Two spouses: a play

[Anonymous]

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I think people are being a bit obtuse focusing on the individual tasks and arguing over whether or not they are important.

No, it's common sense.

When people assign importance to tasks, they can focus on more important tasks and de-prioritize things that are unnecessary. If your spouse and/or family is not contributing, that's even more reason to de-prioritize the unnecessary.

How can someone who doesn’t read any of their non-work emails or texts prioritize them?

The magic fairy.

Who needs to be told the outfits and cookies aren't that important. Does your husband really need to tell you that?

Husband says nothing since he reads no emails.

Ignorance is bliss.

This isn't his first rodeo. In the past he said forget the green shirt, red dress and cookies and she told him that was the wrong answer. So he lets her do it her way and when she gets angry he refrains himself from telling her "I told you so". She's mad that she painted herself into this corner by insisting that this is all very important and simply must be done. He has given up.

I would be shocked if he knew about the sweater and decided it didn’t need to be done. That’s just not how things work in most families.

What does this mean?

[Anonymous]

Why does the wife take care of all of these things noiselessly, on top of regular work? I don't understand this marriage.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Act 1
A happy family, one husband, one wife and three lovely children. Child A has a holiday performance on Thursday morning and needs to wear a “green Christmas sweater, blue jeans and white sneakers” per teacher instructions. Child 2 has Christmas caroling at the old people’s home on Friday and needs a red dress and plate of cookies. Child 3 is receiving an award for a speech on Friday also, and will be needing a birthday present for friend’s party that same afternoon. Wife takes care of all of these things noiselessly, on top of regular work. She also lets husband know where to be on performance and award day.
Act 2
Husband: shows up.
Act 3
Society: why do women complain about mental labor? It’s a fiction that only exists in their hysterical imaginations and they invent tasks to do because they are hysterical.

Curtain.

Some data for you OP

https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-myth-of-the-lazy-father

That’s Bs methodology. The work addict dad who avoids family responsibilities gets to count his 40-70 hours a week hiding out at the office, home office and iPhone as “household help?”

Yeah, we all know what that means. And what would happen if both parents behaved like that.

Right?
I mean, the fact that men spend more time at work and less time doing childcare is the exact issue.
It’s kind of upsetting that the author of this article doesn’t seem to get it.

If he's making more money for the family then it's time well spent. Making less money to have more time to make cookies for the old folks is a bad tradeoff and doesn't help the family.

Why is that a bad trade off?
As long as we have enough money for the things we need and a lot of the things we want, then why is it so awful for a man to bake cookies with his daughter instead of making more money?

If you want an underemployed man who has lots of free time to make dr appointments and cookies, then have at it. I'm sure those types of men are a dime a dozen but I wouldn't know because I wouldn't be interested. But very few well paying jobs offer lots of flexibility and free time for the nonsense schools push on parents.

And the reality is those PP's are imposing their judgment of what is "good for the family". Suppose the husbands said, I wish my wife would cut out all of the unnecessary crap and pick up some extra hours at work for the family. The kids don't need all of these extras; they'll be fine. They would be apoplectic. Yet somehow their judgments of how their husbands should "better" use their time "for the family" supersedes his. And, of course, you know that they would complain nonstop if husband was underemployed and funds to underwrite their dream lifestyle were lacking. These are just the sort of people who would complain no matter what.

My husband makes plenty of money and has decided his time is better spent at work rather than trying to DIY a leaky toilet or repairing dry wall. He's more than happy to pay someone who can do it right and not waste his time on it. That's the tradeoff we make. I handle the bulk of the kid stuff although he reads the school emails and will ask if I'm aware of this or that. He also does a lot of chauffeuring kids around. But he will never shop for the red dress or drop everything to get cookies. It works for us.

Can he tell when a toilet needs fixing?
Does he tell someone or call the repairman?
Does he arrange the repair time and let them in?
Does he pay the repair and look over the work?

Or does he see a leaky toilet or clogged drain in his very own home, and say nothing and do nothing?
Thats what I’m dealing with- and he “works” 5am-6pm at home and then drinks and watches TV from 6-9pm before crashing on the sofa. He has a 10pm alarm set on his phone to wake up and go upstairs to bed.

Is he underemployed or not? The tradeoff has to be a lot of money to make up the difference. Yours doesn't sound like he's bringing home the bacon at a high powered well paying job. Big difference.

You are missing the point.

If a high income but uninvolved dad can’t tell something or someone is broken or in need, and thus does nothing, then problem(s) will snowball.

