to minimise my needing to chase around his clothing and also to minimise me getting annoyed at him messing up the clothing piles) and also to put out the rubbish.

I have told him and told him point blank that when he shows no consideration for me (does not fold laundry up, leaves it in a pile, doesn't put out rubbish, doesn't wash recycling tins so they go mouldy and smelly so its me that has to clean them and put them out) I really resent living with him. I have told him that when he acts this way it makes me feel unappreciated and makes me not want to be living with someone like this - he doesn not seem to care that his behaviour is upsetting to me.

We just had a row because the bin stinks - this is because YET AGAIN there are dirty recycling tins in it. AIBU to have got upset and asked him why he has no consideration for me?

He says, "it's just tins, what the big deal?"

So AIBU. I am showing him this thread btw as clearly he thinks I'm crazy. I don't nag him btw. I ask explicitly to do x & y. Wash tins, put out rubbish wash and fold laundry.

need to post and run I'm afraid as have fgriends over fir bbq but will be back!

It sounds totally reasonable to me.
If anything, it sounds as if you are asking him to do very little.
What's the set up re SAHM, working and so on?

You have to stop thinking of it as him not showing consideration or not appreciating you.

I am not a naturally tidy person and have to force myself to keep things nice. It is nothing to do with how I appreciate DH or showing him consideration.

It is because at the end of the day it is not nice to live in a messy house.

He agreed to do the chores, he has to do them.

Not "for you", but because that is what mature adults do so that they do not have to live in a rubbish tip.

I think he is being unreasonable! They are only a few tasks that he has to do! Not unreasonable of you to ask!

I often feel the same aap, we don't have actual jobs we are both jointly resp which generally means I do it! only time DH notices is when I have been knocking my pan out for weeks and then I hit a brick wall and we live in a mess fir a few days till I manage to knock the wall down and get back to normal. He then notices it's s mess!!

We been together 15 years and had more conversations than I care to remember about this issue.

Good luck!!

What MMLindt said. Totally. And I might show this to DP, too.

MmeLindt I don't really understand what you're saying?

He should do the chores because that's what responsible adults do?

It just feels like, since I've made my point of view very clear a)not only does he not care about doing 'his' chores b)he will actively continue to do something which he knows will annoy me.

Isn't part of being a partnership about the other person going, "ok, to me it might just be tine but I can see it upsets you so I will take more care next time"?

moondog set up is no children, I work 50 hour weeks (altho I work from home) and he works 40 hour (plus optional overtime) week.

he does seem to have the crappiest jobs allocated to him though,to be fair!!

cant he be the one to swan around with a duster maybe??

feellikescreaming i can't answer for MMeLindt but my take on it was that he should be doing this stuff because he is an adult, not just because you ask him to. Although, the fact you ask him to should be an added incentive.

My situation is that DP does some of the chores and he thinks he is doing me a favour because he knows I think the chores should be done, iyswim. So sometimes he will do the vacuuming and I say "oh brill" and he says "no problem Plimsolls, I know you like the house vacuumed".

Which is great but I do think "surely every house gets vacuumed, it's not just a quirk of mine?!?"

I think focussing more on "You are an adult, you should be able to take responsibility for doing X, Y, Z" is probably more helpful in the long run than "You are offending me by not doing X, Y and Z"

BUT I do know exactly how you feel because I often can't help but take it personally when DP leaves his bloody shoes/empty yoghurt pots/hats/bike locks/ guitars/insert random item here/ etc all over the place when I've just tidied it!

HIBU - he is still looking at his chores through his own "value measurement" system, not through yours. This isn't surprising but I can see what you mean about feeling not respected because of it.

I have similar issues with DH - he doesn't understand that him not doing XYZ is not JUST about XYZ not being done - it is about him not caring that is pisses me off to high heaven that XYZ is never done and that he doesn't care enough about me to do it so that I am not pissed off.

It's not easy to change your attitude to something like stinking bins and tbh there's no reason you should.

If I were in your shoes, I'd be less inclined to accommodate some of his other sloblike behaviours - maybe that would get his attention a bit more (i.e. any mess he left around would just get kicked into "his" area and left on the floor there, not picked up). I realise this is not the most adult answer but sometimes it's the only way to penetrate their attention.

He's really not being asked to do that much, is he. It could be a lot worse. Go away for a couple of weeks by yourself and see how he manages then - he might be shocked to realise how much you actually do!

I meant to add as well that it really gets my goat when DH says "I've done the washing up for you - no, you've done it as part of your responsibility in this household, not as a favour to me, which is in effect saying it is MY job. GRRRRR!

Well if you're both working long hours the first thing I'd do is get a cleaner - finances permitting.

And why don't you do recycling and he do somethign else?

You should divide things fairly - ideally playing to both your strengths.

Just stop doing the chores until he cracks, or the mice move in.
OR in a calm peaceful (and perhaps business-like) way, maybe discuss with him what jobs he thinks he can do. If lordship doesn't feel he can do anything get him to pay for a cleaner to do his share.

