One slice of toast in the toaster

[icedchelseabuns]

I have namechanged for this, long time poster. Just need to get some views on this behaviour.

My partner, who is lovely in so many respects, has a couple of quirks that I find difficult to deal with.

Firstly, he is very particular in the way he does things which, whilst I don't wholly understand the need for such perfection, it is something I have accepted. However, lately, some of his quirks have become quite irritating. We have a dualit toaster that has a switch on it that allows you to turn off one of the slots if you only want one slice of toast. It was mine before we moved in together and as me and my child usually have two slices of toast, it's usually on the two slice setting. Partner has taken to only having one slice of toast. Fine. But doesn't remember to switch it back to the two slice setting which has resulted in undercooked and then burnt toast if I don't notice he has switched it over. I have asked him to remember to switch it back to two slices but he frequently doesn't. I realise this is a tiny issue in the grand scheme of things but I am finding it increasingly irritating that he is causing both me and my child inconvenience for what I perceive as his fussiness. Cooking on the two slice setting has no effect on cooking one slice of toast although my partner will argue that one slice ends up more cooked on one side than the other which is weird as he regularly burns his toast but 'likes it that way'.

The other issue is doing DIY or jobs round the house. Again, he is particularly fussy about any jobs he does which is slightly frustrating as it takes him a long time to complete anything. I don't mention it to him as I am grateful that I have finally found someone willing to do stuff. However, my contribution to the DIY is constantly critiqued by partner which I find annoying as I have lots of experience in DIY having renovated four houses before I met him. I may not do things the way he would but the end result is the same which he doesn't seem able to accept. He cannot stop himself offering up unwanted advice and gets quite grumpy if I don't do things his way. I have even been told that I don't put the correct microns of paint on each coat I do which is making me take longer than necessary to paint things.

He also has this thing that if he spends 6 hours or whatever on DIY, I have to do the same. Doing something else around the house isn't acceptable and he has admitted that he resents it. He had issues with his ex wife not contributing much to the upkeep of their house.

Any ideas why he is like this? How do I manage this successfully?

The other issue is doing DIY or jobs round the house.......I don't mention it to him as I am grateful that I have finally found someone willing to do stuff.

Sounds like you are treating him more like a handyman than a partner. Hopefully he will get the message and leave soon so you can be happy living your life and having the toaster left exactly as you want.

I always check no one has messed with the toaster settings so I’d just check pop it back to 2 and move on.

However the diy nonsense would drive me round the bend. I don’t really do much diy. If my boyfriend wanted to do something fair enough I do other housework. He certainly wouldn’t be telling me what to do in that respect. If you opt to do a task together fair enough do it together otherwise he does his task and takes however long it takes him. And you do yours but let him know you’ll do it your way. Far too rigid by sounds of it but I don’t know how you get through to him/have a discussion about it. Would he listen etc?

I done understand the toaster issue.I think you are being unreasonable. It used to be your own toaster but now it is a shared toaster.

He arrives at the toaster, checks the settings and changes them so that they are appropriate for the toasting he is about to do. It isn’t his job to change them back to your settings because your settings are not the ‘right’ settings, they are just right for you.

Each person is responsible for checking the toaster settings before they toast. You just forget to do that because it was so,e,y your toaster for so long. But that is your mistake, not his.

I would not put up with his weird DIY aggression though. He is being very unreasonable.

@ooohbriefcase, we're getting to the end of a whole house renovation which we have both contributed to.

He does the technical wood working stuff, I do the preparation and painting. I don't think he actually likes doing it though as it seems to create this anxiety and procrastination in him which spills over into micromanaging me.

He also creates a lot of additional work for himself in his attention to detail. All of the doors in the house have been adjusted so that they close better, stay open, don't make noise, whatever! Stuff that I have never noticed. He's also on month four of trying to adjust the fridge freezer so that it sits level, again I honestly can't see what the problem is. He was trying to show my daughter the other day, she can't see a problem with it. He done the same to shelves that have been put up. Taking them down and fitting them again. Also planning to alter the shelving that the TV sits on because it's not the 'right' height.

Like I said, I don't really understand this. The toast thing is minor but surely the happy compromise is to leave it alone and everyone is happy but perhaps that's me.

If you have found a kind and generous man, who is equally kind and generous with your DC also, then you are very lucky indeed.

You say in one of your posts, that he says when you speak to him about the DIY thing, that he will try not to be overbearing, and sees it as him being helpful, so in that respect, he is acknowledging his behaviour.

You don't sound like you're into him to be honest. Those irritating things you mention, would be less irritating if you truly loved him. We all have our idiosyncrasies. Maybe get a less fancy toaster too

Whoever uses the toaster checks it first. It's not his job to sort your setting, that's your job. You are being overly fussy and that would annoy me being with someone who nitpicks about such nonsense.

He does DIY he wants it done a certain way, leave him to it, say thank you and crack on with something else.

I can't do DIY with my husband, I would throttle him, he faffs, does things round the wrong way. I leave him to it, make the dinner, walk the dog, clean, bring him a coffee, I wouldn't do nothing whilst he is painting the spare room for example. Say it looks amazing afterwards and everyone is happy.

Sounds like he's a bit of a perfectionist OP, and perhaps there's a bit of OCD there as well with the whole having to do the same number of hours thing. That's just a bit odd really and sounds like a hang-up from his previous relationship. Talk to him about it and tell him it's not OK to put that on you, especially as you obviously ARE contributing, unlike his ex. He needs to relax a bit.

It sounds like nothing a good heart-to-heart won't be able to solve.

You need to recognise that he is most likely coming from a place of anxiety. He needs to be open to acknowledging the issue and making efforts to relax it all a bit.

Communication and minor tweaks on both sides is all you need to do - definitely not an LTB situation!

Has he got some kind of ocd / mental health issue going on?

His behaviour sounds on the obsessive side.

I mean, four months on levelling the fridge.

You don't sound like you're into him to be honest. Those irritating things you mention, would be less irritating if you truly loved him. We all have our idiosyncrasies.

This is a very interesting point - are you sure you're really into him, OP?

My partner has some little quirks - on the perfectionist side of things too - but 99% of the time I just think "aw, that's just him being him" and leave him to it. It's what he needs. If it does get to a point where it's affecting me then we just talk about it, but at the end of the day it is part of his personality (and his attention to detail makes him very good at some things too!)

Dealing with your partner changing settings on various things and being too fussy/not fussy enough is just part of any LTR I think. There are so many things DP does along those lines that still drive me slightly nuts but I've learned to live with (and vice versa).

Insisting you do six hours of DIY if he does seems excessive and unreasonable though. Presumably you pull your weight in other areas.

@starfishmummy, Should have clarified for you that my ex-husband saw DIY and housework as exclusively wife work. Three of my previous renovations were 100% done by me so I am grateful that my partner contributes to both therefore I go out of my way not to 'nag' him.

He could just as easily ask you to remember to turn it back to the one slice setting though. Why is your way the right way?

@wildraisins, I think I am finding his perfectionism a bit challenging at the moment, perhaps due to the amount of time we are spending together in the current situation. It's not a black and white, if you loved him you would ignore it issue. I do suspect it may be due to some OCD, something he says about his ex-wife. Interestingly, he has criticised her for not being able to use the toaster properly.

[quote icedchelseabuns]@wildraisins, I think I am finding his perfectionism a bit challenging at the moment, perhaps due to the amount of time we are spending together in the current situation. It's not a black and white, if you loved him you would ignore it issue. I do suspect it may be due to some OCD, something he says about his ex-wife. Interestingly, he has criticised her for not being able to use the toaster properly.[/quote]
Yep, very true. I think a lot of relationships are feeling the straing at the moment with these lockdowns. How does he react when you try to talk to him about the effect his controlling/ perfectionism has on you (if you have tried)? Does he have any insight into his own behaviour?

Toaster - let it go - check the settings every time you put your toast in - don't change the settings back to "single" when you are finished.

DIY - irritating - I couldn't tolerate that - either I do it, or you do it, I will ask for advice if I need. The "equal amounts of time" would be my main issue and ?does he keep a diary. I would want to do as much as I can without "monitoring" and would hope it would even itself out over time/or in other areas of house upkeep.

I think the point I was trying to make, unsuccessfully, about the toaster issue is the level of fussiness I perceive in him. The attention to detail, the need to do things a certain way even if it causes hassle over and over.

If the issue was the other way round and I wanted one slice of toast I would just use it on the two slice option to avoid anyone forgetting to do anything. It wouldn't be such a big deal to me to compromise.

And this is the last I am going to say on the TOASTER as it's not a BIG DEAL!

With my partner there is a basic boundary that he can do what he likes but there's no micro-managing or controlling of me.

So for example I wouldn't comment about a need to have doors fixed a certain way, if that's what made him happy. I might think it was a bit pointless if it was something that didn't bother me, but I'd just leave him to it. It's obviously important to him.

But if he insisted that I do things his way, to meet some OCD type need of his, that wouldn't be OK. He doesn't project onto me... If I'm doing a job I do it my way :)

I bet the ex-wife has something to say about toasters as well . Ex-wife couldn't toast and didn't do the right amount of DIY. Yuh-huh

Tell him to seek help regarding the OCD behaviours, because in the long run unless he gets a handle on it you might well end up ex-wife number 2.

@wildraisins, I have mentioned to him that I suspect he has a lot of anxiety about these tasks and his approach to them. He didn't acknowledge it. I have to approach him carefully if he's in 'perfectionist' mode as he gets quite defensive about it. This is the best relationship I have ever had in many, many ways but I am noticing his behaviour more at the moment.

Yeah... the toaster really isn't a big deal!

If he has some kind of OCD then I can see that putting it on the two slice setting when he's only cooking one slice bothers him. It's not logical, but it's him.

So just accept that and when you go to do your toast, check the setting.

No big deal, surely.

We have a Dualit toaster and everyone just checks before using which setting it is on and changes it if necessary. I agree with your DP that if you cook one slice on the 2 slice setting, one side of the toast will be overdone. Not the end of the world but it does make a difference.

@icedchelseabuns
I wonder if it might be better to tell him how you feel, rather than telling him you think he has anxiety or trying to explain his behaviour to him. He's probably feeling defensive as you are telling him what's wrong with him. Just tell him what is going on for you and how you feel when he behaves that way.

Don't do it in relation to any specific situation or when there is any DIY work going on. Do it at another time when you are both relaxed.

Give him the facts about how you feel, and see what, if anything, he does about it. If he's a good person and cares about you then he should be able to see that his behaviour affects you and make an effort to relax it a bit - especially when it comes to exerting control over how you do certain tasks. It's one thing to need to do things his way when he is doing them, but another to impose those standards on you.

@wildraisins, I make a point of not commenting on the doors etc. Like you say if it makes you happy, fill your boots. But it does frustrate me that he needs to comment on my DIY skills and I am sometimes a bit agog at some of his behaviours. Apparently I don't set the fire in the correct way. He will lie prostrate across the floor to light the paper from the under side!

@category12, I am starting to think I have inherited the problems they experienced and he is the common denominator. However, this is probably about a 10% problem in our relationship. There's plenty to love about him and I want to make it work. We aren't married by the way. I have an escape route!