AIBU to challenge my husband using the same excuse over chores?

[sausagetheorangecat]

Husband has always been rubbish at house chores- doesn’t like tidying, doesn’t see mess, leaves laundry on floor etc. I do most of it as for me a tidy house = tidy mind.

However we keep having arguments over chores. Example our 8 month old keeps weeing through the nappies at night the last few days so this morning I took off the wet sheet and mattress protector to wash. Tonight my husband put baby to bed and just put him on the bare mattress. No sheet. I got mad because if baby wets through I then have a wet mattress. His response (which has been the same response over similar arguments) is to shout that I am always having a go at him for everything, he can’t do anything right, he didn’t mean it, and threatens leaving me with ‘the way I am with him’. .
Aibu to say that he can’t use that excuse every time? I don’t want to split, we’ve been together years and have children. How do i navigate things like this without the threat of him leaving me? I feel like we either have a major argument or I should keep quiet and just moved baby and put a clean sheet on bed myself

I would call his bluff and suggest a temporary break with him moving out and fending for himself.

You taught English and yet you think the plural of party is party's??

And that thankyou is a word?

I've made it clear to mine that if he keeps threatening everytime I won't stop him leaving- I'll usher him out. Normal adults don't threaten to leave with every argument and I won't abide by that in a relationship.

As far as either the weaponised incompetence- or perhaps general incompetence- we have a useful phrase in our house:

Use your eyes

Now that DS is 5, he also uses that at his father. And he seems to have stepped up more over the years.

He knows you won’t leave so has no reason to change.

Unfortunately I think a lot of men would sleep on a bare mattress and barely notice

Why are any women in relationships with men who would do this?!

If I suggested we sleep on a bare mattress, my partner would ask me why I thought we lived in a doss house all of a sudden.

If I’d gone home with a man who lived like this when I was dating, I wouldn’t have seen him again.

Do You have any helpful advice for someone that’s already in the midst of it? Or just want to shame others here for issue you haven’t experienced and therefore can’t understand?

I voted YABU, as you say you don't want to split, and I think that you should consider it as what does he even add to your life?

I told DH that if he didn't up his game when the kids were little I'd leave him, as I'd prefer to know it was all on me, rather than hoping he'd do more when he didn't. He soon sorted himself out!

I haven’t experienced it because I simply would not stand for it. No matter how handsome, wealthy, intelligent, funny a man was, I simply would not enter or stay in a relationship with a man like this. I’ve dated men who showed signs of this, so I ended it.

So my advice to women is to leave, or accept the behaviour if they won’t leave. These men aren’t going to change.

I would ask him how he proposes going forward with parenting when he frequently does things that make more work for you. If he’s not learning from his mistakes then he is either stupid, doesn’t care about you or doing it on purpose. Which does he believe it is?

He sounds completely useless. Can you find something for him to do that doesnt require lots of thought. Clean the bathrooms? Men like routine. They cant think beyond the task in hand.

I once attended an event to help raise money for women experiencing domestic abuse. The speaker was a woman who’d run a related organization for decades. She said the most harmful attitudes to women in these situations were ones like your own. No intelligent woman would ever find herself in such a situation, surely.

She said endless comments were made to her like “What are they, stupid?”

She then described her career, her life, her wealth and her family background. It included two PhDs from Ivy universities. It was incredibly impressive but I was confused. She seemed to be bragging.

Then she told us all something she said she’d never actually admitted to anyone before.
“Do I look stupid to you?”

If you don’t have any experiences with this type of situation from any angle then you will do more damage than good with your attitude. “It couldn’t happen to me”.

Your ignorance can be forgiven but some humility or a little empathy might go a long way.

I am well aware that any woman can be victim to violence and abuse. I’ve supported friends, family, and colleagues through male violence and abuse and I’ve never once blamed them or thought they were stupid. Of course not.

OP and others are not being abused because they have chosen to be with lazy, pointless arseholes who can’t put a sheet on a mattress.

Your overall perspective on the topic is self-righteous, wrong and I think it’s damaging to women.

Are you an elderly man?

Oh yes, definitely an elderly man 🤣

Taught English and don't know the difference between party's and parties? Hmm, sure.

Just give up. You're flogging a dead horse. (I flogged a dead horse for 10 years. Don't recommend it)

He tried putting rhe baby down with no undersheet and is lazy. He wouldnt have to threaten to leave because I'd divorce him. Youre not his mother, you are his wife and partner.

I cant believe the amount of women I see in here in shit relationships and having children with shit men.

He's training you and it seems to be working. What happens when his lazy arse is dealing with a toddler?

Next time he says he's going to leave, tell him if he's unable to learn how to adult then the fucking door is over there.

Maybe you need to list his good/bad aspects and see if they overall are positive or not.

Don't mean to sound rude or childish but if a) you don't want to divorce and b) he doesn't want therapy then trying to find his positives might be the way to make you feel better and deal with things in a way that is not draining your energy

He clearly doesn't care

Nor grammar if they think party's is the plural of party.............

The topic is men who can’t and won’t do basic chores, and I’m damaging women by saying they shouldn’t be in relationships with these men?

It’s damaging to women to suggest this is just the sort of thing we have to put up with. And it’s insulting to women who have been abused to suggest this is in the same ball park.

I think if my husband showed so little care for our baby that he put them down on a bare mattress with no sheet it would be over for us. I simply couldn't spend my life with someone so unspeakably lazy that they wouldn't take two minutes to make sure their own baby was comfortable overnight. What an inadequate little man.

Couldn't have put it better myself.