Tuesday, May 14, 2019

At


I have often told one my children that her sister is not doing something AT her.

A week or so ago, I felt like I needed to tell a male relative that same thing.

The female partner in that marriage had taken it upon herself to fix a door that wasn’t latching. She was very proud of herself and showed off her handiwork to the rest of us.

The Man, who was sitting on the end of the couch where he’d probably been all day long, rising only to eat the food that had been prepared for him by his wife, got extremely pissy about her having fixed the door.

He said loudly and obnoxiously, “I guess I’m not needed around here. Maybe I should just move out.”

What?

Where did that come from?

It wasn’t as if she’d fixed the door AT him. The Wife said calmly, “That door hasn’t latched properly in months. When someone mentioned what might fix it, I tried it and it worked.”

Man replied, “I’ll just move out and take all my stuff with me.”

Wife replied under her breath, “Promise?”

But seriously? Why was he so mad that she’d fixed the door? Had he expected her to TELL him the door wasn’t latching? I mean, he used the bathroom every single day, several times a day, had he NOT noticed it wasn’t latching?

For the record, Tom is NOT Man in this scenario and I am obviously not Wife. Tom pretty great, actually, when it comes to seeing what needs to be done and just doing it without any input from me. He washes dishes when he sees them in the sink; he will feed the girls when it’s dinnertime without my having to say anything.

And none of this makes him a hero. It makes him an adult; a partner in our marriage.

The couple in question are both retired and Man has decided that retirement for him means he sits around all day long, not lifting a finger around their house. He doesn’t wash dishes, doesn’t do laundry, has never vacuumed a rug. He will mow the lawn but he bitches and moans the entire time if Wife doesn’t help him with the mowing.

Wife does all the cooking, all the cleaning, most of the gardening and I think she’s on the verge of being done with it all. And get this, when Man does do something like, say, mow the lawn, he bitches and moans for hours afterward if Wife doesn't get on a mower and 'help' him. And the times he gets off his butt to weed the garden? HE LAYS DOWN IN THE GARDEN WHILE WEEDING. Who does that? I mean, seriously?

She’s a saint in my book because Man is still alive and well-fed. If I were in her shoes, I can’t say the same would be true. He might be alive but not because I kept feeding him. Hell, I rarely prepare Tom’s food even though he’s an actual nice person because he likes weird things and so he cooks them himself. And guess what? He’s a grown man who knows how to use the stove and as such, I do not heap praise upon him for taking care of himself.

But honestly, even the laziness isn’t the worst of it. The fact that he gets mad, acts like a freaking child, when she does something he thought he should be ASKED to do is what gets me. Grow up! Stop being a passive aggressive ass and make yourself useful.

No one fixed the door so that you would feel useless. She fixed the door so people could use the bathroom with the door closed and latched.

I don’t think this is a gender thing so much as a personality thing. This guy is just lazy and hypersensitive to his laziness. He knows he’s lazy but he doesn’t actually want anyone to point it out, so if he thinks you are pointing it out, it’s going to piss him off and he’s going to be an ass.

I know there are women out there who are much the same (me…maybe? I hang my head in shame at the very thought of being at all like him.) but in this case, he definitely has some ideas about gender roles and who should do what around the house, even though both are retired and have the same amount of hours in the day.

This is just a bunch of rambling to say that some people just suck. That’s all.

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