When will you have the kitchen alone? Just put everything back where is really belongs. Just get moving everything back and eventually he will give up : )

Its been a year and a half and DH still puts things in the wrong place. I don't bother explaining why something belongs somewhere else, I just move it.

My mom does that everytime she comes to visit! Apparently "I" keep everything in the wrong pace! I've quit complaining though, since she watches my three kids. Small price to pay for the occaisional vaca. DH would never touch kitchen arrangement. He cooks about twice a year.

At least he puts it away! My DH likes things in plain view (i.e. on the countertops) including all of our oils, vinegars, and each person's vitamins (so we don't forget to take them). And the island is the landing zone for mail even though we have a message center 5' away.

Don't say a word. Just put everything back the way it was, but take his lunch bowls, powdered protein drink mix, and other random things and put them out in the garage. He'll get the message.

Maybe he's a little P/A (like a DH that I know) and feels like you put his stuff in a crappy spot but can't say it out loud?

My DH could never find his sport drinks and energy gels in the overloaded pantry.
During the reno- I create DH spaces and dedicated 3 shelves in the pull out pantry for sports food(we do share some items but I don't end up with cases of extra Boost etc as he can see how much is around.
Please forgive him and come up with a plan.

Pasta in the banquet? Seriously? Sounds like your husband is nesting. Do you think he could be pregnant?

Do you go and "straighten up" his man cave without discussing it first? Maybe he is sending a message.
I do know that everything my wife does is with the noblest of intentions. But not everything she does for me works out to really benefit me. So be sure that one does not say any words that inflict permanent wounds.

This post was edited by bus_driver on Tue, Mar 4, 14 at 21:48

I had an ex wife that did the same thing... come home, open the silverware drawer, and surprise! it's now the place mats, or the glasses are now where the dishes were, or the sofa is now where the TV used to be...
... notice I said "ex wife" ;) Now, the only thing my current wife of 31 years does "wrong" is put the knives back in the block backwards, because she is left handed....but she's still a keeper anyway :)

This post was edited by ctycdm on Thu, Mar 6, 14 at 22:38

april_love:

Despite my being a licensed contractor in two states, a columnist, and a successful businessperson who had a 3.67 GPA in college, I am apparently unable to properly load a dishwasher, according to my wife of 32 years, and am only allowed to wash towels, work clothes, and blue jeans.

You've got more training to do, obviously.

Jellytoast--hahaha!!

My husband claims I don't load the dishwasher efficiently enough. He likes for there to be absolutely no room left in it before he runs it. He's an engineer so he seems to think he is the only one who can do this right. However, what's perplexing to me is how, despite the fact that he is an engineer, cannot figure out where things go in the kitchen. He would rather scream across the house "Where's the _____?" Instead of thinking logically and opening drawers. He also has claimed more than once (despite the fact that he's SOOOO logic-based), that he couldn't figure out whether the dishes were clean or not so he just left all the dirty dishes out so that I could determine whether they should be put in the dishwasher.

I try and grin and bear it. He does occasionally load the dishwasher, so I feel like I shouldn't say a thing. He doesn't give me the same benefit though--he likes to criticize the way I load despite the fact that I DO load 90% of all dishes and also unload it all too. I find that crazy unfair--I hold my tongue for his 10% effort and he never holds his tongue for my 90% effort. Sigh.

Maybe you ought to have a silent rebellion like some of the others have said.....then go rearrange something of his!

farmhousemom, your idea is very sweet. I wish I lived in a world like that. My husband would see that approach as a sign of weakness and start planning his next attack.

Maybe he only put his things away because those were the only items he knew what to do with? He is a good man otherwise, right? Pick your battles my grandmother used to say... Runs for cover : )))

Sorry if this sounds unsupportive bu lighten up April life is too short. Maybe the two of you can decide together what makes the most sense.

Ok all - thanks for the best laughs I have had in a while!

31 years of marriage have taught me to choose my battles. It is easier to let him have his things where he wants them. Best thing about our new house was my husband has his own office and he can do what ever he wants in it. He still wants me to decorate it and arrange it so it looks nice but he has file cabinets and a large closet that he deals with on his own. Not how I would arrange things but it is not my office. Any chance you can allocate some real estate in the kitchen to just him and his stuff?

