Thats fine too. Just don’t let it eat at you while your “showing” him!
And like cats, some people are just untrainable and you have to live with it/them.
Thank you thank you for the wonderful laugh eleanorigby! I can’t believe he cooked something while still in the can. What is he, a hobo?
No you don’t.
I am still waiting to hear whats so horrible about cooking in a can (assuming at least that he opened it so it wouldnt explode).
The point about cooking the green beans that way is that he was “unseasoning” the cast iron skillet.
Cooking in a can is just weird, unless one is doing that Sweetened Condensed Milk carmelizing thing.
I am from the south, so I know all about cast iron skillets.
And what the hell’s wrong with wierd?
I think folding my underwear is the pretty damn wierd, stupid, and a complte waste of time, but my SO still insists on doing it. After it gets folded, it gets ceremonously unfolded shorty thereafter in my underwear drawer.
If thats the biggest stupid thing he’s done thats eating at her very soul, then she’s the luckiest person alive.
I’m not married or living with someone, but in behavior therapy we have a technique that is called the “no, no, prompt” sequence. This means, basically, that the person whose behavior you are trying to change gets three chances to follow through with the request.
For instance, you say, “Hubby, can you please pick up this trash?”
If it doesn’t get done, you give negative feedback. “I see the trash is not picked up.” You make the request again. “Can you please pick up this trash?”
The request is still not done. You give negative feedback: “The trash is still on the floor.” Make the request for the third time. “Please pick up the trash now.” This is the time to use the “prompt.” You do what is necessary to make sure the request is met. Stand over him, in front of him, turn off his football game, whatever. When the request is complete, lots of positive praise! “Thanks for doing that for me! smooch”
Of course, you need to choose the appropriate time to make requests. Don’t ask him to do a major project five minutes before leaving the house, when he is really involved in something and it will cause a fight, when you are out of the house and he can’t immediately comply, etc.
No. The part where the door frame attaches to the other walls is unfinished.
Y’know what’s really bizarre? I read the quote, I even QUOTED the quote, and yet somehow ‘beans still in the can’ did not permeate my skull. Thanks for explaining it, as I’d have continued thinking ‘beans in water; no tin’ otherwise.
I blame pre-coffee posting. And inherent dumbassery. 
I don’t think you’re being a dumbass, Bites When Provoked. I think eleanorigby’s husband was performing such a bizzare action it’s hard for non-witnesses to mentally picture. I missed the part about the pan being cast-iron in the first reading.
billfish678, can you re-read this thread, please? Read aloud if you have to, because you really sound like a jerk and I’m hoping that’s not your intent.
I think the important thing is not how eleanor’s husband cooked the beans, but that he did it about the weirdest way possible, instead of just cooking a normal dinner.
I don’t have any problem at all with doing any and everything that needs doing around the house; I’ll do it myself, or I’ll hire a professional to do it. My problem is being thwarted from getting things done by tender feelings getting hurt. If it needs doing, it needs doing - let me at it. It is not a reflection on anyone’s masculinity or anything like that; I just hate procrastination, and I hate living with things that need to get done.
It’s spelled wrong. And for the record, I am weird. That’s what people either love or hate about me.
[QUOTE=The Devil’s Grandmother;10712292billfish678, can you re-read this thread, please? Read aloud if you have to, because you really sound like a jerk and I’m hoping that’s not your intent.[/QUOTE]
Not my intent usually, certainly not here. I apologize if its taken that way. I too blame it coffee not kicking in. But apparently my morning coffee doesnt kick in till about the time I go to sleep at night 
Let me recap.
Its not that good for the pan no doubt. But I’ve boiled water in em in a pinch.
And if his intent was just to warm em up, boiling isnt a requirement, at least not long and vigorous boiling.
If he opened the can, negating an explosion, what the problem?
Its a bit wierd, but I can even see the logic behind it.
No need to get another container dirty so you can place it in the microwave.
Maybe that was just the most handy pan around (or container for the beans) for that matter.
But if it worked, whats the problem?
I see a possible “relationship dynamic problem” here. Well, not here as in THIS posters real life situation, because God only knows whats really going on there, but in generic I am sure this happens in some places kinda “here”.
Lets assume it worked and the pan wasnt instantly ruined. Weird? maybe. Inefficient? maybe. Would/did it heat the things up? Probably.
