It All Started With a Tissue…
August 5th, 2008 @ 6:11 pm by Mrs. Cookie
Ever since I moved back to Colorado from DC to be with Mr. Cookie, we have engaged in premarital cohabitation. And for us Cookies, it has been the best testament to the glue of our relationship yet! 
The transition of moving in and possession blending was pretty painless. I had lived a nomadic lifestyle up until that point — all I came with were my clothes and books. Mr. Cookie provided the house, dog, and furniture. We settled into domesticity quickly – divvying up the chores and setting a routine. And just as we were getting comfortable, the little quirks started to emerge.
I would say, but Mr. Cookie will deny it, that it all started with once-used tissues lying around the house. (The similarities between Harry leaving used teabags around the house when he moved in with Charlotte and we Cookies are strikingly eerie!) I found this habit of Mr. Cookie absolutely disgusting, and when pointed out Mr. Cookie didn’t even realize he was doing it. This behavior stopped for a while, but then the once-used tissue began appearing again…
…But before I go any further, Mr. Cookie was dealing with my own little set of peccadillos — particularly me biting my nails and disposing of them on the carpet. (I know completely gross!) When Mr. Cookie pointed it out to me, I was in the midst of nail on carpet toss, I immediately recognized my action and rummaged around our beige carpet to find said nail and properly dispose of it in trash can. Subsequently, I tried to stop, but the habit was instinctual.
The laundry list of our disgustingly gross habits does not end here, but I will spare you bees the details. And for a while the lack of our ability to break our own disgusting habits was crawling under both of our skins, but then the end all be all happened… I won’t disclaim who broke the air with the fart, but nothing is more disgusting and funnier than your partner’s flatulence. After that moment, Mr. Cookie and I made a truce, to be wary of our gross quirks for the sake of our domestic bliss!
They say it’s the little things that you love about your partner, but what disgusting and nasty habit of your partner’s just crawls under your skin?
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40 Responses to “It All Started With a Tissue…”
Oooh… it was best when they start using the bathroom with the door open.
hahaha - I so love that you are willing to put that all out there!
The straw that broke the annoying habit camels back in our house was that he always leaves the shampoo container upside down. And since he always showers first - the shampoo gushes all over me. I pointed it out in a FRAZZLED RAGE b/c I just could not take it anymore! And he said “It never gushes on me.” I lost it. “of course is doesn’t! I put the bottle back UPRIGHT!!!” I seethed…. and then…HE LAUGHED! I was about to KILL him right then and there…. and then I laughed a little… and got more mad…. and then started laughing ALOT to the point that we were crying we were laughing so hard. Once we could breathe again - we talked about all the things that annoyed each other. Its still an active thought to not do some of the things - and we aren’t perfect, but we are working on it and we both know it.
We are not living together until we get married, but your post definitely prepped me a bit to expect some quirks. I also appreciate your honesty in putting it all out there:)
I agree with Cindy! Mr. Margs has been lobbying for those privileges but I haven’t given in yet. I’d say his worst habit is that he leaves piles of dirty clothes EVERYWHERE!
Miss Margarita~
Hold your ground! It won’t kill him nor does it take up time to kick the bathroom door shut before they go about their business. Don’t give in!
My husband doesn’t put cups away. I can always expect to come home numerous glasses or tumblers (sometimes still half full!) just abandoned on all sorts of surfaces in our home. Why it is so hard to walk your used glass in the kitchen is beyond me. The boy doesn’t even have to wash them! Just having them land on the counter in the kitchen would send me over the moon!
oh the used tissues! I could kill him for how many times a day I find tissues lodged everywhere (and I mean EVERYWHERE) around the house. I mean, ick!
the tissues are EVERYWHERE!!! I am so sick of picking up tissues that haven’t made it to the trash. Why tissues, guys? I dont get it.
Socks. My FI will lay on the couch and pull his socks off and just toss them where ever. At any given moment there are usually 3-5 socks laying around the couch, tucking into couch cushions, under the Lay-Z-Boy… it’s sick. And after 3 years of living together, it hasn’t stopped, so I just pick them up and get on with my life 
There are worse things that could happen.
