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I feel like I'm turning into a mean old harpy

iamlosingit's picture

DH is driving me so insane I have started doing/not doing little things and although it makes me feel immense pleasure I feel childish.
Example: visitation dishes. Every visitation weekend we seem to go through a sink-load of dishes daily. Since we don't have a dishwasher this gets quite annoying. We had ss and dh mom over for new years eve and those dishes sat in the sink for 5 days until I got mad and cleaned the kitchen. Sunday the sink was full again, I put away the clean dishes, washed my own dishes, and happily piled all of ss and dh dishes back into the sink. Dh filled the sink with soapy water...and walked away. When I left for work this morning the dishes still sat in the now cold soapy water.
Clothing: dh leaves a trail of clothing all over the living room and into the dining room leading to the stairs that go to our bedroom. Belts, socks, pants, work shirts... Oh and don't forget the pile of dirty clothing on the bathroom floor even though we have a laundry basket IN THE BATHROOM. Usually when I clean I gather all of this and put it in the laundry basket. This weekend I happily put everything in a pile on the floor and left it there. It is driving me insane to stare at it but I'm sick of doing it.
Cooking: dh tries to help out on cooking duties when ss is over. The only problem is when he cooks, he eats and then leaves the kitchen. Example: made a sandwich. Ate the sandwich. I came into the kitchen and the mayo is on the counter with a knife in the open container, mustard on the counter open, open bag of lettuce, bread open on the counter with crumbs everywhere, dirty plate that sandwich was on not in the sink oh no of course not...it belongs on the counter too. Cereal in the morning? Open cereal box on the counter for hours. We have limited countertop space, this drives me nuts. It's like he thinks there is a magical fairy that puts everything away 4-6xs a day. No dh..it is not a fairy it is me. And this fairy is sick of it. SS book report and project that dh basically did himself...scraps of paper, scissors, tape all over the dining room table. SS has a perfectly decent sized desk in his bedroom and I've NEVER seen it get used. Not once. Always the dining room table.
I think I need a vacation.
Or a maid.

Comments

ntm's picture

Show your H this video and ask him if he thinks there’s a cleaning fairy. And then lay down the expectations.

mommadukes2015's picture

Start putting these things where it will inconvenience him until he gets the picture.

Then, depending on your relationship with MIL in would drop a hint he is being a slob. I once made a comment about SO and his laundry piles NEXT to the basket and MIL was in earshot. She wrang SO out like a rag. She said and I'll never forget it "I did not raise my sons to be some slob some poor girl has to follow around and clean up after! You were raised properly and I won't have your laziness reflecting on me!" Then she told me thatbif I had anymore problems to let her know. Its been about 3 years.....no issues. Lol

Now if all women raised their sons with such intent! I've seen some pretty lazy dudes but man.

Willow2010's picture

Sorry - I am sort of seeing why his first marriage ended in divorce. This is ridiculous.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
This ^^^^

witch.hazel's picture

Sorry - I am sort of seeing why his first marriage ended in divorce. This is ridiculous.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
This ^^^^

Third this.

iamlosingit's picture

Not divorced, engaged+pregnant+house in less than a year. Then all heck broke loose and he ended the engagement.

hereiam's picture

Between this and his financial instability, I would be dreaming about being single, if I were you.

It's not just that he's like having another child around, that you have to pick up after, it's his total inconsideration for you.

ndc's picture

It's time to leave. Honestly, I'm having trouble (from your posts, at least) finding one redeeming quality this man has.

TinyDancer's picture

I don't think I can ever show my DH those videos. He'll think it's funny and keep doing the same shit! Oh, and one way of making was point was to take a garbage bag and anything that was lying around, in the bag. Anything. My favorite was the night I threw out the dishes that has been in the sink all weekend. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

lieutenant_dad's picture

I say leave.

But if you don't want to do that:

1.) Dishes - put them in his favorite chair or on his side of the bed (then sleep elsewhere). Or on his seat in his car. Or all over the floor on his way to the bathroom. Or on top of his clothes.

2.) Clothes - put them all in the bathtub with water. They'll mildew and smell awful. His fault.

