Mommying Your Husband
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Ladies: do you struggle with mommying your husband or partner? Do you fight against it? Does he? Has it added to the stress of keeping the romance alive — or is it just one more task on your to-do list? The “helpless man” stereotype has spawned a whole genre of TV ads like this one — but do you have some real-life examples to share? I’ve had a few wine-fueled conversations with girlfriends about this and have seen a few commenter threads over at Corporette (like here and here), as well as a few news stories that made me think about this, so I thought we’d discuss here.
For my $.02 — I probably am guilty of mommying my husband to an unacceptable extent. I’ve purchased pretty much every single item of clothing he’s worn since 2007 (when we met) and manage the family finances in general. Even though we’ve had the exact same routines and habits in place, night after night for years now, if I’m going to be away during the dinner/family/bedtime funnel I try to remind him ahead of time and get our ducks in a row.
{related: how to share parenting duties with your spouse}
I text message him when his best friends’ birthdays are coming up. I keep trying to get him to put his glasses and wallet in the same place when he comes into the house, and if I find them elsewhere I’ll move them. (I realize this sounds like going too far, but he’s lost his wallet four times this year, and I keep reordering the same pair of prescription sunglasses because he keeps losing them.)
I’ve occasionally had to remind him to shower/shave/get a haircut, etc. I suppose I do these things because I love him and want his life to run smoothly… but I also want to keep MY life running smoothly, even if managing his life in this way adds to my stress and to-do list.
{related: what to know about weaponized incompetence}
So I’m curious, ladies — are you guilty of mommying your husband? Do you think it comes down to differences between the genders — typical husband/wife roles — or is it just the nature of a partner relationship? Is there a certain line that you try to avoid crossing, either because you or he recognize it as too far? If you’ve backed off, what was the turning point and what did you gain/lose?
{related: how to share emotional labor as parents}
Pictured: YouTube and Stencil.
This post truly speaks to me. We’re a young married couple (mid to late 20s) with a toddler and I feel that I am constantly mothering my husband because he honest to goodness. Does. Not. Care. If I didn’t say anything about showering, my husband would go DAYS without one. If I don’t schedule and make him go, he wouldn’t get a haircut, beard trim, etc. Ever. If I don’t leave a list of things to accomplish around the house during the day (he watches DS while I’m at work then works at night) NOTHING would happen. If I say something about not cleaning he just says “well I can’t read your mind, how did I know stuff needed to get done?” Uhhh because you have eyes and can see that the bathroom floor needs to be washed??? And his inability to choose appropriate clothes for situations has been a thorn in our marriage (came to see me at work– I’m a hospital administrator, in ratty sweat pants and a cut off t-shirt and flip flops) so I’ve bought him most of his wardrobe in hopes that it means that he’ll always have SOMETHING to wear that’s appropriate no matter what he chooses (because I refuse to dress him since he’s an -adult-). A lot of it comes from his family where things like this were not considered important (personal grooming, household cleaning, etc) and it’s frustrating because if he had been given the tools when he was supposed to get them then we wouldn’t be here!! /end rant
I wouldn’t say I mommy my husband, but that’s largely because a) we’ve been married 10 years and I’ve mellowed/learned to pick my battles; and b) with a kid, and with the hectic last few years we’ve had, I have no time or energy for micromanaging anymore. Our balance of household labor is way off, but I don’t care as much if it’s 50-50 anymore … I mostly just care that it gets done. So he might complain about my interference, but it could be much worse. The only thing I get on him about even occasionally about is doctor’s appointments. He needs to be seeing a physician regularly (borderline diabetic) and he just won’t go. But after a while I got to a point where I was like, “well, make sure your life insurance is up to date” … I whistle past the graveyard because what else can you do?
A friend of mine and I were actually talking about this the other day – there are men that you can just tell were dressed by their wives/girlfriends. She had a funny but very un-PC term for it. I honestly don’t find it an attractive look so I refuse to dress Mr. AIMS in half-zip turtlenecks and chinos. I did help him figure out some clothing choices some years ago because I like clothes and he doesn’t care much, but beyond figuring out his sizes and some general “that’s cool” and “that’s not,” he mostly does it on his own. I do like shopping though so I will buy him things from time to time and he always says those are his favorites but I refuse to take over or pick out his clothes for him (which some women I know do all.the.time). If I am being totally candid sometimes I do want to buy him more clothes but I am loathe to add to my to do list.
In terms of other things – I’d say I don’t “mommy” but we all play to our strengths. I do buy the gifts for his family but that’s because I care and he doesn’t and prior to me no one got a gift and so they know the gifts are basically from me to them. He cleans the kitchen and the bathroom every week, does the laundry pick up and drop off, and cooks at least 1 to 2 meals a week. Do I love that he will buy things we already have when he cooks because he doesn’t look in the pantry first? No. But we always use extra Dijon mustard eventually and him doing it on his own is worth it to me.
