They cook for them. Do all of the domestic chores. Make their medical appointments. Order and pickup their prescriptions. Buy their clothes including underwear. Do all of the grocery store shopping. Arrange their haircuts. It almost seems like it is a mother and young son relationship.
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Not me. I’m not his mother.
Depends on the woman.
That was my mother.
Well he mows the lawn, does the dishes, maintains the pool, takes care of all the vehicle maintenance, shovels snow, washes floors, unclogs toilets and drains and kills all the spiders and centipedes. So I don’t mind doing all of aforementioned things for him.
To each their own.
Wow, doesn’t sound like our house!
Hah! I’m 67 and my 53 year old wife (Nurse Practitioner) has the sympathy of a prison guard. Between her constant demand for sex and a well-kept front garden, it’s all I can do to keep up.
Hah. Not a chance. The only reason I married him is because he was as good a cook as I was, and we worked together on household chores. We lived together and were engaged for 3 years before we got married, when a lot of people were looked down upon for "living in sin." I wasn’t taking any chances, lol.
I’m 62 and my wife is 63. We coddle each other 🤪
This isn’t an age thing at all. I’m 31 and work with families for a living, wives of all ages will either be this way or they won’t
This was my mom and MIL. Not us 60 year olds! My husband treats me like a queen and I appreciate him every damn day without coddling
You’re making a lot of assumptions about a relationship you probably know nothing about.
But if I had to guess from my experience meeting these types of people, they were a household with traditional roles. He worked..probably for 40+ years..so she could stay home and raise the kids. He was focused on work…so she was the one that handled the home.
Now…he’s retired and not working, but she’s still handling the home because that’s what she’s always done. Crazy thought…maybe she has some gratitude for the fact that he worked so hard to set them up for retirement…so they can afford to live comfortably in their later years.
If you really want to know..strike up a conversation. Ask. I mean in person. Not a bunch of folks on Reddit who are just going to view it through their own lived experience and preferences.
Not here. He’s retired and does everything. 61+62
Nope.
My husband has been very competently done our shopping for over 35 years. He picks up my prescriptions.
I buy everything I need online.
I cook most food and when I do, he cleans the kitchen.
I do the laundry because I like things accomplished a certain way.
We both know how to use the vacuum.
It’s a balance.
Husband has a chronic illness. He does what he can. Before this, he did more house work than I did because I worked longer hours.
They baby their sons too.
My daughters say the guys now of days are pretty much not grown ups.
You learn that over a lifetime together, there are different seasons…..you never know what they’ve been through together in 20, 40, 60 years of marriage.
Some seasons you are the caregiver, some seasons you are the one being cared for.
Their mommies taught them that is how they should be treated and taught their daughters that their husband will be their biggest child.
Well I won’t do it, but that’s how we were brought up. Once our husbands came home from work, they shouldn’t have to lift a finger. My mother actually cooked two separate dinners. There was one for us kids and her, and one for my dad that was significantly higher quality.
Maybe it’s just the division of labor/chores that works for them. My wife does not work, and I do. So, she takes care of lots of the household chores; cooking, laundry, vacuuming, dusting, grocery shopping and so on — because she has the time and I do not.
Do I help with all of those things? Yes, for sure, depending on my work and work travel.
I am also responsible for yard maintenance, house maintenance, car maintenance. Oh, and bathrooms. I take care of those.
That’s what works for us. For sure it won’t work for everybody though.
I am a natural nurturing woman. I love pampering my husband, he worked hard to provide me with a wonderful life and this is my love language to show him how much I appreciate him.
Not in this house. I do most of the cooking because I’m better at it and in return he cleans up the kitchen. Fair deal. The rest of the stuff is shared, except appointments he makes his and I make mine. And clothes, he buys his own.
I’m 57 and I don’t know any other way to be. Caregiving is my love language.
Fuck, my wife doesn’t do that !
