Things That Make You Go "Huh?" (Husband Tales)

Definately relate. Difference being my house would have been in worse shape then when I left (more stuff out, dishes on the counter...which is my big pet peave).

Reminds me of the comedian (can't remember at the moment if it was Jeff Foxworthy or Bill Engval) who talks about men always wanting a pat on the back and said something like "A woman can be out paving the driveway and the husband will holler "Don't worry, I dumped the ashstray...did if for you baby".

Once before a party, my sister came over to help my husband clean (I work full-time; he's a stay-at-home Dad), and they spent the day oiling the wood panels on the wall. So I got to spend the night cleaning the bathrooms, the kitchen, the yard, the den....

And they were BOTH so freakin' proud!

I've been a bit more specific in my requests for help since then, but given that my husband is a SAHD and the above information, yes, my home looks like you think it does.

lol ya'll are funny! Jo W you are a funny lady!

My man bought 4 educational type books for elementary school age (one was a child's dictionary) for $90 from a door to door salesman when my son wasn't even a year old.

He has also been known to give my son spaghetti when my son was wearing a white shirt, many many many times.

I had to laugh bc my husband it like this with the garage before every party! The garage! My friend said her husband does the same thing. And when we moved into our current house, we had a 10 mo old and I was pregnant. His priority was to replace the old "gold" door knobs with silver. Sure - looks better but there was SO much else to do nevermind just watch our 10 mo old. Men really are bizarre sometimes... I know there are plenty of other examples too.

We bought a co-op and hubs was doing some touch up/ re-plastering/ repainting. He spent the better part of two days fiddling with a door knob, to a closet door, something we ended up replacing anyway. I was very preg and eager to move out of our transitional spot in my parent's basement while the apt was full of construction dust. I was like really? Really? the closet door knob (not mission critical in my opinion) takes precedence over say plastering the bathroom?

We've since agreed that neither of us has the patience/ gumption for DIY work, and we'll budget to get a contractor and a team of men to get the job done.

Good for you for recognizing that the argument would have been lost on him. We've gotten to a place in our relationship where hubs can say, I don't share your perspective on say cleaning the family room over the storage room, but I see that it is important to you. I will be more mindful of that in the future.

Best to you and yours,
F. B.

Yep, my husband uses the same man logic. His thing is bills and paperwork. He's crazy about saving everything in multiple places, so he scans all the bills and paperwork into the computer, and then makes all these piles of stuff to be filed, shredded or locked in his safe (yes, he stores everything on a fire/water/crush proof external hard drive AND saves all the hard copies...so if there's ever a nuclear disaster all our old cable bills will be safe and sound...). Whenever we have company coming over, he'll disappear into his office and spend forever filing, shredding and organizing. But unlike you, I don't show off the results of all his 'hard work'. I mostly complain to myself that I had to clean the rest of the house while watching the kids. Good for you for taking it so well! You're a better woman than me!

And omg Jill T, my husband did the exact same thing with the doorknobs when we moved into our new house. He spent hundreds of $$ and hours of work on those things, and yet the yard (that people actually see every day) looked like an abandoned weed fest.

ETA: I can't believe how similar all our husbands are!! This stuff really must be in their genes. After almost every post I read, I think "yep, my husband does that too". Like the fridge thing...my husband hates when the fridge is cluttered (granted, it's usually stuffed full), so he always volunteers to clean out the fridge, which actually means he'll take all the leftovers and expired food out and put them into the sink. No dumping Tupperware or throwing anything Into the actual garbage. Occasionally he'll fill the leftover containers up with water without dumping them first, so I have the extra fun surprise of old food soup to deal with.

All the time...

We built our house in NY and there were aspects of it that the builder really skimped on, like our front steps. They were crappy, but up to code. When did the hubs decide to take on this "weekend project" (which usually means 2-3 weeks of work in his code)? Two days before we were hosting the neighborhood July 4th party! Great. How welcoming.

