Is this normal for couples or am I slowly being driven mad?

[Binky55]

I really would like opinions on this. I feel like I’m going mad. Am I asking too much here?

Boyfriend and I have been going out for nearly 5 years now. We have a 2 year old ds together and I have a 7 & 9 year old sons from previous relationship.

We only moved in together when I had our baby, so for the last 2 years I’ve been learning to live with my partner, with a new baby and my 2 sons in a new flat.

My partner has a good heart, I fell madly in love with him after the rotten break up of my previous relationship. He was everything I wanted but something niggled at the back of my mind that I was compromising myself....he makes me laugh but hes never made me crack up laughing, his jokes are awful and sometimes just not funny. He doesn’t have that ‘banter’.

Anyway, living with him is becoming a great drudge. I’m going to list a few cases in point:

Never takes the bins out, when asked he always says ‘what? Now?’
Never takes the recycling out.
Never takes the dirty nappies out.
Constantly talks about what different job he’s going to do and I mean every day and night, truck driver, driving instructor, taxi driver, gas engineer, windscreen fitter - I even got a letter from google addressed to a psychic medium (him) the other day. No lie, it’s constant.
Never buys electricity or checks if it’s running out.
Never washes anyone’s clothes apart from his own.
Never cooks. Takes no part in meal planning.
When he comes in he never asks what’s for dinner.
Never is interested in feeding anyone, I swear not even breakfast or lunches for the kids. He doesn’t eat, food is nothing to him. Where as to me it’s everything! I love taking about food and he couldn’t care less if he eats.
I’ve been losing weight recently and every night he buys cake and cream and asks me 10 times if I want any.
I have almond milk in my coffee, he never uses it when he makes me a coffee, I get whole milk.

He drinks coffee to excess, I’ve never know anyone who has coffee after coffee all day.
He never puts our son to bed.
Has only ever bathed him a handful of times in his life and that’s after I’ve had to ask him to.
When we’re out supermarket shopping he stands around with the trolley, expecting me to do it all and drop it in the trolley rather than him walk around with me.
His driving is awful, whenever we go out he has numerous people bibbing him. Just recently he didn’t even know the right hand lane on a round about was to turn right 🙄

I could go on, there is so much more but I’m starting to feel upset re-reading this.

The biggest thing is he doesn’t listen. Now I know most men have their moments but my partner will not take in an arrangement, I have to tell him numerous times the hour, the date etc. right up until we’re practically leaving. He cuts in and talks over me, he does this with the kids as well. When I’m talking he is always looking at the tv, never takes in anything I say because I have to tell him the same thing again and again.

Really would like your opinion of him because I feel despair at living with this.

Why are you with a freeloader

So, er, what are the good bits?

You say he doesn’t care about food but he’s buying you cakes

Not normal at all.

Of course this isn't normal! Can you really think it's normal that he almost never feeds, bathes or puts to bed his own son? What a horrible lazy twat. And he does his own washing without sticking yours in too?

Well, you’ve just provided a really good definition of a cocklodger. And no, it’s not normal. Sounds like you could lose another twelve stone quite easily and be better off...

It’s not normal, no. I’m not surprised that you feel upset reading that list back. It’s probably time to have a good think about what you’re getting from this relationship and what life would be like without him.

I was annoyed just reading that. Presumably he’s not 14? That’s the behaviour of a teen ok only for a work in progress adult

Did he move in with you straight from living at home? It seems that he has never learnt how to run a house (possibly due to it all being done for him).

Some people do all yin’s naturally, others needs to be taught.

Maybe you have to go back to basics, and explain what needs to be done. Even draw up a rota and assign him tasks. Ie. Mondays - dh puts bins out, tuesday/Thursday/sat - dh puts son to bed.

Some of these jobs, you generally find one party takes the lead in anyway, such as meal planning. Maybe get him to do one meal a week and build it up from there. Maybe he’s never had to cook before, and doesn’t know how to.

You sound unhappy, whatever his faults.

A narc. Bin him. You deserve far better.

Leave him. Seriously he's a manchild a best and a narc at worst.

I won’t comment on the rest of it but re the food. Is he naturally thin/eats for function and that’s it? Because if so he’s genuinely NOT bothered about what he has for dinner. The food shop will hold no interest for him and your diet won’t even enter his head. I’m exactly the same and literally hate the food shop, completely forget when anyone tells me they are on a diet and couldn’t care less what the next meal is or where it’s coming from.

A cocklodger in the traditional sense is a man who doesn’t work and mooches off the woman whilst not contributing to the household tasks. Doesn’t sound like a cocklodger, just sounds like a bit of a useless man!

Has he got some kind of learning difficulty? Serious question.

The resentment is already creeping in so I doubt it will last, because he probably won't change. Why you'd want to put the effort in to try and make him a functional adult I don't know, waste of your life. Find someone who will support you

Why do women have babies with such losers before they've even tried living with them?!

Is he a teenager? Cos that's what he sounds like.
I'm impressed you've managed 5 years as I couldn't manage 5 months with someone who behaves like he still lives at home with his mum.

If you can survive on your own (when you're pretty much doing anyway) I'd ask him to leave.

You'd probably be better off.

Not ideal at Christmas time to rip apart your family but I bet you've done everything to sort for Christmas too.

Good luck mama, whatever you decide

Would you treat someone like this?

Monumentally helpful post @AnotherEmma

I also suspect a learning difficulty. (Never sees mess, cannot plan ahead at all, eats what is put in front of him but never thinks of running out of bread or milk until there's none left. Yet kind and sweet and will do anything for you if you ask him and tell him how to do it.)

If you love your DP maybe it can be saved if you work it out together. He doesn't sound like a bad man. You say he is kind - that counts for a hell of a lot.

@Binky55

You have four children not three.

A relationship is usually with an adult and yours doesn't behave like one so that's why you are frustrated. It is no where near an equal partnership, you are more like his mother.

I agree with @AnotherEmma

I would give him an ultimatum.
Either he starts contributing to family life or he leaves.
Work on a chore timetable and stick it up on the fridge so he can check what needs to be done.

I don’t think that’s very normal, thinking about my dh and friends’ dhs. He seems very limited. He obviously hasn’t picked up on what he has to do to function in a family household so he needs telling explicitly. However it could just be laziness.

Well, you can go down the route of ‘training’ him:

Signs on the front door - ‘check electricity’
Reminders on his phone
Rota for chores
Specific jobs for him with toddler
Turn off the telly or ‘lose’ the remote

Some of this can also be eliminated with different ways of organisation eg. online grocery shopping.

Can you go on a different tariff for electricity? I am worried that you would be paying far more than you need on a key tariff.

Or just have a ‘come to your senses’ final chance talk with him.

P.S. it might genuinely be the coffee making him all over the place