When I got married in 1979, my husband told me I had to do all the cooking, cleaning, ya know, woman stuff. He would do all the man stuff, cut the grass, work on cars, etc. Well, we both worked full time. So, this little wifey poo said, nope, no more. I make as much money (or more) than you, we are both gone from the house over 8 hours a day, and your chores are only “once in a while “. So, he learned to do laundry, he made dinners, or we ate out, (I still cooked, but not every night) and on Sundays, he liked to make breakfast. Believe me, we got a long much better and our love life improved 100%!!!
As long as everyone is actually happy with the arrangement.
But what happens in this kind of arrangement if she takes a fall and is out of commission for a while? Can he pick up the slack or is he entirely useless?1
I’ve seen other women do most of that, but none who did all of that.
I have for the past five years, but that’s because my husband became severely disabled.
prior to that he did almost all the grocery shopping and cooking. He managed his own (many and complex) health issues. He did housework. Together we did yard work and many huge home improvement projects.
I do all the grocery shopping and meal prep, but we agreed to that when we got married over 30 years ago. He does the laundry and cleans the bathroom in exchange (and we both think it’s fair).
The rest of the stuff I would do only if he can’t do it himself. He hates to shop, but every couple of years, he hies himself to the mall for underwear and socks.
I don’t. Hubby buys his own undies, I sometimes make appointments if we’re both going to the same doctor at the same time but he is fully capable of making his own appointments. He cooks some days. We do things for each other.
Maybe that’s just what you see; maybe because that’s what you’re looking for.
I’m a widow. But my husband took care of me when he could, and I took care of him through the months of cancer that led to his death. We shared household maintenance and child care, although we both had certain parts of all that which were higher priority for one or the other of us. He valued hot meals, I valued tidiness and cleanliness. We still both did both, but we had leanings. We both did kids, DIY maintenance, laundry, finances, and yard work.
Obviously my husband and I were not necessarily the norm. But maybe there are more fairly equal partnerships than you hear about, because people don’t complain about them.
If you know who you are and what you expect before you marry, you don’t have to settle. I didn’t. Neither did he. Both of us had had prior relationships, and knew that what we were looking for wasn’t common; both of us had, to some degree, "given up." Tired of looking, and at the point of just taking life as it came and making the most of it as it was. Until that one time, when "across a crowded room" we recognized each other.
A more apt question, since it has more effect on your immediate future, would be "why do younger women coddle their able bodied husbands?" Because it’s definitely still happening.
My mom does this with my dad, and it pisses me off so bad. Yes, they are both in pain. But he’s definitely able to walk easier. She is on oxygen with two bad knees, just going to the restroom puts her out of breath, but he barely gets up to do anything.
Well, this husband works 12 hr days at 2 physically demanding jobs. Does all the home repair etc and does still help with a few household chores. It’s nice having a wife that takes care of me in most respects.
Over 60!? Maybe over 70. I am 68 and have always worked. We have a good division of labor in this house. Many things we do together, like laundry and yard work.
I do think that most long term couples work out a division of labor inside and outside the home that works for them. Often it changes as time goes by, which children growing up and retirement.
We are both 74. There is no coddling going on here. He does the cooking and laundry. I do the dishes and vacuuming. We split everything else based on who gets to it first. Been working out that way for 45 years.
My husband came that way. His first wife did everything for him for 27 years. He was accustomed to it. We met in our early 50s. I tried really hard to retrain him, but it didn’t take. I get resentful at times.
My husband is 67 and I’m 61. We both are a team. He does things for me, and I do things for him.
I’m a measly 45 years old but I wait on my boyfriend hand and foot. I do all of the cleaning, laundry shopping and cooking. I have a hot meal waiting for him when he comes home, I lay out a clean washcloth for his shower, remind him of important dates, take his temperature when he’s sick and tell him how gorgeous he is every day.
Why? Because he works 50 hours a week to pay for our life and never complains. I want to make sure his life at home is as easy as possible. Its how I show my appreciation for him and the way he loves me for exactly who I am. He never ASKS me to do anything for him and thanks me for the littlest things. We probably say "thank you" and "I love you" to each other a dozen times a day.
