Can I have a rant about dh not doing things properly?

[NearlyChristmasagain]

I suppose I should be grateful that he does things round the house, but I feel like weeping at the minute.

It's Sunday, and once again I feel like I'm drowning in housework, I'd rather be doing a bit of baking and going for a nice walk instead. I don't really know how it's got to this point because I kept on top of things pretty well during the week.

What makes it worse is dh can never do a job properly. For example, he's stuck a load of washing on this morning, it was a big load and quite dirty, but he's put it on a fucking cold wash with a 400 spin, so it's not clean nor spun properly.

He takes washing out if the drier and off the line that is still damp. He puts the dcs clothes away in the wrong places, such as ds2s school trousers in ds1s room, or my stuff in one of the dcs rooms, so I can't find anything.

If he puts ds to bed he leaves the towel, toothbrush, clothes, lying around.

Leaves mess everywhere. If I moan he stops for a few weeks then goes back to old ways.

Feels like living with a third child.

Hmmm the fact that when you speak to him about it, things change for a while, imply to me that he knows how to do stuff but just can't be arsed

Oh I hear you, and I really sympathise OP. Let me tell you a tale of my weekend so far, TL;DR - I may LTB over him doing half a job every fucking time.

DH emptied the bins on Friday morning (with help, obviously, or he wouldn't do most of them). We then all went to work/school. He picked up oven pizza for the kids on his way home, I cooked them and he cleared away the boxes. All good. Or so I thought...

Later that evening I find the pizza boxes in the bathroom bin. To avoid putting a new recycling sack in the kitchen bin, he'd folded them and stuffed them into the empty bathroom bin, which was still in the kitchen waiting to be put back. I left it, because he can't do one whole fucking job and I was raging. Over a bin. And pizza boxes. So I walked away (but not before putting a fresh recycling sack in the kitchen bin and taking a really deep breath or five). I did make a throwaway (see what I did there) comment to DH to say "can you chuck those in recycling please?" nothing too naggy, just breezy.

The bathroom bin was then returned to its rightful place by DH before we went to bed. Awesome, I thought, he's sorted it. Reader, I thought wrong.

In it, there are still two fucking pizza boxes. He has form for this, and it makes me so angry that if I want a job doing properly I have to finish it or sort it or redo it. I'm incandescent with rage and I need a gin. Or a divorce.

@ZeldaPrincessOfHyrule I hear you!

I’ve not been happy in my marriage for a little while now, but DH usually works full time and is overseas quite a bit so we’vemuddled along ok. He’s now been off work since mid March and I’ve been struggling to put my finger on quite what it is that has been pissing me off so badly with him constantly being about.

It’s the inability to see that taking the quickest option usually isn’t the right one. In your example surely nobody can argue that putting pizza boxes in the bathroom bin is where they should be. For me, it’s the pretending not to know what it takes to keep the house ticking over, for instance that the beds get changed weekly (I know I’ve told him on several occasions) or that the floor needs mopping as well as hoovering. Rather than use his initiative or ask, he would rather ignore something, and it is that that drives me to distraction.

What I’m going to do about it is a completely different matter!

Why don't you do half arsed things for him so that he can experience it and understand. Put his damp clothes in the wrong place, for example.

@notanothertakeaway

Strategic incompetence, definitely

And it is irritating when clothes are spoiled because they're put away damp and go mouldy etc

But, I do think some people on MN have fixed views about how things must be done. I would never criticise my DH for not stacking the dishwasher "properly". I do it my way. He does it his way. And that's fine

I’ve got to the point where I just can’t look at the dishwasher when DH has loaded it. If I do I can’t help rearranging it (with him chirping that his way is fine), fitting at least a third more stuff in it (so it’s not great, is it DH?). He does it more often than me but it’s like he can’t see geometry properly. I’ve threatened to get another one so we can have his and hers.

He gets upset when DD (10) talks to me about maths because “he has 2 maths A levels and I only have 1” . Seems I’ve translated mine into much better practical use than him though.

He’s also utterly shit at parking, where I could win an Olympic gold. I should really LTB.

Washing dishes. We have a dishwasher, the plates, cups, etc NEVER find their way into the dishwasher. Quite often they are rinsed but then just left on the side. Or DH will come in and tell me the dishwasher needs to go on .

If I nag, he will hand wash his plates and cups, but leave everyone elses on the side, now that REALLY pissed me off. I told him the other day I would wash everyone else pants, but not his....... he stormed off.

DH has never put on a wash in his life. He says he would do something wrong..... grrrrr......well he probably would, but that's not the point.

He's doing it wrong so you just do everything
Not good enough

This is my partner. I call him Bob - half a job Bob. He is a lazy sod, if he ever does the dishes, there are still marks all over them, when clothes get him on the drying screen, I swear he stands about 10 feet away from it and launches the clothes on, things just get left at his arse left right and centre. I'm bloody sick of it. He will be out on his ear in 2021, watch this space

*get put on the screen

When will MN have a bloody edit feature?!

When I ask my partner to help me with something or when I ask why it doesn’t occur to him to do something he says because it doesn’t bother him. It doesn’t bother him that the sides are covered in tea splashes or crumbs (his doing), or that the floors are covered in leaves or dog hair. It only doesn’t bother him because I fucking clean everything. He also says he shouldn’t have to do anything because that’s why we have a cleaner (once a fortnight that I pay for).

I could honestly scream. I work, I should technically still be on mat leave (baby is five months), I’m studying and I still wind up doing 97% of house chores. When he does do something he acts like he’s aggrieved that he’s had to do it.

