AIBU is my husband the slowest moving man to have ever existed?

[Kanfuzed123]

Light hearted but dear god does anyone else’s husband move at a glacial pace?

20 minutes on the toilet
25 minutes to peel potatoes for dinner which will make our toddlers dinner late. I was feeding our newborn and had to take over because it was taking an eternity. When I get to the potatoes they’re all cut in different sizes so will cook at different speeds and the over hasn’t been preheated either. Anything food related takes 6 times the amount of time it would take a normal person.

I know it’s a meme but I’ve had 2 kids in the same amount of time my husband spends on the loo. He’s always done this pre kids too, it’s the same if we’re in a rush.

I’m venting a bit now but does anyone else have to lay out detailed instructions for the most simple tasks for their husband.

I pre made lunch the other day for us and our toddler (omelette and wedges) it was in the fridge, i again feeding baby, asked him to sort it out and put lunch out, he puts out stone cold omelettes and potato wedges. Who the f eats stone cold potato wedges. I came in and was like ‘name… this is cold, didn’t you reheat it’ to which he responded ‘ you never said, I didn’t know I had to’ Jesus Christ… think man.

In labour, I started feeling sick about to vomit at home on our lovely new carpet, couldn’t move due to contractions. Asked him to get me a sick bag..: 10 minutes later, he shouts upstairs ‘what kind of bag’ ‘a poly bag no holes’ he meanders back upstairs, I’m wretching at this point swallowing sick, and chucks at me a closed poly bag with fucking holes in it, in that time I’m sick on the carpet. He proceeds to try and clean it up with baby blankets.

Am I the only one?
Aibu this is infuriating right?

@Kinko

It's weaponised incompetence......

This.

Mine is also annoying for different reasons. He will not bring his dishes down after eating, he will not pick anything up, ever. He doesn't clean but makes mess. Also every time he does as hot drink half of it goes over the kitchen and lounge floor as he takes it upstairs.
He works a lot and so I've just modified my expectations and my habits. I work from home now so basically it's ended up he comes home, spends his time upstairs (the bedroom is uninhabitable expect to sleep) and I spend downstairs. I keep downstairs clean daily and do Greg clean every month.
I won't let him cook or do laundry as it would cause more stress than it would be worth. I spend every day busy then take evenings to myself with wine and chill.
I'm glad it's ended up this way, if I want to spend time with him in the daytime I go upstairs for a work break and chill with him. I bring him his lunch and dinner when home and try and bring all his hot drinks too so I don’t have to spray mop.
I'll also get a cleaner in if I lose control at all.

Absolute weaponised incompetence.

@Westmeathtip

Clearly you’re married to my ex husband. Good luck with that.

Christ almighty how many wives has he had cos I think I was married to him too.

Good luck OP, it drove me to distraction in the end, and as well as working full time, caring for 3DC and all the stuff at home, he expected me to be able to just do it...... he was a manchild who never quite cut the apron strings. He lives back at home with his mum now..... SEVEN years after I divorced him.

I’m not sure all of it is weaponised incompetence, at least not intentionally, if he gets his knickers in a twist he normally is pretty vocal. Thinks he does it all at points (also infuriating).

To be a passive potato at your child’s paediatrician appointment when she has larger medical issues to then get super stressed and have to sort it out via email later, isn’t the type of cba to cook dinner so I’ll faff thing. Same with our house thing, it’s just being super slow and dim witted.

The house hold stuff, cleaning, sorting bills and swapping around energy insurance and all of that he’s amazing at. Takes charge and sorts it all, saves us a couple of hundred quid bills wise here and there. He’s a very caring dad too.
But fucking hell how can someone be so slow in general. It’s the one thing at a timeness and an inability to multi task or just do things efficiently.

