Retraining my hubby

zimm143

We don't iron, life is waaaaaaaaaaay too short to waste precious minutes doing something so unpleasant. Ww just hang our clothes straight onto hangers and the creases fall out. Anything really creased can be hung in the bathroom when you shower for a natural steam iron :-) We budget so we can have a cleaner onc a fortnight who makes sure the plqace gets one good scrub. I cook, he wahses up. I do the laundry, he does the bins and post. It's taken us nearly 6 years of living together to reach this level of "harmony" but if we couldn't afford the cleaner the rwos would return :-(

kazwookie

Magpye wrote: »

Hello all,

I love my hubby dearly and although we have our ups and downs and arguments about money, the one consistent thing in our relationship is that we absolutely adore each other.

HOWEVER! He's absolutely useless at housework (doesn't even try half the time.) My MIL :mad: didn't teach him to do a thing in the house and consequently he can't even iron his own shirt. When we first got together, the chores were meant to be equally shared, but as time went on his side of things started slipping and I (being impatient) picked up the slack, even when I ranted and raved about it. His most irritating habit is to pile up worn clothes on the bottom of his wardrobe - how he thinks I won't notice is beyond me. When I bring it up, he assures me that he'll sort it out - and never does.

The most annoying thing is that I've slipped unthinking into a stereotypical gender role which is the absolute antithesis of my natural inclinations, and it doesn't suit me at all!

I need to retrain him but don't have a clue how (my methods include mostly direct confrontation, and he doesn't respond well to it.) Can anyone give me some pointers?

Send him over to me, I'll soon sort him out, he will come back knowing, how to mop, sweep, hoover, polish, how to work the DW, WM, TD, iron, hang stuff up, put out the rubbish etc :rotfl:

Failing that send him to join the flyladies thread! we like men!!

Good luck .

Girlzmum

kazwookie wrote: »

Send him over to me, I'll soon sort him out, he will come back knowing, how to mop, sweep, hoover, polish, how to work the DW, WM, TD, iron, hang stuff up, put out the rubbish etc :rotfl:

Failing that send him to join the flyladies thread! we like men!!

Good luck .

Can I send my dh over as well?

Kandipandi

:rotfl: This thread has tickled me!:rotfl:

there are so many of us in the same boat - perhaps we should ditch the blokes and pair off, at least the housework would get done :rotfl:

The only real answer is : You cant change him! God knows I have tried.

My DH's opinion is that if I want the house to be spotless then I should clean it, he does not want it spotless and neither do the kids, so its my issue so its my job to do it.

Likewise for decorating, if i want clean fresh walls I have to paint them and he wants nothing to do with it, it would stay unpainted forever if it was up to him. Its a frustrating argument but i cant fault his logic.

This is why people should live together before committing to a long term relationship - I knew what my DH was like and I wanted him anyway - he is brilliant in so many other areas of our lives that cleaning and tidying become less important.

Often it is my problem, I cant stand dishes in the sink when I go to bed so i have to do them or bung em in dishwasher but because that is one of my idiosyncrasies its not fair for me to get upset with my DH if he does not feel the same.

kazwookie

Girlzmum wrote: »

Can I send my dh over as well?

Yep you sure can, oh and I'll teach them to cook as well.!!!


:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

Shelley3774

Iwill say my husband will do things around the house without being asked like cook tea and hoover but he is just not consistent at all. He is quite a disorganised person and therefore nothing has its own "home" in our house. He constantly leaves a trail of bits behind him and i feel like I am always nagging!!
If he could just make the effort to put things away my life would be so much easier - its hard enough keeping the house organised with our two little boys running around without him adding to the mess.
Every now and then i will have a screaming fit at him and he will then make the effort but unfortunately it is short lived. And before anyone says just ignore the mess - I CAN'T !!!!!!!!!

rosered1963

Hi all - what an amusing thread, and all the comments are so familiar to me.

I have been with OH for 9 years, married for a year. I do find that mostly what he wants from me is my attention and love. He does not notice or care what the house looks like. When he tries to multi-task, it often ends in disaster. (eg something in the oven while waiting for the washing machine to finish the cycle - don't even think about it).

I find the best way to get him involved is to ask him to help me and we do jobs together and we chat. Of-course, he never does things as efficiently as me - he is much younger and hasn't had the experience. If he does the washing up, but leaves the pans, I wouldn't point that out, because doing the washing up will seem a negative experience for him and he won't want to do it again. I never nag, or his face turns blank and his eyes glaze over.

Small steps.

Addiscomber

yoni_one wrote: »

I say this because your squeeze sounds exactly like my lazy 18 yo son and woe betide anyone in his future who even remotely attempts to place the blame of his lack of domestic abilities at my door. I've had more stresses over trying to get him to lift a finger as an adult than I ever had with him as a nipper.
Good luck!

I too have been trying to get my eldest to do houshold chores. He just refuses. I leave his plates/cups wherever he leaves them so that he learns, but my DH goes around picking them up :mad: I explained to DH what I am trying to do, but he disagrees and says DS will learn to do these things when he has to :mad::mad: I think I have made progress in that DS rarely asks me to do anything for him that involves me waiting on him, because he knows that I will not. I have decided that if DH wants to be treated as a slave that is his lookout, and it is not worth ruining our marriage by keep arguing about it.

So please don't blame the mums - it may well not be their fault.

LouBlue

Addiscomber wrote: »

So please don't blame the mums - it may well not be their fault.

Oh I blamed OH's mum when he moved in with me as she took GREAT delight in telling me that she did everything for him and that he would be too messy if he moved in with me, and he wouldn't change. :rolleyes:

Well I didn't put up with it, and he did change, much to her disapproval. :rolleyes::D

Jo_R_2

My OH moved in with me straight from his mums and had never lived anywhere else. I reckon there is an element of thruth to men being 'babied' by their mums as OH certainly was - in fact at times he still is!

He is guilty of cultivating a pile of clothes by the side of the bed (usually his work trousers which are dirty as anything by the end of the week) then used to have the nerve to complain I hadn't washed them - he knows better now as if he dares I "helpfully" point out where the laundry basket is and what it is for

I take on most of the housework as he works and I stay at home. During the week this works well, I'll do laundry, washing up, cooking, shopping, vaccuuming, tidying etc. If I'm tired (very pregnant at the mo!) he'll cook dinner for us.

What does get me is that at the weekend, he thinks everything stops. Or should that be everything stops for him?! He'll happily sit and watch from the computer whilst I sort out the washing to be done, vaccuum, or wash up, or he'll helpfully say "leave that babes, I'll do it later...":rolleyes: Three guesses on that one! The only time he does washing up is if I've been too busy doing other stuff and it's piled right up. Can't remember him using the washing machine and he's ironed a handful of times (I absolutely refuse to iron for him, he can do that himself!)

He's a funny one because one of the reasons he didn't like living at home was because his mum fussed round him so much, yet he does slip into babied-child mode and think I'm his mother sometimes... :rotfl: The classic is when he lies in at the weekend, I used to try and gently persuade him to get up a little earlier than he might do so we could go out together and enjoy the day, he'd say leave him alone, he wanted to sleep, so I just stopped because we used to argue about it, then he'd inevitably get up mid-afternoon complaining "why didn't you wake me up earlier babe?" :mad::mad::mad: