Here's the thing I don't understand about husbands who don't help out

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As usual, 90% of the posts in this thread are internalized misogyny.

The one that offends me most is the idea that any woman who struggles with allocating household duties and childcare with her spouse has somehow failed by either:

1) Being too dumb to marry a "good" husband
2) Being too obtuse to realize her husband sucks more than other husbands
3) Being too lazy to train her "bad" husband
4) Being too incompetent to just do it herself
5) Being too high-strung to just accept less than perfect
6) Being too poor to just hire it out

Imagine what the world would be like if, instead of constantly trying to prove that we alone figured out how to solve gender inequality in our specific marriage by just being smarter or prettier or more organized than all the other lesser women. Imagine if instead we supported each other. Imagine if every time some man said "Whatever, you're never happy anyway so why should I try", all the women backed that man's wife up and said "No, dumbass, you need to try harder."

But no, let's just keep doing this instead. It's working out GREAT.

Uh, isn’t that what the OP is advocating? She’s saying women should call their useless husbands out on their lazy, half asssed behavior and say they know it’s an act that isn’t fooling anyone.

She is saying that she doesn't understand why women EVER complain about feeling burdened by unfair dynamics in their marriages. And then proceeds to explain that she has figured out the one correct way to fix the problem, which any intelligent woman would have figured out by now. It's condescending and assumes women are to blame for their husband's behavior.

There are women who do this constantly. They claim to be feminists, but then explain that the reason other women are unhappy in their relationships with men is their own fault for being "bad feminists." It's like "Rah Rah Women!" but then "Girls, You're Doing It Wrong! Here is My 24-Part Approach For Being a Better Wife, Mother, Girlboss, Sexual Partner, and Friend. Hint: You Suck!"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, OP, you sound like his Mother. Your way of teaching your DH to clean the bathroom is how I teach my sons. My DH knows how to clean a bathroom better than I do by learning from his Mother. If your DH is not cleaning the bathroom to your standards, then you should be the one with that chore, or you should learn to accept the way he does it. I mean, you can tell him you don't think it's clean enough, and if he wants you to teach him, then go for it, but don't think it helps any relationship to treat your partner like a child.

I don't get mad at my DH when he forgets stuff from the grocery store because he can't find the stuff he wanted just as often as what I wanted. I don't have to teach him how to clean (he's better at most cleaning than I am), but when we were dating and I told him he was loading the dishwasher wrong it led to something like a 4 week standoff because he can't handle criticism at all. He had to break the dishwasher and have a technician come out and tell him exactly what I said he was doing wrong before he changed his ways. I don't think you can teach or train a grown man to be better at basic tasks, you have to choose to marry one that's not a screw-up to begin with (which, dishwasher incident notwithstanding, is what I did). This is why I have more sympathy for women who realize their DH's suck at childcare than cleaning - that one is at least partially unknowable before the fact.

Man, I feel bad for you. He can’t find the things he wanted. You know what I’d say to a teenager? Well, did you ASK someone for help?? Plus now they have apps for that.

I don't think you should feel bad for me. Coming home with 18/20 things on the grocery list is simply not a big deal to me, and if I'm not bothered you shouldn't waste your pity.

It’s just so pathetic. I’m not being snarky, I’m being absolutely serious.

My wife and I split the grocery shopping pretty evenly. If one of us forgot to get something, here's the progression once we get home:

- Do we need it this week for a planned meal, or because it's an essential (someone is out of dedorant, for example). If yes, then you go back. If not immediately, then soon. If no, then we may not go back, immediately, or at all. Or we might, if we had the time and were so inclined. It's really not that difficult.

The amount of disrespect shown in this thread, flowing both ways, is truly stunning.

And I presume that if you couldn’t find something necessary for this week, you’d ask an employee for help? That’s the point. You wouldn’t just shrug your shoulders, think of we’ll I tried, then leave it to your wife to fix.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Uh.... here’s what happens OP: The husband says no. I’m not going back to the store. I’m not cleaning the bathroom again. If you don’t like the way I did it, you do it.

I guess your husband doesn’t care about you very much then. That’s sad.

Look, this is not my husband. So save your sadness. But your response is very manipulative. We should all be sad for your husband. I bet he misses his balls.

It’s sad that your husband doesn’t care enough about you to want to make your life easier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As usual, 90% of the posts in this thread are internalized misogyny.

