Why does my OH damage get everything he sets eyes on!

[holidaydreaming1]

Ok I just need to rant before I blow up at him. We've not long moved house so have lots of new furniture and bits. I bought a new mirror for the hallway, he somehow dropped it and chipped whilst putting it up it after telling him how much I liked it. I've sent him out to get a new. We've just had the hallway painted, he managed to scrape the wall round where the mirror was going. He moved the sofa whilst painting around a new radiator we had fitted, put a massive gauge in the hard wood flooring, in 2 places. He's tried to touch it up with some wax stuff but can still see it. This is all in the past weeks, but there has been other little things he's chipped aswell. I've barely spoke to him since. He's so careless. He isn't bad at diy like putting things together but he just manages to damage things along the way. Would you be mad too, what would you do?

Title should say damage, not dams get! I've asked if this can be edited

Oh OP, I can sympathise. I love my DH, but he is so careless sometimes and it can be really frustrating. He just accidentally marks/stains/spoils/destroys things sooner or later. He's a spiller with no attention to detail, so when stuff gets marked or scuzzy he just 'doesn't notice', whereas it'll stare me in the face. Yesterday, he sat on the corner of the dining table to talk to me about the shopping list (not for the first time) and I think lockdown has made my patience thinner so as the table went CREEEEAAK I said "PLEASE don't do that, the whole thing bends and it's going to wreck it" (it's from Ikea, and it's fine, it just doesn't take 16kg of man pushing down on one corner!!!) and he gave me a withering look. I don't want to be an arse who tells him what to do, nor should I bloody have to, but seriously I JUST WANT NICE THINGS. I cannot buy a new dining table and I shouldn't have to put up with a broken one.

As for what to do, I don't know OP, I wish I did. It does make me mad though too, so I sympathise. My DH was brought up to respect things, but also that stuff doesn't have to be pristine and you make do with what you have. I was too, but in me it's manifested as a 'look after the stuff you have carefully' attitude. I dream of a beautiful, organised, put-together home. So if he breaks something, he makes do. Which is great in a lot of ways but maddening if he's broken it by being careless and we're stuck with it. Sometimes I don't want to make do. Sometimes I want the table not to have scratches and the plates not to be chipped. And that's an ok way to be: it does not make me uptight or obsessive.

Oooh, that was cathartic.

Does he wear glasses? I’ve noticed that I’m more clumsy now and I don’t s know if it’s because my vision is slightly obscured by the frames as I was never this clumsy before. Or perhaps it’s menopausal... that obv won’t apply to him!

My DH is one of these ….." I don't know what I did, it just happened types"
Dropping things, putting this together wrongly that then have to be replaced - 3 hedge cutters, two lawnmowers, curtain rails, as wel las loosing things (train tickets, guarantees etc)
My mum won't let him work her washing machine or pull the curtains in her house - she is 89 and registered blind , but his reputation goes before him
I do love him, but the number of things he has broken or damaged (full cup of tea balancing on cushion on the sofa yesterday arghhhh) makes me constantly on edge when we are at friends and relatives

Dyspraxia?

What would you do?

Do stuff myself if I can do it better, if not get someone in.

Probably doing it on purpose so you'll ask him to stop doing things, or he could just be bloody clumsy.

Wow. Do you even like him ?
Why do you think he ought to be talented at such tasks, just because he is male ?
If it's so easy, why aren't you doing it ?
Do you seriously think he has damaged the mirror because you said how much you liked it ?

Neither dh nor I are good at this kind of thing. So we (when younger) accepted that our house was never going to be a showhome, and now we have a bit more money, we pay people who are good at these sorts of things to do them to a higher standard than I could.

I can't believe that you seem to be suggesting he is somehow deliberately sabbotaging your perfect home.

Maybe if when this stuff happened you said to him "you have damaged something that we both own due to carelessness, you need to put it right" or something like that rather than treating it as a bit of a joke like "doh! Men eh?!!"

We always get a grown up to do things like decorating, gardening, diy. My husband couldn’t knock a nail in straight. He’s brilliant in every other way so I don’t mind.

Do it yourself then seems the obvious option.

I get its frustrating but barely speaking to him? If this was the other way round, the man would be accused of gaslighting and there would be calls of LTB.

He wears contact lenses as his eyesight is really poor, he can't see a thing without them. I've mentioned he needs to get his eyes tested as he hadn't in a while and yesterday whilst we done a deep clean he was in charge of the hoovering and mopping, there was loads of bits he had missed. We paid for someone to do the full hallway painting and fitting a new radiator (which he probably would be been able to do himself) as I didn't want him to damage anything else and he didn't want the headache from me he said.

I do really love him, he's really kind and selfless aside from this and normally we have a great relationship but he is just so clumsy and careless it's costing us a small fortune! He offers to do these things, I don't force him. I know he didn't drop the mirror deliberately after telling him how much I liked it, I just heard a crash onto the floor and thought 'here we go again'.

