Feeling like I'm the spouse who is always "on" and keeping things in order

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have a conversation with him where you ask him to highlight things he notices that need to be done that you haven’t noticed. Maybe he also has a list or maybe he doesn’t. Either way you can then have a discussion about things on the lists. I think you need to be more problem solving oriented rather than complaining. It often leads to more change.

I'm someone who thinks just like you do, and I have a very equal marriage. I also have a very close friend who could have written the OP and she has done everything she can to address the issue with no change. I think it's like dog breeds - some men can swim and fetch and some can't. And trying to teach a Pekinese to retrieve a duck is a lost cause.

Except that this is simple adult stuff. Like piss in the litter box not all over your own damn house. Every breed can or can’t do that. The ones who can’t get housetrained get cut loose. No gracias.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. It’s called men.

All you can do is make sure that you are proactively claiming time for yourself to rest and relax. That’s what men do, so you should do it too.

And you should see on other boards the complaints men have about women and the things about women that are reduced to Yes. It’s called women.

I am a woman, not detail oriented and I don’t notice half the things my husband does. I am also Type B personality, laid back and little things do not bother me and aren’t a priority whereas getting them done now is more of a priority to him. I also have ADHD which probably plays a role too. It is much more about personality and relationship dynamics than sex.

You sound impossible, I am a woman and I would not want to be married to you.

I am neither Type A nor detail oriented, but I learned early in adult hood that if you don't pay attention to things and learn how to head off problems in advance or put effort into maintaining your home and the admin of life, things go to $hit. So I learned ways to get stuff done, matured, and got better at it. It is not my natural personality. It's just adulthood.

You have calcified your immaturity and lack of conscientiousness as an inborn personality trait you just can't help. You are lucky your husband tolerates it. I wouldn't.

+10000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, I am married to someone like this. We’re actually divorcing, because he perceives me as a mean nag and worse words that I won’t put here. Ironically he is finding the divorce process to be a huge struggle (not unlike some of the wild posts on some of the other boards lately) because he’s expected to actually take care of his own stuff without me noticing it for him.

I brought a lot of assumptions into our marriage because I was raised in a family of blue collar-turned-UMC doers. You didn’t sit down until the very end of the day and then you did with a sense that you had taken care of things or had a good plan for the next day. Light bulbs got replaced, drains unclogged, pants hemmed, socks matched, oil changed, floors mopped, etc without it being a huge fuss- everyone just did the things that needed to get done. I assumed that’s how adults worked. DH and I met in grad school and then he had a travel-intensive job early in our relationship, so that hid a lot of his lack of ability because life was so structured and then he just wasn’t around and/or had hotels/dry cleaners/restaurants doing everything for him.

My takeaway is that everyone should go for a really long camping trip with their intended spouse before things get too far along. Find a situation where they can’t hide their disinterest or inability to do things.

Agree.

And I trips where AI or the internet or the hotel concierge can “plan” the day at the last minute.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here, thanks for all the feedback on this. I do understand the need to communicate better, but why oh why can't he notice the obvious, like the rotting food in the fridge or the dishes left on the kitchen table all night. I mean, this is his home, too. I have to remind our kid to pick up stuff or clean up his mess because he's, well, a child. But why does a 45 year old man need to be told to initiate a simple action like throwing out the old take-out HE left in the fridge two weeks ago? It's HIS. Are his eyes literally unable to detect the container of festering food on the second shelf?

Let me help you out - he doesn't care. He doesn't care about moldy food in the fridge. YOU care, so you see it, and you do something about it. He. Does. Not. Care.

I'm not saying he's right about not caring, it's just a fact, it's who he is. You can spend the rest of your life banging your head against the wall and being upset that he doesn't care, but it isn't going to make him care.

I don't envy your situation at all and I have immense sympathy for you, but I just think you need to change your mindset. You think you both see the food and realize it needs to be thrown away but in reality, the food just isn't there to him. He doesn't see it. He doesn't care about it.

I couldn't tell you if I tried whether our landscaping is doing well. If there's a dead tree, I have no idea. If there is a hole where a bush was pulled up and something needs to be planted there, I couldn't tell you that. I simply do not care, so I am completely blind when it comes to looking at the landscaping. If my husband were to be upset with me for not caring that we have a missing bush, he's be barking up the wrong tree. Pun intended.