Now if he was just some unappreciative dirt bag who EXPECTED me to do all of those things, I would tell him to piss off lol.
I am 61 and see this as more of my Mom’s generation. I don’t roll that way and she’s glad of it. I do help my husband manage his meds and appointments but he has a mental illness.
Sadly … my husband had a stroke at 74 and isnt even capable of handling his own meds let alone do anything else. Sigh … not what I had planned … and he wasn’t even a very good husband, but I held the family intact because I adored my children and they loved their father. So he has no memory that he was a lousy life partner … 🤷🏼♀️ … life has handed me some lemons for sure. Luckily, I have amazing well adjusted grown children and that makes me happy.
61F here married for 32 years. I do the cooking and make the Dr appointments because he sucks using a computer. He literally does all vehicle and outside maintenance. Also does laundry and helps pick up the house do dishes etc. I’ll gladly do what I do because he does plenty!
Where? I want one
Yea….I’m 70 and do all of those things for my 56 year old…wife.
We’ve been together 37 years. I do 90% of the cooking, he does the dishes. I do the laundry, he does the shopping, I do the vacuuming and dusting, he does the weeding and fertilizing. We are a team and this house runs better with a team.
I use to. Not anymore
Because we want to. My husband spoils me as much as I spoil him. Just in different ways.
It’s Love
Generations of men have been coddled by their moms. Wives, even now, take over that role. I kept that in mind while raising my own son. Lest he grow to be a womans burden.
Because they know he is helpless.
That’s my parents. I’m 55, they’re late 70’s. Its ridiculous.
Eh most of the time one doesn’t see the whole pic. I do that stuff. He mows, cleans bathrooms, and the dishes. When my body hurts in the middle of the night he rubs it.
We are a team. I (61) don’t have any friends who are married that don’t work with one another.
Okay, what century do you live in? My wife does none of that. We are 64, married 43 years. I do my own laundry, cook, dress myself, make my own appointments, and take care of my wife.
I’m laughing so hard right now!! I do ALL the things in my household. I figured out that I’m a bit of a control freak so I’ve been dialing it back but by bit…
My in-laws are like this. I always assumed it was a result of religious upbringing / indoctrination – ie the man is the head of the household yadda yadda. He worked while she was a SAHM most of the time, taking care of 3 kids – all very traditional and conservative. Now they’re retired they still seem to live a very comfortable lifestyle and that‘s mostly due to his financial smarts/planning. So maybe MIL does all these stuff as her contribution to the household via non-financial means. FIL still does things, but he does get waited on a bit.
I don’t know any couples like that. My wife certainly doesn’t coddle me.
Maybe it’s how they grew up?
I am 76 and happily divorced since 1992/3.
Not all of us are willing to give up our lives to take care of a child who is older than I am.
If you’re talking early 60s, we’re talking Gen Xers. And second gen feminists. I don’t think there’s much coddling going on amongst us. We were raised by wolves. Independent as hell.
Culture. Social norms. Not true for every couple.
My husband coddles me. Shhh
My adorable husband coddles ME! And I coddle him. Lots of ‘thank you so much’ in this house.
I create and find projects around the house that require his power tools and unique skills and I am always trying new recipes in the kitchen. We love interesting the other and it’s all made with love.
I take care of the indoors, he takes care of the outdoors, save my garden beds which are my hobby. He’d do them if I didn’t prefer to do them myself.
He makes his own hair & medical appointments. He picks up his own prescriptions & mine.
He takes care of all car maintenance, his car & mine.
I’m cooking for myself, why wouldn’t I cook for two? It’s not like there’s any more effort involved.
A partnership, is an equitable division of responsibilities & caring for each other.
I believe, after 50 years together, we’ve achieved that sweet spot balance.
