Anonymous
09/05/2023 22:30
Subject: Husband doesn't help with hardly anything
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I kind of call BS on your whole point of view here. You sound like the one who is depressed, not your spouse. You speak about your spouse with utter contempt. Like he’s some kind of total loser. But then we learn that he’s into fitness and runs and is killing it at work. So he doesn’t sound lazy.
It sounds like the two of you may have dramatically different points of view on how to parent. Maybe he doesn’t think your kid needs help with homework. Maybe he thinks your kids should manage homework on their own. Maybe he thinks that if he doesn’t have a morning meeting it’s OK for him to sleep late once in a while. Maybe he’s OK with more clutter around the house than you like. None of this would make him evil. Honestly, it’s how I live my life.
If my spouse was running around doing a bunch of stuff that I did not see as necessary or important, and was simultaneously treating me with utter contempt.…yeah. I don’t know. I’m not a dude, this is a woman speaking. Are you married this person and I have been with them for years so presumably you found something about them attractive and endearing. But now you’re talking about them like they are some sort of caricature.
You and your spouse could sit down and make a list of all home/parenting activities and logically split them up. Have you even tried to have that kind of discussion with your spouse in a non-offensive way, just a factual way? Or is it more fun to feel like a martyr and just be enraged at them? Do you do anything fun with your spouse at all? Maybe your spouse avoids being around you and your kid because you oppressively insist on getting your way at all times and are unwilling to see any merit in his different point of view, so in the end avoidance is the approach taken to avoid constant conflict.
Dude, he doesn’t spend any time thinking or worrying about the family, or his kids’ schooling, or dumping everything on his wife.
He’s doing exactly what he wants to do, exactly when he wants to (eat, sleep, videos, work). Wife, house, child be damned.
Op here. I feel like I’ve been really flexible as things have devolved. Dismissed it as “oh we are both just busy” or “this is what it’s like to be a working parent”. I let a LOT of messiness go, I let a lot of forgetfulness go, I let a lot of laziness go, especially when DD was younger. But now she’s older and more self sufficient, we shouldn’t be absolutely drowning. He’s not, but I am!
He truly was better. Not perfect, but much better. Now he’s home more, so he creates more messes but cleans up less, so it’s compounded. Now he’s not required to be up early for a commute, so it’s slipped into getting up as late as humanly possible. And no, no one can ever convince me that it’s a child’s responsibility to wake up their parent to get them to school on time. Particularly when it’s one of the few parenting tasks he does. It definitely feels like he only puts effort into things that interest him.
Chores and activity shuttling aren’t my favorite either, but it’s called being an adult and I just think it’s really crappy to not do your fair share.
Anonymous
09/05/2023 20:59
Subject: Husband doesn't help with hardly anything
Wasn’t yesterday a holiday? Was there some reason he couldn’t spend some time on the couch? The OP’s whole post has the feel of just shitting on the spouse as a form of stress release.
OP, what if you just told your spouse that next Saturday you’ll be gone all day because you’re going with a friend to a show. What would happen?
What if you just didn’t cook? What if you ordered out? What if you just announced that you would no longer be cooking on weeknights? What would happen?
I just feel like you’re wanting to *talk* to your husband about this problem that you perceive but you’re not taking any *action* to change the dynamic. You and your spouse are in a dynamic. It takes two to tango. You could change your behavior dramatically. Your complaint is that your spouse does whatever he wants when he wants it. Well, maybe you could stand to do a little bit more of that yourself.
“But the house would fall down!!!!” you cry. Really? So everything has to be done just the way it is now, and what you need is for your husband to basically do some of the stuff you want done? Maybe he does not want to spend his Saturdays at the playground. Maybe he thinks it’s OK to play video games and to let his kid play her own games in her room. Maybe that’s actually OK. Maybe what’s making you unhappy is not his failure to act for others but your failure to act a little more selfishly.
As long as the only story you’ll tell yourself is that your husband —the man you married!— is just inexplicably selfish and bad, you are not going to get anywhere. I would stop trying to talk to him and just start changing the way you act. Book a weekend away by yourself, stat!
OP, what if you just told your spouse that next Saturday you’ll be gone all day because you’re going with a friend to a show. What would happen?
What if you just didn’t cook? What if you ordered out? What if you just announced that you would no longer be cooking on weeknights? What would happen?
