Newlyweds living with parents..starting to go mad

galvanizersbaby

Merrywidow wrote: »

Hi galvanizersbaby - didnt mean to be so dogmatic about teaching your son to cook - but they are never too young to take their dishes from the table to the sink or dishwasher, put their dirty clothes in the wash basket etc etc.

On a lighter note, a very old friend and mother of my godchildren couldn't get out of bed in the morning to save her life. Her kids over the years, from 6 or 7'ish got themselves up, washed and dressed, sliced bread and made toast and then bought their mum a cup of coffee before they left for school. Because my friends cooking was rubbish they got used to making their own food. Years down the line my friend died of cancer and her useless husband who was quite content to be waited on (if she asked him to lay the table he tossed a few mats in the general direction of the table and sat down again.) My goddaughter cooked for him for a while and then she married and left home. Low and behold he had to learn how to cook at 70 years of age and within a short time was making full roast dinner, curry you name it. He scoured the cookbooks and now at 82 he is still going strong. Not to mention the washing and ironing. Just goes to show they can if they want to.

As you say men in general would rather be waited on. Get them EARLY is all I have to say. Oh how I wish I had had a son, his wife would have been very happy.

:rotfl: No worries! - mine both get up and make their own breakfast at the weekend as they like to be grown up and it gives them a bit of independence (wouldn't let either of them use the kettle or the toaster unsupervised though tbh)
He does run me a bath and put his own clothes toys away but it's much more of an effort to get him to do so than it is for my daughter but he will learn.:D
Have the added problem that his younger sister is happy to run around after him so have to make sure she doesn't do his jobs too :mad:

Guess all we can do is bring our children up to be independent and caring.

My OH is a much better cook than I am and has been used to living on his own for some time but he still has the doting mother from hell :mad:

Merrywidow

What is it with these doting mothers? Nothing wrong in love for your kids but they turn them into zombies by the time they go out into the world. When my MIL died suddenly, my FIL was left at home with my BIL who was 30 and unmarried. Because of my MIL's wish to make her whole family dependent on her she had never taught them a thing. My FIL went to the hole in the wall for money in his 70th year for the first time. I had to take them both into the kitchen and teach them to make a cup of coffee, boil potatoes, cook meat and veg etc. The washing machine lessons were hilarious! Washing up was a foreign country.

I was glad I lived in another country otherwise they would have had me in there as official housekeeper. NO WAY. Unfortunately my FIL died himself within 3 months. I could go on for hours as I am sure you could too.

margaretclare

Merrywidow wrote: »

What is it with these doting mothers? Nothing wrong in love for your kids but they turn them into zombies by the time they go out into the world. When my MIL died suddenly, my FIL was left at home with my BIL who was 30 and unmarried. Because of my MIL's wish to make her whole family dependent on her she had never taught them a thing. My FIL went to the hole in the wall for money in his 70th year for the first time. I had to take them both into the kitchen and teach them to make a cup of coffee, boil potatoes, cook meat and veg etc. The washing machine lessons were hilarious! Washing up was a foreign country.

I was glad I lived in another country otherwise they would have had me in there as official housekeeper. NO WAY. Unfortunately my FIL died himself within 3 months. I could go on for hours as I am sure you could too.

It reminds me.

Although my first husband appeared to be 'joined at the hip' to his mum during the early days of our marriage, in fact he was very capable, having learned to do a lot of things for himself in the forces/merchant navy. She was the one who thought he was 'still her little boy'. I came to rely on him a lot in later years, when I had a career and his health deteriorated. He could still do a lot at home.

When he died aged 58 in 1992, after a while I used to arrange to go out for a drink with guys via the 'lonely hearts' column in the paper. One, I recall very well. He started the conversation by saying that his wife had died, he'd had to learn to cook, and 'in 35 years of marriage he'd never so much as made a cup of tea, still less made a meal' and he looked at me hopefully.

My bottom didn't even hit the chair, I was out of there so fast.

alohahawaii

margaretclare wrote: »

It reminds me.

