Who is unreasonable? DH or me regarding noise

[Effiewhaursmabaffies]

Well tonight, I came back from my weekly Yoga class again to an unemptied dishwasher and dirty dishes all over the place. I unloaded and tidied up while dh was upstairs on the ipad after putting kids to bed. In the past I have been careful to put things away really quietly but this time I just made the normal amount of noise. So instead of coming downstairs and asying thank you, I got complaints about the amount of noise I made. And it wasnt just dishes, i had to put hid magnum lollystick in the bin. We had a row and now he has gone off in the huff to read a book upstairs. To put things in context, he goes swimming another night and never has to come home and clean up. So AIBU? Or do I apologise?

Making more noise than you usually would because you were annoyed is passive aggressive and hasn't helped.

If you are annoyed at something it is better to address it directly rather than passive aggressively but if he was just messing on an iPad then noise wouldn't be stopping him sleeping or anything.

I think neither of you have communicated particularly well.

I think YABU and so is your DH

It depends. I have a very irritating habit of doing housework noisily if I think someone else should have done it first. Lots of crashing and banging of pans. It's one of my most annoying faults, I'm not proud of it and quite rightly it annoys my husband.

If it was a normal level of household activity then he is being a bit silly.

You should have let him get on with the cleaning up & grabbed a nice long bath!

You made a normal amount of noise cleaning the kitchen and he moaned that it was disturbing his iPad time upstairs. Clearly YANBU.

I don't understand which of you has broken your system though. What's the house rule?

1. The person who stays home with the DC tidies up the dinner things, exerciser is exempt that night. HIBU for not doing his job. Or
2. The person who stays home with DC, gives them dinner and the exerciser clears it up later. YAB a little U if you were massively noisy. Or
3. The one with tits does kitchen things. Furthermore lady jobs must be done silently so the one with the penis doesn't have to hear lady noises. YA both BU.

It really was normal kitchen noise. How do you quietly put plates in a cupboard that is up high? Wrap them in cotton wool? I think he doesn't notice because other times he is reading the kids a story or they are being noisy. I think it must be different than if you are sitting on an ipad in the quiet.

Our Normal arrangement is that one of us takes the kids to bed and the other tidies up. That way we both get to sit down at a reasonable time in the evening. However if DH goes out I will take kids to bed and tidy up. I expect the same from him. Perhaps I didn't make that clear to him.

And I left at 6.50 for Yoga (after cooking), came back 8.45. Kids are upstairs 7.30 and in bed 8pm. I really am not seeing how I should not expect him to get off his bloody arse during that time and empty the dish washer and put the dirty dishes in the damn thing. I think I am annoyed by the lack of consideration, especially as he never has to do this on his exercise nights (he has 2). I will always tidy up straight after dinner because buggered if I want to do it when I get downstairs! I think it is just crap to leave it for him to do when he gets back home, however I guess on Friday I will be leaving all of the dishes for him to tidy when he gets in!

Is there other stuff going on?

I think you are making quite a big deal out of something that is fairly small and I wonder if this is a last straw issue.

Behaving passive aggressively will not help to resolve the problem, it will create anger and resentment and impede your ability to sort out what is, in essence a small issue.

Wouldn't it be better to just talk about it?

My husband is like this. We have had the occasional row over this. He will however without fail get up to do the dog and get up at night for our youngest and make me a cuppa in the morning..

So I think we're balancing this out by him doing other stuff for me.

I think you're right to expect him to have cleaned up the dishwasher but being passive aggressive about it isn't going to get the job done.

You should have put your anger aside, done it yourself and then asked him to do you a favour tomorrow. Men respond much better to direct requests and a gentle ask.

I understand why you reacted the way you did as I have been there. I just found that a gentler way works much better.

Totally agree with Buttercup, sunliminal passive aggressive behaviour, would never work with me & would make me switch off. Just a direct chat about what the issue is, would work for me.

You said that in the past you do it quietly. But didn't on this occasion. So you can do it, you chose not to.

I think you were both unreasonable in this situation

If it was the other way round and DH had been out doing fun stuff for two hours while I was putting the children to bed then complained I haven't been doing cleaning WHILE THEY WERE OUT ON A JOLLY I'd be very pissed off tbh.

Yes of course he should pick up his own litter. But don't be a martyr.

