To think you cant make or teach a man, to be an actual "man"

[Iwantanactualman]

Exactly the title really, long time user NC for this.

OH has never been particularly into "man" stuff i.e., can't do DIY etc which has always been fine I quite like doing those things. He very much likes to portray himself as the "man", but after 12 years and 5 kids I just think eughhhh I'm sick of it. He's just watched me empty 3 bins tie them up and take them out. I think I've got the ick. Is there a 12 year itch? 😬

Off to a male oriented forum to look for a thread about why women aren’t being women anymore

That my next door neighbour doesn't touch as that's a man's job. She walks around the bin rather than bringing it up her steps once it has been emptied 🤣 I have yet to see her do any recycling. He does everything! Weird.
DH and I share all household tasks like this. Always have. 4DC together yet we cope okay with the division of labour. You just get on with it. Nothing "manly" about a bin. Or DIY.

Busy in bed instead of emptying bins!🤣🤣🤣 you can't have it all ways OP.

Reading your thread title all I can hear is Tim Curry singing ‘I can make you a man-a-a- a-an!’ 💔

🤣🤣🤣

In the early days I was happy with that, now ..... not so much

But if your OH was all "I'm the man of the house" while simultaneously sitting on his arse watching you do everything including what traditionally would be thought of as "man jobs" (changing bins, plugs, hanging shelves, fixing the boiler etc)

I said I previous posts if we were to share things I'd be fine with that but we don't.

Why is emptying the bins a man’s job exactly? You’re just buying into patriarchal gender norms. Some women are hapless at DIY and some men are, occasionally two hapless people marry and have to pay someone to put flatpack furniture together for example. It’s just the way it is, we’re all good at different things.

My husband doesn’t really do manly stuff but I can’t really complain as he does all the cleaning and he loves doing laundry. If I lose him in Tesco I’ll find him in the softener aisle 😂. 22 years in and still no ick lol.

BTW my comment about role models and boys growing up to be good men IS NOT about wheelie bins.
it could be parenting/cooking/cleaning etc. but the role model still is instrumental in helping the young boy learn to be comfortable with is strengths.

its not about being an ‘actual man’ but I get what the OP is saying. My husband is a doer- and for us that often means the physical jobs. He’s first to carry bags in from the car after a holiday, will bring washing in from the line as soon as it rains, lifts the kids here there and everywhere, if I’ve left my glasses upstairs he goes and gets them, is fab at DIY and decorating. Basically an old fashioned chivalrous man doing physical things to make life easier for me. He has his faults don’t get me wrong, but when I met him I knew his overall capability to just do ‘stuff’ for himself, me and later our children, was what I ultimately wanted in a husband.

This sounds much like my husband. He’ll always appear as I park my car on the drive to carry in any shopping, even my laptop bag. It’s about kindliness, more than manliness.

He is far more domesticated than I am, so knowing the wheelie bin schedule naturally falls to him. As does all of the cooking and laundry and DIY.

But if he said he was ‘head of the house’ or ‘the man of the house’, we’d all laugh.

My DP does the bins. Not because he’s a man. But because I don’t want to. So I don’t.

I think that’s your problem here up. He just doesn’t want to.

Why is being able to do DIY the definition of being a man? Can you sew? Is a woman not a women if she cannot sew?

'I teach my boys to open doors, walk on the outside of a pavement etc ...' That's good manners and also nothing to do with being a man (or a woman).

'I'm the man of the house.' You married a lazy chauvinist. And then you had 5 children with him. This is what has happened. Do not try to bring ALL men into this (see your title. Badly worded or click-bait?).

I agree @Iwantanactualman. A lot of blokes seem to think being a man involves having muscles, using their penis and being looked up to and looked after. So unattractive.

IMO being a man means sharing the load in the home and in raising their children. They exist. I've got (very lucky) friends who are married to men like this.

This is very true. My DH was never taught “man stuff” and that’s fine but being an only daughter with a SAHM who leant very heavily into her “female” roles, I was also not taught “man stuff” by anyone and DH and I spent a ridiculous amount of money on tradespeople. Obviously i picked DH for his conversation and sense of humour, and when we met I had a tiny flat I could easily manage with a tiny bit of help from my dad. Now we have 2 kids and a 4 bed house and my dad is an elderly man who we should be helping in return, it’s fucking annoying. If I was wealthy I would rent a very high spec property to take all the responsibility out of it.

Do you mean you want him to be more of a “gentleman” or more manly & masculine? I thought it was the latter but then you said you teach your boys to do very “gentlemanly” things, so do you want your dh to be more like that? Also do you teach your boys to hold doors for everyone or just women?

I notice that virtually all of my friends have husbands who can’t do anything DIY related. I feel quite lucky that my husband, who’s never had a ‘trade’ type job, can turn his hand to pretty much anything. Plumbing, electrics, plastering, decorating, hard landscaping - he does it all.

Can your friends do those things too?

No you can’t. You can nag him into submission but if that’s not him he will never just do it out of wanting to. I know there’s no “man” jobs but a someone who was raised by a tradesman who never let my mum or step mum touch the bins I appreciate the fact my husband does bins and DIY. At the end of the day blokes are physically stronger than us so I think they may as well put that to good use and carry the bags/do the heavy lifting. We do the real hard work of growing the offspring and pushing them out (or having them cut out) so yes it’s give and take.

@GreenCaterpillarOnALeaf How heavy is your bin?

Don’t know I don’t touch it 😎. No I mean general heavy lifting alongside bin related duties and removal of all spiders and plughole hair.

@GreenCaterpillarOnALeaf Do you consider these "man jobs" too then?

@BitOutOfPractice Do you work? Do you do any housework? Childcare? Life admin?
Or do you not want to?

As you have 5 children has he by any chance had the snip and you’ve come off hormonal contraception?

How old are the children? Are they not capable of helping with chores? Or are they made of spin candy and would melt at having to do "work"?