this hit home - bloke's blog

[stealtheatingtunnocks]

This is exactly what is wrong in my marriage.

Hadn't realised there was a nail, let alone that it needed hitting on it's head.

I am going to try to articulate to my husband why I need him to stack the glass in the dishwasher. Again. Sigh.

mustbethistalltoride.com/2016/01/14/she-divorced-me-because-i-left-dishes-by-the-sink/

[mathanxiety]

Stealth, put a neon post -it on it that says 'I left this here for the maid'.

[StarCat]

I don't see why women stress themselves out with this. People will clean plates in the end as there is nothing to eat off. What is the rush? Why worry about these things?

[unlucky83]

Star maybe because 'women' have more common sense, are more practical and sensible - in fact intelligent than most some men?
(This reminds me of a conversation I had in a shared house once)
You can wash up promptly so next time you want a plate there is a clean one ready
or you can never wash up until eventually all the plates are dirty so have to wash a plate every time you want to eat ...
You still have to wash a plate...so there is no difference really is there?
Except in the second case you end up with stacks of stinky plates hanging around for days on end with dried food welded on to them...so instead of a quick rinse you have to faff around scrubbing and soaking to get one clean ...
I know which is the more intelligent solution...but it is your choice...no problem ...
Except of course if you live with someone who does wash up promptly - so there are always clean plates for you to use but they end up struggling to clean one of your dirty ones ....then it becomes extremely unfair...
Unless of course you always wash a dirty plate even if there are clean ones? And that would be fine then ...your choice doesn't impact anyone else...
(I can't understand the mindset of someone who can't think ahead slightly to make their and everyone else's life easier...
I had similar in a lab with shared stock solutions. I complained once that I seemed to be always making it up...someone said they found it annoying too, especially as it held up experiments. I said it wasn't that bad - my experiment was on- but I'd used it all up. They were really surprised - why are you making some then? (So it doesn't hold up the next person's experiment? Why (unless you were lazy or thoughtless) would you choose to leave it empty for the next person? )

[ThumbWitchesAbroad]

"I don't see why women stress themselves out with this. People will clean plates in the end as there is nothing to eat off. What is the rush? Why worry about these things?"

Try living in a place that's overrun with cockroaches the size of mice and you'll soon find out!
Duh.

[StarCat]

I can't understand the mindset the other way round, as to me it's just a waste of mental energy. There is never going to be a time it doesn't ever get clean unless you have limitless crockery. I sometimes just eat it out of an empty tupperware box if i haven't got round to the plates. I couldn't live with someone who was on my back all the time.

[StarCat]

You say you have to wash a plate anyway but what if you just can't be arsed to do it now as you've been to work, you've been out, you're hanging out with the kids or whatever. I don't think I have ever in my life eaten and then washed straight away. You wouldn't do that with dirty clothes would you?You just wait until you have a pile of them.

[suzannecaravaggio]

Dirty clothes tend not to go mouldy and attract insects And vermin
Well mine don't anyway

[StarCat]

I have never had vermin or insects. We have 6 plates so if they go quick, then I eat from random box/bowl then you have to wash up again as nothing left. That is only couple of days max so sooner or later you'll do it. I just don't care enough to let it stress me and if you're out you don't even see it or think about it.

[suzannecaravaggio]

I couldn't live with someone who was on my back all the time

Doubtless someone who cares about hygiene wouldn't want to live with you either!

[StarCat]

It is hardly unhygenic not immediately washing plates and your glasses!

[StarCat]

Have you actually ever had vermin just because your washing bowl was full

[howabout]

Starcat we are a family of 5 so there is always a pile of dishes. Nothing more depressing than going to prepare a meal and finding someone else's last one still all over the kitchen and in the sink.

I do have a problem with the precept of the article though. I don't understand why everything has to be done to the woman's method, and I am a woman. Also if both parties just take ownership and get on with it then they will forever be stepping on each other's toes. Also DH is in charge of our dishwasher and he gets really upset with me when I put stuff in it when he has pencilled in the dishwasher cleaning cycle.