Love the posts below:

"farmhousemom, your idea is very sweet. I wish I lived in a world like that. My husband would see that approach as a sign of weakness and start planning his next attack."

"april_love: Despite my being a licensed contractor in two states, a columnist, and a successful businessperson who had a 3.67 GPA in college, I am apparently unable to properly load a dishwasher, according to my wife of 32 years, and am only allowed to wash towels, work clothes, and blue jeans. You've got more training to do, obviously."

And my absolute favorite one:

"My mom does that everytime she comes to visit! Apparently "I" keep everything in the wrong pace! I've quit complaining though, since she watches my three kids. Small price to pay for the occaisional vaca. DH would never touch kitchen arrangement. He cooks about twice a year."

This post was edited by rtwilliams on Wed, Mar 5, 14 at 9:49

I would certainly talk to him, he might have considered that he was doing something positive.

I agree on choosing your battles and looking at the big picture. After all, you could have come home and found that he had moved all his protein drink stuffâ¦into someone else's kitchen.

Put everything back where it was, and tell him, straight up, that it was inconsiderate and selfish of him to rearrange the kitchen without talking to you and grabbing the best real estate for his stuff while stuffing your stuff in random inconvenient places. Add that you are open to having a conversation about rearranging stuff but if he does it again without consulting you will

a) Put the kitchen back where it was; and
b) Go and rearrange his stuff in the shop/garage/man cave (wherever will hit him the hardest) randomly

Then follow through, if needed.

Does he have his own drawer or shelf? My DH has a shelf in the kitchen for any stuff that is off limits to others.

Everyone has their areas of "expertise". My DH would agree that I know more about kitchen organization than he does. He might debate an issue or offer suggestions but in the end will defer to me.

I in turn to do not get involved with any of the landscaping/gardening around the house. I might ask questions, give my opinion etc. but in the end its up to him. He has the most knowledge, does all the work, and it is his hobby. So I just stand back and enjoy the results.

Of course there are other areas where we just defer to the person who has the most knowledge or is the most interested. I would think this is how it is in most relationships. Sometimes somebody intrudes a little but you can work it out. Recently I did not like how Dh was planning on dealing with a privacy issue on a deck he was building. We came up with a compromise but I said it has completely his decision as it was his baby!

Thank you for the laughs everyone!

I'm a little more calm today. He was trying to do something positive but failed miserably.

Our kitchen was completed about 18 months ago (sans backsplash.) We gutted our kitchen completely and changed the layout. At that time DH wouldn't give me ANY feedback on what HE wanted. He's been complaining about the placement of his items since that time.

He was off again today so I left him a really nice note explaining the things in his organizational system that didn't work for me. Hopefully he'll get it right.

I'm going to pick my battles and save arguing for something much more important.

...and no, he doesn't put anything away EVER. :-) He would leave things out because he claimed he didn't know where anything went. This may work out in my favor in the end.

april-I am *sure* we will be dealing with this same thing in a few short months.... Normally he doesn't care but when things are 'newly' placed he doesn't tend to remember and I have to hunt all over for them in some random (to me) spot.

I have similar issues to OOTM_mom. My mom doesn't even visit all that often but she's shorter than I am so she rearranges things that are more to her liking af ar as reach goes. ??? Whatever, if I did that at her house she'd have a FIT! ;)

I also am the official dishwasher loader unless it's completely empty because I am 'better at it' (a total crock) but then he'll complain that he doesn't like where I put certain things that he swears should be on the bottom not the top. I guess then I say he's 'better at' taking out the trash, haha what a dork.

I figure if that's our worst problem then we are doing pretty good.

Can't wait to what 'surprise' you come home to today.

My DH would be siding with yours. When we finished the kitchen I was always rearranging it to find the arrangement that worked best for ME. My DH finally told me, you can rearrange all you want but stop moving the breakfast stuff..

HE was getting frustrated because he would get up in the morning and wouldn't know where to find the cereals, bread, bananas (yea, I would move them to a different spot on the counter as well), etc.

