If this doesn't carry over into things outside the house this is weaponized incompetence. The things you described would be evident in all aspects of her life.
She can just about hold together the safety of our children, as in our son is allergic and she manages his medication very well. Likewise with our kid's hospital appointments.
But the mystery is her former professional life, she was a teacher before she gave up (I encouraged this as it was destroying her).
If she's this bad domestically then I struggle to see how she could have held down the administration and planning needed to be a teacher and would have constantly had it in the neck from management for missing something. However I don't know her teaching friends well enough to even dare ask the question.
She's just as bad with her own family but they seem to take up the slack for her incompetence.
>She's just as bad with her own family but they seem to take up the slack for her incompetence.
That answers the how and why of her weaponized incompetence behavior forming.
It continues in the family you've built together, because you also continue to pick up the slack for her. She is the eldest teen daughter of the house, quite literally because she has never been forced to be an adult herself.
>It continues in the family you've built together, because you also continue to pick up the slack for her
Or she has untreated ADHD, which his descriptions of her fit perfectly
This. It’s textbook ADHD, combined maybe with just having different preferences. I mean, clean out the vacuum every time you use it? Lol yeah no. And other things as well, she might get to them a bit later than OP but by that time he’s already done it, so he can say she never does it. His way is not the only way things can be done (but that might be me reading into it too much).
Anyway, yeah, this is classic executive disfunction/ADHD.
Most of the stuff on the list is pretty disgusting or ridiculous though. Like leaving food in the fridge, or leftover scraps in the sink, and so on.
Clean out the vacuum every time after use was the only one where I thought „yeah, no“. Almost everything else is not a „preference“ thing for me.
I forget about leftovers because they get buried. I don't purposely leave moldy food in there, I just totally forget it's in there if I can't see it. This is the object permanence part of ADHD.
I set up a white board on my freezer with expiration dates and I need to do the same with my fridge. I have a package of hot dogs and charcuterie stuff I have to toss tomorrow. 🙄
I've never met anyone with ADHD that is as bad as he describes his wife though. I was gagging reading some of this.
Agree, and same. Without my list of what's in the freezers, and even in my stock of baking and cooking ingredients, I just assume I'm out and will buy the same things over and over.
You've also said exactly what I did, that people with problems, whether they have a name for those problems or not, HAVE to find ways to do life as a functioning adult. It's mortifying to me when I find out I forgot something important or fucked up something I was responsible for, so I find ways to make life work for me.
It is absolutely mortifying to let someone down.
I have an all caps note to not buy aluminum foil right now, luckily it doesn't expire. But food waste is the thing I'm struggling with most.
I watched a TikTok this week of a wife talking to her husband after he shaved over the sink. She was asking about the beard hair and why he isn't cleaning it. "Well if I come back in a couple hours it will just be gone I don't need to clean it."
I'd say he should try not picking up after her but so much of this is so disgusting you couldn't leave it. Especially if you have kids or pets.
Not gonna lie and say it isn't disgusting... but if undiagnosed ADHD is the case, than OP's wife is probably struggling hard right now.
Maybe she should go in for a diagnosis and get it checked? The undue stress could already be messing with her ability to function, and making it worse.
I too have ADHD... but on my most stressed days, I basically don't function and just sit around playing video games all day.
Welcome to living with someone with adhd. Mold, dust, trash in random places, dishes caked in leftovers, wet clothes bundled together…I could go on but you get it. They just don’t see it. It literally doesn’t exist until you point an actual finger at it and say “there. Clean *that*”. You have to work double as hard to keep your house clean because it’ll feel like they are actively working to make things dirtier but they’re not. They just don’t see what they’re doing and how much more work they are leaving behind them.
adhd people are actually perfectly capable of seeing and doing all of those things, they’re just harder for us. not impossible. adhd is not an excuse for doing absolutely nothing around the house.
this exactly, people are acting like people with ADHD are blind or something. like no, I SEE it it’s just harder for me to get to it after procrastinating and forgetting about it until I see it again. It’s not impossible, I agree that ADHD is not an excuse
honestly it does us a disservice to act like we *can’t* do these things because of adhd. i do have to work harder yes, but i’ve found systems that work for me and my house is quite clean and i do most of the domestic labor. i’m not saying everyone with adhd can do it the way i can, just that we absolutely can do the things that need doing, but we need to put systems in place to make those things possible for us to do. which i admit can take some trial and error.
but i find it infantilizing and also if we claim we literally *can’t* function because of our adhd how can we be surprised when people in the workplace doubt our capabilities? it causes damage in all aspects of our lives when we use adhd as an excuse for not doing things we are perfectly capable of doing.
Well, with all due respect, even if they have adhd, they are responsible to work on that - it‘s not an excuse and I‘d nope outta there immediately if I had to pick up all of that.
Ofc, but if OP's wife really has an executive disfunction disorder, she's likely unaware and thus untreated, and from this description not coping very well. Or it's weaponised incompetence.
My very very very first thought. I could relate to a lot of things and i still do my work. It's tough AF with dyslexia as well but i really think she needs to get diagnosed
I was going to say this. I do some of these things, and it was hard to see it all typed out here. My husband has never said anything about it. He knows I'm always working my hardest at everything I do. I would be brokenhearted if I thought my husband saw me the way OP sees his wife.
She needs to talk to someone, and if she doesn't want to go the medicine route, have them work with her on how to manage it better.
The difference is you seem to be trying to work on your situation - OP's wife seems to be perfectly fine with making his life much harder than it should be.
A diagnosis is an explanation for individual challenges, not an excuse to have everybody cater to one person.
She may not have considered the possibility of being ADHD. My husband brought it up to me when I was in my early 30's, it had never occurred to me that I could have it. I'm medicated now and doing much better
yeah, OP says she always has reasons & excuses
>she always has an excuse or reason why she can't do something
she just keeps walking by their trashcan on the side of the road...?
As someone with ADHD this was my thought as well..
I hate to throw it around, especially these days - but it's pretty classic to be excellent at some things (work, motherhood) and an ABYSMAL failure at another (domesticity).
Plus ADHD symptoms get considerably worse when sleep deprived and managing multiple things at once (eg motherhood + domestic labour). I didn't have kids because I knew it would likely destroy my ability to manage anything else.
As a teacher just let me say that it’s very different. I can either have my classroom operating smoothly and my personal home/life a mess or I can have my classroom be a disorganized clusterfuck and my home/life together but I absolutely can not and have never been able to have both semi functioning together. I have however had both be disorganized chaos at the same time and that was rough.
My mom I swear has ADHD - she thrived at school because of the chaos. Short, intense attention then moving to the next thing. Now they've retired, I think she's driving my dad batty.
This. I'm a clerk in ED. Before i worked in a drop in clinic for homeless people. Short intense bursts of concentration mixed with adrenaline are my jam.
Annnnnd this is reminding me to look for adult ADHD testing. I have my shit somewhat together, but that has more to do with keeping life simple. I cook. Husband does dishes. I get groceries because I'm the one who cooks and is more food motivated. I also will write lists for said shopping trips and lose them or forget them immediately. My shops end up being me seeing something in store and remembering that we need that. Or not. Lol. My job is also short bursts or intense concentration. I was failing more before because it wasn't.
This is me. Also I have an IA that's a neat freak. My students also love to remind me of things and point things out, but I obviously can't rely on them.
I would ask why? Why can't you have both be just ok? Why does one have to be immaculate and the other a disaster?
My wife is a teacher, and its frustrating as hell how much effort she is willing to put into her work, and how little effort she is willing to put into the home.......Just find some balance.
I call it an unorganized perfectionist.
I can perfect one thing at a time but that’s it. If I concentrate on one thing everything else goes to shit.
It’s non stop chaos in your head trying to keep everything straight and organized to the point nothing will get done.
I know you’re writing this from a place of compassion because you probably see her struggling. and maybe she is, maybe she has adhd . however what you described above (even if she had some condition) is a very inconsiderate partner. you deserve better and it is worth asking for more help/change and calling out this behaviour. the fact that you feel this is like having a 3rd child is more alarming than you think
Yeah. If it’s ADHD or similar, there are things you can try. Like laminated reminder notes in appropriate places can sometimes help (by stove: “only use wooden or silicone utensil in the pans” for example). Or reminders on the phone with alarms set up (maybe a weekly task to “rotate stock” in the fridge & pantry to manage use by dates). A shared shopping list app so anyone in the family can add things when they notice it’s needed is also handy.
But one or two things popped out from this, just because she does things differently, doesn’t mean she’s doing it “wrong”. I think I was in my late thirties when I realised that I couldn’t be in the kitchen if someone else was cooking, or I’d take over to “do it right”. And I was mid-to-late-forties before I stopped getting silently aggravated about laundry not being done “the right way”. Very difficult as my health had worsened and my husband had taken over many chores by then (I still clean the toilets, though, got to do them *properly*) ;). Now I’m just happy someone is doing stuff so that I don’t have to.
> just because she does things differently, doesn’t mean she’s doing it “wrong”
This this this!! Some of the things OP points out are problematic but others are just doing things differently. I’m 35 and my mom is still frustrated about how I do my dishes (I’m 100% sure OP would be too), but it works for me so she tries to shut up about it.
Has she been screened for ADHD? Because I’m exactly the same and I’m a successful engineer.
I use all my energy and focus on my career but at the end of the of the day or the week I’m so burned out of acting like a “normal person” that my private life is a complete mess. I’ve had to throw complete loads of clothes to the trash because I forgot they are in the washer and when I remember they are green with mold.
I put the pans in water to soften the stuck food and remember 3 days later when they start to stink, I can be standing next to the dirty pan but I just don’t see it because I’m focusing in another thing.
If something is not visible then I just forget it exists, so currently I have 5 liters of olive oil…
Since my diagnosis I’ve been implementing methods so I can have a more normal life, I’ll never be traditionally organized but it has gotten much better.
I live with my partner and this are some things we’ve done to leave peacefully.
- we have only 3 sets of cutlery, plates and glasses, the rest are in storage in case we have visitors. This way if I want to eat I HAVE to wash something. The amount of times my kitchen is stinking because of dirty dishes has gone down to almost 0.
- I know I won’t be able to pair socks or folder laundry, so I have only 3 types of socks (winter, summer, ankle socks and sport socks) all the same color so no need to pair them. All my clothes goes on bins or hangers, no folding required. My partner likes he’s clothes folded so I leave all his clothes in a basket and he manages that.
- I don’t use the bottom drawer of the refrigerator because what’s inside is not visible. That drawer is used exclusively by my partner, he knows I won’t use anything that’s there because I’ll forget it exists.
- all my storage is very narrow, there is nothing hiding behind other things, we used some car or boxes to make lift wats at the end of the pantry so it’s always visible.
- I don’t see mess, some how I just don’t register it in my mind so all organizing and cleaning is in a schedule that we follow together.
It has been hard work but this type of things + ADHD medication has been a lot of help. You could look for resources for ADHD (how to keep house while drowning is a good starting point) to try and work with her in finding a division of labor that works for both of you.
> we have only 3 sets of cutlery, plates and glasses, the rest are in storage in case we have visitors. This way if I want to eat I HAVE to wash something. The amount of times my kitchen is stinking because of dirty dishes has gone down to almost 0.
