Is this weaponized incompetence or something else?

r/

Lately I feel like my husband purposefully acts like he doesn’t know what to do and it’s driving me crazy. We have 2 kids (ages 6 years and 8 months) and 3 dogs. I also work full time, we have a very busy household. My husband is a smart man and a good father, but lately it’s like he’s just out to lunch or something, he doesn’t take initiative to do things and I have to ask him or tell him. Tonight was a great example, it was a later than normal evening and I was arriving home at 5 after having picked up both kids, husband was at home already an hour before I arrived but it is normal for me to do pickup as he does drop off. I called to tell him we were arriving in 10 minutes, purposefully so that he would be ready and available to help out. When we arrived I realized he was still in the office (I didn’t know at this point if he was finishing work or playing video games as he does both from the office). 20 minutes went by as I’m rushing around to make a bottle, feed the baby, cook dinner, feed dogs and dry them off from outside, and put things away from the day and he’s still nowhere to be seen. I go to the office, frustrated at this point, and I see he’s playing games and I’m like hey what’s going on, he’s like what do you mean, I’m like uh you need to be helping upstairs and he’s like oh with what I didn’t know. Like come on. It’s the same thing everyday. You mean you didn’t know the kids need fed, dogs need attention, and dinner needs made and all this stuff I just came in with like I told you needs put away from the day and then baths and bedtime yada yada it’s the same thing everyday day. How is this news? How do you not know this? Is this weaponized incompetence or what is this? I feel insane.

Comments

  1. Charming_Highway_200 Avatar

    It’s refusing to accept the mental load and no he’s not being a good father if he’s not an equal partner.

  2. Chigrrl1098 Avatar

    So he was stepping up and now he’s not? Have you sat down with him and talked this out? 

  3. jorgentwo Avatar

    Yeah weaponized incompetence. He made the bet that you’d do it all, because the effort of going “uhhh sorry I didn’t know” is waaaay less than the effort of helping. He’s not factoring your effort in at all. 

  4. LTOTR Avatar

    Seems like negligence.