AIBU? My wife tells me to "anticipate things" and I have no idea what she means.

[otiose1001]

Husband here. My wife frequently tells me I need to "anticipate things" and act before she asks.

Honestly, I have absolutely no idea what I’m supposed to be predicting.

What is the smallest, most specific thing your husband fails to anticipate that makes you furious?

Please answer these questions without checking:

Which day do the children’s book bags need to be packed, book diaries completed to return to school?

Which toothpaste do your children use and when will it need replacing?

Approx how many toilet rolls do you have in the house right now?

When is the window cleaner next coming and do you need cash to pay them or do you use a bank transfer?

How much milk is in your fridge right now and when will you need more?

How full is the washing basket and how high is the ironing/ putting away pile? What do you need from those piles tomorrow or the next day?

When were your sheets last washed?

How much butter do you use a week as a family and how much is in the fridge now?

When is your home and car insurance due?

When did you last hoover the stairs or pay someone to do so?

How do you effectively clean grouting on the shower and how often do you do that or pay someone to do that?

How much petrol is in the family car?

Where are your children’s shoes, hats, coats and gloves?

What are the children having for lunch at school next week and is it ordered/paid for/planned for?

Who has the next three birthdays in your wider family and what have you planned for those people?

What is the next theme day at school and how have you planned for it for your children?

Whe was your kitchen floor last washed and did you do it or pay someone to do it? If not, when will you next wash it?

What is the inside of the microwave like and when did you last clean it?

How often do you sort and properly clean out the fridge, taking out the shelves and washing them in the sink?

What is on your shopping list and when is it going to be done? If online - what’s the deadline for cut off?

Suggest the seven next main meals your family is likely to have over the Easter break. Do you have the ingredients?

What stock medication do you have in store as a family and how are supplies right now?

This in spades.

My ex used to say "of course I can't, I'll be at work" if I asked him to cover a carol concert or a gp's appt.

The fact I worked full time too seemed not to count for some weird reason. Despite running a dept, I still managed to fit everything in.

That's one of the reasons he's an ex. What's the point of a team member who refuses to do their fair share. No point in carrying dead wood.

He also said me leaving came out of the blue. 🙄

You're absolutely right. Thanks for raising that. She could have meant she'd like him to put some thought into her sexual pleasure.

I can’t decide if this thread is a therapeutic outlet or a rage inducing list of crappy experiences with hopeless partners… Come on OP…some brilliant examples here…does any of this resonate with you?

I haven't rtwt but it means being proactive not reactive

its too untargeted and open ended for that. If its that then the OP should sit with DP and agree list of chores and areas for anticipation.

i bet its anticipate emotional needs, if I’ve got lots of angst going on that I haven’t communicated but I expect you to spot it and give space/cuddle/dont cuddle/bring flowers

in a work situation you would not manage a team by just demanding they anticipate everything. You’d agree what they were going to achieve and how and then monitor how it was progressing. This is no different.

I would say this thread is four pages of the OP outsourcing the work of thinking what could possibly need anticipating in his house to women other than his wife because his wife has (sensibly) deduced that if she can anticipate things which need doing to keep a house running, so can he.

AFTER the kids are in bed and you have either helped with the dishes or done the dishes yourself.

I’m anticipating that the OP isn’t coming back…

Is your work uniform for tomorrow ready. Or your suit for the wedding this weekend. Don't be getting up in the morning like "did you wash my shirt"

Mothers day, her birthday, the kids birthdays, Christmas is the same day every year, why are you shopping the day before when there's other stuff that needs doing.

Do you need lunch tomorrow, is there enough bread?

Don’t just stand in the kitchen when she’s trying to cook, move out of the way.

Wow! I think this is a different problem.

I'm nodding at all these other posts like a Churchill dog! 🤣

Basically DH rarely takes initiative. I have to point out what needs done...

If something is sitting on the bench it needs a home found for it and it put there. Ditto if something is sitting on the floor. The children need dinner every night and you can only cook with food in the house. Shopping for food and cooking it takes time and this time needs to be allowed for before dinner time. Every year, the school year starts again. A suitable time before that therefore the school uniforms need to be checked and bigger or replacement sizes bought where needed. If dc has swimming at 10 on Saturday they need to be up , in swim costume and with goggles towel and change of clothes in time to be driven there.

my dh now sends me a message onnthurs or fri listing the weekend schedule and what needs doing (it’s a lot with 3 kids who play sport and we both work full time) and I correct or update a few points, after I finally got through to him.