Even better... same steps... one of the boards was popping up the next summer. When did he decide to replace/repair that one? Oh... about three hours before a dinner party. Needless to say, I walked out front (through the garage) and asked him what the h$#l he was doing and reminded him that we had company coming at 6. Clearly he had forgotten, but the step was already pulled apart. I went inside, poured him a huge glass of iced tea and told him not to come in again until it was fixed.

I could go on, but you get the idea. We laugh about it now, but there are times when I really question whether or not he puts his "thinking cap" on in the morning!

Yeah, he married me. :)

Seriously that is a guy thing. They suck at cleaning but damn they are good at organizing.

Of course my husband is big into angry cleaning. Ya know how women get so pissed they do all the work and no one helps and husband is watching TV so they are loudly cleaning and doing dishes in the kitchen. He does that. Cracks me up every time!! I kind of wonder if that is how men feel when their wives do it.

My husband does the exact same thing. Company coming for dinner? He figures this is the time to paint our closet. Overnight guests arriving in an hour? He's alphabetizing the contents of the storage shed. I really appreciate his effort, but the timing makes me nuts. What do I have to do to get him to run the vacuum or wipe the counters before people come over? If you figure it out, let me know.

I also can't figure out why, on garbage day, he will take the cans from outside to the curb to be picked up, but he won't empty the full garbages from the house first. Apparently its better to let it age another week.

And he loads the dishwasher full of dishes, closes it up and walks away without running it.

Huh?

I don't get that one either.

Anyway, he is usually great about household stuff, these are just things I don't understand.

Once when my husband's aunts and uncles were coming over, my husband said he would take care of the kitchen. He spent two hours cleaning out the fridge - taking out all of the food and shelves and scouring the inside. The rest of the kitchen was more of a mess than it had been to begin with!

When we first got married and moved in together, our stuff was just put anywhere and everywhere. We had put our bed together and slept that night. There was almost no path to the door. I worked for several hours on our kitchen, thinking he as doing some hard work that kept him busy for those hours. Finally I climbed out of the kitchen to find him in our bedroom setting up the computer. And I mean the SOFTWARE on the computer!
My first glimpse of living with a techie!

Oh, ok, good. So it's not just MY husband.

ha we've had the same issue with the basement and mud/work room. people will be coming over and he will say oh i;'ve got it all cleaned. i come home and the only thing he;s cleaned is the unfinished basement?

This is yet another example of why I think I should have been born a man, Lol. I am HORRIBLE at cleaning, but I LOVE LOVE LOVE organizing. Just last week I procrastinated actually cleaning the apartment for two hours by organizing the kitchen cabinets. Yes, they needed to be organized. Yes, I eventually got around to cleaning some other stuff. But hubby ended up having to help finish up a couple of things when he got home from work (It was date night and the sitter (My mom) just can't see the apartment "dirty" (When her house constantly looks like a tornado went through it))... In my defense he only had to clean the bathroom and fold one basket of laundry, so I still cleaned about 85-90% of the apartment AND I got the kitchen cabinets organized. Damn, I'm good :)

Anyways, I totally get where your husband was coming from. He probably went in there with every intention of just picking up a couple of small things to look nicer before moving onto the more important rooms but got sucked into the project and didn't stop until it was perfection. I do it all the time. ...Or he thought to himself, 'Hmmm... How can I clean and still have fun... I know! I'll organize all my tools! Brilliant!' :)

When we first got married and were moving in together, I went to my house to get my clothes and personal belongings. My husband came into our new house with a box containing his deceased Uncle's dusty old books that he had sitting on a shelf in his old room that he had never read....no clothes😱

That is something my hubby would do!!!!!

For my hubby, the utility room is his work room, the one place he is really in charge of, so I can easily see him cleaning it, rather than other rooms, and thinking he is "cleaning."

Great story, thanks for sharing. :)

I have to laugh because I have sooooo been there! Although I got the "I cleaned the storage room" and when I got there, he basically rearranged things so they fit on shelves...didn't organize or clean, just found room for stuff on shelves. You appreciate that they took initiative to try to do SOMETHING but it's so not as big in your mind as it is in theirs. I could probably go on too...