I just feel like you’re wanting to *talk* to your husband about this problem that you perceive but you’re not taking any *action* to change the dynamic. You and your spouse are in a dynamic. It takes two to tango. You could change your behavior dramatically. Your complaint is that your spouse does whatever he wants when he wants it. Well, maybe you could stand to do a little bit more of that yourself.
“But the house would fall down!!!!” you cry. Really? So everything has to be done just the way it is now, and what you need is for your husband to basically do some of the stuff you want done? Maybe he does not want to spend his Saturdays at the playground. Maybe he thinks it’s OK to play video games and to let his kid play her own games in her room. Maybe that’s actually OK. Maybe what’s making you unhappy is not his failure to act for others but your failure to act a little more selfishly.
As long as the only story you’ll tell yourself is that your husband —the man you married!— is just inexplicably selfish and bad, you are not going to get anywhere. I would stop trying to talk to him and just start changing the way you act. Book a weekend away by yourself, stat!
Anonymous
09/05/2023 20:58
Subject: Husband doesn't help with hardly anything
I would divorce over that. I’m sorry OP! You deserve better.
Anonymous
09/05/2023 20:54
Subject: Husband doesn't help with hardly anything
Yet another man baby looking for a mommy to take over all the responsibilities so he can concentrate on his hobbies and fun stuff. At least this one is employed, most are deadweights in the career department too. If you do decide to divorce/separate, I would not be AT ALL surprised if he didn’t want 50-50 physical custody so I wouldn’t necessarily go into it assuming that he would. Yes the trend is, of course, for joint legal custody apart from serious issues, but something tells me he’d end up only wanting every other weekend and a few weeks in the summer with your child.
Anonymous
09/05/2023 20:54
Subject: Re:Husband doesn't help with hardly anything
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Can we just get a new forum here called Deadweight Husbands? Honestly a good 20% of all posts in the relationship forum seem to be about feral men and the women who have foolishly married them. Maybe these wives can start some sort of fight club/strangers on a train kind of deal.
OP here. I wish I had had a crystal ball on this. I had no way of knowing. He said all of the right things. I don't blame myself.
So he was totally 50/50 with the house and parenting kid 1? I call BS.
Anonymous
09/05/2023 20:34
Subject: Husband doesn't help with hardly anything
Easy way out.
Anonymous
09/05/2023 20:34
Subject: Re:Husband doesn't help with hardly anything
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Was he like this when you dated? When you were first married? Did you talk about division of labor before marriage and again before having kids? But yeah I'd divorce someone like that. Then maybe you'll have the bandwidth to work on an 8 yr old having temper tantrums, which she is 5 years too old for.
Op here, we did discuss it, but it hindsight, it was more that he didn't want me to SAH (which was fine by me) like his mom did and he thought his mom always resented his dad because his dad did nothing around the house. But me working doesn't automatically make him hold his own on parenting and household chores.
Wtf. How ironic.
Anonymous
09/05/2023 20:32
Subject: Husband doesn't help with hardly anything
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:As a husband, this guy sounds burned out and depressed. I think couples counseling is generally over recommended - but he could seek therapy. For me, the telling thing is how much he’s shifted his behavior. He also needs to get more sleep and work on physical fitness.
Even without kids, sitting on the couch for 10 hours straight, eating cereal and snacks after bedtime, etc etc isn’t normal behavior.
Burnout from the last few years is totally understandable - but he needs to snap out of it.
Per OP, he's "killing it" at work. That doesn't sound like burnout to me.
That just sounds like he only wants to do things he cares about. He knows that OP will not let the kid ball drop; she cares too much, and he knows it.
He's a selfish a hole that is basically taking advantage of the fact that he knows OP will do everything. He talks the big talk because he feels like he's "the man", but he feels that childcare and household issues are beneath him.
FWIW, my DH is not like this at all, thank god. Otherwise we'd have a "come to Jesus" talk.
This.
Step back and look. This.
Stop twisting into a pretzel to excuse his piss poor behaviors.
Anonymous
09/05/2023 20:28
Subject: Husband doesn't help with hardly anything
Anonymous wrote:I kind of call BS on your whole point of view here. You sound like the one who is depressed, not your spouse. You speak about your spouse with utter contempt. Like he’s some kind of total loser. But then we learn that he’s into fitness and runs and is killing it at work. So he doesn’t sound lazy.
It sounds like the two of you may have dramatically different points of view on how to parent. Maybe he doesn’t think your kid needs help with homework. Maybe he thinks your kids should manage homework on their own. Maybe he thinks that if he doesn’t have a morning meeting it’s OK for him to sleep late once in a while. Maybe he’s OK with more clutter around the house than you like. None of this would make him evil. Honestly, it’s how I live my life.