Not me (70F). My husband retired at 50 and took up cooking. I started working and still work. He does the shopping, cooking and cleaning that I did for 25 years as a SAHM.
Cause he fed me when I was too sick from chemo. He can’t cook but that was the best Mac and cheese I’ve ever had. He holds me when I wake up from screaming nightmares from PTSD. He is my other half and I’ll coddle him until I can’t anymore.
Ground rules are established early, and by consent, whether active or passive.
I’m 52 and my wife does most of that for me, don’t ask her, don’t expect it either. But it’s appreciated and I do most of the other stuff in our marriage. We’re cool with it.
Definitely a generational thing, even if these 60+ folks were around for modern feminism, they were also raised by parents with this pattern of pampering & deference to the husband. Old habits die hard!
Because those men had mothers that did that for them. My brother and my husband both learned very VERY quickly in their respective marriages that their wives were not putting up with that old bullshit. Wives who carried on the coddling were perpetuating that frame of mind that men cannot be expected to do certain things for themselves.
I admit to doing the majority of housework since I am retired and my husband works part time but he can and will do absolutely everything himself, from folding laundry to making meals to putting a king size duvet cover on.
Ain’t no coddling in this household!!
Not me! Married 43 years, and we’ve shared a work-life balance for most of them. We do what we’re best at. I like to cook, so I do most of that, but my husband will pitch in if I’m not up to it or if he’s hungry and I’m not. He always cleans up after dinner, including pots and pans, even if he cooked. I handle the bill paying, and he does all the "wet work" washes the floors, cleans the bathroom, and we share the grocery shopping, but lately, he’s been doing it more than I have. He will do his own laundry, I do mine, and the household stuff. He carries all heavy items from the car into the house and vice-a-versa. We worked this out years ago, and now it’s second nature. We do things for the other if we can because we want to, not because we have to.
Patriarchy is a helluva drug.
My stepmom and dad are late 60s. She’s ALWAYS done EVERYTHING at the house, from cleaning, cooking, laundry, making dr appointments, ordering meds, setting up his med box every week, reminding my dad to take his meds (and half the time he refuses and grumbles at her for "nagging"), helping him with his blood glucose balance, pays the bills, write cards to both sides of the family, EVERYTHING. They raised my half-siblings together and my dad was very active with that. But the youngest is 30 and I swear he hasn’t lifted a finger at that house since. They both worked full time but she was the main breadwinner. He was bare involved in raising me at all after age 5.
It’s ridiculous. Stepmom tells me she’s exhausted. If she dies first the rest of us are fucked.
I wait tables. I south Florida. This is my main clientele. It drives me absolutely crazy. I feel bad for the men. They treat them like children. Talk over them. Tell them what that should order. I’m Gen X. I’m easy going but it makes me sad too.
Well, not quite, but my wife does the cooking and cleaning and we have a maid come in once every 2 weeks for heavy lifting. She does the grocery shopping and she buys my clothes. I pay the bills, deal with my own medical and prescription needs, help carry the groceries in. deal with any electronic/internet issues, print things for her. Seems pretty evenly divided.
That man toiled so she could have a roof over her head, clothes on her back, and food on the table.
She often didn’t have to work other than keep the home.
Its not for everyone but it’s not something you should judge unless you spent a life in their shoes.
Some women are trained to do this by their families and society. It takes generations for meaningful change to happen.
Maybe they like it. My children are grown. This is something I like to do.
My husband is good in other ways.
Yard, car maintenance, grocery’s, gas, this is huge for me. I hate putting gas in my car. He had to endure a wife that would have it on E and even drove on it till even the fuel wanted to yell, Lady, you are going to cause your husband to run out of gas. I never did.
My husband passed of covid. I now have to do all those things he did. I had to get a tire aired up. I didn’t know how. A nice man helped. Had to get my oil changed. Thank goodness for a car tells me I need to. The oil people blew oil all over my car. My car jumped in the ditch a man came by an pulled me out. Now it is Tax Season. My husband duf from covic..