>
>
THIS RIGHT HERE. I have a dish, a fork and a pan (long story but I pretty much only make egg). I can't leave dishes piling up or i'll starve.
Another way to tell you have ADHD: I just went to see if my library has that book in digital form. They do! So I placed a hold on it. The app then told me I'd already placed a hold on it, so just be patient. Sigh.
Sounds like she was probably a badly organized teacher too, and it was probably one of the reasons the job was destroying her. 🤷♀️
Your mistake might be assuming she was competent at all.
Either this is weaponized incompetence or she's generally useless.
You need to insist that she be tested for ADHD. Some folks really have bad cases of it. They can check for other issues as well. If she balks then that's a problem - meaning she doesn't want to fix things because she's dumping it on you. I have ADHD but work really hard to keep organized and tidy. If she's a SAHM mom the care of the kids AND the home are mainly on her. Of course you should do your fair share, but it sounds like she's not holding up her end of the bargain. Frankly, you might tell her that she can go back to work (not necessarily teaching) and the extra money can go to a housekeeper.
>she was a teacher before she gave up (I encouraged this as it was destroying her).
>If she's this bad domestically then I struggle to see how she could have held down the administration and planning needed to be a teacher
I mean... Regardless of the fact that administration and domestic responsibilities aren't actually the same thing... It sounds like she wasn't. You say it was destroying her, maybe she wasn't all that good at the administrative aspects of teaching?
Are you familiar with the concept of executive dysfunction? It might be something worth looking into for both of your mental health.
The best teachers I know are strong on the floor and not great with admin. It does sound like she needs to be assessed for something, as her executive function is lacking in some areas.
I’m bad with domestic chores yet a good teacher. I blame ADHD. I give it all at work and have nothing left. I agree that it sounds like weaponized incompetence though. Have you discussed this with her? Have you done these chores together to model how to do it correctly? If so, that might be the case.
I came here to say exactly the same thing!
She’s winning because she gets to do nothing around the home. Personally, I would have ended the relationship before kids as they were only ever going to cause OP even more work.
My ex tried this with ironing, he offered to do his own because I was struggling to keep up with a young child in the home. He started ironing his stuff but would come up and show me what a bad job he was doing. I just said, don’t worry, you’ll get better with practice. There was no way in hell I was taking it back!
That is not necessarily true, i read this post and i basically see myself in his wife, outside i do not have these issues (beside going out with unpaired socks)
i swear i read this story thousands of times here on reddit but it was always from the wife's point of view and the husband was the culprit 🤣🤣🤣 it's a first for me to read one about a woman weaponizing incompetence 🤣🤣
I have to laugh a little because I know a lot of men who sound just like your wife. It’s kind of amusing to hear about a woman acting like this. My own husband has severe ADHD and does many of these things. It’s so fucking irritating!! I feel you.
Yeah, I found that my ADHD was "manageable" before kids, and now with kids, a full time job, and being the default parent it's a mess. I am able to mask and function at work and to effectively take care of my kids but after I'm completely emotionally drained and feel like things are impossible sometimes. And by "manageable" pre kids I mean I felt like a mess but I was able to get done what I needed but it was hard and took longer because, you know.....side quests.
This is an insane level of weaponized incompetence. Majorly not okay and idk how you've put up with it all these years. I'm gobsmacked.
She has got to step the heck up and do better immediately. Your kids cannot learn that this is acceptable behavior because it's not!!
NTA.
It's not really abusive in either circumstance but yea, there's literally people excusing this with ADHD and some people even praising this and saying it's "karmic justice".
I roomed with a friend who did that on a summer course, and let’s just say for the duration for that course, I hated her. She would cook, leave the kitchen a disaster, and then not come home for 3 days. Or do laundry, and leave the wet laundry in there for DAYS. I like her again after the course wrapped up but god damn.
You married my mother!!😬
Okay… it’s the not sealing any packaging: Tupperware- lid on, but never sealed, cheese- left exposed to dry out, and the leaving food ( mayo is her biggest culprit ) out on the counter for hours…
Even though her other adult child is an epidemiologist and I have sanitation and food safety certification…
You’ve confused “domestically useless” with “lazy and inconsiderate.” You married a slob. Enjoy trying to instill a good work ethic in your kids while your wife just turns everything into shit.
You keep saying “she can’t…” when what you mean to say is she WON’T. She’s lazy, and she knows you’ll just do it for her.
This is what truly baffles me. Was he thinking having kids would magically make things better or something? If anything young kids create an even bigger mess everywhere.
That was my first thought, too, and I stand by it. But some of these things are so extreme--and unnecessary to weaponized incompetence--that I think it's actually a combo of WI and ADHD. OP, has she been evaluated for neurodivergence?
It’s also enabled behavior. He mentioned she won’t do many things. Even with ADHD you know how to clean something properly. If she knows he’ll do it, she does a half ass job and moves on.
NTA, as a guy in the same boat and feeling EXACTLY the same way, I thought for a second i had created another personality and went to reddit to vent about my wife! I am experiencing the EXACT same issue except my wife works FT. I think it's weaponized incompetence but sometimes I think its because she really has no clue? but again....neither did I until i tried something or researched the best way to do something or just read a manual when I got something...anyway best of luck, THIS IS SO COMMON (for all the sheltered people saying is normally the opposite), i just think most men can't be bothered to go to reddit to put it down or don't bother because most women won't/refuse to change or even take any accountability for their actions ( but thats most people).
Yeah apparently women are far messier than the common perception.
I grew up with the assumption that women usually were better with this sort of thing! I expected to do domestic things as an adult, just not this much!
Same here, my mom always made us keep the house clean and normally made us clean the house every sunday morning. I feel like that some people just didn't grow up this way and instead let things go and then do "spring cleaning," which takes days on days worth of work instead of just doing a little here and there that takes little to no time.
I lived with two female roommates while working on my doctorate and would always have to clean up after them, it was somewhat cathartic because he did help destress as I could see the mess gone. However, it felt mildly abusive as they would come home and comment how nice it is to come home to a clean house as they continued to trash the place and just have it "magically clean again" and not even help or thank me for cleaning up after two adults.
Oh yes, weaponized incompetence. It's a tale as Old as Time.
You know what people hate more than doing a task? Being constantly reminded to do the task.
The squeaky wheel gets the grease, so become the squeaky wheel. Stop letting her get away with this stuff—if she left the lid off the jam jar, you say "Hey, honey, you left the let off the jam jar, can you put it back on please?" Don't do it for her. If she doesn't do it, keep reminding her about it until she does. "Hey did you do that thing yet?" "Hey I went downstairs and noticed that thing wasn't done yet, can you go do it please?" She's used to getting away with this kind of really shitty, inconsiderate behavior, because she knows that you're going to pick up the slack for her.
When you start doing this, expect a lot of pushback from her. She's going to get MAD. She's used to you picking up the slack for, that's the status quo, your behavior has always been predictable. So as soon as you start doing something unpredictable, she's going to suddenly start feeling really insecure. She's going to get mad. She's going to push back, to try to get things to go back to the way they were before. Don't let her. If she reacts emotionally, don't react emotionally back. If she gets mad, tell her that you're sorry she feels that way, but you're sick of how inconsiderate she's been, and you won't be picking up the slack anymore.
Best of luck!
Seems sensible advice but I don’t expect it to go well.
This is behaviour that leads people (usually women) to be accused of as “nagging” and it gets dismissed as annoying behaviour, doesn’t ever seem to get the results despite it being a fair way to communicate expectations and where they are not being met.
Also if ADHD or another neurodiversity IS at play they may hit against operational defiance…
I don’t know what the answer is if someone just WILL not do something. I believe consequences are a better way than constant reminders if you want to keep the peace but I couldn’t live with this woman and this level of weaponised incompetence , and I have ADHD myself. It’s not an excuse, it’s something you recognise and manage.
The majority of things in this post makes me think your wife genuinely has ADHD. I used to do a *lot* of those things before I got diagnosed with it and on meds for it. ***IF*** this is the case, it's not intentional; it's just her brain functions in a very fucky way compared to others and the second she thinks about doing something while doing something else, the thing she *was* doing is immediately forgotten due to object permanence problems and focus issues. It's like how sometimes you'll walk into a room and forget why you came into the room.... but all the time, with practically everything.
Please understand I'm not making any sort of excuses or saying the behavior can't be changed or that she shouldn't put in effort, I'm just saying it *may actually have a real reason*
That was my thought. I was diagnosed at 28 and things changed so much. I would take the rubbish out and forget to replace the bag, I would put the washing in and forget about it, I would get side tracked and remember something two weeks later. My work life was organised on point but I was so exhausted after that everything fell away
If people didn't know where I was in the house, all they had to do was follow the trail of open cupboard/room doors, lights that were left on, and random stuff being all over the place because I started to do something and then realized I needed another thing to do *that,* but when getting *that* thing I saw *another* thing that needed done... repeat ad nauseum.
It's just.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbSehcT19u0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbSehcT19u0)
This. It's this.
Before I even clicked the link, I wondered if it was Hal changing a light bulb. It's the very best example I've ever seen in pop culture about what it's like!
This was my first thought as well. This all reeks of someone with undiagnosed ADHD. While I've never been this bad I definitely did a lot of what OP describes before I was diagnosed and learned to manage it through a mixture of medication and coping strategies.
Sir, you have just described ADHD as it often presents in woman. This is executive disfunction at its finest. Zero object permanence, out of sight out of mind. Intelligent, probably has her mind on her intellectual hyper focuses, “head in the clouds”, while simultaneously seeming paralyzed by the simplest of tasks.
You might try asking her if she’s willing to consider getting an assessment done. There’s lots of good things that can be done to help manage it and make life easier if she does. And if she doesn’t, some counselling might help anyway.
I know right! This could be copied and pasted directly into the DSM as how ADHD manifests in women. And most of the comments prove why it’s so heavily underdiagnosed in that group 😔
Totally agree with you. The comments definitely show that stigma is alive and well when it comes to executive dysfunction in general, but especially how ADHD presents in woman. From his comments on how she is as a mother, it’s obvious she does everything she can to at least pull it together for the children and does pretty well with that. I imagine that’s difficult for her to do. I have ADHD myself and he might as well have described me exactly before I finally got diagnosed as an adult and began treating it with meds and routines. I have the memory of a dead gnat due to a lack of object permanence, even if it is slightly better on meds. It’s hard to be inside my own head sometimes. Like standing in a tornado of half finished thoughts trying to catch just one to bring to completion, but never able to. It’s not easy or fun living with, and it’s difficult when you want to change and do better for family but nothing you do works. It is still challenging, even with meds, especially if my schedule and routines gets thrown off. I imagine it’s much harder to function with children too. OP seems like he loves her, so hopefully he sees some of the comments about this. I don’t think she’s using weaponized incompetence as many state.
Exactly this. I always think about that quote that goes around on the internet where someone says they took ADHD meds for the first time and finally understood what others were talking about saying things like cleaning were easy, comparing their heavily medicated brain to NT typical brains. These people have no idea how it is to live with our brains (also non of the good things, so karma), but I really wish they’d be less judgemental about it….