This sounds like our house!!

I hate hate hate getting back from an evening out (not that it happens that often) to find the kitchen a mess. Yes I've been out having fun, and so there is no particular reason why DH should have done it rather than me, but it's just nice not to come back to a job that needs doing. My DH does that a lot - puts the kids to bed and then lies on the bed looking at his iPad. And I can be a bit passive aggressive. So I can completely visualise your predicament!

But the others are right, you probably should have gone upstairs, said the kitchen needed doing and lets doing it together and then sit down/go to bed. It would have been more straightforward and at least if he had made a fuss about it or refused he would have had to say that directly to you and you would have had the moral high ground, rather than being a martyr! (But I sympathise, I often do what you did and just clear up).

YANBU.

If he'd still been putting the kids to bed or wrangling with bath time, it would have been different, but he was sat around on his iPad! If he has enough time to do that, he has enough time to clean up his mess first.

Yes, OP was out at yoga, but the DH goes out swimming once a week as well, and doesn't come back to dirty dishes all over the place. If you're the one at home, then you should be cleaning up after yourself, imo. Especially when your partner does the same the they're at home and you're out!

Interesting. Do other people DH do the dishes as routine then, even after working all day?
I do all the house stuff, then DH comes home and I go to work. The rule is technically that DH is meant to do the dishes and put the kids to bed, as I have got the Josue tidy, cooked and fed them etc, but after four years of coming home near midnight to a sink full of dishes I try now to get them done before i go? DH says he has been working all day and no matter how many times I go mad he still seems to 'forget' or run out of time.

I don't think there's anything wrong with one person cooking and the other cleaning up. Or with wanting the person who is at home while you are out to clean up.

It's the communication that's the issue here I think. You can't just expect someone to pick up a cue that you always clean up while they are out and then get all passive aggressive that they haven't. Just explain what you'd like to happen and why you feel aggrieved. You don't need to make it into a massive argument by being indirect and passive aggressive over some dishes.

You had to do the clearing up he should have done, he complained about the noise while poncing about on his iPad. Your husband was being an arse. I'm surprised you're even asking tbh.

Where did the idea come from that OP made more noise than usual and thus was being PA?

She never said anything of the sort.

In the past I have been careful to put things away really quietly but this time I just made the normal amount of noise.

In the op.

It depends how you normally work things out. To me you had 'me' time when you were out doing your yoga and then expected to come home and still have 'me' time. At the moment I think YABU.. But it all depends on a lot of other stuff too.

I would have gone upstairs, had a kiss, asked about how the children were going to bed and said 'could you give me a hand doing the kitchen?'

Op said she hasn't made it clear to him that she expects him to do the dishes. He likely hasn't made it clear to her if he was expecting her to do the dishes because she'd been out.

Not doing the dishes on Friday while he is out because she is annoyed would again be PA.

I don't see how this wouldn't just be more easily talking about each person's expectations and how to handle the housework.

It's not unreasonable to expect the one who was out to do the dishes, it's not unreasonable to want to come home to a clean kitchen. It's easy to resolve by talking to each other IMO.

*more easily sorted by

A normal amount of noise is not PA.

And what adult man needs to have it 'made clear' to him that you clear up the kitchen after eating and empty the dishwasher rather than fiddling about on an iPad.

He's not 4 years old.

Afoot are you serious?

What the hell do you think happens where both parents work standard type of hours?

Your husband is a lazy arse, you should tell him so.

Not on the face of it but if all other times the normal amount of noise you made was quieter and you deliberately made more noise because you were annoyed I don't see why that isn't PA or why he would think op wasn't making more noise than usual - she in fact was doing that.

No a grown man doesn't need to be told clearly that that stuff needs doing but it would be fair enough to expect the person who was out while you did all the rest of the work to do it. It's fair enough to expect to be able to have a proper night off too. You just need to have talked about this before getting angry about the other person not understanding your expectations IMO.

Communicating indirectly via cues is silly. It sounds as if he never does the dishes and the op usually does them quietly to avoid disturbing him - which is silly when what she wants is to not come home to a messy kitchen.

The op has been doing the dishes when he goes out in the hope that he picks up on this and understands she expects him to do the dishes when she goes out.

It is all rather silly. Just make an agreement about what happens with the dishes when one person is out.