My bride and I of 42 years marriage coddle each other equally! I’m 69m she’s 64f.
You’ve never heard of ‘trad wives’ (traditional)? That’s their purpose. Husband, kids, home. It’s not just older wives.
I love my husband and it makes me happy to serve him. He also brings me flowers for no reason. I have been tired from working and he was happy with a sandwich for dinner.
My mom is like this, and so are my dad’s sisters. In Mexican culture, it’s customary for the wife to plate her husband’s food before she eats. I married outside of my race—my husband is white. He comes from divorced parents, and growing up, he saw his mom wait on his stepdad hand and foot. He didn’t like watching her come home from work, tired and exhausted, only to still have to cook, clean, and iron his stepdad’s clothes.
When I tell you I hit the lottery with this man—I mean it! He helps clean up, does laundry, gets groceries, cooks, washes dishes, the whole nine. We split the chores, and it works perfectly for us.
The first time I took him to a family gathering, my aunts just about fell out when they saw him fixing his own plate and tending to me! And when he helped wash dishes? They were shook! 😅 My mom later told me my aunts were so impressed by him. 🥰
That’s my mom. They’re in their upper 80’s. Now dad has dementia and above all that you mentioned , now she’s his caregiver. Changes his diapers , bathes him , feeds him ( he also had a stroke ). They’ve been married 65 years
My mom looks at it as a way to show her love. She enjoys it now that it’s just for her husband, vs. the whole family.
Maybe because he spent a lifetime taking care of her….
Men in these relationships don’t make it a year without their wives. These same women go on to live their best 25 years
Ha. My dad coddles his wife so much that he has been hospitalized for exhaustion. While she knits and watches TV. She hasn’t done a household chore, or left the house for anything other than a doctor’s appointment, in 10 years. It’s really not a gender thing. It’s a weaponized incompetence thing.
It was the expectation when I grew up (60-70’s) that domestic chores were a woman’s responsibility: Cooking, cleaning, laundry etc. Keep in mind it was also a time when a single income could buy a home and support a family, and women usually didn’t work outside the home as well being the Homemaker. If we did, the chores still fell on our shoulders.
I’m a baby boomer. That’s not me, my mother or my grandmother. Nor my aunt, sisters or cousins. Partly, how you were raised.
Me (63M) do all of those things. My wife (56F) is disabled. We’ve been married for almost 25 years, and she does the finances so that I don’t get overwhelmed. I do know a few couples where the wife does everything for her husband, but for the most part, they usually share responsibilities.
Because society taught those women that that’s what they’re supposed to do. And it taught those men that that’s what their wives are supposed to do.
My late husband and I divided up jobs to do. I hated grocery shopping, he loved it. I put away the groceries. I liked cleaning the house, he hated it. I didn’t like doing yard work but he loved it, I made dinners and he would clean up after dinner.
Fkd if I know. My parents are in their 60’s, dad retired a few years ago. Their whole marriage was dad going to work, bringing home the bacon & mum waiting on him hand & foot. Both were very happy with this arrangement…until dad retired.
Mum is still expected to wait on him hand & foot (dad actually gets sh!tty if mum takes a couple nights off cooking), and keeping the house clean is still 100% mums responsibility, but mum is slowing down a little so doesn’t stay on top of housework quite as much as she used to.
Meanwhile, dad worked most of his life driving machinery so his body is just fine (no joint pain whatsoever). Dad got to truly retire in every sense of the word (all he does is watch tv) but mum will never get to retire. Mums resentment builds every year and I now see my dad in a whole new light but it ain’t exactly flattering.
Stop generalizing. I’m in my 60s. My husband is in his 70s. I don’t wait on my husband. We do things for each other.
Couples currently in their 70s, who were married in their 20s, could have established their adult lives in a world where married women could not open a bank account, needed their husband’s permission to accept a job (as in: the manager at the job would insist on talking to the husband), and were just generally forced by society to be economically dependent on the husband.
