feel like I've been thrown back to the fifties. Rage.

[bonelope]

A bit of a rant but also I'm wondering, AIBU?
Husband went out after work last night until about midnight. This is all fine as it had been planned for ages and he rarely goes out and never gets too drunk. I happily agreed to stay home with DS 4yrs and as Friday is my day off it was an all day thing.
On Friday we took it easy in the morning after a very busy week. I admit I didn't do much around the house but instead played with DS and watched a bit of telly until about 11. From 11 onwards our day was very busy with swimming lessons and other family errands. We got home around 5:30 and i went into homemaker mode; dinner, laundry, doing as many dishes as i could, entertaining DS (between episodes of tom and jerry) and general tidying. Then of course its bedtime story, more tidying, more dishes etc. Despite all this there were still dishes on the counter but i was too knackered to do anymore at about 9pm so i sat down for the evening.
This morning i got up with DS, having agreed i would and also take him to his sports thing at 11 so husband (no D today!) could sleep off any hangover. Again, i was happy to do this as it's not a common occurrence. So i got up with bubs, cleaned him off because his pull up leaked, got him dressed, breakfasted etc AND did a load of dishes to try and tackle the pile that remained but didn't get them all done.
So H wasn't that hungover and woke around 8 to come down to the kitchen and start huffing and bitching that he had to do the fucking dishes and it wasn't fair that he should be faced with a mess in the morning.
AIBU for being completely fucked off at him for this? Was i put on this earth so he never has to do dishes? His logic is that if someone starts a job i.e. Cooking a meal, they should finish it including the dishes. My argument is that I busted my gut to parent, play with, feed, discipline and entertain our child along with keeping the house in a semblance of order while he's out socialising, can't he be a bit generous and do the last tub of dishes without giving me a row?

Please no LTBs, he's got a lot of good qualities and is generally loving, kind and fun but can be a bit traditional in his viewpoints (until I edumacate him of course ).

seriously, who does washing up and doesn't do ALL the dishes?

i think its minging to leave washing up lying around, its not like it takes THAT long to do, 10-15 minutes. I'd have been pissed off about it too if i got up to find its all still there!

Maybe its just me, but i always wash up as i go along, you wash the stuff you used to cook with before you sit down, and the plates/cutlery straight after eating.

Its honestly, absolutely disgusting to leave it from thursday night, it really is.

i'd also love to know what the hell you cooked over thursday/friday to need you to do three loads 'as much as i could' of dishes and for it to STILL be piled up waiting to be washed!

I can honestly say, even after cooking a full sunday roast and pudding for 6 adults, it still only takes maybe 15 mins to wash, dry and put it all away!

Even Christmas dishes take approx 30 mins max. This sounds like bickering.

Well, I'm a slattern and can see no big deal with having a few unwashed items left lying around from the day before or even two days before. In our house, if something needs to soak for a bit it often hangs around for quite a while before anyone get round to washing it up. If this caused space issues, it would be unreasonable, but in our kitchen it doesn't. I grew up in a house where the instant I'd drunk the last sip of coffee the mug would be grabbed from my hand and taken to the kitchen to be washed, dried and put away. I've gone in the opposite direction.

OP, if and when you ever get a dishwasher, it will transform your life. It did mine. I had never had one growing up (my parents would implode if they knew there were unwashed dishes anywhere in the house waiting for a full load, see anecdote above) but we got one when our son was a baby and our daughter was a toddler under 2. Bliss. Apart from anything else, you put the dirty stuff in there and it's out of sight, out of mind! No clutter on the worktops or cooker top, no pile of dirty stuff in the sink waiting till somebody gets round to washing it.

Wow.

To clarify: There weren't tonnes of minging dishes left over from Thursday. Thursday's dishes spilled over into Friday and therefore Friday's dishes were done Saturday morning leaving the Saturday morning dishes and a few random bits for when DH came down. We have a very, very tiny space in which to wash and drain dishes so the usual routine is to do 2 or 3 loads over a day which gets it all done. This week was unusually busy coupled with more dishes than normal which were a result of having to cook for more than just us 3. That's the point of my OP, I would understand if DH came home to a pigsty every day and was pissed off but as a one off I was pretty angry to get a dressing down.

We still haven't talked about it but family life moves on. He is out swimming with DS and I'm about to do the whole kitchen once again since DH only does dishes. Wiping counters, cleaning spills, tidying clutter and sweeping floors is not in his repertoire.
That and the fact we have no dishwasher is for another thread.

Thanks to everyone who posted, my rant feels better now.

I'd have smiled sweetly and retorted "yes, there are rather a lot of dishes. Probably from the build up when you couldn't be bothered to do them Thursday either". And then walk out the kitchen smiling and busy myself.

Yes, I shouldn't have risen to his criticism! He wouldn't know how to come back on that one!

To be honest I would have brought it up after you arrived back from your night out when you saw the place wasn't 100% and asked him why there was one rule for you and another for him. It's easy to criticise, not so easy when you're the one left holding the fort!

