Not all inconveniences in a relationship are a deal breaker, but wow, can they be annoying!
Especially when it impacts the home environment that everyone shares, like the kitchen or the bathroom's cleanliness, cringed the members of the "Am I the A**hole?" (AITAH) subReddit.
Redditor Dismal_Condition_824 was a SAHM who had her own business, and she handled most of the responsibilities of the home and her children, as well. The one thing she asked her husband to do was make sure the trash was taken out daily to avoid stinking up their apartment.
When he kept forgetting to grab the diapers off the dresser after changing their children on the changing table, not even making it to the trash, the Original Poster (OP) made a point by leaving a bag of the diapers he hadn't thrown away on his gaming chair.
She asked the sub:
"Would I be the a**hole for putting dirty diapers in my husband's gaming chair?"
The OP diligently kept her home clean to avoid unpleasant smells.
"My husband (32 Male) and I (29 Female) have two kids who are still in diapers, and I’m a SAHM (Stay-at-home mom)."
"We’re in a very small apartment, two bedrooms and two bathrooms, while we get on our feet after a cross-country move, so the kiddos share a room, and we have to be careful to keep the place clean so it doesn't get out of control.
"Because it’s a small apartment, it gets stinky really fast if trash, diapers, or cat litter pile up, so it needs to be taken out daily or every other day. I got dog poop bags to put the diapers in so we can throw them in the trashcan in the kitchen and not have to take them out to the dumpster immediately."
"This is actually a system we started years ago because we used to have an attached walk-in closet in the nursery and had a trashcan in there and didn’t want the room to stink. In this home, it's in the kitchen."
The OP preferred the kitchen trash can to a Diaper Genie for a few reasons.
"There are a few reasons why I think a Diaper Genie wouldn’t work for us:"
"First, we can’t keep it in their room without it being accessible to them. Second, if I put it outside of their room, it would be three feet from the kitchen trash, so what’s the point?"
"Third, it’s just another receptacle for him to 'forget' to take out to the dumpster. Also, the kids are getting older and are potty training, so it would be a waste of money at this point."
While the OP's husband was expected to take out the trash, he frequently forgot about the diapers.
"I handle almost everything around the house and with the kids, despite also owning my own business and volunteering for hours every week."
"The trash is his chore because the frequency of it never changes. Dishes need to be done at different times, sometimes several times a day, so on and so forth. The trash only needs to be taken out once a day and can be done when he leaves for work."
"But he is constantly “forgetting” to put the diapers in the poop bags. He more often “forgets” to even throw them away and opts to let them sit on the kids dresser until I notice that he has a stockpile of them and make him throw them out."
"Then he grabs a grocery bag and throws them all away at once, which isn’t airtight and makes the trashcan in the center of the home reek."
"There’s room for the kids only on the changing table, so the dirty diaper goes to the side, and then he puts the new one on and forgets the dirty one is there. When I do diapers, I immediately put the dirty diaper in a baggie before putting on the new one so I don’t forget."
The OP felt like it was time to make a point.
"I wasn’t feeling well today, and he told me to lay down, so I did and let him take care of the kids."
"The issue is, I walked into their room after their nap, and there was ANOTHER pile of five dirty diapers sitting on their dresser."
"Would I be wrong if I put them on his gaming chair until he 'remembered' to dispose of them properly? Or am I letting the irritation get to me and going too far?"
"AITAH?"
As a sidenote, the OP did mention in the comments that she felt like ADHD or other health concerns might be involved.
"From how he puts it, he just forgets about it. The task of changing the diaper is done, and the after-part is just wiped from his brain. We’ve had so many conversations about this, and I just can't anymore, hence the post and putting the diapers where he wouldn’t forget to dispose of them."
"He’s heading out for a doctor’s appointment to check some lab work. I’m convinced there’s something going on because he seems to be experiencing cognitive decline."
"He's also ADHD and unmedicated. He's getting this blood work done, and after we see the results, we can look into a low dose of medication that works for him.
"I’ll update again when he gets home."
On Redditor Dismal_Condition_824's personal Reddit page, she left a bag of dirty diapers on her husband's gaming chair without waiting for reactions.
"The infamous diapers in the gaming chair."
u/Dismal_Condition_824/Reddit
Fellow Redditors weighed in:
- NTA: Not the A**hole
- YTA: You're the A**hole
- ESH: Everybody Sucks Here
- NAH: No A**holes Here
Some encouraged the OP to call her husband out with visible cues.
"Do it, and come back to tell us about it. No, but for real, NTA. This is the bare minimum."
