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Tantybi, there is so much wrong with your methods for dealing with your husband (who does sound like an a***hole) that I don't even know where to start.

Your children will use your relationships as a model on which to base their own. Your relationship with your husband is very very poor and very unhealthy and for the sake of your children I think you should leave your husband. Or else they might find themselves in the same situation as you as adults.

My parents splitting up was the best thing to happen to me as a child.

It's good you are getting him to help out now.

Telling someone to do something as opposed to asking to get them to do it because it's their responsibility to do it... how is that wrong? I firmly believe that me telling him what to do is a temporary thing. I already notice how he's been taking the initiative lately to do a lot of those things on his own. I'm getting to a point where I don't have to tell him anymore.

Seriously, if you ask your husband why the dishes aren't done, that allows room for argument. But if you approach him with, the dishes aren't done and the kid's room needs straightened up, which one do you want? 9 times out of 10, the man will either pick one or tell you that it doesn't matter. If it doesn't matter, then you pick one for him (no need to argue about his ability to make a choice) and tell him to do it while you handle the other one. When he doesn't jump right up to do that, you remind him that means now and he has a couple of minutes to come to stopping point in what he's doing but you mean right now. A couple minutes later, you might have to remind him and you might not. But that's going to get him to do something more than just whining about it, which is what women tend to generally do. Now if he argues with me that it isn't his job to do any work in the house, then I'll probably change the locks and make sure the door hits him on his way out. But that's not the issue here or what started this thread. The men know they are expected to do more, and they opt not to do it when the woman will do it for them. They know we can't go on strike if we want to keep our children by law, and they take advantage of that. But I am in the wrong for refusing to let him do that to me? I'm sorry, but the options of either deal with it or leave is not a solution in my world. In fact, what I'm doing that is so wrong is solving the problem. If my relationship is a model for my children, I don't want them to think if they don't get their way they leave the situation. I surely wouldn't want them to excuse a man failing to step up to his responsibilities by leaving him. My husband too has the option to leave if he can't take the heat. He chooses not to because in the end, he knows he's just as accountable as I am for handling this house and raising our children.

Oh God, I'm such an aweful person for making someone clean up their dishes and help take care of their children. I can't believe how inhumane I just am. Cmon now.

That is not how you described it in your initial post. I will quote it for you:





Dog training? Brainwashing? Guilt trips? That is not a way to show a good example to your children. They will grow up thinking it is acceptable to stay in a relationship with someone who needs to have this stuff done to them in order to behave. It is also not an acceptable thing to teach girls that they can never get respect from a man and instead need to bully them. This is simply not true.



I see no problem with this. I split up chores with my partner. We agree on it together and generally it is him that asks as he has a lower tolerance to mess than I do.



Whether this is appropriate depends on the situation. People coming over soon, hassling is not such a big deal (I tend to forget things like chores so need reminders). But if there is no urgent hurry, there should be no hassling.



Actually I would teach my children to find someone that doesn't need to be berated and bullied into doing their share of the chores/child minding.



That is not how you described it at ALL in your initial post. It made you sound like a nasty, bullying wife stuck in an unhappy and unfilling relationship with a lazy and inconsiderate man. And with children in the picture.

Last edited by Saspie on 09 Jul 2009, 11:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Maybe you guys are misunderstanding me a little. When I say brainwashing techniques, I'm being quasi facetious about it. One of the things about brainwashing is you put someone in an uncomfortable situation (like sending your kid to his room) and then you free them of it (like telling them their time out is over). See how any kind of usual punishment for children sound like that? Now in brainwashing, it is usually taken to a more extreme like not feeding someone for days and then being the person who provides them a meal. Again, I was just being semi joking with it. Sorry if that wasn't so obvious.

On the dog thing, again something very similar to parenting. You punish a dog for doing something bad and you reward it for doing something good. Exactly the same techniques parents do. I don't grab my husband and shove his nose in a dirty diaper saying "bad husband, you should have changed that you naughty naughty husband." No, all I do is reward him from a hard day's work with things like sex and a good dinner, and I am a b***h when he doesn't pull his weight (though it sucks when that is timed perfectly with the period because then it's wasted efforts).