I think both parties need to sit down and agree these things - 6 months into our 20+ year marriage we had to draw up a treaty on bin emptying etc. This has resolved countless arguments with very few instances of lingering rancour.

[StarCat]

Yeah I am also in a family of 5, and I don't care if I was in a family of 50 I really could not find the motivation to be bothered about this. I am just laid back really in this area and would never fight over it. If you really can't be arsed get a takeaway, the mess will still be there tomorrow! People just care about different things I suppose and I don't think I would ever have an argument over washing up, seems pointless to me.

[suzannecaravaggio]

Person preference
I like a clean organised home and healthy home cooked food
You like a messy home with a kitchen full of rotting food scraps and takeaway food

[StarCat]

There aren't really rotting food scraps just a pile of stuff in the washing bowl. We eat out all the time as I am not really much of a cook. I like going to restaurants and taking the kids out after school. We go out to activities every night and I just like having stuff done for me without the hassle. I prefer going to work and am not a baking, cooking, sewing type of mother.

[mathanxiety]

It seems to me that being quite 'laid back' (I have another word in mind but won't use it) is costing you considerably in financial terms, StarCat? Fair enough if you think you can afford this, but many need to live within a budget, need to get a certain amount of house work accomplished between coming home and turning in for the night, and have children to feed some time in the evening.

You cook and clean up after yourself (and get the family involved) each night, and you and your children are not left with the previous day's heap to fight through the next day before you have a space in which to prepare a meal, knives to chop your onions, etc with, pots to cook in, and plates on which to serve it.

I never thought of myself as a cooking and cleaning up type of mother. I never think of myself as a 'tooth brushing and face washing' type of mother but I attend to those matters before bed each night even though I am tired, and I clean out the cat's litter box every second day and fill her water and food bowls every night and morning, and do not think of myself as a 'cat's cleaner-upper and general dogsbody' type of mother. I think there is a certain amount of disdain for what you see as a 'certain kind of woman' in your post.

[StarCat]

I just understand the other side of this view, and luckily I am married to a nice man. If all the dishes aren't done as I have beenout all day he never ever complains. Everything always gets done but there isn't a spanish inquisition everytime a glass on the side.

I think some people who are militant cleaners need to compromise as well. Idoubt leaving a glass on the side they are thinking 'fuck you'. They just think what's the rush?

[StarCat]

'i have the opposite problem.

Dh is the tidy freak, i am the messy person.

Quite frankly i'm more likely to leave him because he interferes in my fucking housework routine, does jobs i dont want doing, then bitches at me that he can't do a full time job AND my housework.

WELL DONT FUCKING DO IT THEN. LEAVE IT THE FUCK ALONE.

i will do it when i am good and fucking ready to do it.

He disrespects me by doing my job and then implying i'm incapable/lazy.'

Exactly adrift. I do feel for you being married to a man like this, and I thank my lucky stars dh isn't this kind of man. It must be so annoying.

[cailindana]

My DH is a lovely person who grew up in a household steeped in misogyny. Both his mother and father believed that certain things (especially bringing up children) were 'women's work,' beneath the dignity of a man. If asked, he would have definitely said he wasn't a misogynist, he believed in equality, he saw me as an equal.

But the fact is, he didn't. He saw me as less than him. He would do things around the house if repeatedly and constantly asked, but always with the air of doing me a favour. He honestly, hand-on-heart believed that he was doing everything he could, even when I was breastfeeding a three day old baby while reading to a grumpy two year old and thinking what to make for dinner and he sat on his arse all day because he was tired. The fact that I had given birth earlier that week and since then had been breastfeeding pretty much constantly while also cleaning, cooking, doing laundry and looking after a toddler didn't occur to him. It's not like he thought about it and dismissed it, it just didn't enter his head. He was tired and so he didn't do anything. I had no time or option to be tired, a baby had to be fed, a toddler had to be looked after, the house had to keep running.

I thought the same as so many other women. 'He's a good guy, I can't leave him because of housework, he's tired too,' etc etc.