FWIW, I wonder if the men that require more intervention would be better about not loosing their glasses or wallet if they had to deal with replacing the items themselves after the fact?
I do more of the adulting around the house and it drives me nuts. The responsibility creep happened while we were dating and has gotten progressively worse as we got married, bought a house, and had a baby.
Husband says that he’ll do whatever I tell him, but just doesn’t get that 50% of it is just figuring out that crap needs to get done. And doing it the right way — I’m not talking about the right socks or putting the dishes in the dishwasher — I mean making sure the diaper bag has enough snacks and wipes and the laundry isn’t ruined…
Laundry for example — not that hard to do, not even that time consuming if you stay on top of it, but it’s only marginally more work for me to actually do the whole process than it is to ask him to do it, remind him to do it, remind him to stain treat, remind him to separate, remind him to put it in the dryer, and then take it out and fold it. I don’t care if he folds my t-shirts differently, but I do care if he doesn’t check the toddler’s clothes for major stains and they get set it, or if he over stuffs the washer and puts his heavy cargo shorts in with my t-shirts and I end up with holes in my shirts.
It’s really the mental work that I don’t feel is being shared that exhausts me…
I know we need to have a talk about it and officially divvy up tasks, but our work-free, kid-sleeping time is so limited and either I’m pissed off and don’t want it to be me yelling at him, or not and I just want to enjoy spending time with my family.
I do, and I don’t like it. Only since we’ve had a kid. Before, his bad habits (losing things, drinking to excess, being late) were personal traits that I found annoying, but that did not greatly affect me. I could just go do something else while he managed his own time, poorly.
Now that we’re supposed to be a family unit and team, his bad habits mean that when he has to spend time dealing with those things, it takes away from our time as a family and/or his ability to relieve me from my role as primary parent. Example – when we’re trying to get out the door in the morning, if he has to spend 20 minutes looking for his keys … again … he can’t help me get toddler ready and that affects all of us.
I can’t make plans for myself on the weekend, because I assume he’ll have put things off that he *could* have done during the week and will be busy doing those all weekend while I primary-parent our kid. And it’s not that I don’t want to spend time with our kid – of course I do – but it drives me nuts that he can’t recognize that any time he wastes while kid is at daycare more work for me once our kid is home … if he isn’t parenting the kid, I am.
So I end up doing his laundry in the evening after kid is in bed so he won’t spend hours doing it on the weekend. I take his car in for oil changes. I’ve stopped asking him to do it because he’ll promise to do it, then won’t, then will get on my case for ‘nagging’ him – it is just easier to do it myself rather than waiting for him, him not getting it done, then me spending all of my weekend time solo-parenting while he did laundry.
We met and married pretty young. I was still as student and he was working full time with a commute and a complete and utter slob (his apartment, shudder) so I fell into the mommy role (pay all bills, all shopping, all housework, all cleaning, all emotional labor (remembering gifts and thank you notes, making appointments), taking out the trash, dishes, everything), he mows and will occasionally fix something if I can’t.
When I started working full-time I was not super happy about it but I could deal.
Now he stays at home with the kiddos and all of this is still on my plate. He carries the brunt of the childcare stuff and I need instructions about routines, etc. occasionally but his only household contribution is mowing.
He’s a great dad, and a loving spouse, but I am swamped and am honestly pretty excited for the kids to hit school age, him getting a job, and then we can start affording to send out laundry and hire a cleaning service at the very least.
TJ – I know this comes up from time to time but as we transition from summer into fall, what do people wear on the weekends? I’m realizing as I move out of the true “baby” phase where I needed the flexibility of a lot of athleisure and the high-spillage, leakage convenience of old t-shirts that I need some new ideas for cute and casual that is kid-friendly.
Generally, no. And I’ve been vocal about it. The first time I left my husband alone with our child for 48 hours, she was 6 months old. I left no instructions, because, hello, he has a brain. It went great and he’s been a lot more confident since then. Its not like I have some kind of magical innate knowledge of childcare and housework. I figure stuff out on my own and encourage him to do the same.
He currently plans, shops for, and cooks dinner every night with no input or help from me whatsoever after I almost lost my mind at him asking more questions about how to boil pasta than I thought were humanly possible. “Which pot do I use? How much water do I put in? Do I need to put in salt or olive oil? How much?” on and on. I didn’t want to get stuck in the cycle of it being easier for me to do it than to explain it, but instead of explaining it, I shrieked something like “do whatever you would do if I weren’t here” like some kind of deranged harpy. I don’t know if he googled it or read the directions on the box or what, but he figured it out on his own. This is a man who can install an HVAC unit. He can learn how to boil pasta without asking me a million questions. I am willing to pitch in with many things in our common life, but there are some things I completely push back on when he starts acting helpless, and this was one of them.
