It seems that in every couple there is one person who is more concerned about having a clean house than the other person.

If you were the one who wanted everything neat and tidy, what would you do if your spouse constantly left a big mess in the kitchen and didn’t clean it up until days later?

In this story, one man is really frustrated that his spouse never cleans up the kitchen. They’ve even talked about it, but nothing has changed.

One day, he finally took action, but did he go too far?

Let’s read the whole story.

AITA for throwing away food my husband leaves laying around, even if it’s “still on the sheet,” but days later?

So, my (37m) husband (36m) doesn’t like to clean up the kitchen when he’s done with it.

He’ll wait until there’s no room to really function and then he’ll either badger me to clean it up so he can cook or he’ll clean it up and then insist I cook the next few days because he spent 4 hours on his off day cleaning the kitchen.

At the outset I want to say that I tend towards putting anything I use directly in the dishwasher these days. I wasn’t always mindful, but I have changed over the years.

He’s really sick of his husband’s mess.

Anything that’s left out overnight or all day is from him, not me.

Pots and pans can clutter the sink for days, and I frequently don’t even use the kitchen besides grabbing something out of the fridge and putting a plate or cup or utensil in the washer.

Recently enough I started to get annoyed enough by this whole cycle that I sat him down and said that something had to change.

I’m tired of him making cookies, or muffins, or preparing a snack, and then leaving it all out.

I asked him to try to be mindful and just put it away as you use it – and wipe the counter once you’re done, don’t just make a plate of food and go play video games leaving the kitchen a mess.

He seemed to understand, kind of.

He said he would, but he sounded annoyed like I was making an issue that he didn’t agree was an issue.

Fine, we don’t have to agree on what we feel are issues but we should be able to respect the others needs and opinions.

Anyway, I came home the other day and he’d made cookies.

Great, he loves those. I don’t eat them myself but who cares, it’s for him.

Do you think he cleaned up the mess? Nope.

Except there’s crumbs everywhere, the cookie sheet with cookies is sitting there (uncovered, 12 hours after cooking).

The next day it was still there in the morning and I asked him if he’d take care of that (he had the day off, I was out the door for work).

I came home and nothing had been done about the cookies and there was extra mess.

Now, they’re both upset.

So I dumped the tray into the bin, cleaned up the kitchen, and went to decompress after work.

Now he’s ticked because “it’s fine to leave them out,” and “youre being ridiculous about leaving stuff around.”

I said that if he can’t be responsible enough to clean up after his culinary adventures, anything left out for over a day isn’t my issue and if I have to clean it myself I’m not wasting time going about the stuff you should have done in addition (sealing and storing things, basically).

I get it. A messy kitchen is annoying especially when someone else created the mess.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

This person compares the husband to a baby.

Here’s a suggestion to leave the guy.

It’s not that complicated.

I like this idea. I might try it myself.

Seriously, gross!

They need to get on the same page, or their relationship won’t last.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.