The one that offends me most is the idea that any woman who struggles with allocating household duties and childcare with her spouse has somehow failed by either:

1) Being too dumb to marry a "good" husband
2) Being too obtuse to realize her husband sucks more than other husbands
3) Being too lazy to train her "bad" husband
4) Being too incompetent to just do it herself
5) Being too high-strung to just accept less than perfect
6) Being too poor to just hire it out

Imagine what the world would be like if, instead of constantly trying to prove that we alone figured out how to solve gender inequality in our specific marriage by just being smarter or prettier or more organized than all the other lesser women. Imagine if instead we supported each other. Imagine if every time some man said "Whatever, you're never happy anyway so why should I try", all the women backed that man's wife up and said "No, dumbass, you need to try harder."

But no, let's just keep doing this instead. It's working out GREAT.

Uh, isn’t that what the OP is advocating? She’s saying women should call their useless husbands out on their lazy, half asssed behavior and say they know it’s an act that isn’t fooling anyone.

She is saying that she doesn't understand why women EVER complain about feeling burdened by unfair dynamics in their marriages. And then proceeds to explain that she has figured out the one correct way to fix the problem, which any intelligent woman would have figured out by now. It's condescending and assumes women are to blame for their husband's behavior.

There are women who do this constantly. They claim to be feminists, but then explain that the reason other women are unhappy in their relationships with men is their own fault for being "bad feminists." It's like "Rah Rah Women!" but then "Girls, You're Doing It Wrong! Here is My 24-Part Approach For Being a Better Wife, Mother, Girlboss, Sexual Partner, and Friend. Hint: You Suck!"

Nope.

[Anonymous]

This thread is hilarious. Clearly there are a lot of women in here who are feeling defensive about their lazy jackass husbands. Omg.

[Anonymous]

The problem with these threads is that really there are a few different types of couples out there in the wild.

1) The genuinely mutual respectful couple where the guy was raised right and proactively seeks an egalitarian relationship without prompting and the woman communicates well and pulls her weight as well

2) The mutually respectful couple where the guy didn't grow up knowing this stuff but does love and respect his wife and so works with her to figure out how to be a good husband when she gets upset

3) The crappy husband and wife who tries a million times to get her husband to understand he needs to pull his own weight and he just doesn't really care and will never really exert effort to try to lighten her load

4) The mediocre husband and the wife who responds by nagging and is passive aggressive and hostile

5) The mediocre/crappy husband and wife who just accepts his crappiness and does everything on her own and is miserable but never does anything about it.

All of those couples need different advise and depending on which one you're in you give different advise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I really can’t control or change my husband.

I do what the OP suggests and it works but the feedback never gets embedded into his brain so we have to have the same conversation over and over again for years. It wears me down. It’s like every single day is a brand new day. I can never assume a foundational base of fundamental knowledge or that he will have learned.

Examples:

-I have to tell DH to pick up dirty diapers off the floor and put them in the garbage. Every single time.
-I have to tell DH, every single night, to please put his dishes in the dishwasher and then start it. If I don’t specifically mention that he needs to finish loading the dishes in, and THEN start it, he will just go start it half full and leave a bunch of dirty dishes on the counter for the morning.
-I have to tell DH to get the kids ready for the day (we trade of days for getting them ready). He has to be told, every time, what that means. I can’t just say “get the kids ready please”. It has to be “can you change them out of their jammies?” And then “can you put shoes on them?” And so on and so forth.

I’m exhausted and bitter.

You’re enabling him! I would NOT pick up the dirty diapers or put the dishes in the dishwasher for him. The diapers would be on the floor until he picked them up - even if it was days or weeks from now. If he refused, then I would sit down and talk about how we have to hire a housekeeper to run around and pick up after him.

In terms of getting kids ready, I’d leave the house and make sure he has to transport them. He will figure it out.

Sorry - but you’re another case of a trained DW. Stop picking up after him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I see TONS of posts like this all over these boards. There's one right now on the parenting board written by a poor BigLaw attorney with a toddler and baby who is working herself into an early grave doing everything for everybody by herself. Her husband is supposed to be the primary caregiver right now but he's not doing a good job. He can't even take the two kids to the grocery store. He doesn't do chores around the house because "he's not good at them." I swear, I am not picking on this woman, she is just the most recent example of this type of thing that I've seen but it's all day every day on here.

Here's what I don't get. If my husband went grocery shopping and picked out the wrong things, I'd (politely)* point this out to him and ask him to go back and get the right things. If he cleaned the bathroom and did a bad job, I'd ask him to do it again and get the spots he missed. if he said he was going to the grocery store and leaving the children at home for me to watch and work at the same time, I'd ask him if he was out of his mind.

