I wish my husband was smarter than me

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love my husband dearly. He is sweet, kind, generous and a great lover. He adores me. But...I think I'm smarter than him. And...it really bugs me.

He's the Phil to my Claire; Tom to my Annette; Homer to my Marge.

I have friends that are so impressed by their husbands and defer to them for decisions, life planning etc.

I am in-charge of it all. Because my husband is kind of a dufus.

I'm so sick of it.

OP, I just wrote on another thread (about husbands and money) - if it is any consolation, I know quite a few wives first hand who have exceptionally smart husbands (and the wives are also exceptionally smart, not by coincidence). In the cases I know (quite a few), the wives have to take on QUITE a lot, as there is absolutely zero common sense in the other half of the marriage. Which does not sound bad, until you live it - these women are absolutely exhausted. Not to mention, the amount of patience, lack of communication, and everything else that goes along with it. Be careful what you ask for, seriously. I hear about it a lot, it is bad.

+1
My husband is smarter than me- but I pretty much do all of the decision making.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are your friends husbands, sweet, kind, generous and great lovers? Do their husbands adore them? You may be well ahead of the game in terms of being happy.

You never truly know someone unless you actually live with them. I know many people on their second marriages, who are having enormous regrets about leaving their first spouse, because (they had it in their head) that they wanted someone "smart". Traded one set of problems for another, and would take their old life back in a minute, if only they could. PP here. I think other PP makes a great point by saying that OP's husband is not really a "doofus", but instead, lacks certain skills, which can be taught. Common sense (for example) can *not* be taught.

[Anonymous]

Meh. My dh is brilliant and very smart and kind and generous and is a planner. But he forgets to take out the trash, can’t sort out how to put dd into size appropriate clothes and needs to be walked through on how to fix anything from a toilet to a shelf loose on the wall. I also make marginally more money than him. He is awesome in his ways and makes his contributions to the family life and does his share of everything and loves and respects me in a way I always dreamed of.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Were. Not WAS

+1. Correct. It was my first thought, but didn't want to write it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, what are the "smarts" you wish he had? There's IQ, which isn't necessarily a blessing in and of itself. Then there's common sense, which could also be called life skills. Then there's intelligence to the extent that someone is interesting to talk to about things/debate stuff with. Then there are also tons of other categories, like good with trivial facts, good at dealing with people, etc. Those are more "skills" than "smarts" but my point is I think there are a lot of facets to being "smart." There's also a good work ethic, which can sometimes compensate for a lack of smarts (conversely you can be smart but lazy).

Your post seems to be less about IQ smarts and more about planning/functioning skills, which aren't the same thing as smarts (and in fact, a lot of high IQ people have trouble with things like organizing/planning). I guess I'm just not sure what it is about him that you think makes him a doofus. If he's just all around dumb, unmotivated, lazy, and clueless, then I'm sorry.

He has a high IQ but he doesn’t have much street/life smarts. It sucks because I don’t either but I’m having to learn to compensate for my husbands lack of effort in this regard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are your friends husbands, sweet, kind, generous and great lovers? Do their husbands adore them? You may be well ahead of the game in terms of being happy.

You never truly know someone unless you actually live with them. I know many people on their second marriages, who are having enormous regrets about leaving their first spouse, because (they had it in their head) that they wanted someone "smart". Traded one set of problems for another, and would take their old life back in a minute, if only they could. PP here. I think other PP makes a great point by saying that OP's husband is not really a "doofus", but instead, lacks certain skills, which can be taught. Common sense (for example) can *not* be taught.

PP again. Meant to add, some of the smart men I mentioned are touch averse, meaning they don't like to be touched, behind closed doors (and before you make insinuations, they were like that long before they met their wives). Of course, the husbands are kind and buggy in person (they re not stupid, they are well aware of having a certain image/front). And no, since you asked, they are none of those things ^^^. Not saying it is true of all smart men, but some have no emotions, or are emotionally stunted (temper tantrums for something very small and trivial, and the wives and children get household items thrown at them, routinely, because their spouse is smart, but stunted). If a smart man is depressed or has family of origin issues (abuses during his upbringing, for example), good luck getting him professional help, because he "knows everything."

[Anonymous]

*huggy, not buggy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's ''smarter than I".

No it's not.

[Anonymous]

The problem is not that your DH is less smart than you.

The problem is that you feel he is not pulling his weight.

On some level, even if he is doing chores and has a good job, you believe that you are exerting yourself much more than him, mentally. You have to make all these decisions and you're exhausted by it.

I felt very similar for much of my marriage (maybe the first 7/10 years). Over time, I just had to learn to appreciate what my husband is good at and leverage it so that we are a better partnership.

