DH constantly messing up

[Westminwarthog]

I’ve read a lot of the threads on here about sorting out useless/ strategically incompetent DHs but really struggling with mine and was hoping for some advice.

DH just keeps messing up tasks I ask him to do. The split of labour in our marriage is uneven - I do the vast majority of childcare and housework. I work 3 days a week, DH full time. He’s absolutely awful at taking the initiative to do anything so I’ll usually try and ask him to complete specific tasks. It’s not great but it’s either that or do it myself.

This is an example of just one thing cocked up recently, but I have hundreds of such examples. Last week, the family car’s oil needed to be topped up. I bought the correct oil from Halfords and asked DH to top up. He did. A day or two later, the car is making a weird noise. I arranged a diagnostic and asked DH to drop it off at the mechanics. Just got off the phone with the mechanic 4 days later and DH put down the wrong phone number whilst dropping off so they haven’t been able to contact us. The problem arose because when DH topped up the oil, he poured it into the water tank(?!) The whole thing now needs a clean etc. We’ve been without a family car for the week. To add insult to injury, he drove through a restricted bus lane on his way to the appointment, incurring a penalty charge. It is so infuriating!! I try hard not to be too controlling or pedantic but every singe simple task is messed up to a monumental degree. I have literally hundreds of similar examples. If I bring them up, he gets upset that I’m harping on about genuine mistakes

I’m sure everyone will ask, so no learning difficulties that we know of, he has a PhD and professional qualifications. He’s got a senior role but his team admin has complained to me before at drinks about how hard she has to work to keep him on time/ organised.

Has anyone experienced or fixed someone like this?

Also, I get playing to your respective strengths but I don’t see how it really helps to ‘give him’ set tasks that he won’t fuck up like making basic meals/cleaning the bathroom/doing kids bedtimes. For one thing he will fuck them up or just won’t do them, for another it’s fatally unsexy to have to dole out the tasks like he’s your child or subordinate, and for another if the car needs oil at 3pm that has hee-haw to do with him putting the kids to bed at 8pm.

EpicDay I could have written your post.

I came on to say to the OP that my DH is exactly the same and I used to say he surrounded himself with enablers including me. Following two DC being diagnosed with ADHD (after a very long period of time though) I immediately stopped being angry with DH and recognised the signs. I will say that we are happily married in spite of it, mainly because my DH does recognise the impact of his (what I thought was extreme forgetfulness) on me and I think missed ADHD and the impact on him was at the route of a serious mental health issue several years ago. He has supported me through similar but sometimes I do have to focus on what he does do well (cleaning etc) when I get frustrated at his other behaviours.

DP is like this, it drives me insane and makes me angry and upset.
He takes no initiative at all, especially around the house but also in his own affairs. He forgets important appointments or just doesn’t make them. Is always behind on important admin, seemingly ignores looming deadlines, is messy and forgetful and blames everyone else. Everything takes him much longer/costs much more because he’s so disorganised. He’s constantly tired and stressed with trying to stay on the ball. I honestly wonder how he’s survive if he didn’t have someone constantly picking up the slack.

The mental effort to do this is really huge and exhausting and I think that is something 'normal' people find it difficult to understand.

@Atla

That is really interesting and I'm sure you're right about people not understanding.

I have almost the opposite issue - I'm quite well organised and good on detail but I find it really difficult to conceptualise things I can't see or read. Whether it's trying to imagine how I might reorganise a room or my boss says "I want us to come up with some overall strategy for the year ahead" I struggle. It's not really about finding it hard, it's more when I try to do it it feels like there's a big gap in my brain where that part should be.

It's not been a huge problem but it can be tricky at work. I'm always aware that while I can instantly spot the flaws in anyone else's plans or reasonings I quite likely won't be able to come up with any suggestions of my own! And I don't want to piss everyone off by doing that too much.

So yes, I can well imagine how hard it is to do "everyday things" when it feels like the part of your brain that should be able to "organise" just doesn't work in the same way as other people's.

I think @EmpressCixi suggestion is a really good one. My dm is like this - everything is a drama and she gets so much wrong that seems basic. But she can cook and do laundry and go for walks with dc. Can he be given non time specific house tasks and clear deadlines. Explain that you take the weight for him when he isn’t intersted

@errnerrcallnernnernnern

I bet he manages to do his job ok though? And it's just things that he feels are your responsibility or the woman team assistant's that he messes up.

Very lazy response! OP has already said he struggles with aspects of his job.

Also, I don't think anyone would see filling the oil as a 'woman's job', nor taking it to the mechanic!

I actually find a lot of very intelligent / highly academic people are like this with day to day tasks (went to school / uni with them and work with a couple). It's like their head is always thinking about something else and they're lacking basic common sense. I suspect a lot of them are some sort of high functioning spectrum that was never really diagnosed in the way it way it probably would be if they were kids today.

Mine is the same. Infuriating. I'm suspecting it's a case of undiagnosed adult adhd combined with selfish entitlement. A real mindf**k to live with.

