# Stuff your better half does that drives you crazy **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 27, 2012, 9:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-your-better-half-does-that-drives-you-crazy/614135 "2012-02-27T09:37:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BrassyPhrase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ea666f/32.png) [@BrassyPhrase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrassyPhrase)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-your-better-half-does-that-drives-you-crazy/614135/21 "2012-02-27T23:32:55Z")
My fella is a saint compared to me. Thank goodness he’s not reading this, b/c it would turn into a pit thread! (I am a deeply flawed person.) The one thing he can’t consistently remember to do, since I’ve met him–IS PUT THE FREAKING TOILET SEAT DOWN. I mean, he’s an adult man who makes a living as a bonafide nerd. He was brought up by a single mom after his dad died when he was young. Before me he was married for DECADES to a woman and had two female children… And he CAN’T REMEMBER TO PUT THE SEAT DOWN. Not to be gross, in addition, we’re a ‘if it’s yellow let it mellow–let’s not waste water’ kinda household, so if it’s 2 am, and I stumble into the bathroom, still asleep, half-blind b/c I have no night vision and I end up sitting in PEEWATER, I sorta get screamy. He’ll be great for months…then one night…peewater. And a lot of yelling. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-your-better-half-does-that-drives-you-crazy/614135/22 "2012-02-28T00:44:55Z")
I am truly sorry to hear about the tragic loss of your arms, **Brassy**. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-your-better-half-does-that-drives-you-crazy/614135/23 "2012-02-28T01:03:34Z")
Hey, in the middle of the night it’s easy to miss it, okay? (got stuck once. let’s not talk about it.) ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-your-better-half-does-that-drives-you-crazy/614135/24 "2012-02-28T01:33:20Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > I am truly sorry to hear about the tragic loss of your arms, **Brassy**. 😉 Heh. Hey, you know they have toilet seats that close on their own now, right, **Brassy**? ---
**Author:** ![BrassyPhrase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ea666f/32.png) [@BrassyPhrase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrassyPhrase)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-your-better-half-does-that-drives-you-crazy/614135/25 "2012-02-28T01:35:39Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > I am truly sorry to hear about the tragic loss of your arms, **Brassy**. 😉 Hey you! 😛 In the middle of the night I have the right to assume my toilet seat is in the locked and ready for loading position! It’s Texas! ---
**Author:** ![kayT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayt/32/3633_2.png) [@kayT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayT)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-your-better-half-does-that-drives-you-crazy/614135/26 "2012-02-28T01:45:41Z")
> [@MLS](#): > > Well, not exactly drives me crazy, not any more. > > My dear husband always – and I mean ALWAYS – underestimates how long it will take to do anything. “We can get to XXX in a half hour.” Um, no. 45 minutes unless you’ve got a helicopter all warmed up in the back yard. “I’ll be ready to go in 5 minutes.” Guess I’ll sit down and read a chapter or two. I’ve learned that nothing anyone does will make him change so we cope by lying for anything important. Or I’ll just admit I want to get to the airport super early because I’d rather wait by the gate for 2 hours than have to worry about missing the check-in. > > Or, “I can fix the XXX in about 2 days.” I know it will take at least a week, because he is counting only the actual number of hours he’s working on the project, not the time lost because he has to go back to the store to get more of something, etc. Oh, yes. I have one of these too. I also do the “I want to get there super early” thing and lie about what time things start. He could not understand my confusion when I was leaving to go to work in the morning and he’d say “see you in a little while.” Um, no, not really a LITTLE while. Apparently we just see time differently. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-your-better-half-does-that-drives-you-crazy/614135/27 "2012-02-28T02:29:54Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > I know what drives my fiance (and everybody else in the world) mildly insane - I can’t seem to help talking through movies. Well, the talking isn’t bad, it’s about the movie, but when it reminds me of something I really want to tell him I pause the movie and sometimes it takes… a while to watch things. I try really hard to be good, but especially if I’ve had a couple glasses of wine I get very chatty. I’m sorry. I have a tendency to zone out during movies and TV shows, so he always gets the inevitable, ‘‘Wait, what’s going on?’’ Sometimes we have to stop the film so that I can understand. Even worse, I sometimes zone out when he’s talking to me. He’ll say something and I’ll start thinking about squirrels or something and before I know it, he has said paragraphs upon paragraphs. ‘‘Wait, could you recap these last five minutes?’’ Do you know what I love about him? He’s very patient. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-your-better-half-does-that-drives-you-crazy/614135/28 "2012-02-28T02:36:44Z")
