Dear Prudence: Avocado Disposal Dispute

[minoanmiss]

Sometimes even Prudence needs a little help. This week’s tricky situation is below. Submit your comments about how to approach the situation here to Jenée, and then look back for the final answer here on Friday.

Dear Prudence,

How many times do you need to ask a partner to do something? My husband and I eat avocados almost daily. When he finishes an avocado, he leaves it (and the spoon) on our very small kitchen counter. I think that this is gross, messy, and unsanitary. The compost bin is on the same counter. He is self-diagnosed with ADHD and on the autism spectrum, so I give him many allowances in the kitchen (he does the majority of the cooking, I exclusively do other tasks, and I work with a therapist on being accepting of his neurodivergence). However, I have asked for five years for the avocado and his peanut butter spoon to be put away. He doesn’t understand why it bugs me. I have explained that I also have things that are important to me that might be hard for him to understand. It seems like I will only get consideration if I am neurodivergent. His daughter also has autism and ADHD (diagnosed) so I often feel like an outsider.

—How Many Times?

Comments

[petrea_mitchell]

I wish we could ask for more information. Is he snacking at a busy time and thinking he'll dispose of the stuff later? Has he decided the counter is where spoons and avocado skins go? Does he see LW cleaning up after him as an agreed way that things work and doesn't understand why LW wants to renegotiate?

[jadelennox]

Not that I am happy with "It seems like I will only get consideration if I am neurodivergent" from LW, but nevertheless:

• If partner doesn't blame it on the neurodivergence, then LW, assuming that's why he's being shitty is the soft bigotry of low expectations. It's a reasonable shared household ask; find out why he won't do it, and together you can fix the situation that makes him leave the avocado peel out. Maybe he hates the compost bin and he should use the trash. Maybe you should buy pre-made guacamole or pureed avocado instead of avocados for him.
• If partner does blame it on the neurodivergence, then there's probably something he can figure out to fix. Same ideas as above -- maybe the compost bin is a sensory problem, maybe he hates opening the dishwasher when there's dirty dishes in there already. There are normal disability adaptations, and together you can figure it out.
• If partner blames it on the neurodivergence but isn't willing to work with you to find adaptions for your shared household, then he's being an asshole and blaming his neurodivergence. Which is another kind of being an asshole! Precede accordingly.

Is this a bitch-eating-crackers thing about something else, or is this your resentment about neurodivergence, or is the "something else" that you're married to a man who refuses to discuss a minor accommodation if you can't explain to him why your feelings are rational by his lights? If it's the first one, fix it before it gets worse. If it's the second, talk to your therapist some more, because that ain't healthy. And if it's the third, this relationship may be doomed; only some of those guys are redeemable.

[princessofgeeks]

I don't think I have enough info from the LW to suggest a solution. Is it just the avocado rind that he leaves out and doesn't throw it away, and if so, are there other things he doesn't put in the trash? Or is he leaving half the avocado on the counter for later because he doesn't want to put it in the fridge? Does he have one spoon he uses for PB that he uses all day to save washing?

If he is only doing this with the avocado and is otherwise generally cleaning up after himself, that makes it less straightforward to me.

[movingfinger]

He doesn’t understand why it bugs me.

Bro, you don't have to understand WHY it bugs her to stop doing the thing that bugs her. If their therapist has not said this to him, they are missing the forest because they're looking at trees.

He is self-diagnosed with ADHD and on the autism spectrum...

Neurodivergent or not, he can figure out a way to not bug his spouse. Perhaps that means he doesn't stand at the kitchen counter eating an avocado or peanut butter straight from the jar with a spoon. He does other kitchen tasks just fine. He can wash the spoon and put it away and dispose of an avocado peel somehow. He is a human being and capable of learning and adapting.

[conuly]

Stop buying avocados and peanut butter, LW. Problem solved!

Also: Make that jerk go to therapy with you. Why are you the only one in therapy? Fuck that shit.

[dissectionist]

Have an avocado/spoon plate and that way his discards are not resting on the counter. Once he encounters the problem that his plate becomes full of leftover avocado skins and spoons and therefore becomes unusable, he’ll have to start dealing with it himself.

[mrissa]

A kitchen that constantly smelled of days-old avocado skins would be literally unusable for me, and while I know this is not universal, I also know that I am not the only one. The smell would drive me out of the kitchen and possibly out of the house.

[dissectionist]

My expectation is that on the second day - when confronted with his own now-nasty avocado skin and spoon interfering with being able to enjoy being in the kitchen and eat a new avocado - it would become a self-limiting problem. When the Cleaning Fairies are constantly whisking gross stuff away, others never have to deal with the outcome of not doing so themselves, and it’s easy to continue not cleaning up. Why bother, when you know the Fairies will deal with it?

As a Cleaning Fairy far too often, I’ve had to learn to cope with grossness for long enough for the actors involved to realize 1) that the Fairy is done with making everything better, and 2) they have to step up because now their own environment is unusable.

[mrissa]

I'm glad that's worked for you! (Sincerely. I am glad.) But I've known people whose tolerance for gross stuff was basically infinite, so I think this is a thing to try rather than a guaranteed solution.