@emmathedilemma

I actually find a lot of very intelligent / highly academic people are like this with day to day tasks (went to school / uni with them and work with a couple). It's like their head is always thinking about something else and they're lacking basic common sense. I suspect a lot of them are some sort of high functioning spectrum that was never really diagnosed in the way it way it probably would be if they were kids today.

I agree, I would call them highly academic, rather than practically intelligent.

@HPFA I really struggle with conceptualising things too. I'm doing something at work at the moment where I have to relate quite abstract core competencies to work activities and it just flummoxes me - I can't fit the two things together. Yet if someone else explains how they see it, it seems so obvious - like 'of course! X relates to Y'

I am very good with ideas and plans, but my executive function is very poor, there is just a gap in my brain between 'idea' (stuff happens, I dunno) and 'endpoint'. I have a professional job (nurse) but there are definitely work areas that I really struggle with - I've had to seek out either very task oriented roles or those with a high staff: patient ratio, because I just can't remember/process lots of things at once.

Death by a million papercuts.

Sorry but, regardless of whether there was an underlying cause, regardless of any good qualities, I couldn't spend my best years on earth living like this.

Every one makes mistakes but on a line of averages your husband is a massive outlying anomaly.

Oh, this is one of the MN standards.

OP posts about useless, feckless husband.

Everyone comes on to vehemently agree that he is, indeed, feckless and beyond useless.

OP comes back to dither a bit, and then disappears in the vast swathe of people agreeing with her, that her DH is a total waste of space.

Same old, same old.

@Westminwarthog

Is he an only child by any chance?

My DH was exactly like this (maybe not quite as bad but again, drip drip drip…) Also an academic. The only child of slightly older parents. He had simply never had to step up and do practical stuff so as a result was useless at it. He would also get upset/bruised ego if I brought him up on things.

I divorced him in the end (not just for this). Running a house knowing that things can’t get lost or broken due to stupidity is so relaxing!

You’ve just described my son.

He’s on track for a first at Uni. He can research his entire family tree and wants to work in archives and genealogy.

He can leave the oven/hot plate on.
He locked himself out and was stuck in the bin area in his student flats for over an hour without a phone.

His phone is always out of charge when he needs it.
He does daft things and struggles to tie his shoe laces.

He was diagnosed with dyspraxia in sixth form.

I’m super organised and so are other family members.
It can get incredibly frustrating and he gets really upset with himself.

Have no idea of similarities between that and adhd?
But it’s not that he is doing it on purpose.
He genuinely struggles with organisation we just do automatically.

Maybe he could do chores and things in the house that don’t need planning.
He needs to start writing checklists and help himself.

@mathanxiety

If he is perfectly well able to function among people he considers his equals (clearly not you, nor his PA) then this isn't ADD/ ADHD/ Dyspraxia.

Give him an ultimatum about seeking an assessment for those conditions. Do not accept no for an answer.

I suspect he is an arrogant man who resents being asked to do chores he feels are beneath him, especially by a woman.

The oil thing - I agree with PPs, he was probably completely sure he was right.

I also agree with the excellent suggestion upthread to start thinking in terms of, 'I work three days outside the home and he works five days outside the home'.
You can add, 'I also work seven days in the home while he does nothing at home'.
That way, you will find a lot of anger and perhaps the courage to bring this all to a head and make sure he understands from your words, your tone, and your volume you are sick to the back teeth of his talk of 'genuine mistakes' and will not take any more of it.

How was his childhood? Did his parents think the sun shone forth from his rear end?

If it is some condition he could get help with, insist he gets that help and works hard to change his approach.

That's not true, I do really well at work but crap at doing home tasks, I'm fine at doing step 1&2 but struggle to finish tasks. It does crop at work if I have to do a boring or repetitive task and I'm in a senior position. I also have ADHD.

It's not one size fits all and it's that reason lots of girls were undiagnosed for so long, they did really well at school so was never assessed then they get older struggle without the structure of school and it has a massive impact on their mental health and life with zero support.

This is me, and to an even higher extent my brother, and some other members of my family. We're both splitting up after decades of trying to get our marriages to work. Based on my personal experience I'd say it's due to adult ADHD and/or high functioning autism.

If I bring them up, he gets upset that I’m harping on about genuine mistakes

Genuine mistakes can have a huge effect on other people's lives. No-one blew up Chernobyl on purpose. Putting water in the oil tank wasn't a trivial mistake and it's not a mistake that most people would make either. You say he makes an unusually large number of similar mistakes. But he doesn't take responsibility for how many mistakes he makes or for mitigating their effects. And you can tell him that whether he wants to hear it or not.

@AmaryllisNightAndDay

If I bring them up, he gets upset that I’m harping on about genuine mistakes

Genuine mistakes can have a huge effect on other people's lives. No-one blew up Chernobyl on purpose. Putting water in the oil tank wasn't a trivial mistake and it's not a mistake that most people would make either. You say he makes an unusually large number of similar mistakes. But he doesn't take responsibility for how many mistakes he makes or for mitigating their effects. And you can tell him that whether he wants to hear it or not.

Yes. And interesting how him knowing that his mistakes make you unhappy and stressed, but woe betide you if you bring it up with him. So basically it's fine as long as you are miserable in silence.

