I’m getting tired of being the household beast of burden. Last night I decided to try and make just ONE damned chore in the house equitable. I assigned one kid to empty the dishwasher, the other to fill it, and my husband to wash whatever large items wouldn’t fit in the dishwasher. We discussed it. He agreed it was fair. I HATE a dirty kitchen and can’t cook when it’s filthy and I’m tired of doing all the cleanup before slaving away at the stove and then repeating.
Spoiler: he did not wash the dishes. He played video games and then went to bed. I washed them this morning.
I was mildly annoyed (read this happens constantly so I’m used to it) and told him just now that since I washed those dishes, could he please put them away. He’s doing that now, but his response has me fucking fuming.
“Why wouldn’t you just wait until I washed them? Why did you HAVE to do the dishes just to make me feel bad about it?”
I was mildly annoyed before and now I’m just fucking furious. He has no idea why I would even consider that manipulative. I’m so mad right now I can’t even find the words to productively explain to him why that statement was so offside.
Help me, sisters. I can’t even find the words.
What I notice is that you are the one in the relationship who ultimately has responsibility for making sure the dishes get done. That means planning, delegating, following up when tasks don’t get done, and doing it yourself if it ends up not getting done.
It sounds like you’re also responsible for the cooking, which probably also includes planning, shopping, gathering ingredients, organizing the pantry, delegating, and finally the act of cooking itself.
I’m just trying to point out the high amount of mental load and management responsibilities involved in these two tasks.
On the other hand, he gets the benefit of the output of your hard work – the distilled and delegated task of just washing the pots, pans, etc. It probably only takes 10 minutes, and he already knows exactly what to do, who needs to do it, etc.
Just from what you’ve said here, it sounds like he’s getting a really good deal, only needing to do a short delegated task and then getting to go play video games. And he’s skipping even that short task.
Whether he does it in the evening or morning clearly makes a huge difference because the task is required before making breakfast, otherwise the pots and pans get in the way. He needs to understand that.
I don’t know what else is going on in your relationship and who is responsible for what other tasks. It sounds like you’re saying that other chores are just as bad. Overall it seems really unfair to me.
Agreed.
But I think the fury is coming from the accusation that she did the dishes just to make him feel bad. Like she’s looking for opportunities to bring him down. The insinuation that she’s betraying the relationship by attacking him.
That’s where the manipulation is.
It’s been 15 years of failed attempts to change her husband according to OP.
Imagine 15 years of someone setting goals for you, and you constantly failing, and them getting upset. It could be manipulation, but it could also just be panic. This situation gives me anxiety 😅
Like OP straight up tells her partner she hates being married to him…
I’m not a woman either, but I’m a man struggling with ADHD, I have similar experiences with dirty dishes (and other things). It’s so difficult to remember to do things you have agreed to do and even if you do remember it can be impossible to get started, unless you have figured out a system that works for you.
If someone at work asks me to look something up or do something and they say that I can do it whenever I have time, it’s never going to get done, I need some sort of deadline to be able to start (usually as close as possible to the deadline).
I’m not saying your husband has ADHD, I’m just saying he might need more “structure” or a time when the task is supposed to be completed. Not everything is done out of malice or lack of respect.
Just my two cents since I don’t know that much about either of you.
Edit: Since ADHD is a spectrum disorder, it’s not a “one glove fits all” kind of situation, everyone have different experiences with different areas. We suffer from time blindness as well, making it hard/impossible to set goals for the future and to achieve those goals.
I’m sympathetic to adhd because I have it up the wazoo. It’s not even the forgetting. It’s the “to make me feel guilty” which puts the responsibility for his feelings of inadequacy on me. If he feels guilty it’s because he f’ed up. I’m not doing it to him and it’s a strategic ploy to make me feel ashamed for not just accepting his half assed effort.
Or he already feels guilty that you did the task instead of him, so that he feels that he let you down. As I said before, I’m just speculating from my own experiences with letting my wife down (and people at work) by not doing something that I agreed to do, that shouldn’t be hard but is hard since I was unable to get it done.
Have you talked with him about your ADHD? And that you need support from him to be able to maintain a tranquil environment at home?
His response is absolutely not an appropriate response for an equal partner to make, and he knows it and knows you didn’t do it to “make him feel guilty.” He feels bad and so he wants you to feel bad, and that’s just not how adults deal with their feelings. I feel close to this because I could see myself slipping into being like this person if I weren’t devoted to being an equal partner.
If he wants to be an equal partner, he needs to own up to his mistakes, acknowledge the emotional labor you’re doing, and come up with accommodations for his shortcomings. You have tried to accommodate for him, and that’s just taking on more emotional labor without any payoff. You’re not his mother, your his spouse, you shouldn’t have to tell him what, when, and how to take care of these things. He may need accommodations, and he can ask for help, but you can’t accommodate for him.
That said, my spouse and I both struggle with ADHD and one way we’ve accommodated our shortcomings is we have a stamp sheet which we fill out every week with cute stamps depending on who completed the task (mine is a penguin). It’s taken a lot of the emotional labor off of both of us, and shows what we need to do or if we’re done for the week and can relax. I’m not saying that solution will help in your case, but recognizing he has a problem, needs accommodations which may involve the whole household is the second step he needs to take. The first, of course, being that he needs to stop trying to make you feel bad because he feels bad. He’s gotta cut that shit out.
Another thing with ADHD (as you might know) is that the frontal lobe isn’t fully developed, which makes it harder to regulate your feelings and how to respond.
I love the idea of a stamp sheet or something like that to make it clear what needs to be done, I often don’t see things that my wife finds obvious and that can lead to irritation, but we have been able to get past that since we talked about my shortcomings and what I need support with to be able to do them.
If it’s his responsibility to do the dishes, you cannot do them for him. I need a couple of weeks to get used to new responsibilities in the household. You gave your husband a solid 12 hours. He probably feels like you didn’t even give him a proper chance, hence his response. He probably wasn’t trying to be manipulative.
It’s going to be really frustrating for you, but IMO the only way to solve this, will be to not touch the dishes for a couple of weeks.
Do situations like that - your feelings getting invalidated and turned on yourself - happen more often or is it uncommon?
And I can see why you struggle to put this in words and explain it to him, because to me it seems like its so many layers you would need to explain to him before he would be able to see his manipulative behavior. This is something I would really struggle to do myself, so i can just send you virtual hugs.
Sorry if this unwanted advice, feel free to skip the stuff below if you just want advice regarding that specific situation.
Reading your comments, I am wondering, do you have any boundaries regarding chores and their distribution? Like if nothing changes, how long can you live with it? What is the minimum of understanding/change you want to achieve to stay in this relationship? Are there any red lines for you? How do see your own situation when you are sick for a longer time or older or have to work for more hours a week?
I feel like you already took a huge effort to communicate with your husband, to provide resources and free education, to be understanding, to deal with constant mild annoyance. It seems like that did not change anything. Right now it seems more than reasonable to check in with your own needs, expectations/hopes/wishes for the future and if you actually believe in your husbands willfulness&ability to change his ways.