That's funny but I can totally see myself doing that!
So, this is the way I clean (My mom is the same way...and her mom before her) Step one: empty out all the cupboards, drawers, closets etc.
Step 2: sort through everything. Disinfect everything. Scrub out the insides of drawers and cupboards and the baseboards. Take a break to go to the store and buy new closet organization system or whatever. Possibly repaint closet.
Step 3: Slowly but surely put everything back nicely. **Always start with the smallest space first, like a closet or storage room! Keepin' it manageable, yo!**

I completely relate! Mostly it's the trash needing taken out & dishes that need washing all the time. Most recently, I had a very late meeting to go to & didn't get home til after 9pm. My hubby had been home for at least 4 hours after work & still had a sink FULL of dirty dishes...gee, thanks hon for pitching in this one time. Now I realize taking a nap on the couch after work is very inviting but IMO house work comes first, especially if I can't get to it that day....a little help goes a long way but apparenly my DH has decided that the wife does all the cleaning now.

Another story...we'd planned to go to the movie. So the 11:00 time would be too close as it was already 10 or so & we still had to get ready then eat breakfast so we decided on the 12:40 as the next one wouldn't start til after 2pm & we wanted to take advantage of the 'early bird special'.

Ok. Now, it takes about 30 mins to get to the theatre due to traffic, etc so I figure leaving about 11:45 would be a good time to leave which would leave time to park & get tickets then get seated. So I get showered & dressed by 11:15 then eat a quick bowl of cereal...all done & ready to go out the door by 11:20-11:30. Hubby still hadn't eaten so what's he do?? Rather than taking my que of just eating a quick bowl of cereal or oatmeal, he wants to suddenly make himself a 'big boy breakfast'! Complete w/3 eggs, 3 sausage patties, a FULL stack of pancakes, toast and bisquits! First of all, we have 15 mins to leave...it's gonna take a lot longer than 15 mins to cook all that. He didn't like the fact I argued about the time and suggested he just eat oatmeal or cereal..."but I'm hungry & want to eat a real breakfast!" he says. So hubs FINALLY gets done cooking & eating..at what time? 12:40! Now it's too late to catch the 12:40 show! Now we're stuck waiting an additional 1.5 hours & regular pricing. And he wonders why I'm ticked off b/c he wanted a big boy breakfast! My DH has NO concept of time management whatsover sometimes. Argh, so frustrating some times. :)

Along the same vein of Missy F., my husband also likes to do laundry in the middle of preparation for imminent family/friend get-togethers, major holidays, etc.. That's just the perfect time to get a load or two going! :P

We have a laundry "closet" (not a room) so this is not something that is easy to hide.

Sigh.

ETA: OMG Lynn S.!!! My husband is very similar with paperwork!! Your post had me giggling out loud.

my husband used to disassemble the stove and clean it, about 10 minutes before we were to have company. Even though it was mostly clean, he would even take the cover off the clock that's on the stove, just to clean that too. It drove me crazy. He'd do this before most parties we had. Thankfully we moved and he doesn't do that anymore. He cleans the garage and sweeps it out now before company.

These are funny!
When we got married, one job my husband had was renting the car that was to get me and my wedding party to the church. He decided to splurge on a two-seat convertible Miata....I had to gently explain that yes, it is a sexy car, but that it only had two seats and I would be wearing a big dress and veil. We still laugh about that one.

He does the same thing with filing that Lynn's husband does, expect that the piles stay in our bedroom for a couple of weeks before I toss them back into a closet.
Still, he now, after more than 20 years will look up sometimes before a big project and ask "Does this seem like a good idea?" Melts my heart every time.

