To get so irritated from answering the same questions again and again?

[HorseInTheHouse]

Last night I asked DP to sort the children's bags out for the next day. 3 days a week one or both of them need to take something extra to school for an after-school activity or for school swimming. I sort the bags out more often than him but he also regularly does this job. They are 6 and 4 so too young to manage their own timetables and bags. Yet again he asked me what they need for a Thursday. I refused to tell him and told him to go and check the timetable that is stuck up on the fridge. He said I was being ridiculous as it would take me no time to just remind him again.

I have told him many times before that I find it disrespectful that he always asks me again and again instead of bothering to commit it to memory, or checking the timetable if he genuinely can't remember. I feel like a reminder app or something.

It's not just the sports and activities, lots of little admin details especially to do with the kids seem to go in one ear and out the other, like it's not worth spending the mental energy on it because he can always just ask me. We both have access to the same emails, apps, websites, printed timetable, but he'll always ask me over looking something up himself.

I will happily answer the same question a few times but it really winds me up somehow when it happens again and again. I wasn't cross with him, I just said he could check himself, even though of course I do know what they do on Thursdays since the timetable has been the same since the beginning of the academic year and I could have simply told him again. Was I being ridiculous and petty?

No idea works for me. Mine is to teen dd who says where is x or y. Her looking skills have improved.

He’s hoping you’ll give in and do it yourself, just shout a cheery, It’s such and such I think but best check on the fridge.

I sometimes make a point of being somewhere out of earshot, I’ve got a very tidy freezer in my garage.

I've seen this article before and it is interesting but so so generalised and cringey in parts!!
I am in a same sex marriage and DW does all of the stereotypical "husband" things whilst I carry the mother load. I know plenty of heterosexual couples which are on a totally even footing with both parties chipping in at everything...it's not a gender thing, it is just learned incompetence

It absolutely is a gender thing. Look up the hours of unpaid caring men and women do.

Even in the houses I know where the man pulls his weight in terms of housework, childcare and drudge work, the mental and emotional load are not often evenly split.

DD(15) has been reading a book on feminism and called out the imbalance of chores happening in our house. DH pointed that he cleans the drive. This happens, at best, about twice a year. I don't know whether to laugh or cry about how ridiculous that is that he even refers to a chore that needs doing once or twice a year!
Today he called me and told me about a problem (that affects both of us) that needs addressing and went into detail about what was the issue, and then said "so would you like to call (the company that will hopefully fix it) and ask x, y or z". And I said "no, not particularly" , so he's called and sorted it out himself. Baby steps.

I just reply ‘I don’t know, what do they have on Thursdays?’
Or

‘I don’t know, where are the plasters’?

I get a filthy look but are asked less questions. Tho to be fair I ask DH to ask Siri for things…. Which is very annoying but she seems to listen to him.

The best solution is to marry a grown up. My DH was perfectly capable of reading timetables, sorting bags etc. He was not a child who thought it was only Mummy's work.

But if you are stuck with a man-child, stop enabling it unless you can tell something might have a serious impact on a child.

I started playing dumb. What does Dd need? Oh… not sure. If he’s not sure why is the expectation I will be. Our relationship has massively shifted since I started full time work. Everything is split and dh has stepped up. He read an article about the mental load on mothers and brought it up - ironically asking what he could take on to relieve the load! But we divided things and now things are 50/50. Took time but we are there. If anything, dh does more than me as he’s home more.

My dh thinks l have got a hearing problem. So fed up of him being useless,l just pretend l don't hear him so rather than repeating himself, he gets on and does it himself.
I don't mind doing more than my fair share on my days off work but when l work then it needs to be split.

Agree with the PP who says be out of earshot. It's DH's job to make and pack DDs lunch in her bag in the morning. Where is her baaag?? Dunno, he picks her up from school while I'm still at work. Half the time it's still in his car with yesterday's half eaten lunch still in it. DH does the food, I do laundry so before the inevitable bag whereabouts question gets asked I busy off upstairs to get her a clean jumper or if she's already changed I go to feed the chickens or accompany the dogs out for a pee or hang washing on the line outside. Just make yourself unavailable from about a minute before the questions start. So in your case "right you do the bags, I'm just off (insert somewhere out of earshot to do some vaguely important job)" and BOLT.

Haha OK so consensus seems to be IANBU for refusing to answer the question but IABU to have ever answered it. Message received.

By the way, he wouldn't fuck up as in pack the wrong things and I have left them all alone for several days before now, in which circumstances he does sort himself out and make sure they have the right stuff entirely independently. Which makes it almost more annoying because he's obviously capable.

I sort of see his point that it is annoying for me to 'withhold information' by refusing to answer a question I know the answer to, but it's so annoying and I see I'm not the only one who finds it so.

@TheLongRider

You need to go all Taskmaster on him.

"All the information is on the card".

I love this, might actually do that.

I got so sick of being expected to know when everything was, where everything was etc that I started saying I have no idea/ can't remember/ can't think off the top of my head, you'll have to check/look.

Took a while but it stopped.

Oh my! I resonated with this so much and my husband literally says "you should've just asked me" often.
Thanks for sharing.

O.P. I totally hear you!

On an unrelated note- have you ever actually had a horse in your house?

@powershowerforanhour

On an unrelated note- have you ever actually had a horse in your house?

Haha no, it's a book I read as a child. About a girl who brings her horse into the house, unsurprisingly!

This isn't that usual so I let it go, but I forwarded an email to DH with a quote for some building work on it, in an attachment on the email.

He then texted me and asked, "how much is it?"

Couldn't be arsed to open the PDF to read the bottom line number for himself. Fuck me that's next level non-effort! And this is a man who is always doing something and the least lazy person I know.

Show him this.

www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/26/gender-wars-household-chores-comic

Tell him you're sick of being the one to carry the mental load. It's not ok. It's not fair. It's not equal. It's not what you signed up to.

And it's his job to step the fuck up.

Aghhh YANBU. My husband is forever asking questions, I remind him my name is not Alexa & refuse to answer. It’s so annoying.

I think you're being petty. If you know the answer and are with him it costs you nothing to tell him, but you save him a trip to check the timetable, you say you've done nothing in particular to learn the timetable so it's never cost you anything, you're just punishing him for not having a brain that works the same way as you. I don't commit timetables to memory, my (female) brain just doesn't work that way, after a term of lectures I'd still always have to check my timetable every day to see what I had myself.

If I were him and you started making me go and check the timetable every time I'd stop doing whatever little things I do to help you out too. Ask me to get down something from a high shelf which you can't reach? You can go and get the step-stool etc.

If he doesn't generally share the load that's something to address, or if he's coming to interrupt you working or something to ask you something he can check for himself, then it's different but if he just has different skills it's more efficient to work to each of your strengths as a team and support each other.

Last nt my dh asked me to scan and email something to someone for him. I asked where the document was and it was still in his car. The person he wanted me to email it to works in his building!! And he sees him every day!! So no l didn't email it to him!! And he has taken it to work with him today.
Absolute piss take which l told him too.

@MindyStClaire
I am telling you right now that DW is NOT a man and she pulls this shit all the time. So it clearly isn't just a gender thing!
I also genuinely know heterosexual couples where both parties absolutely feel that other pulls their weight and they feel like an equal partnership. Plus, at least one couple where the woman fits the typical "useless husband" role and has no idea how much extra running around her male partner does to support their family.