Does anyone else have a husband like this?

[Kanfuzed123]

I know I usually post quite lighthearted things but there’s one thing that’s been getting to me for a while, I’m probably going to phrase this unreasonably or harshly and I’m prepared to get flamed/called out on it. But I feel like my husband can’t do anything. By that I mean without supervision or me having run around and check he’s done it properly after, which he doesn’t take kindly to.

some are minor thing and some not but he just won’t listen. I’ll give you a major for instance, been on holiday and rented a car, putting car seats for kids back in our car, because as per usual I’m watching the kids and cooking (I also have a bad back so it’s hard for me to lift them, bend over and install them) they are isofix (aka easier to install). My fault I didn’t supervise him or check he’d done it properly after. He’s taken both children out in the car since, I got to put kids in car and dc1’s car seat is 6 inches off the bottom of the car seat and dc2 isn’t flush against the back aka they are incorrectly installed, which he refused to believe but it’s f’ing deadly and anyone with eyes could see it was wrong, and no he isn’t visually impaired.

i ask to watch food whilst I feed baby, i come back and it’s burnt black to the bottom of the pan… I say to him I said to watch it, to which he says oh i did, you didn’t say to not let it burn

what’s really got me today, is our online grocery order. I menu plan and he puts the order in, i wrote explicit ingredients and then an acceptable sub… get the order to today and he’s ordered half wrong sodding stuff. I’m honestly at breaking point with it. This is ridiculous right?

‘it’s time you get off your arse and pull your weight and earn more money’ -said to the woman with a 4 month old baby.

Honestly, I'd have found it hard to come back from this one and I'm amazed you were able to conceive again with him. He is a self-important arse who is feels nothing but contempt for you. once contempt enters the marriage it is game over in my experience. Living with Mediocre Man who desperately needs to feel superior to his wife is soul destroying.

If he's now laughing at your distress and anger, everything else is moot. I'm so sorry you had to experience that. He's not your partner right now. That's an illusion.

This was dc2 not dc1, after he got his ‘high flying’ job.

It’s really sad, reading it all together in one place, the contempt he has for me is palpable. Brought a tear to my eye thinking about it

You can love yourself better than this.

Yes, my husband has gradually become like this. He used to be awesome but low and behold, the higher up the ranks he went at work, the more incompetent he came at home. It started with just little things so you don’t realise for a while until one day you wake up and realised your husband has become a delinquent at home life. To be honest, he rapidly deteriorated when I went on maternity leave with our 4th baby and didn’t return to work. He finally got his wish of having a woman at home and him being the breadwinner, believing that resolved him of any home responsibility.

He was amazing with our younger children (teens now). Our two year old however, if he ever has to ‘keep an eye on her’, she’ll be off like a flash. He uses the older children to delegate his home workload to. In fact, when I say to the two year old that she needs to sit with daddy for five minutes, she interprets that as a punishment. So is inadequacy to bloody do anything, even sit and play with a toddler for five mins, has tarnished their early relationship.

I have recently returned to work in a new career, and I’m noticing men there are totally inadequate and incompetent too, even the CEOs and directors. I look at the principals in my children’s schools and from observation, it appears they are being carried significantly by their female or much younger male colleagues.

I truly think men have been given life handed to them too easy for too long. The patriarchy has made it easy for them to slither into positions of power in the workplace thus making them feel they’re accomplished and that any real work (at work or at home) is beneath them.

As for my home life, I’ve lowered my standards to help my cognitive load survive. I give my husband explicit instructions and if he fucks up he will just have to redo it again and again and again until he gets it right because he’s forty-something years old, and quite frankly, if the toddler is capable of something then so is he.If he messes up the dinner then he deals with the children complaining while he has to use his initiative and produce something else quickly for them. I’ve explicitly informed my teenage daughter that she isn’t his slave and if he delegates to her, she’s to decline. I’ve gone out of my way for many years to make his life easy and comfortable so he needs to pull his weight too. I noticed slowly over the years that jobs that were naturally ‘his’ like bins out and car insurance and service admin etc were slowly slipping into my domain and one day woke up realising he has one and only one job….going to work to make money. And getting so much bloody credit for it. He did absolutely nothing at home! So this is probably a shock to him. However I’ve noticed me pretty much removing myself from the picture and leaving him to it, he’s very quickly becoming accountable and accomplished in his little home duties.