Maybe this will help you, I hope it does. I don't think your situation is hopeless, I just think you need to acknowledge who he is, consider what things you may be able to change, and then decide if you can live with it or not. But trying to make him care is something you need to reserve for the really important items (ones related to your child and your marriage). Let the takeout food go.

I doubt your examples of how ignorant you are and how ignorant your spouse is helps anything here. Sounds like a culture of mediocrity and passiveness. Enjoy. Ignorance is bliss!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had surgery in 2021, was bedridden for 2 weeks after, and barely mobile for another 2 weeks. We have literally never caught up from it. Like PP I tried to implement better systems after that for fear of what might happen to the kids if I were ever out of the picture for good, but DH couldn't manage it and my imagined death wasn't sufficiently motivating.

Instead I am focused on raising the kids to be competent and responsible for their surroundings. It's sad when a 9 year old can handle life better than a grown man.

What on Earth got so neglected in 4 weeks that you never caught up on it?

So much. But the kicker was that DH didn't apparently didn't touch a single item of his dirty clothing or piece of paper/mail during that time, and hid a bunch of it at the back of a closet in a panic once I was mobile. Then we moved last year. And what did he pack when we moved? Hidden piles of crap from 2021! Which are still in a box. Yes, weeks of ancient dirty laundry, receipts, junk mail, important mail, even birthday cards got tossed in a box and sealed. I can't even type the rest because it's so enraging.

Man, what an idiot.
Sounds like a 7 yo’s cope: hide all the messes and To Do’s in the closet, shut the door and don’t say a peep.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do all you people marry ADHD people?

I had no idea such people existed. They were locked away back in the old country. Never learned to recognize them until now.
And even now, they blow hot and cold. It's like they can do better and then back to nothing the next day.

All true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had surgery in 2021, was bedridden for 2 weeks after, and barely mobile for another 2 weeks. We have literally never caught up from it. Like PP I tried to implement better systems after that for fear of what might happen to the kids if I were ever out of the picture for good, but DH couldn't manage it and my imagined death wasn't sufficiently motivating.

Instead I am focused on raising the kids to be competent and responsible for their surroundings. It's sad when a 9 year old can handle life better than a grown man.

What on Earth got so neglected in 4 weeks that you never caught up on it?

So much. But the kicker was that DH didn't apparently didn't touch a single item of his dirty clothing or piece of paper/mail during that time, and hid a bunch of it at the back of a closet in a panic once I was mobile. Then we moved last year. And what did he pack when we moved? Hidden piles of crap from 2021! Which are still in a box. Yes, weeks of ancient dirty laundry, receipts, junk mail, important mail, even birthday cards got tossed in a box and sealed. I can't even type the rest because it's so enraging.

Wait, you are SO on top of things that you don't know that there are piles (plural) of crap in the back of a closet in a house that you live in for 4 years? How big is your house?
I smell something and its not dirty laundry!

There's a little hatch door to an attic in the back wall of his closet and we don't use that attic. He had the things stuffed just behind that hatch door. When I had asked about where the clothes were he would say dry cleaners, or vacation house, or gym locker, or whatever, and then finally I just gave up and thought maybe he accidentally left stuff at a hotel on a work trip and was too embarrassed to tell me (which he's done before). It's a bonkers situation, I know.

My similar spouse is on his 4th iPad. The other three were all left on airplanes the last couple years.

[Anonymous]

Okay - there's a few ways to approach this. The one I would not recommend - continuing to ask him to notice and help out. That is obviously not going to work and you're going to go bananas. Also - drop the "well he does stuff that matters to HIM" attitude. Yeah, so do you. And the thing that matters to you is trash on the lawn and a stinky fridge.

Option 1 - Each of you get "zones" and you leave his alone and let him figure it out, accepting that it will be on his timeframe not yours. So, for example, in my house, my husband is entirely in charge of food. Meal planning, shopping, cooking, cleaning up after dinner. Which means - expired food in the fridge? That's on him. Spilled juice in the kitchen? Him. Not. my. problem. He figures it out. On the flip side, I'm in charge of the kids clothes, and household and yard maintenance, so I'm the one noticing (and fixing! You don't do that!) the bathroom sink and dealing with random trash on the front yard, and buying the kids new shoes. It is CRITICAL that if you do this, you divvy it up so you have the things you care about! For me, the kids having nice, clean clothes that fit is important to me, so that's on my list, and it's always done to my (very high) standards. You need to make sure you can be flexible about the stuff that's his.

Option 2 - Lower your expectations. As I said, I'm in charge of the yard, and I would leave a big piece of trash out for a couple weeks if I was busy, easily. Life happens. We've had a lightbulb out in our kitchen for like a month now - it's my job to change it and I just haven't done it yet. That's okay! If you leave the trash out for a month and the spilled juice for a day and the fridge stinky for 4 days, there's a decent chance he'll take care of at least some of it. Life doesn't have to be perfect all the time. And none of this would bring social services to your door

Option 3 - Accept that you are going to do the "pick up as you go" random stuff that pops up. All of it. You notice it, you care about it, he doesn't, that's on you. Is there something else he can do, that requires a different skill set (ie, doesn't require "always being on") that he could take off your plate that would work? Like, maybe you handle all this day to day unpredictable small crap, and he handles a couple of big standard things - like he does all the laundry once a week. Or he does all school pick up/drop offs. Or all the yard/home maintenance (with you just in charge of listing what needs to be done). You might feel a lot differently about the food and the juice and the trash and the shoes if your and the kids laundry was magically cleaned and folded in your drawers, and he could do that during Sunday night football or if he works from home, he can wash/dry one day a week during the work day and then fold that evening after bedtime.

Bottom line: Work with each other's strengths, and chill out.

[Anonymous]

While a spouse can be great in one area and lack in another, it happens. Its called life.

This is not a wife/ husband problem or a man/woman problem, same sex couples have these issues as well.

In the end, I believe most of the loudest voices here should not be in any relationship at all! You are too immature to share a life with another human being.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here, thanks for all the feedback on this. I do understand the need to communicate better, but why oh why can't he notice the obvious, like the rotting food in the fridge or the dishes left on the kitchen table all night. I mean, this is his home, too. I have to remind our kid to pick up stuff or clean up his mess because he's, well, a child. But why does a 45 year old man need to be told to initiate a simple action like throwing out the old take-out HE left in the fridge two weeks ago? It's HIS. Are his eyes literally unable to detect the container of festering food on the second shelf?

It's like an extra kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:While a spouse can be great in one area and lack in another, it happens. Its called life.

This is not a wife/ husband problem or a man/woman problem, same sex couples have these issues as well.

In the end, I believe most of the loudest voices here should not be in any relationship at all! You are too immature to share a life with another human being.

It is an interesting board. About 90% of posters consider themselves close to perfection. THey are perfect wives, perfect mothers, perfect people. They spend their days looking down at others and judging them. In reality, these people are either total messes or narcississts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While a spouse can be great in one area and lack in another, it happens. Its called life.

This is not a wife/ husband problem or a man/woman problem, same sex couples have these issues as well.

In the end, I believe most of the loudest voices here should not be in any relationship at all! You are too immature to share a life with another human being.

It is an interesting board. About 90% of posters consider themselves close to perfection. THey are perfect wives, perfect mothers, perfect people. They spend their days looking down at others and judging them. In reality, these people are either total messes or narcississts.

Eh, I'm definitely not a perfect wife and am really disorganized, which is why I've never posted something like this. I don't think that the majority of the women that come to DCUM are like this - it's just you're not hearing from those that aren't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One person is always this person. We’re a 2 mom family and it’s me. You have to accept it or be resentful all the time. Yes it’s exhausting.
I’ve learned to delegate but the delegating still falls to me.

This is a really interesting perspective. I guess any dyad will have some polarities. I guess the thing with heterosexual couples is that this dynamic so often skews in one direction and is weighted with gender norm baggage etc. Thanks for sharing

[Anonymous]

At your wits end ~ does he make more money than you? You accept the imbalance. In some things, only the things that are actually important to you. He forget/doesn't pay attention to: his clothes, what he has available to eat, his things -- that's on him.

For one year, I was spent. Had zero energy for any more holiday prep. Gave the family notice, plenty of notice -- there won't be a Christmas tree this year unless you do it. Without me. For some reason the tree was a major stressor (for me). They believed me. And did it all.

[Anonymous]

It's more effective to have purviews -- you shouldn't require two people to notice everything. For example, on person should be on kids clothes. One should be on bill paying. Both of you manage your own cars and laundry. Some things will be joint tag-teaming -- for us it's grocery shopping and cooking.