fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #6469 ]

[ SECRET POST #6469 ]

⌈ Secret Post #6469 ⌋

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Do you have someone in your life who treats seats as surfaces? As in, chairs and sofas get treated as something to put stuff on, whether it be laundry or paperwork or books or hobby supplies, hindering your ability to sit anywhere?

My partner does this, and it's starting to drive me mad. He leaves the seats he wants to sit in clear. All other seats in the house get filled up with his stuff. Tonight, he apologized for the laundry all over the couch. "I'll get that upstairs tonight," he said. "Wouldn't it be easier to just fold it upstairs?" I asked. His reply: "for some reason, I don't like folding it in the bedroom."

I just wanted to scream: I don't give a shit if you don't like folding clothes in the place where the fucking clothes go! Figure it the fuck out already! You are 43 years old, and this thing you are hung up on makes no sense! And what's more, it negatively impacts the other people living in your house, in the sense that we cannot sit on seats because you have covered all the seats with items.

I perhaps wouldn't be so mad had I not worked very hard over the years on the things that piss him off about me. But he just gets to say, "FOR SOME REASON I DON'T LIKE DOING THE SENSIBLE ADULT THING TO DO SO I, A SUPER LOGICAL MALE BEING WHO IS DEFINITELY NOT SUBJECT TO EMOTIONAL BULLSHIT, AM ENTITLED TO CONTINUE BEING A FUCKING SLOB!"

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm sick of my male partner acting like it's some sort of horrible imposition on him to expect that he will not prevent me and his child from being able to sit anywhere due to the bizarre fucking damage that he refuses to deal with because I'M A MAN AND EVERYTHING I FEEL IS VERY IMPORTANT AND LOGICAL SO HOW DARE YOU QUESTION IT.

On the surface, this seems like a very minor thing to me. However, it seems like a "death by a thousand cuts" thing for you. I recommend couples counseling, and if that's not an option, consider taking a break. I know there's a kid involved, which makes everything more complicated. However, I promise that "mommy and daddy live in separate houses" is almost always less traumatizing than "mommy and daddy hate each other and are only staying together because of me."

Put a box in the corner of a room.

Tell him that if he puts anything on seats that you or other people need to clear away before sitting down, from now on you're putting it all in the box.

He won't be able to say "I can't find my things" because if he finds himself unable to find things he left lying around, he knows exactly where they are - they're in the box. If his clothes get covered in random objects in there, maybe he should stop leaving random objects out. But he can deal with his own chaos after other people have to sweep it away.

Regardless though, you should probably divorce. The items on the seats aren't your problem, his attitude is. Fixing the items on the seats won't change the latter part.

It's also a bad role model for your kid(s).

... is that really a weird/uncommon thing? In my family we would always put stuff on chairs/couches temporarily as long as there were still other places to sit. So like, we wouldn't cover the entire couch with laundry but we might dump the freshly dry laundry on one end of the couch to fold it. It made more sense to do it there because the couch was just in the next room and then you could just take the folded clothes upstairs when you were done.

Uh... that kind of went from 0 to 100.

No, I haven't had the problem of someone using seats as surfaces unless it is their own seat.

There's a deeper problem here, it seems. But that isn't what you asked about, so I won't say anything else.

Right? Like regardless of whether anon is correct about how their partner thinks: if he thinks the way they think he does, the issue isn't the seats. If he *doesn't* think the way he does, but anon is 100% convinced he does anyway... the issue isn't the seats.

I don't know how people stay in relationships like this.

I just... find the presentation of the post very... weird. If it was labeled a rant/vent, I would've been like, okay, that sounds super frustrating AND there seems to be a deeper issue that's not being addressed here.

I'm no psychiatrist, but I imagine people stay in relationships like this because a healthy relationship wasn't modeled for them in childhood and they never worked on that for themselves.

I do this. I solve this by keeping a seat next to my seat as The Seat for Things. It mostly works. Every one and a while I do need to clear the couch for the wife, though.

I can get the annoyance even if I don’t relate to the cause. It’s extremely common to set things on seats *shrug*

Honestly if he hates folding the laundry in the bedroom, find someplace else. Or set up a surface in the bedroom suitable for folding. I personally detest folding clothes on the bed because it’s a soft, billowy surface. So I fold on the dining room table because it’s the perfect size. But I also have a clean clothes hamper in the laundry room because about half the time I won’t be able to fold right when the stuff comes out of the dryer.

His attitude does seem like shit so maybe there’s something more below the surface for you guys. Or it could just be that he sucks verbalizing his thoughts and feelings. My husband does because he was raised that way. But after a couple decades together, I can figure out enough to prod him into sharing and talking it through. “Is it this?” “Yes.” Or “no, not even close.” Or, “not really but kinda related…” it can get annoying sometimes but usually it doesn’t bother me because we’re still talking stuff through together instead of arguing. And because we’ve been doing it for a few years now, we don’t have to do it as often, he’s gotten much better.

We also learned how to compromise. After many years of rental houses, we finally own our own home. And we agreed from the early days that we’d make it however we like regardless of convention and love everything about it. So when we bought a place that could fit the game room we’d always dreamed of having but it came with a ginormous master bedroom, we put the game room stuff in there. It looks bizarre and we love it! Point being, arranging the house to fit the family instead of forcing the family to fit the house might be the way to go. If he would benefit from having a table in the master bedroom or somewhere upstairs, then find a spot and put one there. It sounds like it would benefit the whole household.

