'AITA for telling my wife to wash the dishes properly?' UPDATED 4X
"AITA for telling my wife to wash the dishes properly?"
My wife is so neglectful when it comes to chores and does a half-a$#ed job. Today was the third time this week I found a glob of residue in my plate, and I lost it. I grabbed the plate and brought my wife over to the sink and demonstrated to her how to properly scrub the entire plate, and she just zoned off and stared into space.
I told her to stop being disrespectful and watch my demonstration because she clearly doesn’t understand how to wash the dishes properly (or maybe now that I think about it, she is just pretending to be incompetent at it.)
She started crying when I said this and told me to leave her alone and she ran to the bathroom. Now I feel bad for making her cry, but I am sick of her not doing a proper job. AITA?
Users were pretty outraged with this initial post.
Grabbed the plate, brought her over to the sink, told her to stop being disrespectful, watch my demonstration... there's a way to communicate something and this isn't it. Don't wait till the third glob of residue and then explode.
Kindly discuss with her that cleanliness is important to you and it's disturbing to find old food on your plates. Apologize. Take a step back. Have a conversation not a scolding.
Also if he knows that the wife can do all these chores properly and is simply refusing, why is he even participating in this charade that she doesn't know?
If she washes dishes properly for guests but not on an everyday basis then they both know that she doesn't need to be shown shit. All this was was a way to vent his frustrating and anger in her face.
Communicate properly, get couples counseling, try to work out these issues like respectful adults. and if that's genuinely impossible, then leave the relationship.
Acting like a cartoon of an abusive parent scolding a child does fuck all except to help blow the relationship further up. I'm starting to be convinced that half the people on here don't actually want to do anything to fix their relationships and just want to 'win' some weird toxic game.
Most everyone here will say YTA, but I do understand your frustration. I want my dishes clean, too. It sounds like you have very different standards of cleanliness but there's an underlying dismissal of each other's feelings, too. I'd wager there's more going on in your relationship if she ended up crying like that. Counseling?
There’s more info needed about the relationship man, learn to communicate.
My OCD could never. I’m going to go against the grain here and say NTA. Is it shitty that you talked down to her like a child? Kind of - but when it’s the 3rd time in one week - I’d be having a full blown panic attack.
I’m the one who does all the housework bc I’m a SAHM and I’ve gotten so angry at my partner for not cleaning things properly in the kitchen before that I’ve screamed at him to stay out unless he does it right. (I was pregnant and a similar situation had happened where I grabbed a bowl and it had sticky residue on it - it caused me to violently projectile vomit.) Health and safety are important and she’s a grown up.
Yeah...I can't go full YTA on this. It's never correct to go off like that at anyone. However. When you are sharing chores 50/50 and only one person is putting in an effort to actually do them properly, and you have to put in additional effort to ensure they do their 50%? I can feel the exhaustion from here.
OP will inevitably be working twice as much when it's their turn to clean. That is not a fair household. OP you're not communicating what you value to each other. I don't want to suggest that you do even more labour to fix it, maybe you get some outside help because all future attempts to talk about this will be met with white noise. Good luck.
The OP responded an hour later to clarify his position.
Okay, so most people are making GIANT assumptions about the distribution of labor in our relationship. I do the dishes and all other chores HALF THE TIME. And I do a proper job, without being reminded beforehand.
Meanwhile, my wife has to be constantly reminded and begged to do her turn of chores, whether that be dishes or mopping. And she whines and complains when I remind her to do it, and will do a half a%$ed job and rush through so she can get back to whatever else she is doing.
I take my household responsibilities seriously because I respect the value of living in a clean home, while my wife acts incompetent at doing chores to get out of doing them or because she doesn’t feel like it.
Also, I told her the first two times this week when she left dirty plates— I asked if she could be more thorough while cleaning the dishes because it’s gross to find residue on them. She just rolled her eyes and said “yeah, yeah” and blew me off.
After this update, one user had this to say:
Ok so a couple questions, how do you all split the housework? Has this always happened or is this a recent thing? What is leading you to think this is personal? I get the possibility of weaponized incompetence and I also get being a jerk to prove a point. Trying to understand if it is on either of the continuum or in the middle…
To which the OP replies:
I do half of the chores!! And I respect her and having a clean house, so I do a thorough job so we have a clean space to live in.
However, I always have to beg her to do her half of the chores and constantly remind her. And she acts all annoyed when she finally does them and does a poor job because she rushes through.
The OP returned again after this with a full update to defend himself.
Now people are telling me to just let her do different chores, but y’all don’t understand this is her attitude towards all household responsibilities. Her laziness for chores isn’t just when it comes to dishes.
She does all the laundry under the same settings because “it’s too hard to remember” which settings to use for each type of clothing when I literally made a list guide for her so she could remember each type. When it comes to vacuuming, she tries to finish as fast as she can so the rooms are left with giant patches and streaks of dust.
It’s her overall attitude of neglect that is bothering me. Because she expects me to do a proper job when it’s my turn so she knows she can get away with acting incompetent.
And I know she’s not incompetent at doing these chores because whenever we have guests that she cares about coming over, she’ll somehow muster up the energy and knowledge to properly clean stuff and take cleaning seriously.
People again responded.
Since she seems to be lackadaisical about all chores, is she also like this about other things? Like things she normally should enjoy? Do you have a bunch of kids that are exhausting her? Could she not be lazy but sick? That might worth looking into. There is so much missing information.
There were better ways to approach it. Like just mentioning that the dishes are usually dirty and asking if there’s a reason she rushes through it.
FYI For years my mom couldn’t figure out why an honor student who could create most things couldn’t wash dishes or clean a floor properly even if I tried for hours. Turns out I had undiagnosed ADHD.
To this day I still struggle with it. My brain literally can’t focus on the floor long enough to not miss dirt even when I want to clean it properly. So like. Don’t make assumptions.
NTA. This sub is disgustingly sexist and favors women unfairly even when they’re wrong. He asked her twice and was even kind enough to demonstrate after the 3rd instance in 7 days. He has every right to frustrated at her weaponized incompetence.
Seriously? You don’t order a partner around. You sound really aggressive in the way you speak to her and about her. This post is really scary. I hope she’s safe. YTA.
The OP returned AGAIN to try to plead his case.
Context about “bringing her over.” I left the table with my plate, went to the sink, and in a normal volume but annoyed tone, asked my wife to come over. She said “seriously?” annoyed but then agreed to come.
I said she needs to scrub off all the residue, and demonstrated. She paid no attention, so I said can you stop being disrespectful in a NORMAL VOLUME.
Final verdicts from readers:
Given the info here, in my humble, nonprofessional opinion, I don't think this is about chores. It's about resentment. You're both frustrated with each other. You have fundamentally different views on cleanliness and chores and you both think the other one should cave.
This is creating resentment towards each other that you both need to work out and find a compromise on if you want to continue to have a successful marriage. NAH.
Okay so you can feel vindicated now that people say that you are not TA. But how is your behaviour helping your marriage? Clearly there is something wrong with your wife, she started crying.
You've won. Now go and be gentle with your wife and find out what the issue is. Because it does sound like she may be depressed.