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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think people are being a bit obtuse focusing on the individual tasks and arguing over whether or not they are important. That's not the issue. The issue is that when one spouse is left to do all the little administrative tasks and the other partner makes no effort to participate, doesn't pay attention to the emails about these things, doesn't participate in any way, not even in deciding "hey this is not important, let's let Carla where what she wants for caroling and if the organizer complains I'll handle it" or whatever, then what you've done is turned one spouse into the family's administrative assistant. And the stuff they do in this capacity may not be individually important in every instance, but overall the role is a lot and can become very burdensome.

To provide some examples:

- My DH cannot be bothered with anything related to the kids clothes, shoes, or hair. It gets defaulted to me because DH will say "Oh I'd have no idea where to start" or "I don't understand kids sizing" or "you bought their shoes last time, it makes sense for you to do it." Okay, fine, buying clothes and getting the kids' haircut is not a big deal, I don't really mind. Except then last year, there was a huge lice outbreak at their school. Both kids got it, and we caught it late because I had zero experience with lice prior to that and had missed the signs. I also got it. It took a full month of treatment and maintenance to fully eradicate the family and it was stressful and time consuming. I have a full time job just like DH and had to do all the lice stuff while juggling that. But when I'd say to DH "can you nit comb this child's hair tonight? I'm so wiped out and I still have to do my own hair" he'd protest and say he didn't know how and "you're the expert." I told him I was only an "expert" at that point because I'd had to undergo a crash course in lice over the previous week. So he does it but he doesn't look at the video I give him and he's not doing a thorough job, so I wind up doing it again after anyway. And he's like "don't assign it to me unless you are okay with me doing it my way" which sounds reasonable when it's buying a sweater but actually doesn't apply in this case because if you lice comb insufficiently, you wind up getting a reinfestation. But he was the one family member who didn't get lice and he didn't get it so it all just fell to me. And it was not an optional thing and it was not unimportant. And now I'm *still* the lice person in our household and I'm the one who does all the preventative maintenance to make sure we don't get it again and I'm the one who braids our daughter's hair and makes sure we have lice spray on hand when the school reports an outbreak and stays on top of it.

- Our school sends a million emails (like multiple per day) about everything from uniform policy reminders to upcoming events to request for volunteers. It's so much communication and a lot of it is unimportant or just invitations for make-work I have no interest in participating in. But buried among all the emails I don't care about are emails that are totally essential to our family, like the sign up link for next semester's aftercare program or info about scheduling changes for the week before winter break. So I open all the emails from the school to make sure I dont' miss something important. Most get deleted but int his way I can be confident I don't miss anything important, and that's how we wind up not missing aftercare sign ups or re-enrollment deadlines or know when testing is scheduled or whatever. DH ignores all of the emails because he says "they are mostly pointless" and when I explain that some of them are not pointless and we still have to pay attention to them, he's like "yeah, you're better at that stuff than me." Better at opening emails and reading? Who knows. But I wind up handling all the school admin stuff as a result because he's decided it's all useless. If I try to delegate it out to him, he'll push back and say "well I don't have the context for that and you did it last time so it makes sense for you to keep doing it." Which is true and also infuriating, because the only reason I have all the context is because I made it a point to learn it and the only reason I did it the last time is because he refuses to open school emails.

So all the little things OP is talking about can snowball into a heavy load to carry, and can also morph into essential family activities that only OP will have the context and experience to handle because her DH has made no effort to involve himself in things like staying on top of school notices about holiday concerts or interfacing with the activity group that does the caroling. It's nbd until one day it is a big deal and then OP is the only one positioned to handle it.[/quote]

I hear you, PP. Can you pick certain things that are your husband's job that you don't have to think about? Say maybe the trash. If he doesn't take it to the curb then he can either go to the dump or deal with the fines from the HOA or handle the racoon infestation or whatever the results may be from failing that task. Maybe also things around the house that don't bother you, like fixing lightbulbs. I'm just wondering if there's a way for you to feel better about having to be the only person dealing with certain things?[/quote]

NP and at one point my useless exDH had nothing left on his plate but trash and lightbulbs due to the exact reasoning you wrote here. And we did get a raccoon infestation because 1x/week trash was soooo hard, and they established a latrine, and then exDH did nothing but research raccoon latrines for a week and buy supplies and then psych himself up to remove it and then he had to decompress after doing so for an entire weekend day.

And he decided that lightbulbs were actually really complicated and spent tons of time researching them and ordering them and replacing them. I would be like “hey can you handle bedtime” and he’d be like, no, I had to finish figuring out this lightbulb thing. It was pathetic.

Then he filed for divorce, for reasons including that I “expected too much”.

And I moved and ended up in a place with a raccoon problem. Turns out raccoon latrines are not a big deal and can be solved in 2 hours with a quick drive to the hardware store and some hard work in old clothes in the backyard. Lightbulbs, even finicky overhead ones and new LED equivalents: 15 minutes of looking stuff up online once in my life, ordering a bunch, and putting them on the shelf.  I was surprised to discover that pulling out a stepladder to replace one every other month or so is a 5 minute task. exDH would skip family events or ask me to drive kids to activities because he “had to handle the lightbulbs”.

I get so much more done and have so much more free time without the dead weight that was exDh. Everything that he made into a huge ordeal and therefore prevented him from contributing in any other meaningful way turned out to be an easy, rare task.

Getting divorced from a guy like this is hilarious because even if they initiate it, the executive functioning skills and focus required to follow through on a divorce make it really hard on them. Mine was shocked that I wouldn’t just do everything for him so he could “focus on work.”[/quote]

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