3.) Food - take the knife with mayo and stick it in the middle of his next meal. Take the mayo, mustard, and bread, and put it all in his lap while he's sitting around doing nothing. Take the dirty plate and throw it away. Buy your own that you keep locked up and only you use/wash.

You're married to a child. My DH and I have different cleaning expectations, but if I ask for something to be done (or vice versa), it gets done 90% of the time. There is no excuse for not doing anything and just leaving it hoping your spouse will take care of.

End this today.

momjeans's picture

“Example: made a sandwich. Ate the sandwich. I came into the kitchen and the mayo is on the counter with a knife in the open container, mustard on the counter open, open bag of lettuce, bread open on the counter with crumbs everywhere, dirty plate that sandwich was on not in the sink oh no of course not...it belongs on the counter too.”

I would lose.my.mind. with this. My grown DS pulled this mindless BS when he was a young teen. Not as bad this scenario, though.

sunshinex's picture

My DH has severe ADD and so does his daughter who lives with us full-time. When we started living together he really struggled because he wasn't used to having to clean up after himself for someone else's sake. His mind is all over the place so he often starts a task in the middle of his previous task, which as you can imagine, leads to a nice disaster following him everywhere. But the thing is, he really, really puts effort into tidying up and he makes sure his daughter picks up after herself.

He's often telling her "sunshinex and I are not your maids SD pick up after yourself!" and "why should anyone pick up after you when you're capable of doing it yourself? and he's made TONS of progress cleaning up after himself. He feels really bad when I tell him he left a mess somewhere because he knows it inconveniences me.

If your grown ass husband is doing all of this without even considering how it impacts you, that's bull. I would lose it for sure. I can handle messy people and I can even sympathize with it because it's a hard skill to learn if you haven't been taught or you have ADD, but damn, you're gonna try if you're living with me cause not trying is downright rude.

Cover1W's picture

It's doubly hard when your DH is ADD, as mine is.
He'll get so easily distracted, it's truly not his fault BUT I have to constantly remind him to also remind the SDs to pick up. I'm not a maid, period.

He does feel bad, but it's very difficult to deal with.

DaizyDuke's picture

OMG I just can't with your DH. He is perhaps the largest man baby I have seen on here. Does he have ANY redeeming qualities?? He's a slob, a crappy parent, terrible with money, a crappy husband.. the list goes on and on. Not trying to be a jerk, but my land woman!!!! I have no idea how you do it!!! :?

StepUltimate's picture

LOL, just Friday morning I told SS17, "I'm not going to come home to your dirty dishes still in this sink, am I?" and he goes, "Well the dishes in the dishwasher are clean." I replied, "Yes they are," and went to shower. When I got out, SS was just finishing emptying the dishwasher, and I thanked him.

Takes a lot of work but as the maid, I'm no longer ignoring & making it easy to be lazy.

iamlosingit's picture

He came to my work to pick up the mattress I ordered as my/our Christmas gift and hauled it up to the bedroom and set it up (gel/memory foam, has to "expand" for 72 hours) and claims he spent about an hour cleaning. There wasn't much to clean other than sweeping/dishes so I'm not exactly sure what he spent an hour on. Logged into Netflix when I got home from work and it was on DH profile so I'm guessing laptop/Netflix is how he spent most of his day. Visitation again yesterday (I seriously hate the damn schedule, he was just over all weekend) Dh ordered pizza and sat in ss room watching Netflix with him all night. I got mad and told him we were going out this weekend since the only effing time we ever order food seems to be when ss is over but never when it's just the two of us, I'm sick of cooking and sick of eating the same 5 things a week. MIL finds out on Wed if the mass they removed is going to cause the need for further surgery depending on the type of cancer, she called Dh yesterday to talk, think that's why he's out of it again. He does not handle any type of stress well, and I can only imagine what MIL requests are this time.

Exjuliemccoy's picture

Seriously? He thinks he can afford delivery pizza when he owes you $900??

He DEFINITELY has your number. You will never get ahead in life married to this....spineless user.

iamlosingit's picture

he had just paid my portion of the mortgage for this month a few days ago,($599) I can't really argue with him buying a $7 carry-out pizza but I did get mad about the reason.