Totally fed up with my husband!

[Sam9769]

I am totally fed up with my husband!
We have been married for 34 years and in all that time if there is work to be done in the house, he has to be hounded to do anything.
We recently moved house but before we moved, we needed to do work on our old house to get it ready for sale. He would wait to be told what to do by me even though it was patently obvious what had to be done. If materials were required for the work, it would be left up to me to sit him down and ask him what was required and I would order them. When I would ask him why he didn't order them, the response was "I don't know!".

Fast forward, we are now in our new house which is a 1950s house and nothing has been done in it since the 1990's. Husband who is 65 and in good health is retired. I am 61 and partially retired working two days per week.
Lots of work to be done in the house and here we are again in the same situation. We hire tradespeople for the work we can't do and you've guessed it, I have to google them and find them, phone and arrange for them to come to the house. For work that we can do, he will not initiate ANYTHING!. He has to be pushed to get on with jobs in the house.
At the weekend I realised that the downstairs toilet wasn't working. It transpired that he knew about it but hadn't done anything about it.
Today, I was out of the house for 9 hours at work and doing the grocery shopping after work. Before I left I asked him to mind the two dogs and clean and tidy the kitchen.
When I got home, he was sitting on his computer with a half arsed clean of the kitchen done. He hadn't looked at the toilet and when I went out to take one of the dogs for a walk, I noticed that the outside light wasn't working. He knew about it but had done nothing. It transpires that he spent at least 7 hours today sitting on his backside on his laptop on Utube and the like.
I ended up shouting at him and he clears off upstairs, won't accept responsibility. His response today was that he was minding the dogs even though he had told me that one was outside lying in the sunshine and the other was in the hall sunning himself in a shaft of light so no real minding to do there.
I really don't want to spent whatever time I have left, pushing, cajoling and hounding a grown man to get up off his backside and do jobs in the house that need to be done.
We can't afford to have all the jobs done by the trades and even if we could it would be a free pass for him to do sweet FA.
He knows what to do and is capable of doing it but just doesn't do it!

AIBU to have had it with him?

Also don't listen to the people saying it's OK if he doesn't like DIY. It's not OK to live with someone else and refuse to do any DIY, any basic house maintenance, any mental load or organisation, any housework or chores or shopping or bill paying or anything at all.

Its ADHD
he was a mechanical engineer! Its so obvious. I have severe adhd. I keep a professional job as its my “special interest”. Mechanical engineering was his special interest. He would have done well with the rules, routine and regularity of it. Being retired or on holidays is tricky as all the structure and routine that supports us at work is gone.
he is not going to do the tasks unless they are his special interest, he has a deadline or someone body doubles with him. You need to both have diy days together
he is not going to change at 65, he wont pay bills and you will be forever frustrated. You need to either accept him or leave

You’ve been married for 34 years and you’ve known all that time what he’s like, but you’re still hoping to change his personality. That’s not going to happen, is it. All that happens is you end up nagging him interminably and he probably ends up resenting you, and you’re both made unhappy (though there’s nothing wrong with you being the driving force if he doesn’t mind that).

You should have known from experience that despite what he said about doing stuff to renovate the new house, it wouldn't happen. He probably thought he meant it when he said it but it’s just not his personality, and now he’s retired he wants to spend his time how he chooses rather than how you choose.

He won’t change, so you either have to split up or accept with a good grace that that’s just how he is.

You’ve lived with an inert teenage boy for 34 years who does nothing at all other than going out to work. It must be nice to have a housekeeper, cleaner, cook, dog walker and PA to do everything including paying the bills. The question is what do you get out of this?

It’s not clear why you chose a house that needs significant work, given his aversion to DIY. But let this is be the catalyst to consider whether you want to live the rest of your life like this.

Think about getting some quotes for the work he's avoiding/ignoring/refusing to do. Maybe when he sees how much it's going to cost to get professionals in to do the work, it might...just might give him the motivation he needs to pull his finger out! You also have the option of getting the urgent work done by someone else.

No, YANBU.
My husband is 75, very fit and healthy and does what he can - redoing garage, shifting furniture, recently I returned from a visit overseas and he RAN three storeys up the stairs at the airport, because lift wasn't working (with my 16kg suitcase).
I'm not bragging, he is three decades older (married for 20 years) and one of a kind.

BUT, if you practically CAN live your own life, absolutely do it now/soon.
You will clearly be better off.
When did YOU put yourself first, last time?
❤️

Get the house looking great, then sell it and divorce DH and buy yourself a place just for yourself.

You are going to become a carer to a loser if you don't.

For example, they can’t plan, think in parallel, focus, break things down into steps to be done in the right order, take the first step, have the patience to do each step properly etc

He’s an engineer, he can do all these things. He did them daily in his job.

As far as hobbies are concerned, he had been going on for several years about the fact that he'd like to go sailing. Obviously, he didn't do anything about it just looked at boats on the net. I therefore contacted our local sailing club and found out all the information about how he could join and who to speak to. With this push, he joined and took up sailing which he enjoyed.
Since we moved house, he joined the local club but 18 months on has not gone despite me suggesting that he goes. Nothing stopping him!

