Two years ago I bought and set up a doorbell system. When I went to attach the (kinda ugly) box to a shelf my husband stated he did not like it there. He had a point, so we put it on top of a bookshelf where it could be heard and not seen. A year after that, he was cleaning, found this box, did not know what it was, and threw it away.
A week later he realizes he threw out the doorbell. Not a big deal. We really do need a working doorbell, and he promises to get a new one. I am fine with this, and show him the doorway units so that he can just get a new matching bell box.
Six months later, after monthly reminders, I remove a door unit and hand it to him, gently hinting that I would really like that doorbell.
It is now a year since he promised a new one. This is REALLY starting to make me angry, especially since in the past he broke a shelf in the fridge and promised to fix it (4 months later I did). Last week he jammed the vaccuum cleaner, stated he would take it to the shop ( I did ). Now I am trying to do laundry and my backup stash of lint strainers is gone. There is only one person in this house who could claim not to know what they are, and throw them away. GRRRRRRRRR
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=502078&page=2
He’s the Ali G of home husbandry!
husbands aren’t really suited for domestic cleaning.
This one is. If I don’t do at least some of the cooking and cleaning, we’d never be caught up. My wife and I both work, so we need to execute teamwork in ensuring the chores get done.
Soon, however, our young sons will be older and they can take over much of this stuff. It’ll be nice to have a little “slave labor” around the house to help out, especially since they are a big part of the reason we have to keep cleaning up after them and doing so much damn laundry!
A doorbell is an unnecessary luxury in these troubled economic times.
You can save on electricity by keeping it disconnected and going to the front door every few minutes to see if there’s anybody there.
That sounds like my sister. She will go on a cleaning spree and throw away anything. She’s thrown away clothes, toys, cooking stuff - even unpaid bills! I don’t know how my BIL survives it.
Very funny! My husband has tried that one too.
There is much I want to say, but I’ll stick with this: your husband is pulling some passive/aggressive bullshit on you. Funny how they can run major banks or departments or fix intricate plumbing or engines, but when it comes to simple things like fixing a shelf, suddenly they’re all thumbs or so busy with other “more important” things that your petty little requests get shoved to the bottom of the list.
This kind of thing really, really pisses me off-can you tell I married your husband’s twin? 6 years, 6 YEARS, to fix the hinge on the back screen door* so it wouldn’t slam. I finally hired a handyman who did it in less than 5 seconds. Of course, The Husband came along later and criticized Handyman’s work. What a tool (pun intended).
*Handyman also completed a list of 10 minor-to moderate home projects that The Husband just didn’t get to… for forever. Like shelves and a rod in #1 son’s closet so that I could hang up his clothes (and teach him to do the same). Like screwing down exterior shutters so they wouldn’t bang in the wind and dent the siding. Like–I’ll stop there. Lesson I learned? Never wait more than ONE month to have anything repaired–call the Handyman, stat. It’s worth the money.
More stuff because I just can’t stop myself:
The Husband is able to DO all of these things ,and he has the tools. He just. doesn’t. care. I cannot tell you the anger, hurt and damage this attitude did to our marriage. (and of course, he cared very much about the cleaning, the laundry, the shopping etc–“my” stuff).
Either accept this about your own husband, learn to do the things yourself or hire someone. I have let go a lot of stuff over the years, but I will never believe anyone(male or female) again who says, “I’ll get to it.” Like hell…
That felt good.
My wife has the opposite issue - she’s a bit of a hoarder, who will never, ever throw anything out if it has the slightest potential future use. Nor will she allow me to throw stuff out without an argument.
The difficulty is that, eventually, storage space fills up with mountains o’ stuff which might, someday, be useful - if it can be found. Which it often can’t, because it is underneath other stuff and has basically been forgotten.
A sure way to get my husband to fix something is for me to grab a hammer or screwdriver, or better yet – a power tool. He can’t take it away from me fast enough. Voila! Job done!
Of course if its petty little easy shit that will only take 5 minutes why the heck can’t you do it?
That goes for men asking women to do the easy stuff as well as women asking the men to do easy stuff.
If its THAT important to you and that easy YOU do it! If it ain’t either than get over it.
Any house hold probably has a months worth of five minute shit at any given time.
Now if one person is sitting on their ass the whole time and the other is working their asses off, then thats another story.
Word!
One of those people I have stopped believing is me. If it is something I could theoretically fix, but I haven’t done it by a reasonable time, I accept that “I won’t get round to it” either. So I hire a handyman.
