The current theme with problems in my marriage is my husband having absolutely no capacity to think of starting certain things, for example any extracurriculars for our daughter, any trips or holidays, any family outings, shopping, etc. Would not get done if I didn’t have the initiative for it.
Talking with other women, it seems like most are in similar situations. Sometimes I feel like the burden of having to do everything (I work full time too) is a lot and I daydream of what it would be like to get out of it. But then I think if most men are like that, what’s the point, I’ll end up with another one that’s the same, and at least the one I have is loyal and not violent, etc.
So, I’m looking to hear from women that actually have pro active men in their life.. what is it like?
Comments
My husband is proactive, but not about cleaning or (usually) about social activities. However, he is definitely proactive about work/finances/family more generally, and he’s pretty good about health/fitness – definitely more than me. In this sense, I find that we loosely but not strictly adhere to gender stereotypes; he manages the investments while I replace the fresh flowers in our vases.
I guess what it feels like is we have a balance? I’m not proactive in the ways that he is, so I follow his lead in those areas whereas he tends to follow more of my lead in housekeeping and our social calendar. I also only work less than half of what my husband does, so it also makes sense I’m more proactive about the domestic and social stuff; I have so much more time for it! Overall, I feel like I put a lot less effort into life than he does (and it can make me feel guilty from time to time for sure).
I’d say my husband is pretty proactive (compared to people I know). He plans for things in advance and will take action. He initiates meal prep for the week by making grocery lists, doing grocery shopping after work (I wfh), planning for things to do on our trips/hikes. As a recent example, my parents are visiting us in a few months for a while and he already told me he took off the first week so he can take care of any errands they have. That was very sweet of him.
What’s nice is having someone to share that mental and emotional labor of life with.
My husband takes care of most of those things. If I pick an extracurricular activity for our kids, he will research it, arrange times and dates, and pay for it. He will also make sure they have the proper uniforms, equipment, and other gear.
We both come up with vacations, day outings, and weekend getaways. He will schedule flights, hotels, and rental cars because he uses military retiree-exclusive websites and deals. I handled the packing, but he got all the luggage where it needed to go.
I do the grocery, clothing, and household goods shopping.
I don’t know if I would call it proactive, these are things he’s good at and does. He also does our taxes and our adult sons.
I would say 50% proactive.
We have everything divided depending on time. Our work schedule is different where he’s more at home during the day I work all day. So if it’s hospital appointments or something on “his time” he’s responsible for it if it’s on “my time” I’m taking care of it. Weekly shopping is on me but feeding oldest after school on him and he needs to shop for whatever he will make. I’m covering all afterschool activities because he’s working at that time. He takes care of all car needs, I take care of home inside he does outside work etc. If we need help with “our” duties we communicate.
I have a feeling that partly it’s society’s fault that men are less proactive in kids stuff. I have told numerous times in nursery that my husband is first point of contact in emergencies and even on forms he’s first contact. The same with school. But they always call me while I’m at work. It’s actually very frustrating. And I’m not sure is it because staff in nursery and school know me personally and just don’t check or they just call mum.
My fiance is very proactive in many aspects.
I couldn’t stop my husband from doing something if I chained him to a wall. Our house is what it is because he does not fuck around.
Once he has his mind set on something, count the days, consider whatever it is done. The phrase “you talk the talk but do you walk the walk” is inverse for him. Little to no talking, all walking. He doesn’t leave a mess, he is so adamant about everything having a place that there’s no reason for anything to ever be left out. He’s incredibly structured and organized. Ive never seen our pool dirty. I’ve never seen our yard overgrown, he’s a wrecking ball of proactivity. I’m only skimming the surface
It’s honestly life-changing. My last long-term partner was like you describe, regardless of how much I pushed him to do his fair share; my current one is a fully functional adult. Our priorities about what needs to get done on what timeline don’t always align, BUT he regularly makes his own to-do lists and burns through them. And not just stuff that’s conventionally “men’s work”, but like, grocery shopping, cleaning the bathroom, doing all of his own laundry, cooking, etc.