Three years later there are still certain kitchen utensils he won't put away (grater, sieves, etc) because he doesn't know where they go and that's the arrangement we have and that's ok with me. It's easier and faster for me to put them away than to hunt for them (trying to follow the logic of my DH's brain) if he has put them away.

In our house it's the opposite. Despite the fact that I do all the cooking, DH does the grocery shopping and organizes the cabinets and puts things away. I know exactly where to go when I cook, but I have to stop and really think when I'm unloading groceries and the dishwasher. (Yes, he does dishes too and I never put them in correctly). I will be relying on him heavily to decide where things should go in our new kitchen.

Three years later there are still certain kitchen utensils he won't put away (grater, sieves, etc) because he doesn't know where they go

I think I might prefer that to having them put away in the wrong place!

My DH also can't figure out where a few things go when he unloads the DW, even though it's been almost two years since the remodel, we didn't change the layout, and our kitchen has only three cabinets with drawers.

My husband is the cook and shopper but his default organizational style is to shove everything in the nearest cupboard. I'm the designer and organizer. When we moved into this kitchen last week, I put stickies on all cabs and drawers before I went to work with my suggested organization and told him to change around as he saw fit. He was off work so he loaded up all the cabs. So far he's changed a few drawers and uppers around to suit his cooking style but we both mostly know where everything is and all is harmonious - so far anyway.

I took my mom's advice when I married - knowing we were both going to work outside the home forever and that I certainly didn't want to get stuck with all the chores: if you don't want someone to help out around the house, the quickest way to get your wish is to criticize or re-do everything they do. So I keep my mouth shut for the most part if he does something I wouldn't do the same way personally, and he does me the same courtesy.

More and more I appreciate single life!

My favorite post:
"More and more I appreciate single life"

Now that made me LOL!

P.S. I too wish I lived in farmhousemom's world but it sounds like my DH is jellytoast's twin!

Play scavenger hunt! Put things in weird places for him to find. Don't forget to remember where you hid them.

Hey, a rant is a rant. It is just to release frustration and we don't really mean everything we rant about. It is not like this will end a marriage!

For Christmas, my DH requested a new coffee maker, the one with the little pods. So, I bought it, along with a bunch of pods. To me, these things should be in the pantry so that's where I put them, many times. DH kept moving them back to the mug cabinet. His argument was that it was more efficient if they were with the mugs above the coffee maker. Now I just leave them there.

Thank heaven he doesn't take cream.

Canuck, I'm with your DH on that one :) . And I just moved my measuring spoons and the wee prep bowls to the spice cupboard since that's where I use them 90% of the time.

Blfenton, "Following my husbands'a logic" lol! I have to do that! In a positive light, it helps me connect with DH, and keeps my mind sharp.

I like a good rant, I feel so much better after, and a day (or 3) later things are back to normal.

I hope some of us can actually consider farmhousemom's advice; you might be pleasantly surprised! After 25 years of marriage and more than one rough patch, DH and I have learned some valuable lessons. One of the most important ones I have learned is that most times our husbands just want a little respect and to feel like they are being heard.

That said, I do have it lucky in the kitchen (for the most part.) DH does not cook and leaves the organization generally up to me. If he has a need for his (few) things he speaks it and we figure it out.

He does not, however, like to be as brilliant at home as he is at work, and pulls the same "I didn't know of they were clean or dirty" trick. Really, dude?

LOL!
I've always wondered if special inefficiency is a gender thing, found strongest in the male variety. I've never experienced anything to conclude my wondering was off base.

I remember going to unload the DW, which my DH had kindly loaded the night before. He always said I could pack 5lbs of crap into a 2lb bag.

I found he'd tried the same. However, he'd taken the big pasta pot, inverted it snugly over the thing that squirts all the water up and around the DW. So, that pot was sparkling clean, but everything else in the DW was... crusty from the drying heat. Uh-huh. I thanked him, but asked him to keep that in mind in the future. It only took 3 or 4 more times before I became the loader and he the empty-er.