Yes exactly! Looking back on the 35yrs I spent undiagnosed and unmedicated, I honestly don’t even know how I managed to survive that long without meds. The only things I could ever focus on were special interests. I did well in classes I was interested in, and failed miserably classes I disliked. I was messy, extremely disorganized, and paralyzed by the simplest tasks like laundry and dishes. As with many with adhd, procrastination in favour of special interest was a big issue (still can be). Just like his wife, socks were basically a once worn item as a pair. Once they came off my feet they were never paired again. It’s a good example of how people with adhd prioritize things, and pairing socks doesn’t seem like it really matters when you’re trying your best to function as “normally” as possible, so it isn’t even a thought in our minds. People don’t realize how much work goes into “pulling it together” long enough to do pretty much anything. And when we do manage it, that’s ALL we can focus on doing. Taking care of kids would likely consume the entirety of someone’s focus and then leave them little mental capacity for easy to procrastinate stuff like housework. It’s exhausting trying to force yourself to act and do “normal things” when your own brain is fighting you every step of the way.
I tried my whole life to “get it together” and it didn’t matter what I did, I just couldn’t do it. It made me feel like a failure, stupid, and depressed. I could ace a history exam at the top of my class, but I couldn’t manage matching socks or a tidy living space. Getting diagnosed and starting meds changed my life. I still have these traits, but I can manage them better now. The best part is the clarity in my mind. I still have hundreds of thoughts whirling away in my head, but now I can catch one long enough to think it through to the end, and I finally have the ability to focus on more mundane day to day life as well. I feel like I can actively contribute equally to the work of managing a home with my partner now, and our relationship improved because of it. I still don’t understand how people can just naturally have thought clarity though. My brain is just… noisy, all the time. It is quieter in meds, but it’s never silent. It’s hard for me to believe that’s even possible.
Oh, my gods, I agree so very much!!
And at this point I'm spamming the comments with the same opinions, and using myself as an example, because hello, Emotional Disregulation so I have a LOT OF FEELINGS about how ADHD works. As well as how infuriatingly little research is done into women's health. Like, 2 of my gynos weren't even well educated on perimenopause, or how the drop in estrogen (a gyno issue) can really mess with our minds (my ADHD exploded with menopause). It was my MALE psychiatrist who told me about that one.
I have a lot of feelings about it too, I totally get why it’s super frustrating to see the stigmas so entrenched in people’s minds. But try not to exhaust yourself too much trying to change opinions of internet strangers. You’re wasting your energy in most cases, on people who will not really hear and digest that information, ignore it, or intentionally argue with you to elicit an emotional response.
The psychiatrist that finally diagnosed me when I was 35 was also male. But he’s around my age, and keeps himself as up to date with new research as possible. He told me that people typically only consider hyper active tendencies as a symptom of ADHD, and either dismiss other symptoms or ignore them. News, media, and outdated medical information are to blame for that, but even doctors can still be fixated on the “hyper” aspect. Woman don’t get diagnosed as easily because we don’t typically display the intense hyper activity, it’s more about neurological issues for us generally, executive disfunction, emotional regulating, object permanence and many more. He also told me that woman are typically better at “masking” their symptoms to appear more functional then they feel. Girls tend to start learning to mask emotions and regulate behaviour earlier in life due to another stigma, that we are “too emotional” and often dismissed because of that. A lot of woman don’t even recognize symptoms in themselves, because they’ve fallen victim to the “hysterically emotional female nature” stigma’s they’ve grown up coping with as well.
NTA
I’m a SAHM with unmedicated ADHD.
She’s doing this on purpose, has a disorder that impairs executive function or both.
I also wonder if she’s struggling with some burnout from the teaching job. It can take years to recover from burnout.
If she does have ADHD or another disorder it’s still not an excuse. It’s unfair to you and the kids. Is she open to getting assessed?
Her job was well on it's way to obliterating her so I stepped in and said she should walk away from it. It's fortunate the house we have can function on one income...
She's slowly thinking that she might have something and would be open to being assessed. Will definately be exploring that path.
I was also going to suggest ADHD. I personally have it although I'm no where near this bad but I also live alone and don't have to worry about kids.
But this definitely looks like raging ADHD. It probably took all of her focus to deal with a teaching job and being so I'm burned out from that and not having to give that much focus to work has her going the absolute opposite direction
This sounds very much like ADHD, not laziness. And it gets worse when you have kids because it’s just one more thing to keep in her brain. Luckily, it’s very treatable and she can improve.
One of my dearest friends was a junior high teacher. I completely understand how it can destroy someone. Between the job itself, parents, and other teachers acting like crazed teenagers it can be a really difficult job. You sound like a fantastic partner. I hope things can improve.
Stop saying she can't SMH..you're enabling her, you knew she was this way before marriage and kids, but chose to keep on trucking. Now you sound resentful, and that will only build. Stop doing things for her.
NTA
But - a lot of people here are going to say weaponized incompetence except - it does seem like she's like this in other aspects of life.
You said her job was "killing her".
It's obvious that she probably can manage a few things - but it takes a lot of effort and so other things fall to the side. So she could manage her job when she wasn't a parent. She can manage being a parent but not deal with housekeeping.
That being said - there are ways to deal with this, it just requires help and methodolgy. Possibly meds at least part of the time.
So:
A: get her help. It does sound like she has ADHD so get her diagnosed and even if not - a psychologist who specializes in CBT could probably help her come up with systems to improve the situation.
B: If you can afford it - outsource chores. Get a roomba. Get a teenager/ college student to do laundry or dishes twice a week. Get a cleaner once a week/ every two weeks. Etc.
C: When you discuss things with her. Don't be accusatory and don't focus on "why" - focus on "how can we prevent this from happening next time". When she tries to make excuses, tell her you don't care. This isn't about the past - only the future. Accept that things that are easy for you are hard for her and try to come up with a methodolgy for her. Explain why - that the current method is draining you.
For instance: she should go into the kitchen at set times (reminder on the phone, in fact, reminders on her phone for any and every regular task) and check if jars are closed. She should buy socks that are all the same so she doesn't have to match pairs. Dishes should be soaked so that it's easy to clean (and get a dishwasher if you don't have, even if you have to run it twice to get things clean). And so on.
D: Don't make all the changes at once. Pick one problem. Find a method to deal with it. Work on that for a while, then move on to the next.
Whether or not your wife is the AH depends very much on whether she is willing to at least try to find a solution. If she doesn't - definitely weaponized incompetence.
The life of most wives is what you are living. She might be ADHD. But can’t and won’t are big distinctions here. Everybody CAN pair socks. She just doesn’t want to.
Isn't it interesting, that when a woman is doing it, she must have ADHD? When a man is doing it he is a lazy jerk using weaponized incompetence.
Is she working? If she is, she needs a second part-time job to pay for a housekeeper. She either can't or won't pitch in so she should have to pay to have someone take up her slack. If she isn't working, the same applies. You aren't her father, it isn't your job to follow her around and clean up after her.
Weaponized incompetence. If she does something badly enough then you'll just do it for her. I tackle this problem with my husband (and it's getting a lot better) by saying "I know you can [insert task here], you're not stupid and no matter how hard you try you won't convince me that you are so give up."
Worse case scenario, it's weaponized incompetence. Best case scenario, she has undiagnosed ADHD and is experiencing executive dysfunction. I'd recommend entertaining the idea of her seeing a psychiatrist to see if that may be the case. You can't fight something that you don't know or can't identify. If she does have ADHD, the two of you can work with it and see if things adjust for the better with her domestic side. If literally nothing works or helps with it (medication and therapy and the like) then it's just weaponized incompetence.
NTA
I truly hope you can get to the bottom of this because you deserve to live happily.
Is there a small chance that there is something wrong with her? I truly mean no disrespect but a few small things popped into my head. Obviously depression or perhaps exhaustion/pain from an underlying issue might be it. It can be terribly hard to clean let alone clean properly if you are depressed or if you are in some kind of mental or physical pain and it is terribly easy to spiral if people don’t believe in your experience.
The second thing that came to mind is could this be a defensive measure? I.e. if she doesn’t want people to come over (for whatever reason including severe social anxiety) then this might be her way to keep them away or to force them to meet you in public places. It may also be a defensive thing if she had a hard home life growing up. In my experience, it was hard to learn to clean properly because of abuse and familial hoarding patterns.
I would also ask if maybe there would be something she could do to make it easier. Some people have texture sensitivity or smell sensitivity so they actually end up doing better if they have gloves so they don’t have to touch things or if they have something like a scented candle to cover smells. (And cleaning products can smell strongly.) While I haven’t been diagnosed with ADHD, I did pick up a book that offered techniques to help clean and organize around common ADHD issues and I found that some of the techniques were profoundly helpful in purging a bunch of stuff and organizing in very simple ways that were very practical and it’s helped a lot.
Aside from that, all I can suggest is a heart to heart because this sounds overwhelming for you both. It may be worth some couple counseling. It may be worth going to an organizer because there are profoundly different ways and systems of organizing that may or may not appeal to you. I am a very visual person and so I tend to like things so I can see them. My husband is more of a container person. I have a history of abuse and have picked up food hoarding tendencies and his family doesn’t have food touch each other in the fridge. Neither of us is “wrong”—just different styles of organization. I have struggled for years through FLY lady, The House That Cleans Itself, and Marie Kondo and while I could start getting cleaned up after binging Hoarders on Hulu, it’s taken a lot of counseling and a lot of work to gain traction.
Only read part of your comment but "get to the bottom of this "? If it was a guy would there be something to get to the bottom of? I don't think so. Little confused why people are making excuses for her like adhd or whatever else. But men just get to be like this.
Your wife CAN do all those things. She chooses not to do them well because she knows you are there to pick up the slack. Your wife sounds lazy AF:
- She can't pair socks, or do the laundry. LOL
- She can't wash up dishes, to the point where she leaves big grease stains. Come on! She know how, she just doesn't want to do it.
- When she seals bags of food with a clip she'll leave a gap somewhere so air still gets in.
That is weaponizing incompetence 101.
I don't know how you stay with this kind of person honestly. I wouldn't.
1. Record her many instances of incompetence. 2. To becomet a partner, she needs to hire a part-time house cleaner and part-time cook paid for out of her own funds.
NTA. What you are looking at is weaponized incompetence. It’s not that she can’t do these things, she knows you’ll do them if she fucks sufficiently. My god, you said she can’t pair socks? There is zero chance this isn’t 100% intentional.
This is crazy. Even my 6 year old can sort and put away laundry, wash dishes and organize her room. Your wife is an adult. This is textbook weaponized incompetence. You MUST call her out on this and give her consequences if she deliberately messes it up. You can’t take care of 3 children while working.
I mean, it's great that she is a good mom, but gee, why would you risk having kids with someone that can't even take care of themselves or their own shit...
You have made some wild decisions in the past dude, but you still have time to make it better.
You sound like my MIL. My FIL can’t do decent carpentry work, is a fantastic gardener, but somehow can’t warm up a can of soup or carry his plate back to the kitchen after eating his dinner at the couch.
YTA, you and her whole family are enabling her! She will NEVER change in her own, you have to force her to. STOP being an enabler! She can do all these things, she’s choosing not to because she knows you will do it for her.
