OT: Are men really that dumb when it comes to house stuff

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13

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  • Wizzle
    Wizzle Posts: 97 Member
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    I hear you all. My fiance is the same way. Oh, and they are not clueless they just are LAZY and do not want to do it. I get tired of asking for help. So, I just do it all myself!!!! I am glad I am not alone. It is so hard to diet, work all day, workout, clean a house, and cook a dinner. I can't imagine if kids were added into my equation. More power to you women who do it all. Your wonder women!
  • psuastro97
    psuastro97 Posts: 125
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    My gripe is a time thing. I ask hime to take out the trash and he says "Sure". Well, hours go by and it's stll overflowing on to the floor. So I start to take it out myself. When he sees me doing it he'll say "I told you I'd do it, I'm just waiting for .....Why can't you just wait?" Well, if I wanted the trash taken out 5 hours later, I would have said "Honey, can you take the trash out 5 hours from now?". No, when I ask it's because it needs to be done in the present time!!! This is our biggest fight over ANY thing I ask him to do!!!!!!!!!!!!! UGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

    But mostly he's a great guy!

    Memaw

    You took the words right out of my mouth!!!!!!!! My favorite is when the trash is overflowing - literally. you need to smoosh it down furter to throw anything else in, and then it all pops back up and out of the garbage. After my husband just does the smoosh thing, i'll say "Can you take the garbage out while I finish the dishes?" and EVERY TIME he says "Is it ready to be emptied?" AS IF HE CAN'T SEE TRASH OVERFLOWING!!!!


    I have realized we have VERY different levels of cleanliness....So i try to think of what's worth it. Is it better to just do it yourself ansd know it is done when you wanted it done (not 5 hours later) or to have the irritation/frustration of hearing the response when you ask....and then maybe it gets done without attitude (if you're lucky)
  • sculley
    sculley Posts: 2,012 Member
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    the shavings in the sink YESSSSS!!!! grrrr


    but don't get me started on my household pet peeves
  • sgtinvincible
    sgtinvincible Posts: 2,559
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    Wow.


    Ok, well....uhm...I guess the answer to the topic question is 'yes, definately. We pretty much are dumb neanderthals sometimes.'

    That said, I do try to help out. I admittedly have been the guy playing WoW while my ex cleaned up. But I have also been the person mowing the lawn, fixing stuff around the house, cooking dinner (I primarily cooked when I was married to my ex), fixing cars, doing laundry (that was my chore...I don't hate it...much....), Did dishes etc while she was watching CMT *shudder* or was talking to her 'sisters'.

    I am pretty much ADD most of the time. I would try to help pull weeds, or dust furniture...my attention span always just got pulled off to something shiny or I went off to imagination land (like JD from Scrubs). It's not that I didn't appreciate what she was doing, God knows I did...it just wasn't the priority to me that it was to her. (A lot of the time I just wanted to spend some time with her as opposed to wathcing her dust a coffee table that had been dusted the day before). I know it's no excuse...but it's true.

    Now I am done incriminating myself, I shall add to the venting...

    I am not the cleanest person by far, but I do like to have some semblence of order around my house. My roomate on the other hand...DOES NOT. I spent the first two months trying to keep dishes clean (I wash my dishes as soon as I am done with them) and trying to keep the common areas of the house picked up (even as my personal space is a disaster). After one weekend away I came home to find *EVERY* dish I owned dirty and in the sink. I refused to clean his mess and there they sat. When he needed a dish he would just improvise. I had this little plastic baseball hat sitting on top of the dish shelf...it became a cereal bowl for him.

    So Manda comes over, she wants to do something nice for us and cook. God bless the girl, she attacked that pile of dishes like the blitzkrieg throug France. What did Justin do...he sat in the kitchen, not saying a word playing with his little metal miniatures. Here my new girlfriend is doing something so sweet and amazing (and yes I was helping her) and he never even uttered a thank you...DESPITE it all being his crap. (Stupid only child....*no offense to only children, but he is hardcore spoiled*). It totally ticked me off. I mean, cmon man, try to help...even a little. It amazes me that there are people (most of them guys) that would rather live in absolute filth then get up off their lazy butts and clean up. I mean it takes freakin 15 minutes. And the thing about it, is when I finally get tot he point I can't stand it any longer, swallow my pride and clean up his messes, it's about one day before it's right back where it was. ARRRRRGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (and he LOVES to leave shaving residue everywhere...it's like he plans on it...this drives me FREAKIN OUT OF MY MIND)

    Anyhoo, ya'll aren't alone in this. Most guys are just lazy. I like to be lazy too. (and my attraction to shiny objects doesn't help either). Ya'll are appreciated though. I know it doesn't really seem like it most of the time....but it is. Even if it's just by me and the other fine MFPers. I, even as a guy, totally feel your pain.