So, hubby got the task done! albiet in his own weird way. He’s so proud.
SO comes in. “What weird ass way is that to heat beans?! Can’t you do anything right or normal? Your so useless!”
Hubby, thinking to himself, “well, thats the last damn time I heat up any beans”
Thats dynamic’s not gonna help the relationship. And it took both of em to cause it.
How about stereotypical roll reversal.
Woman uses a small wood chisel to pry open a paint can because that just seemed to be the thing to do. Proper manly tool using men will cringe at that thought. The paint can might be messed up and not reseal properly. It’s the hard way to open a paint can. It could easly damage or ruin the chisel. And you could slip and stab yourself doing it.
Now, if it wasn’t some heirloom wood chisel, or no real/lasting damage was done, whats the big deal?. There is no reason to get all melodramatic about it. No need to put in on the permanent mental list of the “horrors she’s perpetrated”. Just a FRIENDLY NON CONDESENDING explanation of why it shouldnt be done that way. Then forget it and move on!
Maybe the guys wife is a useless harpy, but the chisel incident isnt really convincing evidence.
Maybe the posters Can in the Pan Man is a real tool (heh) and IS perfectly useless in a thousand otherways, and from other parts of the post I’d be inclined to believe it, but the frying pan incident isn’t very good evidence of that, and IMO just undercuts the posters credibility (just a little though).
Kinda like going on and on about how horrible OJ Simpson is because of all his unpaid parking tickets.
okay, thats it for me in this thread having anything to do with heating up beans and frying pans, since apparently this is too hot (double heh) a topic and I don’t want be labeled a jerk or a troll. Not that I care too much if somebody out there “thinks” I am, but it would be nice to not be banned because of it.
I suspect the green beans wouldn’t be an issue at all if eleanor’s husband was willing to do any of the other work that needed done around the house for the rest of the family. Aside from cutting the grass, that is. I further suspect, given the laundry story and other stories she’s shared over the years, that he was deliberately doing things as inefficiently and exasperatingly as possible so she’d quit asking him to pitch in. It’s not an uncommon tactic among men who think they should be able to come home and plop on the couch and be done for the day.
And if it makes you feel any better, eleanor, I’ve known men even less inclined to pitch in than your husband. One of my friends is married to one of those “I mow the yard, what else do you want?” guys, and he won’t even start up a video for the kids if she’s in the house. Seriously, she can be in the bathroom by herself for the first time all day (2 kids under 6) trying to take a dump in peace, and he’ll start bellowing that the girls need her. When she comes out, they want juice boxes, or to watch one of their videos, or something else trivial that he could have dealt with, or that could have waited 5 minutes till she got done. She says it makes her want to punch him in the face when he does that, and I understand that feeling completely. Just hearing about it makes me want to punch him in the face.
Wow. Judging by most of the responses here, when I finally get around to doing my profile on a few dating sites I’m not going to bother with stuff like; I enjoy taking long walks and holding hands while reading poetry. Or I love to give massages and just snuggling.
Nope. I’ll just say something like; I enjoy cooking and doing the laundry while vacuuming at the same time! Oh, I’m also quite the handyman around the house! And I don’t procrastinate at all! I also shower on a daily basis and rarely feel the need to scratch my balls.
This should have the gals practically breaking down my door, in theory.
gravitycrash, if you are a guy who truly does pull his weight around the house without procrastinating, you are a priceless gem beyond measure, and whatever woman gets you should treasure that. Seriously, if you actually do what you’re saying (aside from the sarcastic parts), I would put it on a profile. Especially if you’re looking for women in their 30’s or 40’s - they’ll appreciate that more than a 20 year old who doesn’t know yet that women’s lib means that women get to work outside the home in addition to inside it.
I think this is the cause of most of the angst in the thread–there are a bunch of us guys sitting around here either thinking “wow. In my marriage, SHE’S the slob” or “Hey, I do my share of the housework, I wonder if anyone is exaggerating how lazy/stupid their husband is.”
Me, I’m thinking “my wife tells me how lucky she has it that I do bathrooms and laundry”. Best of all worlds. 
To anyone married to the freakish multiple-birth apparently reported here, gimmie a call–men like that can be trained so much more effectively when it’s a 6’ guy with a tire iron doing the training. 
