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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To have shouted at DP for weirdness / dopeyness?

149 replies

SmashedPumpkinz · 24/02/2020 07:43

DP is incapable of thinking for himself. He has no initiative and it’s driving me crazy. Some of his behaviours are so odd and weird and it’s starting to really irritate me.

I’ve just bought a hard floor cleaner/vacuum. I was spending all day yesterday painting woodwork and DP was just sat there not knowing what to do. So I asked him to use the new floor cleaner for the first time. It’s cordless and I’d spent the previous day charging the battery (which only works for 45 mins). The whole house needed a floor clean. I heard him turn it on and it didn’t sound like it was actually moving so admittedly I thought he’d turned it on so I could hear it but had then just sat down. I was fuming. I went in to check and walked in to the cleaner on full blast stationary in the middle of the floor and DP just stood there looking at it suspiciously. I said “what are you doing???” He said “I’m just working it out”. I get mad and turned it off saying “what is there to work out?? You turn it on and move it across the floor!!! You don’t stand there watching it drain it’s battery!”

He decided that he didn’t like my attitude towards him at the point and refused to continue with it. He did fuck all yesterday ... everything he was supposed to do he literally spent the entire time “working it out” ... changing light bulbs, fixing the bed, cleaning the floors, fixing the fence ... none done as he was too busy “working it out”

OP posts:
GothamProtector · 24/02/2020 09:01

No. If there was a problem he should've said. The fact he just sulked and sat on his arse shows he's just a useless mouth breather.

Morons like him are what contribute to the mental load always foisted onto women.

His home. That he lives in needed shit doing. It not the OPs jobs. It's not her job to write a list. He should be up and doing it.

Insaneinthemembury · 24/02/2020 09:04

Lack of initiative/laziness drives me fucking spare. YANBU.
Some of this will be learnt behaviour because the women folk probably did everything.
You didnt magically know how to change light bulbs, you did it and learnt. He needs to go through this process.

Oysterbabe · 24/02/2020 09:05

What is his job?

Runnerduck34 · 24/02/2020 09:05

That made me lol. I would be extremely frustrated by this too. Does he have processing delays, Dyspraxia etc.
Sitting around not contributing anything when you run around like a blue arsed fly isn't fair.
I understand some people want downtime at the weekend but if he mucked in then tasks would take half as long and hopefully you'd both get to relax.
Be interesting to know what he is like at work.

Dhalandchips · 24/02/2020 09:10

Oh god my exh was like this. Successfully avoided washing up after the first couple of times of asking (wouldn't do it using his initiative) because I'd asked home the wrong way. I'd tried every bloody way! Twat. Note exh

lottiegarbanzo · 24/02/2020 09:13

It does sound as if you are one step ahead of him, shouting for him to catch up, all the time. Do you ever agree that he'll be the person to research and choose an appliance, or read the instructions first then explain them to you?

drspouse · 24/02/2020 09:14

Men are like this. It's all in the preparation supposedly
I don't know any men like this.

Sux2buthen · 24/02/2020 09:19

As by chance he just wanted to relax

Justaboy · 24/02/2020 09:21

DP is incapable of thinking for himself. He has no initiative and it’s driving me crazy.

Can someone please explain to me how women get attraced to these types?

What is it?, do they feel as if thy have to "mother" them?

ravenmum · 24/02/2020 09:22

Yes, YABU for shouting at him.

I thought he’d turned it on so I could hear it but had then just sat down
So you thought he was pretending to clean, in the manner of a teenage boy?

Are you a teacher?

Emmuvva · 24/02/2020 09:23

Classic passive-aggression. He didn't like you asking him to do something, so he invented obstacles. Good luck with not murdering him.

Floribundance · 24/02/2020 09:23

Did you get together with my ex?

Ontheverge96 · 24/02/2020 09:24

Oh OP I think we might possibly have the same partner mines useless too😂 I’m sorry but I laughed at this because everything you’ve said I can relate too, my dimwit needed showing how to use a toaster when we first moved in together, also how to use a tin opener🤦🏽‍♀️ Mine also got pissy when I said these tasks are pretty self explanatory!

ravenmum · 24/02/2020 09:25

If he does try to do anything, she thinks he's being naughty somehow, and rushes in to catch him, then shouts at him.
If he does nothing, presumably he also gets a smack.
What's the better option, logically?

