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?

[Twinklestein]

I haven't got personal Offred and tbh it feels like you're one going on. I've nothing more I can productively contribute to this discussion.

[gandalf456]

I have the kitchen tidy when dh is out at football. I could not sit on the ipad til the job's done. I can't stand dirty dishes around if he'd complained to.me for making a noise when I had come back, I'd say don't worry because next time you'll be doing it

[Offred]

The thread title is 'Who is unreasonable? DH or me regarding noise'

You are keen to say he is the whole problem and op's way of handling the dishes problem was fine.

I don't agree. You don't need to get personal or keep on about it.

[Offred]

I don't think I'm the one doing that.

And no, the op's behaviour is not at all irrelevant.

I don't think he should be required to do all the childcare and the housework while she is out if he doesn't want to.

I think they should talk about it. Not wanting to do it all is fine as is not wanting to come home to a mess. Without talking about it and when both people are just communicating indirectly and winding each other up I don't think it gets resolved.

[dodobookends]

I think that when one of the adults in the house is doing household chores, the other adult shouldn't moan about the noise interrupting their leisure time.

[Twinklestein]

I think he doesn't want to do the dishes

Exactly. That's precisely the point. Everything else - noise levels, passive aggression, is irrelevant.

I didn't say I thought he was being PA, I said you would have a stronger argument for that based on the evidence.

Why should we stick to 'what has been said'? - well because it stops posters going off on a wild tangential passive-aggressive goose-chase.

[Offred]

And no, I don't think he is confused. I think he doesn't want to do the dishes.

But hiding on the iPad and stropping around in the kitchen just makes them both U IMO.

[Offred]

No, I don't.

I'm basing it on what the op has said.

She said she expects it from him and perhaps she hasn't made it clear.

It's not about 'my issues' with PA behaviour. It's simply that you keep saying it isn't PA behaviour because it was a normal amount of noise.

I just do not understand why this needs to be a huge issue based only on what has been said or why it is even remotely fair for you to conclude that he is being lazy and PA based on the same vague info but it is only me who is reading into things.

[Twinklestein]

You seem to think this man is confused as to what's expected of him, in spite of an established pattern. Why is he more prone to confusion on the matter than his wife? You assume with no evidence that this has never been discussed.

If you want to hijack a thread to talk about you issues with passive-aggression, why not just start your own?

You would have a stronger case for arguing that DH's behaviour is PA in this instance.

[Offred]

Passive aggressive behaviour is about your intentions not what you actually do. Her intention was to make more noise than usual because she was irritated he hadn't done the dishes. It's irrelevant that what she was doing was simply not doing it quietly and making a normal amount of noise. She decided to do it differently because she was annoyed at him.

[Offred]

I don't think this is anything to do with a man being confused about housework. It's one person having an expectation (that the kitchen will be clean when they come home from yoga) that they haven't discussed with their partner.

It's a really small issue in itself. You might say people don't usually post about things like this unless they are the tip of the iceberg but I asked that question at 8.47 this morning and there's been no response.

I'm not prepared to read into it 'lazy man not doing his share' and either way resorting to PA behaviour usually inflames things rather than sorts them out.

[crazyhead]

I'm with offred. He did bed, you did cooking - talk about the dishes part, talk about the noise part with your DH. Without masses of context on both of your contributions to shared life I don't think you can draw another conclusion. Not that I don't get in strops, but that's what I'd be telling myself.

[annandale]

It does sound a bit as if the arrangement of who does what is in your head more than his.

That doesn't necessarily mean that either of you is or isn't BU.

If i am feeling knackered after bedtime i might easily decide to stop and MN rather than do the dishwasher. It's not a restaurant, it's my home and i refuse to fetishise having a spotless kitchen in the morning. But i do have friends who insist on wasting childfree time on housework can't bear to come down to unfinished work.

Have a chat about how your lives are going and priorities.

[Twinklestein]

Exactly - a normal amount of noise and we have no idea if he even noticed that she was making a different level of noise than usual. Because he's normally reading the kids a story or they're being noisy. This time he was on is ipad so he would have been more likely to hear the sounds from the kitchen.

[Twinklestein]

But it isn't the pattern because it sounds like he doesn't clean up when he is home and that's why she's annoyed

It is the pattern: it's just that he can't be arsed with it and prioritises playing on his ipad.

Why some women think men so prone to 'confusion' about housework I will never know.

[HumptyDumptyHadaHardTime]

Can people please RTFT: she said she made a normal amount of noise.

She actually says she normally does it quietly, but this time did it with 'normal' amount of noise.

[Twinklestein]

Can people please RTFT: she said she made a normal amount of noise.

[TwistInMySobriety]

If my spouse came home and started pass-agg making more noise than usual doing a mundane task I'd have done myself if left to my own devices I'd let them get on with it. Why not just go up stairs and ask him when he's going to do with it?

If we're splitting hairs, she cooked tea, he administered it.

[gleam]

Am I reading the same op as some of you.?

She didn't make excessive noise, just the normal amount of noise.

[HermioneJeanGranger]

It is symptomatic of other issues - that when he goes out, she feeds the kids, puts them to bed and tidies up so he comes home to a clean house. But when she goes out, she still feeds the kids and tidies up, and all he does is put them to bed and fanny around on the iPad.

If he was intending to do the dishes after a rest (which is fine), then he should have come down and told her that. Not let her get on with in and get annoyed because she was annoyed she came home to a mess everywhere. It barely takes five minutes to put dishes in a dishwasher and give the kitchen a wipe down.

[AFootInBothCamps]

Hermione..I don't allow him to do nothing, but after four years or annoyances three times a week I guess I have just given up! He does do them occasionally. I have two in school and a home ed child and he hasn't even asked to see what I teach him. I do all the school/HE stuff, the house stuff then go to work. He works but is quite high up so it is stressful!with an hours commute. He does love the kids and he makes sure they shower the nights I work and he has them on one weekend day when I work (he plays golf the other day. This used to annoy me but again, now me and the kids have our little routine so I let it go now) anyway, what I mean is it was just about the dishes, that it is unbalanced. And I can fix that by doing them before I go to work so I don't go home dreading a sink of dishes! Otherwise we are fine. :) it was just interesting to read how other families do things.

[Throwingshade]

So he didn't empty the dishwasher and you slammed about because you were annoyed? It's really not something you need to post about for opinions unless there is way more of a back story and other issues?

[Offred]

But it isn't the pattern because it sounds like he doesn't clean up when he is home and that's why she's annoyed.

I just think both of them are being stupid.

In reality she is trying to indirectly communicate her expectations and it seems so is he.

If the op had posted that her h had been out and came home making more noise than usual because he was annoyed that she hadn't done the level of housework he expected her too I suspect you'd answer differently.

I don't think this needs to be a massive issue. It could just be easily sorted by having a conversation. It could have been sorted ages ago by having a conversation before the op started feeling martyred.

[Twinklestein]

Offred it was stated very clearly in the OP, that when DH goes swimming he never has to clean up when he gets home. She later said that when he goes out she takes the children to bed and tidies up and she expects the same from him.

So that's the pattern in this household. Except he didn't do it. Why a grown man would be confused by his responsibilities here is not clear.

OP even did the cooking before she went out so all he actually did was put the kids to bed.

[TwistInMySobriety]

Maybe he was going to do it when he came downstairs. Having half an hour's sitdown after tea, bath and bed is hardly the crime of the century.