Furthermore, if I notice that I’m the only one being proactive / taking all the initiative in a given area, like getting ready for an outing or planning a trip, we talk about it, and he pretty reliably improves over time. We now trade off running point on vacation planning, and he takes just as much initiative to get us out the door for outings as I do, sometimes more.
I would ask whether your husband truly has no capacity for those things, or if he’s (consciously or not) using weaponized incompetence because he doesn’t *want* to have to do the work to be an equal partner to you. Does he show the capacity to be proactive in other parts of his life, like at a job or making plans with his friends? There’s starting to be some good content out there made by men, for men, about how stop making excuses for themselves and get better about sharing the “mental load” with a female partner — I might suggest finding some that you like and pointing your husband in that direction. It sucks, but a lot of the time dudes will listen to other dudes about this kind of thing in a way that they don’t listen to the women in their lives.
My ex-husband was not. He was a lump of clay when it came to day-to-day chores and scheduling.
My partner now is much more proactive. The first time he and I went on vacation with kids we rented a house next to a lake. The vacation actually felt like a vacation. He would start dinner without being asked. He would wash dishes. He collected towels and hung them so they would dry. He would pick up random clutter. I could see in his house that he does laundry and tidies and what have you, but this was the first time we were in a space together with the children (chaos agents) and it was a revelation – I realized I had come prepared to do all of the mental load and chores while he hung out with the kids, which is what my ex had always done. Vacations were not even a little restful with him. We had a lovely time and now it is an annual trip.
If you do leave and date again – set that standard for yourself, if his house is a mess, if he is not involved in his child’s activities, move on. Dating later in life is a very different experience than in your 20s. You are not dating potential, you can see what he has done. You can see if he is a good father, you can see if he cares for his home. You can see if he is professionally successful. It is actually WAY better. Dating still sucks! But you don’t have to guess if he is proactive or not – you can see it.
I do but that’s also because I won’t stand for anything less.
why should I always be the one to do / initiate things? I shouldn’t and I teach my kids the same – to advocate for themselves.
while I understand that one can get ‘used’ to things that doesn’t mean it’s ok. Like when one person always initiates cooking dinner, does that mean it’s their chore? no it’s not. They do it because has to get done. So if this is starting to happen to you, speak up and dont mince words. I’m not saying to be a total asshole about it but straight up tell them how it makes you feel and what you expect of them, too.
a long time ago when we first moved in together (we’re talking over 20yrs ago), my husband started to ask “what’s for dinner?” which got real tired real fast so I turned to him and said “why do you always ask me? like I’m the only one who should cook around here or it’s my job to cook? we both live here, we both eat at the same time, we both can cook so why do you always ask me?”. He was surprised and said “you’re right. I’m sorry. How about we start splitting the cooking?” and from then on, we take turns cooking.
so speak up and always advocate for yourself!
Yep my husband is very proactive about everything in our life. From vacations, to Dr appts, to sports and practices. It’s truly wonderful. Hopefully you guys can work on it and communicate your needs and expectations.
My husband is terrible at noticing or figuring things out. I am traumatized to never be able to stop noticing everything. It used to cause a lot of fights until we distributed domestic stuff based on who we were, not who we wished we were. The result is he does more of the daily upkeep, like dishes, wiping off the table and counters, making school lunches. It happens every day, so there’s no tracking required.
I track extracurricular, social and school stuff, but he makes most of the phone calls to actually set the appointments because I hate being on the phone.
I do all the cooking so I do big shops, planning and prep, but he will pick up the little things we need throughout the week. He does the car maintenance and yard work,I make sure the kid has clothes that fit and a hair cut.
Everything that needs doing belongs to him or myself. Dishes are his problem, so I don’t look or think about them unless he’s out of town for work.
Overall we both feel satisfied with the arraignment.
