I cannot stand this lack of common sense anymore

[magicmarker11]

I have nc for this but I'm a regular, Sistine chapel, penis beaker, snapped and farted etc..

I am at the end of my tether with Dh. I actually shocked myself earlier because I really saw red and I don't know what came over me.

I've been with Dh for 7 years, we have 4dc between us but none together, they are from previous marriages. I love Dh very much and we get on great at a basic level. He's kind and caring.

BUT.. he has literally no common sense. In 7 years he has not made one edible meal. He even ruins tortellini. He thinks it's funny. It isn't.

His dc, my dsc, come for tea every Tuesday, and stay eow. I feed them entirely. Today, I had a headache and went for a lie down. He asked what he should make for them, I said chicken and chips. After half hr I go downstairs, and check the oven. For some reason known only to himself, he dumped a load of grated cheese on the chicken breasts before putting them into the oven. Then, he randomly decided to put a piece of bacon on each of them. Not wrapped around, just sitting on top. Of course, the cheese had all just burned away and was smoking everywhere and the bacon had stopped the chicken underneath cooking at the same rate as the rest of it so there were patches it was still raw. And the chips! For some reason he'd dumped a huge pile of chips on a tiny oven tray, in a pile, so that the top chips were burned and the ones at the bottom still raw. Most of the meal in the bin. I lost it. I'm not proud. I yelled at him. I crashed pans about.

I am just so sick of feeling like the only adult in the house. It's not just that he can't cook. He never tries to learn. He just takes it for granted that I will cook for him and his dc constantly.

It's other things too. He won't drive. He has a licence, but he refuses to drive, says he doesn't like it. So I am having to learn on top of everything else.

He's a weak father. He doesn't look forward to his dc coming. He interacts with them but interacts with his phone more. He would never ask for more time with them. I take them out places as he just can't be arsed.

He wouldn't go into the pet store today to get some food that our cat badly needs, he'd gone to pick up his dc from school and taken my ds with him, he said he couldn't face going into the pet store with all 4 dc in case they played up. They're not babies, they're 12, 10, 9 and 7. They probably would have just waited outside.

He never plans anything for the future. His ideal day would be him, alone, with his PlayStation.

We're financially dependent on each other, we both earn but we wouldn't be able to live in this house without each other. I don't want to split up. I just want him to care enough to learn to cook some basic recipes, to not make me feel like he's another one of my dc. Is it so much to ask?

Am I being a nasty cow?

You're on a hiding to nothing with this one. He's a lazy man baby who doesn't want to grow up.

No you're not being nasty - in fact it sounds like you've been inexplicably patient! He sounds utterly pathetic tbh, I'm not surprised you're pissed off. I know you don't want to split up, but he's an adult and he's got this far through life being useless, so he's very unlikely to change, whatever you say or do. If you threaten to leave him if he doesn't change his ways, he'll probably promise to be better, but it won't last - this is who he is.

What do you get out of this relationship now?

Why would you not want to split up with this selfish man child?

It’s not too much to ask but I very much doubt he is going to change after 7 years. What on earth were you thinking when you moved in with him?

Other than he earns some money - you haven’t mentioned anything positive. Look carefully at your financial situation, if you were single would you be entitled to any benefits? Can you move somewhere cheaper?

You’re not being nasty at all, he sounds like he’s taken you to the end of your tether.

Nobody is that incompetent. He’s doing it on purpose because he knows you’ll pick up the pieces.

How can you have any respect at all for him?

Is it mainly the financial position and keeping the house that makes you not want to break up?

What an awful man

Or write a list of what you want different and tell him he has to shape up or ship out but I don’t think he is going to change his personality.

Ah snapped and farted... that still makes me laugh

Sounds infuriating op ..no wonder you’re pissed off .

When we got together dh couldn't cook at all.
Now he is the main chef here!
We have 5 dc and he manages - he would not have been accepted with such a half arsed attitude to family life..

You need marriage guidance so you can express this. There is no team work here

Don't step in. The first dose of salmonella will teach him.

Absolutely not, that sounds infuriating.

I'm currently splitting from my husband for similar reasons, he just never took responsibility for anything and I felt like I had a third child. It took 10 years for me to get worn down though and get to this point. But even now, he, whilst sorting out his new place, is asking me which broadband provider is best, which this to buy, which that... Its so infuriating. He didn't even bother learning to drive.

