Tired of managing my household

[Anonymous]

I am CEO and CFO of my family. My DH doesn’t do anything unless I ask, and he will then do it, but why do I have to ask? For example, the mosquitoes are out of control in our yard. Day after day of getting bit up I ask him when the last time he sprayed (he did it regularly last year). He says in June. I tell him to spray again! So he does the next day. Why do I have to ask? Kid needs a check up appointment. He makes it after I ask him to. If I didn’t meal plan or grocery shop, we’d be eating cereal all week. There is blue tape all over the house from when the painter was here. It’s been up for a month. It’s way out of reach for me so I ask him to take it down eventually and it’s gone the next day. I am so tired of managing who does what. I have a full time job too.

Do I have to accept this or stop doing these things or keep doing what I’m doing?

[Anonymous]

Typically people have “divide and conquer” tasks and “do what is needed” tasks.

To me the yard/mosquitoes and meals are divide and conquer. I assume my husband is taking care of all yard stuff unless I am told otherwise. Occasionally I may notice something he didn’t and mention it and he will take care of it if it is actually an issue. Same with meals/food. My husband would never plan a meal or buy food without asking me first because he assumes I am taking care of it unless I specifically ask for help.

For those type of chores you can use something like the Fair Play card deck to get a sense of who is the default and what the “minimum viable product” is for frequency and quality of the task being done.

For other things like tape on the wall or dishwasher needing to be unloaded, the person who sees it should just do it. I suppose this only works with two reasonably helpful and responsible adults, but he should not need to be told to take the tape down or to wipe the counter if he notices the kids spilled something and didn’t fully clean up. Adults should generally clean up after themselves.

[Anonymous]

Dh and I sit down every week and make a list of things that need to be done. Then we split it up. Depending on the week, sometimes DH does more and sometimes I do more. Sometimes, like this week, we are super busy so the list is short.

[Anonymous]

I think a lot of men don't "see" things that we women see, or if they do.. they just don't care. If it's not a big deal to him, he'll ignore it. But, since you care about it, and you ask him to do something, he'll do it (hopefully without making a fuss about it).

I am experiencing the same thing with my DH. He cannot multi-task, and he doesn't "see" things that need doing. I always have to meal plan because if I leave it up to him, we would end up eating frozen food or eating out because he didn't plan for anything. I meal plan, and he executes. At least he does it without complaining.

Been married for 20 years. I don't think he's gonna change now. He's 59.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am CEO and CFO of my family. My DH doesn’t do anything unless I ask (this is a hyperbole, this is categorically a lie and because you are so emotional, I don't even want to read on, but I will ... lets see what other craziness you have in store), and he will then do it, but why do I have to ask? (Because you are a terrible communicator) For example, the mosquitoes are out of control in our yard. Day after day of getting bit up I ask him when the last time he sprayed (he did it regularly last year). He says in June. I tell him to spray again! So he does the next day. Why do I have to ask? (Because you don't know how to communicate your expectation... do you want to spray weekly/monthly/on wednesdays, learn to use your word and set an expectations instead of expecting him to read your mind.)Kid needs a check up appointment. He makes it after I ask him to. (How is he supposed to know you didn't do it? Is this his job ... you never make appointments?)If I didn’t meal plan or grocery shop, we’d be eating cereal all week. There is blue tape all over the house from when the painter was here. It’s been up for a month. It’s way out of reach for me so I ask him to take it down eventually and it’s gone the next day. I am so tired of managing who does what. I have a full time job too.

Do I have to accept this or stop doing these things or keep doing what I’m doing?

Sit down like adults and use your words. Communicate things that need to be done, and you BOTH, write them down and how often they need to be done and assign them and then let it be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am CEO and CFO of my family. My DH doesn’t do anything unless I ask, and he will then do it, but why do I have to ask? For example, the mosquitoes are out of control in our yard. Day after day of getting bit up I ask him when the last time he sprayed (he did it regularly last year). He says in June. I tell him to spray again! So he does the next day. Why do I have to ask? Kid needs a check up appointment. He makes it after I ask him to. If I didn’t meal plan or grocery shop, we’d be eating cereal all week. There is blue tape all over the house from when the painter was here. It’s been up for a month. It’s way out of reach for me so I ask him to take it down eventually and it’s gone the next day. I am so tired of managing who does what. I have a full time job too.

Do I have to accept this or stop doing these things or keep doing what I’m doing?

Maybe he thought it was your turn this year to spray? He did it all last year.

Some of this is just sad. Why do you think he should be doing everything? Like can’t you actually go get a ladder and get the painter tape off the wall?

[Anonymous]

I would be careful not to get too far into resentment, OP. If you split you will be doing 100% but with far less money and far less time with your kids, now and as adults.

Try lists or divide up chores but if you keep feeling victimized or hard done by you may end up wishing you had been careful what you wished for.

[Anonymous]

If you have the money, hire help. If you have even more money, hire a household manager as well as services/people to execute tasks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am CEO and CFO of my family. My DH doesn’t do anything unless I ask, and he will then do it, but why do I have to ask? For example, the mosquitoes are out of control in our yard. Day after day of getting bit up I ask him when the last time he sprayed (he did it regularly last year). He says in June. I tell him to spray again! So he does the next day. Why do I have to ask? Kid needs a check up appointment. He makes it after I ask him to. If I didn’t meal plan or grocery shop, we’d be eating cereal all week. There is blue tape all over the house from when the painter was here. It’s been up for a month. It’s way out of reach for me so I ask him to take it down eventually and it’s gone the next day. I am so tired of managing who does what. I have a full time job too.

Do I have to accept this or stop doing these things or keep doing what I’m doing?

He is the guy you married without really getting to know him. Its too late now. Hire a low skill low cost handyman or task rabbit to do these chores. Divorce is more expensive and inconvenient than mosquito spray and blue tape.

[Anonymous]

My DH isn't this bad, but it is really astounding sometimes the stuff that he just chooses to take zero responsibility over. Like literally he will notice something and point it out to me and say "we should do something about that" and then never do anything about it ever again. And then a few months later, if it's not fixed, he'll say "hey, weren't you going to do something about this? what happened with that?" It's amazing.

I just call him on it though. Sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't. We still have a major house issue that he "noticed" like 3 years ago and will suddenly start asking about every 6 months and I have told him repeatedly that I have my hands full and can't deal with it but will support him in however he wants to handle, and he will say "oh yeah, I'll figure it out" and then forget about it and then ask about it again 6 months later.

We will move out of this house before he takes care of it.

[Anonymous]

My DH is the same way. It gets old.

I’ve started looking into hiring a handyman- we can afford it. I don’t plan to check with DH first- I know once the work is done (if he even notices) he will be glad. He just wont ever take the initiative.

[Anonymous]

Wait all you have to do is ask him and he does it immediately? That actually sounds pretty good. Some people are just not planners. I asked my husband to make my kid an appointment and he didn’t for two months and then I just ended up doing it. If I make an appointment and he can plan around it he will take the child. I think having to ask is not that big a deal. Maybe either outsource more or just see yourself as the planner.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wait all you have to do is ask him and he does it immediately? That actually sounds pretty good. Some people are just not planners. I asked my husband to make my kid an appointment and he didn’t for two months and then I just ended up doing it. If I make an appointment and he can plan around it he will take the child. I think having to ask is not that big a deal. Maybe either outsource more or just see yourself as the planner.

It’s astounding how low some of you set the bar.

[Anonymous]

Damn if my husband did something the next day after I mentioned it I’d be THRILLED! I get that you don’t want to have to manage him like an employee, believe me I get it - but talk to any of your friends and a husband who does something the next day is going to be faster than probably 90% of husbands.

[Anonymous]

We have a white board where we write tasks for the weekend. We both add to it and we both check it and do stuff. That way it’s not me always asking him. Also, he writes stuff on it that I would never “see” and don’t care about, so it’s a way to remember DH does stuff that I don’t always mentally tally.

But, we have a similar dynamic to yours OP with driving kids to appointments (and one is SN with multiple appointments a week- most late afternoon or early evening). I have the more flexible job, so I don’t mind doing more than half. He’ll usually do it if I ask but rarely volunteers and never proactively let’s me know he won’t be able to do. So it does set up a bad dynamic where him doing less than half of it still feels like he’s doing me a favor. Every once in while I rant at him about defaulting to me doing it all, and he gets better for a while.