When he comes back:

'By the way, I've been busy this morning not only clearing the dishes, but wiping down the counters, tidying the clutter and also doing the floor. Seeing as from now on we're getting picky about pulling our weight and making sure the kitchen is clear at all times, I'd like to pull you up on the fact that although you do the dishes, you NEVER tackle any of the rest of the kitchen chores. I don't intend to carry you on this any more. In future, please thoroughly clean the kitchen when it's your turn, to the standards you clearly expect from me at all times, and that includes mopping, wiping, and decluttering.'

And when he gets annoyed:

'Yes, I know, I've never bothered to mention it as there's always been the assumption that we're both doing our best, you know? That seems to be off the table, so I thought it best going forward that I start picking you up on everything. Just to be equal, you know'

Jesus, it's threads like these that make me so glad I'm single and that DS has left home.

I generally don't do the dishes from Monday morning to Friday night and the washing up bowl still isn't full and I have plenty of pots, pans and plates left in the cupboard. Suck on that, washing up dictators! I revel in my lack of housewifeliness!

I would be more than a bit hacked off if dh had a go at me for not having done enough housework whilst a) he was out on a jolly, b) he was having a lie-in and c) I was looking after his child.

Especially if he was a bit slapdash himself about cleaning the kitchen when it was his turn.

My question is
neither of us could face them on Thursday night (when I'm out at yoga).
Why didn't he do the dishes on Thursday, when you went out yoga, but expected you to have done all the dishes from those days, including when he went out?

Cooking and doing dishes is not one job.
Normally, I'd go with one cooks the other does the dishes.

If he wants the same person to do it all, then I think you should split up work in that you do 4x a week and he does it 3x. (you get one extra for the day off, if you don't work weekends - but do it every other day if you work the same days. Not forgetting that the weekends are divided up too.

Your day off should be to take care of your DC mostly, not to do all the housekeeping.

Hang on..... just re-read this: "His logic is that if someone starts a job i.e. Cooking a meal, they should finish it including the dishes."

But then there's this: "DH only does dishes. Wiping counters, cleaning spills, tidying clutter and sweeping floors is not in his repertoire."

Someone needs a talk. Or a good slap.

I have two DC and a tiny kitchen; I totally get needing to wash and put away as you go along, but this should not dictate your life. I spent most of my married life trying to keep the kitchen spotless (and now I just keep on top of it as best I can and blitz now and then so I know it has been properly done). None of us has got sick yet from the more relaxed regime.

He has a "repertoire" of kitchen jobs he is prepared to do, and never finishes the job properly himself?

Think you were right about the 50s thing.

Time to stop cutting this bossy boots slack, since he thinks he gets to order you about when you are nice to him.

And he wants you to apologise to him?

Prick.

Yes, unless he (and ds) never create any mess in the kitchen, never leave any item out of place nor drop so much as a grain of rice on the floor, by what right does he elect 'only' to do dishes?

Sorry but you absolutely do need to start calling him on his own deficiencies in housekeeping.

You'll probably not be surprised that we are seeing a counsellor to address some of these issues (not just housework, but is indicative of the general trend on our relationship thus far).
I'd be curious to know if anyone had this sort of thing with their partner and managed to resolve it to both parties satisfaction?
Our problem is that i started out in our relationship as a very amenable, passive girl and now I'm growing into an informed and empowered woman. It changes the dynamic.

I am afraid the answer to your question is no, trying to resolve it was a thankless task because my H had it sort of set in his mind that there were certain things which were beneath him, and in the absence of him paying for a housekeeper/cleaner, I stopped trying to fulfil that role by default as well as do my job and do 95% of the care of DC.

Your H needs to want to change the dynamic too

Thanks romeyroo, he's committed to the counselling and has found it useful so far so hopefully it will work out. His childhood was a bit bleak so we're trying to overcome it together.

So given he presumably recognises that he has ishoos about gender roles, could you not point out to him at the time that what he was doing was exactly that - reverting to learnt behaviour about gender roles? There's no point him only absorbing a changed mentality when he is calm, to be meaningful he has to attempt to relearn his behaviour when he is annoyed too.

However, I wonder if that is how the counselling has been described as far as he is concerned? Or does he think it is about resolving his issues from childhood?

I think it is good that he is trying to work on childhood issues, as it shows some self-awareness; I guess my comment about needing to want to change were more about the dynamic of the marriage and him seemingly struggling with the fact that you are more assertive than previously and not prepared to be bollocked by your partner for not finishing dishes he also previously had not done (and similar). These seem two different issues to me at least.

Arguing about dishes is what flat mates do not partners do both just move on from this terribly minor issue.

Just as a frame of reference, my BIL had an operation that didn't go too wel last week. He has returned home on the weekend, in crutches, and with very low strength on his arms, needing lots of physio.
He is feeling very bad that my sister is having to do it all, virtually, and got worse by trying to do as much as possible the first day after he returned home.
That is how a good loving partner acts like.
Not like your entitled OH (or my exH).

I agree with Heels99. Don't argue about small stuff. Just do the dishes. He can do the dishes some other time.