Do these women not do this? Am I some crazy bitch? Early on in our marriage, we had some of this back and forth ^ but I was able to train him into a better husband. Yes, I'm using the word train because he started out useless at chores but quickly got better. Household chores are not hard. They just require effort and diligence. Now we're 50/50 and he's very comfortable with taking care of the house and kids. He even does hair.

*We both tolerate a lot of ribbing/teasing in our relationship and he is usually the instigator. So if he brought home the wrong things, I'd bust his balls big time but I know not everyone is up for this type of teasing. However, in his case, it only takes one or two experiences with this to get on the straight and narrow. He's the same way with me.


I guess what Im asking is, for women whose husbands really do nothing at home and you're at your wits end, have you tried calling him out on it? I would honestly say, "you're being a huge baby right now and it's really unattractive. Adults suck it up and get it done rather than whine." But maybe I am a crazy bitch, IDK.

This isn’t effective. For a man to care about what he buys at the store, it has to personally affect him. Best approach is he shops when he cooks. He will come home with the ingredients for a meal he is cooking.

If he doesn’t cook, just don’t do anything. Sit on the couch. After 10 nights of takeout he will start cooking.

The end.

These men have so many women trained. It’s unbelievable. No wonder men don’t do as much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The problem with these threads is that really there are a few different types of couples out there in the wild.

1) The genuinely mutual respectful couple where the guy was raised right and proactively seeks an egalitarian relationship without prompting and the woman communicates well and pulls her weight as well

2) The mutually respectful couple where the guy didn't grow up knowing this stuff but does love and respect his wife and so works with her to figure out how to be a good husband when she gets upset

3) The crappy husband and wife who tries a million times to get her husband to understand he needs to pull his own weight and he just doesn't really care and will never really exert effort to try to lighten her load

4) The mediocre husband and the wife who responds by nagging and is passive aggressive and hostile

5) The mediocre/crappy husband and wife who just accepts his crappiness and does everything on her own and is miserable but never does anything about it.

All of those couples need different advise and depending on which one you're in you give different advise.

My parents had #1 and my husband was raised by a single mother and had to do his own chores/laundry/cook since she had to work 2 jobs.

We have a #1. I saw mutual respect and effort and love from both parents and my husband respects women because of watching what his mother sacrificed and did for him...and learned household chores to fend for himself and younger brother.

I cannot fathom a 'traditional' household: women jobs to look pretty and serve the men because my dad was such a great dad to girls and let us know we could do anything and we didn't get out of 'boy' chores like mowing the lawn and my brother didn't get out of 'setting the table', etc. I became a scientist and a competitive athlete. I only later found out I was considered 'beautiful' because such little emphasis was placed on looks---it was placed on DOING and accomplishments within one's control. All of us were also raised to always have a means to support ourselves in life---don't rely on somebody else for that. You never know what will happen in life---or even what somebody else may be capable of doing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Uh.... here’s what happens OP: The husband says no. I’m not going back to the store. I’m not cleaning the bathroom again. If you don’t like the way I did it, you do it.

I guess your husband doesn’t care about you very much then. That’s sad.

Look, this is not my husband. So save your sadness. But your response is very manipulative. We should all be sad for your husband. I bet he misses his balls.

It’s sad that your husband doesn’t care enough about you to want to make your life easier.

Did you make your husband get rid of all the wire hangers?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The problem with these threads is that really there are a few different types of couples out there in the wild.

1) The genuinely mutual respectful couple where the guy was raised right and proactively seeks an egalitarian relationship without prompting and the woman communicates well and pulls her weight as well

2) The mutually respectful couple where the guy didn't grow up knowing this stuff but does love and respect his wife and so works with her to figure out how to be a good husband when she gets upset

3) The crappy husband and wife who tries a million times to get her husband to understand he needs to pull his own weight and he just doesn't really care and will never really exert effort to try to lighten her load

4) The mediocre husband and the wife who responds by nagging and is passive aggressive and hostile

5) The mediocre/crappy husband and wife who just accepts his crappiness and does everything on her own and is miserable but never does anything about it.

All of those couples need different advise and depending on which one you're in you give different advise.

+1

Very astute. And there are probably a million shades of variation within each of these categories, and there are probably marriages that start in one category and evolve into another over time (especially with the addition of children, which I think can move a lot of previously egalitarian marriages into very unchartered territory no matter the best intentions of both parties).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As usual, 90% of the posts in this thread are internalized misogyny.

