How to get through to DH that doing 80% doesn't count?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The dryer thing happens all the time and I threw it in his office the other day. What is wrong with men?

Yeah I’d fold my own clothes and throw his half a**ed pile in another room.

[Anonymous]

Can you tell him how it makes you feel? So that rather than attacking his actions you are explaining to him the effect they have on you?

For example, a few months ago my husband started randomly leaving his clothes on the bathroom floor after he would shower. He had never done that before and I couldn't figure out why it was happening. I do 100% of the laundry, so eventually I would need to go get them from the floor to wash. I finally asked nicely if there was a reason he was doing that and explained that it made me feel like his maid, which I felt was disrespectful. We both work full time and I don't mind being in charge of the laundry because I'm better at it and he does his share of other things, but I said that for some reason having to pick his clothes up off the floor was insulting. He said he had been really busy with work stuff and hadn't noticed he was doing it but would stop and he hasn't done it since.

I think if I had attacked him and called him lazy or gross or something he would have just gotten defensive and while the end result may have been the same, I imagine he would have been annoyed every time he picked his clothes up "guess I better not be a lazy sack of sh!t today!" instead of thoughtful "I love my wife and don't want her to feel like she works for me so of course I'll put my own stuff away." I could be wrong but I said something, it didn't turn into an argument, and it hasn't been an issue since, so whether another option would have worked as well, doing it this way definitely solved the problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP I get it. I have a DH who likes to claim he "did 4 loads of laundry today" when he's working from home but what he actually did was move 4 loads of laundry through the machines and then pile them all on a chair in the living room where they will stay for days unless I give up and fold them first. I've told him that I don't really consider myself to have done a load of laundry until it's put away and he was like "oh you're too hard on yourself -- I think just getting it cleaned is an accomplishment."

This would break me.

The hardest part of laundry is folding it and putting it away after. If you don't fold it right away then it's wrinkly and you have to look at each thing and decide to fluff it or iron to make it look decent.

Finding a massive unwashed pile of clothing in the hamper is preferable to encountering a mystery stack of wrinkled but clean clothes.

Couldn't agree more. This is why everyone in our house now does their own laundry. If they don't want to fold it and rummage through a wrinkled pile of clothes, have at it. I won't take my stuff out of the dryer until I'm able to fold it. Sometimes I run it again briefly to dewrinkle but clean laundry thrown in a pile somewhere is no longer clean. At least mine isn't. They can do whatever they want with theirs.

+1 Everyone folds their own laundry.

Is he new to doing laundry?

My DH retired a few months ago, so now he is doing all the laundry. There are some items that need to be hang dried, but he kept forgetting. It's taken him a few months to remember to hang dry stuff, but he still complains about it because it makes doing laundry more complicated. Basically, he wants housechores for him to be easier than when I was doing it.

Are these all your items?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I try really hard to give my DH partial credit.

He’s never ever going to turn into the partner I thought he was going to be, and I’ve tried really hard to let it go.

This is what I do too. It’s impossible to compel another adult to do things, and when I point out the work that didn’t get done, somehow I’m the shrew. I got tired of being considered “the problem”.

this is me too. when I bite my tongue because I see items from the dishwasher "still drying" I remind myself of the things he does around the house that I hate doing, or other ways he takes care of me. I'm not perfect either and I feel it's better in the long run to let some things slide

I see this come up on here all the time. You people really need to upgrade your dishwasher.

Yes, there are some items that will of course trap water (water bottle tops, for example) and need to be handled, but the vast majority of your dishes should be 100% dry when they come out of the dishwasher. Also, a really good dishwasher can handle ALL the items you have. We put everything, including our very expensive knives, the VitaMix, and our All Clad pots and pans in the dishwasher. It saves so much time.

Overall though, I like your method - think of all the good things and let the little things slide. I do think sometimes people get so wound up by the little things piling up that they lose sight of the big picture.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you were gone for three weeks all this 20% work would get done, especially if there was a weekly housecleaner he had to prepare for. So it’s NBD, just him working on a different timetable than you.

Does his timetable include kids? Because that is often when a couple gets "out of sync" over household tasks-- when they have kids. Kids multiply the work while reducing the time you have to do it. So if pre-kids you often took a week to put away laundry or only put the dishes away when the housecleaner was coming so that she could deep clean the kitchen, it was NBD because the rest of the time you were working or socializing and who cares with there's some partially completed tasks around the house.