Until I asked him to do one thing for me, one thing that was important. And he said no, and went off and did something for himself instead.

Then I realised (as someone else on this thread mentioned) that he was the Star of our life, I was the Supporting Actress. I would always come in second place, I would always be picking up after him. It wasn't so much the fact that he didn't tidy up, or he didn't pick up the slack when I was exhausted, it was the fact that I didn't even figure in his mental landscape. He thought only about himself. He didn't think 'cailin does so much for me,' because in his mind things just got done. The fact that I did them was irrelevant. Of course if he did them, they were fantastic, super important, worthy of praise. If I did them, they just happened to be done. So I had the great honour of being absolutely indispensable and irrelevant all in one go.

I told him I was leaving and I explained why.

He got it.

He still gets it wrong from time to time but he did get it and he has entirely and utterly changed.

But, I still can't quite get over being treated like that.

[mathanxiety]

I wouldn't either, Cailin. I am amazed you had the fortitude to stay. He really must have done a complete about turn.

[ThumbWitchesAbroad]

God, well done Cailin - for getting him to change, I mean. I understand exactly what you mean. Mine doesn't believe I'll ever leave though - he's going to get an almighty shock at some point.

[MrsHathaway]

I spoke to DH about this last night. We agreed that if we think of any things that feel like "fuck you, Sally" we'll talk to each other about them, on the understanding that it's not so much the thing itself as the feelings.

My first "fuck you" was all the fucking socks balled up all over the house.

His was when I don't wash up after baking. This turned out to be not unrelated to his never setting the dishwasher when he fills it.

[OnceAMeerNotAlwaysAMeer]

mrshathaway I wonder if there will be a lot of instances where your lack of tidying up will be related to his not-quite-pulling-his-weight :D

though I like the slightly gentler way you're tackling this

[ConkersDontScareSpiders]

My stbexh was good st some of the home related stuff-always active with kids at the weekends etc and would do the ironing (because he thought I was rubbish at it). Trouble is that he thought that doing those things was enough for him not to have to contribute to anything else.He genuinely believed he was the prefect h because on top of working full time he played with his own kids st the weekend and ironed his own shirts.I also work full time and did everything else.He can't see how that was in any way unfair. He's a lovely guy and a great Dad.But he can't see how demoralizing it was for me to be cast in the role of cook and cleaner whilst he was doing all the fun stuff with the kids on the weekends.And when I tried to stop doing the big cook and clean at the weekend for example we simply didn't eat (well) or the house wasn't clean.Which was fine for a short time but not ok longer term as it was important to me that the girls ate well and because I can't live with mess for a sustained time. To some degree I agree with the poster that said that if it doesn't matter to the partner that the house is clean then why should they be expected to do it, but I also agree that if it matters to one person, then the other should ideally love them enough to want to contribute to their happiness by helping out.That was the part that was lacking in my marriage I think.It seems so petty on some levels but it led to much bigger problems.

[stealtheatingtunnocks]

SNAP, Cailin.

After the birth of our first one (a 20 hour labour, no drama, just ages) he came to visit, I was struggling to get the baby to latch on. He said "I have a lot more respect for women now, I had no idea birth was like that, what a marathon" lay down on the bed and announced he was tired "after yesterday", so was going to have a nap. No flowers.

It was then that I realised that my vision of our future family life was flawed.

But, it's not sufficient cause to leave in my case - I can't see myself going to a lawyer and saying "my husband is entitled and a bit of a twat". That's not grounds for divorce.

BEsides, there are 3 kids who need stability and their dad.

Yes, he's a bit of a child - but, the children see it. They comment that I do it all. And, they have already sussed that it's not ok to take someone else for granted.

So, I grudgingly accept it for now and wait for the penny to drop. He won't/can't see my point of view, but, one day, one of the kids will flag this shit up to him.

My plan is to teach the boys that if they show their partner that they cherish them by doing chores without being asked - they will get more blow jobs because they'll be irresistible.

And, the girl has a firm handle on not being beholden to anyone.

So, they'll be ok.