I am also not ashamed to say I’ve been using sex as a reward. Think he’s made the connection now that when he’s a super helper (aka pulls his weight) around the house, sex happens because I’m not so exhausted.

The one amazing think that has come out of this though is my impressionable teens have seen first hand his laziness. Our 16yr old daughter doesn’t want a man burden her and will never tolerate what he’s done. Our 16yr old son has claimed he couldn’t ever let someone he loves do everything. So who knows.

Sorry for long blurb. I started and couldn’t stop! Therapy!!

God I just read the full thread after I posted. OP you’re too good for this man x

This was dc2 not dc1, after he got his ‘high flying’ job.

erm, that makes it worse, not better. You were looking after HIS two children - and working when you could.

So are you @Aussiegirl123456

My clarification wasn’t about making it better or worse just making it clear

I'm an autistic woman engaged to an autistic man, and this is definitely a sexism thing rather than an autistic thing. Yes, both my fiance and I are very precise with language to the point of being over-literal and misunderstanding instructions at times. We both have difficulties around routine, planning, and organisation. My issues in this area are also more severe than his - I have short-term memory impairments that mean I needed a support worker to live independently, so we're not talking about me being just a little bit scatty. And in spite of this, it was STILL me who ended up doing most of the day to day household admin.

That changed when I forgot something extremely important. This functioned as a wakeup call for my fiance. When he exclaimed, "Shit, I can't believe we forgot that," I pointed out bitterly that "we" hadn't forgotten anything - I had been coping with this set of tasks all on my own, I had asked for his help only to be told, "I'm no good at that" (as if I am?!), and if he had been involved, the likelihood of us forgetting would have been reduced. He listened, he apologised, and ever since then he's been doing his share. But I doubt he would have changed if we hadn't been seriously inconvenienced by my inability to cope.

Maybe OP's husband is autistic, but the thing with the shopping seems the opposite of that - autistic people tend to like precision, and we are more likely to come back from the shops empty-handed because our specific type of pasta was not there than make random substitutions. I think it's more likely that he's a man who has been socialised to expect women to run the house.

@Spohn I’ve just copied your post and emailed it to myself. I know it’ll come in useful, because my answer to every “If your husband does this…” is yes, that’s exactly what he does. I won’t leave him because I will not tolerate a situation in which my child has to spend the weekends with him. But when the time comes, I will be off like a shot.

It's a shame he didn't just go then.

you speak of your rage. It's not you, anyone would be ragey because of him.

Fascinating, he sounds really pathetic and really quite unattractive. Is he not embarrassed?

Being an incompetent like this if you earn £200k is one thing (your mind probably IS on higher things but it would still be annoying for everyone else) but £50kish?? He’s having a laugh and can no way swan around like he’s the bees knees.

Don’t be sad, get angry someone said previously and that sounds about right.

Yep it’s strategic incompetence and victim mentality. Basically it works for them because it gets people doing stuff on their behalf so that they can piss around and do whatever they fancy.

I am in final stages of divorcing man-baby and couldn’t be happier

Do you think he has a mental health issue? I don’t want to stick up for him but his sloppiness reminds me of my late BIL

This really reminds me of my 8 year old daughter. Shes an issue with being told anything so she sabotages the basics. Getting dressed, Brushing teeth. All of it. But if she wants to get dressed up herself, perfect, no issues putting her undies on the right way or anything. Shes better now but many basic tasks she should and can be doing herself are a battle of wills, and jesus shes inventive, shes not neurotypical though.

v different scenario obviously but its all control and defiance. As a grown man he knows he can't go round saying he's above all this domesticity etc so he engages in passive aggressive defiance. Underlying all that id suspect he has 50s beliefs about men and women's roles in the home, whatever he says out loud to the contrary. A lot of men do and you never find out until someone has to stir the dinner.

I would leave, you sound like you probably will if you can, the only other alternative is to try reward charts 😂

money wise I’m basing it on the fact that since I’ve had children the behaviour has changed and in that time my career has stagnated (obviously) and his hasn’t. There’s been a few comments such as ‘at a pay grade like mine’ or ‘when you’re paid like me’ said condescendingly or ‘it’s time you get off your arse and pull your weight and earn more money’ -said to the woman with a 4 month old baby.