If my spouse was running around doing a bunch of stuff that I did not see as necessary or important, and was simultaneously treating me with utter contempt.…yeah. I don’t know. I’m not a dude, this is a woman speaking. Are you married this person and I have been with them for years so presumably you found something about them attractive and endearing. But now you’re talking about them like they are some sort of caricature.
You and your spouse could sit down and make a list of all home/parenting activities and logically split them up. Have you even tried to have that kind of discussion with your spouse in a non-offensive way, just a factual way? Or is it more fun to feel like a martyr and just be enraged at them? Do you do anything fun with your spouse at all? Maybe your spouse avoids being around you and your kid because you oppressively insist on getting your way at all times and are unwilling to see any merit in his different point of view, so in the end avoidance is the approach taken to avoid constant conflict.
Dude, he doesn’t spend any time thinking or worrying about the family, or his kids’ schooling, or dumping everything on his wife.
He’s doing exactly what he wants to do, exactly when he wants to (eat, sleep, videos, work). Wife, house, child be damned.
Anonymous
09/05/2023 20:25
Subject: Husband doesn't help with hardly anything
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:He has ADHD. Seriously, he's able to do well at work because he's able to focus on that one thing. Once work is over, he wants to "zone" into games, sleep, etc. and will use all kinds of techniques to avoid tasks that seem tedious or boring.
I have a teen son with ADHD and without meds, he acts exactly like this.
I'm the PP that said the DH sounds selfish and entitled, but actually this makes more sense. Significant ADHD and defensiveness about doing anything to fix it.
How defensive as oppositional does he get? I missed that part.
Anonymous
09/05/2023 20:24
Subject: Re:Husband doesn't help with hardly anything
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Can we just get a new forum here called Deadweight Husbands? Honestly a good 20% of all posts in the relationship forum seem to be about feral men and the women who have foolishly married them. Maybe these wives can start some sort of fight club/strangers on a train kind of deal.
Just put the deadweights’ mug shots up and send an award to their mommies and daddies.
We can match them up with lazy SAHMs who’s kids are school aged.
Anonymous
09/05/2023 20:24
Subject: Husband doesn't help with hardly anything
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:It is perfectly ok to get a divorce. It is perfectly ok to ask him to get a neuropsych screening for ADHD/ depression/etc. It is ok to decide to stay married and just do it all yourself.
Really, you just have to decide what you want to do and how miserable you are willing to be. Women make all kinds of different choices in this scenario.
Yes, exactly this. Give yourself permission to do what makes sense for you.
Op here. I know. I just really do not want to get divorced. I just want him to wake the F up.
Prob won’t happen.
Can’t reason with this type. He’s not rational son or normal nor respectful. Through out the notion of expecting him to be; that makes you insane .
Anonymous
09/05/2023 20:23
Subject: Re:Husband doesn't help with hardly anything
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:OP, hope I'm wrong but if he's both still into fitness and his job while being checked out with you, plus he has lots of free time, could he be cheating? I'd keep my antennae up for that.
OP here. I'd truly be shocked. I've checked his location a few times and he's always at home. I've come home at random times when he wasn't expecting me and he's always there, by himself. We have cameras so I'd know if someone else was there. I don't think he has the motivation to do that TBH. I know that sounds ridiculous as an outsider looking in, but I just don't get that feeling at all.
How are his executive functioning skills?
Is it easy to tell if he’s lying (ie his lies don’t make sense whatsoever bc he doesn’t keep track of jack)?
Anonymous
09/05/2023 20:21
Subject: Husband doesn't help with hardly anything
Anonymous wrote:I would ask him for a separation and find an apartment.
If he makes less than $1M a year I would do the above.
If he makes more income I’d bank that, detach, go out with friends, have an affair, get a nanny, focus on myself, my kid, my career, my friends. And save the money for the gray divorce. Get forensics accountants if you think he’s up to funny business w his income. Hopefully he’s not a big spender or gambler.
Anonymous
09/05/2023 20:19
Subject: Re:Husband doesn't help with hardly anything
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Was he like this when you dated? When you were first married? Did you talk about division of labor before marriage and again before having kids? But yeah I'd divorce someone like that. Then maybe you'll have the bandwidth to work on an 8 yr old having temper tantrums, which she is 5 years too old for.
She probably learned this behavior from her father, who is likely 30-40 years too old for it.
+1