To be feeling pent-up anger towards DH or is this normal & should I be grateful?

[PonderingThoughts]

First time I've posted up here...here goes...

My Dh is not afraid to 'help' around the house, which I've always viewed as fantastic (in principle) as the impression I get from RL friends is that is rare and he's some sort of angel/cleaning fairy and I should think myself really lucky.

However, I'm getting increasingly with him just lately as he never does anything properly nd after 8 years it's starting to wind me up.

(And I'm certainly NOT a tidy-control-freak-type-of-person, I just have common sense and fore-thought!!)

BUT:
Tidying involves picking up handfuls of stuff and shoving it somewhere/anywhere out of sight (regardless of what it is or where it should live)

Washing is a bundle of stuff, regardless of colour/material/wash temp etc

Tumble-drying is everything regardless of whether it can be tumbled or not.

Shopping is whatever he fancies, regardless of price or offers or what we actually need.

Washing up is bundling everything into the sink with hot water and bubbles...and then 'leaving it to soak'...for days (or until I sort it out anyway!)

Hoovering is spaces you can physically see only (eg. a magazine on the floor would get hoovered round, not picked up) - job done.

Putting cleaning implements away is 'open cupboard door, chuck things in, close cupboard door - quickly, before anything falls back out'

Washing DS's hair is with MY (expensive)colour protecting shampoo instead of DS's shampoo (then wet towels left on bathroom floor, soap suds in bath etc)

There are loads more examples I could use.

I seldom make any remarks at all but if I do make a comment he snaps back at me:
"I'm only trying to help you"
"I won't bother in future"
"do you want to do it?"
"Can't do anything right"

Am I being Unreasonable for being [anygry] with him and thinking that he should just bother himself to do something properly and with some thought....
OR
Am I being ungrateful and should I appreciate the fact that at least he does actually 'pull his weight' and try to help?

You are being a bit ungrateful.
His job is to tidy the floor, yours is to sort out the cupboards.
He does the main hoovering, you do the fiddly bits.

Buy only clothes that are machine washable at 40 degrees and tumble-able.
Send him shopping with a list.

Hide your posh shampoo

He does it so badly because he wants you to tell him not to bother.
Then he can put his feet up and watch the footy while you run around doing everything.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. DH exactly the same with washing and tumble drying. It does seem slightly churlish of me to mention it when he does so much, but I don't think that's fair. Had a massive argument just last week because he ruined a baby outfit my Gran bought that I treasured because she died just after DS1 was born.

Am not sure what the answer is. I've told him I'll be in charge of all the washing. Will save a fortune in ruined/shrunk clothes.

Was he like this when he lived by himself? Did you have to wear a crash helmet before you opened any cupboards at his bachelor pad? it would annoy the feck out of me, so completely understand why you're fuming. it's worse than him not helping you; his way actually creates more work for you to do.

I do suspect that men do jobs badly sometimes in the hope that we'll tell them not to bother, but 8 years sounds like a long time to be carrying that on. Hmm.

What does he do well? Can you praise that? IE, "You're so organised and efficient when you [xyz], so i'm baffled why you've just shoved everything in this cupboard", or summink?

i did read that you should treat a man as if he's already behaving in the way you want. But that would mean your saying, "Thank you so much for this wonderful shopping, you've remembered everything on the list!" when in fact all he bought was a handful of alfalfa sprouts and a broken teacup... which I think would make you look bonkers.

Does he cook? Perhaps forcing him to make family meals out of his hopeless shopping would help...

Oh God, i dunno. I used to be like him, but was forced to change my own ways when it drove me insane, but he has you to straighten up. You could stop fixing it all, but then you'd have to live in chaos... Help. I dunno!

Hope you get much better advice from someone else!

Hide the delicates in another wash bin he is never to touch
Be grateful he doesn't leave crusty casserole dishes out for days on end, rendering them uncleanable without a chisel and a blowtorch.

You have different standards.
If you want ot change him slowly slowly catchy monkey is the way to go.
Do NOT blow a gasket.

Trouble is URIEL, he doesn't. He's really not a 'sit around and do nothing' type of a person, he always has to be busy.

It just bugs me that he doesn't put more thought into what he's doing as he causes more work or problems/stress in the long run.

T-shirt shrunk
Paperwork lost
cupboard/garage/draw takes a whole weekend to clean/clear out
Wasting money

etc etc etc

Practised incompetence. A well known (debatably subconcious) male tactic to make you give up and do it yourself because it's easier.

Are there things he does do well (for my DH that would be cooking, for example) - in which case could you go for "I know we have different standards, and it annoys me and I end up snapping at you, so why don't you do X,Y & Z and I will do A,B &C"?

Do you think as women, our standards change as we get older?

I'm wondering if it irritates me more now due to my age and position in life and time spent in the relationship?

We're no longer in 'our first home'. I'm no longer in my childfree twenties. I appreciate the things that I have more as (having kids) we're a lot more skint than we used to be etc

Do you think this is what makes a difference to my attitude towards this?

Sounds like a 'normal' bloke to me!!!!!

