She Left the Kitchen Just as Dirty as Her Husband Did. Is She a Jerk?

Two can play at that game…

If you’ve ever lived with a dirty person before, you know that it can be totally infuriating to deal with the messes they leave behind.

And after this woman gave her husband a taste of his own medicine, she’s wondering if she might have acted like an a**hole.

Check out her story below and let us know what you think in the comments.

AITA for leaving the kitchen in the same state as my husband?

“I’m going to try to keep this short.

My husband (32M) and I (27F) have a deal that I’m sure lots of couples have- whoever cooks, the other cleans. Generally this works pretty good but my husband is notorious for leaving the biggest mess.

I’m talking every single bottle, wrapper, food scrap, left on the counter. Every dish, left where he used it. Every spice left out. Sometimes it takes longer to clean than it takes to make and eat the food just because of how messy he is.

I, on the other hand, am a “clean as you cook” type of person. I use something, I put it away right away. I throw scraps in the garbage when I’m done chopping. I fully prep before starting to cook so that by the time I’m finished and dinner is served, all that’s left are the dishes (which is normally piled beside the sink) and wipe the countertop.

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t expect my husband to do the same. But I’ve had the conversation with him plenty of times where I ask him to at least throw out food scraps and put away bottles/spices he uses, so that all that’s left is dishes and wiping the counters/floors. He agreed but eventually falls back into his old ways.

So… I’ve started doing the same to him. Each time it’s my turn to cook, I leave the kitchen in a similar state to how he leaves it: scraps out, every spice and bottle out, dishes left untouched.

And he’s made a comment every single time about how much of a mess I’ve left him, and how it isn’t fair because he’s going to spend ages cleaning. I’ve used these opportunities to explain that this is what he does to me every time, but he denies it being “that bad”.

Today, he did the same thing. Except I took photos of the state of the kitchen the last time he cooked. When I showed him this in response to him complaining about the mess, he got defensive. Said that it’s not fair because “that’s just how he cooks” and that he “doesn’t like to waste time cleaning when he’s hungry”. I said it’s incredibly unfair that he expects it of me, but won’t do the same.

But now he’s been making comments about how he doesn’t feel appreciated because of the meals he makes. I’ll admit, he does make some great homemade from-scratch meals. But I do too. And I’d say our cooking skills are about equal, although he might be a little better in some areas.

But his comments are making me wonder if I’m nitpicking or if I am really am being unfair to him. I get that everybody is different, but it just sucks when I have to clean a gigantic mess and he reaps the benefits of my cleaning. I do feel like I’m a bit of an AH even for saying that.

So Reddit, AITA?”