Husband is unhygienic and me correcting him has made him resent me
This is my throw-away account. I’m only looking for advice from MARRIED people and I do not want any unnecessary evil comments about my spouse. Also, divorce is off the table.
So I married my husband who belongs to a different ethnicity. I am from a Central Asian background and he is South Asian, but both are living in the West. Before we decided to get married, I made sure I went through a checklist to not marry someone incompatible, including good akhlaq, same religious level and hygiene. I could tell from him attending the mosque and also how he spoke to me and others, that he was practicing and had good akhlaq. He also mentioned that he is hygienic - but what I didn’t know is that in different people there can be different level of hygiene.
When we first started living together, I noticed he only brushed his teeth once a day - and that was only in the morning (and sometimes he would even forget that). I noticed his gums were bleeding. I started pulling away from his kisses because I could smell his bad breath and I would express my displeasure with the lack of brushing his teeth both at night and morning. In the beginning, I would tell him very softly that it’s important to brush your teeth and that hygiene is important to me - to which he got offended! He mentioned that in his culture, this is hygienic and was asking me if I called him and his background unhygienic (ofc I said no) Then I took a different approach and told him dentists recommend brushing twice a day and from another medical perspective, gum disease can lead to heart diseases - but he would not respond to that and when I said it too often, he would get annoyed. So I became angrier (yes, I know its bad), and i reminded him that i specifically asked him before getting married that hygiene was important to me and it was a non-negotiable but he seemed to have not been completely honest with me. I told him i wouldn’t have considered him had i known he was this unhygienic (he also would let dishes unwashed for several days, had not washed bedsheets before etc.). To that he reacted and started slowly to take brushing more seriously.
Another hygienic issue he has, which I believe is not his fault - is that his sweat smells a lot - to such an extend that I could not be near him. Mind you, he did shower daily and put deodorant on but only during day time. Being a pharmacist, I knew that antiperspirants need some hours on completely dry skin before it works well. So I used to be after him putting on deo roll at night before bedtime, because when he did it during the day, it didn’t work and the whole room would smell of his sweat in no time.
Now there’s a different aspect of hygiene, where he is lazy as well. He does not like washing the dishes and he can go days without washing the dishes if it were up to him (yes this has happened when he lived alone - and I first found out after we married). This weekend I went to my parents and slept there. I came back to our place and found that dishes from yesterday were still there in the sink and on the kitchen counter because it couldn’t all fit in the sink. It obviously smelled. I understand sometimes you leave one dish overnight in the sink and that’s okay - but we are talking about plates, glasses, pots and pans, everything. Mind you, we have a dishwasher and he could’ve left at least half of the things in there and just turned it on. So when I saw it, I was shocked and disappointed and started saying “this is unacceptable”, “why have you left these overnight”, “you haven’t touched a single thing in here” - and I repeated it several times, and one time extra after he told me not to repeat it again because he would clean it all up. Then he became angry and called me controlling and now he’s not talking to me.
Putting all the things together of what I’ve told him to do and not to do - I AM controlling - but believe me, I don’t want to be controlling. I never wanted or want to mother him. Now, it is upsetting both him and me. He’s not talking to me because he finds me controlling and when I apologized, he said I would just do it again, and so I remained quiet because it’s most probably true. I don’t know what to do? I’m afraid we will keep going in circles and start resenting each other over time. We are 2 years in our marriage. Can some married people here give me some advice on how to approach this? Advice on communication would be appreciated.
Extra info: he does help with household chores such as cooking, buying groceries and taking out the trash etc. He works and is good at his job. He also has a very good akhlaq, very patient and rarely shows his anger.
EDIT: thank you to the man (who unfortunately deleted his comment) who wrote how to communicate it gently without criticising - and showing appreciation when things are done well. This was gold advice that I had not realised. May Allah bless your marriage.