Nothing to do with underemployed or not.
Has to do with paying attention, giving a damn and effort when at home.

This

It’s about giving a damn. And showing that you do.

And who is the arbiter of how to appropriately show you "give a damn"? Lemme guess: you?

Easy. List examples here of your husband demonstrating “giving a damn” about his wife and kids.

Here I’ll start:
- Showed up at the concert!?!
- Got on the plane to gramdma’s!?!
- ate Thanksgiving dinner with everyone!?!
- picked out a movie to watch every night of the week!?!

Why did you marry and have kids with this person? You're having your own little meltdown in here talking about something only tangentially related to the OP.

So you are blaming the wife for not having clairvoyance to know what her husband would be like when they have children? That's like blaming a rape victim on what they were wearing

It's not clairvoyance. It's being a good judge of character. And yes, if you are a bad judge of character, or you get married for whatever reason despite the signs of real character flaws, then you get what you get. I'm not sure why we have to coddle and feel sorry for people like that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Act 1
A happy family, one husband, one wife and three lovely children. Child A has a holiday performance on Thursday morning and needs to wear a “green Christmas sweater, blue jeans and white sneakers” per teacher instructions. Child 2 has Christmas caroling at the old people’s home on Friday and needs a red dress and plate of cookies. Child 3 is receiving an award for a speech on Friday also, and will be needing a birthday present for friend’s party that same afternoon. Wife takes care of all of these things noiselessly, on top of regular work. She also lets husband know where to be on performance and award day.
Act 2
Husband: shows up.
Act 3
Society: why do women complain about mental labor? It’s a fiction that only exists in their hysterical imaginations and they invent tasks to do because they are hysterical.

Curtain.

Some data for you OP

https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-myth-of-the-lazy-father

That’s Bs methodology. The work addict dad who avoids family responsibilities gets to count his 40-70 hours a week hiding out at the office, home office and iPhone as “household help?”

Yeah, we all know what that means. And what would happen if both parents behaved like that.

Right?
I mean, the fact that men spend more time at work and less time doing childcare is the exact issue.
It’s kind of upsetting that the author of this article doesn’t seem to get it.

If he's making more money for the family then it's time well spent. Making less money to have more time to make cookies for the old folks is a bad tradeoff and doesn't help the family.

Why is that a bad trade off?
As long as we have enough money for the things we need and a lot of the things we want, then why is it so awful for a man to bake cookies with his daughter instead of making more money?

If you want an underemployed man who has lots of free time to make dr appointments and cookies, then have at it. I'm sure those types of men are a dime a dozen but I wouldn't know because I wouldn't be interested. But very few well paying jobs offer lots of flexibility and free time for the nonsense schools push on parents.

And the reality is those PP's are imposing their judgment of what is "good for the family". Suppose the husbands said, I wish my wife would cut out all of the unnecessary crap and pick up some extra hours at work for the family. The kids don't need all of these extras; they'll be fine. They would be apoplectic. Yet somehow their judgments of how their husbands should "better" use their time "for the family" supersedes his. And, of course, you know that they would complain nonstop if husband was underemployed and funds to underwrite their dream lifestyle were lacking. These are just the sort of people who would complain no matter what.

My husband makes plenty of money and has decided his time is better spent at work rather than trying to DIY a leaky toilet or repairing dry wall. He's more than happy to pay someone who can do it right and not waste his time on it. That's the tradeoff we make. I handle the bulk of the kid stuff although he reads the school emails and will ask if I'm aware of this or that. He also does a lot of chauffeuring kids around. But he will never shop for the red dress or drop everything to get cookies. It works for us.

Can he tell when a toilet needs fixing?
Does he tell someone or call the repairman?
Does he arrange the repair time and let them in?
Does he pay the repair and look over the work?

Or does he see a leaky toilet or clogged drain in his very own home, and say nothing and do nothing?
Thats what I’m dealing with- and he “works” 5am-6pm at home and then drinks and watches TV from 6-9pm before crashing on the sofa. He has a 10pm alarm set on his phone to wake up and go upstairs to bed.

Is he underemployed or not? The tradeoff has to be a lot of money to make up the difference. Yours doesn't sound like he's bringing home the bacon at a high powered well paying job. Big difference.

You are missing the point.

If a high income but uninvolved dad can’t tell something or someone is broken or in need, and thus does nothing, then problem(s) will snowball.

Nothing to do with underemployed or not.
Has to do with paying attention, giving a damn and effort when at home.

This

It’s about giving a damn. And showing that you do.

