Love him dearly but how on earth is he going to look after us?

[pippinleaf]

I had this vague hope that my wonderful husband might be able to take on more of the domestic reins in the time after the baby arrives for a while. Tonight I'm in agony with rib pain so he goes to get us chinese takeaway. He forgot my main so I ended up with noodles, no sauce or anything. I can't share his as I'm veggie and he's not.

So, because plain noodles are too dry to be in any way appetising, he gets a fish pie out of the fridge to cook for me. After waiting half an hour it turns out he put his cottage pie in the oven by mistake. So now he's got two dinners and I've still got none.

Sigh. He looks so dejected I can't be angry with him.

Please reassure me that men suddenly become useful once they're really needed?

I never said Pippin should leave her husband, I said he was unlikely to change when the baby arrived and I didn't think that domestic uselessness should be tolerated.

I don't think you need to feel sorry for my DH ruth, I even empty the bins.

It's funny, I don't think anyone has told anyone to leave their partner, part from the OP herself saying it sarcastically. What some posters on this thread are suggesting is that you require and expect your partner to do a fair share and do to a reasonable standard what are in fact pretty easy tasks.

The work analogy matters. To OP and other posters who think the same way, do your partners have jobs? Do they do them well? Are they forgetful and clueless at work? If so, then possibly you do have a naturally forgetful and incompetent person on your hands. If not (and let's face it, they probably aren't or they would have lost their jobs) then something else is going on and they could buck up if they wanted to.

Catsarebastards send your son this way please! You made a great point. We get the whole "He doesn't drink/cheat/watch porn" doesn't entitle a guy to a gold star and a lolly. I don't have.much to add OP but I will say this, raise your boys to be stand-up, decent folk who can make a damn good cuppa and a sandwich by the age of 10. Too many guys have been coddled by mum. Coddling does not equal love. Your DH doesn't sound like some jerk you should discard but he's got a steep path to climb with baby on the way. He will get there. Most of them do. And if there are other areas where his kindness shines, focus on those aspects. I have learned to just ask for what you want. Without nagging, I have learned to tell hubby exactly what I need and then I call Jim again when he is collecting the food or whatever. I am always really nice about it. But this is after those first, early days when he went out to the shops and came back with crisps to last a lifetime and nothing you could cook a meal from. Some guys need more leading than others. It's a pain but worth it if you truly adore one another. Pregnancy brings out the helplessness in guys.

Call Jim? Lol! No Jim'll Fix It pun intended! Meant to write 'him'.

A lovely caring husband will step up when his wife needs him. Your dh messed up last night but hopefully that isn't truly indicative of his overall behaviour.

When I was pregnant I couldn't bear cooking so dh made me lovely nutritious food. After baby was born he did everything for the first couple of months because that was the help I needed.

Hopefully your dh will be the same pippin - he will rise to the occasion!!!

Pipin and Redrose my husband sounds a little like both of yours. He is uncommonly kind and loving but doesn't always have the most practical mind. He might not think to out a load of washing on until he has completely run out of clean clothes and for that reason I do most of his washing because I think about it ahead of time and honestly I don't mind doing it. I can guarantee that if dh was going out to buy a takeaway he would forget something if he hadn't written it down and he would probably bring something random back. To be fair to him he would probably write it down or call the order in before going to make sure he doesn't forget anything because as he gets older he does accumulate coping strategies to his forgetfulness. That is not something I've 'taught' him or 'told/insisted' he did it's just something he wanted to do for himself as much as for me. His forgetfulness is genuine and not an act to get out of doing things for the house.

Also we have different standards when it comes to household chores and to be honest I think that's fine and should be respected. If I insist on something done a certain way after he has done it in a perfectly adequate way then I should do it and same goes for him (he loves his garden and spend more time in there than I would doing things in a much more meticulous way that I thinks is important but to him it matters but if I did the garden which I sometimes have to when he is away he wouldn't expect me to do it to his standard so long as it was done). If I'm doing some chores and he isn't doing anything particularly important or if I know I won't have time to do something then of course I can ask him to help me, he might not have offered not because he thinks it's not his job but just because he won't have thought about it genuinely. But I wouldn't never stand over him or go over what he did and tell him it wasn't done to the right standard, dh isn't an incompetent idiot, he wouldn't do something badly just for the sake of not being asked to do it again (he's a grown man ffs not a stroppy teenager) he will do it as he thinks it needs to be done and i will respect that.

