My husband always nitpicks about mess!

[Mamaof2222]

Okay so my husband works and I am at home with a 9 year old and four month old baby. I try and keep the house as clean as possible (this has been hard since the four month old) but to my standards I think I have been doing quite well! However last couple of days I have just been a little useless in terms of household chores so maybe I'm being extra sensitive at the moment! Anyway today we were having a lively morning when he went to make me something to eat in a quite untidy kitchen! (It was tidy before dinner yesterday but I cooked for him and his friend and flew off to bed without properly cleaning up as I was exhausted). He was happy to fix me something to eat then started moaning about crumbs in the butter his words exactly "you don't need to put crumbs back in the butter when u make toast" and "there's water in the cheese draw" he then changed his mind about eating with me and angrily told me he was going to tidy the kitchen instead as he "did not want to live like a tramp". I took offense ended up getting angry and blurting out how I am always the one to tidy and how it's not nice the things he is saying etc. He then called me a tramp and said u can just live in filth. I'm really hurt by the way he thinks he can talk to me. And also because of the fact that I do my best to tidy everyday yes I may have left crumbs in the butter but when your trying to make yourself something to eat with a four month baby attached to your side these things slip. I've tried to bring it up to him this evening but he's all "I can't say anything to you. Fine I'll just live with burnt things in the butter" or I just get a really sarcastic "sorry for asking you not to put crumbs in the butter or for a tiny bit of care to the house". I really think he is overreacting especially because he does about 10 percent of housework. I'm just so angry about this!

What a shit - and charming for people on this thread to have a go at the op for marrying a wanker.

Maybe he was nice back then and his twattishness hadn’t shown properly

Sorry op but he’s an arse. I had of those. Always moaned about the mess, any little mess. But did fuck all about it himself and even left his mess anyway everywhere.

I don’t know the solution. I left mine. But obviously you have dc so not quite so cut and dried.

I do though think if you can ‘arrange’ some sort of emergency that requires you for a whole weekend. A friend in desperate need perhaps. And leave him with the dc for the duration. He may well gain a new level of understanding when you arrive back. Even if he manages to keep the house somehow tidy and clean, I’ll bet he’ll be exhausted.
Penny might drop then.
If not, then yeah I’d consider how peaceful life might be when you can have crumbs in your butter, water in your cheese drawer and not giving a shiny shit about it. It’s bliss.

@RantyAunty

I guess it didn't occur to him and his friend to clean up the kitchen after you were nice enough to make them dinner.

You're not his maid.

This.

Crumbs in the butter???!

GOOD GOD!

CALL THE POLICE!!

Seriously though, was he always very tidy?

If not.....you know what this is, don't you?

It's -

WHY AREN'T YOU KEEPING THIS PLACE LIKE A HOTEL FOR ME LITTLE WOMAN???!!

Honestly my DH can get a bit like this. When he does, I meekly accept the criticism, and then nail him for EVERY SINGLE TINY THING he does wrong. Everything. In fact, the tinier the better.

“Oh sweetie, you’ve left a spoon in the sink, didn’t you mean to put it in the dishwasher? If you could just… There’s a love.”
“ oh honey, I saw the lid wasn’t on the Pringles properly, they will go all soft again won’t they, would you just pop and fix it?”
“Oh babes, when you boil the kettle make sure it is pointing left otherwise it steams up the side of the cupboard.”
“Oh darling, I noticed your shoes aren’t parallel to the wall in the hall, it looks so untidy, would you mind….”

First time I did this he got so narked! And so I did the whole innocent wide-eyed act and said how I thought it was ok to point out all the little things that make life irritating, because after all if he is telling me off about (fill in trivial thing he has moaned at me about) then it is only fair that I don’t need to bottle up all the things that bother me.

My DH isn’t dumb, he gets the message, and I keep his pointless nagging in check nowadays!

@PennyWus this is brilliant!

Yes thank you @beautifulview. It is indeed brilliant. Took me ages to find a way of subtlety needling him whilst apparently taking the high road. And it is oh-so satisfying when the little fuses in his brain pop as he realises I am taking a gentle revenge.

Married life does have its little pleasures, after all :)

Nip this in the bud now.
The second this starts again - with anything, any opportunity - gather whatever you’re doing and walk out the room. Calmly tell him you’re not engaging with this complete fucking bollocks, you’re not his skivvy or slave and you won’t be spoken to like that.
In the interim, until you get that opportunity, point out every little thing he leaves out of place and when he objects, call him a filthy bastard and tell him you can’t live in this mess. Then ask him how it feels to be spoken to like that.

Every fucking time til it hits home.

Separate butter. Thats what we do. I am careless. But he is cheeky complaining about the mess when you cooked.

I have no advice. He sounds like an arsehole. I hot very little cleaning dine when mine were that young, my house was a shit tip.

What I really came here to ask about though was the cheese drawer. I'm intrigued! You have a whole drawer of cheese? Please explain.

OP has started a few threads about this shitty man and never bothers coming back to her threads.

I did wonder when I saw the other thread. Maybe OP is processing stuff and just gets it out there and posts as and when. I'm hoping that seeing similar responses from both threads (or the two I've seen) reinforces the message and enables her to get to a point where she can get out of the relationship. For some of us, me included, it takes a while to get to that point.

No way would my DH call me a tramp (and remain my DH)
Life is too short for this kind of rubbish. He wants it cleaner? Crack on and clean it himself.