As far as getting him to do things, you do have to nag and guilt trip like you are dealing with a teenager. I've never seen a married woman not do that. Only women who refuse to do that end up single/divorced/maybe widowed.

Hmm no it was not obvious. And to be honest this post seems like backtracking... But I will give you the benefit of the doubt.

I still think this is a very poor situation for your children to witness. Relationships are about compromise and both people working towards making things better. Not one person not caring at all and the other person using Pavlovian techniques to get them to do what they want. I would want (and have in fact) a relationship of equals where I do not have to treat my partner like a dog or a child for things to run smoothly in the household. We never fight about housework. In fact, he does the bulk of it as he prefers the house neater than me and occassionally tells me I need to do more work. I respond by writing myself reminders so that I remember to do extra work. We take turns to cook so I only have to cook every second night. He has never stopped me going out whenever I want and I do not stop him from going out whenever he wants. It's really damn awesome I have to say and after six years we get closer all the time.



Again, using sex and food as rewards?? I like sex just for fun,, not as a weapon to use against a reluctant partner... Women who use sex to control give our gender a really bad name.



I have seen plenty of unhappily married women do this. I have seen plenty of married women who have a relationship of equals with their husband where they do not need to nag and berate, and they are infinitely more happier than the women who nag and guilt trip. Their husbands are a lot happier also.

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Are you saying my husband is a better person than me because he did find someone he doesn't need to tell to do their share of the chores?

Also, it's not bullying. If you really think what I do is bullying, then you are a very lucky person. No, bullying would be me calling him a fat everyday just to make myself feel better about myself. Controlling would be me telling him he's lucky to have someone like me who loves him even though he's fat. What I do is tell him that he has to mow the lawn, and when he didn't, I cook dinner for the girls leaving my husband and I to fend for ourselves. And I tell him again that he needs to mow th lawn, and when he's done, I reward him with a nice dinner. (which happens to be, dare I say, the same techniques used in brainwashing and dog training). God I'm such the bully .

No, please quote me where I said that? I never said or implied that. You are trying to read something between the lines that I did not say. I think if your husband shows no willingness to work at a relationship without having to be brainwashed, nagged, guilted into it, he really does not deserve a relationship at all. Neither one of you is a good example of a loving, caring partner to be quite honest.



Well the way you described it in your initial post sounds like bullying... but you have already said you were joking about the seriousness of what you do to your husband...

Bullying is not just name calling and there are degrees. Bullying is using things like food and sex to control someone, making them feel guilty all the time, passive-aggression, name-calling, emotional/physical/sexual abuse, using their fear of being left to control them and so on. There many ways to bully someone...

What do you think brainwashing, dog training, and guilt trips are? You do realize that many companies use brainwashing techniques in their marketing strategies. The military uses it a lot in their basic training. Parents with their kids.

Dog training...if it were so inhumane, PETA wouldn't be doing it either.

Guilt trips, you can't tell me you never tried to make a man feel guilty about doing you wrong? You can't tell me either that in all the years you've been married your man has never made a mistake you had to deal with, whether you dealt with it using arguments, whining, guilt trips, or what have ya, you can't tell me your relationship has been 100% perfect from day one. If you really think that where you never had to resort to any type of psychological technique to improve the situation, then I will tell you for certain that you are in la la land.

I do not understand the first question. I do realise that companies use brain washing techniques - I have all my ads blocked via browsers, I do not have a TV to watch advertising and the movies I watch do not have ads in them... I really dislike the use of brainwashing in society. I have family in the military and find the methods they use in the military awful, antiquated and not as effective as other methods.



Dog training is fine for dogs. Not for adult men. Also PETA is a joke of an organisation and I would not be using them to make your point if I were you.