> [@BrassyPhrase](#): > > Hey you! 😛 > > In the middle of the night I have the right to assume my toilet seat is in the locked and ready for loading position! > > It’s Texas! You know what they say about assuming… It makes an ass out of you in the pee! ---
**Author:** ![Stauderhorse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce7236/32.png) [@Stauderhorse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stauderhorse)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-your-better-half-does-that-drives-you-crazy/614135/29 "2012-02-28T02:57:11Z")
He has this habit of being so intensely focused on something that it’s almost impossible to get his attention. I can say his name a dozen times and he’ll continue reading that email, and only when he’s finished will he respond. It seems like he’s purposely ignoring me when he does this, though he says he’s just super-focused on certain things. Nevertheless, it frustrates the shit out of me. ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-your-better-half-does-that-drives-you-crazy/614135/30 "2012-02-28T05:05:33Z")
> [@Stauderhorse](#): > > He has this habit of being so intensely focused on something that it’s almost impossible to get his attention. I can say his name a dozen times and he’ll continue reading that email, and only when he’s finished will he respond. It seems like he’s purposely ignoring me when he does this, though he says he’s just super-focused on certain things. Nevertheless, it frustrates the shit out of me. He’s annoyed as hell that you’d interrupt him for what is almost certainly something that could wait until he’s finished. My SO is like this too: if a thought occurs to her she has to express it THAT SECOND or she’ll explode. 10 seconds later there’ll be another one, 30 seconds later another one, and so on. She just cannot seem to grasp that a/ it’ll wait b/ if you package all these interruptions into one you’ll get it done quicker AND everyone else will be less frustrated. Basically, if she has something she wants to say it’s infinitely more important that you listen to it than anything else you could possibly be doing, regardless of how trivial it is or what else you might be doing. Her poor kid will be listening to the iPod in the car to avoid being terminally bored on a long trip and she’ll start talking to him as if he were already hanging on her every word. When she realises he’s not listening (because he doesn’t even know she’s talking!) she calls his name louder and Louder and LOUDER. He pulls his earphones out and now everyone’s annoyed - her because “he never listens to me”, he because “she’s always interrupting me” and I because they’re now shouting at each other while I’m driving. Nevertheless she’ll do exactly the same thing a few minutes later. ---
**Author:** ![pbbth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f9ae1b/32.png) [@pbbth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pbbth)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-your-better-half-does-that-drives-you-crazy/614135/31 "2012-02-28T05:32:33Z")
My husband is awesome except that if he has a funny thought he MUST share it with everyone in the room. Often this is fine, but sometimes he just hasn’t thought through why what he is saying could be offensive. For example, since we had a baby we occasionally have people comment on how cute she is and ask what we named her. Instead of just saying, “Her name is Bridget” he told half a dozen different people, “Her name is Bridget. And we spelled it normally, we didn’t change any of the vowels to Y or add an apostrophe or anything like some people who obviously hate their children.” After a few times of this I finally sat him down and explained that these people are strangers, meaning that he doesn’t know what their names are or what they named their children. For all he knows he could be talking to someone named Karyn or Lynda or someone who named their kid Madysyn or something. Once I pointed it out he stopped doing it but it bugs me that he doesn’t think this kind of thing through. The worst one was when he once accidentally mocked a blind girl and didn’t even know he was doing it until I asked him why the hell he would do that. He spent the next half an hour saying, “I swear to god I didn’t know she was blind!” ---
**Author:** ![DataX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@DataX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DataX)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-your-better-half-does-that-drives-you-crazy/614135/32 "2012-02-28T06:09:34Z")
> [@](#): > > accidentally mocked a blind girl I hate the term LOL - as I read it as meaning someone is literally laughing out loud. I never use it, cause it almost never happens from Internet posts to me, but I found my self incredibly amused at this line… Ok - can’t stand the talking in movie thing either. Also - had an ex who seemed to thing it made her look more hygienic to wash her hands before dinner - by using a napkin dipped in the ice water that was brought to the table. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-your-better-half-does-that-drives-you-crazy/614135/33 "2012-02-28T13:09:04Z")