Actually, the slowest man in existence is my Dad. We were more than half an hour late for a wedding because he needed to have a dump and put his shoes on.
I swear this is how my Dad thinks: -
Why spend five minutes on a job when you can spend ten? So why spend ten minutes when you could spend half an hour? Why spend half an hour when you can stretch it to three hours? Heck, I need the whole morning for this. Then a full hour for lunch (my Dads regimented lunch making is a whole other topic) and the afternoon to make sure the job has been done properly. That is, of course, that he has all the tools he requires as a trip to B&Q will end up making it a full weekend job.
He was astounded a few years back that I managed to paint the walls in my downstairs toilet in half an hour. It's not much bigger than a phone box and modern acrylic based paint needs to be put on quickly. He thought I'd be painting all day.
I do wonder how my Mum has coped with it all, but recently she has been talking about needing to re-lay the patio so.....

DH, on the other hand, can shit in under five minutes and doesn't take a second longer on chores than is needed because why??

No op. I think mine is. How whole family are the same, his mother takes about 15 minutes to make a cup of tea, drives me insane.

This is a great thread, thanks @Kanfuzed123 !!!

My DH - bless his heart - also exhibits some of these rather irritating traits.

On the very rare occasion he washes up, he takes about an hour and a half. I don't have a clue why, as I only take 20 minutes. He also spends sooooooooo long looking around stuff when we're food shopping, and peers at SO many items, looking at the fat and calorie content etc... I don't like food shopping with him and tend to do it alone most of the time.

Also, as pps have said, he is useless with dates on the food, and will grab a yogurt out of the fridge without looking at the date, so older ones get left behind! I have to stack them in the fridge with the older dates at the front, so he doesn't grab the newer ones first, coz he CBA to look for he date to make sure he gets an older one!

As pps have said, I reckon men do this shit so we will get sick and tired of it and do it ourselves!

He also has this thing about constantly covering his hands with hand gel too (the sort you couldn't get hold of in 2020!) and he even does it after handling a letter that the postman has shoved through the letterbox. And when he gets a package he 'quarantines' it for a week before opening it.

He says 'I am obsessed with cleanliness, I have no intention of getting covid yada yada.' Yet he doesn't seem to extend this 'cleanliness obsession' into the home.

He claims he is super neat and hygienic, but never EVER cleans the hob, the oven, the microwave, the fridge, the kitchen floor, the loo, the bathroom floor, the kitchen worktops, the sinks, the taps, OR behind the furniture. So it's definitely 'selective' cleanliness and hygiene.

And don't even get me STARTED on how he can't organise anything/book any appointments etc. it's always me who books appointments for dental, GP, hospital, opticians, nurse, and visits to our DC (and their visits to us.) I dread to think how he would cope if I left or died.

I have had times when I have been out of sorts for 4 or 5 days (tummy bug/flu etc,) and whilst he manages to feed himself (sandwiches/toast/pot noodle etc,) and feed the cat; absolutely NOTHING else is done. No dusting, polishing, hoovering, food shopping, washing, filing, life admin, tidying up, NOTHING.

I am probably not doing him - OR myself any good by doing everything, but after almost 40 years together, it's too late to change things now. I know some will say it's not, but it is. He is almost 60, and will never change his ways.

Oh and yes to the 20 minutes having a shit! And an HOUR when he goes for a shower, and to wash his hair. I take 15 minutes (when I wash my hair!)

BTW, the 'raise you bar' and 'why do women put up with this shit' and' if he loved you he wouldn't be like this' comments are annoying. Just because men are like this doesn't make them awful people, and it's quite often the way they have been brought up.

And the fact that women are pushed (by society,) to be the main caregivers for the children, and they're the ones who have the one year off when they baby is born, they end up doing more domestic shit and men end up not doing much. So the habit starts early of women being the ones doing the domestic shit. And it's hard to break later on.

Women are entitled to a whinge, and many men ARE a PITA sometimes, and have these traits/flaws. (and women aren't perfect either... ) I can only surmise that the 'raise your bar' brigade are single! As much as DH is a PITA sometimes, and a bit lazy, I do love him and wouldn't want to be without him.

He has has lot of good points too, and we have some great fun together but in typical fashion, like with anything, people don't post to say positive stuff, and this is a thread about annoying things men do. No-one is perfect, and he does do lots of D.I.Y/ and traditional 'blue' jobs. AND he has a good job and brings in fairly decent money.

The smug and supercilious comments from posters looking down their nose at women with men who are a bit useless around the house are nauseating tbh. Must be great to have a man that does 50% or MORE of everything in the house and this does not apply to most men, whether we choose to believe it or not.

If threads like this bug you, then don't click on it don't post on it.

Mine wil not stand in the bathroom to shave. No. He wanders round bedroom and landing very very slowly, liberally scattering beard dust everywhere, and standing exactly where I need to be to get my clothes out, shutting cupboard doors I have just opened and asking me where his socks and pants are while I am on a zoom call. FYI - they are in his socks and pants drawer.

Mind you, I hide unopened bills so there is that.

Just because men are like this..

They choose to be. A man who has never, literally never cleaned the kitchen or bathroom, are you really saying that they do not see when those rooms are dirty? Of course they do. Are they genuinely not able to then also deduct that someone has to do something to make it clean again? I don't think this is the case. So the only reason is that they for some reason think their wife should do it. And if wife actually gives them a list and asks to do a limited number of simple tasks, they make sure they do them so badly that it causes extra hassle for the wife, so she never asks again.

Because if it was really the case that the poor man simply didn't realise that if you go to a doctor with a child, you should also bring the child - they would not be manage to stay employed either. There are not that many jobs where you get a step by step list of tasks and do not need to think at all, are there.

Just in case it came off like dopey DH didn’t take dd to the paed and went alone, he did take her but he just didn’t ask obvious questions. There was a few points we wanted to discuss about her health, he had a list and did not deviate from it even when a point the paed made needed follow up questions, nope it wasn’t on the list.

Please let the "gormless potato" become an MN standard phrase

This post made me laugh. Sometimes I wonder if I’m the slowest woman ever My mum used to and my DH now always say that I’m too slow. Slow moving in the house, slow washing up, slow wiping up, etc. I actually sped up and became pretty quick right after baby was born but I think that was because too much to do and I was so anxious all the time. Now I’m back to my usual speed as I feel this is more comfortable for me, and more relaxing to be in the home environment.

Men do dick about at work, I shared an office with 2 very arrogant swaggering men one time. They called me a keyboard warrior as I sent emails. My emails were succinct, and sent to everyone who needed the info. They said they preferred the phone. Multiple time waster, waffly, bullshit phone calls throughout the day when a 2 minute email would have sorted it. It was inefficient and their constant "banter" on the phone in a shared office was disruptive and irritating to everyone else. I tried to role model by stating loudly if I did have an important or long call I'd take it somewhere private but they didn't seem to catch on. Multiple personal calls too. Really irritating.

@Davros

Please let the "gormless potato" become an MN standard phrase

It's a corker isn't it?!

@Davros

Please let the "gormless potato" become an MN standard phrase

I hope so. I’ve always wanted to coin a phrase, you know leave my mark 😂. I should thank dh for the inspiration

An hour to wash the dishes, tidy up after dinner and pour dd a glass of milk tonight folks.

To set expectations we had pasta bake, there were 3 dishes used and I’d already washed one. He didn’t ask for help just took an inordinate amount of time which is, you know, on brand.

But surely you knew this before you married him?
Why are you moaning about him now, after you've had children with him?

Did you find this charming at one point? That's the only explanation I can think of.

Does he just act daft on purpose so you'll end up taking over so he doesn't actually have to do anything? Idk but that's what it seems like to me.

He sounds like the definition of a slow cooker. You need to time him for everything he does for a week & shame him.

Talk to me about this sick 'bag'? We always run for a bucket or big bowl.