Husband says I’m bossing him around. Help?

[Anonymous]

He needs to be around or see better role models. He seems to think his behavior is normal. But if he actually sees a family working differently and how things could be, maybe he’ll realize he’s being a jerk. If he’s not listening to you, the advice needs to come from another male that he respects.

[Anonymous]

I saw the headline and my first thought was that you were likely too picky about how things were done, but then I read your examples. He sounds ridiculously immature. Has he always been immature? Was he able to independently keep a house before you were married?

You definitely need to talk about this when it’s not in the heat of the moment. Sadly, I’m not sure he is mature enough to change his behavior so tread carefully and make sure you stay on birth control -he will be 100x worse if you have kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My husband doesn’t do simple things around the house and for himself and then claims I’m bossing him around? For example, I’ll cook dinner and serve it. He gets up from the table and goes to play video games. I ask him “hey do you mind putting your plate in the sink?” And he gets huffy with me. Another time is when I’m in bed already, he’s in the living room watching tv and gets up to come to bed. When he comes in the room, he’s getting under the covers and I said “honey, are you going to turn the tv off?” He gets huffy again and says “I’m sick of you bossing me around”.

Same response when I told him he had food on his face and to wipe his left cheek.


Generally I have a pleasant demeanor and am not accusatory or anything. What do you do to not come across bossy?

You knew all of this about him before you got married and you pursued him anyway. Why expect him to change now?

[Anonymous]

You played the mommy role to him before marriage and now you want him to actually act like a responsible mature adult. Lol good luck

[Anonymous]

Don't cook for him and don't serve him. Doesn't solve your problems, but it's a start.

Seriously though, couples therapy, stat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My husband doesn’t do simple things around the house and for himself and then claims I’m bossing him around? For example, I’ll cook dinner and serve it. He gets up from the table and goes to play video games. I ask him “hey do you mind putting your plate in the sink?” And he gets huffy with me. Another time is when I’m in bed already, he’s in the living room watching tv and gets up to come to bed. When he comes in the room, he’s getting under the covers and I said “honey, are you going to turn the tv off?” He gets huffy again and says “I’m sick of you bossing me around”.

Same response when I told him he had food on his face and to wipe his left cheek.


Generally I have a pleasant demeanor and am not accusatory or anything. What do you do to not come across bossy?

F that. This is not about you, it's HIS problem.

Him: "I'm sick of you bossing me around."

You: "Then take some goddamn responsibility and take care of your own $h!t without having to be told."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband doesn’t do simple things around the house and for himself and then claims I’m bossing him around? For example, I’ll cook dinner and serve it. He gets up from the table and goes to play video games. I ask him “hey do you mind putting your plate in the sink?” And he gets huffy with me. Another time is when I’m in bed already, he’s in the living room watching tv and gets up to come to bed. When he comes in the room, he’s getting under the covers and I said “honey, are you going to turn the tv off?” He gets huffy again and says “I’m sick of you bossing me around”.

Same response when I told him he had food on his face and to wipe his left cheek.


Generally I have a pleasant demeanor and am not accusatory or anything. What do you do to not come across bossy?

F that. This is not about you, it's HIS problem.

Him: "I'm sick of you bossing me around."

You: "Then take some goddamn responsibility and take care of your own $h!t without having to be told."

That’s such a terrible unhealthy dynamic. Why get married just to bicker like that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband doesn’t do simple things around the house and for himself and then claims I’m bossing him around? For example, I’ll cook dinner and serve it. He gets up from the table and goes to play video games. I ask him “hey do you mind putting your plate in the sink?” And he gets huffy with me. Another time is when I’m in bed already, he’s in the living room watching tv and gets up to come to bed. When he comes in the room, he’s getting under the covers and I said “honey, are you going to turn the tv off?” He gets huffy again and says “I’m sick of you bossing me around”.

Same response when I told him he had food on his face and to wipe his left cheek.


Generally I have a pleasant demeanor and am not accusatory or anything. What do you do to not come across bossy?

F that. This is not about you, it's HIS problem.

Him: "I'm sick of you bossing me around."

You: "Then take some goddamn responsibility and take care of your own $h!t without having to be told."

That’s such a terrible unhealthy dynamic. Why get married just to bicker like that?

No, what they're doing now is bickering. And being a doormat is hardly a healthy dynamic. OP needs to firmly say what she means and shut this nonsense down.

[Anonymous]

I’d stop doing anything for him. Like another poster said, leave his plate on the table in let it crust. Get ear plugs so you don’t hear the TV. Eventually the house is going to get gross and maybe at that point you’ll want to leave.

[Anonymous]

After our first child was born, my husband went through a phase where he said “I feel like I work for you, and my boss is always annoyed with me.” I told him, as nicely as I could, that if he actually did his job (ie participated fully in parenting instead of sullenly acting like I imposed this child on his sweet bachelor lifestyle), his “boss” would cool it and we’d all get along better.

For real, men who accuse women of nagging are just using the trope of the nagging wife to escape doing their fair share. It’s one of a thousand tools in the “getting out of doing stuff” patriarchy toolkit. Some of the others:

-Just being weirdly bad at cleaning and other household tasks
-Saying they’ll do something and then procrastinating/forgetting until someone else does it
-Disappearing! There’s a dirty diaper and then *poof* where did he go?

