WHY does my DH expect me to thank him profusely for any chore he does around the house?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"Because my husband spits gelatinous, glue-like lugies in them, pees all over the seats, and leaves skidmarks in them."

Wow, your poor toilet wants to divorce him too.

I was struck by the fact that you are rousing early to drop off your dc, leaving your dh to sleep til 11. There's no reason for you to rouse early to drop her off when she has a parent in the home who can get quality time with her, then drop her off later, before he goes to work. The fact that daycare is your better option than being with him is more than enough to leave him.

+1 He sounds sooo lazy and that is such a turn off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Because my husband spits gelatinous, glue-like lugies in them, pees all over the seats, and leaves skidmarks in them."

Wow, your poor toilet wants to divorce him too.

I was struck by the fact that you are rousing early to drop off your dc, leaving your dh to sleep til 11. There's no reason for you to rouse early to drop her off when she has a parent in the home who can get quality time with her, then drop her off later, before he goes to work. The fact that daycare is your better option than being with him is more than enough to leave him.

Yes, before we had DS, the plan that we agreed on was that DH would do both the daycare drop-off and pickup. He did it the very first day and then reneged. He told me when I got home that he would not do it anymore, as it was just too much for him in the morning and he needs his sleep. This created a HUGE fight between us, but in the end I decided to just do it myself, because honestly, I didn't trust him to wake up to take care of DS in the morning. I could just picture DS waking up and screaming for hours in his crib while DS slept.

Look, OP, if what you say is true, you don't have a partner here. You have another child, and your relationship is so off-track that you can't/won't summon the will to do the hard work to fix it (rightfully or wrongly). This means that it's time for you to decide whether you want to stay in this marriage *as it is.* If so, carry on. If not, you need to ask your DH again to try counseling. If he won't go, you need to go yourself, to (A) find out why you were willing to accept this, and (B) prepare to leave.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow - is it really that difficult and objectionable to say thank you?

Sure, your DH is being childish. However, I have learned that with my DH, a "thank you" or a "it looks nice" ramps up his enthusiasm about the task. Now, I do not even have to mention that the task needs to be done and I do not have to thank him anymore.

Positive reinforcement is just not for kids. LOL!

PP here. At least for my DH, thanking him is insufficient. He wants praise lavished on him like he just came back from the war and sulks like a kid if I notice only 3 of the 4 things he did all day, even though he doesn't say anything more than thanks (if that) for the 8 or 9 things I do.

PP here. I hear you and that would get to me if it applied to everything. But I also look at it another way. If I cook somethhing new or I prepare an elaborate meal, a simple in passing "thank you" would not make me happy either.

I also found that more frequent but less effusive praise/appreciation does the trick with my DH. At the end of the day, we ALL want to be appreciated and acknowledged. I just think your DH's approach needs to be tweaked. LOL!

[Anonymous]

I realized that DH's need to be thanked is just an emotional need, and not a character flaw. Thanking him every time he does something actually helped me appreciate how much he does, since i tend to focus on what I'm doing (and what he's NOT doing.) I started doing that, and then he started thanking me more, and started doing WAY more work around the house. It's a small thing to do. Just do it and see if it helps. Everyone wants to feel needed and appreciated. I think men, especially, really benefit from the feedback/praise.

[Anonymous]

maybe he should work full time and you can SAH

[Anonymous]

Hire a cleaning service and take it out of his salary.

[Anonymous]

Because you haven't trained him properly. He needs to be taught that he's not doing all these things for YOU, but for himself, for the house, for the family, of which he is a member.

However, based on what you said in your OP about him thinking he is a caveman, it sounds like he is untrainable. Sadly, I must recommend divorce.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Awesome. Might I suggest that you have a sit down with him and explain that you are seriously considering ending the marriage unless significant changes happen? Divorce is quite expensive and draining. Since you have a child, you owe your kid a try at therapy. If your dreamboat refuses to attend therapy or does not take it seriously, then you have your answer. You can then move on to the divorce attorney.

I've already threatened him with divorce. I've done the counseling route, but by myself, since he refuses to go.

Well, if you have threatened divorce, but haven't followed through, then you're just a whiner with empty threats. Actions speak louder than words. Sounds like it's time to actually do something. If not, then you forfeit all rights to whine and complain here and to any friends and family members.

[Anonymous]

OP, consider how this situation is going to impact DS. Boys usually look up to their fathers. What is your son going to think of your DH? Either he will see him as lazy and see his father as a bum, or he will pick up DH's bad habits and you'll be a slave to a lazy DH AND son in years to come. Otherwise, unless you separate or divorce, you have a lot of work ahead of you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because you haven't trained him properly. He needs to be taught that he's not doing all these things for YOU, but for himself, for the house, for the family, of which he is a member.

However, based on what you said in your OP about him thinking he is a caveman, it sounds like he is untrainable. Sadly, I must recommend divorce.

