Here's the thing I don't understand about husbands who don't help out

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, OP, you sound like his Mother. Your way of teaching your DH to clean the bathroom is how I teach my sons. My DH knows how to clean a bathroom better than I do by learning from his Mother. If your DH is not cleaning the bathroom to your standards, then you should be the one with that chore, or you should learn to accept the way he does it. I mean, you can tell him you don't think it's clean enough, and if he wants you to teach him, then go for it, but don't think it helps any relationship to treat your partner like a child.

I don't get mad at my DH when he forgets stuff from the grocery store because he can't find the stuff he wanted just as often as what I wanted. I don't have to teach him how to clean (he's better at most cleaning than I am), but when we were dating and I told him he was loading the dishwasher wrong it led to something like a 4 week standoff because he can't handle criticism at all. He had to break the dishwasher and have a technician come out and tell him exactly what I said he was doing wrong before he changed his ways. I don't think you can teach or train a grown man to be better at basic tasks, you have to choose to marry one that's not a screw-up to begin with (which, dishwasher incident notwithstanding, is what I did). This is why I have more sympathy for women who realize their DH's suck at childcare than cleaning - that one is at least partially unknowable before the fact.

NP. Sorry but I fundamentally reject this. If your DH has a job, he is capable of learning basic tasks like finding groceries or loading a dishwasher.

To be frank, your story with the technician and the 4 week fight - that is really abnormal. He sounds autistic. You probably shouldn’t be using yourselves as examples of normal behavior or couple dynamics.

This isn't frank, so much as stupid. Every person who digs their heels in during a single stupid disagreement is not autistic, and you shouldn't be trying to diagnose people over the internet, not least because you're very bad at it.

Uh huh. And what did he say after the technician schooled him on “how to scrape a plate.”

My god, that just gave been mortifying. How are you able to still f*ck him after that.

Why would I be mortified? I was practically gleeful. I guess some people might get embarrassed when proven right, but that's not a feeling I'm familiar with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, OP, you sound like his Mother. Your way of teaching your DH to clean the bathroom is how I teach my sons. My DH knows how to clean a bathroom better than I do by learning from his Mother. If your DH is not cleaning the bathroom to your standards, then you should be the one with that chore, or you should learn to accept the way he does it. I mean, you can tell him you don't think it's clean enough, and if he wants you to teach him, then go for it, but don't think it helps any relationship to treat your partner like a child.

I don't get mad at my DH when he forgets stuff from the grocery store because he can't find the stuff he wanted just as often as what I wanted. I don't have to teach him how to clean (he's better at most cleaning than I am), but when we were dating and I told him he was loading the dishwasher wrong it led to something like a 4 week standoff because he can't handle criticism at all. He had to break the dishwasher and have a technician come out and tell him exactly what I said he was doing wrong before he changed his ways. I don't think you can teach or train a grown man to be better at basic tasks, you have to choose to marry one that's not a screw-up to begin with (which, dishwasher incident notwithstanding, is what I did). This is why I have more sympathy for women who realize their DH's suck at childcare than cleaning - that one is at least partially unknowable before the fact.

Okay I'm intrigued. I gotta know what he was doing so wrong that it broke the dishwasher - just so I can be sure that I don't do it. I mean really, can you put dishes in the dishwasher in such a way that it could break it? Please, tell us, pp!

Honestly, he just refused to scrape his plates. And then, because I told him you have to scrape your dishes before you put them in the dishwasher, he turned it into a stupid standoff and put even more food into it. It was his condo so I just watched him be a jackass and bided my time. $250 later a technician is cleaning out his trap and explaining that you have to . . . wait for it . . . scrape food off dishes before putting them into the dishwasher.

And honestly my DH is not like the nightmares that get threads on this forum - this was a one-off. But the crazy overreaction to any perceived criticism makes me understand why other wives aren't standing near the bathroom saying 'SCRUB HARDER, DUMMY' like OP apparently wants them to. I wouldn't react well to that either.

Okay, that makes sense. I was envisioning something like him stacking the plates up flat in the basket and somehow that breaking the dishwasher which would have been highly odd and, well, exotic, and I could forever walk around thinking, hey, I know a secret about loading a dishwasher safely. And it turns out he just didn't want to scrape his plates. LOL! Glad you got to watch while the technician (presumably a guy, too) told him he was doing it wrong.

[Anonymous]

Who doesn’t know you’re supposed to scrape the food off plates before going in the dishwasher? Was he raised by wolves?

By the way, add me to the list of people who think that guys behavior is really off.

[Anonymous]

NP. Ok for all the women defending this bad behavior from men. What would you say to the attorney OP was referencing? She’s the only one working, with 2 kids at home, no help and an unemployed husband. If he refused to take the two kids to the grocery store because he “can’t” juggle them and the task of selecting groceries, what would you say?

Ok honey?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP. Ok for all the women defending this bad behavior from men. What would you say to the attorney OP was referencing? She’s the only one working, with 2 kids at home, no help and an unemployed husband. If he refused to take the two kids to the grocery store because he “can’t” juggle them and the task of selecting groceries, what would you say?

Ok honey?

Kid should not be going to the grocery store during Covid. Only one person per household should go.

Absent the pandemic, I would think it means he is totally pathetic. I agree that woman is in a very bad situation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP. Ok for all the women defending this bad behavior from men. What would you say to the attorney OP was referencing? She’s the only one working, with 2 kids at home, no help and an unemployed husband. If he refused to take the two kids to the grocery store because he “can’t” juggle them and the task of selecting groceries, what would you say?

Ok honey?

I didn't read that thread but if it's recent, you're not supposed to be taking kids to run errands right now. But if he's offloading them on her during working hours he needs to start going to the grocery store after she finishes work or on the weekends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Like my mama always said "marry them young and train them hard"

So... why is it that it is up to women to "train" the husbands? Who trained us? Why is it that we can see what needs to be done and do it without being given a chore list? My husband will gladly "help out" if I give him a very specific list of what needs to be done... but the fact that I have to tell him what to do and that he still sees it as "assisting" in my domain makes me extremely angry. Did women in the 1960s and 1970s, when many more were entering the workforce have to be "trained" in how to behave and perform in business? No - women entered the workforce, killing it in every way possible, while still keeping the lion's share of home responsibilities. We are doing something very wrong in our society if many men STILL need to be told what to do or are still unable to complete basic home tasks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. Ok for all the women defending this bad behavior from men. What would you say to the attorney OP was referencing? She’s the only one working, with 2 kids at home, no help and an unemployed husband. If he refused to take the two kids to the grocery store because he “can’t” juggle them and the task of selecting groceries, what would you say?

Ok honey?

Kid should not be going to the grocery store during Covid. Only one person per household should go.

Absent the pandemic, I would think it means he is totally pathetic. I agree that woman is in a very bad situation.

It’s not related to the pandemic. He’s just “bad at chores” as she says.

He’s got her totally snowed thinking he is incapable of doing basic adult tasks. He’s just lazy and can’t be bothered to get off his ass to help his own wife. It’s really sad. And the amount of women in here defending men like him! I really don’t get that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Like my mama always said "marry them young and train them hard"

So... why is it that it is up to women to "train" the husbands? Who trained us? Why is it that we can see what needs to be done and do it without being given a chore list? My husband will gladly "help out" if I give him a very specific list of what needs to be done... but the fact that I have to tell him what to do and that he still sees it as "assisting" in my domain makes me extremely angry. Did women in the 1960s and 1970s, when many more were entering the workforce have to be "trained" in how to behave and perform in business? No - women entered the workforce, killing it in every way possible, while still keeping the lion's share of home responsibilities. We are doing something very wrong in our society if many men STILL need to be told what to do or are still unable to complete basic home tasks.

NP. This is part of training them. I had to actually say to my new husband, when you finish up the TP or the trash is full, you need to get a new roll or bag. It’s rude and disrespectful to make me do all these things. Do it when the issue arises.

[Anonymous]

I really can’t control or change my husband.

I do what the OP suggests and it works but the feedback never gets embedded into his brain so we have to have the same conversation over and over again for years. It wears me down. It’s like every single day is a brand new day. I can never assume a foundational base of fundamental knowledge or that he will have learned.

Examples:

-I have to tell DH to pick up dirty diapers off the floor and put them in the garbage. Every single time.
-I have to tell DH, every single night, to please put his dishes in the dishwasher and then start it. If I don’t specifically mention that he needs to finish loading the dishes in, and THEN start it, he will just go start it half full and leave a bunch of dirty dishes on the counter for the morning.
-I have to tell DH to get the kids ready for the day (we trade of days for getting them ready). He has to be told, every time, what that means. I can’t just say “get the kids ready please”. It has to be “can you change them out of their jammies?” And then “can you put shoes on them?” And so on and so forth.

I’m exhausted and bitter.

[Anonymous]

If you can’t offer constructive criticism to your husband in a kind way without him getting upset and/or ignoring you and/or thereafter refusing to do whatever task it was that you corrected him on, you are not in a good relationship.

No, I shouldn’t need to train my husband. Yes, he should already know how to do household chores and childcare but...sometimes he doesn’t and I would much rather teach or “train” him than just accept that I will do all these things myself or continually accept his half-*ssed job.

Household chores are not hard. If an adult who has no health issues or disabilities acts like they cannot figure out how to do laundry, dishes, dust, vacuum, grocery shop, clean a bathroom, they’re not putting in much effort, don’t respect or appreciate their spouse, and are ultimately selfish jerks. How are so many of you married to selfish jerks? My husband isn’t like that and my brothers aren’t and my dad isn’t. Most of my friends husbands aren’t like that either, from what I can tell. How are so many men such selfish, incompetent, misogynistic jerks?

[Anonymous]

We learned each other and adapted. I learned DH is anal about how tshirts are folded. Now I leave all tshirts for him. I don’t like the way he hand washes knives, so that is strictly mine. I can get through the grocery store without having to take a marriage walk down every aisle, so that is mine OR I order groceries and he picks them up. He will clean a bathroom, but not change out the towels, so I grab the towels. It doesn’t have to be a my way or the highway situation and I certainly don’t need to be condescending. That’s not how a marriage works

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP. Ok for all the women defending this bad behavior from men. What would you say to the attorney OP was referencing? She’s the only one working, with 2 kids at home, no help and an unemployed husband. If he refused to take the two kids to the grocery store because he “can’t” juggle them and the task of selecting groceries, what would you say?

Ok honey?

If you read that thread, her husband has a chronic health condition for which he requires regular medical appointments; to my reading, he also sounds depressed. Many of us commenting on that thread are being practical: she needs to hire help, first, so she can not feel like she's drowning, and then, second, work on getting her husband the help he needs. It's not (just) that he's lazy, there's more to it.

There may well be bigger issues that poster needs to address with her husband, but that can't be done while they're both utterly drained. Working on relationships takes energy, which few people have in abundance right now, especially when they're overfunctioning (the wife) or sick and depressed (the husband).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Like my mama always said "marry them young and train them hard"

So... why is it that it is up to women to "train" the husbands? Who trained us? Why is it that we can see what needs to be done and do it without being given a chore list? My husband will gladly "help out" if I give him a very specific list of what needs to be done... but the fact that I have to tell him what to do and that he still sees it as "assisting" in my domain makes me extremely angry. Did women in the 1960s and 1970s, when many more were entering the workforce have to be "trained" in how to behave and perform in business? No - women entered the workforce, killing it in every way possible, while still keeping the lion's share of home responsibilities. We are doing something very wrong in our society if many men STILL need to be told what to do or are still unable to complete basic home tasks.

I am the PP who calls this open communication and not mothering and I think its infantilizing to call it training but there is an element of truth in the term. And you're right, its on us to do it. But my son will not see me training his dad. He will see two people who communicate openly an a father who pulls his own weight. And my daughters will not see my training their dad, they will see that their dad does all the laundry in the house and that he's an equal partner and caretaker. And that means (hopefully) that my son will never have to be trained and my daughters will demand equality from their husbands. It's not just about me.

And really, life is too short to spend all your time wishing things were different instead of doing something about it. I love my husband, he loves me, he wants to stay married to me, he wasn't taught these things growing up and is extremely grateful that we are able to work together to create an egalitarian household rather than me giving up on him or resenting him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I really can’t control or change my husband.

I do what the OP suggests and it works but the feedback never gets embedded into his brain so we have to have the same conversation over and over again for years. It wears me down. It’s like every single day is a brand new day. I can never assume a foundational base of fundamental knowledge or that he will have learned.

Examples:

-I have to tell DH to pick up dirty diapers off the floor and put them in the garbage. Every single time.
-I have to tell DH, every single night, to please put his dishes in the dishwasher and then start it. If I don’t specifically mention that he needs to finish loading the dishes in, and THEN start it, he will just go start it half full and leave a bunch of dirty dishes on the counter for the morning.
-I have to tell DH to get the kids ready for the day (we trade of days for getting them ready). He has to be told, every time, what that means. I can’t just say “get the kids ready please”. It has to be “can you change them out of their jammies?” And then “can you put shoes on them?” And so on and so forth.

I’m exhausted and bitter.

I would say to him, “it concerns me that you need me to remind you to pick the dirty diapers off the floor every single day. Do you need this type of hand holding at work? No? Then why can’t you remember basic things at home?”

I wouldn’t be nasty but calm and genuine. Personally I suspect he is gas lighting you about not being able to remember but if he isn’t, that would suggest some pretty serious cognitive impairment. I mean that truthfully. I might actually say that to him so the embarrassment gets him off his ass.