I'm absolutely not suggesting he is 'sabotaging my perfect home'. It's his home too, and he wants it to look nice. I know it's not deliberate, but this is our first home that we own so ideally I would rather not have every room damaged in some way.

He is good at some forms of diy and enjoys it, he likes to keep busy at the weekends and I don't make him do any of this, it's just everything seems to come with damage of something else.

My DH breaks stuff but only because he is trying to do things in a rush and it drives me mad. So many things broken or lost. I bought a dinner set last year, we now have twochipped bowls, two chipped plates and three side plates left. We also seem to go through so many wash cloths and reusable wipes because he chucks them in the bin and swears he doesn’t. I’ve found them in there when tidying. He has broken blinds, toys, everything! I would far rather do some things myself but he insists on helping and it’s so frustrating. Grrr!! Don’t even get me started on slamming doors, even the car door, because he can’t do it gently. Even moving furniture!

I'm glad it's not just mine! His clothes are the same aswell, I've just gone into the kitchen to see he's filled the sink with bleach and a t shirt as he's got paint stains on a nice t shirt I bought him for his birthday. I think if I buy clothes for him as a gift again, I'll have to get them from primark. They either go missing or get stained

My DH is exactly the same so I do sympathise, but he never breaks things they just stop working ie: strimmer, lawnmower, cordless drill etc. This can be on its first use!! Cleaning the windows managed to knock the drainpipe and smash the whole down pipe, but it wasn’t his fault just a freak gust of wind ffs.
If anywhere needs decorating, either I do it or pay a decorator and he gets really arsey saying he can do it, he likes doing it , just can’t admit he’s shit at it.
I know we can’t all be good at everything but I wish he’d just admit it, he has no sense of logical thinking. When our dd was small he couldn’t even put a 3 piece baby gym together and both ends were identical.

I feel your pain

That’s really sad actually. Since he has poor eyesight, he’s probably doing the best he can. Clumsiness comes with poor eyesight.
And the worse your eyes, the higher the prescription which means the less range of vision you have. For example, if you are very shortsighted, they can correct your distance vision but only by sacrificing some of your close vision. Eyeglasses are worse than contact lenses because it reduces your peripheral vision. And if one eye is much different than another ( 2 diopters plus) you can have perpetual double vision or blurry vision.

Even partially sighted people deserve nice clothes. So it’s mean to say you’ll only buy him cheap clothes because he gets stains.

There is no reason why you can’t take over the DIY or do it with him. Be his eyes and have his back.

@planderaccordant I haven't really thought about it like that and wasn't fully aware, as I have good eyesight myself. It's strange as he works in construction where he needs to pay attention to detail and is well respected and good at it although he has gave himself a black eye recently dropping something and multiple hand injuries!

I was sort of half joking about the cheap clothes (nothing wrong with primark by the way) but I just wish he would change out of his nice clothes and put something old on when doing diy so they don't get ruined and I wouldn't mind buying him nice clothes for birthdays etc, as he never really buys himself much.

Sorry I missed you were joking.
I agree on having a few sets of work clothes for diy. We do.
Maybe get him a novelty superman t-shirt and tell him it’s his DIY shirt.

I just felt sorry for your DH. It must be hard to love doing diy, or a construction job, but struggling against deteriorating vision. I agree you need to nag him to an optometrist. He’s probably a bit scared of bad news. I know my DH was. He has a hobby that involve miniature painting. It’s very detailed and teeny tiny. He went in terrified, but told the optometrist about his hobby and the optometrist set it up so he has two different prescriptions. Contacts to see far, drive, and then a pair of glasses for only close up work when he’s doing his miniature painting.

Can I join this thread please. You've described my husband to a tee. He's so clumsy but well meaning and it drives me mad. It's not an eye sight problem and I think he's just so willing to help but doesn't notice stuff. Carrying shopping into the house always results in some items falling on the floor, emptying the bins means a trail of stuff that misses the bin bag, moving furniture without considering the walls etc. He just isn't wired that way.

My son is like this - he's dyspraxic. Incredibly frustrating but he can't help it (mostly).

Sounds like my brother, only in his case he genuinely does not care. My mum spent ages wallpapering and painting her hallway. Within a week my brother had taken a gouge out of the wallpaper. When this was pointed out he just shrugged. He damaged a garage door by parking his big diesel van too close to it. Again he didn't care and refused to sort out the damage.

My DP is exactly the same.

He is so clumsy we get through wine glasses like they are disposable. And out 5 year old dinner set is missing 30 per cent of the plates where he has broken them.

The thing is he has excellent attention to detail hes just clumsy. But, he will also do stupid shit like go walking in the mud and rain in his dress boots 'because they are comfy clean them as best he can or wear new jumpers for gardening then have a good moan about how all his stuff looks scruffy and he never has anything nice to wear.

He has do many redeeming qualities but these two traits are infuriating.