    Oh, and one last thing...Manda, honey, thank you so much for everything you have done for us at the house already. You are amazing. (even if I ask you not to do it, and you say ok, then I go to work and when I get home you are like 'Teehee')
  • greysweatshirt
    greysweatshirt Posts: 411
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    Wow.


    Ok, well....uhm...I guess the answer to the topic question is 'yes, definately. We pretty much are dumb neanderthals sometimes.'

    That said, I do try to help out. I admittedly have been the guy playing WoW while my ex cleaned up. But I have also been the person mowing the lawn, fixing stuff around the house, cooking dinner (I primarily cooked when I was married to my ex), fixing cars, doing laundry (that was my chore...I don't hate it...much....), Did dishes etc while she was watching CMT *shudder* or was talking to her 'sisters'.

    I am pretty much ADD most of the time. I would try to help pull weeds, or dust furniture...my attention span always just got pulled off to something shiny or I went off to imagination land (like JD from Scrubs). It's not that I didn't appreciate what she was doing, God knows I did...it just wasn't the priority to me that it was to her. (A lot of the time I just wanted to spend some time with her as opposed to wathcing her dust a coffee table that had been dusted the day before). I know it's no excuse...but it's true.

    Now I am done incriminating myself, I shall add to the venting...

    I am not the cleanest person by far, but I do like to have some semblence of order around my house. My roomate on the other hand...DOES NOT. I spent the first two months trying to keep dishes clean (I wash my dishes as soon as I am done with them) and trying to keep the common areas of the house picked up (even as my personal space is a disaster). After one weekend away I came home to find *EVERY* dish I owned dirty and in the sink. I refused to clean his mess and there they sat. When he needed a dish he would just improvise. I had this little plastic baseball hat sitting on top of the dish shelf...it became a cereal bowl for him.

    So Manda comes over, she wants to do something nice for us and cook. God bless the girl, she attacked that pile of dishes like the blitzkrieg throug France. What did Justin do...he sat in the kitchen, not saying a word playing with his little metal miniatures. Here my new girlfriend is doing something so sweet and amazing (and yes I was helping her) and he never even uttered a thank you...DESPITE it all being his crap. (Stupid only child....*no offense to only children, but he is hardcore spoiled*). It totally ticked me off. I mean, cmon man, try to help...even a little. It amazes me that there are people (most of them guys) that would rather live in absolute filth then get up off their lazy butts and clean up. I mean it takes freakin 15 minutes. And the thing about it, is when I finally get tot he point I can't stand it any longer, swallow my pride and clean up his messes, it's about one day before it's right back where it was. ARRRRRGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (and he LOVES to leave shaving residue everywhere...it's like he plans on it...this drives me FREAKIN OUT OF MY MIND)

    Anyhoo, ya'll aren't alone in this. Most guys are just lazy. I like to be lazy too. (and my attraction to shiny objects doesn't help either). Ya'll are appreciated though. I know it doesn't really seem like it most of the time....but it is. Even if it's just by me and the other fine MFPers. I, even as a guy, totally feel your pain.

    Oh, and one last thing...Manda, honey, thank you so much for everything you have done for us at the house already. You are amazing. (even if I ask you not to do it, and you say ok, then I go to work and when I get home you are like 'Teehee')

    I would take all of his dishes and stuff he leaves around the house and throw it on his bed..can't ignore it then! It sounds like he needs to be taught the lesson that his parents forgot to teach him!! I HATE lazy people like that, bothers me big time. I have to try to teach this to my ELEMENTARY students all the time. I'm always telling them "I'm not cleaning up your messes." UGH!
  • Phoenix_Rising
    Phoenix_Rising Posts: 11,417 Member
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    I had to let my husband know in no uncertain terms that I KNEW he cleaned the latrines in the Army with a toothbrush till they sparkled, and if he couldn't at the very least clean ours until the ring in the toilet disappeared, I would send him BACK to the Army for a refresher course. He took the point of my rant and I had clean toilet bowls that evening.

    But no, they are not dumb. They are LAZY and pretend to be dumb, knowing we will eventually get fed up and do it ourselves just to get it right!