Yes and no, but to be fair I’m the same about certain things. I think the key is, does it feel balanced?
Like taxes, you just cannot get me to do that shit or paying the bills. I am good at planning stuff like groceries and meals. I’m good at project planning like painting a wall. I also have more time and am at home so it makes sense that the things I do are things I have the time to do as well. Like sure it’s nice to have parts of your life someone else takes the lead on, but problem solving is a akill for everyone to do on partnership.
If I needed help with something that normally is my “responsibility,” he wouldn’t have an issue jumping in. He’s not so fucking skill stunted or emotionally selfish that he cannot figure out ordering groceries. Sometimes I am not very mobile from chronic pain. I fell asleep not feeling well on the couch and when I woke up it was dinner time and I said oh no we got nothing. He was like don’t worry, I ordered us some Chinese food, it’s getting here any minute now. Some other dude would sit there and do nothing then be upset he’s hungry or if they ate they would petty eat something for themselves and not even think about the chronic pain their partner is in.
I’d say we are equally proactive. I’m much more in the know on appointments, deadlines, bills, etc. He handles cooking, knowing what household maintenance needs to be done, etc. He enjoys researching before major purchases, and likes planning our vacations.
We share household chores. We have always been partners. We’re both feminists, so it would not have occurred to us to have one or the other be more in charge of the emotional labor. He’s not great at calendaring. I’m not great at keeping track of when the plants need to be watered, or the AC filters need to be changed. So we rely on the other.
Yes, moreso than me
I’m attracted to my current partner in part because he’s incredibly proactive. He approaches stressful situations with problem-solving, not frustration.
I try to meet his energy and be mindful of my time and planning for what’s ahead. It’s been incredibly positive for me as someone with ADHD – basically the body doubling method.
Yes. We split it into different areas though.
For many/most things, we share the Conceive/brainstorming phase. I do most of the Planning/ logistics phase (but not all!), and then he does over half of the Execution/ follow through phase.
I’m using the phases from Fair Play to illustrate how we divide up most things. There are a few categories where he does more or I do more, but that’s the rough breakdown. It works really well for us, because I like planning things and he likes crossing things off a list. We would probably fail miserably at doing the full Fair Play system as neither of us wants to do the full Conceive-Plan-Execute process.
My husband is proactive. We still remind each other of things sometimes but he initiates plans (with friends, date nights, events) and takes care of his own adulting (chores, taxes, appointments, etc). We absolutely share the emotional and mental burdens of our lives.
I would say he is more proactive than me in most cases.
My husband took on getting our unborn youngest kid on different wait-lists for daycare as my brain was mush from pregnancy. After kiddo was born, he did the signups, filled in all the forms, signed them, handed them in, did the intake, arranged the tax stuff, pays the bills, etc. Plus he did all of the pick ups and drop offs as the daycare was too far sway to walk to, I couldn’t drive and the baby was too young to be transported by bike.
They kept calling me for everything. Stuff about feedings, clothes, forms that needed to be signed, and so on. Same for our oldest. He arranges extracurricular activities for her, but I get the calls. He arranges playdates (he works parttime, so he can pick up the oldest from school), and I get called by the parents it’s time to pick up my kid or they are on their way to pick up their kid. That’s nice, but I’m still at work. It’s no excuse for deadbeats, but people sure make my husband feel like chopped liver.
I imagine some just coast by on the fact they aren’t the default parent.
My husband is proactive. He grocery shops and cooks. He pays rent. He changes my oil, makes reservations at our favorite restaurant, does chores and projects around the house. He still has his weak spots, but I don’t feel like I have to do everything.
What is it like? It is very freeing. I told myself I would never be with someone who expected me to take care of his responsibilities, but I didn’t realize I would find someone who would lovingly take care of OUR responsibilities. Its stupid but sometimes the full scale of his efforts wash over me, when I try to think of the last time that I planned a meal. It’s been months, and I am so grateful that that isn’t a decision I have to make.