to ask why do some very capable men sometimes act so incapable at home?

[Topseyt]

DH tried to tell me this evening that he had no idea how to press the pager button on the base unit of our landline phone so that it would beep and he could locate it to listen to a message. He does know how. He has done it before. Suddenly though, with me out collecting DD1 from her friend's house, he isn't able any more.

Once he had it in his paw, he then tried to claim that he had no idea how to listen to messages on it. Again, something he has done many times before, it isn't a new phone.

I'd bet that he wouldn't do it at work - telling the boss that he hasn't done something he was asked because he suddenly became inexplicably incapable of listening to his voicemail or reading his emails.

He wonders why I looked askance at him.

"No. I would say it's that women have a higher boredom threshold than men do."

Or because someone fucking has to when the only other adult in the house has abdicated responsibility by deciding it's too boring and unimportant for him to retain in his brain? What utter bollocks.

Has to remember how to use the appliances used daily around the house I mean.

I actually can't get over what a ridiculous thing that is to say!

I think the way men are brought up has the biggest impact. As soon as my other half was old enough he had to do jobs around the house, and when he started work at 16 he had to do his own washing and ironing. He was also in the cadets which instilled a lot of skills.
Around the house we split chores. There are some things I don't do and some things he doesn't do. For example I don't get involved with car stuff (I don't drive), or DIY or gardening. He doesn't clean the bathrooms or iron anything except hus work stuff. This isn't because we can't do these things, but because the other is better at it and they are the jobs the other doesn't like.
I have noticed that men in general aren't as observant as women and sometimes I have to prompt. He will always ask what needs doing on a weekend. He works better to a list rather than actually looking round and thinking "the lounge needs vacuuming" or "that washing needs putting away". I accept that and to counteract this different way of thinking we both share a to do list app on our phones.
He's far better than I am at fixing broken technology so I always ask him to do it, although I will do it if he isn't there. I am better at sewing on buttons and baking, so I do those things, but again he will do them.
Things probably changed for him when I had an accident four years ago and was in a wheelchair for just over a year. He suddenly had to do everything including look after me and my ds (not his ds). He grew up overnight because he had to.

I think the way men are brought up has the biggest impact.

It really isn't just men, though. My DW and I had almost exactly the same DIY/decorating experience when we moved in together (i.e. next to nothing) yet it was me who had to learn electrics, woodworking, what an angle grinder is/does, etc. to do up our house.

DW lived with her parents until her early 30s, and we bought their house, yet when I asked her any questions about why such a room had been decorated the way it had been, why these lights were wired up like that, or what a certain switch does, she didn't have a clue - presumably cos her dad did everything like that.

The key is the word "act" is it not? Why is the mother's fault by the way, do these men not have dads?

And yes you get the damsel in distress too - some women are spectacularly scatty.

And both genders seem incapable of using Google. On my local Facebook parents page it's amazing how many people ask things that could very easily be solved by going to Google and putting in a search term and getting the thing they've asked for as the first hit.

Anyway, I can't put together flat pack furniture, I simply can't understand the diagrams. I'm not very visual. If someone talked me through it I could probably do it. I did once manage to put together a toddler bed on my own when my ds was very little but that was very easy - oh and a piano stool. But on the whole building furniture is dh's job.

DH is quite domesticated. I don't know if he had to do much around the house as a child, but he left home and lived on his own for a few years before he met me, so had to learn to look after himself then. He's more domesticated than I am.

The two that drive me mad here are "How do I cook this food item?" and "what washing cycle does this T-shirt need?"

And every bloody time I shout back "I don't know, what does it say on the label?!" Most food and clothing comes with instructions these days. We've been together 14 years; you'd think he'd have worked out the secrets to my omniscience by now - especially as I keep telling him!

"I have noticed that men in general aren't as observant as women"

About what needs to be tidied up in their houses.

In their cars, however, I have noticed that men in general have no difficulty whatsoever in being observant about what needs to be tidied and cleaned.

Because they feel ownership of the task of keeping the car clean and decent but they don't feel ownership of the tasks of keeping the house clean and decent.

NAMALT obv.

I can't cook. I told dh on our first date, I was 17. I have tried to cook. I did do a curry for a dinner party once, I do have trouble understanding the recipes although I follow them religiously line by line. They are sometimes written in a way that means you have to keep reading the lines ahead The recipe said

Add dried chillies

To taste

So I stirred in a packet of dried chillies, didnt even see the line after.

After 1 mouthful friends were rushing for the kitchen and filling up pans and drinking vast quantities of water to put out the fire that was in their mouth. I had added 36 dried chillies.

I have made Red lentil soup that has a blue tinge but usually my soups are grey and are served by the slice.

I tried cooking pasta once, it disintergrated.

Dh cooks or it is a ready meal or we eat out or I heat up a tin of soup.

Should say though I am a dab hand with flat pack furniture, DIY and painting and decorating. Give me a sledgehammer and I am away, give me a wooden spoon and I wouldn't know where to begin.

I haven't rtft, but any man who claims he can't operate basic household equipment is a lazy selfish arse. It's nobody's fault but their own; I hope the people blaming their mothers are being tongue in cheek. My mum didn't teach me much household stuff but once I was in my own flat I worked it out pretty quickly. It's patriarchy pure and simple, we're all fed the myth men are rubbish at home so they don't have to do the shit jobs.