This is my husband too! He’s highly academic and as far as I know, he does well at work (but does not have a massively senior or demanding role). He has zero common sense whatsoever, and the list of things he finds difficult is long (anything to do with cars, DIY, planning, financing, getting up at night with young children etc). When I pull him up on something he gets upset or rolls his eyes, apparently I always complain and he can’t do anything right so he doesn’t try. But he’s not just not getting it right, sometimes he damages things or the mistake ends up costing lots of money. I don’t think it’s ADHD or anything like that. As someone else said, the mental load is extreme - you are left with a knowing that you can never ever drop a ball and everything stands and false with you.

To those who say ‘give him jobs’ - we don’t want to be the Manager in the relationship.

To those who have man babies like this and give them jobs/tasks/work around their ineptness to keep family life afloat, do you find your husband attractive? Do you want to have sex with them? I definitely don’t.

We are in couples counselling and it seems he has very low confidence, while I’ve enabled him by acting as the ‘rescuer’. Doing everything for them is easier in the moment but ultimately keeps the status quo.

I believe my husband is acting as a victim (‘oh but you are so capable and clever and I am so upset because you can’t see how much I love you and how hard it is for me to be so inept at everything’). Sadly this works for them and I suspect it’s a way to control you (‘I don’t know what I’d do without you’) and you worry for THEM if you would up sticks and leave!

It's death by a million cuts isn't it.

I'm at my wits end. My husband in addition to the above will blame even the slightest issue on anyone else other than himself. Every single time. He will financially massively over burden us and then not pay the bills but buy stuff we don't need or I want. He will (it seems) go out of his way to be as difficult as possible when I try to find a solution and take over a situation. He is very angry that as he say "I start on him, start shouting before he's even done anything". The last one is true and I hold my hands up to it but can I just say in my defence he will have done something small that I've asked him not to a million times. It'll usually be smashing all the clothes washing that I've folded up just to find the one thing he needs sort of thing and I'll be at the end of my tether because of things he's done the day before.

I really don't know how people find the energy to still be calm and encouraging when it feels like sabotage at times. I'm ready to go but there's a huge financial mess and a lot of work to do first. For the record I'm also ADHD and it's a sheer effort to be organised but if I don't at least try to be semi organised the wheels will entirely fall off I've no safety net.

How can anyone be fucking bothered pandering to someone so much, just to have a man? What a waste of life, and shit example to give to any kids you’ve made.

@NowEvenBetter

How can anyone be fucking bothered pandering to someone so much, just to have a man? What a waste of life, and shit example to give to any kids you’ve made.

The thing is, you don’t know any of this really until you have responsibilities such as a house, kids, car, and life gets hard. Everything was just fine while we were happily dating etc. It sneaks up on you and before you know it, you’re kind of stuck. I would struggle massively to keep a house and car in the area we are in since it’s very affluent but it’s a wonderful place to bring up children and they are very, very happy and settled. You just feel selfish and guilty for wanting out.

@NowEvenBetter

How can anyone be fucking bothered pandering to someone so much, just to have a man? What a waste of life, and shit example to give to any kids you’ve made.

We don't have kids. And the extent of the issue has only really come to light since his last business went bust and his PA left. However the signs were most certainly there but we didn't work together so not in my face. It's taken me 6 years to realise the full extent of his behaviour - and I still can't get my head around it. Never learning from your mistakes I really don't understand.

@TillyTopper

There's a lot of these threads. It never ceases to amaze me that people don't "try before you buy" with DHs! I mean live with them for a while, assess them to see if they are reasonable or shit. If they can't manage basic tasks then they go back in the sea until they can.... I know that doesn't fix your problem OP, but do people really not think about this before marrying or having kids?

Because I didn't realise how shit he was until we had a child and dropped to one income and, as a result, stopped outsourcing everything. While we were both working really long hours as juniors we ate out a lot and outsourced ironing, car maintenance, cleaning etc. We lived in a rented flat so no maintenance or gardening. Then I went back to work full time and he took 6 months paternity leave, afyer which he worked part time for a couple of years while I worked very full time. That was when I realised how incompetent he was concerning almost everything related to childcare and housework.

That time at home helped him improve - as did my eventual insistence that he fix every single one of his own mistakes- although he is still broadly useless when asked to do anything practical for the first (or second or third) time. Now he has an ADHD diagnosis and is learning how to scaffold to help him deal with his executive functioning issues. It has improved things a lot - both because he is learning how to be better at processing (and therefore doing) tasks and because it has given me a better understanding if how hard it actually is for him to function at a practical level. The diagnosis and scaffolding stuff has helped him at work also - he struggled there sometimes as well.

OP, your DH is what I fear my DS is going to grow into. Fairly bright, loving, funny, but a nightmare to live with due to disorganisation and general cack-handedness. Boy, haven't I tried with him! Nagging, bribing, guilt-tripping didn't really work. With certain things, he is just incapable. Doesn't take instructions well and is stubborn. Dyspraxia was mentioned when he was little, but he refuses to acknowledge it to get help. I hope he will earn enough to get a cleaner or gets more organised!