NAMALT. Really? Dig deep and be honest with yourself. AMALT

[NoEggs]

I love my DH. He’s a great guy and we’ve been happy for many years.

But
He’s not perfect. Doesn’t do the laundry. Defaults to letting me make stuff happen etc. etc.

Now even if your partner is a paragon I would argue that the species ‘men’ will generally default to slightly bloody useless.

AIBU?

The men in my family and some of my friends’ husbands are mostly grown ups who are competent and share domestics/cars/life admin/child care etc. My DH does far more than me and my DS is copying that model with his partner.

In most of the couples it’s a divide and conquer situation with pink and blue jobs, but they are largely equally working as a team, and play to their strengths. My observation is that that is where the healthiest relationships are to be found.

I couldn’t be around a man who wasn’t a fully fledged competent human. It would be a complete ick to be with a man child. To any woman saying her partner couldn’t work a washing machine or whip up a simple tea for the kids I say more fool you. You have a choice who you choose to live and procreate with.

So if you’re talking about male ‘uselessness’ yes YABU and no it’s not all men.

I don't like NAMALTers. But not because I think AMALT in a literal sense. Because of course we can't say anything is true for every single man ever, it's absurd, and plays right into the NAMALTers hands. NAMALT is said to shut down discussion of male patterned behaviour and to distract attention from discussion of problems, rarely because anyone has actually said AMALT, so to suggest they literally are, doesn't really help.
If we're going to define 'like that' as anything about a person that falls short, then it would have to be ApeopleALT. As will be swiftly pointed out to you.

Couldn’t agree more with this! 👆
I don’t know a single one of my friends whose husband doesn’t share the domestic and family ‘work’

I loathe and despise cooking and ironing so my DH does it because he is far better (cooking) and has found some weird inner zen that means he likes ironing. He’s also far more bothered about dust and crumbs etc than I am so does most of the cleaning. He doesn’t like paperwork or he’s not great at planning. I’m good at both so I do that. We are a team and we play to each others strengths. And I would say that all my friends relationships are similar.

"I am absolutely not perfect but I do genuinely feel I and my female friends are a bit more ‘perfect’ than our male counterparts."

That is a very dangerous territory, because you don't know what it's like to be your friends' spouse, what living together as couple would be like. I believe you when you say that your friends are 10/10 all-round great ladies, funny, tough, amazing people. But, you can only view them through a friend lens. And to you, they are 'more perfect'. My point being, it's all a matter of perspective, a whole day wouldn't be enough to list everything. Can we agree that it depends on how and what exactly we look at? And there will be things the female friend will be more perfect at, while in other it will be her husband? There is just no point keeping scores...

This is why it borderline makes me sad when it becomes about men vs women, because the way I see it, it is about individuals, always.

And I believe the moment the generalisation starts, all argument, and discussion is out the window, nobody will win. The woman who has had dates with 3 men who ended up being morons concluding that all men are morons is just as wrong as the entitled dickhead who moans about his wife, claiming that women are difficult as a whole, like some professor with a degree of understanding how women truly work.

There are useless men, there are useless women. There are amazing, fun women, and there are amazing and fun men.

Does your man go up a ladder into the loft to retrieve stuff?
Does he move heavy objects?
Would he go and investigate if you heard noises in the night?
Fight off an intruder?
If he would do these things hes not useless

I am sorry but ‘the species ‘men’ will generally default to slightly bloody useless’ made me laugh.

I do feel the need to add that this is only when it suits them. Many men are absolutely excellent at whatever they choose to do. It’s the ‘choose’ part that matters here.

Still a generalisation. All people regardless of sex are flawed in different ways.

What on earth do you think ‘feminism’ is?!

Anyway, I voted YABU because ‘men’ aren’t a species, as OP typed in the opening post. They are one sex of the binary species Homo sapiens sapiens.

My husband and I are both flawed and we are a team who communicate well also. He was a bachelor for years though so he is decent at housework. I prefer to control the laundry and ironing but if I didn’t do it he would automatically (he’d just prioritise wrong lol). We share shopping and meal prep pretty much and he does the school pick ups and drop offs far more than me as he WFH and my work is outside the home. I control the finances but we have a joint account and we’d always discuss any big purchases. He does the yearly stuff like car and house insurance and knows where the paperwork for that is. We share garden duties and both avoid cleaning the cars. When the kids were little I was a SAHM and breastfed so through choice I did the lions share of little kid duty but he always supported me to do so both financially and emotionally as well as picking up the slack in the house etc. I never felt I had to do the housework etc if the kids were being hard work etc. He makes me breakfast in bed and supports me to have interests and friend catch-ups etc. He’s pretty amazing really but then I am also a decent person who does a lot for others so as I said at the start, we are a team.

Are you saying that your personal experience has to be everyone's experience OP or do you accept that other people have different experiences to you? Because this post seems very naive.

🙄 goodness me

I think virtually all men have a sense of entitlement that is foreign to most women. So to that extent I agree. But NAMALT is often used for things that are a lot more serious - like sexual predation. And I think it’s true in that case (though rarely relevant to the discussion it’s used in).

OP, I really hope you're not raising sons.

Yeah, this is similar to my marriage. Though I think dh could probably figure out a lot of my things if he had to, but I am damned sure I am never going to take on most of his jobs. Car stuff scares me and then there is tax stuff which makes my eyes cross...