Woo Boy have I been there before!! Our Daughters prom send off, my early arriving guests had to help me clean up the kitchen while the hubby mopped the ENTIRE basement. Thanks Hun... NOT!! LOL

Guys definitely think differently:) We are moving this summer and hubby asked me last night what we want to take with us in our vehicles (we have a moving company moving us, but always take some stuff with us--irreplaceable items, jewelry, etc). He said he wanted to start working on a list. Normally, that would be a good idea. However, we have an open house this weekend (our house is for sale), we are flying to our new city in 2 weeks to house hunt, and we're taking our middle son across the country for a heart procedure in 3 weeks. I can barely wrap my head around the next few weeks--let alone what we're going to take in our vehicles in June. I'm so proud that I just said I wasn't totally sure and didn't bite his head off:)

I think guys just get overwhelmed--like us--but focus on different things:)

I think they're all cut from the same cloth.
It's a running joke in our house now--is it a holiday? Then it's time for tree removal!!

Its sounds like he was being passive-aggressive. Does he not like her? Does he not like something about the visit? Something about the way you act when she visits?

My husband cleans the garage whenever we are supposed to have a party (and it's not in the garage) or he starts doing the laundry or he always has car problems. I think he wants to help, doesn't like if I give him a 'job' but wants to feel like he participates somehow. Sigh...Oh I just laughed I saw Angela's husband does that, too. However, he is a great cook so when I can captivate him into that he is all smiles.

All the time! I totally feel you-My husband is in debt and finally asked me about how to get himself out. Started working on it and within a month sold his car for 1/2 its worth and bought a BRAND NEW ONE with double the payment (sigh), "Did laundry" by outing things in the washer, maybe dryer even without telling anyone and I end up with smelly clothes cause they've been sitting for a few days & or wrinkled beyond ability to iron them out

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha! I can completely relate! It's never that what my husband is doing doesn't need to be done, but the timing that he takes to do them! One time we were scrambling around, running late for something, and he was already ready to go and I had gotten the kids dressed, except they needed their shoes on.(the kids were 3 and 1 at the time) I ran to go get myself dressed, and instead of putting the kids shoes on, he took out the trash. In his mind I guess taking the trash seemed more important than getting to where we needed to be. He still does weird things like that, especially if we are in a hurry. Anymore I just shake my head.

My cuckoo husband doesn't have the cleaning issue. He does the cleaning around there. When we are preparing for an event, I let him know what I need from him, and he understands that he can spend any extra energy on whatever else, and in whatever order.

Things get tricky when it's time to think. He works everything out in his head and gets annoyed with me for not knowing the details. I'd like to leave the incident in his lap as a lesson learned--without having to spell out the lesson that he should be learning--but his automatic take-away is "I should have just done it by myself." Not "I should have mentioned it to you sooner" or "...let you in on my thoughts". When it's all over, he takes a moment to thank me for sticking it out and not leaving him to go it alone...better with me...blah, blah, blah. Then...rewind and replay.

I get compartmentalizing. Is that the exact same thing as refusing to see the pattern? It's like Groundhog Day at my house, and i'm nagging if I point that out!

Oh, or he'll ask me after I've got an event planned (hosting or attending) and talked to him about his schedule and he's on board, "Do you mind if I do something else while you're doing that?"

Oh, my husband and boys all have their weirdo man-logic. :-)

As for cleaning, my husband takes great pride in telling me when he organizes his workroom. I smile and nod, but honestly? I don't care about his basement room.

If I want him to clean a specific room, he will do it. But I have be Very specific. I have to tell him which room and to what degree.

If I just ask him to "clean the living room", he put away up any stuff laying around and get rid of trash.

When *I* clean the living room, I pick up the stuff, dust, wipe down the end tables, and vacuum including using the hose in the corners and under furniture. So if that is what I want him to do, I need to spell it out.

1.my husband will walk into the kitchen with an empty beer can and put it on the counter. open the refridge and get another one. walk back in to the living room put the full can on the table. walk pass the door to go outside(where we have a garbage can for cans) and go to the bathroom-come back into the living room and sit down!! this will happen at least 4 times thru out the evening!!
2. my husband will not take a full bag of garbage out of the can in the kitchen and take out the garbage because i haven't tyed the bag closed!!!