to wonder how my DH is well respected at work, when he's such a dimwit at home?

[MsVestibule]

DH has a reasonably good job in IT, and I think he's well thought of at work. Well, he's worked there for a long time and keeps getting promoted even though he's a right 9-5er so I assume he's doing OK.

So why does he have absolutely zero common sense sometimes? Latest example: I put a load of washing in the machine while getting the DCs ready for school. He was having a day off work, to recover from his long and arduous golfing weekend, and had a lie-in. I was taking the DCs to school, then on somewhere else and knew I wouldn't be home until 11.45, so left a note saying "Please can you take the washing out of the machine. xx" and left in on the bench.

I returned home at 11.45, to find that yes, he had taken the clothes out of the machine machine. But instead of putting them on the clothes horse, he'd just left them in a big heap in the washing basket. I was and boy, did he know about it. His response was "well, you didn't ask me to put it on the clothes horse." Should I really have had to do that? We haven't had a tumble drier for 2 years, so ALWAYS dry clothes by putting them on the clothes horse. It wasn't that he thought "that's her job, so I'm not doing it" - it genuinely didn't cross his mind to do it.

I do accept I went a bit OTT (there was quite a lot of FFSing from both of us, bit of a surprise, as we rarely argue), but really - am I the only one who needs to spell out every detail of a domestic chore to their OH?! This is not the first time, but I don't normally rant and rave like a lunatic about it.

YANBU. He is either just being plain lazy or has no common sense.

No idea why people are getting so het up about the word dimwit - it just means someone being stupid or silly. Given what he did he was being stupid and or silly. Perfectky valiud anbd lighthearted description if you ask me.

TrollopDollop, lazy absolutely no, common sense absolutely yes.
And if people such as yourself and others have further ideas on how to improve common sense, me and many others are all ears.

My 14yo DD is just like this. Very clever at school. Needs lists at home. E.g. Tell her to pack a suitcase for Hols - no chance. Give her a list of what to pack then everything fine. Tell her to tidy her room and she will just sit there staring at the mess. Give her step by step instructions and it gets tidied! Very literal. Added bonus is that she cannot seem to tell fibs - totally lacks the imagination :)

My dd is like this. Really bright that her teachers said that of she was to sit standard grade English, she would get a 1. That would be 4 years early. But ask her to do a simple task, she can't fully comprehend what it entails!!!!!

Did he never live alone/never seen washing hung up/out?

I´m a SAHM & recently went away for two weeks at short notice.

Husband had to juggle work/teenagers/dog/cooking/housework-which he did!

I think that if they have to you´ll find that that they can.

My dh just accused me of writing the op, he's another IT type. My dd is just the same as well.

My DP is like this and also works in a highly technical field.

He'll hyper focus & it drives me potty...

Like the time I asked him to do the washing and he did nothing but the washing - 9 loads of it including stripping all beds and towels from both bathrooms. House full of washing and none put away or folded. This is referred to as the Sorcerors Apprentice incident.

Or the time he couldn't fathom why I was put out when I'd asked him to focus on DIY so he'd left all his dirty dishes in the livingroom instead of loading them into the dishwasher (you didn't ask me to do the housework).

Yes million, laziness is curable (sort of - I haven't really managed to cure my own yet, and I've been working on it for many years!) but how do you "make" somebody have common sense???

Euphemia - your DH's example is off the scale! I wonder if there's a direct correlation in some men between their level of intelligence and lack of common sense?! And I mean that in a tongue in cheek way; I'm sure there are a load of examples where this isn't the case, I'm not being a man hater .

I'm sure it applies to some intelligent women too. Just they either don't realise or they aren't rushing to own up to it here. One or two have, and a few have mentioned dds like it though.

So the argument is that some men are just too intelligent to understand how to do housework?

DH has a first from Cambridge and is currently ironing, astonishingly, perfectly capably, perhaps I'd better mention this to him.

OMG Euphemia that is really wierd!

To think that what is on the box must be what is in the box!

I had to help dd clean her room. She finds it really hard to create order out of chaos. Dh is the same. They like to 'see' everything. We have a v small house and had some work done to create loads of hidden storage.

I really wonder why I bothered as neither dh nor dd can cope with cupboards. Every time something comes out it stays on a surface. They also both hoard horrifically. I'm not sure either of them have ever thrown a possession away.

Ds and I are ruthless and like clean surfaces. We're not even particularly tidy but compared to dh and dd we are bloody neat freaks!

Dh/dd are creative types (dh in the media, dd brilliant at languages/English but can't do maths). Ds and I maths/science types.

You think IT people are bad. Wait till you have lived with an actor/writer/journalist

I do sometimes think that extreme intelligence does often come with a a lack of common sense! I had an uncle who went to Oxford and eventually ended up with a PhD in maths but manage to rid himself of a couple of fingers by unblocking the sink disposal using said fingers!

MissBehavingUnderThe Mistletoe, I will bet that your DH does not have a first in IT.Most of us are talking specifically about IT, and we havealready talked about the most , some issue.
I realise now that some people deliberately misread on threads.

I'm pretty sceptical about these intelligent capable men who are supposedly unable to do simple household chores. It seems more like laziness to me - not bothering to give it any thought because they know someone else is 'in charge' of that stuff.

I know sometimes people may have genuine difficulties with organisation or memory, but usually to progress to a senior level in a professional job you have to manage your own time and projects effectively (and often other people's as well), use your initiative and judgement, make decision etc. You don't often get very far if you need someone to stand over you and give literal instructions for every little step of every routine task every time you do it, or sit there refusing to do anything unless you are explicitly told to.

If we're doing anecdotes, my DP is one of those intelligent technical types as well, but somehow manages to do laundry etc as well. In our house there has never ever been the slightest suggestion that domestic chores are somehow my job rather than his. It's about attitude more than ability in most cases, I think.

amillionyears - not IT, maths and I'm not sure that I am misreading the thread. I think that generalising that men who work in a certain field or have a particular academic background can't undertake basis household tasks is a pretty weak argument and comes dangerously close to the "all women drivers are shit" type of view.

Ephiny, the point is, at work they work with other similar types who "get each other".When my DS was looking at different Universities, I was concerned because of how he had been to bring up. I need not have worried.We went to the Uni open day where he ended up going.We were first there.We were a bit early. We watched 14 boys come in 1 by 1. Of those, 13 looked almost identical to my son. I knew at that moment, that he would be just fine.

MissBee - noooooooo, don't tell him that! He's bound to down tools and then say "No darling, I'm just too clever to do this menial work any more". Anyway, it's not the inability to do domestic chores that's the problem with us, more the inability to notice what needs doing. And yes, he really was this crap when he lived by himself. He hasn't regressed, or decided it's my job, it's just the way he's always been.

And I do consider myself to be of at least equal intelligence to my DH (no self esteem issues here!) - I think our brains just work in very different ways. Hard for me to understand sometimes, but I know my chronic untidiness bugs him, but he rarely mentions it.

YANBU. He just couldn't be arsed/ didn't think - either way, he was being unreasonable.

I also surprised that the word 'dimwit' would cause offence.

I take it you left the pile of wet clothes for him to rewash/hang? Seriously he can only learn from his own mistakes.

Redoing badly done tasks is at the root of this.

You get all kinds of 'types' of people in IT, like any other job. There are many different roles within IT, some more technical than others, and you usually have to work with people across different departments as well. That's not really the issue here, anyway. If someone can manage to complete routine multi-step tasks at work without constant supervision, then they can almost certainly do laundry. If they want to and see it as their responsibility. Which I would guess the OPs husband doesn't.

For a few years both DP and I were both working in IT (he still does) but somehow we managed to keep our house in decent order, get our laundry done etc. I find your notion of 'IT brain' completely unjustified and actually quite insulting.

There are general IT types, there are general fireman types, there are general policeman types, there are general farmers types, there are general librarian types, there are general nursing types, there are general lawyer types, there are general salepeople types.

Margery, no, I did it in a very PA way, even though he told me to stop and he'd take over. Of course I handled the situation badly. I realise I should have said good naturedly "why the frig are the clothes still in the basket? Are they likely to dry in there? Put them on the dryer while I make us a cup of tea, you dimwit". No argument, and he would have still got the message.

I´m also sceptical tbh.

I mean it´s hard to believe that these men have never had to dry washing tbh.

Did they all go from mum to wife?