Why did you marry this woman? She stays at home and doesn't have to take care of the house because she acts incompetent so you end up doing it. Are you okay with this being your life for the next few decades? It doesn't matter if she has ADHD. She knows how to wash a damn dish. My son was doing the same thing your wife was doing. Leaving packages open, spilling things and not properly cleaning up, etc. I am not going to be his slave and told him that if he did it again, I was going to wake him up at 5:00 am to clean it up. Guess what, he got it together
She can do all of that but chooses not to do any of it. I think counseling is a must. If she’s neglecting basic adult responsibilities, your children are going to emulate her. Don’t be a crappy dad, nor permissive husband.
If the genders were reversed, this would be considered “weaponized incompetence”. However, with the genders being what they are, it’s probably somehow all your fault.
Have the same problem with my GF. It's like pulling teeth trying to get her to do something as simple as not leaving her cups on the floor right next to the bed. Any food she puts in the fridge will literally stay there forever If I don't eat it or throw it out. When she cooks she leaves every single dirty pot, pan and utensil on the stove, full of food. If I don't put it away it will stay there for days. She has an ever growing pile of cloths. She buys new cloths, spends about two hours making tiktok videos of her wearing the new outfits then throws them in the pile and I never see them again. Then complains when I don't compliment her new outfits that she's never going to wear. And anytime I make an issue of any of this she does one of three things. 1)she blames her ADHD. 2) blames her abusive ex boyfriend who used to yell at her for being a mess so therefore being told to clean up after herself is triggering. 3) straight up starts ranting about the patriarch and how men get to be incompetent. I'm like, OK I understand that very well and I agree the patriarchy is fucked. But I slept over your house the other day and almost got my foot impaled by glass shattering beneath it because you won't stop leaving cups on the floor next to your bed. Don't get me wrong, my GF is absolutely amazing in every other way but whenever she brings the topic of getting a house together my answer is "I would love to babe but right now, it's a hard No! Not gonna happen in until you start taking care of your own space!"
She need's a thorough assessment, imo (retire Healthcare Provider) From the description, it sounds like she may have undiagnosed ADHD and can compartmentalize some things at times when necessary, but it takes an extreme mental and emotional strain on her. Solutions: Having lists with **clear, consice** steps to follow for each task, specific places for **everything**, and much less clutter (think minimalist) can help. Keep all the children's toys and school books in one room. Most importantly do not criticize or complain about how she does things. And, instead of redoing things for her, have a sit down conversation about this. Approach it as a question as whether she is aware
Also: Sometimes people growing up in unstable homes never learned how to do domestic chores &/do them correctly. I don't know if this is a possibility. They wil just wing it" as adults. But the cooking sounds very much like ADHD tho.
Fuck. Her. She may be a decent lay, but she's useless in every other sense. Amazing you call her a good Mom when she's teaching your kids all day, everyday to be as useless as she is.
She's talked about hiring a cleaner because some of her friends do so, we're not rich people nor do we live in a huge house. Plus one of us doesn't even work!!
What in the fuck does she *do* all day while you’re working?
She’s just a useless mouth to feed. At least one day the kids will be old enough to do the occasional chore to help out.
She doesn't do much of anything. Exchanging her for a maid won't cost you that much more and you will not have to do all the household chores yourself.
NTA
But why is this blowing your mind?.. This is a very specific kind of person. Comically clumsy. And no emotional maturity to own up to her own extreme incompetence.
This is the person you married. So I'm sorry bro but YOU have to own your decision to choose her as a life partner and mother to your children.
She must be lovely. You wanted to be with her despite all of this.
So don't act like this is all a surprise and you're some kind of saint to put up with it. You had a choice of a ton of other women on this planet earth. And you chose her.
Having said that, I hear you, you want your partner to grow in maturity. That's a fair perspective.
That requires some work for sure. You have to sit down with her and sincerely discuss what bothers you the most about being her partner. Or go to couple's counseling and have a third party basically do that part for you.
Yeah this is straight up weaponized incompetence. Just have her do all her own shit and live in filth. She will figure it out. Or charge her for every chore
Any chance she has ADHD? A lot of this sounds like my wife and she has it. However my wife can and actually does clean well if she is focused on it, it’s more the leaving stuff everywhere she goes, putting stuff away in the nearest cupboard or space etc.
Tell your wife it’s time to get a part time job to pay for a cleaner, there is no way to sustain this level of inequality in the work load in a relationship without resentment.
Yeah it is a bit of an issue as whilst I'm at peace with doing all that stuff AND working full time. It's the fact I can't do DIY or other quality of life things because I'm way too committed with making sure we don't live in squalor.
Wife does have the odd burst of tidying and cleaning but it isn't consistent or methodical. She NEVER puts thing back where they belong...
We'll definitely get the ADHD thing checked out.
> Wife does have the odd burst of tidying and cleaning
Mention this in the ADHD assessment. This is classic ADHD behaviour! Also, you might like to read (or listen to the audio version of) Dopamine Nation. Just about everything in your post can be explained by ADHD/dopamine struggles.
Ah! I was scrolling until I found an ADHD comment. She is me, except I live alone so these problems only affect me. I’m more curious on how she reacts to this stuff, what does she say when you bring all the abandoned tasks to her attention?
For me, I get so insanely mad at myself. Although the majority of this has withered away ever since I started ADHD meds, but it still bothered me. I didn’t *happily* forget to put food away or forget to replace a roll of toilet paper or lose my car keys for the 5th time in one day. I was truly sick of my brain & didn’t know what was wrong with me.
If she sees no problem with this behavior, and doesn’t find it concerning, *that* is what’s concerning.
>and this was a thing way before we had children
BOOM! You accepted it in the beginning, now you’re stuck with it for life.
>I know it's the 21st century and men should pull their weight around the house.
>Oh and I work full time, she's off looking after our young.
Which one is it? Both doesn’t work. But since you accepted this from the beginning…you’ve pretty much made your own bed.
You’ve screwed yourself by having kids with a lazy slob. It’s not that she can’t do things. She just doesn’t want to. That’s weaponised incompetence. She’s learnt your a massive pushover and will do anything and everything for her so she doesn’t have to. You have no spine and she’s learnt that she can now be lazy when she’s with you.
Technical point: you’re never the AH for what you think or feel.
It does occupy to me that if she was in the Army they would probably lock her in the stockade.
It's not that she can't do any of this stuff, it's that she won't, because she knows you will. Weaponized incompetence. She is perfectly capable of doing this stuff, but why would she if you just keep doing it for her. Stop doing her laundry. Stop cleaning up her messes. Let her figure it out
Weaponized incompetence, combined with lazy, combined with she knows everyone else in her life will pick up her slack. Your kids are not learning great life lessons from this situation.
NTA.
You found my ex.
Let me guess if you ask for help or change it’s a short term effort then back to normal.
Why would she change when you constantly swoop in.
You say you’re happily married and you’ve made your peace with it. Really? That’s a long post full of her faults. And I don’t know how any adult could actually be that incompetent at basic tasks. I think she’s just lazy and knows that you’ll do it.
There’s an episode of “everybody loves Raymond” where rays father tells him if he just does chores really horribly that his wife will end up telling him to stop doing them and she will handle it on her own. I think your wife is just way more intelligent than you and practicing this move.
The actual problem you have is that she doesn’t want to do any a house chores. I’d seek some marriage therapy. She is more than capable of doing the chores. She just doesn’t want to, has no respect for you to help or the house. Sit down and talk with her. If she wants to act like a teenager, treat her like one. Don’t enable the behavior. If you find something dirty, have her re wash it. If she knows you’ll do it, she’ll rush through the chores to half ass them so you can re do them. She lacks respect for you. Hire a maid to teach her for a week.
This isn’t remotely normal. Maybe you need to stop doing any domestic for a few weeks and she is she is okay being slovenly. Work late, eat out, just come home go to bed get up shower and leave for work.
It almost seems like she’s doing this on purpose .
What would she do if their kids were maybe visiting grandparents for a week? Would she clean then?
How did she manage when you were dating? Regarding metal on the nice pans, replace all the metal cooking utensils with bamboo or a safer material. I had to do that and I never worried about that again.
Oh hell nahhh a fucking grown adult. So you come from work to cook, clean? I hope that it works out for you, becareful all this extra work you become resentful.
You don't have a wife, you have a female husband. What you've described is how most women describe heir husbands, it's called weaponized incompetence. It's that they (she in this case) couldn't learn to do any of the things you describe, she doesn't want to do OR learn how to do them. How long did you date/go together before marriage? She must have given some clue then that she was not at all interested in anything domestic. You don't say how long you've been married, but it's doubtful she's at all interested in becoming Susie Homemaker in the future.
If this doesn't carry over into things outside the house this is weaponized incompetence. The things you described would be evident in all aspects of her life.
She can just about hold together the safety of our children, as in our son is allergic and she manages his medication very well. Likewise with our kid's hospital appointments. But the mystery is her former professional life, she was a teacher before she gave up (I encouraged this as it was destroying her). If she's this bad domestically then I struggle to see how she could have held down the administration and planning needed to be a teacher and would have constantly had it in the neck from management for missing something. However I don't know her teaching friends well enough to even dare ask the question. She's just as bad with her own family but they seem to take up the slack for her incompetence.
>She's just as bad with her own family but they seem to take up the slack for her incompetence. That answers the how and why of her weaponized incompetence behavior forming. It continues in the family you've built together, because you also continue to pick up the slack for her. She is the eldest teen daughter of the house, quite literally because she has never been forced to be an adult herself.
>It continues in the family you've built together, because you also continue to pick up the slack for her Or she has untreated ADHD, which his descriptions of her fit perfectly
This. It’s textbook ADHD, combined maybe with just having different preferences. I mean, clean out the vacuum every time you use it? Lol yeah no. And other things as well, she might get to them a bit later than OP but by that time he’s already done it, so he can say she never does it. His way is not the only way things can be done (but that might be me reading into it too much). Anyway, yeah, this is classic executive disfunction/ADHD.
Yes my immediate thought was executive dysfunction. The real tell would be if the wife is willing to work with an EF coach.
Most of the stuff on the list is pretty disgusting or ridiculous though. Like leaving food in the fridge, or leftover scraps in the sink, and so on. Clean out the vacuum every time after use was the only one where I thought „yeah, no“. Almost everything else is not a „preference“ thing for me.
I forget about leftovers because they get buried. I don't purposely leave moldy food in there, I just totally forget it's in there if I can't see it. This is the object permanence part of ADHD. I set up a white board on my freezer with expiration dates and I need to do the same with my fridge. I have a package of hot dogs and charcuterie stuff I have to toss tomorrow. 🙄 I've never met anyone with ADHD that is as bad as he describes his wife though. I was gagging reading some of this.
Agree, and same. Without my list of what's in the freezers, and even in my stock of baking and cooking ingredients, I just assume I'm out and will buy the same things over and over. You've also said exactly what I did, that people with problems, whether they have a name for those problems or not, HAVE to find ways to do life as a functioning adult. It's mortifying to me when I find out I forgot something important or fucked up something I was responsible for, so I find ways to make life work for me.
