I'm on the verge of divorce, talk me down
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
| My husband does this too. Watching "the price of admission" really helps me put things in perspective. |
Anonymous
| Your DH sounds like me. I have ADD and leave a trail of disaster behind me...,,I just don't see it until I really focus. But then I clean it up. |
Anonymous
Not to hijack this thread, but go to hell if you consider SAHs to be unambitious and selfish. Being a stay-at-home parent (and this goes for dads too) is one of the most selfless things you can ever do. Your *entire* day revolves around service to a toddler or infant. You sacrifice career goals because it is in the best interest of the child/family. It is an extremely selfless undertaking, and as is evidenced by this moron, incredibly thankless for 95 percent of the time. But I know this: When my kids are grown, I won't regret FOR ONE MINUTE staying home with them. |
Anonymous
|
OP, my DH is EXACTLY LIKE THIS. Why it is so hard to close the cabinet doors or push in the dresser drawers, I will never understand. Although, when my MIL visits she does the same thing, so I guess at least I know where it comes from.
DH has been like this ever since we got together and has gradually improved through effort at training on my part. I would not recommend talking to him about how XYZ makes you feel and asking him in generic terms to be neater. My DH would be annoyed by that and would consider it to be passive aggressive (even though it's not but whatever). Instead, give him concrete steps and tell him what to do, in a neutral, pleasant tone, and then thank him for doing it. Focus on one or two things at a time until he has mastered those things, then move on. If you see behavior you don't like, ignore it until the time comes to focus on that behavior. Essentially, think of him like you do your 2 year old in terms of how you are trying to instill good behaviors. I know it sounds condescending, but my DH now hangs up his towel after showers without fail instead of leaving it in a ball on the floor to mildew and that is a BIG WIN. Don't divorce. Just pick your battles. |
Anonymous
+1000 |
Anonymous
You're getting divorced over dishes essentially. It's stupid OP. You have a kid, life doesn't get easier at this point. It gets a little less chaotic, but not easier. Either buck up or get divorced and make someone else unhappy and let your husband be happy. |
Anonymous
Oh for Pete's sake. A man (assuming man, could be woman, of course) can state that his wife was unambitious and selfish and not be making a statement about all women who SAH. His SAH was unambitious and selfish. He wasn't happy. He is now happy with his new doctor wife. That is all about his particular life. There is literally nothing in what he wrote that is a universal statement about all SAHMs. It is entirely possible that his SAH wife was, in fact, unambitious and selfish. Staying home does not mean that you can't be unambitious and selfish. Your very self-centered response here indicates you might be a bit closer to what he divorced than you think. I was a SAHM too but when I stayed home, women like you drove me crazy with their self-congratulations. Not everything is about you! Also, for the record, it's not one of the most selfless things you can do. Or rather, there are way, way more selfless things in the world that I'd give a lot more credit to before I listed my time at home with my kids on top of that list. |
Anonymous
| You seem nuts. Divorce your DH because you will probably be doing him a favor. I'm sure he will appreciate not being nagged constantly! It's dishes for Christ's sake! |
Anonymous
|
NP here. My DH is like this. I am working but partly because by working, it allows us to have a house cleaner come pretty often. It costs us around $10K a year, but we both agree it's cheaper than therapy and divorce.
|
Anonymous
Disagree. |
Anonymous
| I'm sorry this is ridiculous. Think about child before the dishes. Smh. |
Anonymous
|
not divorce worthy. still a pain in the ass. and you can't nag him into submission, and some of it you will just have to learn to live with. but I don't think it is reasonable, either, to ask you to clean up after his endless messes. I assume you have talked to him about it in terms similar to what you say here. What does he say? can you afford a housekeeper/maid service?
|
Anonymous
| Ask him "who are you leaving that for?". Every time. I get why you are so bothered by this. it is disrespectful of him to expect you to clean up after him as if he is a child. |
Anonymous
No, "some" people don't hate messiness. All people hate messiness. And all people think their spouses do annoying things. Right now, you feel like you are in a unique situation where you uniquely like clean and calm environments and your husband is uniquely messy. Both of these claims are false. If you replaced your husband, you would think the new one is messy too. And if he replaced you, your replacement would also dislike his mess. If you truly can't live like this and think being not in a relationship would be better for you, then yes, get a divorce. If you think that you are in a unique situation that can somehow be fixed by divorcing and remarrying, no, you're not. If you plan to remarry, what the whole thing will get you is a lot of pain, frustration, and wasted money all to get you into exactly the same situation as you are now. |
Anonymous
False. Messiness just doesn't bug me the way it bugs others. I actually get stressed out when things are TOO neat. I feel better with a little mess and clutter. It's my husband who gets bugged by mess. So here's my advice OP: (1) Resign yourself to being the one to lead the charge on clean up because you're the one that cares. (2) Ask your spouse to do better *for your sake* - not because it's innately better, although you think it is. Most people respond far better to positives than negatives. (3) Be really appreciative as he improves. Focus on areas where he's getting better rather than the places where he still sucks. I can not tell you how frustrating, discouraging and counterproductive it is when I make a real effort to clean up one space in our house and rather than focusing on that my spouse criticizes another not-cleaned-up space. Makes me want to say F U and strop trying since I'm doing it *for him* (see #2.) (4) Since you're more time crunched than pre-kids, figure out if there are other elements of family life you can switch to your DH to balance this out. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. Speaking as a person unbothered by clutter, I can improve on being neater, but it will NEVER come as easily or naturally for me as it does for some people - it just isn't rewarding enough for me. However there are (what feels like) an endless number of other areas that need to be managed in family life. Try to focus on your DH's strengths and figure out what things he can take off your plate that will maximize the family benefit. Ideally you're looking to split tasks by optimizing on everybody's innate talents / skills so that all the work gets done with the least amount of pain. --An example from our family: I plan ALL trips / vacations. DH enjoys going on good trips but doesn't enjoy the planing at all (and frankly, he's bad at it), while I LOVE trip planning, so putting in the time to plan trips doesn't *feel* like work to me. Thus with this split he doesn't need to do work he doesn't enjoy, I don't resent DH that I'm putting in that work, and we all get a great trip. It's a win-win for all of us. |