No tissue problem in our house. My pet peeve is when he put non-dishes in the sink with the regular dishes (like a paper napkin or a chicken bone). I wash the dishes so I end up picking out all the pieces of wet napkin. GROSS!!
hahahaha… I am both of you guys, tissues and nails, although I clip rather than chew my nails before letting them fall to the floor. my husband is very tolerant, though certainly he has his own set of annoying befuddling behaviours.
I’m just cracking up here that I do the bad habits of both of you!
I do live with my FH - CRUMBS and DIRTY FEET! I know I have issues, not too many though (one or two) but how does one leave crumbs EVERYWHERE? And he loves to walk barefoot, which is fine but, we really should wash our feet before we get into bed. I’m working on his issues though. We’ll get it right before the wedding!
Aggie - I totally agree about washing feet before going to bed. I have always been a pre-bed shower kind of gal, so it still bugs me a bit that DH hops into the sheets without showering!
That being said, we both have plenty of faults. Mine include clutter (I like to leave things lying around on the table and counter tops) and his include not being tidy/clean enough (he waits until he literally has no more boxers to do laundry and he’s got at least 3 weeks worth). But you know what? worth every little raised eyebrow and tension filled evening. After all, who else’s dirty laundry would I rather be staring at than my DH’s?
I deal with the tissues also (could this be a genetic thing) but what really gets my goat is leaving the clothes he wears each day to work on the back of a chair in the kitchen (why men must immediately disrobe upon entering the home is still a mystery). So on Friday, there are 5 outfits on the back of the chair. I’ve tried getting mad, getting sad, and getting even, but nothing works. 
Yikes…I have a bunch of the bad habits you’re all talking about here! Fortunately, FI and I are pretty well matched in our bad habits, so we don’t drive each other too crazy
I loved this post! I truly think that the moving in phase is the true testimate of the relationship. that’s when all the dirty secrets/bad habits come out of the woodwork!
I’ve got my messy vs. his dirty, the dirty socks, the piles of laundry, and the many strewn about partially full cups….and although I may gripe sometimes, I wouldn’t trade him for anything.
Oh, and he never leaves the seat up! that trumps everything else. To those of you who have ever encountered the raised toilet seat while half asleep…you know what I’m talking about!
@Miss Pinot Noir: my husband does that too!
I forgive him a lot of things, though, not just because he overlooks my disgusting habits, but because he does all of the laundry.
Oh the farting, the farting! Sometimes it’s funny, but most of the time, it’s just gross!
@Miss Pinot Noir: mine does that too, with the napkins and such! Drives me up the wall.
Ha! My FI leaves his dirty underwear BESIDE the hamper and leaves used q-tips all over the place.
Buuutttt…I let the bathroom trashcan over flow and leave the kitchen trash next to the door ’cause I’m too lazy to take it outside.
We both fart.
What is it with guys and the farting? Seriously!
The habit that annoys me most is that my FI does not like to wash dishes right away — he’d rather wait and wash a bunch at once. Which is fine, but he never rinses them and the food gets all caked on and impossible to wash off. Dried-on Grape Nuts are my worst enemy.
My annoying habit: I kick my shoes off in strange places and leave them there for my FI to trip on.
clipped nails on the floors, half-filled glasses everywhere, and dirty feet before bed in our house…haha.
Haha! This post is too funny. My FI has the disgusting habit of using the bathroom and then NOT flushing!! He thinks he is helping to save water..seriously. Luckily, this happens only in certain circumstances of the yellow variety. And even more lucky for me is that we have two bathrooms. Whew!
Confession, I leave my tissues in certain places. I can’t help it, I blow my nose pretty regularly, and I cannot have a wet nose at all, hence I use a lot of tissues. I do clean them up, but sometimes not right away. Fiance’s bad habit is like Melissa B. said, not rinsing his dishes even when his plate is full of food, or towels in the bathroom floor, in regards to flatulence, he farted on our first date so I am so used to it!
My husband clips his nails and sometimes forgets to throw the pile away. YUCK. He also has a habit of leaving used apple cores around the house when he’s done. He’s apparently done both his whole life, because his sister warned me.