The more you post, the worse he sounds.
Has it never occurred to him that there's a reason why your career has stagnated? Has he never thought about impact having children has on a woman's career, especially when your husband acts like an extra child?

As for the comments about pay...how ridiculous. I get paid a similar amount to him and manage to also do housework and childcare effectively. It might also blow his mind to know my DH earns a lot more and also manages it too 🤷🏼‍♀️

What an absolute prick. I wouldn't waste any more of my life on him personally.

What you really want when you've just had a baby is a supportive husband. Someone is helping you to get through and enjoying those early days. Someone who is washing up or bunging a load of laundry on or noticing that the cat needs his flea treatment. Someone who is proud and encouraging. Someone who shares his increased salary to take the load off you not use it as a stick to beat you with. Life is hard enough when you've just had a baby. You don't need your nearest and dearest berating you.

From what you've said, I really don't think there is any hope. Please start making plans to leave. You will be happier on your own. There are decent men out there but you need to be discriminating and look at their actions rather than their words.

I spent 20+ years with a man who behaved like this and for years I could never articulate why I was upset or felt angry so much of the time. He always presented his behaviour as perfectly reasonable and how him being the main earner meant I should be grateful to him. When I’d requalified and got a well paid job, I had financial power and professional responsibilities and yet he still expected me to juggle all the home responsibilities with full time work. He refused to adapt, sulked and didn’t care how his behaviour affected his family. He wanted his life how he wanted it to be and everyone else (ie me and our daughters) had to bow to his will.

I realised how toxic this was to the way my DDs would view adult relationships and divorced him. Suddenly all my frustrations at never being valued or supported disappeared. And funnily enough my physical health improved.

I’m now married to a man who fully shares household and family responsibilities without fuss or comment. He cannot understand why I would expect anything different. Unlike my ExH who constantly said he loved me (yeah, it showed) my DH rarely says the words but shows me everyday in lots of small ways just how much he cares. I have more energy, am healthier and happier. I’m also happy to report that my DDs chose partners who pull their weight.

OP - men like your DH who think they will be happy if they get their own way and avoid anything they don’t want to do will never be properly happy. Controlling another human is not the way to achieve happiness. Sharing and supporting each other is a much better approach. And a lot less tiring for all concerned.

OP - your lazy man-child useless DH sounds just like my own. I think they are like this as they know we are there to pick up the slack behind them. No respect or thought for us. Yet they can be high earners and more than competent at work. I do think think their behaviours in home life are chosen ones, they totally know what they are doing.

My DH is a high earner with a team to manage. He can solely research, plan & book a 3 week road trip to America involving several hotels & car hires across different states (his dream holiday, so he planned it all) yet he cant make a decision over what takeaway to get or what he wants to eat in the week. He hasn't lifted the hoover in years (got that expression from another poster, but also true for mine too), hasn't cleaned the house in the 4 years we have lived in it or made the bed or moped the kitchen floor, ever. He does nothing, literally, with the exception of cooking for the DDs, which we take in turns. Then says he does it all and I do nothing.

The resentment I have for him is unreal.

Mine made a comment just this morning how he pays for everything. He talks about his 'good wage' too. He's on around £25k.

I'm grateful that he looks after me financially, of course I am. But it does make me feel like a burden that I can't contribute. And I shouldn't but I do feel sad that all I'm good for is cooking and grocery shopping. Also that I don't feel I can reasonably ask him to maybe cook dinner occasionally because he's the breadwinner and these are our roles. When I have asked him to learn to cook the occasional meal he gets pissed off.

To be fair, he cleans the kitchen once a week and does the bins/hoovering. Unfortunately he's broken three vacuum cleaners in a couple of years and rusted/scratched all the appliances because he scrubs then with abrasive stuff, to the point I can't see what the oven dials say. If I ask him to be gentler with stuff he gets angry and says maybe I should do it instead if I don't like it. Unfortunately physically I often can't, or I would.

Besides everything else that makes him utterly repugnant his statement 4 post partum to get off your arse and earn more IMO is of itself marriage ending.

It would be over for a lot of women.

No discussion, no compromise, just the knowledge that life is too short to be with someone so ugly.

Get all paperwork, finances etc together OP, and divorce this waster.

Don't waste time trying to fix a man that would say the above to you.