    SIDE NOTE:
    In my husband's defense, he DOES do dishes AND laundry, so I count myself lucky. He handles that while I handle the finances and planning therein, as well as car maintenance (getting the cars to the mechanic, keeping up with oil changes, tag expiration dates, etc). I'm the family accountant/ financial planner/ executive admin, while he handles the day to day activities like laundry and dishes (because he enjoys turning off his mind and doing the monotonous task.... although 'enjoy' isn't quite the right word).

    And voila, I've written a novel.
  • aaubrey
    aaubrey Posts: 168 Member
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    Have you ever had his say "oh, I'll babysit for you." Like he is doing you a favor in taking care of his own children? Thats my favorite!:mad:
  • BlazinEmerald
    BlazinEmerald Posts: 842
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    My hubby did laundry ..... only his btw ......he flooded the floor ....:ohwell:
  • sindyb9
    sindyb9 Posts: 1,248 Member
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    My man has ocd so I play on that it gets the things done I want. LOL I will start something and he must finish it. :laugh: :laugh: I cant complain, he cooks,cleans when he is looking for work. :bigsmile:
  • flachix
    flachix Posts: 256 Member
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    LOL...wow!!! I am a seriously lucky woman. maybe I just see things differently, but I don't stew over things like this. when his using my brush and not cleaning it out irked me, I bought a new brush "gave" him the old one and it became a non issue. I always check to see if the toilet seat is down, I am the one who needs it down, its not his problem, If he leaves his socks and clothes on the floor on his side of the bed, I leave them there, I just walk around the pile till he gets tired of it and tosses the stuff in the basket, I wash whats in the basket, If I need him to do something around the house, I say hey, run the vaccuum for me will ya? and get out the vaccuum and hand it to him. I don't care if he doesn't get along the baseboards, or makes the carpet nap go the wrong way. when I hand him the laundry basket and say hey, babe, will you fold these for me? (towels) I don't care if he folds them differently than I do, they're folded. When I want a night off from cooking, which is pretty regular, I just say...will you take care of dinner tonight, I don't want to mess with it. he either orders out, stops for take out or tosses something on the stove, if he asks what I want to eat I tell him I don't care, that's why he's doing it. I don't want to have to think about it for the whole day. when I am sitting in my chair with my feet up and I say man, I need to get up and run a load of dishes, he says, to heck with it, leave 'em set. so if I feel like it, I do. I don't wait for him to see that I need or want something done, I just ask him to do it nicely, and he does it. ( If he doesn't want to, he says, naw, I don't want to...then usually offers to do something else I need done but haven't asked him to do yet) :smile:

    But you know, not once in 37 years of marriage has he ever asked me to change the oil or do any kind of maintenance on the vehicles, fix or repair any household items, lug heavy stuff to the dump, paint the house, clean the garage, gutters, or vehicles. He has laid on the cement in the driveway for hours up to his elbows in grease and stuff to make sure what I am driving is safe and all things are done and never complained. He checks the oil, the tires, the engine, lights, everything regularly. He has put up fences, dug trenches for me, planted huge trees, all on his weekends off or after a 10 hour day. and never once expected me to do any of it, except maybe hold something in place, or bring him a cold drink. so, I figure, cleaning a toilet, or emptying the dishwasher, even mowing the grass is no big deal, if he wants to nap, watch a race without being nagged, hang out with some buds, or have some time for himself, its cool. I love him more than I care about the housework. nothing is more important than he is. just my two cents.
  • thalli1
    thalli1 Posts: 332 Member
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    After my second child was born and it was time for me to go back to work, I wrote a list of EVERY chore I could think of that needed to be done around the house. I handed it to my husband and said, "Pick half." I told him I didn't care which ones he picked, but I didn't want to have to think about them any more. So he did, and for the next several years we had our chore list divided like that. Eventually things shifted when our children got older, but since that day my husband has helped around the house pretty equally. You know they say you teach people how to treat you, so that's what I did. I decided not to accept an unfair situation and when I put it down on paper my husband had to agree it wasn't fair for me to do more since we were both working full time.

    One day when he was cooking a turkey for the first time, he asked me "How do I do this?" I really couldn't tell him off the top of my head, and I knew he wanted me to just do it for him, so I just said, "Honey, you know the first time I ever cooked a turkey I looked it up in a cookbook." I decided I wasn't going to fall for that "You're so much better at it than me routine." None of the things he was trying to do for the first time were hard to learn and he's a smart person, so I knew he could figure it out.

    Anyway, we've been happily married for 32 years, and I don't think we'd be as happy if things weren't fair. That's how I made it work for me.
  • wanderinglight
    wanderinglight Posts: 1,519 Member
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    Don't mean to step on any toes but...