Well, first of all, can you list things she asks you to do?
The clue will likely be there.

No, he should not just move out of the way, hands still in his pockets. He ought to set the table, and when that is done he can tidy the living room, or empty the dryer or get the kids to the table

Interesting choice of username - is that your wife's nickname for you?

Well, it's a bit like when you're working in a project team. Some people have a specific role within that team with pre-defined tasks associated with it. Their responsibility is to complete the tasks to the deadline given to them, but they don't require having oversight of the whole project to complete the task.

But the project manager and project director need to have oversight of the whole project to be able to assign the tasks and consider the impact of unforseen disruption, and they need to consider and take action on all of the other tasks when new information arrives. This is what ensures the entire project is successfully completed on-time and under budget.

The team member just gets told the task deadline has changed. They just get the outcome of the thinking and decision making behind it.

Anticipating things means stop waiting to be told the output that's expected of you all the time. If you wait for someone to tell you, you've not had to engage your brain to think about what needs doing and what impact that has on all the other team members and their required tasks.

For a woman, having a DH who is a team member is like having a kitchen tool which will make a certain amount of a specific task easier, but is limited to that specific task - like having a electric blended instead of using a fork. You're just a tool, not another person who can double up the resources you have a successfully operating household.

E.g. my DH will do a food shop if I tell him all the food which needs buying. But to do that I have to plan a weeks worth of meals and lunches, plus check no special arrangements for kids, check the fridge to see what we already have, work out if we have bin liners, toilet bleach etc. I have to think about the overall picture of what's needed to keep things on track- I'm the project manager. You're just the kitchen blender, accelerating a specific part of the task. You're just given the output and then implement it.

The kitchen tool does part of the job, but the engaged person writes loo roll on the list on the worktop, checks the kids schedules and fridge, comes up with meal ideas and makes the shopping list, clears the old food out of the fridge, then runs the plan past the other person to see if they've anything else to add. Then they go do the shopping.

The last part of that task is very small. That's the part which is currently being done in every job. It's just the final execution, not the thought behind it requiring fully engaging in the overall plan. The overall plan requires storing an enormous amount of information inside your head, retrieving it and reassessing it throughout the day. It is exhausting.

Be the project manager, not the electric blender.

Apologies for my mixed metaphors, I feel like they worked out OK in the end.

Who's cracking the jokes this morning....

It’s all the things you would be doing if you lived alone, but more, because more people add more rubbish, make dirty crocks for the dishwasher sooner, create mess, blah de blah, so if you’ve lived alone it’s nothing like that.

if you’ve kids, pets etc, buy your wife a spa week and then spend the week keeping ontop of everything, that includes cleaning the loo, doing all the appointments, organising the next lot, working out which bin day it is, finding the lost shoes, dashing to wherever for little Bobby’s favourite whatever you forget on the supermarket dash. (You don’t get to put something off because you know she’s coming back!)

Really admire you coming to ask but I can see why everyone here will sigh and bash you. One thing I will say is that it took me to be widowed to appreciate all the things my DH, dear husband, did for us as a family. He always checked and turned on the dishwasher every night and emptied it every morning. Im going down to yesterday’s not emptied and yesterday’s used crocks in the sink. Fortunately im here alone and don’t need to suffer the embarrassment of not having done it, again. Good luck.

This line makes me a bit suspicious that the OP might be farming information for an article; “What is the smallest, most specific thing your husband fails to anticipate that makes you furious?” (together with the fact that they’ve not been back in 4 pages).

“Look at how awful these harridans are raging at their poor beleaguered husbands for such miniscule unimportant lapses.”

Hopefully that’s not the case, but that line stuck out as a bit weird.

Thanks for sharing. It's good to remember what we'd miss if it wasn't there anymore.

Sorry for your loss.

Basically anything that you would do if you lived alone and didn’t have a wife/mummy to do it all for you.

Literally just act like an adult which involves cooking, cleaning, parenting, working, tidying up after yourself etc

I'd ask her myself if I were you.

What's the worst that can happen?

I think a clearer division of mental
load would be easier than trying to anticipate everything.