Sounds like it’s time for a divorce. Oh wait, that might be a bit of an overreaction … yeah.
Ladies, what is with this insistence that everything must be hidden. If I just leave everything out in the open, then it will be right there and ready to find the next time I need it. And if you didn’t keep hiding everything, we wouldn’t have to keep asking where it was.
The little lady drives me nuts. I come home from work and leave my briefcase in the front hall, right where I’ll be able to find it the next morning. And empty my pockets on the hall table. Carefully drape my jacket over the railing. The next morning, every damn thing have been spirited into various closets and drawers throughout the house.
As far as tossing stuff out or putting it away is concerned, you simply don’t appreciate the fact that guys are masters of efficiency and incrementalism. Say I had a screwdriver out *(humor me and assume I actually did a mild household repair. Actually, I probably used it when I couldn’t find the can opener!) * What’s with the insistence that it make its way back to the workroom and into the toolbox right this instant, not to mention before we move to a new house.
First of all, maybe I’ll put it away the next time I head in the general direction of the workroom. Second, think of all the time I’ll save if it turns out the next time I need the screwdriver I need it IN THIS SAME ROOM! Hey, it’s possible. Finally, why is it not enough that I moved it all the way to the side of the kitchen nearest the basement steps. In another week or 2 it might make it downstairs. Then in another couple of months it will actually get into the workroom. (Forget the toolbox - that’s too much to ask.)
And this cleaning mania. Don’t you realize stuff just gets dirty again?
Closing closets and drawers? Heck, chances are I’m going to be needing something in there sooner or later. Think of all the time I’ll save - not to mention hinge wear and tear - by not having to open annd close the drawer/door everytime.
And why must everything be done NOW? Wait a minute and a commercial will come on. Guys figger there is always a chance, however remote, that if he procrastinates long enough the need to act will evaporate.
And don’t say you weren’t forewarned. When we moved in together before we were married, on moving day, I was faced with the classic quandry of a sink full of dirty dishes. Well, the new place had a sink too, and the dishes pack pretty much the same dirty as clean. Is it my fault that we ended up using your dishes in our first apt., and didn’t open that box-o-hell until we moved a year later?
I sympathise that you have this irritation.
But I must point out that many men think this way:
“If it works, don’t change it. Now, what’s on TV?”
So if your hubbie puts garbage above the can, it gets put into the can and taken away.
Problem? What problem?
You have an addiction, and must face up to it.
You have to stop putting the garbage into the can.
Depending how much you value the relationship:
-
Put the garbage in one of his possessions (car, clothing drawer etc)
-
Leave the garbage where it is (I realise this is a toughie for you, so get ready to explain that the smell makes you ill and you need a weekend at a **really ** nice health spa where you will be pampered)
-
Hire a cleaner.
Remember, many men think that bringing home a wage means they don’t have to do any housework. (I blame the mothers!). They do however accept that some money will have to be spent for peace and quiet.
Use this belief in your favour.
The fact that he took money w/o asking doesn’t seem wrong to me (as long as that’s the type of relationship you have) but leaveing you with the same problem that he was trying to solve (being without money) seems a bit thoughtless. That he would assume his being without money was worse than you. (Why couldn’t he have taken enough money to get enough gas to go to the ATM?)
YMMV
PC
bodypoet
Calling your husband a pig, and asking if you take drugs is what I should have said, rather than asking why you married the guy in the first place? Then quickly telling you to divorce him on top of that?
I didn’t call anyone stupid. You tell me you married and had 3 kids with a guy who, in your own words, would do absolutely no basic chores aside from his job, and then you ask me do you sound stupid? No, I only hear the bad stuff your husband does, I’m sure there are many reasons you married him. I’m also sure the problems in the marriage are from both sides.
Goodness gracious, you gals should have just married me!
rynn
I didn’t tell YOU anything about my relationship. I posted to commiserate with a poster who has some of the same marital issues I do, as did several other posters. You obviously don’t sympathize, which is peachy. Free world and all that.
I think it goes without saying that none of us is perfect, and that problems exist on both sides. But this thread, in particular, is about a particular problem–spouses who don’t do their share of the housework. If you wanna start a thread about the great things our spouses do, or why we married our spouses, then do so, and I imagine that many of the same people grousing here will also show up to laud their spouses there.
No one is amazed at the insight that problems in the marriage are from both sides. Really.
If you can read your earlier post and truly NOT see that it comes off as offensive, then I have neither the time nor inclination to educate you further.
