To be pissed off with husband’s attitude...

[Lavenderee]

To begin with, I’ll say he’s a lovely bloke and a wonderful father, so he’s no bastard but I swear, his attitude about housework does my head right in!

Right now he’s doing the dishwasher, and is veering between expecting a medal and a parade thrown in his honour and whining his head off. As if he does this all the time and is sick of the way people leave things for his tired and under appreciated self. No, honey, that’s MY role!! You do this maybe once every month if I’m lucky! So it irks the hell out of me having you sigh and say loudly to the dog, “it seems as if nobody in this house can rinse a plate” or saying, “brilliant” in a flat, sarcastic tone louder and louder until I ask “what?” -only to have you sigh louder and respond with, “nothing. Doesn’t matter.”

IF he ever cooks anything, he complains loudly about everything not being exactly where he wants it, and about my organisation of the kitchen. It’s MY kitchen! I’m the one that prepares 499 out of 500 meals. I think I’m entitled to have it how I want it!!
If I ask him to put a wash on (maybe once a fortnight?) he will whinge and whine loudly about the way the kids leave their clothes with a sleeve inside out, or socks aren’t in pairs, etc.

The part that winds me up the most is the fact that he finds this so unbearable and outrageous, yet he is guilty of everything that annoys him!! AND, it doesn’t seem to register that he’s annoyed by the housework for 15 minutes a month..... this is my goddamn life!! I’m at home with one young child and one older child who has a severe mental health issue. He only notices when it becomes his problem for quarter of an hour. Not when he adds to it being my problem every day! Seriously, AIBU to be annoyed by it?? Are other blokes like this?? I might throttle him if I have to hear him moaning about inside out sleeves on the kids laundry when I extract his boxers and socks from his discarded trousers daily!!

Not doing a fair share of domestic work isn’t a minor annoying trait or habit - usually overloads the other person and suggests sexist attitudes.

The part of the story that seems to be missing from your posts OP, is “and when I told him this was really annoying he said/did...” You have talked to him about how it makes you feel, presumably?

Also dislike the useless/incompetence idea - these men manage their work etc capably. They don’t bother at home because they think wifey will do it all.

Then stop being wifey. Get a job, take an equal role in providing for the family. Insist your husband takes an equal role with regard to child care and domestic chores. Some people love to say '1950's calling' but behave in exactly the way their grandmothers and great grandmothers behaved. Both partners need to behave in non stereotyped ways.
I remember my grandmother complaining about exactly the same things but she didn't work and domestic chores became her burden and her grudge. My mother worked full time (with 5 kids) and my father did loads at home. Some women are enablers and don't want change and equality.

I just posted in AIBU about my husband's lack of help too. I feel your pain sister.

YANBU. I have similar issues along the with the fact that my DH never does anything properly. If he empties the dishwasher he puts all the stuff in the wrong place and will jumble up big plates/small plates/pasta bowls. If he ever cooks he moans about various bits of equipment, if he ever does any cleaning he makes comments about my standards (they aren't that low honestly) and whenever he does anything useful he expects a fanfare! I just tell him to shove it up his ass. We are still together after 30 years 😂

@YeOldeNameChange
Oh yes, those beautiful tasty potatoes he carried all the way from the shop to the car and into the house! I tell him to stop being an idiot... I am sarky with it but it's the thing he does, he can't help himself, but we've survived thirty something years of marriage so he can't be all bad

p.s. he had a vegetable patch. The potato growing didn't go well. They got the weevil

Yearinyearout ditto. My DH is very good at some things. Dishwasher packing ain't one of them! And I am also verbal about it and leave him to unpack it which seems to be OK!

My Ex expected a medal, a drum roll, and a pipe band parade if he did anything around the house! Dumped him when he cheated. House now stays clean and tidy. Best thing I ever did

OP, I totally understand that you can have a lovely man who can make you roll your eyes about one particular thing!

Mine cooks and leaves the mess ALL OVER the kitchen - I swear it’s like he’s just thrown stuff into the air and whatever landed on plates is dinner. But he does cook, regularly...and does clean the kitchen (eventually), irons clothes, vacuums, tidies, sees something that needs to be done and just does it; all the stuff your husband seems to resent.

It sounds like maybe your husband just isn’t used to doing this stuff (and possibly does, somewhere in his subconscious, think it’s ‘your job’). Make sure he has to do his fair share - it’s his home too - and ignore demands for excessive praise. Unless you want to present him with a “well done” sticker every time he completes a domestic task...that might nip the dramatics in the bud?

I feel your pain! My husband was off yesterday and proudly announced that he'd spent the whole day scrubbing the house from top to bottom. I (rather optimistically) looked forward to coming home to a palace 😂

Arrived home to find he hadn't cleaned the kitchen or bathroom, hadn't mopped downstairs, hadn't dusted any surfaces, hadn't cleaned out the fish etc...as far as I can tell, it took him 6 hours to hoover upstairs, change one bed and shrink the baby's clothes in the tumble dryer (which he is banned from using after the last time he did this) 😩

He was so exhausted from this effort, he needed a 2 hour nap to recover

I prefer it when he's at work

Sorry but a 'lovely bloke' doesn't leave all the shit work to the woman he claims to love.
*
If that's your idea of a lovely bloke, I'd hate to see your idea of a horrible one.*

This ^^

It is possible, in fact I would say common, for someone to be a fundamentally decent person and have an area or two in which they behave poorly, selfishly, unacceptably. Housework could be your dh's area, and deeply rooted societal sexism will encourage him in not challenging these semi-subconscious beliefs that it is really your job and he is too important for it and therefore doing you a great favour when he does it.

This attitude does not make him a fundamentally damnable person in his entirety. It is unacceptable and he needs to buck his ideas up. Both of these can be true at once.

IIWY, OP, I would spell this out to him: 'I deal with these things all the time, yet you seem to find it incredibly offensive on the few occasions you deal with it. Why? What is it you want me to do to alleviate your complaints?' Make him reflect. If he really is decent, he may realise a thing or two.

On the other hand when DH retired he started doing far more around the house. I was still working but hated it - I felt he was encroaching into my territory! I never said anything and now it works really well though there are one or two other things he never thinks of to do!

Now I think of it, when I was only working part time and DS was little he’d always did out the hoover when he came home from work which infuriated me as I saw it as a criticism of me and the state I had left the house in. But we had a full and frank discussion (!) and he told me it was his way of destressing after the day. Takes all sorts!