Their mummies must have raised them to have archaic ideals that women do all the shit house admin, even if they work full time themselves. Fuck that.

My husband can be like this. He's brilliant around the house but will do things like he'll spend ages cleaning and de-scaling the draining board sweep all the bits and muck into the sink and.... Leave it there. So I come in to a sparkling draining board and a filthy sink. Which I then have to clean.

He does the bins every week. But he never empties the big kitchen bin when the black bins are collected. Our black wheelie bins are only collected fortnightly, but he never thinks to empty the kitchen bin on those days. So I come along, find the kitchen bin over flowing and then it has to sit in for 2 weeks in the black bin. Why didn't he empty that bin yesterday when he did the rest? It's beyond me.

Or he'll spend ages scrubbing the oven and leave the work surfaces covered in crumbs etc. Why not run the cloth over everything if you're going to clean something?

But he's brilliant in lots of ways so I do tend to just roll my eyes and let him get on with it

Their mummies must have raised them to have archaic ideals that women do all the shit house admin, even if they work full time themselves. Fuck that.

But you’re proving him right by doing 97% of it!!!

He does the bins every week. But he never empties the big kitchen bin when the black bins are collected. Our black wheelie bins are only collected fortnightly, but he never thinks to empty the kitchen bin on those days. So I come along, find the kitchen bin over flowing and then it has to sit in for 2 weeks in the black bin. Why didn't he empty that bin yesterday when he did the rest? It's beyond me.

Mine too.

DH doesn’t think it’s “good value” to put a “full but could take another squashing down” bin bag (costing about 5p) out before it’s completely full to bursting. 🤷🏻‍♀️

No one believed me when I said that I was divorcing my (ex) husband for all and more of the reasons on this thread. I simply couldn't stand it. Hes an intelligent man, v competent at work, runs a successful business and yet he was incapable of using his initiative at home + anything he did do was half done. I can't even be bothered to provide examples, I'm just pleased we're no longer together.

In our house it's me that gets told that I'm not doing things properly. I just do things my way, sometimes it doesn't come out great but at least it's done. Maybe your DH is the same?

@Kljnmw3459 I don't have issue with someone doing it their way as long as the job is completed. That's the difference.

I accept that we all load the dishwasher differently. I won't accept a grown ass adult telling me that it's been loaded when there are 4 cups on the table that could've been put inside but for the fact that the person can't be arsed to look round and check.

@MoiraNotRuby

Yesterday I told my DH and DC if they didn't improve I would set fire to the next thing I find in the wrong place. Probably not the best approach tbf but they did start tidying up.

This genuinely made me laugh!

Just warned DH this is plan B if the house isn't kept tidier!

@Feminist10101 ONLY because I don’t want to live in a shit hole and because I worked hard for my house and want to look after it.

I am so brow-beaten into doing it that I just do it and because every time I try to get him to not be wilfully incompetent, he is ‘good’ (better) for a day and then reverts back to type.

I am fed up. And I am fed up with striving to make him change, why should I have to do that? Why can’t he be even slightly fucking self-aware enough to realise that the baby’s clothes actually need to be washed, dried and put away, and that meals have to be cooked and tidied away and that by doing the baby’s bath time one day, we’re not suddenly splitting the roles equally?

I am exhausted and yet fed up with being the only one constantly striving for change. I suspect that’s true for many women here.

@Winterwoollies I hear you

My DH does this sometimes too and I’ve started thinking he does it on purpose so I don’t ask again. He does irritating things constantly like leaving his dirty underwear on the bathroom floor, it drives me mad.

Their mummies must have raised them to have archaic ideals that women do all the shit house admin, even if they work full time themselves. Fuck that.

Just the women to blame then? Not their daddy's fault at all?

[quote Winterwoollies]@Feminist10101 ONLY because I don’t want to live in a shit hole and because I worked hard for my house and want to look after it.

I am so brow-beaten into doing it that I just do it and because every time I try to get him to not be wilfully incompetent, he is ‘good’ (better) for a day and then reverts back to type.

I am fed up. And I am fed up with striving to make him change, why should I have to do that? Why can’t he be even slightly fucking self-aware enough to realise that the baby’s clothes actually need to be washed, dried and put away, and that meals have to be cooked and tidied away and that by doing the baby’s bath time one day, we’re not suddenly splitting the roles equally?

I am exhausted and yet fed up with being the only one constantly striving for change. I suspect that’s true for many women here.[/quote]
This won’t effect change though. You just have to stop doing it.

My wife doesn’t do the cleaning and washing to my satisfaction

Force her to do it again until she gets it right

Can you imagine...

Mines quite good. Early on we had a few little infractions (for example he asked me how to work the washing machine. His washing machine. That he'd had before he'd met me.) but nothing now.

I am scathingly patronising and sarcastic in response to any hint of "I'm a man, I don't understand xyz". Not quite as far as nasty, but he was in no doubt about my feelings one the matter. Basically if he was implying that he was too thick to do xyz item of housework/wifework, damn right I was going to make him feel 2inches tall for pulling that shit.

We do actually have a very happy and equal marriage. I just set my expectations out from the beginning.

I now refuse to wash DH’s clothes as he won’t put them in the basket. He washes them, but refuses to wash anyone else's.

He told me today he cleans the kitchen, and i laughed at him. He will throw crumbs onto the floor, but never wipes the surfaces, cupboards or hob.

Our cleaner stopped coming in lockdown #1 but apparently it is my fault the house is a mess! He is now back on furlough while I am still working.