Snaketime · 24/02/2020 09:26

I was going to say are you sure he isn't Dyspraxic. My DH is a bit like this. Google the symptoms and see if any of them fit.

YetAnotherSpartacus · 24/02/2020 09:26

It does sound as if you are one step ahead of him, shouting for him to catch up, all the time. Do you ever agree that he'll be the person to research and choose an appliance, or read the instructions first then explain them to you

Ha ha. He'd still be staring at a mangle wondering how it all worked is my guess.

BarbaraofSeville · 24/02/2020 09:27

DP is incapable of thinking for himself. He has no initiative

How does that go down at work? Even the most basic jobs you're expected to complete the tasks you're responsible for without being micromanaged.

Workplaces aren't generally full of men who need to be babied through each day, so it shouldn't be the case at home either. Using a vacuum is not a complicated task that needs 'working out'.

MummySharn · 24/02/2020 09:27

I think you’re with my ex, OP.

cobwebfew · 24/02/2020 09:31

My DP can be this useless! He does things sometimes and leaves me absolutely baffled! Has no initiative whatsoever. He emptied the tumble dryer the other week and just left the clothes in one messy pile on the bed, he didn't realise they needed fucking folding.
Or the time he called me in work, the gas had gone off because of a fault and so couldn't cook the beans for the DC, told him to use the microwave instead, his response "what do you mean use the microwave?" My colleague listened to me, mouth open, explain to him how to cook beans in microwave.
Thankfully he can change the lightbulb!

redwinefine · 24/02/2020 09:37

YANBU. My hubby is exactly like this and it does my head in sometimes. No initiative - he even makes that point himself, he does exactly what I tell him to E.g. I went out for the evening and asked him to bring the washing in if it rained. When I got home I went to bed and the next morning realised he'd left it out all night as it 'hadn't rained'.....

YetAnotherSpartacus · 24/02/2020 09:38

My DP can be this useless! He does things sometimes and leaves me absolutely baffled! Has no initiative whatsoever. He emptied the tumble dryer the other week and just left the clothes in one messy pile on the bed, he didn't realise they needed fucking folding

Bollox. He just couldn't be arsed because that's the job of the clothes-folding and putting away fairy.

my dimwit needed showing how to use a toaster when we first moved in together

"Turn it on, yes that's right at the wall - now are we sure it is on? Good! Now find a knife, no, not that one, that's plastic - I mean a nice conductive metal knife. Now see those slots at the top of the toaster? That's where knives go ..."

FizzyGreenWater · 24/02/2020 09:39

If he has an adult job which he goes to every day and copes,

and if he can manage to do things like get cash out and go to the pub with it,

and if you find that it's only at home that this behaviour suddenly overtakes him,

then he is perfectly capable, he's just a lazy user who doesn't think he needs to lift a finger in his home because he has a mummy-maid to do it all for him.

If you don't have children already, get rid tomorrow.

If you do, wait a week until you've got the finances sorted.

Dontdisturbmenow · 24/02/2020 09:44

Next time there's a thread about a DH shouting because the OP has asked him what to cook and he got fed up, I'll write that maybe if she took more initiatives, it wouldn't happen. We'll see how this one goes!

This thread is unbelievable!

JustInCaseCakeHappens · 24/02/2020 09:45

the refusal to do anything would drive me mad

but to be fair, if DH was questioning or criticising the way I do things I would go on strike too, and wouldn't lift a finger for the rest of the day or week.

Vanhi · 24/02/2020 09:48

He sounds a bit like my dad. DF seems incapable of doing many simple household tasks. It is frustrating and DM shouts at him a lot. I talked to him about it one day and he said he used to do stuff, but whenever he did, she would criticise him in some way. He was either doing something she'd already done, or doing it wrongly, or doing one thing when she thought something else was more urgent. Eventually he just stopped doing things because whatever he did wasn't good enough.

I don't know OP. Maybe your partner is practising strategic incompetence. Maybe he is bone idle. Or maybe he's fed up with being yelled at and has got to the stage of learned helplessness because whenever he did do something it was wrong, in your eyes.