As children, women are taught to take care of people and smooth out their emotions for others. Men are taught to do this. My husband is a good guy but he will still lean on this shit to escape doing things because it’s been working for dudes forever.

I resolve it by bringing it up, clearly outlining how it is childish and irresponsible behavior for a full grown adult, and then saying I won’t put up with it. I’m not going to say “don’t let him get away with it!” because I hate when women tell other women that the answer to misogyny is for women to work harder/do better. But I will say that you deserve better, your husband is being a tool, and he needs to be reminded regularly that you aren’t his mother or his maid. In fact, I have a saying I use often with everyone in my family: “Not the maid!” I don’t even ask them to do stuff, I just loudly announce I’m not the maid and they know by now that means they need to look around and figure out what they can do to clean up, then do it.

[Anonymous]

Gross. Sounds more like a child than a spouse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:After our first child was born, my husband went through a phase where he said “I feel like I work for you, and my boss is always annoyed with me.” I told him, as nicely as I could, that if he actually did his job (ie participated fully in parenting instead of sullenly acting like I imposed this child on his sweet bachelor lifestyle), his “boss” would cool it and we’d all get along better.

For real, men who accuse women of nagging are just using the trope of the nagging wife to escape doing their fair share. It’s one of a thousand tools in the “getting out of doing stuff” patriarchy toolkit. Some of the others:

-Just being weirdly bad at cleaning and other household tasks
-Saying they’ll do something and then procrastinating/forgetting until someone else does it
-Disappearing! There’s a dirty diaper and then *poof* where did he go?

As children, women are taught to take care of people and smooth out their emotions for others. Men are taught to do this. My husband is a good guy but he will still lean on this shit to escape doing things because it’s been working for dudes forever.

I resolve it by bringing it up, clearly outlining how it is childish and irresponsible behavior for a full grown adult, and then saying I won’t put up with it. I’m not going to say “don’t let him get away with it!” because I hate when women tell other women that the answer to misogyny is for women to work harder/do better. But I will say that you deserve better, your husband is being a tool, and he needs to be reminded regularly that you aren’t his mother or his maid. In fact, I have a saying I use often with everyone in my family: “Not the maid!” I don’t even ask them to do stuff, I just loudly announce I’m not the maid and they know by now that means they need to look around and figure out what they can do to clean up, then do it.

You sound like a real peach.

Your approach sounds quite antagonistic and I couldn’t imagine always being on high alert like that with my family. I bet you wake up with veins popping out of your forehead.

[Anonymous]

Marry an adult next time!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:After our first child was born, my husband went through a phase where he said “I feel like I work for you, and my boss is always annoyed with me.” I told him, as nicely as I could, that if he actually did his job (ie participated fully in parenting instead of sullenly acting like I imposed this child on his sweet bachelor lifestyle), his “boss” would cool it and we’d all get along better.

For real, men who accuse women of nagging are just using the trope of the nagging wife to escape doing their fair share. It’s one of a thousand tools in the “getting out of doing stuff” patriarchy toolkit. Some of the others:

-Just being weirdly bad at cleaning and other household tasks
-Saying they’ll do something and then procrastinating/forgetting until someone else does it
-Disappearing! There’s a dirty diaper and then *poof* where did he go?

As children, women are taught to take care of people and smooth out their emotions for others. Men are taught to do this. My husband is a good guy but he will still lean on this shit to escape doing things because it’s been working for dudes forever.

I resolve it by bringing it up, clearly outlining how it is childish and irresponsible behavior for a full grown adult, and then saying I won’t put up with it. I’m not going to say “don’t let him get away with it!” because I hate when women tell other women that the answer to misogyny is for women to work harder/do better. But I will say that you deserve better, your husband is being a tool, and he needs to be reminded regularly that you aren’t his mother or his maid. In fact, I have a saying I use often with everyone in my family: “Not the maid!” I don’t even ask them to do stuff, I just loudly announce I’m not the maid and they know by now that means they need to look around and figure out what they can do to clean up, then do it.

You sound like a real peach.

Your approach sounds quite antagonistic and I couldn’t imagine always being on high alert like that with my family. I bet you wake up with veins popping out of your forehead.

A different poster here, I disagree, her post makes a lot of sense. The way to not become a passive aggressive resentful wife is to calmly and clearly remind everyone that you are not the maid of the family. I don’t bug my husband for not doing things my way, or not meeting my cleanliness standards, but I will stand my ground and remind him when he seems to expect me to do something instead of him (because when someone doesn’t put their socks in the hamper, it means they expect their partners to do it, there is no magical sock fairy)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My husband doesn’t do simple things around the house and for himself and then claims I’m bossing him around? For example, I’ll cook dinner and serve it. He gets up from the table and goes to play video games. I ask him “hey do you mind putting your plate in the sink?” And he gets huffy with me. Another time is when I’m in bed already, he’s in the living room watching tv and gets up to come to bed. When he comes in the room, he’s getting under the covers and I said “honey, are you going to turn the tv off?” He gets huffy again and says “I’m sick of you bossing me around”.

Same response when I told him he had food on his face and to wipe his left cheek.


Generally I have a pleasant demeanor and am not accusatory or anything. What do you do to not come across bossy?

How long have you been married? Because he sounds like a complete ass. I'd solve the dinner plate issue real quick - wouldn't make dinner for him.