For example, my husband cannot plan, research, and hates reading. I resented this for a long time until I realized that he has very good intuition, very good judgement about people, and a lot of common sense. He is also frugal and even though I am the one managing our finances, he takes my direction and doesn't waste our money. He also takes care of the cars. Is that perfect? No. Would I rather he be better able to read over documents and help me sometimes? Yes. But that is what marriage is, you need to complement each other's strengths and weaknesses. And sometimes I have to push him a little bit to get out of his comfort zone, and I have to do it in a diplomatic way. But that's the best we can do. You just have to be kind and figure out a way to appreciate and complement each other.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are your friends husbands, sweet, kind, generous and great lovers? Do their husbands adore them? You may be well ahead of the game in terms of being happy.

You never truly know someone unless you actually live with them. I know many people on their second marriages, who are having enormous regrets about leaving their first spouse, because (they had it in their head) that they wanted someone "smart". Traded one set of problems for another, and would take their old life back in a minute, if only they could. PP here. I think other PP makes a great point by saying that OP's husband is not really a "doofus", but instead, lacks certain skills, which can be taught. Common sense (for example) can *not* be taught.

Really??? I don't know anyone who has regrets about their first divorce. Not one single person.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The problem is not that your DH is less smart than you.

The problem is that you feel he is not pulling his weight.

On some level, even if he is doing chores and has a good job, you believe that you are exerting yourself much more than him, mentally. You have to make all these decisions and you're exhausted by it.

I felt very similar for much of my marriage (maybe the first 7/10 years). Over time, I just had to learn to appreciate what my husband is good at and leverage it so that we are a better partnership.

For example, my husband cannot plan, research, and hates reading. I resented this for a long time until I realized that he has very good intuition, very good judgement about people, and a lot of common sense. He is also frugal and even though I am the one managing our finances, he takes my direction and doesn't waste our money. He also takes care of the cars. Is that perfect? No. Would I rather he be better able to read over documents and help me sometimes? Yes. But that is what marriage is, you need to complement each other's strengths and weaknesses. And sometimes I have to push him a little bit to get out of his comfort zone, and I have to do it in a diplomatic way. But that's the best we can do. You just have to be kind and figure out a way to appreciate and complement each other.

I'm the PP who asked what kind of smarts, and this post hits the nail on the head.

Figure out what he can do. I spend a lot more time on certain things than I would maybe like to, but then there are other things that my husband handles that I'm glad I don't have to think about. Or, like PP said, have him do stuff like take the cars in, take the animals to the vet, whatever. Yes, it's annoying if you have to be the one to schedule that stuff, but it still beats having to sit there for an hour while your dog gets a shot.

[Anonymous]

I am much smarter than my husband and not only do I have to do everything, I also find it really boring. We met under very specific circumstances and in those circumstances, he was great and we had heaps in common. But those circumstances are long past and I am annoyed because he never has anything interesting to contribute to any conversation. He's very successful so we don't worry about money but I am bored silly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are your friends husbands, sweet, kind, generous and great lovers? Do their husbands adore them? You may be well ahead of the game in terms of being happy.

You never truly know someone unless you actually live with them. I know many people on their second marriages, who are having enormous regrets about leaving their first spouse, because (they had it in their head) that they wanted someone "smart". Traded one set of problems for another, and would take their old life back in a minute, if only they could. PP here. I think other PP makes a great point by saying that OP's husband is not really a "doofus", but instead, lacks certain skills, which can be taught. Common sense (for example) can *not* be taught.

Really??? I don't know anyone who has regrets about their first divorce. Not one single person.

Depends how long they have been married (both times). Of course, if a family or two was decimated in the process, admitting remarriage is a regret is not likely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you get to make decisions and decide?

Because my husband has a very high IQ, thinks he's the bee's knees, and OK, somtimes makes good decisions. Sometimes, they're catastrophic, and he won't acknowledge that, because he's supposed to be the smart one.

+1

Control issues.

+2. He can build a computer from scratch, engineer a bridge, etc., but he has to vote on and have input on everything in our lives. It's like living with Chidi in the Good Place to get him to agree that basic things are good ideas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I love my husband dearly. He is sweet, kind, generous and a great lover. He adores me. But...I think I'm smarter than him. And...it really bugs me.

He's the Phil to my Claire; Tom to my Annette; Homer to my Marge.

I have friends that are so impressed by their husbands and defer to them for decisions, life planning etc.

I am in-charge of it all. Because my husband is kind of a dufus.

I'm so sick of it. [/qno one

noone is perfect but from what you've said he sounds like a great husband