    I would be somewhat offended if there were a loooong thread about women being "lazy and clueless" or any other sweeping generalizations. All women are not one way, all men are not one way.

    P.S. www.truemomconfessions.com is a great place to anonymously post "rants" about home life...
  • sgtinvincible
    sgtinvincible Posts: 2,559
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    Don't mean to step on any toes but...

    I would be somewhat offended if there were a loooong thread about women being "lazy and clueless" or any other sweeping generalizations. All women are not one way, all men are not one way.

    P.S. www.truemomconfessions.com is a great place to anonymously post "rants" about home life...


    I'm not offended, I understand that many times guys can be oafish and kinda clueless about things that you of the fairer sex finds important.

    That said, I never would start a thread bashing women or claiming that they are 'lazy and clueless'. If Manda did something that I had a problem with, I definately wouldn't complain about it here (even if she wasn't a regular at MFP), mainly as 1. it's not an appropriate place for it, and 2. I respect and love her too much to make a spectacle of her like that.

    I think this site is a wonderful safe place for people to come and share their lives with their friends and family. Lord knows I have. I truly don't lump myself in with the vast majority of guy stereotypes, and that is a point of pride for me. So hearing my friends complain from time to time doesn't bother me at all. It would only bother me if I posted and was automatically pinned as one of those 'dumb guys' simply because of my gender. I think (and most of the other MFP gents) have a fairly proven track record for being loveable, sensitive guys, who go out of their way to be good people. (Just as the women here bear absolutely no resemblence to a certain ex wife of mine who is possibly the worst human being I have ever known.)

    So, my point is, vent away. We are all family, and I take no offense at anything that isn't directed towards me. I am happily secure in who I am (sexually and emotionally), and I know that when it comes down to it, I'm not one of those guys that doesn't do my share. I am not perfect by any means, but I sure as heck aspire to be. (And interestingly, neither is anyone else). We just all have to do the best we can, and if I can make all of you feel even a tiny bit better about things in your lives, then I have done my job as a member of this community and your friend.

    Hugs to all!

    -J:heart:
  • greysweatshirt
    greysweatshirt Posts: 411
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    I agree with sarge..I wasn't offended by this either. Maybe it's because I do most of the housework! haha..I think there's a place for complaining about things like this on here, if that's what you need!
  • kimber607
    kimber607 Posts: 7,128 Member
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    Hi

    Just wanted to clarify a few things.....when I used the term 'lazy' and 'clueless'...I was referring to men and their views towards houseworK
    I'm aware that ALL men are not the same, and didn't in any way mean to lump all men together in a negative way

    Sorry if this was taken so seriously or literally....it was a rough week with dd having surgery and I was tired and exhausted...just venting a little
    I don't know if it was directed at me or anyone else but I was a tad insulted that it was insinuated that maybe I don't respect my spouse (or some of the other posters) etc because of this post...
    Just because we vent about our significant others lack of help (at times) around the house, doesn't mean they aren't great husbands, fathers, providers etc etc

    I thought we were a tight bunch and could vent about anything in this forum if we wanted
    I generally feel that if you aren't interested in the topic... you don't need to read/post..happens with me all the time...

    oh well
    I just wanted to add that I respect everyone here and hope we can agree to disagree :)
  • sgtinvincible
    sgtinvincible Posts: 2,559
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    We know Kim!!! That's why both Grey and I were like 'let it rip!!!'

    Like we said, no offense was taken by us manly types, nor did we believe that you meant anything like that towards your boy!

    We love you Kim!!! :heart: :heart: :heart:
  • wanderinglight
    wanderinglight Posts: 1,519 Member
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    Didn't mean to be a thread-killer...or saddle up on my high horse...I think I just meant I *LOVE* MFP because of the positivity and the thread sorta jumped out at me, but I reckon the guys can stand up for themselves if it bothers them...and I can step out.

    As you were.
  • stschulz
    stschulz Posts: 340
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    I appreciate what you said wanderinglight. True. Looks as if everybody is saying soooooo much negative things about men and household chores. But let's be honest here... a lot of what was said is true too. I
  • stschulz
    stschulz Posts: 340
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    I appreciate what you said wanderinglight. True. Looks as if everybody is saying soooooo much negative things about men and household chores. But let's be honest here... a lot of what was said is true too. I can
  • stschulz
    stschulz Posts: 340
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    I appreciate what you said wanderinglight. True. Looks as if everybody is saying soooooo much negative things about men and household chores. But let's be honest here... a lot of what was said is true too. I can understand the frustration. Always has ben a mystery to me ( and stil is after 50 years) why such simple things can not be discussed and resolved between partners.

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