Oh, and to the OP: label. label. label. I’m the label queen. Everything that is going to be needed is put in a zip-loc with a label written on it. “Spare parts refridgerator” “gismo to replace halogen bulbs” “Do not throw out untill our coffee maker is dead”. " Everything that isn’t labeled is fair game for throwing out, and rightly so, because then i don’t know either what use it has.
Because the husband can’t stand someone else doing it. Things are either done His Way or The Wrong Way, and me attempting to start a project will turn him into Adrian Monk squared.
I recently wanted a medicine chest installed in the second bathroom so I could get all my clutter off of the sink surface. Knowing he’d drag his feet if I asked him to do it, I went out myself and bought the chest and started measuring.
- He didn’t like the style of the chest.
- My measuring was all wrong! It’s not perfect enough!
- “Let’s install it flush (embedded in the wall) rather than surface mount.” I refused, knowing that putting a hole in the drywall would turn it into an enormous agonized OCD clusterfuck.
- Blah Blah Blah, etc., etc.
I finally got it installed and put my junk away into it. He doesn’t even see it anymore, so the style issue is moot, like I knew it would be.
This being paralyzed by a need for perfection results in jobs never, ever getting done because he can’t feel assured enough that his efforts will come out fabulous enough.
Do not ask the SO to fix something as they go out the door to work or as you are both riding off to grandma’s house and the project is 40 miles in the rear mirror.
When the SO is there, the job is there and double the time to do it is at hand, stand in front of them, say ‘please’ and ‘now’ and then ‘please’ again.
If they won’t do it, either get a divorce (recommended) or be miserable and in debt to the handyman forever.
Life is way too short to put up with this BS.
Your life, if all you want to do it complain, this is the place.
YMMV
Well, plenty of men folk can say the same about how women folk feel when they try to to the “womany” stuff.
Either do it yourself, live with it, or start to do it so the other guy feels the need to jump in and do it “right”.
Or if the SO is worthless and lazy, break up and move on.
To much needlessly created drama IMO.
Though, if you do actually live with a Monk or crap hoarding Rosanne you do at least have my sympathies!
That is it- I could do it. I did do it. He un-did it and promised to fix it. Since I am apparently the grown-up, I did in fact get a new doorbell today. I will install it. I want him to either stop breaking shit, or at least be in charge of fixing it ( I think this would make him realize how annoying it is to keep fixing things). Divorce is always an option.
They have a triplet.
Quadruplet. My soon-to-be-ex-husband is, despite his many upstanding qualities, winner of the 100 metre ‘I’ll get around to it’ dash. There was a broken bedstead in my living room for SIX MONTHS before my polite weekly requests that he remove it were heeded. And then only because they’d stopped being so polite.
billfish678, in addition to there being some things I don’t know how to do or am not strong enough to do by myself (my husband is a foot taller and has roughly five times my lifting capacity), there is the aggravation of someone who affably agrees to do something, with no argument or resentment or indication that this is something he feels is not his problem, and then . . . just doesn’t do it. Forever.
WHY???
Exactly–passive/aggressive shit. And to add to that, why SHOULD I do all the shit? I was already taking care of small kids, working (outside the home PT), the shopping, doctor/dentist runs, the vast majority of the housework (I asked him for help in folding and putting away laundry. He helped me all right–he started doing his own. So, I got no help, just a very little bit less laundry), and the cooking etc. You have to draw the line somewhere. He was going to live here and ONLY do the taxes and cut the grass (which I also did upon occasion)?
I think not. There was no equitable distribution of chores. I have little patience with gendered chores, but I admit there are some things I just can’t do. To me, there is only work to be done: a guy can change a diaper, make dinner, clean a toilet etc just as well as any woman can–they just won’t.*
*most of the men I know. I realize this is not true for all men. Re diapers and making dinner: he would change a diaper, if I wasn’t home. Nice. Making dinner–let me ask you this: are green beans normally cooked in a cast iron frying pan in an inch of water?
Absolutely. For me it is the promise–often spontaneous–that he will do something, and then never doing it. Like an idiot, I assume he is actually going to do those things, and then I get pissed off when he doesn’t. I have asked him to stop saying he is going to do things, because then at least I don’t have the expectation it will get done and the disappointment when it doesn’t.
We have a doorbell. We also have two dogs. By the time the doorbell is rung, everyone in the house knows that WE HAVE VISITORS.
So for everyone with doorbell/husband issues, I suggest just getting a couple pugs. Voila, problem solved.