Men and home repairs.........

[stinkbug]

I'm sorry for you ladies.....what a bunch of whiney men!!!!

[Russ]

Ok here's our conversation this evening......

Me- Do you really think you did the very best job you could on that bathroom sink?

Him - (big sigh) no, probably not

Me- I'm sorry but I think it looks like crap. I thought the point of home improvements was to make the place look better and that just does NOT look better. That's the guest bathroom, you know, the one people will be using during dd's graduation party.

Him - well I'm not done yet. I'm going to take my knife and scrape it off the sink, etc. after it dries.

Me- Fine, but if I still don't like the way it looks do you promise to totally redo it?

Him- Yes

Why do I feel like I have another child??????

To defend him a little...

When my wife has a conversation like this with me, I feel no sense of urgency like she does. It's just not how I am. I'll get it done but I'm not going to jump up and do it right away or be enthusiastic about it when you tell me it needs to be done.

[brenda67]

I waited for a month for hubby to fix the toilet. He kept telling me he would fix it, never got around to it. Leaky toilets make your water bill increase tremendously.

So I gave him one more week, printed out a list of leaky toilet fixes, went into the bathroom in some shorty shorts, bent very far over (in his line of sight) and started making lots of ruckus and noise while doing very minimal work. (I.e. lifting the lid from the tank of the toilet while splashing water. Few minutes later he came in and fixed the toilet.

Later that month when he suggested we go to dinner and a movie, told him sorry but we had to spend extra on the water bill this month and I just didn't think we could swing it.

He is much faster at getting things done now.

LOL..I know your a spit fire and thought would have something really good to post..sure enough you did..Gotta love your spunk!

[WV_mom_of2]

To defend him a little...

When my wife has a conversation like this with me, I feel no sense of urgency like she does. It's just not how I am. I'll get it done but I'm not going to jump up and do it right away or be enthusiastic about it when you tell me it needs to be done.

There was no urgency while the conversation was going on since he was getting ready to leave for work. However he WILL get it done this weekend while he is off or he will hear my urgency when I yell him out of his tv induced stupor. I only give so much "nice" before I start yelling. And once that happens he knows without a doubt that I mean business. I just prefer to try and be nice about things at first.

[Russ]

I understand what you're saying.

[monkeywrangler71]

At our house these things are my job. I ask for my husband's help when I can't lift something, but i don't see the point of asking him to do things that I can just as easily do myself, especially since it's me that wants the stuff done. He doesn't go around making lists of things for me to do, why should I.

[Nada.Leona]

I waited for a month for hubby to fix the toilet. He kept telling me he would fix it, never got around to it. Leaky toilets make your water bill increase tremendously.

So I gave him one more week, printed out a list of leaky toilet fixes, went into the bathroom in some shorty shorts, bent very far over (in his line of sight) and started making lots of ruckus and noise while doing very minimal work. (I.e. lifting the lid from the tank of the toilet while splashing water. Few minutes later he came in and fixed the toilet.

Later that month when he suggested we go to dinner and a movie, told him sorry but we had to spend extra on the water bill this month and I just didn't think we could swing it.

He is much faster at getting things done now.

You are a bloody genius. I am totally using this next time!

[Nada.Leona]

At our house these things are my job. I ask for my husband's help when I can't lift something, but i don't see the point of asking him to do things that I can just as easily do myself, especially since it's me that wants the stuff done. He doesn't go around making lists of things for me to do, why should I.

This raises a good point. I agree with you. My husband doesn't often ask me to do things. Usually they're things he can't take care of himself. He asks me to pay my bills (things he isn't involved in, like my SLOC or my bridge fair), to cook (he swears he can't -- it's not true, he can, he just hates it. But I enjoy cooking, so I don't mind) and to do a few other things he doesn't like to do. Other than that, if he wants laundry done, or dishes done, or the bathroom cleaned, he does it himself.

My DH and I are the opposites of most couples. He will ask me to do things and I have the memory of a goldfish. So if I don't immediately plug them into my phone, I forget. I always tell him to remind me. The poor man usually has to ask me several times to do something, because I just don't think of it.

Anyway, he doesn't ask me to do a lot of things, but when I ask him, he does them almost immediately (although he whines about it too ). Since I've been pregnant, the stench of compost and garbage is too much for me, so he takes care of that. He does most of our heavy lifting, and takes care of most of our finances (though we discuss our purchases first and foremost).

[2ndGenGranola]

My husband is so "goal" focused/tunnel visioned that he creates other messes/projects as he goes.

The one I love to tell people about (and he hates) is the day I asked him to close the upstairs windows. He goes up and starts closing the windows. The windows are not closing smoothly so he starts forcing them closed. Instead of investigating why the windows would not close smoothly as I would, he is just focused on getting them closed. He ended up breaking off all locks on the windows and breaking off the upper glass frame thing on not just 1 window but ALL of the windows I asked him to close. Yes, that cost us a pretty penny to replace. I now ask the 6 y/o to close the new windows.

That example is extreme but it is how he does things. If I ask him to do something now, after I state the project I add "without creating mess, damage or other projects". I also have to remind him that picking up the trash and putting up the tools is a part of the project.