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ha ha very funny, yes sounds pretty normal, although my dp has started criticising my lack of order and method, he rearranged the pantry and then took photos of things I put back out of place!! Fraid there's no perfect solution !

Since he put the wood floor down he wont stop sweeping it and complaining about the dust..

I think I am your husband...

...ooh, no, just checked and I'm definitely still female.

I dunno, clearing up just doesn't hold my attention for long, but at least some of it gets done. Husband is probably slightly worse. Kids have this problem squared. We all need Taking In Hand. Oh well.

really rebelmum! Photos! That is too anal!

The shampoo thing reminds me of when I had bad acne and had a very special facial wash which was Very Expensive. Which dh then used as shower gel!

My Mum does that thing with putting bundles of clothes into the washing machine without sorting them. I dread her coming to look after the dcs when we go away,( despite being very grateful, obv!) because she always ruins some items of clothing. She put ds1's cream communion trousers into a coloured wash with darker clothes and the result was that they no longer matched the jacket! Her answer?
"Sure, no one will notice!" This was before official photos were taken of him in the suit.

I think it was a little toungue in cheek although I nearly spat my drink out when he started to show people the photos at a party .. mind you I did shrink his woollen jumper and then secretly disposed of it and denied all knowledge

I should have taken a photo of the misdeed

Be glad he does some stuff but vito things he is truly crap at. My DH does very little and after ranting about it on a thread last week, I drew a line in the sand and went nuts at him at him lack of help. This resulted in DH doing 3 washes last night and dumping ALL of them straight on to the kitchen floor (nowhere to put them) and leaving them. When confronted he said 'are you just annoyed that now you've got nothing to do today?'.

I now have three semi-dirty washes (floor was not too clean) to rewash and find somewhere to put them as it's pissing with rain and pulley (yes I have one of them ) is full of 4th wash (done this morning). How do you win here? Men!

Rather than commenting on what he's done wrong, have you ever actually specified what you'ld like him to do? There is a remote possibility that it hadn't occured to him to do it any differently!

Not meaning to boast, but my dh is fantastic around the house, yet he will still make a mess of some things which to me are screamingly obvious. For example he'll sort clothes by colour, but it never occurs to him that stains may need pretreating, or that delicate silks shouldn't go in the same load as towels, even if they are the same colour. So we now have a rule that we tie a knot in any item in the laundry basket that needs 'special' treatment and he won't touch that item without asking me what to do with it. Yes, it does mean that some things don't get washed for ages, unless I do it, but OTOH it means that things don't get ruined.

it doesn't sound to me like hes doing it just so u can take over, it does sound like hes actually trying to b helpful. u should prob try and b a little more grateful for wot he actually does do, since alot of women hav it alot worse. just accept that its a man thing

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get him more engaged in it? eg. cleaning cupboard: 'can't use it efficiently if messy, we need some kind of insert that keeps things in their right place, can you try and hunt one down, dh?' and install it...and USE IT

Well I don't think you should be too grateful, since when has a man pulling his weight with housework been 'helping you out' presumably he lives there too so it's only fair he should do his share.

He does sound like he's trying though, and tbh I wouldn't like to be moaned at if I'd just done something so I can kind of see where his respones are coming from.

Could you just try to have a non-confrontational chat about it all, maybe just say something along the lines of " since we're both so busy with work/kids/whatever it might make things easier if we both tried to get on top on the housework a bit more, so perhaps when you hoover you could pick things up at the same time and I will try to do xyz"

at his response that he's "just trying to help you" and people commenting here that you should be grateful?

Rubbish.

He's not "helping" you - you live together, have DC together etc, this should be a partnership. And while I accept that a lot of women have partners who don't lift a finger, I will simply never understand that.

You have to figure out what is simply different criteria - eg quality of vacuuming - and what is intrinsic - eg him saying he'll do the washing up but leaving it for days. And then apply rules that apply to both of you.

I get so frustrated when I read the responses on these threads. You shouldn't be "grateful" for things DH does around the house, assuming he's doing his fair share (and not yours too). And even if you were going to see it as your responsibility and him helping out (god forbid) then he should be doing it to your standard even more than if you are partners in maintaining the home - what's the point of offering to help someone, or doing them a favour if you only do a half assed job. I've never understood that.

I could have written the same list about my DH ponderingthought and I don't think YABU at all.

Another thing my DH does, is after he does anything, and I mean anything at all, he will tell me about it, so I can say thank you. So I get told when he changes DS nappy, when he does a shop, what he bought. If he does washing I hear all about it, if I try to do it back then he says I'm being churlish. Drives me batty, although I live him dearly.

Oh, and men totally can learn these things. my DH also didn't get certain basics - how the shelves are packed or the criteria for washing, but he gets that it's important and learns.

It's crapoloa that it's just not that important to them and so they don't bother. It bloody well should be equally important to them as to you that clothes don't get destroyed because they're put on the wrong cycle. Try throwing some of his suit jackets in the machine and using the "well it looked dirty" excuse and see how he likes that!