How do you cope with a lazy Spouse/Partner?

tea_lover

dandelionclock30 wrote: »

Stop having sex with him until he does his fair share in the house, he'll soon buck his ideas up.

Because sex is something women put up with right? We just lie back and think of England, do our wifely duty? And of course all men are up for it all the time and can't think of anything worse than the little lady not putting out.

What a load of !!!!

onomatopoeia99

freeman3030 wrote: »

Likewise with the vacuuming, he will do it when asked but will do a substandard job (in the hope I wont ask him to do it again).

I quote this from the opening post to highlight a point. Different people have different thresholds for what constituted "too messy" or "needs cleaning".

It is often, but definitely not always, the case that in a heterosexual relationship the man will be more tolerant of mess than the woman. My mess tolerance threshold is very high, for example and if I'm honest I just don't see things that make other people ask "why haven't you vacuumed the floor"? I own a vacuum cleaner, since I live alone it rarely gets used unless I have been doing DIY and made a pile of wood shavings or plaster dust. I'm sure I don't do a good job by many people's standards when I do use it, but it looks like a good job to me.

What this ramble is trying to get to is that in the case of cleaning, you are trying to get him to fix something that (potentially, as we can only speculate) he does not even see as a problem.

This doesn't mean he should do nothing, it means that if he sees dirt on the floor as clearly as I do, all trying to get him to vacuum will do is leave you frustrated.

To balance the load, I used to do a lot of the cooking with my ex and I did the weekly shop and meal planning on my own, as she noticed the need for the vacuum to come out much sooner than I did and I got hungry much sooner!

dandelionclock30

cakeforbrains wrote: »

Agreed. Sex shouldn't be something that a woman gives to a man.

Although, saying that, if I were in the OP's situation I wouldn't want to have sex with my partner because I wouldn't feel emotionally attracted to him... because he was treating me like his mother.

Exactly, how can you sleep with someone who has no respect for you? If he cared about OP he would being doing his fair share not acting like a slob and expecting her to skivvy round.
Hes not a Manchild, saying that is making excuses for him, hes a lazy man who cant be bothered.
I'd just tell him that if he doesnt want to do it thats fine, but he can find somewhere elce to live.

themull1

All three of my husbands (two ex one current) said ' i've just put the washing on FOR YOU' and my current husband is quite lazy, he was moaning that yesterday he had to water the plants, clean kitchen surfaces and get washing in, i said ' welcome to my world' i do these every day. He thinks that because im on the sick with an eye ulcer i should be given a list of jobs to do, paint the garden furniture etc,whilst he's at work errr, no, i'm resting my eye!!

Elsewhere

Hire a cleaner and eat out more often.. There's no reason to go out to work all day and spend what little free time you have doing household chores.

GobbledyGook

We have a whiteboard. All the jobs that need doing on it and each 4 weeks the 4 adults (me, OH, BIL & my cousin's eldest) put their name to the jobs they are going to do.

It started because when we (me, the children & cousin's eldest) moved house OH and BIL were moving in. OH is also my ex husband (I know!) and we both wanted things to be very different this time. I'm starting university in September and I simply won't have time to do everything and with another 3 adults in the house I don't see why I should.

OH and BIL are more than happy to help, but they just don't see things that need done until someone says something. A product from being very spoilt children I think.

The kids use the whiteboard system for their jobs and I wanted to have something up where it was easy to mark up who was out (cousin's eldest is at uni locally and often will go back to her parents when she's got 2 or 3 days off and BIL works random shifts so I don't waste food) so the jobs got added to it one day when I wrote on it that the bin fairy had gone on strike so could one of them sort it. It started an amusing tit-for-tat between them of 'I did X so you should do it' 'No, I did Y so you do it'. It worked well and went from there.

We also brought in a jokey (but semi serious) system of 'If it's your job and someone else has to do it you have to buy the whole house a takeaway'. It's amazing how much better they are at remembering when it's going to cost them!!! They've both got into a routine now and things run much smoother.

We have a cleaner and the result of them pulling their weight better means she has time to all the things I hate like skirtings and windows rather than paying someone to load/unload the dishwasher.

amycool

I'm probably quite rare in that I am the messier in our relationship and tend to do the "male" roles like DIY and gardening, whilst he loves to cook. However, neither of us enjoys certain tasks like washing dishes, washing clothes, cleaning the kitchen and bathroom. We have a simple system - we wash the pots alternately and whilst one does the bathroom, the other cleans the kitchen. Washing clothes is weather dependant so as I am home more I tend to do it more.

As I am naturally quite lazy and will quite happily leave the pots for tomorrow, he sometimes has to tell me off and I begrudgingly do it, but I know it's fair as it drives him mad. I also like to leave clothes on the floor if I think I can get another wear out of them!

It's rare to find someone with exactly the same standards of tidiness as you, so as others have said, compromise is necessary. I don't enjoy seeing my husband frustrated and annoyed because the house is a mess so I drag my ar*e off the settee and do my fair share. Maybe if your partner knew how much it was doing your head in, he would realise the effect he was having by being lazy?