How do you overlook daily annoyances in a happy marriage?

[SheThinksShesAllThat]

How do people stay married to someone for so long…… it’s bloody tough!

My husband of 6yrs is a lovely man but I can’t help get so annoyed at the smallest of things.

I need some advice of how to look past the really annoying things that bug me on a daily basis….. I would never leave my husband because he can’t clean up after himself 😂.

I find the annoyance comes in a monthly cycle… I could absolutely kill him for leaving a dirty bowl on top of a dishwasher, but at other times of the month I have much more tolerance and it doesn’t bother me at all… remaining aware of my cycle helps me to keep the peace and remember it is just a phase…

This 👆 we all do annoying things. Find a way to ‘walk away’ and relax.

I'm 35 years in. There's a huge difference between disrespect and just doing things differently or having some quirks.
Anything that involves leaving a mess in your shared space and facilities is disrespectful. Particularly after bodily functions or creating cleaning tasks for the other person. Leaving a toilet dirty, bathroom covered in hairs, spit in the sink, dirty clothes on the floor, not cleaning up after making food for yourself etc is all disrespectful. If they are asked not to do it and they continue then it turns from disrespectful to contempt. Contempt will finish a relationship.
If it's about how they do things like the washing or a routine around making their tea or what food they like or don't like then it's best to just let it go. Don't sweat the small stuff. If waiting to eat with them is pissing you off, don't do it. But if you ask them to put their phone down and they don't, you're moving into the contempt area again.
It's generally about how they react to you making reasonable requests. But the request should be reasonable around actions and not critical of personality.

I’m now on some great anti-depressants and can tolerate my ex at Xmas and on holiday.
Could be an option if all else fails 😂

I agree with AnnaMagnani
Decided what's really important to you and what battles you want.
I'm 30+ plus years in, and yes we've had battles over both of us being annoying!

Toothpaste - i would say you don't mind cleaning the bathroom, washing the towels, checking the loo paper stock, etc, but would he mind giving the sink a quick rinse after he's cleaned his teeth. He might not have realised what he's doing!

Eat earlier with you DD, if you're anything like me, I'm a complete bear if i haven't eaten by 7, 8pm at the latest. 9pm would be a war zone, but DH has learnt how to read the signs of my hunger!
Have a date night once a week, fortnight, and agree rules early, set the table, no phones, watch a film etc.
Yes DH does load the dishwasher wrong! the plates still come out clean! But he makes a bloody good curry, even if he does trash the kitchen in the process.

I think sometimes you have to determine when you can put up with something for the sake of harmony and when it is just so annoying you need to say something.
So for example “I don’t want to be critical but I know this is going to bug me. Could you put your plates in the dishwasher rather than always leaving them on the side. Let me know if there’s something I’m doing that you also find irritating.”
And bear in mind that you will have equally annoying habits that you never realised you had.

I think the most important element in staying married is accepting that you, and your way of doing things is not always right, and you don’t have to be right because usually it doesn’t matter.

I am very lucky because I am the messy one. I do my absolute best to be tidy but a newspaper on the footstool doesn’t bother me, it bothers my husband immensely. Reading this it sounds like there are lots of slobby men out there!

So you exchange spit when you kiss but won’t rinse it off the sink where you don’t need to touch it? Make it make sense 🤣

I'm now crying, your husband is keeper! Sorry for the loss of your Dad.
OP, I have an XH so possibly not qualified to comment on a happy marriage but the start of the decline was his lack of engagement/respect for the household.

OK. But at one a week I might be dead before the end. But I'll give it a go.

I really like tbis @Goatsarebest

The things you describe don't sound like "minor annoyances" - they sound like a man who has no respect for you.

He absolutely can "clean up after himself" - he just thinks it's your job. Grim.

so I looked at the main house jobs -

pots
i kept as dh hates them and I don’t mind them
laundry
I continued doing laundry as dh somehow ruins clothes doing them on too high a wash but i stopped putting dh and DS stuff away it goes in a pile near their wardrobe
cooking
we already split 4/3
dusting/wiping
i kept as I hate things looking dirty
tidying
I stopped moving dh and ds stuff or is pile it in a corner
bathrooms
i kept as I hate unclean bathrooms
changing beds
i dropped - at first it took a few weeks if dh saying we need to change the beds and me agreeing but eventually he did it, took less time the next time and then he just started doing them every couple weeks.
Empty bins
i didn’t do it, so he had to, now just does it as he hates it when bins get too full
hoovering
we are mostly wood floor downstairs so I swept crumbs but left it otherwise. Dh hates floors looking bad so he eventually hoovered now he does it weekly/bi weekly I’d prefer more but part of dropping stuff is accepting not everything is done to your standards
food shop
we now do online, shared account we add to throughout week. If dh doesn’t put the things he wants on I don’t get them. If he doesn’t get food for his meals he goes to the shop to buy (often does as he prefers deciding on the day whereas I plan in advance)

I stopped automatically walking the dog dh would never let him not have a walk it turned out I was ramming it in my routine but if I left it he did it. It’s now 70% him.

I dropped all car/ garden/ house bills . I didn’t remind which forced dh to remember. When he mentioned x was due i agreed and did nothing. He then sorted it. I did keep ds stuff as I didn’t want him to suffer but I also added dh to school lists/ dojo so he gets the same messages.

xmas/ birthday I dropped all dh family either he does it or it doesn’t happen. I also leave arrangements to see dh family to him.

I do work less than dh so i should do more but it’s definitely fairer now. There will be random stuff that comes up that I’ll deal with but i don’t resent it now as he is pulling his weight.
This would be harder when kids are babies as theres often not the luxury of dropping stuff and it requires your other half isn’t a complete slob /arse. But I did do years of asking/ lists which caused resentment on both sides . It’s weird that doing nothing worked better ( it’s been 2 years and it’s still working) but by doing nothing I also have to accept it can’t just be my way.

Absolutely. I would have ZERO tolerance for that!

My husband and I have a lot of interests in common but we are very different in the way we approach household tasks. For instance, he says I put the recycling out wrong (who knew there was a right way to put bottles and cans in the bin?).

So when I spot him doing something "wrong" I have to stop and ask myself if it really matters. If it does then we have a conversation about it and he usually responds well to reasonable requests.

We all have annoying habits and living with that is part of being in a long term relationship.

I have been married 15 years and I try not to be irritated by certain ways of doing the shared chores my husband has. As long as it all ends up done to a decent standard, it doesn't really matter.

However, a basic rule in our house is that we do NOT leave a room worse off than how we found it. Particularly bathrooms. We are adults and should clean up after ourselves.

Are you menopausal as I've heard that men annoy us more as we go into peri and menopause as we don't tolerate stuff that we would've put up with earlier on in the relationship.

This 100%
Confused about who has decided that you have to do everything as he works in a high pressured job.

If you take on the role of an unpaid servant, you will end up being treated as one and your time will have no value.

Remember that before you married you were equals. Remind him of that.

Just because he has a high pressured job, doesn't mean he can abdicate from life and have you as a permanent valet. He still showers and brushes his teeth doesn't he? He may think he's very important.. doesn't mean he can't do anything at home because... pressure.

You need to reframe this so that things are more equal, so that your time is seen as having value. If you weren't there how much would it cost to have a nanny, cleaner, chauffeur assistant, etc..

The last time I looked being a mum was a 24/7 high pressured job that couldn't be switched off

Give it 25 years and then he finds his secretary who is around your eldest daughter’s age irresistible. You then become the problem as you don’t find him as sensationally attractive as she does.