With kids the math is different. There's twice as much laundry and if you don't fold it and put it away, you're spending every morning picking through the pile of clean laundry trying to get your kids dressed for school. If you never actually finish the dishes there aren't enough dishes for a single meal featuring the entire family. You have to make lunches on the edge of the counter not covered by dishes. You can't finish that last 20% in the morning because you're helping a toddler get dressed and doing a school run. And you can't bank on doing it on Saturday morning because the kids have soccer or swim.

This is when women start getting frustrated because having kids forces women to function at a higher level-- more efficient, more multi-tasking, keeping track of more tasks and schedules. But many men expect their lives to operate exactly the same as before. They are convinced that if their approach to chores and schedules was working okay pre-kids, well it must still work. But it doesn't and this puts even more pressure on moms to over perform. This is how DH becomes another child to be managed. And that kills intimacy and breeds resentment. And then the DH wonders why his wife never wants to have sex anymore and why she always seems annoyed with him.

Kids change things but fir some reason a lot of men are determined to prove this wrong.

Or…you can put your husband in charge of dressing the kids, making the dinner, cleaning, etc. I did this simply by getting the higher paid job and leaving the house early and coming home late.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you were gone for three weeks all this 20% work would get done, especially if there was a weekly housecleaner he had to prepare for. So it’s NBD, just him working on a different timetable than you.

Not necessarily. Some people just don’t care if their clothes are wrinkled or they live out of a laundry basket. My mother and sibling don’t. I do. I am lucky my DH cares a lot and doesn’t do any of the stupid stuff on this thread. But it’s got to be innate because one of my kids would just throw his stuff on the floor if he could get away with it, while the other neatly sorts and reorganizes with no input from us (and she’s 4 years younger than DS so it isn’t an age thing either). I’mtrying to train DS better but I recognize that at some point it’s up to him. I can make him fold now but when he’s an adult he’ll probably live in a pigsty and be happy with it. Like my sibling.

And that’s when you need to learn to let some things go. If he’s fine with wrinkled clothes, dump his clothes in the floor and call it a day. Focus your energy on getting him to complete the things that really affect you—like when he leaves dirty dishes all over the house.

[Anonymous]

How did so many of you marry someone with ADHD? Did you really not notice any signs when you were dating? After living with a ADHD roommate in college, I could spot the signs 100 miles away and avoided these people like the plague.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I try really hard to give my DH partial credit.

He’s never ever going to turn into the partner I thought he was going to be, and I’ve tried really hard to let it go.

This is what I do too. It’s impossible to compel another adult to do things, and when I point out the work that didn’t get done, somehow I’m the shrew. I got tired of being considered “the problem”.

this is me too. when I bite my tongue because I see items from the dishwasher "still drying" I remind myself of the things he does around the house that I hate doing, or other ways he takes care of me. I'm not perfect either and I feel it's better in the long run to let some things slide

Why is “still drying” in quotes? Do you insist that dishes must be put away immediately? If yes, that’s definitely a “you” problem, and I’d tell you to do it yourself if it matters to you that much.

LOL. My DH believes deep in his heart that dishes need 3-5 days to air dry and clothing 2-3 weeks. He would die, eat off the floor, or go naked before he cleared an entire dishrack or drying rack. I brought this up last week and pointed to the dishtowel next to the dishrack when he complained that he had to stop doing dishes because the rack was full. I said "You know, you can dry the dishes with this towel. It's what it's for." He said "but then I have to put everything away and it all goes in different places."

Get rid of the dishrack. Seriously. When dishes are washed by hand, they get dried and put away when done. Leaving them out is gross and clearly causing problems.

[Anonymous]

Give him a really great blowjob, but then stop when he’s almost done.

[Anonymous]

Really thought I wrote this. Dh does dishes when I cook but somehow always leaves one or two and doesn’t wipe the counters. He opens a cabinet to put dishes away but doesn’t close it. Uses tools to fix something but leaves them out. Does laundry but leaves a few items conspicuously around that need to be folded and out away
I’ve decided it’s his (subconscious?) way of saying “hey look there! I’m doing my chores!” Whereas when things are fully done and unnoticeable it appears that the magical cleaning fairy took card if it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP I get it. I have a DH who likes to claim he "did 4 loads of laundry today" when he's working from home but what he actually did was move 4 loads of laundry through the machines and then pile them all on a chair in the living room where they will stay for days unless I give up and fold them first. I've told him that I don't really consider myself to have done a load of laundry until it's put away and he was like "oh you're too hard on yourself -- I think just getting it cleaned is an accomplishment."

This would break me.

The hardest part of laundry is folding it and putting it away after. If you don't fold it right away then it's wrinkly and you have to look at each thing and decide to fluff it or iron to make it look decent.

Finding a massive unwashed pile of clothing in the hamper is preferable to encountering a mystery stack of wrinkled but clean clothes.