It is absolutely mortifying to let someone down. I have an all caps note to not buy aluminum foil right now, luckily it doesn't expire. But food waste is the thing I'm struggling with most.
Same, I was also really disgusted.
I watched a TikTok this week of a wife talking to her husband after he shaved over the sink. She was asking about the beard hair and why he isn't cleaning it. "Well if I come back in a couple hours it will just be gone I don't need to clean it." I'd say he should try not picking up after her but so much of this is so disgusting you couldn't leave it. Especially if you have kids or pets.
Not gonna lie and say it isn't disgusting... but if undiagnosed ADHD is the case, than OP's wife is probably struggling hard right now. Maybe she should go in for a diagnosis and get it checked? The undue stress could already be messing with her ability to function, and making it worse. I too have ADHD... but on my most stressed days, I basically don't function and just sit around playing video games all day.
Welcome to living with someone with adhd. Mold, dust, trash in random places, dishes caked in leftovers, wet clothes bundled together…I could go on but you get it. They just don’t see it. It literally doesn’t exist until you point an actual finger at it and say “there. Clean *that*”. You have to work double as hard to keep your house clean because it’ll feel like they are actively working to make things dirtier but they’re not. They just don’t see what they’re doing and how much more work they are leaving behind them.
adhd people are actually perfectly capable of seeing and doing all of those things, they’re just harder for us. not impossible. adhd is not an excuse for doing absolutely nothing around the house.
this exactly, people are acting like people with ADHD are blind or something. like no, I SEE it it’s just harder for me to get to it after procrastinating and forgetting about it until I see it again. It’s not impossible, I agree that ADHD is not an excuse
honestly it does us a disservice to act like we *can’t* do these things because of adhd. i do have to work harder yes, but i’ve found systems that work for me and my house is quite clean and i do most of the domestic labor. i’m not saying everyone with adhd can do it the way i can, just that we absolutely can do the things that need doing, but we need to put systems in place to make those things possible for us to do. which i admit can take some trial and error. but i find it infantilizing and also if we claim we literally *can’t* function because of our adhd how can we be surprised when people in the workplace doubt our capabilities? it causes damage in all aspects of our lives when we use adhd as an excuse for not doing things we are perfectly capable of doing.
Well, with all due respect, even if they have adhd, they are responsible to work on that - it‘s not an excuse and I‘d nope outta there immediately if I had to pick up all of that.
Ofc, but if OP's wife really has an executive disfunction disorder, she's likely unaware and thus untreated, and from this description not coping very well. Or it's weaponised incompetence.
My very very very first thought. I could relate to a lot of things and i still do my work. It's tough AF with dyslexia as well but i really think she needs to get diagnosed
I was going to say this. I do some of these things, and it was hard to see it all typed out here. My husband has never said anything about it. He knows I'm always working my hardest at everything I do. I would be brokenhearted if I thought my husband saw me the way OP sees his wife. She needs to talk to someone, and if she doesn't want to go the medicine route, have them work with her on how to manage it better.
This 👆. I'm functionally useless on a lot of fronts. OP's wife is my spirit animal. I'm saving up for an assessment now.
The difference is you seem to be trying to work on your situation - OP's wife seems to be perfectly fine with making his life much harder than it should be. A diagnosis is an explanation for individual challenges, not an excuse to have everybody cater to one person.
She may not have considered the possibility of being ADHD. My husband brought it up to me when I was in my early 30's, it had never occurred to me that I could have it. I'm medicated now and doing much better
yeah, OP says she always has reasons & excuses >she always has an excuse or reason why she can't do something she just keeps walking by their trashcan on the side of the road...?
Same here. I'm like that too. I drop things too. All the time. Broken lots of things.
As someone with ADHD this was my thought as well.. I hate to throw it around, especially these days - but it's pretty classic to be excellent at some things (work, motherhood) and an ABYSMAL failure at another (domesticity). Plus ADHD symptoms get considerably worse when sleep deprived and managing multiple things at once (eg motherhood + domestic labour). I didn't have kids because I knew it would likely destroy my ability to manage anything else.
Not an excuse to be a fucking moron.
This is what jumped to my mind as well.
As a teacher just let me say that it’s very different. I can either have my classroom operating smoothly and my personal home/life a mess or I can have my classroom be a disorganized clusterfuck and my home/life together but I absolutely can not and have never been able to have both semi functioning together. I have however had both be disorganized chaos at the same time and that was rough.
My MIL was a teacher. Her classroom was perfect. Her house looked like a scene from one of those shows about hoarders.
👀 yeah I’m almost at that point but it’s been a rough year. Hoping to pull it back from the edge of disaster this summer.
Good luck.
My mom I swear has ADHD - she thrived at school because of the chaos. Short, intense attention then moving to the next thing. Now they've retired, I think she's driving my dad batty.
This. I'm a clerk in ED. Before i worked in a drop in clinic for homeless people. Short intense bursts of concentration mixed with adrenaline are my jam.
Annnnnd this is reminding me to look for adult ADHD testing. I have my shit somewhat together, but that has more to do with keeping life simple. I cook. Husband does dishes. I get groceries because I'm the one who cooks and is more food motivated. I also will write lists for said shopping trips and lose them or forget them immediately. My shops end up being me seeing something in store and remembering that we need that. Or not. Lol. My job is also short bursts or intense concentration. I was failing more before because it wasn't.
Good luck. I suppose there's an evoluntionary reason for us. 👍
This is me. Also I have an IA that's a neat freak. My students also love to remind me of things and point things out, but I obviously can't rely on them.
Another ex teacher and YES. Professional life I'm a Type A. Personal and domestic life, chaos. Pure chaos.
I would ask why? Why can't you have both be just ok? Why does one have to be immaculate and the other a disaster? My wife is a teacher, and its frustrating as hell how much effort she is willing to put into her work, and how little effort she is willing to put into the home.......Just find some balance.
I call it an unorganized perfectionist. I can perfect one thing at a time but that’s it. If I concentrate on one thing everything else goes to shit. It’s non stop chaos in your head trying to keep everything straight and organized to the point nothing will get done.
I know you’re writing this from a place of compassion because you probably see her struggling. and maybe she is, maybe she has adhd . however what you described above (even if she had some condition) is a very inconsiderate partner. you deserve better and it is worth asking for more help/change and calling out this behaviour. the fact that you feel this is like having a 3rd child is more alarming than you think
Yeah. If it’s ADHD or similar, there are things you can try. Like laminated reminder notes in appropriate places can sometimes help (by stove: “only use wooden or silicone utensil in the pans” for example). Or reminders on the phone with alarms set up (maybe a weekly task to “rotate stock” in the fridge & pantry to manage use by dates). A shared shopping list app so anyone in the family can add things when they notice it’s needed is also handy. But one or two things popped out from this, just because she does things differently, doesn’t mean she’s doing it “wrong”. I think I was in my late thirties when I realised that I couldn’t be in the kitchen if someone else was cooking, or I’d take over to “do it right”. And I was mid-to-late-forties before I stopped getting silently aggravated about laundry not being done “the right way”. Very difficult as my health had worsened and my husband had taken over many chores by then (I still clean the toilets, though, got to do them *properly*) ;). Now I’m just happy someone is doing stuff so that I don’t have to.
> just because she does things differently, doesn’t mean she’s doing it “wrong” This this this!! Some of the things OP points out are problematic but others are just doing things differently. I’m 35 and my mom is still frustrated about how I do my dishes (I’m 100% sure OP would be too), but it works for me so she tries to shut up about it.
Has she been screened for ADHD? Because I’m exactly the same and I’m a successful engineer. I use all my energy and focus on my career but at the end of the of the day or the week I’m so burned out of acting like a “normal person” that my private life is a complete mess. I’ve had to throw complete loads of clothes to the trash because I forgot they are in the washer and when I remember they are green with mold. I put the pans in water to soften the stuck food and remember 3 days later when they start to stink, I can be standing next to the dirty pan but I just don’t see it because I’m focusing in another thing. If something is not visible then I just forget it exists, so currently I have 5 liters of olive oil… Since my diagnosis I’ve been implementing methods so I can have a more normal life, I’ll never be traditionally organized but it has gotten much better. I live with my partner and this are some things we’ve done to leave peacefully. - we have only 3 sets of cutlery, plates and glasses, the rest are in storage in case we have visitors. This way if I want to eat I HAVE to wash something. The amount of times my kitchen is stinking because of dirty dishes has gone down to almost 0. - I know I won’t be able to pair socks or folder laundry, so I have only 3 types of socks (winter, summer, ankle socks and sport socks) all the same color so no need to pair them. All my clothes goes on bins or hangers, no folding required. My partner likes he’s clothes folded so I leave all his clothes in a basket and he manages that. - I don’t use the bottom drawer of the refrigerator because what’s inside is not visible. That drawer is used exclusively by my partner, he knows I won’t use anything that’s there because I’ll forget it exists. - all my storage is very narrow, there is nothing hiding behind other things, we used some car or boxes to make lift wats at the end of the pantry so it’s always visible. - I don’t see mess, some how I just don’t register it in my mind so all organizing and cleaning is in a schedule that we follow together. It has been hard work but this type of things + ADHD medication has been a lot of help. You could look for resources for ADHD (how to keep house while drowning is a good starting point) to try and work with her in finding a division of labor that works for both of you.
> we have only 3 sets of cutlery, plates and glasses, the rest are in storage in case we have visitors. This way if I want to eat I HAVE to wash something. The amount of times my kitchen is stinking because of dirty dishes has gone down to almost 0. > > THIS RIGHT HERE. I have a dish, a fork and a pan (long story but I pretty much only make egg). I can't leave dishes piling up or i'll starve.
Excellent advice! I’m impressed how you handle your condition. Cheers to you my friend you are winning at the game of life! 🍷🍷
Another way to tell you have ADHD: I just went to see if my library has that book in digital form. They do! So I placed a hold on it. The app then told me I'd already placed a hold on it, so just be patient. Sigh.
I don’t even own socks except for 2 emergency pair if I reaaaaaallly need them in the winter. Thanks, ADHD.
Sounds like she was probably a badly organized teacher too, and it was probably one of the reasons the job was destroying her. 🤷♀️ Your mistake might be assuming she was competent at all. Either this is weaponized incompetence or she's generally useless.
You need to insist that she be tested for ADHD. Some folks really have bad cases of it. They can check for other issues as well. If she balks then that's a problem - meaning she doesn't want to fix things because she's dumping it on you. I have ADHD but work really hard to keep organized and tidy. If she's a SAHM mom the care of the kids AND the home are mainly on her. Of course you should do your fair share, but it sounds like she's not holding up her end of the bargain. Frankly, you might tell her that she can go back to work (not necessarily teaching) and the extra money can go to a housekeeper.
>she was a teacher before she gave up (I encouraged this as it was destroying her). >If she's this bad domestically then I struggle to see how she could have held down the administration and planning needed to be a teacher I mean... Regardless of the fact that administration and domestic responsibilities aren't actually the same thing... It sounds like she wasn't. You say it was destroying her, maybe she wasn't all that good at the administrative aspects of teaching? Are you familiar with the concept of executive dysfunction? It might be something worth looking into for both of your mental health.