My wife will announce it’s time to go, when she first things about getting ready, not when she’s ready. We’ll be getting ready to go somewhere, have the kids pretty much ready, the diaper bag packed, etc., and she’ll fly down from upstairs and announce “lets go!” and then disappear somewhere. I’ll stop the kids from whatever they are doing, do the final preparations and then. . . nothing. She’s still off somewhere getting ready, while I’m entertaining two toddlers who are unhappy about waiting. She does it when she’s taking our daughter to bed, as well. She’ll tell Beta-chan, let’s go, and then spends 10 minutes doing something else. I’ve pointed out that she’s teaching Beta-chan to learn that mommy doesn’t mean what she says, but this looks like something which isn’t going to change. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Accident](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Mr.Accident](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Accident)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-your-better-half-does-that-drives-you-crazy/614135/34 "2012-02-28T19:17:51Z")
My SO constantly asks me if I’m sure I love her, if I’m bored with her yet, do I hate her. I understand that she’s been traumatized in the past, but these questions do get under my skin at times. Then there’s the fact that she can’t stand for me to see her naked, even though we have sex every chance we get. Finally, the shower thing. If she doesn’t get sweaty or dirty that day, she won’t shower. Even if her last shower was 2 or 3 days back. Since I shower at least once a day, and sometimes as much as 4 times a day, this drives me bonkers. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-your-better-half-does-that-drives-you-crazy/614135/35 "2012-02-28T19:52:02Z")
> [@Mr.Accident](#): > > Finally, the shower thing. If she doesn’t get sweaty or dirty that day, she won’t shower. Even if her last shower was 2 or 3 days back. Since I shower at least once a day, and sometimes as much as 4 times a day, this drives me bonkers. Why in the hell would you shower 4 times a day? If you were my husband, I would be here in this thread posting about _that_. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-your-better-half-does-that-drives-you-crazy/614135/36 "2012-02-28T19:55:26Z")
I’m a little gobsmacked about the cat lover who owns cats knowing that their SO is allergic. Really? ---
**Author:** ![Sister\_Vigilante](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@Sister\_Vigilante](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sister_Vigilante)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-your-better-half-does-that-drives-you-crazy/614135/37 "2012-02-28T21:12:15Z")
My mother owns cats knowing that SHE is allergic. My husband enjoys watching reality TV shows. Even the reruns. Over and over and over and over… If I see the Pawn Stars guys (any of them) laugh that sarcastic, assholish laugh I’m going to punch someone. Then there’s Parking Wars, Storage Wars, American Pickers, Cajun Pawn Stars, Swamp People, Billy the Exterminator, Dog the fricking Bounty Hunter… ugh. ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-your-better-half-does-that-drives-you-crazy/614135/38 "2012-02-28T21:26:15Z")
My SO waits until I’m just leaving the room and the door is about 3-5/8" from being closed and then he’ll ask a question. I can’t count how many questions have been chopped in half. He also does it just as I’m getting in my car and starting to shut the door. ---
**Author:** ![florez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b9e5f3/32.png) [@florez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/florez)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-your-better-half-does-that-drives-you-crazy/614135/39 "2012-02-28T21:34:06Z")
My SO is a big feeder type, and I am just not that into it, and sometimes it drives me crazy. I do not have a big appetite, my size is normal- thin but not too thin; yet he is constantly bringing out the giant portions of food, and when I say it is more then I want, he takes it as a criticism of his cooking. His past women have been bigger by comparison, and sometimes I wonder if he might have had a hand in that. Otherwise he is great, and he likes to cook, and will also wash the dishes. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-your-better-half-does-that-drives-you-crazy/614135/40 "2012-02-28T21:39:36Z")
Here’s mine that may lead to justifiable homicide. I don’t know how it happened but somewhere along the line our tastes split on shows. So he never watches the same shows as me, and these days, I watch a lot of TV, thanks to Netflix. Anyway any show or movie I am watching he doesn’t watch…but he comes in at some point and starts firing off questions. “Why is she doing that?” “Why is she crying?” “Who’s that?” “What’s going on?” Sometimes I pre-empt him as soon as I put the movie in. “I am going to watch X. If you want to know about it, I will tell you. I won’t answer questions in the middle.” Never works. Sometimes I will pause the movie/show to explain it. Never works. Most of the time I get irritated, especially since he has an amazing ability to show up at the most serious scenes and start talking. These times I snap at him. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-your-better-half-does-that-drives-you-crazy/614135.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-your-better-half-does-that-drives-you-crazy/614135.md?page=3)