I remember one manager getting into a panic because a secretary was ill, exclaiming 'but who's going to do the photocopying?' like a lost child.

Hannahouse, I've seen so much of this too. I always think of a small child who can't use toilet roll properly yet: "mummmmmy, I've had a pooooo come and wipe my bummmmm!" shouted across the house.

You expect it in a child, you don't in an adult. It's unattractive and massively dents your respect for them.

Men who work in teams or lead in business, but tend to be useless in the home, are both working for, and by, themselves, and are buoyed up by women running round after them. They aren't team players or good leaders, but get all the credit for the job.

Women with the same kind of jobs I know who don't do housework, ironing etc, often don't rely on their husbands to do it instead, but will find a way to get it done. So they'll find a cleaner etc - often another woman....and so the cycle continues.

I do wonder sometimes what demographics people are hanging out with that the people in their lives can be so uncaring and useless.

Who in their right mind would feign ignorance to pass off labour onto someone else? Not any gentles i know..

After reading mumsnet I sometimes think I must live a very sheltered life...

The same way I sigh lots when putting inane flat pack together. I do it can do it but if I can get out of it by feigning uselessness I will.

My husband told me today that he can't cope with our internet banking, it's just too complicated. He runs an internet shop FFS!

I don't get this from DH at all ( he's totally brill) but I do have a man on my team in work who tries stunts like this all the time. I ask him to do something and his response is to ask a dozen questions. I spent a while giving him step by step instructions for tasks he's well able to do until I realised that it's not that he doesn't understand what's required of him, he's hoping that I'll decide it's easier to do it myself. He also has no initiative and will not lift a finger unless specifically asked and then will demand hand holding all the way. Honestly, it's infuriating. And I know he's perfectly capable, as his former supervisor (male) thought he was a great worker.

dp claims not to be able to find DSs clothes or pyjamas. Quite capable of dressing him once clothes are in his hand but finding them defeats him.

They've been kept in same drawers for nearly 3 years now!

Otherwse he's quite competent though I am not certain he can operate the washing machine. However he works a lot more hours than me so don't mind really but not being able to locate the clothes drives me mad...

It's not that he's unable to. They've been kept in the same place for 3 years.

He doesn't want to. He doesn't see it as his job. It's your's. Why should he learn where his kid's clothes are kept? Not his problem.

DH and I are probably nearly as bad as each other. Actually, no, he is worse than me! I have a few jobs around the house that I don't do mainly because I do pretty much everything, I like to have a few things that I can say 'those are your jobs'. Picking up the dog poop (That DH actually avoids by paying dd1 to do - a set amount per poop btw!), emptying the bins and while I'm pregnant, cleaning the cat tray! Of course everyday I remind him to take out the bins, most of the time he 'forgets' and I'll find a carrier bag hooked on one of the cupboard doors to be a 'bin'. And guaranteed every time he will comment along the lines of 'how is the bin so full, I only emptied it yesterday'.... etc. Well the bin needs doing every day so how full it is is besides the point. I ask him to do dinner on the odd night, cue flapping asking what there is, my reponse to this and many questions is 'how do you think I'd figure that out? Go look/Figure it out for yourself' (I'm self employed and work from home so if I'm not doing dinner it's because I'm in the middle of work). 'I've run out of shower gel/deodorant/shampoo' etc...... Well you work across the road from a supermarket that you visit EVERY DAY, I think you can manage to replace your toiletries when they run out? My theory is that he's in charge at work and has to know everything so when he comes home he reverts to being helpless and likes someone else take charge. Thankfully besides his frequent helplessness and being completely unable to tidy up after himself, he's an amazing husband.... If he wasn't he'd have been out the door by now ha ha!

I don't understand this "my partner can't work the washing machine". Stop doing their laundry. I guarantee they will work it out.

I also don't understand why adults aren't embarrassed to be that incapable. I suppose the answer is they are just pretending to be incapable. But I do work with one woman who claims she cannot do anything home-related or finance-related and her DH goes away a lot and then she moans if a bank letter comes in and she doesn't "understand" it or moans about how messy the house is and how does he manage. I have to really clamp my jaw shut in order to avoid having a go at a colleague for being so helpless.

Ha! Just ordered wifework!

It's true. (Up to a point.) We went on holiday last week and on the third day I asked if my (talented, skilled, professional handsome) husband if he had put the dishwasher on the previous night (I had put it on the other nights). He immediately said he didn't know how, caught my eye – whereupon he registered my Look – and went off to work it out (as I had).

Jdee it's still about how you have been brought up.

Men do the DIY or will learn about it and can! learn about it.
Women aren't good at dIY, aren't supposed to do it and will be clueless anyway.
Or so they say.

I also agree that comparing learning how to do woodwork to learning how to use a washing machine isn't quite the same! The effort put into learning to use a washing machine is minimal really.

DH did try the well known 'but I don't know how to use the (new) washing machine' trick. He was swiftly directed to the instructions.
Now what I'm really surprised is that he still refers to it 2 years on (and having put plenty of washing to go all by himself). I read it once and that was it! (DH is an engineer btw so really should be able to handle that sort of 'complex' piece of machinery lol)

Crystal lol at your DH having an internet shop and not able to handle internet banking!