I also don’t have a problem with him doing things differently than I would. It’s exhausting trying to control someone 24/7. I don’t even care that I ate fish sticks for the first time in 15 years now that he has taken over cooking. Because I do enough already. Being my husbands mother is not something else to add to my list, and I will gladly eat a pile of heavily processed fish-like sticks in exchange for having a more equal partner.
I have had to spend significant portions of time as a primary caregiver to my adult husband, which I think actually helps both of us reject those roles when he’s well. Some things I do because I care more about them than he does (like, ordering him new polos when I think his have all become shrunken/stretched/worn out). But, when he decides he needs new suits and ties for an important work trip, that’s a decision he makes, and I will suggest a day/time to shop together (because I am waaaaay better at scheduling). His mother does the “mothering” things like reminding him when MY birthday is (?!?) and it drives us both crazy. We had some productive discussions when I was pregnant that led to him making even more of an effort to keep track of his own “stuff”. And we split the childcare pretty evenly, so no complaints there, either.
And just today, I got a nice thank-you text from him, because he was sick the past few days and I had to drive him around town yesterday to various doctor appointments. I think a heart-felt thank you can make all the difference in how love and care is given and received.
I am just going to link one of my favorite articles about why husbands should not expect to be mommied:
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/9055288
I still do more of the housework and emotional labor, but that is because his career is more important to our family’s finances and I have a “part time” lawyer schedule that does give me more flexibility than his 70 hour weeks. He pulls his weight.
The big thing I mommy him about is his health. Heart Disease runs in his family and I do not want to be a widow with 2 small kids. But whenever he finally goes to the doc, he is healthy and then gets pissed off that he wasted time.
I have learned to let him cook and clean and I don’t say anything if it is not done to my standards. He is capable of doing both and is an excellent parent. When I travel, I do remind him to check the calendar for the kids activities but he does the same for me.
I do buy most of his clothes but he has no style :) if it was up to him, he’d wear polos and dress pants every day (he is management and needs to dress better).
We are truly a partnership. And he gets pissed when people ask if he is babysitting or how he is coping with me gone. He copes better than I do!
No, because I married an adult. If he loses something, he can be responsible for replacing it. His personal grooming habits are something he can deal with. The bedtime routine is different on the nights he’s in charge, and DD knows the two different routines and has no issue with it.
DH and I work similar hours, have a similar number hours where we’re the parent in charge, and though it’s not perfect, have split major chores in a way that works for us. I don’t have the time, patience, or inclination to mother anyone who I did not actually give birth to.
I’m not saying I’ve never helped him out (Oh, I’m ordering from Lands End anyway, do you need pants? Is a convo we have more than once a year) but he does the same for me (I never worry about having flash drives/external storage because he seems to always have one for me before I run out of space) but it’s a two way street.
DH is a SAHD – if he needed mommying we’d be in serious trouble. Before kids, I was more prone to mommy – in part due to my control-freak-self and in part due to he’d lived on his own a long time and needed a few lessons in sharing living space.
The control-freak part of me has had to let go of judging how the house work is done, when the laundry is done, what the child ate for lunch – I cannot do both of our “jobs.” And if the shoe were on the other foot, I wouldn’t want to be controlled by a bossy spouse either.
I do help with certain reminders, like making sure a bill gets paid or don’t-forget-the-dish-soap sort of things, but that isn’t mommying, it’s common courtesy.
I refuse to mother him. He is a grown adult and needs to take away from the stress of the household, not add to it. Before kids, I would have said we were both equally independent and it worked great.
Now with kids, I notice he wants to be mothered a little bit. I still refuse but it’s starting to add a little tension. I think he sees others at work who advance quicker BECAUSE they have someone at home to do all their household-thinking and emotional labor for them, and wants the same. I always remind him I would also advance quicker in MY work if someone did that for me, which usually stops the conversation. He still contributes significantly at home – he’s the meal planner/shopper/cook and the laundry-doer and the lawn-mower – so we’re still fairly even, but I’m keeping an eye on it.
I think peer pressure is still a thing, and it’s hard to watch yourself (both him and me) miss out on opportunities because we don’t have the resources to outsource or use a SAHP all of the draining household responsibilities. It’s been a real eye-opener on just WHY there aren’t more women at the top, since SAHMs are still way more common than SAHDs.
I think sometimes I mommy not because he can’t handle these things, but because I worry that he’ll forget (there’s some precedence there) or that he won’t do them up to my standards, which isn’t fair to him. Your last sentence is on-point for me – some level of mommying keeps my life in order, so I’m fine with it. If I’m having to remind him to shower, though…no. Way too far for me.