Our house *couldn’t fit the game room of our dreams. Stupid phone.

Can you sit in his seats and refuse to move?

But I hear you on the seats as surfaces thing. I have seats all over my house because I have bad arthritis and can't stand for more than a minute without serious pain. Visitors arrive, put bags on seats, including both seats in the hallway. Then they stand and talk. I have to stand, if I don't want them to feel they can stay (fatigue is in the 8-10 range and I want them out the house) or move into another room to sit because their fucking bags are on the seats I've out right there to sit on.

Ableds can be so bloody crass at times.

Guy who is a big slob but somehow only inconveniences other people is so common. It seems logical just to put it all on his seat, but otherwise, put anything he leaves on seats in a box, tell him you're throwing it out on whatever day garbage day is, and do it.

No my partner and I don't do this but as others have said, sounds like you may have frustration about more than just this, or his cluttering problem is worse than just using seats as surfaces.

As someone who's been married for a long time, I can tell there's more to it than just your husband's habit of cluttering up surfaces - though that's plenty annoying by itself. People who haven't been in a long term relationship will likely not get it, but when you live with someone 24/7, the small acts of self-centeredness and inconsideration build up over time and when they're daily occurrences, it can drive a marriage into the ground. It's about the laundry. It's about your partner's refusal to perform basic adult tasks on a competent level while creating unnecessary inconvenience for everyone else simply because he will not get his shit together. Please note I said "will not" vs. "cannot" because of course he can fold laundry upstairs, or do it right away so it's not all over the place. He just chooses not to, because he doesn't care that it upsets you.

This article is relevant:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/she-divorced-me-i-left-dishes-by-the-sink_b_9055288

People here get mad when I say this is largely a man problem. I'm not saying no women ever do this, but it's naive to overlook how frequently men expect to be the center of their marriages, for household schedules to revolve around them for their convenience and comfort, and how they expect their female partners to work towards that goal without contributing a comparable effort towards doing the same for their female partners. It's a toxic gender role thing that affects a lot of men, even if they regard themselves as supportive, feminist, loving partners, etc. It's deeply, deeply ingrained in both men AND women - because women often can't/won't/don't want to see it, either.

It's sad, but I see a lot of this firsthand - women I'm friends with who are struggling because they're practically living like a single-parent household but at the same time have alllll the excuses for why their husbands never do any cleaning, never change a diaper, never do a school pick-up, have no idea what their children's schedules are like or what's going on in their lives, spend zero time with their kids even on weekends when they're free, can't/won't pick up household chores when their wife is sick, gets upset if his wife is away and he has to "babysit" his own children for a few hours, etc. etc. He's a great father, though! The women are victims, but they're also enablers even if they don't realize it.

What's crazy is that even people who are sympathetic to this issue will still give advice to the woman like it's her responsibility to teach her husband how to be an adult, and blame the problems on her lack of communication. Why should a woman have to teach her adult husband how to use a laundry hamper? Why should she have to communicate that it sucks to leave your crap all over the house for someone else to clean up? Who tells the woman the 1001 household tasks she automatically does every day, on her own, because she's a responsible adult?

Like I said, the sexism is deeply, deeply ingrained.

I don't know what to tell you, except you have my sympathies and if you want your marriage to be healthy, you should have a good, hard think about this and address it with your husband. I'd try to avoid anger and yelling (not always easy) but don't mince words, either. He'll likely be defensive about it and in denial, because no man likes to be reminded that they're behaving like a child. Good luck.

+1

Tbh my partner and I both had very bad chore keeping habits when we first got together and still aren't great about some things. Being able to communicate about it openly and without anger was really important for improving the situation. It helped a lot to be able to say things without sugarcoating it and without getting disrespectful. The dynamic of ignoring things that bother you and your partner expecting to be taken care of can be extremely damaging to a relationship, especially in the all too common situation of a woman doing far more work than a man, as anon above me described. I've seen a lot of relationships fall apart from a husband's entitlement towards his wife's hard work.

I get really angry sometimes about things like my partner forgetting a chore when I am actually upset about other stuff or feeling like our relationship dynamic has been too heavy on my end for a minute (like when I am taking a bigger burden emotionally, financially or physically with our shared responsibility for whatever reason). Typically this can be resolved or we can talk through the frustration of being in a situation where one person has to take care of more things for a bit, she does it for me and I do it for her when the time comes. Do you feel your partner isn't pulling his weight in other areas, or you are having to "look after" him more than you want to? Does your partner not tolerate it when you have quirks that irritate him, but expect you to work around his preferences even when they bother you? Are there chores you dislike that he always comes through on doing or are you always the one to get things done?

It sounds off to me when you say you worked on yourself to improve areas he had criticisms of you on, while he didn't do the same, and implied that he uses sexist language or ideas to put you down. It sounded like he may be disrespectful to you. idk if you were just venting and being hyperbolic but that attitude would definitely bug me. You sound very resentful and honestly, like it may be for good reason. I hope you guys can move past this and his attitude towards you can change, truly wishing you the best. Having this resentment between you is definitely not good for your relationship, trying to work through it whether the relationship succeeds or fails is better imo than staying in a state of frustration and disrespect.

Just returning to drop this: https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/comments/17yzw35/he_knows_he_doesnt_care/

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[ SECRET POST #6469 ]

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