Reminding husband means he adds tasks to my long list

[Inkypinkee]

My husband forgets things I have asked him to help with around the house. He can forget these tasks for weeks on end. I remind him now and then, especially when I feel that my to do list is massive and I really need him to tick some tasks off that day.

I don’t interrupt him when he is doing something important or has other plans, I just remind him about these things he needs to do normally in the morning when we are planning the day.

He normally responds with some sighing, and then reels off things he wants me to do. This pisses me off. The reason I am reminding him is that my list is already long and I need help. I don’t need more things on my list. Also he tends to list things he needs me to do that benefit him personally, not household tasks (which is what I am normally reminding him about).

Am I being an arse? Is it ok to respond to reminders with reminders for the other person?

so as not to drip feed… no the household tasks and mental effort are not equal, I’m mostly doing it, hence reminding him I need help. He struggles to complete ad-hoc tasks, but over the years has managed to pick up routine scheduled jobs (the usual bins and dishwasher). Though he does have to be reminded of these too sometimes!

Also, I have normally completed the things he asks me to do already, or they are not my responsibility.

it feels a bit like he doesn’t want me to remind him, so goes on the attack looking for things I have forgotten, so I won’t ask again

Have you read this article?

www.huffpost.com/entry/she-divorced-me-i-left-dishes-by-the-sink_b_9055288/amp

He doesn’t value you or your time or your effort

Please let’s not start this on another one of these threads about poor women being made the household slave.

It doesn’t matter if he has ADHD or not. If he is so severely incapacitated that he cannot make his kids lunch while op is there, cannot clean a toilet he’s pissed on, and cannot take the bins out, then that is as intolerable as it would be if (entirely more likely) he is just a lazy and selfish person.

This!!!!!

Amen to this. If he has ADHD it is his responsibility to sort out so that living with him is intolerable, it is not the OP’s job to hold his hand and navigate solutions - just another thing to add to her list.

Yes, OP, you need to leave the miserable, selfish fucker. Take notes though to make sure that you don’t make the same mistake with your second husband.

• is tolerable

Oh and being a SAHP doesn't mean you have to do everything at the weekends and evenings too, otherwise you literally don't get any down time.

I’m not sure I will bother with a second husband!

I agree but I would expect a SAHP with school age children to pick up most of the household chores during school hours with childcare then shared during the week.

I work full-time and my DH works 4 days a week. Our DC is in full time childcare so he uses half of his day off for cleaning, errands and food shopping and the other half chilling.

I had one of these. The amount of effort I put in over several decades trying not to resent him doesn't bear thinking about it. Eventually he left me, when I said No to him about something else. I remember reading a thread like this around that time, and have often wondered what happened to its OP (hope @Heli1copter doesn't mind being tagged).

I still love him and miss him, but it is wonderful to have all the housework and life admin to myself. What I hadn't realised was: not only was he not doing his share, he wasn't even covering the marginal cost of his being here. I could barely clean and tidy fast enough to keep us in steady state. Without him, and with the same amount of effort from me, my life and home has been getting gradually more organised, and I love it. I love, for example, not having to rush round cleaning and tidying if a visitor is due, because the place is always in a state I'm happy to welcome someone into.

Also, we're not divorced yet, because bizarrely, I haven't worked out that he wants a divorce without him having to bother to tell me so, and arranged for it to be so 😀(For now this suits me for various reasons.)

The thing that most gets me is the way these men, and quite a lot of otherwise sensible people, think that it's fine to have routine jobs like washing the floor done by whoever feels they need doing - that if he reckons it's not dirty enough yet it's fine for him to not do it, and if you ask him to do it you're being controlling. Here's a thought experiment for that one:

Person A can go 99 days from a clean floor to feeling the floor must be cleaned right now, it's unbearable.
Person B can go 100 days.
They live together and start with a clean floor.
If the floor is always cleaned by the person who feels the floor must be cleaned: what percentage of the floor cleaning does A do? Is that fair?

I understand what you mean about trying not to resent him, I think that’s half the effort I’m wasting.

I think if we separate he will just get a cleaner (which we have tried but they complain about cleaning around the piles of mess).

Also they should clean the floor the same. I think he would argue that person A can only go 5 days without wanting the floor cleaning, and that’s not his fault they are over cleaning.

Is it ok to respond to reminders with reminders for the other person

According to what set of rules? What do you think we know that you don't, regarding what's ok and what's not? Aside from laws, there are no guidelines, there are no rules, and it's every person for themselves.

