Do you pack your husband’s bag when he goes away..?

[ShillyShallySally]

Was chatting to a friend of a friend the other day. She was having a moan about her useless husband. In the course of this moan she mentioned that she’d had to pack his bag for a work trip. Just breezed past it as if it was the most normal thing. I was like wait…why are you packing his bag for him?? She huffs and puffs about “oh he won’t do it properly” or some shit. Didn’t really have much of an answer.

Mentioned this exchange at work. Seems this is not particularly uncommon. Had women moaning about having to do “all the packing for everyone” for family holidays etc.

i am quite baffled by this. Why are some women packing their husbands bags for them..? If nothing else, my husband wouldn’t want me to pack his bag for him. Being a grown adult he’d rather choose his own clothes.

Some men are absolutely fucking useless but my god, some women really don’t help themselves…

I knew a woman who did this every time her DH went somewhere - even on his own. He expected it and would get a monk on if she hadn't packed the right stuff for him.

I think she was a bit shocked when I laughed like a drain and said, "No way!!!!!"

Women who do this are complicit in patriarchy! Pack your own sodding stuff.

No! We do plenty for each other but how do I know what he wants to wear/take?

Or, you know, he could start acting like an adult who is responsible for his own life and does not rely on other people to carry his mental load and just write a list of stuff needed on holiday (he can even ask for you to have a look over it when he thinks it's complete) and then just use that list over an over again. It's what most people do and there even are templates on the internet .
For number of underwear you just use days+1, and for sweaters its days/2 or days/3. He'll be able to figure the "math" out, since he has a few years of experience with wearing clothes.
I would probably forget the charger as well. Or something else. That's why I use a list.

What a sad existence where such a small thing is seen as an interruption and an imposition.

No wonder the divorce rate is so high. Some of you are completely unwilling to do anything at all to help eachother, you're so obsessed with 50/50 division.

I watched my mum do all this stuff back in the 70s and 80s and determined I was going to go down the same path.

I loved my rather helpless Dad but I knew I would never be attracted to a man who couldn’t live life independently including cooking for themselves, taking care of their own hygiene (there’s women on here complaining about husbands who don’t shower or brush their teeth!), buying and being able to wash/iron their own clothes and be equally capable of looking after their own children. Packing their own bag seems the very least of the responsibilities of being an adult.

No never

Is there anyone on here or even IN THE WORLD whose DH WFH and does their packing because the woman is out of the house longer hours?
Thought not.
Just like all these families who say "oh I went down to part time hours because it makes sense for us, it's nothing to do with the pay gap between the sexes" and you never hear about the reverse.
It's "the personal is political" writ large.

No way! 100% DH can look after himself in our house.
I also don't do his ironing or put his clothes away or make his pack lunch (I do make sure there are leftovers or something for his lunch in the house)

I would divorce if a man expected me to pack his bag yes. Fortunately I wouldn’t have married that type of man!

We do plenty of tiny kindnesses for each other every day and have been together 30 years very happily. But they aren’t decided or divided along gender lines as the OP is suggesting she thought was the norm.

Packing a bag is not something only women can do, as evidenced by the many many women on here married to men who pack their own bags.

No problem dividing roles between you because one person enjoys them more than the other but dividing them along some imagine male/female capability lines is just odd.

Well I expect she would do some of it herself and pay people to do the things that she can't - isn't that what usually happens? My DH does the majority of servicing and repairs on our cars. I do none of it because I neither have the skills nor any interest in acquiring them. But I wouldn't stand wringing my hands crying "Oh woe is me, what is a poor woman to do?" if he wasn't here, I'd phone the garage, like most people of either sex do. But I'm grateful that DH does do it because it saves me the bother and a great deal of money.
Nobody would run a business where every employee had to do an equal percentage of every task in the process regardless of their aptitudes and interests, it would be ridiculously inefficient, so why would a family work best that way? We play to our strengths, or at least share the tedious jobs equitably. DH, DS and I went for a bike ride together yesterday evening. By the standards of some of the people on here, when we got home we should each have washed our own bike, then made ourselves something to eat induvidually before doing 3 loads of laundry. That would be a ridiculous waste of time, money and energy. We're a family, not a bunch of individuals sharing a house - though to be honest, my DS cooperates more with his flatmate at University than some people on here seem to with their supposed life partners!

I did used to pack my husband's bag when I had an easy job and he was frequently away whole weeks working all hours.

But he does it himself now that our work is even. We tend to have one person do all the packing for holiday as a family as it's easier to manage the bag contents that way - sometimes me, sometimes him.

No my husband is an adult

Oh, I see you are resorting to insults.

I'd disagree it's a sad existence. My husband is well aware I might be working to a deadline or presenting to a meeting with 300 people. He wouldn't think his desire to save a minute of his time would make it sensible to ping me a message asking me to pack his gym bag.

Genuinely, it's great you and your husband found each other. That's lovely. Continue being being happy with each other.

We just do what makes sense for us. I was fortunate enough to be able to negotiate a flexible work package without having to take a big drop in salary or career prospects in my chosen field when I had my DC. Why would we not have taken that? I am happy with it, I would hate to do DH's job but he likes it so that's what he does. I have enjoyed my increased involvement in family life, DH would have liked more.

To return to my original comment, there seems to be an awful lot of anger on this thread about things that the people it actually affects are happy with 🤷‍♂️

Hmm so you have extra money to pay out for stuff as well if you get divorced?

Am laughing at paying someone to remove a bloody mouse. I'll do it for £20 for 20 seconds work

I don’t even do my husbands laundry, never mind packing for him!

to be honest, it pisses me off enough that I pack for the kids (without his help) there’s no fucking way I could pack for him too!

He once asked me on the Gatwick parking to airport bus if I’d remembered the passports! Bit fucking late to ask that then!!

Usually if he’s going somewhere, we’d be chatting about his trip away while he packs, and he might run his clothes choices by me. But he’s perfectly capable of doing it himself. I’d fold some for him if I’m just sitting there anyway, but he wouldn’t need me to.

Yes I help. He's my DH? He works and provides for us.

I would hate to share a case

If we’re going away as a family he puts out the stuff, I pack it with mine in one big bag while he get other stuff sorted (bikes, check the car tyres etc) we’re both capable of doing all the jobs but find it more efficient to split them by task type than by mine/his. I wouldn’t pack his stuff for a solo work trip!

@Russland So you're a trad wife?

I'm a wife

Yes, me.
My DH reduced his hours and WFH to facilitate my career as I was the high earner. I can't recall him ever packing a bag for me as that situation never arose but I'm sure he would have done if I'd asked. But he did a lot more than 50% of the housework and virtually all the school runs, after school activity drop offs etc for years.
Now the situation is reversed as I am retired and he is working long hours so I do most of the domestic stuff. I'm not going to spend the day enjoying my hobbies whilst he's out at work til 9pm today and then expect him to cook his own meal and put the washer on when he gets in. And that's not because I am a woman, it's because I am not a selfish arsehole.
I accept we're relatively unusual, but we're certainly not unique. DH was not the only Dad at the school gates even in our small village.

I never packed for my DH. I never did his washing or ironing either.

I do it. My dh can but I have the time he doesn’t. I have 3-4 hours in the day ALL to myself whilst he’s at work. He knows perfectly fine how to do it and can, but if I can make his life easier I will. He does so much for me as well.