Do you get angry when your spouse "uses up" household products

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here. Most of these suggestions are helpful.
I guess that is what I would expect from her. She could try to remind me if I’m forgetting to replace certain things, or suggest a shared shopping list. Her solution is to tell me not to use stuff and/or hide it. That’s what I find problematic.

You sound exhausting.

When my DH uses something up, he tells me and either picks up more himself, or if I'm going to the store that day I'll offer to get it. I don't need to remind him because he's a friggin' adult. If he consistently forgot to tell me or get more, yea, I'd hide things and tell him not to use it.

Would you treat a roommate this way? Probably not. If you would respect a roommate enough to replace things immediately, you need to give your wife that same respect.

OP here,
I grocery shop every week and have no problem restocking items. That doesn’t mean I have never used something and didn’t replace it immediately. So you have never planned to use a recipe and realized you forgot one item on the list? If not kudos to you.
As for a roommate, I wouldn’t use the roommates stuff without asking, but I also wouldn’t pay for housing, healthcare, and student loans for a room mate either.

If you grocery shop, why aren't YOU stocking up on the things you like to consume? How often are you using things up and forgetting to replace them? Once in awhile is okay, weekly is not.

I do stock up on things I use. It would be weird for me to go to the store
every week and buy stuff I don’t use. If it were just a matter of me using stuff and not replacing it, I wouldn’t post on
A forum about as that is obviously problematic behavior. I get the impression she doesn’t want me to use things she buys. She says this even when stuff is not close to running out.

First you say you forget to replace things and just want your wife to remind you, then you say that you do replace things and wife is just crazy. So which is it?

OP. My original post says she gets mad when I use household products. This is regardless of whether there is more left or not. For example, there may be 3 jars of tomato sauce in the house, and she will make a snide remark if I open one. Her comment about wanting stuff to be there is a excuse because she is being selfish IMHO. This also started as soon as we moved in together , and there was no possibility of me having a history of using things up without replacing them—we just started living together .
She’s an only child so perhaps she’s not used to sharing.

May I suggest you expend less energy posting about it here and more energy solving the problem with her directly? I also suggest you ditch the “only child” talk.

[Anonymous]

At least your husbands are actually doing chores

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Am I the only one who cannot believe that people hide groceries and laundry detergent?! If this is a case of really tight budgets than I guess I understand; otherwise, a home is shared along with the products inside.

This.

[Anonymous]

So is the problem that it’s her stuff you’re using? Like in the tomato sauce example, is it that she bought them, or if you went to the store and got them would she be upset if you used one a week later?

Do you keep finances separate? I could see being upset if she pays for these things personally and you’re constantly using them and not asking permission. That would seem like an issue of respecting ownership and financial household contributions.

If it’s not that, I’m back to thinking she’s either exceptionally weird, or she can’t stand you to the point that she can’t stand the thought of sharing groceries with you anymore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I only get mad when DH is thoughtless about the timing of using stuff up. He’ll do things like decide to have a late-night snack of cereal and milk topped off with some milk and cookies, using up what should have been enough milk for coffee and breakfast the next morning. So when the kids I get up the next morning for school/ work, we have no milk.

At least in my house, this is exactly the problem. Wife has a plan for the remaining item and husband, unburdened by this mental load, uses it a different way and creates a new problem for her to solve.

I don’t know that I agree with this. I’m the DW and grocery shopping/cooking is my chore. If I let the milk run so low that a bowl of cereal and a glass of milk dries us up and ruins breakfast, I didn’t do my job of keeping milk stocked properly. If I realize that I’m running low on something and I have a plan for the remaining amount, I also consider it my job to communicate that I have a need for that item and no one else is to touch it. Maybe it’s because I have teenagers who eat ungodly amounts of food and don’t think about meal planning as well as a DH, but our fridge is community property. If an item is marked reserved, that’s respected, but the idea that no one is allowed to touch the last 1/4-1/8 gallon of milk without my permission because I might be saving it for breakfast is foreign and absurd to me.

Of course with such a freewheeling attitude toward milk, I try to keep 2 gallons in the fridge, and when one gets emptied it goes on the shopping list while the reserve is tapped. I don’t try to cut it close and only buy milk the day I empty the only container in the refrigerator. I can see how that would lead to complications. (I know that’s a lot of milk talk but we generally have the same rules for most consumables-one in use and a spare for when that runs out. Replace when you start using the spare.)

I'm the poster at the top of this chain. We usually keep extra milk in the house also, but it's stored in the second fridge in the basement (our kitchen fridge is a counter-depth, so not much room for multiple gallons of milk). When I get the last gallon from the basement, I make a point of going to the store that day for more so that we're restocked well before we run out. The kids are really good about telling me if they bring it up the last one, but DH almost never remembers so I'm not always aware that we're almost out. If he's brought up the last gallon without telling me and then uses up the last of that gallon without telling me, it puts me into a bind and it's really irritating because if anywhere in that chain of events he thought to mention that we were low on milk, I could get more before we ran out.

And it's not just milk he does this with. I make fresh bread for the kids' sandwiches, and make it in small loaves so it doesn't get moldy before we're done with it. I'll check the loaf in the evening, see there's enough for the next day's sandwiches, and put making bread on my to do list for the next day. Then DH will come through and make himself three slices of toast as a snack leaving only a single slice of bread left for the next morning, which of course I don't discover until I go to make lunches in the morning and there's not enough bread left. Since DH doesn't make their lunches and isn't thinking about anything other than what he wants to eat in the moment, he doesn't consider whether he's creating a problem by having the sandwich bread.