You decide if it's ok for you. You are the boss in your life, and you make the rules. To be happy, we each have to find people who either have the same set of self imposed rules as us, or people who respect our rules. Preferably both, especially in a partner.

He has a different set of rules from you. He doesn't respect your rules, and you don't respect his. Stop looking at this as a right/wrong issue. In some relationships, it's fine for one person not to do chores. He's not 'wrong'. He just isn't the same as you. You have to decide if you want to be with a person who thinks it's ok to do the things he does. Who is 'right' or 'wrong', or what is 'ok' and 'not ok' clouds the issue.

The issue is, your relationship lacks respect, to the extent that he lies to you. Is that the relationship you want? If not, you need to tell him that you need a respectful relationship, and won't stay in one that isn't respectful. Let him decide what to do from there on in, but give yourself a time limit. If he's not sorted himself out in, say a month, or 2 months, leave.

@Watchkeys errrr I’m not sure about your advice, the reason I’m posting here is that generally humans have a similar set of morals and values and I was seeing if mine aligned with general opinion or were off. So yeah, I am looking for “what you know that I don’t know”.

im not living all your lives, just mine, so I’m looking for collective viewpoints

You're looking for external validation. Have a read about self validation.

A healthy mindset operates from its own locus of evaluation, not the collective views of others. Yes, lots of people have similar morals to lots of other people, but that doesn't mean that's the rhetoric by which to lead your life. You are different from everybody else. You are an individual. Needing others to guide your moral standpoint is a sign of a lack of respect for your own individuality.

When you asked 'Is it ok to...?', think about what you wanted us to say. Did you want us to say 'Yes, it's ok' or 'No, it's not ok'? You already know what you think. Why would that not over-ride anything that a group of strangers on a forum might tell you? If you don't like something, you don't like it, and that's what you need to listen to. Whether you're right or wrong isn't the issue. You might be different from most people; more sensitive or more accepting, or with a shorter fuse or you might cry more easily than most. So what? If you're different from 'the norm' in some way or other, does that mean you should silence those differences? And if you did, how could you ever hope to be happy, within yourself?

Yes.

Weaponised incompetence.

What are you talking about? A person can know what they think and still seek the opinions of other people. Do you reply with this kind of thing on all the threads on AIBU, since that's essentially what OP was asking, if she was being unreasonable in the "I asked him to do something so he asked me to do something" scenario.

I'm sick to death of lazy, selfish, inconsiderate men who think household tasks and household management is beneath them being handed the neurodiverse get out card. Like you say, you both are but you just get on with it.

My ex husband used to say he thought he was autistic as an excuse. Funnily enough he never took up my suggestion to seek a diagnosis. And when I'd had enough and he moved out strangely the house became miraculously clean and tidy!

I've got mental health problems. Yes, sometimes the house gets on top of me, but if I forget, get overwhelmed, can't cope, it's still my responsibility to make adjustments, to try and plan around it, to make lists, and to keep my house as clean as I can. Not someone else's.

So many men just want the mental load of arranging their hobbies.

Yes get rid OP. Men children aren't worth the hassle.

@Watchkeys yeah I am looking for external opinion, not validation. If everyone had said I was wrong I would have taken this as a sign I need to take a look at my behaviour.

We can’t all just go around being a pain in the arse in the name of being different. We have to live together.

If you find yourself being a pain in the arse to someone when you are happy with your morals and standards, you don't question your morals and standards, you stay away from that person.

You know how you feel about the way you're being treated. Respond to your feelings, not to what other people think is right or wrong.

Otherwise you will end up 'normal', with a 'normal' life, that may not make you happy or fit with your individual views. Do you want to be normal, or happy? They are not necessarily the same.

Just to add the thing I find most irritating is raising an issue to have it turned around to some other issue of something I am supposedly not doing... that makes me want to leave more than anything! Dodging responsibility all the time.

@Watchkeys i suggest you take your own advice here and stay away from this thread

@BreakingPointAgain this is exactly the situation I was raising at the start of this thread- I’m finding it irritating and it does feel like dodging responsibility

Best of luck, OP.

This is nonsense. I earn more than my DH but I do more of the household tasks. I work from home whilst DH works longer hours and has a commute. The value someone else puts on our work efforts is irrelevant. We both work equally as hard, arguably DH works harder than I do. If you DH doesn't value the time and effort you put into raising his kids while he built his career then he's an arse.

Did he ever live on his own? Saying he doesn't know what needs done is a cop out. He just doesn't care enough to look. If there's bins overflowing and toothpaste all over the sink he knows that needs sorted. He's just thinks it doesn't need to be him who does it.