"Aside from the basic idea of throwing away your trash when you're done with it, this could pose real health and safety issues. If direct consequences are necessary to prevent tragedy, then by all means, go for it." - CartographerFew5361
"NTA, it is trashy as f**k to leave a dirty diaper anywhere. He needs to stop being lazy, put it immediately in the bin, and have a higher quality of life." - mmmeeeeeeeeehhhhhhh
"Do it, and when he asks WTF, say incredulously, 'What, is that not where they belong?' NTA." - tictactoss
"Good woman for putting them in a bag first at least; spillage was a bit of a concern, but you're absolutely right for putting them in a place like this where he can't 'forget' about them."
"Hopefully he will realize that on the grand scheme of things, it's not such a big deal to run them down to the bin!" - BlackTree78910
"Have him put an alarm on his phone twice a day to take out the trash, cat litter, etc. Doing this helped my husband so much with remembering to take the garbage cans to the curb on garbage days."
"We have three kids and jobs. Life gets busy just keeping up with kid schedules and work stuff and general life crap. The garbage was such an easy thing to slip out of mind for him." - brerosie33
Others agreed and encouraged the OP to keep escalating until her husband got the point.
"Tell him you plan to do it first, and then follow through, like, 'If I find one more diaper left out and not thrown away in a poop bag, then I swear, I'll be putting them in your gaming chair to help you remember.'"
"Then, when he throws a fit about finding them there, you can say you warned him, and it's simply the consequences of his own actions (or rather, lack thereof)." - Muzukashii-Kyoki
"I had a roommate once who never cleaned his dirty dishes. They would be out for days, or weeks, rotting and gathering flies. I ended up cleaning that s**t because I couldn't stand it. I told him many times to wash his dishes, and he never did. One day I had enough of his shit and told him this was his last warning."
"After another two weeks of his rotting, dirty dishes piled up, I took all his dishes and put them in his bed sheets and in his clothes drawers in his bureau. He was p**sed, but I told him I was going to be doing this moving forward if his dishes weren't done after 48 hours."
"It took one more time, but he started doing his dishes after that."
"NTA, but tell him what you are going to do first." - PuppiesAndPixels
"Ask if he’s a man or another child you need to parent because his Jedi mind trick and weaponized incompetence are not going to work on you. Let him know in the kindest way possible that you want a partner, not another kid."
"Also, this is the big thing, but him acting this way reeeeeallly adds to the top of the 'I’m not attracted to you anymore' mountain, and he is literally creating that mountain stone by stone with literal crap. Do they really expect to behave like that and then think women will just jump all over them later?"
"I don’t care if you work or are a SAHM; both are jobs, and even if he works away from home, you both work all day, and there should be an equal share of chores for both partners. The bar is in h**l, I swear." - chickennuggetsnsubs
"You would not be a**hole. I came home from work once, and my daughter was in a CRUSTY, poopy diaper, meaning that she must have been sitting and playing with s**t on her for a LONG time, and my husband was asleep."
"I cleaned her up, and then I took the poop out of her diaper and put it right in his work boots."
"He came straight home from work and showered, saying he smelled something all day."
"I told him I put s**t in his work boots. I told him if she could walk around s**tty, so can he."
"My daughter is grown now, and he laughs about it, but I promise you, her diaper was changed EVERY time I came home from literally anywhere after that." - TheLastword63
"When you become a parent, your personal standards need to go up because they rely on you to keep them safe. They don't know how to keep themselves safe. That's what parents are for."
"He chose to be a parent. So he needs to parent. Cleaning properly keeps them safe. Cleaning properly is PARENTING." - LilacRed
The OP was grateful for the feedback and shared a few updates.
"He just got home from work and saw the diapers in his chair. He came to me, apologized, and promised to do better."
"To that, I promised to keep putting the diapers in more and more inconvenient spots for him until he remembered to toss them PROPERLY himself."
"He wasn’t at all angry, and we had a good laugh at the end! Revenge with playful banter and laughter? I'll take it!"
"We discussed the diaper genie again and whether it would be easier for him to remember, and he insisted that no, he doesn’t want it, and he wants to be better."
Then things took an unexpected turn.
"Ummm, everyone, we got the blood work back. He has hyperthyroidism."
"That, on top of the ADHD, can cause some serious memory issues and brain fog."
"He’s starting meds that should help, so fingers crossed this’ll resolve itself!"
"Man, I feel like an a**hole."
The OP might have felt guilty after discovering her husband's diagnosis, but the subReddit pointed out to her that, regardless of health concerns, ADHD symptoms, and other factors, a person can find ways to still get things done, using methods that work for them, if they really want to.
Based on the OP's updates, this might have been an innocent enough mistake that the husband will genuinely work on correcting, but there are plenty of Redditors out there who have not been that lucky.
skybluepink15/Imgur