Many of the men in my family are in fact quite useful. My step-father, my grandfather, many of my uncles, my bothers-in-law, guys who have a work ethic and get things done. Probably about the same proportion as the women.

No one's perfect, sure.

Have you ever looked at violent crime stats though? Or paused to think what they mean?

Women absolutely are superior in the sense that we don't go around robbing, raping and murdering other humans at epidemic levels.

Can you imagine how much money we would have, as societies the world over, if men could be trusted to, well, not do the stuff above? The things we could do!

Can you imagine how lovely and peaceful it would be, not to have to worry about being attacked at night or even just having a lascivious glance cast over you. The lives women and children would lead! (Literally in the case of the ones who die at the hands of men every year.)

And yet, we just tolerate this. And minimise it. All the time, and in every manifestation. From perverted individuals, who ruin people's lives with their deviane and violence to things like football crowds who cost an absolute fortune in policing costs etc.

We can barely afford men, and we barely survive with them around.

I'm flawed, my dh is flawed. I've strengths, he has strengths. We work well together. I've never felt or thought he was useless. He's genuinely the person I love coming home to each day. I can appreciate this isn't the case for everyine but generalising doesn't do anyone any good, and its not fair.

It must be the circles you move in OP because in reality NAMALT.

The men that are and were in my life aren't like that at all. My late husband used to cook every evening meal and pick up our child from nursery when she was young. He did laundry, ironed, cleaned, shopped, mowed the lawn etc and that was 35 years ago. My father who died a few years ago in his 80s was perfectly able to cook, do laundry, as well as all DIY. Both my brothers in law, highly educated and talented men, did a lot of childcare, pick ups, running the household when their children were young as my sisters often worked away.
My son does all laundry, cleaning, tidying etc and his wife cooks, although he is a competent cook, that's how they divide the chores. They share all the gardening and DIY.

If your husband is incompetent at doing things round the house and that makes you annoyed, then why did you marry him? Presumably you lived with him first and before you had children discussed how your roles may change and what that would look like?

So many women moan about crap men but they were always crap yet the women chose to marry them! Maybe the women hoped they would change but it's stupid to imagine that an adult man will change his ways. Or perhaps the women had low standards.

I and the women in my family and friendship groups are all strong women who chose to make our lives with men who come up to scratch, we wouldn't settle for anything less.

Same here, I’m a complete slob and I can’t bear this oft-repeated assertion on MN that women are biologically compelled to polish the skirting boards and zoom in on crumbs with telescopic eyeballs. I’m definitely female last time I checked yet I can happily go to bed without doing the washing up, I don’t feel unsettled by clutter, I’ve never owned an iron, I don’t tidy if visitors are coming and I hoover less than twice a month. My male partner does all the cooking and food shopping, laundry is probably 60/40 with him doing more. I don’t feel any societal pressure to keep house because I don’t give a shit what society says women should be like.

NAMALT is about violent, abusive, misogynist men and I would say that all men - yes, including my partner - have been influenced by the patriarchy. For some that will mean they’re overtly abusive. For others they’ll manage to keep it better hidden. A small minority will develop some awareness about the toxic messages they’re given and try to be better, but that doesn’t exempt them from being part of an oppressive sex class.

Indeed.

I'd wager more man can use the washing machine than women can do DIY tasks or operate a petrol mower.

It's a meaningless question unless you define what the 'T' in 'AMALT' is referring to.

All Men Are Like Tony 😉

I think virtually all men have a sense of entitlement that is foreign to most women.

Oddly though I don't see many men on dating sites stating that their partner must be successful/own a house/etc etc. Certainly don't see men saying they 'want to be treated like a prince' lol.

(Yes, I read women's dating profiles out of nosiness).

Nearly every man I’ve dated was a good cook and majority were also super clean. My uncle in his 70s never married has always known how to take care of his self. So has his brother of a similar age who is married. Both my brothers are the same and both are neater than me for sure.

I would never be with a man that was inept at doing daily tasks in the house. It’s all get well talking about a lawn that needs mowed a few times a year or “investigating” a noise, but you want someone who will pitch in on a regular basis just as much as you. If we are both working full time no, he does not get to opt out of the majority of cooking, cleaning and laundry etc because he might possibly have a burglar to chase off or deal with a burst pipe one day. 🙄

YABU.

I had to Google NAMALT.. and I don't think my DH is like that. Someone once made a thread about how couples split chores and I believe after listing what DH does people felt he did too much. He is wonderfully helpful and thoughtful. Maybe when we first lived together I wouldn't have said this but as time has gone on we both have learned more about how each other likes things and have grown together in the same direction.

I have to mow the lawn weekly at certain times of year. It's a right ballache. My partner tries to do it for me but it's my place so it's my responsibility. I'm certainly not tidying his place for him.

As much as I dislike domestic uselessness in men (and women for that matter), I think you need to remind yourself of all the useful men out there.

For example, the men who invented most of the modern technology we take for granted in everyday life. The many other men who've contributed to modern civilisation, including science and medicine and other very helpful fields.

Doubtless some of those men might not be much use around the house, but I think we can agree they've made up for it in other important ways.

Even male violence has its purpose. It's unlikely any of us would be here today were there not men who fought for survival/resources somewhere in our ancestral line.