I'd say, if you really dont want to break up, then divide up the stuff that needs to be done, tell him the things that are his, including preparing a meal a couple of nights a week and eow..

Maybe do it with him the first few times, maybe give specific instructions..

Maybe. Because I actually was too stubborn to do this, I felt like it just gave me yet more work to do, actually dividing up the jobs, instructing him etc... To mostly, have it not happen anyway....and I'd lost all respect and love in the years he didn't help with our children, I'd begun to lose the feeling of being attracted to him and got the ick..

So I'd get it sorted now, maybe make him understand how much it means to you and how it can mean the end for you if it goes on much longer, it definitely did for us.

I got annoyed just reading that op

In summary, he has a history of deliberately fucking up basic tasks in an effort to make you give up asking him to pull his weight and force you to do everything for him.

You're not the nasty one in this equation.

The chips in a pile thing my DH does EVERY FUCKING TIME. I don’t get this. I’m also a bit confused about the cheese and bacon thing... why try so hard?! I sort‘ve like his enthusiasm with that. But I’d be fucking fuming if it all went to waste too.

I wasn’t really made up until you said the word PlayStation. I can’t get my head around grown men wanting to spend hours on a PlayStation.

I don’t think you’re being a nasty cow. It sounds tedious. But I’m not sure I’d throw 7 years away. Guess that needs weighing up against the good bits.

What does he say when you talk to him about some of this? The lack of cooking, the crappy parenting?

I think nobody has to be masterchef. But in a house with 4 kids, everyone needs a few signature dishes in their repertoire, that they can cook go perfection. If that’s beans on toast / supernoodles/ fishfinger sandwiches then so be it.
But there’s no time or energy for people who fuck around putting cheese and sloppy bacon on chicken breasts at tea time.
And as you say... it’s the wider issue of selfishness and failure to participate in family life.
Anyway I have no advice op other than to train your kids up to cook really well.
You have a man child.

Life seems peachy for him, he fucks up basic tasks so you do it all. Why would he change? He wouldn’t want anything to change. He doesn’t care about your needs, his children’s needs or anyone else basically. How are you content staying in this relationship?

I wanted to slap him silly just reading this OP!

He's vile. He has zero respect for you let alone himself. I'd be filing for divorce.

Gosh, get out, OP.

I have a friend who is your husband in essence (though he can cook, but not efficiently make an ordinary family meal after work — he spends all of Saturday making something incredibly elaborate from a book, mostly I suspect so he doesn’t have to interact with his kids). He has decided somehow that women will help him out/keep him up to the mark. His wife (who worked FT) did all the cooking, childcare, bills, life admin etc, and he left for work at 7 am and got back about 7.30 pm, and often went in at weekends — we used to work together, and he was notoriously disorganised and inefficient. I once went on an overseas work trip with him as a last-minute replacement on a trip he’d run before in a city he knew and I’d never previously been to, and he was looking at me in genuine puzzlement when I said that navigation etc was up to him.

As soon as he decided family life wasn’t for him and moved out, the long work days stopped, magically. But having the children 50/50 has turned into ‘they occasionally stay over’.

His poor ex.

Thank you so much for the replies!

Yes I know he sounds awful doesn't he.. he can be really sweet and funny too and he does love me, I think he genuinely can't see the error of his ways.

He's gone out now didn't even tell me where he was going, he's just stropped out. A bit concerning tbh as I'm not sure where his head was at after I screamed at him. I very rarely do that. I'm a patient person. Just a bad day.

I love my house. I'd be devastated to move. Plus I love my in laws, my ds is an only and is besotted with his stepbrothers. I have a lot to lose. I'd rather he just pulled his socks up. Wishful thinking!?

I feel frustrated just reading your OP.

It's selfish, and no, not funny at all.

What he tells you every time he does this, is that he doesn't care enough to even bother to think let alone learn.

I'd find it impossible to stay married to someone who respected me so little that they couldn't even be bothered to feed their own children properly.

My friends dh is like this really cooking. She ended up teaching him 3 dishes so at least he can cook the family something.

No it's not wishful thinking. I suspect he's stropped off like a toddler having a tantrum because he's embarrassed. You normally put up with it but this time you've snapped and it's dawned on him that perhaps it's not cute and endearing - and that instead it's lazy and disrespectful.