General Relationship DiscussionAlthough anyone can post anywhere on Talk About Marriage, this section is for people interested in general relationship and marriage advice.
Re: What do you do when your spouse has ZERO common sense?
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Originally Posted by BeachGuy
We had always agreed that she would stay home with our kids until they were both in school, then she would go back to work part time. When the time came, she "changed her mind" and said she likes being a SAHM. Duh...who wouldn't. I sure would. So working is not in her future. But our counselor agrees with you 100% and has told her many times, the most important thing she needs to do is get a job to be around adults and grow. No matter what happens to us. But she still won't do it.
It appears you latched on to the part SHE is responsible for and ignored what I said about YOUR responsibility. If this is your typical response, get your belongings together and leave, because it's not going to improve till you change your attitude. Even if she made the changes you'd like to see, you'd be so alert for signs of her "stupidity" that she'd automatically fail and resort to the same behaviors.
Re: What do you do when your spouse has ZERO common sense?
Why is the OP responsible entirely because his wife isn't smart? You are blaming her behavior on him. Yes I agree she probably feels he thinks she's stupid, but she isn't trying to do better. So that us entirely his fault? Maybe he tried for a long time and just gave up? Posted via Mobile Device
Re: What do you do when your spouse has ZERO common sense?
Your kids are in middle school so there's no reason she can't go back to work. SAHM is very hard work when the kids are young but not so much when they're teens. Set some new financial goals for your family and tell her she needs to go back to work to help with the goals. "Its critical for family ect..." This is how I handled it with my wife.
I think your wife pretends to be unable to do things that she doesn't like doing. (By the way, buy a Dyson. It has no bag and nothing works better.). My wife doesn't like cooking and doing laundy and you what happened?. Our dinners started to suck and my shirts were getting ruined so I pleaded with her to stop cooking and doing laundry for me. It took her a while to believe that I was serious about it, but she finally stopped. You'll have to get use to it anyway if she goes back to work. As far as the auto part thing goes, my wife also moves stuff to illogical places. I asked her to never move my stuff again. Now she asks me to put it away or hands it to me which is fine. I can never find the ketchup because it's never on the same shelf !
My wife started with part time jobs using a temp agency and eventually she landed a decent full timer. After about a year of full time work she became more logical about everything and I think it's because she gained her perspective back that she had lost staying in the home for 8 years. She had to commute and deal with office politics which really woke her up. I think peoples brains atrophy when they stay home dealing with brats all day. Its like they begin to drop down to their level and forget their adults.
Re: What do you do when your spouse has ZERO common sense?
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Originally Posted by BeachGuy
I'm just wondering how many others are out there in a similar marriage. My wife graduated from college but can't decide what pot to use to boil water. She does the most senseless things and it just drives me crazy. I bought an auto part for my truck once. Then I couldn't find it when I was ready to put it on. I searched for hours (and she even offered to help me!). I finally gave up and bought another one. Several months later I found it on the shelf in our laundry room!!! She had "cleaned up" one day and put it in the laundry room of all places. This is just one of hundreds of examples.
She can't change the bag on our vacuum cleaner that we've had for 15 years. Seriously. And I've shown here more than once and it's just beyond her abilities or something. I've come home and she says "I tried and tried to get that thing in there and can't." 15 years we've had this thing.
She can't rent or return a movie at a Redbox kiosk. No kidding. I asked her to return a move once and she brought it back home because she couldn't put it in the slot the right way. Now she just gets our 13 year old to operate it for her.
She can't clean a single room, can't cook, has no hobbies, no interests. Food sits in our refrigerator until it rots because she never thinks to clean it out. She can't make decisions about anything.
Oh, and she hasn't worked in 14 years. So she's home all day. We have two kids. She takes them to school and picks them up, does a little laundry, and that's it.
I haven't read the rest of the thread, but I'm in a very similar marriage to yours. The thing that's helped me the most is to just stop trying to do everything for my wife all the time. She did nothing, though she does work a full time job so my comments are limited to the domestic sphere. But what worked for me was just keeping myself from doing everything for her. For example, she'll leave her socks in the middle of the floor when she gets home. I would pick them up for her always. Having been raised by a mother not too unlike the one in Mommy Dearest or whatever that movie was called, I never leave something like socks lying around. But my wife always does. So now we've had dirty socks in the middle of the floor for a couple of weeks, but I no longer kill myself trying to do everything for my wife. I basically limited myself to certain areas that I think are appropriate to take charge of and have left the rest to her. Other than random messes like the socks thing, she's overall become more responsible and less helpless.
Re: What do you do when your spouse has ZERO common sense?
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Originally Posted by Hope1964
This is blatantly disrespectful to SAHM's everywhere, and the fact that they work damned hard. Harder than MANY men (and women) in the workforce full time.
I think you're making some assumptions here that are not the case in my house. IF she did what most SAHM do, I would completely agree with you that I was disrespectful. But she does NOT. She takes good care of our kids as far as dressing, hygeine, school....but that's where it ends. She waits on them hand and foot. She teaches them nothing about how to survive in life. Laundry, cleaning, anything. The would be as helpless as her when they grow up if it weren't for me. Marriage is not solely about kids. She told me once we shouldn't get divorced "becasue we have two beautiful children and we've been married 20 years". My reply was "If you and don't have a relationship, than those things are secondary."
Do you have co-workers who don't pull their weight at work? Do they deserve the same respect and accolades and salary as the ones that bust their a**? Of course not.
Re: What do you do when your spouse has ZERO common sense?
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Originally Posted by lamaga
Still wondering why you married her...this can't be a huge surprise for you.
We were YOUNG. Aren't all 20-somethings pretty clueless? You learn as you go. She never matured. Was it unreasonable of me to expect that she would as she got older?
