Everyone has to do things from time to time that they really do not want to do. That's part of being responsible and sharing the workload with family, coworkers, and romantic partners.
It's infuriating when a person practices weaponized incompetence, pretending to do something badly so that they aren't asked to do it again, and tends to eventually become a deal breaker in romantic relationships, pointed out the members of the "Am I Overreacting?" (AIO) subReddit.
Redditor Throw-away-stowaway1 worked and performed most responsibilities around the home, despite their husband being a stay-at-home dad for children who were old enough to be in school throughout most of the day.
When they did everything to sell their home and buy another, the Original Poster (OP) was shocked when their husband couldn't do one small task without messing it up, and they considered divorcing him over it.
They asked the sub:
"Am I overreacting by wanting to divorce my husband because he could not find a document I asked him to find after giving him the location?"
The OP asked their husband a small favor.
"I asked my husband to find an important document for the sale of our house and told him where I thought it was."
"I was away for work and wouldn’t be at home for a few days, so I asked him to look for it. He is a stay-at-home dad, not a work-from-home dad, and our children are all of school age and were at school at the time."
"I had a pretty good idea where it would be, and so I asked him to look there for it."
"He rang and said he looked, but it wasn’t there."
When the OP looked, the document was exactly where they thought it would be.
"This weekend, I have been tearing the house apart, trying to find it and eventually looked in every place I could think of, so I started back at the beginning…"
"It was the first thing I pulled out of the bag I asked him to look in."
"There were seven related documents in the bag, too, so that should have been a big indicator that the stuff was in there even if you weren’t paying a huge amount of attention."
"When I asked him if he had definitely looked in the bag, as it was right on top, he promised he had and that the kids were distracting him."
"I asked him why he didn’t look again when the kids were otherwise amused or in bed, and he just shrugged and said he was too tired."
This was the final straw for the OP.
"I tried to explain to him how much this has upset me because I have done absolutely everything for the house move and he has done nothing towards it. This is the only thing I have asked for his help on, and he couldn’t even give it the attention it deserves."
"He dismissed it and said he couldn’t believe I had disturbed him to talk about something so trivial (I had called him to come upstairs so I could speak to him away from the kids)."
"I explained it wasn’t trivial to me."
"He said, 'I am not one of your employees,' and I explained that if he were one and I had asked him to do something so simple and given him the exact location and he still didn’t find it, he would be right; he wouldn’t be an employee for long."
"Maybe that was a bit harsh, but I think we can all agree he was being a d**k on purpose to shift the blame."
"He devolved pretty quickly into, 'Fine, I won’t help you anymore; see how much you like that!' and his other favourites, like, 'I guess I am just an enormous [put your favourite curse word here], huh?'"
The OP began to question their marriage.
"Since the start of this process, I have sold our house, bought the other, sorted all the finances, all the legal and paperwork, the move date, and the movers."
"I arranged a notary and organised surveys, sorted every appointment and every conversation relating to either side of the process."
"Finding this document was the only thing I asked his help with since we started the process in July."
"Right this second, I feel like I just want to divorce him."
"But is that because of the freshness of a wasted weekend looking everywhere for a document that was exactly where I thought it was? Or is it finally the dawning of realisation that this is not the man to grow old with?"
"AIO?"
Fellow Redditors weighed in:
- NOR: Not Overreacting
- YOR: You're Overreacting
Some understood that this piece of paper was the final straw for the OP, far from representative of the entire problem.
"Is this just the straw that broke the camel's back? Does he have a history of always relying on you to do things and being generally incompetent? It sure seems that way. NOR." - ButteryMashPotato
"Crazy. When my husband and I were buying our home, I did the vast majority of the paperwork and searching because I wasn't working, and he was. Your husband sucks." - moonlit-whisperer
"The document isn't even the real issue. It's the fact that she does everything and he can't take responsibility for one simple task without turning it back on her." - Deep-Chart-2302
"So you have done, literally, everything for this move, and he got his nose out of joint because you asked him to look for [checks notes] a piece of paper. Then he gets mad at you bc you found said paper in the exact spot you told him to look, and you called him out on it."
"You don't have a husband - you have another child."
"My guess is you'd have a very easy divorce bc it sounds like he couldn't even be arsed to find his own attorney. In fact, divorcing him might be the easiest thing you do this year." - michaelmoby
Others were disgusted by the husband's weaponized incompetence.
"Stay at home with school-age kids? Weaponized incompetence, as others have said. As a man, I’m sorry to hear about the shit women put up with."
"When you finally get the nerve to leave him, he’ll say he was blindsided and never saw it coming. He’ll say everything was fine, but you changed. I’m here to tell you that there are good men who will appreciate you and be a partner rather than another child that you have to care for." - pickled-pilot
"I feel like she pretty explicitly explained that he has a pattern of it."
"She said he's done nothing for the house, called the subsequent argument they had and some of the excuses he used 'his favorites,' and, most notably, it's gotten to the point where she is wanting to divorce him."
"Big NOR." - bingle-cowabungle
"NOR. This clearly isn’t about one document; it’s about years of her carrying everything while he does the bare minimum and gets defensive when called out for real." - CharmerGurl
"He has weaponized incompetence. That leaves her no choice but to work harder. If he makes no effort to do anything and makes it clear that he's punishing her by doing nothing, she's not wrong to say she's better at all of it."
"She cannot trust him to do anything, no matter how important it is. He is not trying to be a good partner. He didn't even look for the papers the first time she asked. She put them in a place where they could not be missed."
"He's sabotaging what he can." - SaskiaDavies
Some urged the OP to divorce him before moving him and his stuff into the new house.
"Drop him. You absolutely deserve better. The kids deserve better than to learn that THAT is how a partner is supposed to act. NOR." - ThinConsideration948
"Think about how much more work you’ll have when you two get older, and his health fails. If this is your life now, it will get even worse with age."
"You may end up sacrificing the last of your life force to keep him alive and lose whatever opportunity you have to live the way you want to while you still have your health. (Watching my Mom go through a version of this right now, and I watched her Mom go through a version of this beforehand.)"
"You mentioned divorce, and I don’t think you are overreacting. Your life will get MUCH easier if you lose his dead weight and have just the kids and yourself to spend most of your energy on." - caffeinatedangel
"NOR."
"Even if your husband was genuinely daft, he may have taken the venting on the nose because he just didn't think and apologise. Instead, he knew he didn't bother, you called him out on it, and he threw his rattle out to make you the bad guy."
"If your hubs has a history of this, then exit out of this relationship. Sounds like you'll be fine, as you're organised, and he won't know what to do once he's on his own."
"Just make sure that you have some counselling for yourself, as that will take a major toll on you emotionally, trying to hold it together for your family."
"Last point: if you do go down the divorce route and it turns out your hubs is very organised, then it was the right call because he's just being lazy and leaving you to do all the work, AKA: weaponised incompetence." - Meals303
"When he said, 'I won't help anymore,' I'd have replied, 'Will I notice?'"
"NOR on divorcing him. Let him see how easy it is on his own." - Ok_Young1709
The subReddit completely understood where the OP was coming from with potentially wanting to start a new life as they moved into this new house with their children.
Clearly, the document was a symbol of a much larger issue in the relationship, and at some point, it's not worth carrying another person who would never do the same if the roles were reversed.
