AITA for not thinking of my husband's dishes as "our dishes"? Or am I being selfish and not contributing
My husband and I have always had a minor disagreement over dishes, which seems a common issue with pretty much everyone who lives together.
We both grew up in houses where you did your dishes once you were finished with them. If it was a common meal, like dinner for the whole family, everyone would pitch in somehow (collecting, scraping, washing, loading the dishwasher).
Now, in my own home, if there's dirty dishes left around, it stresses me out to look at the clutter and think how the person didn't take 5 seconds to put them in the dishwasher/hand wash them. It feels disrespectful. I also have to look at these dishes more as I work from home and take care of our toddler, meanwhile my husband works at an office.
Because I'm busy working two jobs, I purposefully choose meals for me and our toddler that use dishes and utensils that can go in the dishwasher.
However, my husband prefers unsliced loaves of bread, and blocks of cheese, and cutting those with knives which can't go in the dishwasher. This in itself is not a problem- the problem is he doesn't clean the knives when he's done.
Our knife block has 8 knives in it, and he will go through the entire block before washing any knives. And still, he will often only wash the one knife he needs right now. The rest stay in the sink in a pile until the weekend at the earliest. They used to stay on the counter, but since our son can reach them, I've been moving them to the sink.
I've discussed this with my husband many times over the years, and it usually results in an improvement that lasts maybe a day or two only. There's also the cheese wrap pile (beeswax wraps).
I had a more in-depth discussion with him about it yesterday, and came out confused. I reiterated that when he makes food for only himself, I'd really appreciate him washing his dishes (or putting them in the dishwasher) as soon as he's done. That him not doing that is stressing me out and making me feel disrespected.
I asked him if he could wash his cheese knife, a 30-second task, after he makes a snack. He said no, we will wash all "our dishes" after dinner each day, one of us washing, one of us drying. I asked what about his usual late-night cheese knife, and he conceded he will wash it before work the next morning even though it would "take from his coffee time" (a whole 30 seconds of 1 hour).
What confused me was, to him, there were no "his dishes", there were only "our dishes". I don't see dishes that only one of us is using, as "our dishes". Is this selfish of me? Am I not thinking of this in an "us vs the problem" way?
Because I also asked if there was anything like this he'd like me to improve on, and he said "no, anything like that I just do myself". However, I find this argument unhelpful since I have a higher standard of cleanliness than him and am bothered more easily. It doesn't seem fair.
Tl;dr: Husband makes hand-wash-only dishes. I don't want to look at them. I also don't want to do them. AITA?