Maybe I should start hiding food.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Q - Do you get angry when your spouse "uses up" household products?
Ans - No. But we are not poor or mentally ill.

Ah, then you are hoarders —who never think they are mentally ill.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Buy more than one bottle of cleaning spray and put one in the kitchen and one in the bathroom upstairs (if you have an upstairs). Put one in each bathroom if you want. My spouse will buy three bottles of cleaning spray and this is what we do.

We also buy the pack of Costco car towels for $15 and use those for cleaning up. They are awesome for that!

I try to do this but it creates a new problem - DH never puts the cleaning supplies back where he got them, so one cupboard will have none and another will have a hoarder’s stash.

[Anonymous]

I order everything from Amazon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Q - Do you get angry when your spouse "uses up" household products?
Ans - No. But we are not poor or mentally ill.

Ah, then you are hoarders —who never think they are mentally ill.

So if someone doesn’t mind if their spouse eats tomato sauce or washes clothes with laundry detergent, they’re a hoarder? Is that what passes for logic between your ears?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I only get mad when DH is thoughtless about the timing of using stuff up. He’ll do things like decide to have a late-night snack of cereal and milk topped off with some milk and cookies, using up what should have been enough milk for coffee and breakfast the next morning. So when the kids I get up the next morning for school/ work, we have no milk.

At least in my house, this is exactly the problem. Wife has a plan for the remaining item and husband, unburdened by this mental load, uses it a different way and creates a new problem for her to solve.

I don’t know that I agree with this. I’m the DW and grocery shopping/cooking is my chore. If I let the milk run so low that a bowl of cereal and a glass of milk dries us up and ruins breakfast, I didn’t do my job of keeping milk stocked properly. If I realize that I’m running low on something and I have a plan for the remaining amount, I also consider it my job to communicate that I have a need for that item and no one else is to touch it. Maybe it’s because I have teenagers who eat ungodly amounts of food and don’t think about meal planning as well as a DH, but our fridge is community property. If an item is marked reserved, that’s respected, but the idea that no one is allowed to touch the last 1/4-1/8 gallon of milk without my permission because I might be saving it for breakfast is foreign and absurd to me.

Of course with such a freewheeling attitude toward milk, I try to keep 2 gallons in the fridge, and when one gets emptied it goes on the shopping list while the reserve is tapped. I don’t try to cut it close and only buy milk the day I empty the only container in the refrigerator. I can see how that would lead to complications. (I know that’s a lot of milk talk but we generally have the same rules for most consumables-one in use and a spare for when that runs out. Replace when you start using the spare.)

I'm the poster at the top of this chain. We usually keep extra milk in the house also, but it's stored in the second fridge in the basement (our kitchen fridge is a counter-depth, so not much room for multiple gallons of milk). When I get the last gallon from the basement, I make a point of going to the store that day for more so that we're restocked well before we run out. The kids are really good about telling me if they bring it up the last one, but DH almost never remembers so I'm not always aware that we're almost out. If he's brought up the last gallon without telling me and then uses up the last of that gallon without telling me, it puts me into a bind and it's really irritating because if anywhere in that chain of events he thought to mention that we were low on milk, I could get more before we ran out.

And it's not just milk he does this with. I make fresh bread for the kids' sandwiches, and make it in small loaves so it doesn't get moldy before we're done with it. I'll check the loaf in the evening, see there's enough for the next day's sandwiches, and put making bread on my to do list for the next day. Then DH will come through and make himself three slices of toast as a snack leaving only a single slice of bread left for the next morning, which of course I don't discover until I go to make lunches in the morning and there's not enough bread left. Since DH doesn't make their lunches and isn't thinking about anything other than what he wants to eat in the moment, he doesn't consider whether he's creating a problem by having the sandwich bread.

Maybe I should start hiding food.

Yeah you can be as digital as you want but nothing works if mr selfish is just doing his thing. Good news is that they can be trained. Takes time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Q - Do you get angry when your spouse "uses up" household products?
Ans - No. But we are not poor or mentally ill.

Ah, then you are hoarders —who never think they are mentally ill.

So if someone doesn’t mind if their spouse eats tomato sauce or washes clothes with laundry detergent, they’re a hoarder? Is that what passes for logic between your ears?

You didn’t read the replies that explained why OP’s wife and others were really inconvenienced. Why would I think you’re an expert on logic?

[Anonymous]

I don't understand this thread at all. If you don't have milk for cereal ... Have oatmeal or toast for breakfast. If you don't have cream for your coffee ... Use milk or ice cream. What else gets used up so fast that can't wait to be bought a few hours or days? If you don't have bread for lunches, pack something else or start making lunches at night before your dh snacks. None of this is even worth mentioning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Q - Do you get angry when your spouse "uses up" household products?
Ans - No. But we are not poor or mentally ill.

Ah, then you are hoarders —who never think they are mentally ill.

So if someone doesn’t mind if their spouse eats tomato sauce or washes clothes with laundry detergent, they’re a hoarder? Is that what passes for logic between your ears?

You didn’t read the replies that explained why OP’s wife and others were really inconvenienced. Why would I think you’re an expert on logic?

I read the whole thread. I responded to your quote.

We still don’t know what OP’s wife is upset about. His updates clearly say he’s not using the last of some items and he still gets grief.

[Anonymous]

Sorry OP but you married a birch.

[Anonymous]

OMG. The toilet paper fairy has gone on strike. Whatever will OP doooooo !!!