My husband leaves the tissues lying around too - not all over the house, mostly in a pile next to the bed. Eeeeeew. And when he changes the blades on his razor he just drops the old blade in the drawer. At his house he had like 100 used blades in the bathroom drawer. Most things we have worked out, but these two remain…
Our funniest issues so far were: 1) The toilet. I don’t like the lid left up, because I don’t like the cats drinking out of the toilet. He thought I just didn’t want the SEAT left up, so couldn’t understand why I kept getting upset.
And: 2) I like to go to bed with a mug of milk. I generally give my cat a drink - she is 14, so this has been going on for years. And then I drink out of the same mug. Apparently he thinks this is completely gross. I still don’t understand why. (I just do it when he’s not looking.)
@Miss Pinot Noir: My husband used to do that too. I actually think I broke him of this habit!
However, I get so irked when he doesn’t rinse dishes and put them in the dishwasher while he’s cooking dinner. When I cook I like to clean as I go along so there are fewer dishes to wash/rinse after we eat. He doesn’t even think twice about grabbing another cutting board, another knife, another whatever, while he’s cooking. Then there is a huge pile of dishes in the sink at the end of the meal! It wouldn’t bother me if he ALWAYS did the dishes. But often he will cook. I feel grateful so I’ll do the dishes. But, when I cook, I usually do the dishes… or there are minimal dishes because I’ve been washing/loading the dishwasher as I cook. I just realized this only bothers me at night. Because I usually fall asleep on the couch watching TV after dinner and I get so crabby when I have to get up and wash a sink full of dishes. (Which is one of my husband’s pet peeves about me - I ALWAYS fall asleep on the couch watching TV. Every. Night. Then I’m crabby when he wakes me to go to bed. )
Honestly - I know there were more things that bothered me right after we moved in together (and I know he has a longer list too!), but most of it I can’t even remember now. There are some habits that stick, but some are altered as you figure out how to co-exist.
This was a fun post. Thanks for sharing, Cookie!
Our is a dampness issue. When I enter the bathroom after my husband has taken a shower its like a monsoon hit. I mean there is water everywhere and the bath rug/mat is so far from the shower I wonder if he even used it. Drives me crazy that I spend forever cleaning up water. He also leaves wet towels on the hamper and/or floor. Its funny, when he lived alone he always told me that he thought something was wrong w/ his washer b/c his clothes smelled mildewy. When I saw him put wet stuff in the hamper to sit, it was a total eureka moment.
My guy is obsessively clean. Sounds like a good thing, I know, but a great deal of the time it crosses the line and becomes ridiculous.
We’ve lived together for two years and are about to move into our first home (that we built together) in three weeks, so we’ve worked out most of the kinks by now. But I would say the two habits of his that caused the most fights when we first started living together were:
(1) His insistence that anything that’s been in the fridge for more than three days needs to be thrown out….this included soups/salads that I would make at the beginning of the week with the intent of bringing them to work for lunch for the entire week. They would “magically” disappear. And then I would yell a lot.
(2) He INSISTS that we wash the dishes before we put them in the dishwasher. Not rinse. Wash. Not only is this completely unnecessary, it’s also wasteful. He says that he plans to continue this after we move and have a shiny new dishwasher with a disposal blade in it.
*sigh*
As for me, I don’t clean my hair out of the shower drain trap thingy as often as I should. Oh, and I consistently balk at our Saturday morning cleaning routine (or, as I like to call it, The Guy’s Totalitarian Cleaning Regime!).
@Miss Sweet Tea: @Miss Champagne: @Aggie: @Miss Sea Breeze: @suzanno: I guess there is an epidemic among males when it comes to once-used tissues! Who knew?!
Hubby used to clip his toenails and then LEAVE THEM ON THE OFFICE DESK.
Barf. That was one thing that I just COULDN’T take.
I have a hard time not being resentful when he comes home and leaves clutter in his wake. Piles everywhere. But, the truly worst part is when he leaves an empty dish in the sink - he had a SAHM and that’s what he grew up with, but I have to bite my tongue to keep from saying, “I am not your mother”
I’m trying to be more laid back, he’s trying to be more organized. It’s a trade off.