PP here and yes I totally agree. I thought of this example reading OP's post because last week we were both working from home on Friday when he did this and it was a genuine source of stress for me to watch that pile grow throughout the day. I said something to him about it ("maybe we shouldn't do anymore laundry today as it's going to take a while to get through all the folding") and he was like "don't worry about it -- I want to get through all the washing first." The pile sat there all weekend until finally I broke down on Sunday and folded it. I didn't fluff or iron anything because I just refuse but it took me a full hour and I was very irritated. But if I say anything he'll be like "I can't believe you are mad at me for doing the laundry."

It sounds like “we” didn’t do laundry that day… HE did laundry and “we” weren’t involved until you did YOUR share and folded it… an entire week later. I’ll bet HE didn’t complain, though.

Well I was working and didn't have time to fold four loads of laundry that day -- I was working. Turns out he also didn't have time to fold the laundry either because he didn't. Anyone can just move laundry through the machines during little breaks between calls or whatever -- this takes maybe a minute or two per load. So he spent 10 minutes doing laundry on Friday and I spent an hour folding and putting away laundry on Sunday (2 days later not an entire week -- eventually we actually needed those clothes to wear).

Why would he complain about this. He actually thinks he accomplished something but I did more than half of the work.

LOL. Then why the heck didn’t YOU do any of it? By your own admission you were BOTH working from home and yet HE is the only one who did any laundry chores. And I guess you guys don’t sort your laundry or have any delicate or stained items if it only takes a minute or two per load to get them clean.

And finally, folding is not that difficult. Stop being a drama queen.

I didn't do laundry that day because I did not have time to fold it and put it away. I did it on the weekend when I had time to *complete the task.* I didn't want to start a chore and then leave it sitting in the middle of the living room for two days because I don't want a pile of wrinkles clothes sitting in the living room for two days.

If my DH wanted to do laundry he should have done only as many loads as HE could fold and put away that day. But he wants credit for doing the first third of the task (the easiest and least time consuming part). I could have done laundry on Sunday when I was doing stuff around the house anyway and the folded the clothes as they came out if the dryer before they got all wrinkled and I would have been no worse off. But DH wants a cookie for half assing a task and then leaving it for me to finish. He didn't help! It was inefficient and poorly done. Why should I be grateful for that?

DP, but then when you went to go do the task on Saturday it actually saved you a ton of time because everything was already clean and all you had to do was fold and put away. Had he not done anything, it would have taken you hours to wait for all those loads to be done. So what exactly is it that you're upset about? Were the clothes piled on the couch during the week?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you were gone for three weeks all this 20% work would get done, especially if there was a weekly housecleaner he had to prepare for. So it’s NBD, just him working on a different timetable than you.

Who TF prepares for a house cleaner? Wut u taking about?

Exactly! Not Halfway Hal that’s for sure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We struggle with this and I have found that the only thing that works is to bring up these things when we are happy, like when we are out having a date night or something. I know it sounds counterintuitive — why ruin a good time with complaining? I think the thing is that I can be more solutions-focused rather than self-righteous and he’s less defensive and tired. He’s so much better around the house after we have these discussions. I do think there is kind of a regression to the mean so we have to have these conversations periodically. It’s frustrating for sure, but he’s always going to kind of be like this and I won’t spend the rest of my life finishing every task for him, getting angrier and angrier.

I think you make a really good point here - I had a phone call with a good friend the other day and she was unloading about her husband and made a comment along the lines of how doing this task was the right thing to do and he was wrong to be putting it off. It was not safety-related and it was an outside issue so not something in the house that was affecting their daily life. I told her that she needed to stop thinking she had the moral high ground because that's how it was coming off and it was really obnoxious. Should he complete the task? Sure, especially if he agreed to do it. But she was being really self-righteous and I see that coming through in these posts as well. I personally can't stand dishes sitting out so we don't have a drying rack. Dishes go straight from the dishwasher to the cabinets, period. But I'm not morally right in my stance, it's just my preference. Same with laundry. Yes, I get it that wrinkles form when clothes are left in the dryer, but the refresh cycle can solve that problem. It's a preference to have laundry completed all the way through putting it away in the same day but it's not the morally correct response. And I can see how someone coming at you with an air of self-righteousness would be super annoying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you were gone for three weeks all this 20% work would get done, especially if there was a weekly housecleaner he had to prepare for. So it’s NBD, just him working on a different timetable than you.

