I’ve asked multiple times for dishes to be rinsed right away. They don’t need to be washed, they don’t need to be put in the dishwasher. All I ask is that dishes get rinsed right away, so stuff doesn’t dry and harden and become a pain to rinse later.
My husband has consistently refused to do this.
When dishes aren’t rinsed, it turns what should be a five-second rinse into twenty or thirty minutes of me leaning over the sink scrubbing things.
A couple of important points:
\- I am disabled and deal with chronic pain. I have limited movement I can do in a day. Leaning over the sink for extended time is outright *painful*, and leaves me unable to do anything else for the rest of the day.
\- We are only two people living in the house, so we do not run the dishwasher everyday. This means dishes will sit for two or three days before going into the dishwasher – so food has time to really cement on there if it’s not rinsed. So for people who claim you don’t need to rinse your dishes before they go into the dishwasher, that may be true *if you run your dishwasher daily.* But that’s not our case.
Yesterday, I tried to clean the kitchen since my husband wasn’t home. When I unloaded the dishwasher, there were multiple dishes that were still dirty because they didn’t get rinsed before going in (ex: out of six bowls, four still had visible food caked on the inside). So I had to set those aside to be scraped/scrubbed before running them through the dishwasher again.
Then I went to reload the dishwasher, but half of the dishes (my husband’s half) had food dried on that I had to scrub to get off. He had made eggs the day before and the spatula, pan, and bowl all had dried egg caked on them. His coffee cups had solidified rings from the creamer he didn’t rinse. All in all, it was a disgusting and tiring experience to finally just get the *dishwasher* taken care of, not to touch on the rest of the kitchen.
By the end of it, I was in pain, I was exhausted, and when my husband got home I told him I’m not cleaning the kitchen anymore if he can’t even rinse his dishes. He still insists he shouldn’t have to rinse his dishes, that the dishwasher should get them clean (it doesn’t – I’ve shown him that the dishes were dirty even after he ran them through the heavy duty/pots and pans setting). He also says if it bothers me, then *I* can be the one to rinse everything.
I told him it’s not my job to follow him around cleaning up after him, and he should be responsible for rinsing his own dishes. I also pointed out that always using the heavy duty setting on the dishwasher is just using more water and electricity without actually getting things clean, so it’s not a solution (especially since we are trying to be more careful about our bills and trying to cut back on electric/water use).
He still insists I’m being unreasonable, so I need some impartial input. AITA for asking him to rinse his dishes, and refusing to clean the kitchen if he doesn’t?
NTA – stop doing that chore, clearly it is not well suited to you. let the whole mess land in his lap. I have to ask though, why (in the specific case of things having “hardened”) are you not mentioning soaking the whole lot. No it’s not a fix all but it helps a LOT with any scrubbing.
My husband doesn’t soak anything because he leaves things to ‘soak’ for days.
And he still doesn’t rinse anything.
His version of ‘soaking’ is to fill the sink with water and leave his dirty dishes in it, so it creates a soup of grease/cereal/milk/coffee/creamer/sauce. And he lets that sit there for days. It makes the whole kitchen smell vile and renders the sink completely unusable.
He finally only stopped after I threw an absolute fit over it because the entire house smelled like the fetid cesspool that was congealing in the sink and I hadn’t been able to use the kitchen for days. So he stopped ‘soaking’ his dishes, but now he doesn’t rinse them at all and I have to deal with hard/dried on food instead.
Needs a deeper talk you’re clearly not the asshole if you’ve shown him examples and he continues to ignore it and do everything inefficiently the problem lies with him and should be addressed before he expects you to just be comfortable with it, and “hopefully just accept that’s how he is.”
There are two issues here, OP, a practical one and an emotional/partnership one. NTA for the partnership one. 90% of the time, I would point out that demands are not partnership and you have to find a compromise space, but if you’re doing everything else including the dishwasher, expecting him to rinse his dishes is so small a task it’s not worth compromising on. You’re right. It’s incredibly painful to read.
Now, for the practical. Sometimes rinsing isn’t it. Sometimes dried food is dried food. Unless your partner has a very good reason for not washing those dishes himself, he needs to give them a scrub if the food debris is difficult.. “He works and brings home the income” isn’t it.
If rinsing doesn’t always work, and he wants to whine about being asked to do dishes himself, the next two steps are soaking dishes instead of rinsing (better for his debris) or running the dishwasher more often. Even running without detergent is better than letting things sit for three days. Key to remember though… this ought to be his task, and if he’s not willing to take it on, you should be taking a long hard look at him.
Your dishwasher should be able to handle this. Unless there is something wrong with it, in which case you should tell your husband to fix it or replace it, it can handle food that dried before you had a chance to run it.
NTA, and I agree that almost every dishwasher should be able to handle dishes that have not been rinsed. In fact, some newer dishwashers argue against rinsing dishes, because they use sensors to determine how dirty the load is, although they do recommend scraping any excess before loading.
The first thing that your spouse should check is that the filter and the spray arms are not clogged. This is pretty easy on most models (check your manual or look online.)
Your dishwasher may also have a ‘rinse’ setting that you could run daily, if you aren’t running a full clean cycle.
NTA. You’ve communicated clearly and he’s watched you in pain but still won’t help. That’s concerning.
Practical solution? Stop doing his dishes entirely. Only wash what you use. He’ll figure it out real quick when he runs out of clean bowls.
NTA – but stop scrubbing and just SOAK dishes that still have food left on them. After a little bit of soaking in hot water, they should clean up easily
Nta but our opinion isn’t going to change anything. He does not want to rinse the dishes and he won’t.
You have bigger problems than just the dishes. A lack of care and respect are just a few.
You could try marriage counseling. But, if he won’t rinse the dishes to reduce your physical pain, he’s not going to go to reduce your emotional pain either.
You gotta ask yourself how much you can deal with.
UpdateMe
NTA.
But, I remember reading your previous post about your husband repeatedly disrupting your sleep. And now, he can’t even rinse a plate? Does your husband even like you? I don’t mean that to be mean. But, it seems like your husband is trying to make your life more difficult in small yet annoying ways, that certainly add up over time. Is there anything redeeming about him? Does he bring any positives to the relationship?
You have a husband problem. And you really need to think hard about what you want to do about it.
NTA – The real issue here is that your husband simply doesn’t respect you. If my partner had a chore where I was doing something that was causing them pain while completing that chore, you’d better bet that I would stop doing that thing. Why would I want to hurt my partner? If it was a simple thing like just rinsing a dish and giving it a few scrubs, of course I would do that. Rinsing out a cereal bowl takes less than a minute. Rinsing out and giving a swipe or two at a pan used to take eggs takes maybe 2 minutes. Your husband is lazy, selfish, and for some reason has lost respect for you. He doesn’t care if he’s causing you pain. If it were me, I’d insist on couples therapy.
Info: why are you letting dishes sit for multiple days before putting them in the dishwasher? Why not just put them in the dishwasher as soon as you use them? And why are you responsible for his dishes to begin with?