Married for 34 years and you seem to have learned nothing. Why on earth move house, it’s so stressful. You have brought this on yourself. You sound so wound up and angry.

Tell him you will be filing for divorce in two weeks’ time unless he has sorted out an appointment with a marriage counsellor in the interim.

There are plenty of things that people don’t want to do in life, go to work, do the housework, do DIY, but do you know what we have to get on and do them and we do. He’s just selfish and lazy and doesn’t deserve you. Your relationship is the typical if you died he would be desolate, no longer able to cope with life whereas if he died you would absolutely thrive without him.
Stop doing stuff for him, let him make his own tea, go out with friends, find a hobby, give him a taste of what life would be like without you, he needs to ship up or ship out. Good luck

Then why buy a house that needs DIY?

in understand your frustration but it seems entirely self inflicted

Honestly OP just leave him to it and live your own life. If he wants to rot at home let him.

I think you should have bought a house that didn't need work doing since you know his limitations. You already know he has problems with executive function so why expect him to do what he doesn't have capacity for?

This. He is lazy and selfish .

He won’t do the work he agreed to when you bought the house. he k owes you will have to do it.

He wants you to do everything for him - housework, cooking, shopping, cleaning, laundry - while he sits around in his backside.

He is buying his leisurely retirement with your labour.

I don’t see the point of him. He doesn’t sound like good company , I can’t imagine he’s any good in bed , he needs a full time servant. Just divorce him and be done with it , you will have a much happier life .

Treat him like a child change WiFi password!

Exactly right @DrinkFeckArseBrick @Sam9769 bloody hell some of the comments on here! It doesn’t matter if you live in a brand new house or an old house there are still chores and maintenance that need to be done. I have lived in both types of houses. Presumably your DH agreed to move to this house that needs upgrading? He’s just a lazy arse. My DH and I are in our 60’s we have just recently moved house to a house that needs a lot of work. My DH can’t knock a nail in straight. However we work as a team because he sorts all the financial side of the project and does any heavy lifting required. I deal with the tradespeople and some of the practical stuff I am good at. I know of someone who has just divorced someone just like your husband OP. They were married the same length of time. She waited till her youngest had left home and that was it. She’s so much happier now in her own little home.

What do you actually want from this thread? Your husband has shown you repeatedly over the last three decades who he is. He won't be changing now.

You will have to come to terms with who he is or split up and live separately.

I thought that. Our retirement home the previous owner did up. Bliss

What is he for if he does nothing?

Such an unattractive option. Opt out. You don't even have to divorce him. Just leave him. He'll have to go and sort himself out when you sell the house or he'll be homeless.

I'm a list person. Lists for me, for DH, for the kids [with pocket money values], and a list of stuff we need to organise someone to come and do.

I don't have ADHD but I do procrastinate and I find it very easy to completely forget about stuff I meant to do [usually until the wee hours or when I sit down on a Sunday night. A list of stuff that needs doing that is actively added to and crossed out keeps us all focused.

Since you both have a lot of free time when not on Youtube or decorating are you making time to do anything nice together as a couple? Or are you basically creating a daily grind of chores as though you were still working FT? I mean this nicely, but life is too short. Either of you could be dead in a few months. Try and make time to enjoy making it this far and reward the stuff you are getting done. Go for lunch in the bloody sailing club and check it out.

Reading this sounds like my husband albeit 20 years younger and not retired. He has an ADHD diagnosis and also a mechanical engineer so able to hold down a challenging job, but I can see that this uses most of his capacity to notice and organise.

My husband has recognised he has issues starting things & also has no concept of time - I once watched him scroll on his phone for 50 mins and when I asked how long he’d been on his phone, he genuinely thought it was 5 minutes & that’s how he loses track of time and is always late.

What has worked is getting one of those one day a week planners each, and every Sunday we go through and write out what needs doing, who is responsible for what, the deadline and what are the contributing factors ie if it is painting a room, we need to buy the paint, move furniture out etc. I then take on most of the facilitating work ie putting down floor covers, getting out tools and he does the task and puts everything away.

I think working out which elements he struggles with will help, it sounds like it is also the getting started.

One additional point regarding my friend's sister's case, is that ALL of her friends and their husbands ended up discussing it, at length.

The men felt very sad for Richard who was such a nice fellow and such a good sport over the years.
The women were very, very pointed in saying while it must be hard on Richard, lovely Hillary clearly fell out of love with him a long time ago. Caring for someone you no longer loved would be too much.

His selfishness over the years is what brought him to this place, and until you find yourself in that situation, looking at possibly years of caring ahead of you, you cannot judge how you will react.

The men were most surprised how united the women are in their views, even now, several years later.
They all still see Hillary and continue to have little breaks away with her.
Their loyalty to her is VERY clear.

This!!! Except his phone probably has internet. But cancel his contract or change it to voice only?