What I mean is that I love and respect my DH but am still crap at housework. It is nothing to do with him, disrespecting him or not appreciating him.

Because I am a responsible(ish) adult, I know that if I neglect to clean/do my chores that the house will look minging.

I also realise that my "messometer" is set to go off much later than DH's so I have to consciously look and see the mess, if you see what I mean.

He looks in the room and notices the socks lying on the floor and the book not put away. I don't - or not automatically. I have to go into tidy up mode and look for them.

So your DH should of course do the things that he has agreed to do, no doubt about it. But I do not believe that it has anything to do with the way he feels about you, or the respect he has for you (assuming that he is otherwise respectful and loving towards you)

threeblondeboys - I wouldn't mind what chores he does; TBH he does these chores as when I do the laundry he comes along and wrecks it (which pisses me off). TBH I heave my way through doing the bins etc and have a real problem with rubbish so any bloke living with me would get the bins jobs! That is the only thing I need him to do.

plimsolls "you ask him to should be an added incentive"... exactly. And it isn't. Which I can only take to mean he really doesn't give a shit about my feelings. If I hadn't have point blank said to him, "look I know this is irrational but when you don't wash the tins it makes me feel like you don't give a shit about me". The fact that he chooses to ignore this speaks volumes to me! So he is actually offending me. When he doesn't do other things (like messes up the kitchen, leaves dirty clothes on floor, messes up his study it doesn't offend me, it just makes me think he is a slob) I don't take that personally; but the tins thing is important as it makes me ill and sick to smell it. Does that make sense? It actually literally is offending me that he isn't swilling them out. I would be saying the same thing to anyone I lived with.

thumbwitch I think we're reading from the same page! It's not like I'm making this big drama out of everything. It's the tins specifically that I can not tolerate. I have also gone away by myself and came home to the most appalling house - think every Kitchen utensil and million of empty tins littering the sides. It was easier when I lived in a uni house with 4 girls and 5 boys!! I want to try and master the tins before I move on to trying to tackle other slob like behaviour.

I'm like MmeLindt, not a neat freak, quite like having my stuff about me, my DH is much better at housework than me, so he does it, I do the childcare, cooking, gardening and shopping. Works for us.

Put the tins in his study. Tell him if he wants to live with the smell (and god I sympathise with you there, the smell makes me vom too) that's fine, but you're not going to. Unless he has no sense of smell either, he'll probably get the message quite fast.

traceybath I want to get a cleaner (we can afford to) he says it's pointless and a waste. We do divide things fairly, I have not dictated these jobs to him (other than the bins).

SarfEasticated tried the dropping of chores for 9 weeks until I cracked (this included me not cooking or washing up and I had to buy new underwear during this period to sustain me!) He doesn't seem to see the mess. I can live with a little chaos bit not bug infesting chaos and I really can not deal with smelly minging bins and recycling.

MmeLindt I would agree with your post if I was taking about general clutter and mess. If you're DH said, "look doing X makes me really upset and it actually makes me not want to live here" would you make more of an effort to overcome this? It's the fact I have outright and explicitly stated this to him that makes me think he really doesn't care of his behaviour has a knock on effect with me!

When you say the tins, do you mean empty beans tins etc?

I never wash them either so can understand his reasoning.

Saying that, even I would never leave the bins till they stink, or trash the kitchen like that.

And you are right in that if he knows that the smell makes you ill, then it is not too much to ask to take the bins out when they are full or when they smell.

ScreaminEagle that is a good plan in theory. However, would you let dirty tins rot away in your kitchen bin for 2 weeks without saying anything?

Last week I had to move these tins myself into the recycling box (which we keep by the side door) as they were mouldy and smelly. In doing so I was sick twice.

I change nappies for a living so it's not about me being some wussy girl not wanting to get mucky etc.

Yes, DH has on occasion said that he is embarrassed to bring friends home unexpectedly as he does not know what state the house would be in.

But that was a while ago and I have massively improved since then (helped a bit by the fact that we now have a cleaner).

He still moans at my little piles of stuff that I leave lying around the place, but is very happy that I have changed a lot since we met. It was a big effort on my part, and he appreciates it (even if he does not quite understand why it is difficult for me)

If this was about a man insisting his wife washed the tins properly before putting them in the bin, what would be said?

but there you go, MmeL - you have made the effort for your DH. This is Feellikescreaming's point - her DP is NOT making any effort to improve, despite her telling him it makes her physically ill and she doesn't want to live like that - so you have demonstrated her point neatly. YOU Changed because it made your DH happy - HE (Feelinglike's DP) won't change despite the fact that his DP is very unhappy.

Feelinglikescreaming - seriously, chuck them all over his study. And leave them for him to clean up. It takes seconds to swill out a can.

OR - remove the bin from which they have to be transferred - so that they have to go straight into the recycling box and place that outside the back door.