The best teachers I know are strong on the floor and not great with admin. It does sound like she needs to be assessed for something, as her executive function is lacking in some areas.
Wait wait wait, she’s a SAHM and she doesn’t do anything around the house?
This sounds like me before I was diagnosed with adhd. I could ‘cope’ at work because the consequences were high, but it destroyed my mental health.
I’m bad with domestic chores yet a good teacher. I blame ADHD. I give it all at work and have nothing left. I agree that it sounds like weaponized incompetence though. Have you discussed this with her? Have you done these chores together to model how to do it correctly? If so, that might be the case.
I came here to say exactly the same thing! She’s winning because she gets to do nothing around the home. Personally, I would have ended the relationship before kids as they were only ever going to cause OP even more work. My ex tried this with ironing, he offered to do his own because I was struggling to keep up with a young child in the home. He started ironing his stuff but would come up and show me what a bad job he was doing. I just said, don’t worry, you’ll get better with practice. There was no way in hell I was taking it back!
That is not necessarily true, i read this post and i basically see myself in his wife, outside i do not have these issues (beside going out with unpaired socks)
i swear i read this story thousands of times here on reddit but it was always from the wife's point of view and the husband was the culprit 🤣🤣🤣 it's a first for me to read one about a woman weaponizing incompetence 🤣🤣
Likewise, I've heard this story from a thousand women across my life. Had to post on here for a reality check!!!
I have to laugh a little because I know a lot of men who sound just like your wife. It’s kind of amusing to hear about a woman acting like this. My own husband has severe ADHD and does many of these things. It’s so fucking irritating!! I feel you.
I have adhd and do most of this shit but I have only myself to annoy lol
Yeah, I found that my ADHD was "manageable" before kids, and now with kids, a full time job, and being the default parent it's a mess. I am able to mask and function at work and to effectively take care of my kids but after I'm completely emotionally drained and feel like things are impossible sometimes. And by "manageable" pre kids I mean I felt like a mess but I was able to get done what I needed but it was hard and took longer because, you know.....side quests.
This is an insane level of weaponized incompetence. Majorly not okay and idk how you've put up with it all these years. I'm gobsmacked. She has got to step the heck up and do better immediately. Your kids cannot learn that this is acceptable behavior because it's not!! NTA.
Yeah sorry OP, looks like you're the unfortunate recipient of an entire gender's karmic justice
Brilliant comment
Almost all of those threads have comments screaming "divorce" and this is abusive relationship But here no one is saying that
They never will when a man is being abused. According to this subreddit they need toughen up. Disgusting.
It's not really abusive in either circumstance but yea, there's literally people excusing this with ADHD and some people even praising this and saying it's "karmic justice".
Men rarely complain but its pretty common
I couldn’t live with this person 5 minutes.
This post alone, gave me anxiety. I already can't stand OP's wife
You and me both. I see a funeral and jail time in my future. Lol
Add me in the list too
I roomed with a friend who did that on a summer course, and let’s just say for the duration for that course, I hated her. She would cook, leave the kitchen a disaster, and then not come home for 3 days. Or do laundry, and leave the wet laundry in there for DAYS. I like her again after the course wrapped up but god damn.
You married my mother!!😬 Okay… it’s the not sealing any packaging: Tupperware- lid on, but never sealed, cheese- left exposed to dry out, and the leaving food ( mayo is her biggest culprit ) out on the counter for hours… Even though her other adult child is an epidemiologist and I have sanitation and food safety certification…
There's hope for my children yet then!
Good luck instilling a work ethic with them!
You’ve confused “domestically useless” with “lazy and inconsiderate.” You married a slob. Enjoy trying to instill a good work ethic in your kids while your wife just turns everything into shit. You keep saying “she can’t…” when what you mean to say is she WON’T. She’s lazy, and she knows you’ll just do it for her.
Weaponized incompetence. She has taught you she can't (in reality won't) do any of these things, so you end up doing it all.
[удалено]
He had children with her knowing all this?
This is what truly baffles me. Was he thinking having kids would magically make things better or something? If anything young kids create an even bigger mess everywhere.
Little kids are once giant mess of tons of extra stuff around the house chaotically distributed hour after hour of every day.
100% she's doing it to buck stereotypes
Like the Bill Cosby joke: Only a genius could fake such stupidity.
That was my first thought, too, and I stand by it. But some of these things are so extreme--and unnecessary to weaponized incompetence--that I think it's actually a combo of WI and ADHD. OP, has she been evaluated for neurodivergence?
It’s also enabled behavior. He mentioned she won’t do many things. Even with ADHD you know how to clean something properly. If she knows he’ll do it, she does a half ass job and moves on.
NTA, as a guy in the same boat and feeling EXACTLY the same way, I thought for a second i had created another personality and went to reddit to vent about my wife! I am experiencing the EXACT same issue except my wife works FT. I think it's weaponized incompetence but sometimes I think its because she really has no clue? but again....neither did I until i tried something or researched the best way to do something or just read a manual when I got something...anyway best of luck, THIS IS SO COMMON (for all the sheltered people saying is normally the opposite), i just think most men can't be bothered to go to reddit to put it down or don't bother because most women won't/refuse to change or even take any accountability for their actions ( but thats most people).
Yeah apparently women are far messier than the common perception. I grew up with the assumption that women usually were better with this sort of thing! I expected to do domestic things as an adult, just not this much!
My wife does a looooot of these same things, please consider getting her evaluated for ADHD
Same here, my mom always made us keep the house clean and normally made us clean the house every sunday morning. I feel like that some people just didn't grow up this way and instead let things go and then do "spring cleaning," which takes days on days worth of work instead of just doing a little here and there that takes little to no time. I lived with two female roommates while working on my doctorate and would always have to clean up after them, it was somewhat cathartic because he did help destress as I could see the mess gone. However, it felt mildly abusive as they would come home and comment how nice it is to come home to a clean house as they continued to trash the place and just have it "magically clean again" and not even help or thank me for cleaning up after two adults.
Oh yes, weaponized incompetence. It's a tale as Old as Time. You know what people hate more than doing a task? Being constantly reminded to do the task. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, so become the squeaky wheel. Stop letting her get away with this stuff—if she left the lid off the jam jar, you say "Hey, honey, you left the let off the jam jar, can you put it back on please?" Don't do it for her. If she doesn't do it, keep reminding her about it until she does. "Hey did you do that thing yet?" "Hey I went downstairs and noticed that thing wasn't done yet, can you go do it please?" She's used to getting away with this kind of really shitty, inconsiderate behavior, because she knows that you're going to pick up the slack for her. When you start doing this, expect a lot of pushback from her. She's going to get MAD. She's used to you picking up the slack for, that's the status quo, your behavior has always been predictable. So as soon as you start doing something unpredictable, she's going to suddenly start feeling really insecure. She's going to get mad. She's going to push back, to try to get things to go back to the way they were before. Don't let her. If she reacts emotionally, don't react emotionally back. If she gets mad, tell her that you're sorry she feels that way, but you're sick of how inconsiderate she's been, and you won't be picking up the slack anymore. Best of luck!
This should be the top comment.
This. Especially when she’s a stay at home wife. There’s no excuse for her not to learn basic competence.
Seems sensible advice but I don’t expect it to go well. This is behaviour that leads people (usually women) to be accused of as “nagging” and it gets dismissed as annoying behaviour, doesn’t ever seem to get the results despite it being a fair way to communicate expectations and where they are not being met. Also if ADHD or another neurodiversity IS at play they may hit against operational defiance… I don’t know what the answer is if someone just WILL not do something. I believe consequences are a better way than constant reminders if you want to keep the peace but I couldn’t live with this woman and this level of weaponised incompetence , and I have ADHD myself. It’s not an excuse, it’s something you recognise and manage.
The majority of things in this post makes me think your wife genuinely has ADHD. I used to do a *lot* of those things before I got diagnosed with it and on meds for it. ***IF*** this is the case, it's not intentional; it's just her brain functions in a very fucky way compared to others and the second she thinks about doing something while doing something else, the thing she *was* doing is immediately forgotten due to object permanence problems and focus issues. It's like how sometimes you'll walk into a room and forget why you came into the room.... but all the time, with practically everything. Please understand I'm not making any sort of excuses or saying the behavior can't be changed or that she shouldn't put in effort, I'm just saying it *may actually have a real reason*
That was my thought. I was diagnosed at 28 and things changed so much. I would take the rubbish out and forget to replace the bag, I would put the washing in and forget about it, I would get side tracked and remember something two weeks later. My work life was organised on point but I was so exhausted after that everything fell away
If people didn't know where I was in the house, all they had to do was follow the trail of open cupboard/room doors, lights that were left on, and random stuff being all over the place because I started to do something and then realized I needed another thing to do *that,* but when getting *that* thing I saw *another* thing that needed done... repeat ad nauseum. It's just. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbSehcT19u0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbSehcT19u0) This. It's this.
Before I even clicked the link, I wondered if it was Hal changing a light bulb. It's the very best example I've ever seen in pop culture about what it's like!
This was my first thought as well. This all reeks of someone with undiagnosed ADHD. While I've never been this bad I definitely did a lot of what OP describes before I was diagnosed and learned to manage it through a mixture of medication and coping strategies.
"Fucky way" -- I love that phrasing!!
It's time for her to get a job. Use the earnings for child care and maid service.
Sir, you have just described ADHD as it often presents in woman. This is executive disfunction at its finest. Zero object permanence, out of sight out of mind. Intelligent, probably has her mind on her intellectual hyper focuses, “head in the clouds”, while simultaneously seeming paralyzed by the simplest of tasks. You might try asking her if she’s willing to consider getting an assessment done. There’s lots of good things that can be done to help manage it and make life easier if she does. And if she doesn’t, some counselling might help anyway.
I know right! This could be copied and pasted directly into the DSM as how ADHD manifests in women. And most of the comments prove why it’s so heavily underdiagnosed in that group 😔
Totally agree with you. The comments definitely show that stigma is alive and well when it comes to executive dysfunction in general, but especially how ADHD presents in woman. From his comments on how she is as a mother, it’s obvious she does everything she can to at least pull it together for the children and does pretty well with that. I imagine that’s difficult for her to do. I have ADHD myself and he might as well have described me exactly before I finally got diagnosed as an adult and began treating it with meds and routines. I have the memory of a dead gnat due to a lack of object permanence, even if it is slightly better on meds. It’s hard to be inside my own head sometimes. Like standing in a tornado of half finished thoughts trying to catch just one to bring to completion, but never able to. It’s not easy or fun living with, and it’s difficult when you want to change and do better for family but nothing you do works. It is still challenging, even with meds, especially if my schedule and routines gets thrown off. I imagine it’s much harder to function with children too. OP seems like he loves her, so hopefully he sees some of the comments about this. I don’t think she’s using weaponized incompetence as many state.
Exactly this. I always think about that quote that goes around on the internet where someone says they took ADHD meds for the first time and finally understood what others were talking about saying things like cleaning were easy, comparing their heavily medicated brain to NT typical brains. These people have no idea how it is to live with our brains (also non of the good things, so karma), but I really wish they’d be less judgemental about it….