The one that offends me most is the idea that any woman who struggles with allocating household duties and childcare with her spouse has somehow failed by either:

1) Being too dumb to marry a "good" husband
2) Being too obtuse to realize her husband sucks more than other husbands
3) Being too lazy to train her "bad" husband
4) Being too incompetent to just do it herself
5) Being too high-strung to just accept less than perfect
6) Being too poor to just hire it out

Imagine what the world would be like if, instead of constantly trying to prove that we alone figured out how to solve gender inequality in our specific marriage by just being smarter or prettier or more organized than all the other lesser women. Imagine if instead we supported each other. Imagine if every time some man said "Whatever, you're never happy anyway so why should I try", all the women backed that man's wife up and said "No, dumbass, you need to try harder."

But no, let's just keep doing this instead. It's working out GREAT.

Uh, isn’t that what the OP is advocating? She’s saying women should call their useless husbands out on their lazy, half asssed behavior and say they know it’s an act that isn’t fooling anyone.

She is saying that she doesn't understand why women EVER complain about feeling burdened by unfair dynamics in their marriages. And then proceeds to explain that she has figured out the one correct way to fix the problem, which any intelligent woman would have figured out by now. It's condescending and assumes women are to blame for their husband's behavior.

There are women who do this constantly. They claim to be feminists, but then explain that the reason other women are unhappy in their relationships with men is their own fault for being "bad feminists." It's like "Rah Rah Women!" but then "Girls, You're Doing It Wrong! Here is My 24-Part Approach For Being a Better Wife, Mother, Girlboss, Sexual Partner, and Friend. Hint: You Suck!"

I can’t help but notice the common theme on this thread of women enabling men. The problem is that women are there to step up when the DH fails. It sounds like many of the DWs need to NOT step up. Don’t cook. Don’t pick up the diapers on the floor. Don’t transport the kids. Don’t get them ready.

I have a husband who does 50-50 and that’s how I accomplish it. I do NOT step up for him unless he is seriously ill/hospitalized. Men are simply users and will use any amount of unpaid female labor they can get their hands on. Don’t be that unpaid labor.

[Anonymous]

^Problem is that you assume they care. Plenty of men don't care AT ALL if they live in filth and squalor or whether their meals are nutritious that they feed their families. They just don't care and are never going to do it themselves.

I knew plenty of guys in college that never cleaned the bathroom once and just moved to a new apartment every year. They'd scrub the one fork they were going to use, but leave the rest dirty or eat out every night. Basically living like pigs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem with these threads is that really there are a few different types of couples out there in the wild.

1) The genuinely mutual respectful couple where the guy was raised right and proactively seeks an egalitarian relationship without prompting and the woman communicates well and pulls her weight as well

2) The mutually respectful couple where the guy didn't grow up knowing this stuff but does love and respect his wife and so works with her to figure out how to be a good husband when she gets upset

3) The crappy husband and wife who tries a million times to get her husband to understand he needs to pull his own weight and he just doesn't really care and will never really exert effort to try to lighten her load

4) The mediocre husband and the wife who responds by nagging and is passive aggressive and hostile

5) The mediocre/crappy husband and wife who just accepts his crappiness and does everything on her own and is miserable but never does anything about it.

All of those couples need different advise and depending on which one you're in you give different advise.

My parents had #1 and my husband was raised by a single mother and had to do his own chores/laundry/cook since she had to work 2 jobs.

We have a #1. I saw mutual respect and effort and love from both parents and my husband respects women because of watching what his mother sacrificed and did for him...and learned household chores to fend for himself and younger brother.

I cannot fathom a 'traditional' household: women jobs to look pretty and serve the men because my dad was such a great dad to girls and let us know we could do anything and we didn't get out of 'boy' chores like mowing the lawn and my brother didn't get out of 'setting the table', etc. I became a scientist and a competitive athlete. I only later found out I was considered 'beautiful' because such little emphasis was placed on looks---it was placed on DOING and accomplishments within one's control. All of us were also raised to always have a means to support ourselves in life---don't rely on somebody else for that. You never know what will happen in life---or even what somebody else may be capable of doing.

Nice humblebrag 👍

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^Problem is that you assume they care. Plenty of men don't care AT ALL if they live in filth and squalor or whether their meals are nutritious that they feed their families. They just don't care and are never going to do it themselves.

I knew plenty of guys in college that never cleaned the bathroom once and just moved to a new apartment every year. They'd scrub the one fork they were going to use, but leave the rest dirty or eat out every night. Basically living like pigs.

If that is the case, you need to make it clear that it’s unacceptable to you and that if he wants you, he needs to clean.