And who is the arbiter of how to appropriately show you "give a damn"? Lemme guess: you?

Easy. List examples here of your husband demonstrating “giving a damn” about his wife and kids.

Here I’ll start:
- Showed up at the concert!?!
- Got on the plane to gramdma’s!?!
- ate Thanksgiving dinner with everyone!?!
- picked out a movie to watch every night of the week!?!

Why did you marry and have kids with this person? You're having your own little meltdown in here talking about something only tangentially related to the OP.

So you are blaming the wife for not having clairvoyance to know what her husband would be like when they have children? That's like blaming a rape victim on what they were wearing

Rape is not consensual. Marriage is consensual ( in most countries). Clairvoyance? I would refer you to the dozens upon dozens of posts here pointing out how normal and common it is for men to be useless. It's studied widely in academics. It has a solid history. It's common knowledge.

Men being useless is as common as timeshares being a scam. You buy a timeshare, you were warned. You ignored the obvious. This of course excludes non-consensual marriages.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope all the super smart posters here who are happy to save time by sending their child to an event without complying with the dress code are regularly deciding to wear crumpled tee shirts to the office rather than those high maintenance button down shirts. After all who has time to dry clean laundry or even fold it? Obviously all of you with your superior intellect have decided that is a task that doesn’t need to be done.

Or…is it only fine when your kid is the one who is embarrassed by sticking out like a sore thumb?

Is little Cindy going to get fired from going to the old folks home if she wears a blue dress instead? Sounds like a pretty serious thing, and it would be totally smart to get divorced over it.

No one is getting divorced over it. But my child would refuse to perform if they could not meet the mandatory dress code and I would not insist on it because *I* would not be comfortable wearing a pink shirt and patterned red leggings at an event where I was supposed to be wearing a dress dress and that’s the closest my daughter could come with what’s in her closet right now. My husband would understand that too. He would not think about any of this until way too late to do anything but he at least would not belittle me for helping my child be comfortable.

I notice that when these types of examples of “make work” they are never things that affect the person who has decided the task is unimportant. But they are perfectly happy to disappoint or let down their spouse or their kids.

[Anonymous]

Also, a lot of times you don’t know this is a requirement. You sign your kid up for the cute neighborhood choir and they don’t tell you at the outset that you’re going to have to have a particular outfit for their end of year concert…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I think people are being a bit obtuse focusing on the individual tasks and arguing over whether or not they are important.

No, it's common sense.

When people assign importance to tasks, they can focus on more important tasks and de-prioritize things that are unnecessary. If your spouse and/or family is not contributing, that's even more reason to de-prioritize the unnecessary.

How can someone who doesn’t read any of their non-work emails or texts prioritize them?

The magic fairy.

Who needs to be told the outfits and cookies aren't that important. Does your husband really need to tell you that?

Husband says nothing since he reads no emails.

Ignorance is bliss.

This isn't his first rodeo. In the past he said forget the green shirt, red dress and cookies and she told him that was the wrong answer. So he lets her do it her way and when she gets angry he refrains himself from telling her "I told you so". She's mad that she painted herself into this corner by insisting that this is all very important and simply must be done. He has given up.

I would be shocked if he knew about the sweater and decided it didn’t need to be done. That’s just not how things work in most families.

They have 3 kids. This isn't the first time something like this has come up, surely. She doesn't like his way of doing things and just does it her way.

Alternatively, he views this taking care of kids and school stuff as women’s work so never lifts a finger.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I think people are being a bit obtuse focusing on the individual tasks and arguing over whether or not they are important.

No, it's common sense.

When people assign importance to tasks, they can focus on more important tasks and de-prioritize things that are unnecessary. If your spouse and/or family is not contributing, that's even more reason to de-prioritize the unnecessary.

How can someone who doesn’t read any of their non-work emails or texts prioritize them?

The magic fairy.

Who needs to be told the outfits and cookies aren't that important. Does your husband really need to tell you that?

Husband says nothing since he reads no emails.

Ignorance is bliss.

This isn't his first rodeo. In the past he said forget the green shirt, red dress and cookies and she told him that was the wrong answer. So he lets her do it her way and when she gets angry he refrains himself from telling her "I told you so". She's mad that she painted herself into this corner by insisting that this is all very important and simply must be done. He has given up.

I want to know what kind of school is dictating all of these things for these activities -- outfits, cookies, etc. That's nonsense.

My kids schools do this.

One kid needs all black for a band concert. One kid needs a white dress and shoes for a choir concert. Another needs a suit for a model UN competition. The oldest also needed a new swimsuit, goggles and cap for a swim unit in his PE class that started Monday. He told me on Sunday.

