It's All on Me Because DH Never Sees a Problem

[Anonymous]

He uses the pseudo excuses of "different standards" and "not noticing" and "no problem" to cover up sloth. He doesn't want to do anything so gaslights no action is needed.
My DH does this but at least when I call him on it he admits sloth, knowing I will step up.
He also claims I have comparative advantage in doing scut work because I am used to it. That doesn't get him far either.
He does handle things I won't do but OP your story is classic.

Get the car fixed unless it's already a junker.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agreed, but his standard is to drive a car with a dent.
His standard is ghetto.

If this was OP replying, this is the crux of your issue. You are convinced your standards are the right ones, and DH is wrong. What if your standards are too much? It sounds to me like you are making everything too much. The car. Camps. Cooking dinner. Cleaning. 100000 more things, I'm certain. If EVERY part of your life, or every "to do" feels like this to DH, I get why he's annoyed. I am too, because I can see that you don't get it.

What Section 8 housing do you live in where it's OK to drive a dented car?

[Anonymous]

NP, but is feeding kids vegetables really some kind of unreasonably controlling expectation?

Seriously? Standards are this low?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He uses the pseudo excuses of "different standards" and "not noticing" and "no problem" to cover up sloth. He doesn't want to do anything so gaslights no action is needed.
My DH does this but at least when I call him on it he admits sloth, knowing I will step up.
He also claims I have comparative advantage in doing scut work because I am used to it. That doesn't get him far either.
He does handle things I won't do but OP your story is classic.

Get the car fixed unless it's already a junker.

Shrug your shoulders, don't bother fixing up the car. Let him drive it to client meetings. It will impress them and his boss.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agreed, but his standard is to drive a car with a dent.
His standard is ghetto.

If this was OP replying, this is the crux of your issue. You are convinced your standards are the right ones, and DH is wrong. What if your standards are too much? It sounds to me like you are making everything too much. The car. Camps. Cooking dinner. Cleaning. 100000 more things, I'm certain. If EVERY part of your life, or every "to do" feels like this to DH, I get why he's annoyed. I am too, because I can see that you don't get it.

What Section 8 housing do you live in where it's OK to drive a dented car?

I didn’t say I wouldn’t get my car fixed. I would and have. But I wouldn’t take on needing video evidence from local businesses or my neighbors to do it, and I wouldn’t want my insurance premiums to go up for a rant so I wouldn’t be worried about that to do either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He uses the pseudo excuses of "different standards" and "not noticing" and "no problem" to cover up sloth. He doesn't want to do anything so gaslights no action is needed.
My DH does this but at least when I call him on it he admits sloth, knowing I will step up.
He also claims I have comparative advantage in doing scut work because I am used to it. That doesn't get him far either.
He does handle things I won't do but OP your story is classic.

Get the car fixed unless it's already a junker.

There's a very good chance OP would be on here if DH handled it himself and it cost $5000 to fix the car (that worked perfectly fine) and/or the insurance premiums went up substantially.

OP has to really consider if she's setting DH to fail no matter what.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agreed, but his standard is to drive a car with a dent.
His standard is ghetto.

If this was OP replying, this is the crux of your issue. You are convinced your standards are the right ones, and DH is wrong. What if your standards are too much? It sounds to me like you are making everything too much. The car. Camps. Cooking dinner. Cleaning. 100000 more things, I'm certain. If EVERY part of your life, or every "to do" feels like this to DH, I get why he's annoyed. I am too, because I can see that you don't get it.

What Section 8 housing do you live in where it's OK to drive a dented car?

LOL. I learn something every day on DCUM. I live in 20016 and have a 7-figure HHI and drive a dented car. I fully, wholeheartedly embrace my ghetto-ness just knowing that it pisses people off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP, but is feeding kids vegetables really some kind of unreasonably controlling expectation?

Seriously? Standards are this low?

Ha, I wish you could be a fly on the wall in my divorce proceedings. Another NP here. Yes, standards are this low. Do not divorce one of these clowns.

My do-nothing STBX brought in a custody evaluator who somehow sided with some of his examples of my extreme expectations (including the concept of kids needing food at certain times a day and fruit or vegetables being occasionally necessary) and wrote me up as controlling and not willing to accept “different styles of parenting” nor that kids “are resilient”.

Apparently hungry kids who haven’t been fed even breakfast by noon just need to be more resilient and not feeding kids is a “different style of parenting”.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We really need to know if you're a SAHM or if you work, too.

Stop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agreed, but his standard is to drive a car with a dent.
His standard is ghetto.

If this was OP replying, this is the crux of your issue. You are convinced your standards are the right ones, and DH is wrong. What if your standards are too much? It sounds to me like you are making everything too much. The car. Camps. Cooking dinner. Cleaning. 100000 more things, I'm certain. If EVERY part of your life, or every "to do" feels like this to DH, I get why he's annoyed. I am too, because I can see that you don't get it.

What Section 8 housing do you live in where it's OK to drive a dented car?

LOL. I learn something every day on DCUM. I live in 20016 and have a 7-figure HHI and drive a dented car. I fully, wholeheartedly embrace my ghetto-ness just knowing that it pisses people off.

People don't get pissed off at you and your car.
They do their best to ignore you like you are invisible.
Didn't you know that's how poor people are treated?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agreed, but his standard is to drive a car with a dent.
His standard is ghetto.

If this was OP replying, this is the crux of your issue. You are convinced your standards are the right ones, and DH is wrong. What if your standards are too much? It sounds to me like you are making everything too much. The car. Camps. Cooking dinner. Cleaning. 100000 more things, I'm certain. If EVERY part of your life, or every "to do" feels like this to DH, I get why he's annoyed. I am too, because I can see that you don't get it.

What Section 8 housing do you live in where it's OK to drive a dented car?

LOL. I learn something every day on DCUM. I live in 20016 and have a 7-figure HHI and drive a dented car. I fully, wholeheartedly embrace my ghetto-ness just knowing that it pisses people off.

I live in Bethesda, come from Very Old Money, and drive an old dented car. Old Money nearly ALWAYS overlaps with ghetto. People with generations of privilege and people at the other extreme just don't care what others think about them. We spend on stuff we're interested in, which in my case is horses and musical instruments. I don't like cars - it takes me from A to B, has 4 wheels and steering. It's good enough. I couldn't care less what my car looks like, or what shape it's in, as long as mechanically it's driveable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most marriages are like this, at least on this board.

Not just on this forum.

Men are much more laid back about the house and kids. As long as the kids are fed something and have clothes on (irrespective of whether it's appropriate for the weather), they think they should get a million points for bare minimum effort.

DH is like this in some things. He cooks mostly healthy, but he did things like give our 4 yr old expired peanut butter (like a year expired) even though I told him not to. "It's fine". DC threw up while I was trying to handle our 8mo. old.

I was the one who handled all the dr's appointments for our kids while working FT. Now that DH is retired, I make him handle all of that for our youngest (oldest is in college and handles their own appointments). I can tell DH gets frustrated at having to deal with it all. Um. yea, buddy, I did all of that for two kids and managed their school stuff, camps, play dates... while working FT. You're retired, and only have to handle one kid's medical appointments.

I can go on and on about sh(t like this. But, we've been married for 20 years, and our youngest is about to leave for college. Whew. I'm so done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agreed, but his standard is to drive a car with a dent.
His standard is ghetto.

If this was OP replying, this is the crux of your issue. You are convinced your standards are the right ones, and DH is wrong. What if your standards are too much? It sounds to me like you are making everything too much. The car. Camps. Cooking dinner. Cleaning. 100000 more things, I'm certain. If EVERY part of your life, or every "to do" feels like this to DH, I get why he's annoyed. I am too, because I can see that you don't get it.

What Section 8 housing do you live in where it's OK to drive a dented car?

LOL. I learn something every day on DCUM. I live in 20016 and have a 7-figure HHI and drive a dented car. I fully, wholeheartedly embrace my ghetto-ness just knowing that it pisses people off.

Me too. And they pull waaay over to let me pass. Scares them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're too in the weeds. He's too hands-off. You probably got like this because you both react to each other.

My husband is like yours, and instead of stressing myself out to correct every little thing, I let a ton of stuff slide. I have to. I would drive myself crazy trying to rush around living both our lives. So we muddle through, and we try to focus on the actually important things.

+1.

OP, a lot of this would also drive me crazy too.

On the car - if it's driveable and he's the primary driver of the car then leave it up to him to do anything.

On the cleaning - hire housecleaners. Tell him the choice is the cost or you make a chore chart and he agrees to follow it.

On activities for the kids - just do them and let him gripe. My husband refuses to acknowledge that the house occasionally needs preventive maintenance or actual maintenance. I'm not going argue that the driveway is crumbling and needs to be re-surfaced. I'm just going to have the people come and do it.

I am very, very, very close to hiring house cleaners. I've tried to work with him and not spend large amounts unless we both agree, but that leaves me doing it all. We've had chore charts several times. He does what he agreed to do for 1, maybe 2 weeks, then stops. When I've brough up cleaners he always says "it isn't that much work, we can do it ourselves." But that really is just me doing it.

Honestly, it sounds like you need to hire house cleaners. What’s stopping you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand. If DH were a colleague I would do my work. He would do his work. The final product would show my contributions and lack of his. A boss would notice and give appropriate feedback/promotion. How does that apply here?

I actually am a boss at a big company with a big team, so here’s the feedback you say you want. “Your work” isn’t a universal standard. It’s reading like a list of things you’ve decided matter, and not everyone (your husband) agrees they do. Hunting down video evidence for a minor dent is not automatically a deliverable (a to-do). If you were on my team, telling me you had no bandwidth ("I have no free time") while adding optional tasks like that, I’d coach you on prioritization, not validate the overwhelm.

Same with the cooking. You don’t get to say you want help and then dock points because he didn’t use vegetables the way you would have. That’s not collaboration, that’s moving the goalposts. At work, that doesn't get you far.

Align on what actually counts as “the job.” Right now, you’re grading him on YOUR standards. That's not how it works, either at work or at home.

This is great. My only note is I’d renegotiate dinner and say it needs to include some raw fruit or veggie the kids will eat. That’s so easy. You rip open a bag of multicolored baby carrots and put it on a plate in the middle of the table. Done. That can be Dad’s vegetable at every meal he cooks, ever.