A
female
age
30-35,
anonymous
writes:Please tell me if I am overreacting. My husband and I have been married for 4 years. I am in the army, and we have no children. The entire time we have been married, because we have moved around a little I have been the main bread winner which I am ok with as I am the one who decided to join the military even before we got together. However, I feel as though my H is very lazy and somewhat selfish. In the entire year and a half we were at our last duty station, he went through a total of 4 jobs, and even still spent a decent amount of time being unemployed. Since we moved to our current location, he did not find a job until we had been here for over 6 months even though he KNEW we would be coming here almost 5 months in advance. He currently goes to school full time and works, while I also work full time but he is very lazy outside of that, to the point where he leaves his dirty underwear laying around as well as dirty dishes stacked in his office and car. He does not do any sort of yard work past mowing the lawn after we get enough knocks on the door asking if we want to pay a neighbor to do it, and he most certainly never does any sort of housework unless I nag and even then he usually "forgets". On top of all of this, he makes everything about him. If I am ever upset or stressed about something (work, bills, etc) he ALWAYS finds a way to make the situation about him and makes me feel like it's a crime to have a bad day. He doesn't get those feelings about day to day stressors so he is unable to empathize whatsoever. He always finds a way to talk about himself and what his latest career decision epiphany is, but rarely will take the time to allow for it to actually be a two sided convo without saying I'm interrupting, nor will he listen to me speak without either saying something completely off topic related to himself, or just sort of responding with "oh". I don't want to separate, but I just don't want to feel like I'm living with a lazy roommate any longer!
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female
reader, Honeypie  +, writes (30 April 2015):
 First of all, STOP picking up his dirty underwear. JUST leave them, if he drop them in (let's say) the living room, then pick them up and DUMP them on his side of the bed. As for dirty dishes in his office/car. IGNORE them.
Sooner or later he WILL run out of underwear and will NEED to do laundry to have more underwear. I know it's not pleasant to have dirty man underwear laying around... but YOU are not his mother and should NOT have to pick them up after him. THAT is just gross.
My husband has had a VERY hard time dumping dirty clothes in the hampers. One that was LESS than 10 feet from his side of the bed, so... after a while I just STOPPED picking up his clothes. NOW... he washes his own clothes and have for years. IF it goes in the hamper.. I wash it.. if not, then I don't. It's SIMPLE.
As for not being able to listen to you is not a good trait, but neither is interrupting. So you two NEED to learn how to BOTH listen and communicate. Don't have these conversation RIGHT when you both walk in the the door. Talk about your day over dinner at the dining room table. Or while you BOTH make dinner together. IF he is INCAPABLE of emphasizing with YOUR day, your stress, MAYBE he isn't the one to talk these things over with. Maybe a friend will be a better choice. But the danger in that is that you will end up RATHER talking to the friend (about anything) than your husband.
Sit down at some point and make a CHORE list. You both work, so sharing the chores should be the norm (if you ask me). Every now and then SWAP chores, like you will mow the grass and he will clean the kitchen/bathroom or whichever.
YOU are BOTH grown ups. THERE is no MOM around to pick up the slack for you two. THAT is UP to you two to GET things done.
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