I have not intentionally tried to make my partner guilty ever. I lack the ability to use psychological methods to garner a pleasing reaction out of people for my own benefit as I simply do not understand how other people react to things to be able to do this. I see this as a positive feature of my AS and my partner says it is one great thing about me in comparison to others... We have had arguments for sure. We have had issues and dealt with them. The difference is we have treated each other as equals, not as someone to train, or guilt, or brainwash into doing what we want. We do not exchange food/sex or chores for good behavior and we do not punish each other for bad behaviour. We sit down and discuss how to resolve the issue to be mutually beneficial for both of us. He nor I have tried to change the other for a long time. Initially he tried to 'fix' a lot of my AS traits but after my diagnosis he has accepted me for who I am and I make an effort to make things as easy for him as possible in return. We are both willing to compromise so that is probably what makes a difference - your husband does not seem willing to work at your relationship unless you use conditioning methods on him.

No I never said I do this all the time. I said I've used these techniques recently and only for certain situations. For instance, I use the guilt when it comes to money.

I don't control with dinner and sex. I reward with them. No different than taking your kids out for pizza when they come home with good grades, or buying them ice cream because they did try really hard at that spelling bee. Seriously if what I do is bullying, then you can lump 99% of the parents, schools, teachers, principals, police officers, and the entire judicial system up there with me.

Ok I meant to address this earlier but forgot: Children and parents have a different power relationship than husbands and wives. Using reward/punishments on children is not the same as doing it to your husband. Your husband is supposed to be your partner and your equal, not a dependent. Children are your dependents and usually do not have a fully developed moral system so rewarding good behaviour encourages good behaviour and punishing bad behaviour makes it so they do not do it again. Your husband is a grown man and should know this already. If not, he is not your partner he is an extra child. Being in a relationship with someone who is your dependent and who needs to be treated like a child is NOT a good example to set for your children at all.

A non-rhetorical question: Would you be happy to see your children in a relationship with someone who acts like your husband?

Actually, the methods of the military do work. Even on someone like you as you sound a lot like me before I joined. I swore they would never break me because I'm too stubborn, and they never fully did. But, a lot of what they taught me stuck with me, and I'm a much better person for it. Probably more lethal and more of a jerk as a result, but better in the sense of me taking care of business.

That was kinda the point. They are so obsessed about "humane" and take it way too far that even if someone like them thought it was humane, then it's kinda a no brainer on it. It's almost like saying that was so stupid, Bush would comment on it.



But you use the term, in return. In a sense, that's the same thing. If you do it in return, then you are not doing it because he's your equal, but because he does that for you. If my husband was willing to work with me, in return, I'd work with him. But, he wasn't, so in return, I handled it my way.

But you are right. Like back in the day, I tried everything the right way, and it seemed like it was going to fix the problem, but it just went in one ear and out the other. The main problem early on in our relationship was his spending. That has gone away now, I hope, knock on wood, but I am now moving onto other things like housework. All these flaws I had no problem with when we dated and were married. I never noticed how many flaws he had until we had children. I told him marriage wouldn't change me, but motherhood would. That's what happened. Motherhood changed me, and he wasn't getting with the program. I really did almost leave him a few times, and I've considered even more irrational possible solutions, but I'm not in a position to leave my husband. I'm not in a position to take care of myself and three kids by myself. Mind you, my oldest is Aspergers, so that's just even more the challenge. Mind you also, my kids are 1 and 2 and I'm pregnant again (which was an act of God). Considering nobody wants to hire a pregnant woman, yeah, it'll be a while before i'm marketable again for a job. I was originally planning to give it time and create some long term goals for myself so I'd be in a better position to leave him, but I couldn't take this crap even a month let alone the years I need to prepare myself.

to be honest, I took care of my situation. I really don't care if it makes me sound like a bully or a jerk. I did at first, but now I don't really care. Like I said before, it sounds harsher than what it is, and it is no where near as bad as creating children and not taking responsibility for them. I do what I got to do. That's what I got to do right now. I've seen worse.

