A Woman Is Wondering If She’s The A**Hole After Telling Her Husband To Stop Helping Around The House

Recently, a woman went viral on the r/amitheasshole subreddit after a disagreement with her husband over household chores that some commenters are calling an example of "weaponized incompetence."

User bigpawsOH said in her post, "My husband (34, male) and I (31, female) have been together for eight years and married for five. We both work full-time, so we’ve always split household chores. But here’s the thing: his version of 'helping' is a nightmare. For example, I’ll ask him to 'help' with laundry. He’ll agree, but instead of sorting things like delicates or checking pockets, he just throws everything into the washer on one setting."

"I’ve tried teaching him, suggesting easier ways, even leaving little checklists, but he always says he 'knows what he’s doing' and dismisses my advice. I end up spending double the time either fixing what he did or doing things over from scratch. And whenever I bring it up, he says he’s 'trying his best' or accuses me of being too picky and controlling."

"This came to a head recently when he 'helped' me by cleaning up our living room right before my friends came over. I thought he’d done a great job—until one of my friends found my birth control pills in the junk drawer because he decided to 'tidy' by throwing everything into random places. I was embarrassed, but when I told him, he laughed it off."

"So, last night, I told him I’m done with his 'help' and would rather just do everything myself if he’s not willing to do things properly. He got upset, saying he was just trying to make things easier for me, and now I’m 'criticizing him for helping.' Now, he’s barely speaking to me, and I’m feeling conflicted. Am I the asshole for telling my husband to stop 'helping' if he can’t do things right?"

Some users felt the couple needed to communicate about the issue in a different way. User LemurTrash said, "Not the asshole, but the issue lies with thinking about him contributing to his household as an adult as 'helping.'"

"Calling it 'helping' makes it your responsibility he is graciously taking on, not your shared responsibility he is failing to fulfill. Please trust me when I say do not have kids with this man."

"OK, there are a few issues here," user torgeaux42 said. "It sounds like you guys have a haphazard, we-all-do-it-all system. Why is he 'helping' with this task and that task? Why aren't the chores split and shared equal to the time available to each of you? Phrasing it this way makes it sound as if these things are your responsibility, and he helps you."

"If he sucks at X, don't have him do X. If he sucks at all of it, split the tasks so he has his best tasks as his own, and force him to figure it out. It could also be weaponized incompetence, but that's solved by leaving him to his tasks and letting him suffer the consequences. Not the asshole. Your frustration is normal, but your solution isn't fixing anything in the end."

User Alycion said, "My husband is pretty good about helping. But laundry, I have to talk him through. Every time."

"So now he carries the dirty to the washing machine and puts away the clean. Putting it away is the part that I hate. So it works out. We tag team a lot of tasks."

User PingouinQuiSlideLoin had a more personal take on the issue. He said, "I'm a man and I had similar problems with my ex-girlfriend. I was in charge of the laundry for both of us, and it was a nightmare! All my clothes can go into the dryer, and I make sure I never leave things in my pockets before throwing something in the laundry basket."

"On the other hand, about half of my ex-girlfriend's clothes could go in the dryer. To make things more complicated, she removed the neck labels of all her clothes. So, I needed to figure it out by touching the material if it could or couldn't go in the dryer. Remember, all my clothes can go in the dryer, so I never developed that skill. Every time I made a mistake, she made sure to make me feel like the most stupid person on Earth.

There were also what she called 'basic exceptions' — clothes that needed special treatment. Nothing too hard to remember, according to her. So I sat her down, and we started noting them. She thought it was pointless because it was only two or three things. We ended up writing an entire page of exceptions.

I ended up realizing that no matter what I do, there would always be new clothes, new exceptions...and I would always be the idiot for not figuring it out."

Others felt it wasn't the original poster's responsibility to educate her husband on housework. User Independent-Algae494 said, "Personally, I wouldn't even explain what's expected. That would reinforce the idea that she's in charge and he only has to 'help' rather than taking equal responsibility for the home, which seems to be part of the problem."

"If he's intelligent enough to keep a job, he's intelligent enough to know how to tidy up, wash up, do laundry, etc. And if there is anything he doesn't know, he can look it up online."

User abedilring agreed, saying, "A grown man refusing to learn how to do something properly for his partner, the person he loves, is beyond petty and simply disrespectful."

"Mine said he knew he couldn't do things the way I liked them done (in the house I owned before he came along) and that it would be hard to learn even if I, an actual high school teacher, tried to teach him. My dog and I live happily alone with folded towels and clean counters."

"Your husband is passive-aggressive, gaslighting you, and is a bit of a bully to boot. He needs therapy. You probably need couples therapy. Whether he is motivated enough to change is a question. But you won't know until you let him try. I'm sorry," user ProfessionalFeed6755 said.

User french_revolutionist said, "You're the asshole — to yourself. Google weaponized incompetence. He is using this in the hopes that YOU take over doing everything because he doesn't want to do it."

"Look up 'weaponized incompetence,'" user savinathewhite said. "This is a classic example - when someone does a job so badly that their partner doesn’t want 'help' because it’s just making things worse."

"He’s basically tricking you into doing all the work, or he is too lazy to do the task well because it isn’t important to him. You are not the asshole here, but your husband sounds like he is one."

User yeahlikewhatever said, "Your husband is being immature. He is either maliciously doing things poorly, or he refuses to take constructive criticism. Either way, he's creating MORE WORK for you. That isn't a partner. Don't reward him with your labor."

"If he feels it's petty, then I would challenge him to answer why he refuses to do things in a way that benefits you both. His excuses of 'you're too controlling' are not acceptable answers. Shoving medication into a junk drawer rather than putting it away and refusing to do laundry in a way that does not damage the clothes is not an acceptable solution to any problem. That isn't about control; it's about not wasting time and effort doing something that does more harm than good. It's not 'petty' to protect your property and your peace if he refuses to contribute to both."

"Not the asshole," user Consistent-Leopard71 said. "However, you did exactly what he wanted. His strategy was weaponized incompetence."

"He intentionally did a bad job until you stopped asking him to help do his part as a member of your household."

User ladybugloo brought up an additional point, saying, "Another thing to consider: if your friend hadn't found your birth control pills in the 'junk' drawer, would you have had any idea what he'd done with them?"

"Would you have even looked for medication in that drawer? Would he have remembered he put them there and told you immediately after your friend left?"

"My father did this to my mother," user FaithCA79 said. "She stopped doing his laundry, didn’t make him lunches anymore to take to work, she didn’t clean up his messes, and he was forced to do it himself."

"He learned. He had white clothes turned pink, and he learned. Not the asshole."

And finally, user Sensiplastic summed up their thoughts on the whole ordeal pretty succinctly, saying, "That does not sound like a man who can find your clitoris."

So now that you've read all this, I have to ask: What do you think? Do they need better communication about the division of labor, or is this truly weaponized incompetence? Let us know in the comments.