When he died aged 58 in 1992, after a while I used to arrange to go out for a drink with guys via the 'lonely hearts' column in the paper. One, I recall very well. He started the conversation by saying that his wife had died, he'd had to learn to cook, and 'in 35 years of marriage he'd never so much as made a cup of tea, still less made a meal' and he looked at me hopefully.

My bottom didn't even hit the chair, I was out of there so fast.

That's really sad! I love making meals with my BF, I wouldnt like to do everything for someone 100% or the other way round.

My dad was a bit like that before he left my mum wouldnt get out of bed unless she had made him a cup of tea and a bacon and egg sandwich and even then he still wouldnt wake up

haha

Merrywidow

Isn't it horrendous just how many men there are who expect a wife to wait on them, I am beginning to think its not their mother's fault but an inbuilt gene.

Got to go now - more later - off to the Paula Carr trust for my annual eye screening. MW

margaretclare

I think it's a case of 'start as you mean to go on'.

As a bride you have the choice - are you going to be the kind of wife who waits hand and foot, as in the case of alohahawaii's parents OR are you going to be more independent. If a man wouldn't get out of bed until I brought him a bacon sarnie, all I can say is, unless he was ill or something genuine, then he would stay in bed for a heck of a long time!!!!

Although I was young and ignorant, in the early days of my first marriage I laid down the ground rules. Mum had a part-time job and OH worked in a factory. It was expected that I would stay at home and look after Dad (who died the following year, gas in WW1 plus a lifetime of smoking had destroyed his lungs). I found myself a job within days, before I'd been married a week. I was also pretty hopeless at washing, which I was expected to do within 2 days of the wedding. Everything came out funny colours and I used too much gas - they had a gas clothes-boiler, I'd never seen one before.

From that very first typing job within days of marriage, I've always been a working wife. When we did get back together again, when I was half-way through my nursing course, OH did recognise that was how it had to be.

As to that poor woman who died after 35 years of marriage and husband had never so much as made a cup of tea, it's hard to move the goalposts after that length of time. You have to make it clear at the beginning.

hev_2

I have taught OH how to cook basics, the rest he has managed himself. In the first year at uni all he ate was cod steak and oven chips, because that was all he knew how to make. One of the first things I did was teach him to make a chilli. Now he is a better cook than me.

I have been less successful with washing/ironing. I think he would do it if he could but he has one of those 'mental block' things, bless him, and really struggles with the washing machine. And if you had seen him trying to iron a double duvet case with the point of an iron...

I am determined that when DS leaves home he can cook a meal, make a budget (which I am currently struggling with) and iron a shirt. Mind you, at just under two years he is already tidier and, I suspect, more organised than me :rotfl::rotfl::o

To the OP - how you live your lives together now will shape how your future goes. It is as if you are laying down rails in the direction you will travel. It is possible to change direction but desperately hard. At first I lived with my in laws, then in a cottage owned by them, and it nearly destroyed me and our marriage. As soon as you can make your own space and you will enjoy things so much more, I promise!

cupid_s

I would definately disagree that living with parents is a recipe for disaster. We did it for 15 months, getting married halfway through. Things were difficult at times, but no more so than we'd experienced when we were house sharing with other students for 2 years while we were at uni. Whilst it was for a lot less time than you have been living with your parents for, I could have carried on for another couple of years easily, as long as my parents were fine with that (which they probably wouldn't have been!).

Why exactly are you starting to go mad? Are the reasons things you can discuss and work out a solution between the two of you and your parents? I second the suggestion to maybe set aside some of the money you're saving to have days/eveings out/weekends away to give you a break.

Merrywidow

When my MIL died at 73, my FIL made his first cup of coffee in 45 years of marriage. ( You could stand your spoon up in it) The following day he asked me to find his clean pants and socks and iron a shirt for him. I taught him to cook potatoes and meat, use the washing machine and all the rest. That was all too much and he just sat around till my BIL (30 and a teacher and still at home) came home and did the shopping and cooked an evening meal.

It beggars belief that such men exist. They wouldnt have lasted long in my mother's household.