Are these public or private schools. Just crazy stuff.

Typical in any school’s grade 5-12 performing arts class or PE class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hope all the super smart posters here who are happy to save time by sending their child to an event without complying with the dress code are regularly deciding to wear crumpled tee shirts to the office rather than those high maintenance button down shirts. After all who has time to dry clean laundry or even fold it? Obviously all of you with your superior intellect have decided that is a task that doesn’t need to be done.

Or…is it only fine when your kid is the one who is embarrassed by sticking out like a sore thumb?

Touche

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope all the super smart posters here who are happy to save time by sending their child to an event without complying with the dress code are regularly deciding to wear crumpled tee shirts to the office rather than those high maintenance button down shirts. After all who has time to dry clean laundry or even fold it? Obviously all of you with your superior intellect have decided that is a task that doesn’t need to be done.

Or…is it only fine when your kid is the one who is embarrassed by sticking out like a sore thumb?

It's not about intellect, it's about priorities. You sound like you care too much about what other people think and are trying to use glib examples to make your point. You probably have your kids overscheduled in order to project this "perfect family" image. Your kids will be fine without all of this extra and deep down you know this to be the case, but you are too concerned with how things will "come off", so you engage in the martyr act.

Honey this actually made me laugh. You have no idea. I am a scientist who regularly works in a hoodie and had no problem saying no to optional activities. Did it today in fact! But I do know my colors and I know what a dress and when I agree to do something I do it as asked. So my kid would have a red dress if that was required. She would not have a red dress on a moment’s notice because she suddenly didn’t like what she was planning to wear or we were going take a coordinating picture for Instagram or something because that’s not something we do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some people enjoy being counted on, being the one others run to to get things done, being the main parent. There's a lot to like about it IMO.

So many troll posts.

[Anonymous]

Taking care of these kinds of petty details are exactly what you sign up for when you have children.

When you have three, there are lots of petty details.

The question is what kind of deal you've struck in your marriage.

- Is one person making the money, and the other doing the kid details?
- Or, are you both doing the money making and the kid details?

If it's not one or the other of those, you've made a bad deal and your marriage has a problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also, a lot of times you don’t know this is a requirement. You sign your kid up for the cute neighborhood choir and they don’t tell you at the outset that you’re going to have to have a particular outfit for their end of year concert…

reminds me of some of the intl students who never fit in, know what’s going on, dressed correctly, asking to sign up late. Oh well. You snooze you lose.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope all the super smart posters here who are happy to save time by sending their child to an event without complying with the dress code are regularly deciding to wear crumpled tee shirts to the office rather than those high maintenance button down shirts. After all who has time to dry clean laundry or even fold it? Obviously all of you with your superior intellect have decided that is a task that doesn’t need to be done.

Or…is it only fine when your kid is the one who is embarrassed by sticking out like a sore thumb?

Is little Cindy going to get fired from going to the old folks home if she wears a blue dress instead? Sounds like a pretty serious thing, and it would be totally smart to get divorced over it.

No one is getting divorced over it. But my child would refuse to perform if they could not meet the mandatory dress code and I would not insist on it because *I* would not be comfortable wearing a pink shirt and patterned red leggings at an event where I was supposed to be wearing a dress dress and that’s the closest my daughter could come with what’s in her closet right now. My husband would understand that too. He would not think about any of this until way too late to do anything but he at least would not belittle me for helping my child be comfortable.

I notice that when these types of examples of “make work” they are never things that affect the person who has decided the task is unimportant. But they are perfectly happy to disappoint or let down their spouse or their kids.

OK, and if little Cindy doesn't perform in that elementary school concert, the world will not end. Little Cindy might even still get into her first choice college! And maybe she'll even learn not to take things like this so seriously, and she'll have even more perspective on life than you, if you can imagine that.

So dramatic.

Is that really the bar? Only things that prevent your kid from getting into college are worth doing? You are off the hook for everything else?

Just own up to it - you don’t care if your child is uncomfortable. It’s worth it to you so you don’t have to buy a dress OR feel a moment’s guilt over not buying one you can afford.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why does the wife take care of all of these things noiselessly, on top of regular work? I don't understand this marriage.

Because if you offer how not silent would help, you'll get an anecdote about someones hopeless marriage. About how things got so miserable for them that communication is not an option. Detail after miserable detail. And therefore, what you say might he helpful, it's not an option for anyone. Not OP. Not you. Not anyone.

"Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate"