Reply to This is weaponized incompetence, yes? What to do about it?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My DH is generally a good partner and dad. We get along. This isn't a post about how I hate him and want to change everything about him or should never have gotten married.

But I do think he "weaponizes incompetence" often. Meaning he claims to be incapable of doing things (generally related to parenting or cleaning) in order to get out of them. Examples:

- We have an extremely picky eater who eats a pretty narrow range of foods. We work with a nutritionist and our pediatrician to address the pickiness and ensure she gets enough to eat. He claims all the time he doesn't know what to feed her even though he attends these appointments and talks to these people. He "forgets" basic rules our nutritionist has given us for feeding her, like not giving her large portion sizes of anything and making sure she always has at least 3 things on her plate. I agree it's a PITA but he claims he is simply incapable of doing these things. If left to his own devices, he will give her a bowl of cereal for any meal because he can't remember what else she will eat.

- He claims not to understand how the vacuum cleaner works. There was an incident many years ago where he used the "wrong" setting on a rug and it kind of messed up the rug. It wasn't an expensive rug and it lived in the play room and no one really cared. Since then he simply does not vacuum and if I ask him to vacuum he'll say "I don't want to mess it up, can you do it." The mistake he made is one anyone could make.

- He claims not to understand which cleaning supplies are needed for which tasks, and as a result will only clean the bathroom if I literally set out the cleaning materials and say "this is for the toilet, this is for the shower" etc.

- He defers to me on anything related to school, even though he receives all the school communications and there is no reason I would know more about any of it than he does. But he makes it sound like it's all a mystery, like who could possibly know when grades come out or that there is a school event on Friday. It's literally there on his phone, he even gets alerts and texts, and yet he talks to me like I am the oracle of all things school.

How do you address stuff like this? Again, generally a good parent and partner but he does this stuff and I'm like "You're 45, you have an advanced degree, you manage to figure this stuff out at work." I know people will say "get cleaners" for the cleaning stuff but that won't address the underlying issue which is this tendency to pretend like he's incompetent in order to force me to do things he doesn't want to do.[/quote]

Your definition of "generally a good partner and dad" is wildly different from mine  :shock: [/quote]

Ok, but he does do all kinds of stuff. He does pickup/dropoff twice a week. Helps with homework. He cooks for the rest of the family at least once a week and makes enough for leftovers. He does laundry without being asked. He is kind and thoughtful towards me, will make me tea every morning or tell me to go get a workout in on the weekend while he does stuff with the kids. He's generally a kind and thoughtful parent and partner.

My issue isn't even that he doesn't want to do this stuff. If he told me "I hate vacuuming, what if you do that and I'll do something else instead," I'd be totally fine with that. If he problem solved with me about the picky eating and was like "ugh, I know I'm not getting this or following what they told us to do, maybe I need to work on this to come up with something that makes more sense to me" I'd welcome that-- like I said, the stuff we do on that front us a PITA and the only reason I've bought in is that we had reached a point where she was literally eating nothing but bread and berries and sometimes not even that and that's just not a functional diet.

It's specifically the problem of watching this 45 yr old man act like this stuff is simply beyond his mental capacity that drives me crazy. It's obviously not. Why does he pretend?[/quote]

I'm a wife and I'll say I don't know how the internet/cable works in our house, I don't know how to do anything with our cars except fill them gas/plug them in and drop them off somewhere, I don't know how to work the grill, I don't know anything about the garden or landscaping. I don't care to learn. Those are my husband's areas, and it's not worth it to have us both know 100% about everything anyway because that's not efficient. Conversely, he doesn't know what size clothes our kids wear (all girls), what is in our Amazon Subscribe and Save list, what kind of shampoo/conditioner/body wash the kids use, or what sort of stain treatments I use on laundry. Now, we both know how to fully take care of our children, who their teachers are and what they need for school, doctors/dentists and when and where appointments are, travel, everything related to the dogs, etc. So many things we do 50/50 (the things we think are important in terms of who does what), and other things we are each 100% responsible for. (And some things, like house cleaning, we outsource).

It sounds like your husband does do a lot and is otherwise pretty thoughtful. It's possible that the things you listed are difficult for him for some reason. To this day, my mom has trouble with the TV remote, cannot work an iPad to save her life, and never charges her cell phone. She has never been good at that kind of stuff despite being a CPA who worked for the biggest bank in the US doing multi-billion dollar loans. I would probably choose the things you can just accept 100% responsibility for so that you don't get annoyed that he doesn't participate in those things, and have a discussion about the big items. If it were me, I'd tackle the food thing. [/quote]

So you listed out you do the pink jobs and he does the blue jobs and your daughters see that. Yeah maintain the patriarchy and call it division of labor.

If the branches in the back of the house don’t get trimmed it’s not a big deal. But your subscribe and save doesn’t work what happens.

If he died or divorce you could you fix it and figure it out. Do your kids see that? How do they see that.

I do see so many people frustrated w dumb shit like cleaning - hire someone and don’t eat out once a week and then you don’t fight about.

Are you showing your kids how to be resilient. I hate gardening so I don’t have a garden. But I have a hot water heater, I know how to turn off the water if there is a leak to call a plumber, I know the questions to ask her when she comes over, I know how to survive w no water for a day. My kid sees this. [/quote]

Sorry this upsets you so much. The things I care about, like taking care of our children, feeding them, taking them to appointments, being involved in their school and sports, taking them places, and listening/talking to them about life - those we both do. Things like taking out the trash or buying clothes aren’t important.

During COVID my husband cleaned the house because my job was busier than his (we normally have cleaners but didn’t for a period of time beginning in March 2020). He also did the majority of the home schooling when the kids weren’t in person. He cooks and cleans the kitchen as much as I do, if not more. We both work around the same hours for about the same pay so our kids know that his job isn’t more important than mine, that he’s just as likely to go pick them up from school if they’re sick, and that he is just as involved in their lives as I am. He hasn’t missed a parent/teacher conference of theirs but I have. Oh, and he took paternity leave and used to spend mornings with them before the nanny came because I left for work at the crack of dawn. He’s traveled with them alone, stayed at home with them when I’m gone without help. He is no less capable of a parent than I am.

We happen to be better at or more interested in certain things so those we divvy up. If you want to think I’m boosting the patriarchy because of that, it doesn’t bother me. [/quote]

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