Becky
This is one of the best posts ever. I read through every response, hoping to find the one thing that drives me nuts. No one else wrote it though!
My FI piles all the dirty dishes into the sink. I like to have them all to the right of the sink, so I can wash them one-by-one. Before I do the dishes, I have to take them all back out….
When I say something, he’ll stop for a few days, but then forgets and back into the sink they go.
Once we move into a house, we’re getting a dishwasher!!
Oh my the list is long of bad habits. But the one that really get me going is the pee on the toilet. You are wondering how does that happen? Well FI sits when he goes to the bathroom. Who does that? LOL. So when he gets up, he drips pee on the seat. I used to clean up after him, but know if I see it when I go into the bathroom, I make him do it.
Hahaha, this is hilarious, I love it! Oh, I thought it was gross when a couple months after we moved in together I found used Q-tips tossed carelessly all around the garbage can (but somehow none in it…) and then there was that glorious day that will forevermore be emblazoned in my memory as my first second thought. 7 months after moving in together, 2 months after the proposal… I found it. A piece of chewed up gum stuck to the top of my glass coffee table! Since then it’s been an array of junk he just can’t seem to keep in his mouth… peppermints… jolly ranchers… anything really. Sick!
And as for me… I’m… perfect… so… yeah..(HA!)
My guy and I have lived together for almost 3 years and one big complaint is leaving our stuff everywhere… one evening my bf was complaining that I had left my shoes on the floor beside “his side” of the bed, and telling me that they didnt go there, I said “well, is the kitchen table where you baseball hats go?”. Silence. That shut him right up. It’s really silly little things like that, I’ve gotten used to the farting and the burping, I dont think you can ever break them of that habit!!
I love this post!
FH used papertowels and then leaves them in a crumply mess on the counter, so he can “use the again”. So it’s not tissue, which is nice, but still he’s leaving a mess where ever he goes
the used tissues…yeah. we gots that problem. once i found a tissue on the floor that…..i really dont know, but it was kinda skeptical looking….like it should have been in the bathroom….and flushed down the toilet?
chewed gum. everywhere. he fusses bc i swallow (the gum, lol) but i retort that at least i dont leave gum all over the house!
we dont live together yet. we wont until after the wedding but we’ve been to each other’s house enough that most of the secret habits are out in the big bad open.
I love that I have had my entire engagement with my FH to live together with roommates. The roommates have taken some of the stress off of our relationship and made our conservative parents less wary, and the experience has been completely invaluable. No obnoxious habits yet, at least none that I can think of off of the top of my head, more complaining about roommates than anything
@hergreenapples: I do this to FH all the time. It drives him crazy, but I can’t stand food rotting or being left out. I would toss it if it’s been out for one day.
I’ve tried educating him on food safety and he seems to get it now, but there is still times when he erupts when if food gets trashed.
Mrs. Cookie, Denver
Age and Occupation: 25, Nonprofit Fundraiser/Theatre Designer
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 27, Financial Analyst
Engagement Date: September 2007
Wedding Date: September 2008
Blogging Since: May 8, 2008
Venue: Ten Mile Station
About Me: With a degree in Theatre I never realized that planning a wedding was a lot like Theatre Management, until I started planning my own. I am a coffee addict, especially Starbucks' Grande Mochas, yummy! I love to cook (especially chocolate chip cookies for my honey), travel to exotic places, and be creative. As a couple, Mr. Cookie and I are extremely practical, down to earth, and children at heart. We live in a cozy abode with our adorable Pomeranian, and love to play board games and watch movies into the evening.
My FH bites his nails. I’m mostly worried, because that means he’s nervous about something (no surprise though! he’s finishing up his dissertation this month!!). The annoyance, though, is that it leaves his fingertips seriously mangled - to the point where it hurts my skin when his nails brush across from a given angle. I told him if he doesn’t stop (he does -want- to stop), I’m starting him on a manicure regime! Believe me, hang-nails hurt like hell in “sensitive” spots!