Does your husband need to be told what to do all the time

[karisa282]

Hi my husband sometimes works from home and needs to be told that there's 100 dishes in sink and a bin full of rubbish

I feel he isn't mindful

He said I'm attacking him and I need to stop nagging and he usually raises his voice and tells me to stop arguing.
Last summer our grass in garden was almost a foot high and he didn't cut it I feel it's like he doesn't have eyes and he waits for others to tell him what to do.

Background ; I have Aspergers and we have two kids under 5 one is a baby and I'm still breast feeding and I have chronic back pain so can't rock baby to sleep

last night he rocked her for an hour and after that he gave up and baby came into our bed .

No. He’s perfectly capable and as involved and as good a parent as I am.

No he can't stand mess, he's a grown man and can see that something needs doing.

FWIW I don't think rocking a baby for an hour and then giving up and bringing them into bed is BU at all!!

Unfortunately yes! #inthesameboat and I'm fed up of it

There was a point in time where I used to address something needs doing and ask him to do this and do that and then I'll find it wasn't done properly.

I almost felt like a mother having to educate and still things wasn't done properly around the house. Then it turned into nagging and literally having to have a go this wasn't done or not done properly

I felt as if I had an extra child.... in the end I gave up and now I just do everything and I'm feeling very fed up that he is so incapable of the SMALLEST tasks.

Occasionally.
But he is responsive to my pointing stuff out without raising his voice and without being dismissive.
99% of the time he sees it needs doing and does it.
It’s his house and his kids too.
We both work ft I wouldn’t expect to do anything without equality.

Where is the line between “not noticing” and being bone idle?

OH works from home too, but we dont have kids. He gets up very early and each week I need to leave a note for him to put the recycling bins out before 7am. He asks for the note BTW! Last week he put them out a day early by mistake.

I find that its a tolerance thing. I'd wash the dishes with only a few things to clean, whereas he would wait till its full and overflowing. On the other hand though, when he does clean the kitchen, he is very thorough- removing the drying rack and cleaning all the metal thing and around the sink, cleans the stove top and all around.

Sometimes I give him the option- would you mind cleaning the kitchen or the bathroom- which one? He feels like he is choosing, but still ends up doing 1 of them!

No, my husband is an adult and a worthwhile partner that contributes to the household. We both work full time, outsource what we can and split the rest fairly evenly without anyone having to be told.

There’s no way either of us would rock a baby for an hour though- if it wasn’t working after about 15 minutes I’d definitely give up. Were you expecting him to do it all night or something?!

If I work from home, I'm working and not doing housework, so you are being unreasonable about that - if he never does anything ever, sure, but you wouldn't expect him to be doing chores if he was out of the house.

No he’s an adult and just gets on with it like I do.

Would it help to have a rota of chores OP? So if it's his turn to eg do the washing up you leave it to him and don't mention it. If he doesn't do it there are no clean plates. Then you can't be accused of nagging (horrible word).

I don't think he's unreasonable to stop rocking the baby after an hour. I'd have given up sooner than that!

No. I dumped people who showed me that they didn't function as adults at the dating stage and if he'd shown they were incompetent after the first child there would have been no further children with him and a divorce.

No, my husband is an adult and a worthwhile partner that contributes to the household. We both work full time, outsource what we can and split the rest fairly evenly without anyone having to be told.

Yes, this is the same as my DH. In fact, he does all the laundry/ironing and probably cooks more than 50% of the time.

No, he's a fully functioning adult. I'm sure there will be plenty of posters telling you that oh this is all normal, husbands are just big children, my Dh is so useless, isn't it funny. But it isnt' really funny.

Oddly of course those same useless husbands normally manage to hold down a job and don't need their boss to point out every little detail about what they need to do..

This is a bone of contention in my house. My sister has told me to pick my battles carefully.
He is good in some respects though. He does his own ironing, he sometimes does the washing and food shopping and takes the child to nursery.

He can't cook (so I have to do all the cooking) and is a bit of a dirty bastard though. I'm constantly telling him off for leaving shit on the toilet. He will clean it if I shame him into it. He seems to always get shit on his bath towel so he is banned from using any towels apart from 2 specific ones I rotate for him. He will tell people he e.g. cleaned the living room but all he does is hoover the rug and sometimes rearrange the cushions. He has never lifted a duster in his life. He says he mops the floor. He just mops up the section of floor the dog has pissed on and leaves the rest. There's loads of other things he does or doesn't do that proper wind me up. But I heed the advice of my sister because we have a child. Otherwise I'd have kicked his useless arse out.

Nope, but he does have to be told to prep bits for dinner if we're running late and I'm putting ds to bed. DH HATES reading out loud with a passion so we split it, he does bathtime, I do book time and usually just complete bedtime with bottle and bed for ease.

I find my DH just doesn’t notice things; I preserve my sanity by making some things his job eg. bins, loafing the dishwasher, his work washing, cat litter etc but he just wouldn’t notice that towels need washing until they look dirty etc and he wouldn’t care about those things

Only if I want everything done exactly the way I like it. Left to his own devices he will do it his way and to his standard.Which sometimes is Ok and sometimes drives me barmy.

No. He can do all jobs without me as he's an adult partner in our household. We both nudge each other occasionally if we've spotted something on our way out the door and the other is working from home for example. But otherwise we both just get on with it.

Yeah, my DH is pretty dreadful at this. We take it in turns to cook but when I cook I clear up as I go so he doesn’t have much cleaning to do afterwards at all (usually just loading the dishwasher tbh). When he cooks it looks like WW3! I’ve explained that cleaning as you go is a much more effective system but he still hasn’t grasped it. He will also gladly walk past mess again and again making zero attempt to sort it until he’s asked.

Last time I checked, women could mow lawns.

(I do!)

And it's more likely he's got on with the dishes and cleaned the kitchen to be honest

I don't think you being Aspergers' has any bearing on this.

There are sometimes that DH doesn’t motive but there are somethings that he takes cate of that I never notice. I don’t think he was in the wrong with the baby, rocking to sleep wasn’t working so he tried something different.

Maybe you need a strict division of jobs so you both know where you stand.

@Ebeneser he gets shit on his bath towels????

Having a child together doesn’t mean you should have to tolerate that! Are you sure you don’t want to kick him out? That’s vile!

@Thedrowners30 yep. I don’t think he wipes his arse properly. So after a shower when he dries he gets shit stains on the towel. I’ve told him it’s disgusting and only let him use 2 specific towels now as he seems unphased and still does it.

He is good in some respects though. He does his own ironing, he sometimes does the washing and food shopping and takes the child to nursery.

Can you imagine any woman being described as 'good' because she ironed her own clothes?