How do you cope with a lazy Spouse/Partner?

El_Torro

freeman3030 wrote: »

He has an ability to get away with doing nothing (unless I ask) around the house, its not so much the cleaning because I'm happy to clean the house on my days off. But I'm fed up with everything else, cooking dinner, loading the dishwasher, doing the washing, generally tidying up after things have been used etc.

If you're happy to clean the house then maybe keep doing that yourself, especially if his standard of cleaning is lower than yours.

Maybe he could do one of the other things all the time. For example cooking dinner. You say he does it when you ask so just get him to do it every day. Assuming you like his cooking of course

Getting him to wash up, load the dishwasher, put things away after using them, etc... might be harder since that's something he can more easily ignore. Maybe if he cooked the dinner every night he'd have to wash up / load the dishwasher anyway, otherwise he'd run out of clean utensils.

Eliza_2

FBaby wrote: »

So you have different standards so you get frustrated for setting him as lazy he gets frustrated for thinking your a nag. Only way around it you compromise. You both sit down and agree on what is done by whom by when. This way he's got to do it and you don't have to nag.

I did this with mine. We drew up a list of what needed doing then prioritised it, so for example, getting the children up and dressed in the mornings was important, sorting socks wasn't. We both agreed a list and put our initials against each item, all agreed down to the last detail who would do what. We both enthusiastically agreed on our own items, it seemed a great way forward, a really fair compromise.

Then he threw in the comment ' but of course, you can't rely on me to do the things on my list, you'll probably still have to do them'.

And the point of that exercise was??? Hopefully yours is more helpful.

When I used to moan about doing housework etc all weekend while he sat around watching the football etc, his answer was, we should go out more. Fine, the house would be cleaner and I wouldn't see it if it wasn't. However, it was up to me to think of places to go out to, to plan visits, to see what was on, to organise the trips to the park, even just where to go for a walk etc, he didn't do it (after all, it was me that was moaning!) and anyway it had to fit around his tv watching.

I hope you resolve this one as one day when I was cleaning I accidentally threw him into the recycling and life has been very much better since!! We don't need passengers in our lives.

aileth

Agree with sitting down and setting out boundaries. My OH is the king of laziness and even with his allocated work he'll procrastinate as long as possible sometimes.

We have rules such as whoever cooks, the other does the washing up, etc, then for example upstairs rooms & downstairs toilet is my responsibility as well as 95% of the cooking, downstairs & garden & general DIY is his.

This fixed most things, although not my biggest bugbear, where he'd leave for example one sheet of toilet paper on the roll because he couldn't be arsed replacing it for a new one, or about five cat biscuits in the biscuit bag instead of throwing it away and opening another one, even if it means the cats had less biscuits, same goes for juice in the fridge, basically anything, he will leave the teeny tiniest amount so that he doesn't have to replace it or throw it away (really lazy!).

I kicked off once as we were having guests over and I went to clean the toilet, there was one tiny squirt of bleach left. His argument was he didn't understand what the problem was as there was still some left so throwing it out would be 'wasteful', when in fact it was simply that he couldn't be arsed!

Grrrrrrrrrr!

shiney85

I completely understand what you mean about asking them to help with a particular chore, they'll do it, but never think to do it again unless you ask!

I honestly don't know what the answer is, as others have said, you and your OHs idea of clean and tidy varies and there's not a lot you can do about it...I know that's not helpful! I just tend to ask my OH, and he will help, or I just get on and do it, daft really, but I do prefer a nice, clean house.

Yesterday my OH told me the reason he leaves clothes on the bedroom floor is because they're not fully dirty, so that's why he hasn't put them in the wash bin, they're "part-baked" and so putting them back in the drawer would contaminate the clean clothes...I didn't know whether to laugh or cry! We've compromised and assigned him a part-worn clothes drawer....bless him...

tea_lover

shiney85 wrote: »

Yesterday my OH told me the reason he leaves clothes on the bedroom floor is because they're not fully dirty, so that's why he hasn't put them in the wash bin, they're "part-baked" and so putting them back in the drawer would contaminate the clean clothes...I didn't know whether to laugh or cry! We've compromised and assigned him a part-worn clothes drawer....bless him...

Ah yes, the floordrobe :mad::rotfl:. I've at least managed to confine OH's pile of half-worn clothes to the spare room. I can close the door on them and enjoy the nice tidy bedroom we sleep in .

Morglin

Some people (especially blokes!) don't worry about when something is done......so, you will either have to go with his timeline, or do it yourself.

The World Cup is starting, and I have told DH (who cannot stand football) that I will be watching it, so he will have to pick up the slack.

I imagine, in a lot of homes, it will be the man, not the woman, saying this, so it's a difficult time to start insisting on jobs being done!

Lin

rach13

I had the problem of everything being half done! So it would have just been better to do the whole thing myself. Example, empty drier and put cloths upstairs - hours later - find them in basket at bottom of stairs?

I kept complaining that if everything was going to be half done I would only half cook the dinner - and then one night I snapped and did - roast chicken, carrots, gravy etc and then 3 dirty potatoes straight from the garage - now my threats are not so empty more things get finished

Georgiegirl256

PenguinJim wrote: »

I do our housework because I love my partner and want her to relax and live in a nice home - I didn't keep things as clean when it was just me. I don't honestly know if doing/not doing housework is a reliable indicator of whether or not someone loves you, but... that's all I have to say about that.

It's definetly taking someone for granted, and that's a fact.

I'm lucky in that my husband is very domesticated (probably more so than me tbh!) and can't stand a mess, dishes not done etc etc. From the start, we split chores 50/50. We both worked full time and it's the fair thing to do.

I seriously think it all depends on the person though, be it male or female, some people are just genuinely more slovenly and lazy than others, and the only way you're going to get anywhere OP is to make it known you are being serious when you have a talk with him or he's not going to listen and he's just going to take it as nagging....and no-one likes being nagged at.

BigAunty

Is the laziness the only expression of disrespect in the relationship?

I only ask this because on this forum (and Debt Free Wanabee), its often just one aspect of a whole array of poor behaviour on the partner's behalf and quite often accompanied by things like debt, addictions, the prioritising of time and money spent on their social activities and interests at the expense of family/couple activities, criticism of their partner and so forth. Upon trying to discuss matters to address the imbalance in the relationship, the partner blames them for their behaviour, gets defensive or, at most, promises to improve and either doesn't or it only lasts briefly. It seems like quite an entrenched thing, like its their right or privilege to prioritise themselves.

So if its just a bit of laziness around the house, it's perhaps fixable if you persist politely and ignore the automatic reaction of asking for a fairshare of effort around the house as 'nagging'.

Second stage is to stop enabling the behaviour and understand that you are facilitating the inequality by not pushing back. That's when you start cooking for yourself, doing just your own laundry and foodshopping, paying for a cleaner from the joint account, tossing his scattered belongings into a box.

snowleopard61

El_Torro wrote: »

Maybe he could do one of the other things all the time. For example cooking dinner. You say he does it when you ask so just get him to do it every day. Assuming you like his cooking of course

This sounds a good idea because it's one of the few things that he is likely to care about at least as much as you do. Are there any other tasks you do now that he could take on, and which he won't be able to tolerate leaving undone? - perhaps something like gardening?

(By the way I completely sympathise with the issue of differing tolerances for mess - or jobs done so badly you'd rather have done them yourself - although in my case it's with young adult children.)