I really don't get all the comments about if he were like that at his job he would be fired. Being a husband is not a job it's a partnership, I'm not dh's boss and he isn't mine and neither of us would pretend otherwise. pipin's husband and Redrose's husband and mine and any other husband similar to them are perfectly good and capable husbands and loving and caring and brilliant role models for our children. Their ability to mop a floor to five star standard or to load the dishwasher to their wife's specification doesn't enter into this at all. There is more than one way to mop a floor or fold laundry or make a bed.

Anyway sorry for epic post but comments like these annoy me. For what it's worth Pipin I could tell you were being tongue in cheek and I too wouldn't have made more of a fuss than you did and I certainly wouldn't have flown into a rage over this because dh would also have looked so dejected and he would have been feeling dreadful already so I would not have laid into him on top of it all. And I know he would never in a million years have done it on purpose. What dh lacks in practical sense he makes up for in many other ways. I knew how he was when I decided to make my life with him and have children with him, I'm not in the business of changing people's personality or make them feel bad for the way they are.

It can get better. I currently have a stay at home dad & he isn't that bad. By the way my 8 ds year old makes the best cheese scones ever. Now my dd......

Well I am sure you ate your dry noodles, told your husband you loved him and went to bed making a mental note to do all the cooking now and forever.
hope your pregnancy goes smoothly, and very best of luck.

I would have been really upset if dh stuffed up my takeaway but not his own, but then again my dh would have phoned and gone straight back out to get the right thing. If he did it twice in a row, and I had no food, I would have felt unvalued.

Actions speak louder than words.

You can be a lovely person and still incompetent.

Great post iliveonabuildsite.

Going against the grain here, my husband wasn't at all domestically minde when we moved in together. Now 8 years later he takes on the majority of the housework and cooking. I didn't "train" him, he asked and I taught him, or he worked it out for himself, because he realised it was weird for an adult not to know how to manage a household and wanted to pull his weight.
That is a good man. I'm glad I didn't write him off for the mere crime of having an overbearing, hen pecking mother who would make his life a misery if he tried to do anything for himself.
Men, just like women, are all individuals who react to situations in very different ways. I'd just be asking him to take on a bit more about the house/make dinner for a while if you need him to. He'll learn, because he has to.

It's odd that he didn't forget his own, though, isn't it?

If it makes you feel any better Pippin I am vegetarian and have been for many years. Not really sure what I was thinking but I asked for chicken and mushroom curry the other day from a Chinese cafe. Safe to say I was very disappointed with my dinner haha! I think it was because I ordered chicken nuggets for my nieces and must have had chicken on my mind... We all had a good laugh about it and your post made me laugh too xx

To be fair to him he would probably write it down or call the order in before going to make sure he doesn't forget anything because as he gets older he does accumulate coping strategies to his forgetfulness.

See ^^this is what a proper grown up responsible person does when they know they are a bit crap at something, they think ahead and plan to ensure they dont mess it up. They dont just keep doing the shit thing knowing their partner will remind them or pick up the slack. They take responsibility for it themselves.

My husband IS great. He has a good job and is good at it, he's funny and constantly looking for ways to amuse me and make me know I'm loved. He can do all the domestic things he just doesn't usually notice they need doing. He did cook me my dinner last night eventually and he felt really bad that he had messed up even though I did t nag at him. I just thought it was funny - we all mess up sometimes.

I completely understand threads that end up with loud braying of 'LTB' when the guy cheats and is abusive (which is why I mentioned it, not because I think you should be happy providing your hsband doesn't do those things!) but not when he isn't particularly useful round the house. And every time I ask, he does do it, without any grumbling, he simply doesn't think to do it before being asked. And I know it's not my job to ask, or to be the one who notices - but it just is the way it is.

A relationship should make you happy. Mine does, I'm very happy. It was meant as a lighthearted thread, a roll-eyes moment not a violent castigation of anyone. Thank you to those who've been supportive, including several PMs. And heaven help anyone else who in a 'perfect' relationship when you encounter a moment of frustration!

I do like mumsnet and I'm sure in real life most people here are lovely but I do wonder why you're so eager to see the bad in everything.

ILiveOnABuildsite - very well said, wish I could have been that articulate in the early hours of the morning :)
My husband survived 35 years on this earth before he met me, and has lived in 4 different countries; he is perfectly capable of looking after himself.
TBH he sometimes says he is a little afraid of me as I can be a bit of a control freak and he worries about not doing things to my standards. So I think that's something I need to get a grip of, and having a new baby is certainly helping me learn I can't control everything!!
All relationships are different, what works for some doesn't work for others. My husband would never not do something with any intention of winding me up, he just genuinely wouldn't gave thought of it. I have to try not to take it personally. I believe OP's husband us much the same.

Yes I have been thinking about OP's DH's behaviour re food. It's interesting that he forgot hers, and then messed up getting her something at home too.

Now that COULD be simple lovely forgetfulness/woolly-headedness couldn't it, and I'm not saying it's not, as I don't know him.

But we do know and it's well-studied that previously nice-seeming men who become less nice often start with the less nice stuff during pregnancy and having a small baby. It kind of stands to reason that if you are in a relationship with a man where you indulge his incompetence and let him off adult responsibilities because he is "so lovely and sweet", then he is the baby in that relationship. And so for some men, there is a lot of resentment when their partner gets pregnant - which could of course be subconscious or repressed – when a real baby is set to take away the attention. Failing to feed his pregnant wife, as a "mistake", twice over, looks to me like a classic fit for that type of resentment.

Why didn't he just phone the takeaway to get the right order and quickly go back for it? Instead he did something where he could make the same thing happen again.

Dorasee said Pregnancy brings out the helplessness in guys. That behaviour could be a subconscious attempt to say "look at me I'm soooooo clueless and helpless, don't abandon me and my needs for that baby!" It could also be something more aggressive. It's also well-known that pregnancy and having a newborn trigger a lot of men to start having affairs.

I've seen these patterns play out time and again in RL and on here so I do think it's a real phenomenon.

I'm sure I'll get blasted for discussing it that way so I'll say again OP I'm not pointing the finger at your DH and saying this is definitely what's going on, but in general I think women should be aware of this as a possible dynamic.

"he just doesn't usually notice they need doing." And why do you think that is? He has eyes and can see presumably? Does he not notice tasks that need doing at work? Or maybe he just doesn't think they're his responsibility so no need to worry about them?

Well I've X-posted with you OP and I do take on board that you are very happy with him.

But why see the bad in everything? As a feminist, I don't see it like that - I enjoy a lot of things in life, including my relationship, and I am not a doom-monger. But I think it's important to see the inequalities that exist and not brush them under the carpet. That's not seeing the bad in everything, but seeing the bad where it is, and knowing to be aware of it.

If my DH had forgotten dinner, I can guarantee he would have insisted on leaving his own uneaten until he had gone back for something for me (pregnant or not). That worries me more than house keeping battles to be honest.

Tbh op the relationship dynamic will change when baby arrives

When you're completely knackered his jokes won't be so funny and feeling loves won't beat being physically cared for and having weight taken from you.

I'm sure he will be a brilliant dad - my dh did all nappies for the first week an was the first person to get them dressed. I was very keen for him to be equally responsible for the kids welfare and 5 years on he still is. Just don't underestimate how much his helplessness will irritate you once baby is here!!!

Your OP sounded fed up and I would have been very unimpressed at a grown man failing to arrange dinner twice in one evening. He's a grown man, it's not sweet it's stupidity.

I'm intrigued by all these men who are so lovely and caring but utterly thoughtless and who don't notice things that have to be done round the house. Believe me, when you have a newborn the gentle incompetence will seem considerably less sweet.

He can do all the domestic things he just doesn't usually notice they need doing

Bloody hell - if my DH was on here he'd be sympathising with you - your husband sounds just like me !

Disclaimer: I am not quite so inept in the cookery department