One woman shares the admittedly cute story of how she finally busted her boyfriend for not cleaning up after himself. Good boy.
Background: My boyfriend (E) and I have been together for four years. Whenever I would come over when we were dating, his apartment was messy but it was blamed on his roommates. I’m very cognizant that I am particular in cleaning, so I thought it just wasn’t clean enough to /my standards’/. I moved in with him ~3 years ago and adopted two dogs together.
I quickly realized we do not have the same view of what “clean” is. We have communicated about it and he has made a lot of progress. But, he consistently does one thing: stuffs his colored striped socks into the couch. I have told him that I have had to chase the dogs around because they find them in the couch. He thought it was funny.
Over the last few weeks, I have bought multiple cloth dog toys resembling his socks and have trained my dogs to play tug of war with them. They will now dive for them whenever he’s laying on the couch and places them on the ground to “pick up later.” I also do not stop them from playing with the socks anymore.
He came home yesterday and found his favorite pair of his socks decimated all over the living room and was furious that I didn’t stop them. I told him they were the socks he stuffed in the couch yesterday and he should have put them in the hamper. He stormed off to his office and is not talking to me. AITA?
TO BE CLEAR: My dogs do not ingest the socks, they use it as a tug of war object. Using this example, when the pair individually ripped in half, they were no longer interested in it.
Until it actually inconveniences him, he will not learn. Good for you on working on training him.
Just remember, OP. Give him a small treat & use a clicker every time he puts them up. After a few weeks, he won't even need a treat anymore & will be happy just hearing the noise! :D
(Dude better be solid gold other than this one quirk though, darlin'. You really don't wanna spend the next 50yrs of your life having this same argument in different flavors.)
You are an A+ trainer of the highest excellence 👏
NTA. your boyfriend is a baby. Why the F would you stuff your socks into the couch? Like I'm absolutely a cluttered person and I struggle with housecleaning but I'll be damned if I'm going to shove dirty socks in the couch.
We have a saying at my house. 'The living room is not a hamper'. Anything left there has no protection, and will not be laundered. Leave it long enough (1 week), and it will be thrown in the trash (with a 5 minute warning) Rooms need boundaries too!
It's easier to retrain an old dog than a man of any age.