Re: What do you do when your spouse has ZERO common sense?
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Originally Posted by KathyBatesel
It appears you latched on to the part SHE is responsible for and ignored what I said about YOUR responsibility. If this is your typical response, get your belongings together and leave, because it's not going to improve till you change your attitude. Even if she made the changes you'd like to see, you'd be so alert for signs of her "stupidity" that she'd automatically fail and resort to the same behaviors.
I am very bitter at this point. No doubt. But it wasn't always this way. I tried and tried and tried to work with her. Did I mention we haven't had sex in 10 years? Yeah, tends to make a man bitter. Even our counselor says she doesn't understand her.
Re: What do you do when your spouse has ZERO common sense?
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Originally Posted by Rowan
I can pretty much guarantee you that he does come across to his wife in the same manner as he does here. Unless she really is profoundly mentally handicapped (doubtful, given a college education), there's no doubt in my mind that she is fully aware that her husband thinks she's stupid.
OP, I think the suggestion of a neuropsychological evaluation for your wife is a very good one. Something seems more "off" than I would expect if she were just lazy or a princess. ADHD, apraxia, dyspraxia, or a processing disorder are all things that I think are worth looking into - once things like physical illness or injury are ruled out. If there is a neurological issue, then there are a lot of things that can be done to help your wife and to enable her to help herself.
There is no way she would agree to any evaluation. I politely suggested once I thought she might be depressed and she got mad and said no she is not. She thinks she is a perfectly normal wife. But nobody else does. This isn't just my opinion. More than one person has asked me "What does she DO all day???"
Re: What do you do when your spouse has ZERO common sense?
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Originally Posted by A Bit Much
This is great KathyBatesel.
I wondered after the way the OP responded to my post if he came across to his wife in the same manner.
I suppose if I'm walking on a sidewalk and a car runs up on it and hits me, it's my fault too, huh? Because "I knew the hazards before doing it" so my demise is of my own doing?
Re: What do you do when your spouse has ZERO common sense?
She must be some amazing hottie or she's got magical bedroom skills. I can't imagine otherwise why a guy would hook up with an unmotivated woman who lacked common sense or how one could date such a woman without these traits showing themselves. I don't think it's an issue of being too dumb, more likely, it's an issue of being lazy. A chimpanzee could figure out how to return a movie.
Re: What do you do when your spouse has ZERO common sense?
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Originally Posted by BeachGuy
I am very bitter at this point. No doubt. But it wasn't always this way. I tried and tried and tried to work with her. Did I mention we haven't had sex in 10 years? Yeah, tends to make a man bitter. Even our counselor says she doesn't understand her.
Okay, take a deep breath and calm down. The people here are well-meaning, believe it or not! You are FRUSTRATED. However, regardless of your frustration, you are not 100% expunged from the responsibility that comes with being part of this situation.
Your counselor doesn't understand her? Fine. Get another counselor. And here is what I would like to respectfully suggest: find a counselor who has been trained, or follows, Dr. John Gottman. There are lots of marriage counselors out there, but the guy I saw, who goes out to Seattle every year to attend a Gottman refresher conference, was head and shoulders above the rest for me. Go to Amazon and review Gottman's books, or just google him.
I hear your frustration. You feel you need to defend yourself. You feel you are being attacked and that your point of view is being denigrated. Not so. People are giving your their perspectives, from the best of their limited abilities on an internet site.
Let me frame it to you this way: I was married to a rip-roaring alcoholic. I mean, this guy was trashing his life. In and out of jail. Lost his job. Lost his license. Lost his sanity. (Not in that particular order!)
I left feeling completely vindicated. The thing is, I had to own some of the responsibility for the demise of the marriage, addiction aside. No marriage exists in a vacuum.
Yes, you were young and idealistic when you got married. You grew. She did not. She remained the princess. Okay, I realize this sounds corny as he!!, but was she your fairy princess, and you her knight in shining armor?
Why do I ask that? Because you sound like a very responsible, take-charge kind of guy. She sounds like a wounded child who is in need of care and nurturing.
Help me here. I'm grabbing at straws! Heck, I hope some of my hypotheticals are hitting a nerve ... or two.
Re: What do you do when your spouse has ZERO common sense?
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Originally Posted by BeachGuy
“About the auto part... why did you leave it laying around so she could put it on a laundry room shelf?” I seriously hope you were being funny when you said this.
No I was not trying to be funny at all.
My family members do this. They leave things around the house and get upset later when they cannot find them. It’s up to them to keep track of their stuff, not anyone else. If you don’t like your things just stuffed somewhere, then put it way yourself before she gets a chance to stuff it somewhere.
Re: What do you do when your spouse has ZERO common sense?
Quote:
Originally Posted by BeachGuy
I suppose if I'm walking on a sidewalk and a car runs up on it and hits me, it's my fault too, huh? Because "I knew the hazards before doing it" so my demise is of my own doing?
You can either continue to throw your pity party and blame your misery and frustration solely on your wife, or own some of the way your marriage has turned out. That's up to you.
10 years of no sex? I would think that someone intelligent and full of common sense (such as yourself) would have maybe done something about that a lot sooner. Like say in year 6 of your marriage when you hadn't had sex in several months.
What you liked 20 years ago has changed. Who she was 20 years ago is still who she is right now. That's what you do know. You'd rather resent her and enable her than make a decision for yourself. I'm sure you're frustrated with her and the fact that she's the way she is, but you don't have to stay and deal with it. If you've gone to counseling, done the work, then that's all you can do. She's chosen not to change. She's also withdrawn herself from you completely, refusing to meet your needs. That's not a marriage. Do something about it.
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Re: What do you do when your spouse has ZERO common sense? 