I love my husband very very much. But he has APPALLING - and similar - habits in the bathroom. And we only have one bathroom. We fought about them all the fucking time. I thought about going on a cleaning strike, but I think he actually wouldn't have noticed - so I'm the only one who would have suffered. We fought about it way too much; I'd say that the bathroom habits and the fighting were both bad for our marriage.

I can tell you what I did: I started calling him into the bathroom to clean up his mess every time I found it there. If he left a pool of piss on the floor, I called him in to wipe it up. When there were shit stains on the toilet, I called him in to clean it up. He fought with me, he claimed not to see these little presents - and eventually he figured out that cleaning this crap up himself would lead to less fighting. Now, for the most part, he cleans up after himself. It was essentially like housebreaking a puppy. And took just as long.

There's still occasionally a pretty big pool of urine at the base of the toilet. When it's there, I call him in to clean it up, and he does. We are much, much happier now.

I do also try to be judicious about which battles I pick. If there are just pee spots on the bathroom floor, I clean them up myself; I don't want him getting so resentful about me noticing his spots that he either starts disliking me or feeling like he's being asked to meet an unreasonable standard. (Men are fucking gross.)

I feel like by posting this, I am more or less guaranteeing that we are going to fight about the bathroom tonight. Oh well. Good luck, OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because you haven't trained him properly. He needs to be taught that he's not doing all these things for YOU, but for himself, for the house, for the family, of which he is a member.

However, based on what you said in your OP about him thinking he is a caveman, it sounds like he is untrainable. Sadly, I must recommend divorce.

I love my husband very very much. But he has APPALLING - and similar - habits in the bathroom. And we only have one bathroom. We fought about them all the fucking time. I thought about going on a cleaning strike, but I think he actually wouldn't have noticed - so I'm the only one who would have suffered. We fought about it way too much; I'd say that the bathroom habits and the fighting were both bad for our marriage.

I can tell you what I did: I started calling him into the bathroom to clean up his mess every time I found it there. If he left a pool of piss on the floor, I called him in to wipe it up. When there were shit stains on the toilet, I called him in to clean it up. He fought with me, he claimed not to see these little presents - and eventually he figured out that cleaning this crap up himself would lead to less fighting. Now, for the most part, he cleans up after himself. It was essentially like housebreaking a puppy. And took just as long.

There's still occasionally a pretty big pool of urine at the base of the toilet. When it's there, I call him in to clean it up, and he does. We are much, much happier now.

I do also try to be judicious about which battles I pick. If there are just pee spots on the bathroom floor, I clean them up myself; I don't want him getting so resentful about me noticing his spots that he either starts disliking me or feeling like he's being asked to meet an unreasonable standard. (Men are fucking gross.)

I feel like by posting this, I am more or less guaranteeing that we are going to fight about the bathroom tonight. Oh well. Good luck, OP.

I gave my DH a choice: clean the toilet 50% of the time, or sit to pee and be 100% exempt from cleaning it. He chooses to sit. Best thing ever.

We still have 2 boys, and I make them use cleaner and wipe down the pot a couple times a month. You're welcome, future DILs.

[Anonymous]

I wish my MIL had done that with my husband. Mothers really should toilet train their sons.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because you haven't trained him properly. He needs to be taught that he's not doing all these things for YOU, but for himself, for the house, for the family, of which he is a member.

However, based on what you said in your OP about him thinking he is a caveman, it sounds like he is untrainable. Sadly, I must recommend divorce.

I love my husband very very much. But he has APPALLING - and similar - habits in the bathroom. And we only have one bathroom. We fought about them all the fucking time. I thought about going on a cleaning strike, but I think he actually wouldn't have noticed - so I'm the only one who would have suffered. We fought about it way too much; I'd say that the bathroom habits and the fighting were both bad for our marriage.

I can tell you what I did: I started calling him into the bathroom to clean up his mess every time I found it there. If he left a pool of piss on the floor, I called him in to wipe it up. When there were shit stains on the toilet, I called him in to clean it up. He fought with me, he claimed not to see these little presents - and eventually he figured out that cleaning this crap up himself would lead to less fighting. Now, for the most part, he cleans up after himself. It was essentially like housebreaking a puppy. And took just as long.

There's still occasionally a pretty big pool of urine at the base of the toilet. When it's there, I call him in to clean it up, and he does. We are much, much happier now.

I do also try to be judicious about which battles I pick. If there are just pee spots on the bathroom floor, I clean them up myself; I don't want him getting so resentful about me noticing his spots that he either starts disliking me or feeling like he's being asked to meet an unreasonable standard. (Men are fucking gross.)

I feel like by posting this, I am more or less guaranteeing that we are going to fight about the bathroom tonight. Oh well. Good luck, OP.

I gave my DH a choice: clean the toilet 50% of the time, or sit to pee and be 100% exempt from cleaning it. He chooses to sit. Best thing ever.

We still have 2 boys, and I make them use cleaner and wipe down the pot a couple times a month. You're welcome, future DILs.

Thank you for your service to future wives