Damn, you got me. But if they did end up in a relationship with someone like my husband, I'd want them to know how to handle him.

BTW, that was one of the guilt questions I used on my husband many times. "Would you appreciate it if your daughter's future husband talked to your daugher like that?"

I did not say the military methods did not work. Just that they were less efficient that other less cruel ways.

I would never join the military. And AS rules me out in this country anyway You sound nothing like me actually so I would not be comparing us from a few internet posts.



Sorry, I am really confused by the point you are making here.



No it is not the same thing at all. Me and my partner compromise on many things. We understand that we cannot get our own way all of the time and work with each other to try to get win-win situations rather than win-lose situations. There is no brainwashing, guilt trips and so on, as you have described. I would never stay with someone who wasn't willing to work with me on the relationship.



Fair enough. That happens in a lot of relationships. Why did motherhood change you?



I hope never to find myself in your position where I am stuck with someone I am not happy with. My mother was abandoned with three young children and left with no money by my father. It is amazing how resiliant some people become in those situations. My mother retrained as a counsellor, got a job, we got a lot of support from charities, and whilst we were very poor ultimately I am so glad that this happened as my mother was with a man that did not put any effort into the relationship at all and as a result she was not happy. She became someone I am very proud of, rather than a woman who was tired and unhappy all the time because of my dad. Now she has nearly paid off her mortgage, in a great job, financially comfortable, and has raised three successful kids (employed, financially ok, in healthy relationships, etc) who are very proud of her given the hardship she had when my dad left. It is not impossible to go at it alone...

The more I think about it, I really need to get this out here too. My husband and I would function just fine in our own world the way we were (except the spending thing). Like my house gets messy, but never do we have a civilization growing somewhere that might attract pests. It's just messy, mainly clutter. I really didn't mind doing the housework when I was allowed to have a messy house. Like some days I was like, oh it's my period, I'll clean tomorrow. That was fine. But the world around me cannot accept me having a day off. If my house is messy, I'm a bad mom abusing my children. I will say it's their expecatations of me that has produced this need for perfection in the home all the sudden where I have to demand the help from my husband. It's like being the quarterback for a football team where every one expects you to win, and it's your responsibility to lead the team to victory, and if they fail, it's your ass. If his team sucks, he can't play the game by himself. He can run the ball most of the yards, but in the end, he still needs help from his Offense and the Defense has to be decent too. But to make that one man accountable for how well his team plays is sadistic. You don't understand that kind of pressure. People's expectations are very irrational more often than not. You have no choice if you don't want to lose your kids but to manage to do it, no matter how irrational it is. So the tactics I use on my husband is no different than the ones everyone uses on me, from a landlord to my mom to CPS (who has never been called on me, but I'm starting to get morning sickness thinking about that). I know it sounds like an irrational fear of losing my kids, but really it's not. I've just seen too many houses investigated and issues. It pisses me off because CPS will only remove kids from bogus cases in this state, and the ones that are legitimate with a real danger ends up being dismissed without investigation. I've even had my old landlord threaten to call them because when she came over, my daughter had just taken a box of cereal and emptied the box waving it in the air all over the living room floor. I didn't clean it up immediately (meaning I waited a couple hours to get to it), and the landlady saw it and swore I had roaches because of it. She threatened that she was calling CPS about it, and threatened eviction over it.

So you see, I have no room for failure. I have no room for excuses or principles. My husband has no choice but to get with the program. Same with me. I have no choice. There are no excuses. Not Aspergers. Not pregnancy. Not fatigue. I could go into surgery and it's still not an excuse to have a messy house. Point blank, this house has to resemble Donna Reed's house 24/7. In addition, I cannot be late for appointments, miss appointments, or fail to make them in the first place. I cannot bounce a check, miss a payment, or make late ones. I have to be on top of my game, and life doesn't stop for bad luck or any type of condition I have. NT's are really good about appearances. I'm not. So everything NT's fake, I have to actually really have it. Right now, this quarterback can't lose a team mate. If I had someone else lined up, that would be a different story.