Does his timetable include kids? Because that is often when a couple gets "out of sync" over household tasks-- when they have kids. Kids multiply the work while reducing the time you have to do it. So if pre-kids you often took a week to put away laundry or only put the dishes away when the housecleaner was coming so that she could deep clean the kitchen, it was NBD because the rest of the time you were working or socializing and who cares with there's some partially completed tasks around the house.

With kids the math is different. There's twice as much laundry and if you don't fold it and put it away, you're spending every morning picking through the pile of clean laundry trying to get your kids dressed for school. If you never actually finish the dishes there aren't enough dishes for a single meal featuring the entire family. You have to make lunches on the edge of the counter not covered by dishes. You can't finish that last 20% in the morning because you're helping a toddler get dressed and doing a school run. And you can't bank on doing it on Saturday morning because the kids have soccer or swim.

This is when women start getting frustrated because having kids forces women to function at a higher level-- more efficient, more multi-tasking, keeping track of more tasks and schedules. But many men expect their lives to operate exactly the same as before. They are convinced that if their approach to chores and schedules was working okay pre-kids, well it must still work. But it doesn't and this puts even more pressure on moms to over perform. This is how DH becomes another child to be managed. And that kills intimacy and breeds resentment. And then the DH wonders why his wife never wants to have sex anymore and why she always seems annoyed with him.

Kids change things but fir some reason a lot of men are determined to prove this wrong.

Agree.

Too many males have wrong assumptions and expectations of life with the kids in the house.

Then when smacked with the reality of it real-time they hide away to work more or do other personal stuff, instead of growing, adapting and stepping up to the new role and responsibilities. This pressures everything and everyone. And builds obvious resentment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you were gone for three weeks all this 20% work would get done, especially if there was a weekly housecleaner he had to prepare for. So it’s NBD, just him working on a different timetable than you.

Does his timetable include kids? Because that is often when a couple gets "out of sync" over household tasks-- when they have kids. Kids multiply the work while reducing the time you have to do it. So if pre-kids you often took a week to put away laundry or only put the dishes away when the housecleaner was coming so that she could deep clean the kitchen, it was NBD because the rest of the time you were working or socializing and who cares with there's some partially completed tasks around the house.

With kids the math is different. There's twice as much laundry and if you don't fold it and put it away, you're spending every morning picking through the pile of clean laundry trying to get your kids dressed for school. If you never actually finish the dishes there aren't enough dishes for a single meal featuring the entire family. You have to make lunches on the edge of the counter not covered by dishes. You can't finish that last 20% in the morning because you're helping a toddler get dressed and doing a school run. And you can't bank on doing it on Saturday morning because the kids have soccer or swim.

This is when women start getting frustrated because having kids forces women to function at a higher level-- more efficient, more multi-tasking, keeping track of more tasks and schedules. But many men expect their lives to operate exactly the same as before. They are convinced that if their approach to chores and schedules was working okay pre-kids, well it must still work. But it doesn't and this puts even more pressure on moms to over perform. This is how DH becomes another child to be managed. And that kills intimacy and breeds resentment. And then the DH wonders why his wife never wants to have sex anymore and why she always seems annoyed with him.

Kids change things but fir some reason a lot of men are determined to prove this wrong.

Or…you can put your husband in charge of dressing the kids, making the dinner, cleaning, etc. I did this simply by getting the higher paid job and leaving the house early and coming home late.

I have the higher paid job and we have the same hours and my DH still does not account for the kids in his thinking about anything unless explicitly reminded to do so. I can "put him in charge" of kid stuff and do (though please note that the act of "putting him in charge" is a task in itself -- my DH does not need to assign household or parenting chores to me) but he will not do it on his own. In the end I wind up resenting that I make more money and still have to be the one to just know all about all the household and parenting items we have to know and to be responsible for making sure one of us does it and then on top of that having to complete tasks for him that he halfasses even after it has been explicitly assigned to him and he's agree to do it.

This morning was "his morning" to do the camp run which meant he sat down to work at 7:30 and did not get the kids up or get them breakfast or help pack their bags or make sure they were wearing appropriate clothes and sunscreen or pay attention to the clock so that they left on time. Instead I wound up getting them up and fed (20 minutes after they should have because I thought he'd do it) and then making sure they were ready and I still had to say "shouldn't you guys be leaving" at 8:55 (10 minutes after they really should have left) and DH just stood up from his desk and walked the kids who I got ready out the door. Please compare to the three days a week that I do camp run on my own without him at all because he works in the office on those days and I do all of it without anyone reminding me or helping me. And again -- I make more. But he just absolutely refuses to make kids or household chores a priority and I always have to decide between rescuing him (and thus training him to continue to rely on me to pick up his slack) or let my kids' lives be chaos because one of their parents thinks 50% of any parenting task is good enough.