I find this attitude bizarre in the extreme. Your spouse is not your dog, or your child; they are not there to be trained or to learn important lessons on how and when to finish a job.
Before I even continue with this post, I’m just going to state for the record that there are many notable exceptions to what I am about to say. Some people are just lazy fucks, and those people deserve whatever harsh treatment they receive. But I’ll just say that in the vast, overwhelming majority of cases, the attitude above - gotta train my spouse to do as (s)he should, where “as (s)he should” is loosely defined as “as I want” - is more often than not a terrible attitude.
Look, very few people make themselves the villain of their own life story; very few people think of themselves as lazy, shiftless, or unable to complete a task. Usually, if something isn’t getting done, the person who isn’t doing it has a reason, and that reason feels justified to them. They are tired. They are feeling sick, or cranky, or working on something that feels like a higher priority. Or they’ve forgotten.
Think about it: I’ll bet that right this minute, there is something out there that is “your job” that is currently undone, right? Laundry isn’t sorted, car needs an oil change, lawn needs mowing, dog needs grooming, pile of papers needs sorting. Something. Why haven’t you done it? You have an answer, right, and to you, that answer makes perfect sense. You’ve been looking forward to the premeire of Survivor for two months, and it starts tonight, and the laundry can be folded tomorrow; your knee still hurts from playing basketball and the idea of trudging up and down the backyard with the lawn mower right now is out of the question; you missed your appointment at the groomer because you got stuck in traffic on the way home; you just had a really shitty day and can’t face that pile of papers.
Chances are, whatever that thing is that your spouse isn’t getting to, (s)he has a similar set of reasons. Trying obnoxious passive-aggressive “I’m not going to let you rest easy until your priorities are MY priorities” tricks is only going to lead to resentment even if you get your way.
My wife and I had this problem early in our marriage. We divided the household chores equitably. I am responsible for what most people would call “straightening up;” she vacuums and dusts. I do the cooking and the dishes; she does the laundry. I mow; she weedwhacks. Cat food is her territory; cat litter is mine.
Now early on, we’d get in a fight because Monday morning would roll around, and I’d have no clean socks. It was her job to get the socks washed over the weekend, and why couldn’t she see that I needed clean socks? Now over this selfsame weekend, maybe I’d decided to finally tackle cleaning out the garage, and had neglected pick-up detail such that a few used drink glasses had piled up on our dining room table. My wife would get pissed at me about this, and I’d think, Well, sure, I just let the glasses sit, but I spent half the weekend in the garage and I think I deserve some rest time over the weekend.
And then I figured it out: from her perspective, the socks didn’t get washed because she prioritized something else, that seemed important to her, the same way the glasses didn’t get picked up because I set my own priorities. So really, we, as a couple, had two choices. I could keep getting mad on Monday morning because I had no clean socks, or I could check on Sunday afternoon and if I didn’t have any in the drawer, I could run a load of laundry myself. She could nag me incessantly about picking up the dirty glasses in some misguided effort to “train” me, driving me and herself half-mad, or she could pick up the dishes herself.
We both picked the latter option. I strongly recommend it to everyone.
Just how much trash are we talking about that it took several trash bags? Generally, one shouldn’t have trash end up on the floor of the bathroom, thats why the trash can is there. Why didn’t either of you take them from the dining room where they sat for several weeks?
Do you guys use the dining room? Seriously, I’m not a neat freak, but I can’t imagine a situation where letting garbage sit on the dining room floor is a good idea, and not cutting off your nose to spite your face. How messy is that rest of the house?
I agree with this; I have a sister who fights endlessly with her husband because he doesn’t do what she wants, when she wants him to do it. He was like that when she married him; he’s 42 years old - he’d not changing any time soon. I think a more Buddhist attitude would go a long way with her - he is what he is. No, a grown man shouldn’t be expected to live life like a child and have no responsibilities, but he has other responsibilities (he works and she doesn’t). He works hard at his job and makes very good money; he has zero interest in household and yard chores. I think he would happily take some of his hard-earned money and hire people to do things he doesn’t want to do, but for some reason, my sister thinks he should do them. You gotta work with what you have; you can’t waste your life trying to make somebody do something they just won’t do.
Maybe the OP’s husband just hated the doorbell.