In my experience it’s not that women feel the chores are theirs to do in the first place. But if men who are willing to let someone else handle chores handle them the way my husband does ( cleaning the kitchen consists of putting dishes into the dishwasher only when every dish in the house is dirty, unloading them as they are used.Appliances, walls,floors,counters, etc never need to be cleaned at all.), then even a woman who is not a neat freak and who doesn’t think the chores are hers to begin with (like me) will end up doing them. I do want to point out though, that for me (and probably many others) the irritation comes not so much from the fact that my husband does less of the work of maintaining a house than I do, but from the fact that he essentially grabs all of the free time. I don’t think I’d resent doing most of the housework if I worked many fewer hours than he did. I do resent that the work needs to be done ( yes, kitchen floors must be mopped more than once a year),and that he spends possibly two to three hours a week doing one chore or another and I spend two to three hours every evening doing chores of some sort while he is either watching TV or doing something else he enjoys.It’s not so much the work that bothers me, but the thoughtlessness of his relaxation having a higher priority than chores, although he knows that his behavior leaves me with almost no really free time.
Okay, I gotta say that the single most painful, irritating thing in this whole situation for me (same as most of you other women) is that he sees absolutely nothing wrong with sitting in the recliner watching TV while I work. Doesn’t bother him a bit. So why do I feel so guilty on the rare occasion I let him clean the kitchen alone?
Following a close second behind that is when he keeps dragging me into his chores. For example, he’s cleaning the kitchen. I’m doing laundry. “Honey, will you empty the dishwasher, please?” or “Can you just put the leftovers away?” Then first thing you know, my chore is neglected and he’s only had to do half of his.
Why do I keep falling for that anyway…?
Hey, maybe he gives his relaxation higher priority because he wants to relax. Maybe he figures that if his wife wants the house so spic and span, then she can be the one to spend all of her time cleaning it. Maybe you need to relax too.
My point is, you lable this “thoughlesness,” when it entirely possible he knows exactly what he’s doing. I, for one, desperately need to relax when I come home from work.
-
- For the record, this poster has cooked 50% of his meals, washed most of his dishes, and done 95% of his own laundry since the age of 9.
From one dragon to another, I feel your pain. Mr firedragon was raised in a traditional Catholic household where his mom is pretty much a slave. He knows that it is wrong to force women to clean up after him, and yet, if I don’t do it, it will never get done. Even as I write this, there are two sinks full of dishes, and his dirty clothes from one end of the house to the other. I have gone on strike. All of our friends know that he is a complete and utter slob, so if they come over and the house is a disaster, they know why. I mean, I’m not Joan Crawford. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but is it too much to ask that he help a little? I have to admit that I do the trash on the counter thing, but that’s only when he lets the garbage can overflow. He tells me I’m liberated, so I can take it out. I’m liberated and 4’11", so dragging around a huge bag of trash kind of isn’t feasible. Especially when there’s a healthy 5’10" man who’s a lot stronger than I am. His sister(who’s a nun, BTW) told me to dump the trash in bed if he refused to take it out. As fun as that would be, I still have to sleep there. He dirties up the sheets enough. He’s the nicest guy in the whole world, but sometimes I just want to hit him in the head with a castiron skillet!!! So, I don’t know what to tell you. I recommend a strike. When he gets tired of having to hand wash dishes everytime he wants to eat something, or not being able to find his shoes, maybe he’ll want to help. That’s what I’m hoping anyway. Also, to prevent pissed off Catholic flames, that’s HIS family, not all Catholics. I know a lot of Catholic moms who would laugh their asses off at the prospect of waiting on their husbands. I can’t even begin to get into why a nice pagan like myself married into such a family. That’s a different post entirely. Good luck, dragongirl, you’ll need it.
I do need to relax, too.and I don’t want the house spic and span. I just don’t want the health dept condemning it, and I want to have clothes to wear to work. Really, I have very low housekeeping standards.But doing the majority of the work required for even my low standards (which includes a fair amount of dropping off or picking up one kid or another), while also working a full-time job doesn’t leave me much time to relax.
He does know exactly what he’s doing in that he knows he wants to relax. He’s thoughtless in the sense that it never crosses his mind that perhaps I would like to also.
You know what pisses me off? My wife continually leaves pots and pans in the sink to soak. I keep telling her that the sink is for working not storage. When I make meals, I like to work in a clean organized kitchen and maintain it as such throughout the preparation so that following the meal, all one has to do is put away the table dishes and cutlery. It just pisses me off when I have to clean her dirty pots just so I can clean mine. If she wasn’t so damn good in every other department I’d really give her a piece of my mind. Any suggestions how I could cure her of this bad habit?
Wife of a Doper…must not post…must not…