These women were just as smart, ambitious and capable as women today. But for many of them, the only available outlet for this was to support the job success of their husband. They might well have been the brains of the whole outfit, but they had to do it a step removed from the action. "Behind every great man is a great woman" was a cliché for a reason. And eventually it just gets to be a habit, and you get these men who don’t even know their own Social Security number.
And of course there are also plenty of couples where one partner just isn’t good at dealing with the real world, or where they’ve split up the workload in some way that makes sense to them but maybe not to anyone else.
Not me. He can serve himself!
They have to or the marriage would end.
Goes along with acting like their husband is the smartest man in the room when to younger women, he comes off as a condescending mansplainer who corrects every second thought out of his very capable wife’s mouth.
This is a dynamic a lot of men inhabit. Not just old men at all. The relationship advice sub is full of endless examples of manchild complaints. They get to be little babies forever far too fucking often.
Because they love them and they value the long lasting bond that they’ve enjoyed for many years
The couples that I know that do this, the husbands had jobs that physically wrecked their bodies (e.g., welders, foreman, electrician, construction worker) and the wives are taking care of them now that they are broken down.
My MIL does everything for my FIL. So much so that when she came to visit us out-of-state when my kids were born, she had to hire someone to come to the house to cook for him because he couldn’t feed himself. She often jokes that he’s like having another child around. She also takes care of my BIL’s kids when he has custody of them because he is just like his father and doesn’t do anything for himself and therefore can’t do anything for his kids. My husband is my partner and shares the load of household responsibilities… much to his father’s chagrin – he made snide remarks about it when we first got married. It bothered him that his son was doing household chores and I’m sure he thinks I’m a lazy cow.
Two words. Misogyny and Patriarchy.
Sometimes it’s just easier. My husband has suffered from severe ADHD his whole life. Between ADHD demand avoidance and his pathological need to know all the details about something before plans can be made, it’s just easier to say “You have a dentist appointment on Thursday” than it is to go down the rabbit hole. I do the dishes because it’s important to me to be able to find my dishes in the cupboard where they belong than it is to go on a scavenger hunt.
This is not weaponized incompetence on the part of my husband. He genuinely does not see why he can’t just toss my sweater into the wash because it’s cashmere, but he will do his own laundry if he’s out of socks. I think we all fall into habits and routines based largely on which chores we are comfortable with. Just because it largely confirms to established gender norms doesn’t mean everyone who does that was forced into it. I like taking care of my husband and he likes showing me that he cares. How we choose to express that is nobody’s business but ours.
I don’t know. I’m 56 and fuck that shit.
Because they’re wives and that’s what they do. They’re the secretary also. If my woman wasn’t a wife I wouldn’t have married her or kept her. She does all the stupid stuff you refer to that I hate. I do the yard work, fix everything around the house, work on the cars including hers. Been that way since we were young. Wives do all the caregiving/service stuff it’s what they do.
For some women running the household is a source of great pride and satisfaction. Others are stuck with it due to a bargain they struck many years ago, or a lack of other options. But most who do this seem pretty happy about it.
I’m 70 and not in the best of health. My husband does so much for me I feel guilty. So no, not all older wives coddle their husbands.
I’m over 60 as are most of my friends. I do not know any of them that fall into that category.
Older generation all this will change in time.
When they were young women couldn’t even have their own bank account, they could only have a joint one with a husband. Women had to be servants by force, and a culture of it just being how things are took over so women could at least enjoy other parts of being alive. That culture persists
Why because we grew up being trained by our mothers to do so. We played with dolls so we would learn to do what our mothers aunts and family friends did with their babies. We cooked on our toy stove and ironed clothes on a little ironing board that looked just like Mom’s. We learned to serve the man first at dinner and to make him comfortable after a day’s work. When I say man I don’t mean mom’s boyfriend I mean the one who has earned he way to be called Dad. Even if it is a step dad. That is if the wife stayed home and didn’t work out of the house. But most were house wife’s.