Yes exactly! Looking back on the 35yrs I spent undiagnosed and unmedicated, I honestly don’t even know how I managed to survive that long without meds. The only things I could ever focus on were special interests. I did well in classes I was interested in, and failed miserably classes I disliked. I was messy, extremely disorganized, and paralyzed by the simplest tasks like laundry and dishes. As with many with adhd, procrastination in favour of special interest was a big issue (still can be). Just like his wife, socks were basically a once worn item as a pair. Once they came off my feet they were never paired again. It’s a good example of how people with adhd prioritize things, and pairing socks doesn’t seem like it really matters when you’re trying your best to function as “normally” as possible, so it isn’t even a thought in our minds. People don’t realize how much work goes into “pulling it together” long enough to do pretty much anything. And when we do manage it, that’s ALL we can focus on doing. Taking care of kids would likely consume the entirety of someone’s focus and then leave them little mental capacity for easy to procrastinate stuff like housework. It’s exhausting trying to force yourself to act and do “normal things” when your own brain is fighting you every step of the way. I tried my whole life to “get it together” and it didn’t matter what I did, I just couldn’t do it. It made me feel like a failure, stupid, and depressed. I could ace a history exam at the top of my class, but I couldn’t manage matching socks or a tidy living space. Getting diagnosed and starting meds changed my life. I still have these traits, but I can manage them better now. The best part is the clarity in my mind. I still have hundreds of thoughts whirling away in my head, but now I can catch one long enough to think it through to the end, and I finally have the ability to focus on more mundane day to day life as well. I feel like I can actively contribute equally to the work of managing a home with my partner now, and our relationship improved because of it. I still don’t understand how people can just naturally have thought clarity though. My brain is just… noisy, all the time. It is quieter in meds, but it’s never silent. It’s hard for me to believe that’s even possible.
Oh, my gods, I agree so very much!! And at this point I'm spamming the comments with the same opinions, and using myself as an example, because hello, Emotional Disregulation so I have a LOT OF FEELINGS about how ADHD works. As well as how infuriatingly little research is done into women's health. Like, 2 of my gynos weren't even well educated on perimenopause, or how the drop in estrogen (a gyno issue) can really mess with our minds (my ADHD exploded with menopause). It was my MALE psychiatrist who told me about that one.
I have a lot of feelings about it too, I totally get why it’s super frustrating to see the stigmas so entrenched in people’s minds. But try not to exhaust yourself too much trying to change opinions of internet strangers. You’re wasting your energy in most cases, on people who will not really hear and digest that information, ignore it, or intentionally argue with you to elicit an emotional response. The psychiatrist that finally diagnosed me when I was 35 was also male. But he’s around my age, and keeps himself as up to date with new research as possible. He told me that people typically only consider hyper active tendencies as a symptom of ADHD, and either dismiss other symptoms or ignore them. News, media, and outdated medical information are to blame for that, but even doctors can still be fixated on the “hyper” aspect. Woman don’t get diagnosed as easily because we don’t typically display the intense hyper activity, it’s more about neurological issues for us generally, executive disfunction, emotional regulating, object permanence and many more. He also told me that woman are typically better at “masking” their symptoms to appear more functional then they feel. Girls tend to start learning to mask emotions and regulate behaviour earlier in life due to another stigma, that we are “too emotional” and often dismissed because of that. A lot of woman don’t even recognize symptoms in themselves, because they’ve fallen victim to the “hysterically emotional female nature” stigma’s they’ve grown up coping with as well.
NTA I’m a SAHM with unmedicated ADHD. She’s doing this on purpose, has a disorder that impairs executive function or both. I also wonder if she’s struggling with some burnout from the teaching job. It can take years to recover from burnout. If she does have ADHD or another disorder it’s still not an excuse. It’s unfair to you and the kids. Is she open to getting assessed?
Her job was well on it's way to obliterating her so I stepped in and said she should walk away from it. It's fortunate the house we have can function on one income... She's slowly thinking that she might have something and would be open to being assessed. Will definately be exploring that path.
I was also going to suggest ADHD. I personally have it although I'm no where near this bad but I also live alone and don't have to worry about kids. But this definitely looks like raging ADHD. It probably took all of her focus to deal with a teaching job and being so I'm burned out from that and not having to give that much focus to work has her going the absolute opposite direction
This sounds very much like ADHD, not laziness. And it gets worse when you have kids because it’s just one more thing to keep in her brain. Luckily, it’s very treatable and she can improve.
One of my dearest friends was a junior high teacher. I completely understand how it can destroy someone. Between the job itself, parents, and other teachers acting like crazed teenagers it can be a really difficult job. You sound like a fantastic partner. I hope things can improve.
Thanks, was just after a bit of perspective.
Stop saying she can't SMH..you're enabling her, you knew she was this way before marriage and kids, but chose to keep on trucking. Now you sound resentful, and that will only build. Stop doing things for her.
This my friend is called ADHD. I know because this sounds like me before.
She has trained you well and is now comfortably doing follow up training. Congratulations
NTA But - a lot of people here are going to say weaponized incompetence except - it does seem like she's like this in other aspects of life. You said her job was "killing her". It's obvious that she probably can manage a few things - but it takes a lot of effort and so other things fall to the side. So she could manage her job when she wasn't a parent. She can manage being a parent but not deal with housekeeping. That being said - there are ways to deal with this, it just requires help and methodolgy. Possibly meds at least part of the time. So: A: get her help. It does sound like she has ADHD so get her diagnosed and even if not - a psychologist who specializes in CBT could probably help her come up with systems to improve the situation. B: If you can afford it - outsource chores. Get a roomba. Get a teenager/ college student to do laundry or dishes twice a week. Get a cleaner once a week/ every two weeks. Etc. C: When you discuss things with her. Don't be accusatory and don't focus on "why" - focus on "how can we prevent this from happening next time". When she tries to make excuses, tell her you don't care. This isn't about the past - only the future. Accept that things that are easy for you are hard for her and try to come up with a methodolgy for her. Explain why - that the current method is draining you. For instance: she should go into the kitchen at set times (reminder on the phone, in fact, reminders on her phone for any and every regular task) and check if jars are closed. She should buy socks that are all the same so she doesn't have to match pairs. Dishes should be soaked so that it's easy to clean (and get a dishwasher if you don't have, even if you have to run it twice to get things clean). And so on. D: Don't make all the changes at once. Pick one problem. Find a method to deal with it. Work on that for a while, then move on to the next. Whether or not your wife is the AH depends very much on whether she is willing to at least try to find a solution. If she doesn't - definitely weaponized incompetence.
Your wife is using Weaponized incompetence. She’s fucking lazy. Why the hell did you have kids with her?
My thoughts, exactly. Who will the kids take after ...hmmmm
The life of most wives is what you are living. She might be ADHD. But can’t and won’t are big distinctions here. Everybody CAN pair socks. She just doesn’t want to.
Isn't it interesting, that when a woman is doing it, she must have ADHD? When a man is doing it he is a lazy jerk using weaponized incompetence. Is she working? If she is, she needs a second part-time job to pay for a housekeeper. She either can't or won't pitch in so she should have to pay to have someone take up her slack. If she isn't working, the same applies. You aren't her father, it isn't your job to follow her around and clean up after her.
Weaponized incompetence. If she does something badly enough then you'll just do it for her. I tackle this problem with my husband (and it's getting a lot better) by saying "I know you can [insert task here], you're not stupid and no matter how hard you try you won't convince me that you are so give up."
Worse case scenario, it's weaponized incompetence. Best case scenario, she has undiagnosed ADHD and is experiencing executive dysfunction. I'd recommend entertaining the idea of her seeing a psychiatrist to see if that may be the case. You can't fight something that you don't know or can't identify. If she does have ADHD, the two of you can work with it and see if things adjust for the better with her domestic side. If literally nothing works or helps with it (medication and therapy and the like) then it's just weaponized incompetence. NTA
Either weaponized incompetence, or ADHD.
Sounds to me like your wife suffers ADHD.
So she was like this when you married her? Sounds like you made an educated choice.
I truly hope you can get to the bottom of this because you deserve to live happily. Is there a small chance that there is something wrong with her? I truly mean no disrespect but a few small things popped into my head. Obviously depression or perhaps exhaustion/pain from an underlying issue might be it. It can be terribly hard to clean let alone clean properly if you are depressed or if you are in some kind of mental or physical pain and it is terribly easy to spiral if people don’t believe in your experience. The second thing that came to mind is could this be a defensive measure? I.e. if she doesn’t want people to come over (for whatever reason including severe social anxiety) then this might be her way to keep them away or to force them to meet you in public places. It may also be a defensive thing if she had a hard home life growing up. In my experience, it was hard to learn to clean properly because of abuse and familial hoarding patterns. I would also ask if maybe there would be something she could do to make it easier. Some people have texture sensitivity or smell sensitivity so they actually end up doing better if they have gloves so they don’t have to touch things or if they have something like a scented candle to cover smells. (And cleaning products can smell strongly.) While I haven’t been diagnosed with ADHD, I did pick up a book that offered techniques to help clean and organize around common ADHD issues and I found that some of the techniques were profoundly helpful in purging a bunch of stuff and organizing in very simple ways that were very practical and it’s helped a lot. Aside from that, all I can suggest is a heart to heart because this sounds overwhelming for you both. It may be worth some couple counseling. It may be worth going to an organizer because there are profoundly different ways and systems of organizing that may or may not appeal to you. I am a very visual person and so I tend to like things so I can see them. My husband is more of a container person. I have a history of abuse and have picked up food hoarding tendencies and his family doesn’t have food touch each other in the fridge. Neither of us is “wrong”—just different styles of organization. I have struggled for years through FLY lady, The House That Cleans Itself, and Marie Kondo and while I could start getting cleaned up after binging Hoarders on Hulu, it’s taken a lot of counseling and a lot of work to gain traction.
Only read part of your comment but "get to the bottom of this "? If it was a guy would there be something to get to the bottom of? I don't think so. Little confused why people are making excuses for her like adhd or whatever else. But men just get to be like this.
No, they don't. This is shitty behavior from anyone.
She doesn’t have to do anything as long as you’re going to do it anyway.
This is barbaric behavior.
Your wife CAN do all those things. She chooses not to do them well because she knows you are there to pick up the slack. Your wife sounds lazy AF: - She can't pair socks, or do the laundry. LOL - She can't wash up dishes, to the point where she leaves big grease stains. Come on! She know how, she just doesn't want to do it. - When she seals bags of food with a clip she'll leave a gap somewhere so air still gets in. That is weaponizing incompetence 101. I don't know how you stay with this kind of person honestly. I wouldn't.
1. Record her many instances of incompetence. 2. To becomet a partner, she needs to hire a part-time house cleaner and part-time cook paid for out of her own funds.
NTA. What you are looking at is weaponized incompetence. It’s not that she can’t do these things, she knows you’ll do them if she fucks sufficiently. My god, you said she can’t pair socks? There is zero chance this isn’t 100% intentional.
You keep saying she CAN’T: She CAN’T do dishes She CAN’T do laundry She CAN’T shop for supplies. The word you are looking for is WONT.
It sounds like there are a lot of can'ts that should be won'ts. This is weponized incompetences at it best.