I picked my battles. I think the constantly having to acquiesce was part of my not being sorry or missing the extra work when he became history. He's somewhere in (I quote) "paradise" where GF's mom does his laundry, polishes his boots (no longer work boots, because he's a kept man) and probably cleans his beer bottles.

Yes. Another of many reasons I'm sooo comfortable/relieved to be single. I know where everything is. Any dirt is my dirt and to quote that Swiffer commercial, "How much dirt can two one person make?

Be careful what you ask for (even without words). My DH built a nice stone wall around our wellhead a few years ago, as a Mother's Day present to me. I said it was lovely, but voiced my concern that it wasn't mortared and that it could be dangerous with the kids (our youngest was 6, and cousins about the same age). He pulled it down, never rebuilt it, and ignores my requests to rebuild the stone wall under the front porch that I had built when we moved in (but pulled out to put hardware cloth behind to keep critters out). I've been having problems with my left elbow and wrist (not that my left shoulder felt too good after building that wall, even though my rotator cuff torn 20 years ago has healed), just not as young as I used to be and can't rebuild it. But he built a 50-ft long stone wall in the back yard 2 years ago (using some of the stones pulled out of the other 2 projects).

Many years ago I had a neighbor, whose husband was OCD and couldn't stand clutter. If she wasn't in the immediate vicinity to supervise, he would "tidy up" on his own. He used to put anything that wasn't tied down into grocery bags and put them "away", of course never in the same place. He might put things picked up in the kitchen in a kitchen drawer, but just as likely, he might put them in the bedroom, the laundry room, or the front hall closet. Or, he might even put them in the trash bin.

His concept of clutter included salt & pepper shakers, drink coasters, the tv remote, her keys, her wallet, her purse, the mail, any piece of paper he saw. Once he put a tax refund cheque in a bag with the newspaper no one had read yet, and put it in the trash. Her life was one giant scavenger hunt.

Farmhousemom suggested the adult way to handle a situation...I'm just surprised so many don't think it will work in their situation. If you can't communicate about something as basic as kitchen placement...

Of course, I'm just so happy to have my husband BACK HOME from the hospital, I wouldn't care if he puts the pasta in the bedroom closet and the canned tomatoes by the front door :)

hmm....
Front door.
Not a bad idea.

OT . Lavender lass, so glad to hear he's home!

There was a point that when my kids were around and they put things away in the new (old now) kitchen and it wasn't in the spot that I drew on a sheet of graph paper during the reno, I decided that if that's where THEY thought it should go, I would just leave it, maybe it made more sense to them.

Although, we did move and there is a tomato knife that went MIA back then and it didn't surface after the move either....so I have no idea if it was a good plan or not.

(All the knives in the knife drawer do have a certain order, and that is non-negotiable.)

I have been blissfully divorced since 1985. I would not get married or shack up, not for all the tea in China.

(All the knives in the knife drawer do have a certain order, and that is non-negotiable.)

That's funny because every night before I go to bed I go into the knife drawer and make sure that they are all where they belong.

Almost 31 years of marriage with his and hers ranting. I learned it from my husband. We never even had a thought about not being married to each other. My hubby just vents that way, but if he doesn't stop within a few minutes, then it is my turn. Then it stops!

Some people have a dry sense of humor. Some are trying to make jokes and be funny when they post. That is their sense of humor. It doesn't mean they can't have a rational and meaningful conversation with the other person in their life. Geez, let's lighten up! I doubt the OP is seriously angry with hubby.

My mom's going to kill me!
I'm so hungry I could eat a horse!
I'm so angry I can't talk to my husband!

Back to the backsplash tile hunt..... before I pull my hair out! (Another one.)

In defense of the OP, I would probably be pretty hot under the collar myself! That is justified. We just all differ in our responses to the mess, lol!

Lavender - that is exciting and I agree - he can't put anything where ever he wants!

April, Are you speaking with your husband yet or are you still passing notes? You do realize that the path to resolution involves talking to each other, right?

Lavender, Thanks for offering some perspective as it seems to me that it's mostly lacking here.

Take care all!

I'm pretty sure we were all just having a little fun.

Nahh.
I think his life was seriously in danger.
Good thing he must have moved those knives.