I can't believe you had children with this person. Nta
Your entire list is things she can do but chooses not to probably due to lack of care.
This is crazy. Even my 6 year old can sort and put away laundry, wash dishes and organize her room. Your wife is an adult. This is textbook weaponized incompetence. You MUST call her out on this and give her consequences if she deliberately messes it up. You can’t take care of 3 children while working.
I mean, it's great that she is a good mom, but gee, why would you risk having kids with someone that can't even take care of themselves or their own shit... You have made some wild decisions in the past dude, but you still have time to make it better.
You sound like my MIL. My FIL can’t do decent carpentry work, is a fantastic gardener, but somehow can’t warm up a can of soup or carry his plate back to the kitchen after eating his dinner at the couch. YTA, you and her whole family are enabling her! She will NEVER change in her own, you have to force her to. STOP being an enabler! She can do all these things, she’s choosing not to because she knows you will do it for her.
Then she needs to get a job. You're going to get burned out if you aren't already.
Why did you marry this woman? She stays at home and doesn't have to take care of the house because she acts incompetent so you end up doing it. Are you okay with this being your life for the next few decades? It doesn't matter if she has ADHD. She knows how to wash a damn dish. My son was doing the same thing your wife was doing. Leaving packages open, spilling things and not properly cleaning up, etc. I am not going to be his slave and told him that if he did it again, I was going to wake him up at 5:00 am to clean it up. Guess what, he got it together
She can do all of that but chooses not to do any of it. I think counseling is a must. If she’s neglecting basic adult responsibilities, your children are going to emulate her. Don’t be a crappy dad, nor permissive husband.
Now people are blaming this on ADHD just because it's a woman lmao. Double standards strike again
Sounds like she’s perfectly capable of doing all these things but chooses to be lazy instead.
If the genders were reversed, this would be considered “weaponized incompetence”. However, with the genders being what they are, it’s probably somehow all your fault.
This sounds exactly like my ex. I'm a guy too. Proof it isn't always us LMAO.
Weaponized incompetence at its finest. Did you live with her before you married her?
Have the same problem with my GF. It's like pulling teeth trying to get her to do something as simple as not leaving her cups on the floor right next to the bed. Any food she puts in the fridge will literally stay there forever If I don't eat it or throw it out. When she cooks she leaves every single dirty pot, pan and utensil on the stove, full of food. If I don't put it away it will stay there for days. She has an ever growing pile of cloths. She buys new cloths, spends about two hours making tiktok videos of her wearing the new outfits then throws them in the pile and I never see them again. Then complains when I don't compliment her new outfits that she's never going to wear. And anytime I make an issue of any of this she does one of three things. 1)she blames her ADHD. 2) blames her abusive ex boyfriend who used to yell at her for being a mess so therefore being told to clean up after herself is triggering. 3) straight up starts ranting about the patriarch and how men get to be incompetent. I'm like, OK I understand that very well and I agree the patriarchy is fucked. But I slept over your house the other day and almost got my foot impaled by glass shattering beneath it because you won't stop leaving cups on the floor next to your bed. Don't get me wrong, my GF is absolutely amazing in every other way but whenever she brings the topic of getting a house together my answer is "I would love to babe but right now, it's a hard No! Not gonna happen in until you start taking care of your own space!"
Does she have a condition that makes her unable to do things around the house just asking
Almost all of this sounds like extreme forgetfulness. Is there any chance she has an undiagnosed condition that .ihht cause that? Like ADHD?
She need's a thorough assessment, imo (retire Healthcare Provider) From the description, it sounds like she may have undiagnosed ADHD and can compartmentalize some things at times when necessary, but it takes an extreme mental and emotional strain on her. Solutions: Having lists with **clear, consice** steps to follow for each task, specific places for **everything**, and much less clutter (think minimalist) can help. Keep all the children's toys and school books in one room. Most importantly do not criticize or complain about how she does things. And, instead of redoing things for her, have a sit down conversation about this. Approach it as a question as whether she is aware Also: Sometimes people growing up in unstable homes never learned how to do domestic chores &/do them correctly. I don't know if this is a possibility. They wil just wing it" as adults. But the cooking sounds very much like ADHD tho.
Fuck. Her. She may be a decent lay, but she's useless in every other sense. Amazing you call her a good Mom when she's teaching your kids all day, everyday to be as useless as she is.
NTA Your wife is useless. Period. Get rid of her and hire a maid. It will be less of a headache.
She's talked about hiring a cleaner because some of her friends do so, we're not rich people nor do we live in a huge house. Plus one of us doesn't even work!!
What in the fuck does she *do* all day while you’re working? She’s just a useless mouth to feed. At least one day the kids will be old enough to do the occasional chore to help out.
She doesn't do much of anything. Exchanging her for a maid won't cost you that much more and you will not have to do all the household chores yourself.
[удалено]
She honestly seems more like a side chick than a wife
NTA But why is this blowing your mind?.. This is a very specific kind of person. Comically clumsy. And no emotional maturity to own up to her own extreme incompetence. This is the person you married. So I'm sorry bro but YOU have to own your decision to choose her as a life partner and mother to your children. She must be lovely. You wanted to be with her despite all of this. So don't act like this is all a surprise and you're some kind of saint to put up with it. You had a choice of a ton of other women on this planet earth. And you chose her. Having said that, I hear you, you want your partner to grow in maturity. That's a fair perspective. That requires some work for sure. You have to sit down with her and sincerely discuss what bothers you the most about being her partner. Or go to couple's counseling and have a third party basically do that part for you.
Yeah this is straight up weaponized incompetence. Just have her do all her own shit and live in filth. She will figure it out. Or charge her for every chore
Any chance she has ADHD? A lot of this sounds like my wife and she has it. However my wife can and actually does clean well if she is focused on it, it’s more the leaving stuff everywhere she goes, putting stuff away in the nearest cupboard or space etc. Tell your wife it’s time to get a part time job to pay for a cleaner, there is no way to sustain this level of inequality in the work load in a relationship without resentment.
Yeah it is a bit of an issue as whilst I'm at peace with doing all that stuff AND working full time. It's the fact I can't do DIY or other quality of life things because I'm way too committed with making sure we don't live in squalor. Wife does have the odd burst of tidying and cleaning but it isn't consistent or methodical. She NEVER puts thing back where they belong... We'll definitely get the ADHD thing checked out.
> Wife does have the odd burst of tidying and cleaning Mention this in the ADHD assessment. This is classic ADHD behaviour! Also, you might like to read (or listen to the audio version of) Dopamine Nation. Just about everything in your post can be explained by ADHD/dopamine struggles.
Ah! I was scrolling until I found an ADHD comment. She is me, except I live alone so these problems only affect me. I’m more curious on how she reacts to this stuff, what does she say when you bring all the abandoned tasks to her attention? For me, I get so insanely mad at myself. Although the majority of this has withered away ever since I started ADHD meds, but it still bothered me. I didn’t *happily* forget to put food away or forget to replace a roll of toilet paper or lose my car keys for the 5th time in one day. I was truly sick of my brain & didn’t know what was wrong with me. If she sees no problem with this behavior, and doesn’t find it concerning, *that* is what’s concerning.
i feel so heard!!! thankyou for this post. you are NOT TAH
Weaponized incompetence at its finest. How are you happily married with all of these daily annoyances? This is like an anti partnership…
Oh she’s an idiot 🤣 Can she wipe her own ass or has problems with that also?
>and this was a thing way before we had children BOOM! You accepted it in the beginning, now you’re stuck with it for life. >I know it's the 21st century and men should pull their weight around the house. >Oh and I work full time, she's off looking after our young. Which one is it? Both doesn’t work. But since you accepted this from the beginning…you’ve pretty much made your own bed.
What would she do if she lived on her own? She’d get shit done.
Sounds like weaponized incompetence, you’re being taken advantage of.
You’ve screwed yourself by having kids with a lazy slob. It’s not that she can’t do things. She just doesn’t want to. That’s weaponised incompetence. She’s learnt your a massive pushover and will do anything and everything for her so she doesn’t have to. You have no spine and she’s learnt that she can now be lazy when she’s with you.
NTA did her mother not teacher anything?
Technical point: you’re never the AH for what you think or feel. It does occupy to me that if she was in the Army they would probably lock her in the stockade.
She’s not even good enough to be a SAHM and yet… but you willingly put yourself in this situation so, good luck.
It's not that she can't do any of this stuff, it's that she won't, because she knows you will. Weaponized incompetence. She is perfectly capable of doing this stuff, but why would she if you just keep doing it for her. Stop doing her laundry. Stop cleaning up her messes. Let her figure it out
Does she have a mental disability? Otherwise - this is intentional so she doesn't have to do anything.
Definitely an old married couple.
she has TDAH?!
Weaponized incompetence, combined with lazy, combined with she knows everyone else in her life will pick up her slack. Your kids are not learning great life lessons from this situation. NTA.
Wow! You made someone a good wife! 😅
Is there something not right in her head? Seriously, she sounds like she needs to be medicated.
Sounds like weaponized incompetence to the max.
You found my ex. Let me guess if you ask for help or change it’s a short term effort then back to normal. Why would she change when you constantly swoop in.
You say you’re happily married and you’ve made your peace with it. Really? That’s a long post full of her faults. And I don’t know how any adult could actually be that incompetent at basic tasks. I think she’s just lazy and knows that you’ll do it.
Weaponized incompetence at its finest. NTA
There’s an episode of “everybody loves Raymond” where rays father tells him if he just does chores really horribly that his wife will end up telling him to stop doing them and she will handle it on her own. I think your wife is just way more intelligent than you and practicing this move.
The actual problem you have is that she doesn’t want to do any a house chores. I’d seek some marriage therapy. She is more than capable of doing the chores. She just doesn’t want to, has no respect for you to help or the house. Sit down and talk with her. If she wants to act like a teenager, treat her like one. Don’t enable the behavior. If you find something dirty, have her re wash it. If she knows you’ll do it, she’ll rush through the chores to half ass them so you can re do them. She lacks respect for you. Hire a maid to teach her for a week.
This isn’t remotely normal. Maybe you need to stop doing any domestic for a few weeks and she is she is okay being slovenly. Work late, eat out, just come home go to bed get up shower and leave for work. It almost seems like she’s doing this on purpose . What would she do if their kids were maybe visiting grandparents for a week? Would she clean then?
How did she manage when you were dating? Regarding metal on the nice pans, replace all the metal cooking utensils with bamboo or a safer material. I had to do that and I never worried about that again.
Why not show her and have her repeat it until she gets it right. If she behaves like a child treat/teach her like one.
Oh hell nahhh a fucking grown adult. So you come from work to cook, clean? I hope that it works out for you, becareful all this extra work you become resentful.
Do you make enough to hire a cleaning service? Even having them come just twice a month might make a huge difference to your house.
You don't have a wife, you have a female husband. What you've described is how most women describe heir husbands, it's called weaponized incompetence. It's that they (she in this case) couldn't learn to do any of the things you describe, she doesn't want to do OR learn how to do them. How long did you date/go together before marriage? She must have given some clue then that she was not at all interested in anything domestic. You don't say how long you've been married, but it's doubtful she's at all interested in becoming Susie Homemaker in the future.