5 Reasons Your Wife Hates When You Just Sit Around
Samantha Rodman Whiten
June 7, 2015
Men, you are not imagining the annoyance and disdain that spreads over your wife’s beautiful visage like a wet Swiffer over hardwood when you take it easy in your favorite armchair. Today I will explain for you why seeing you sit down and play video games, play on your phone, or stare into space is so enraging for the woman you married, even though she used to bring you sandwiches while you played Xbox back when she still gave you BJ’s.
1. If you’re sitting down, who’s taking care of the household?
A huge complaint I get in couples counseling is “My husband just sits around and does nothing” (and the counterpoint, “My wife hates when I relax and needs to control every second of my time”). This is because men and women have opposing ideas about household management. They can be summed up in this sentence: Women think household management is infinite. Men don’t.
I just turned to my husband and asked, “What could you be doing right now?” And he said, “I don’t know, what could I be doing right now?” (Note: this is a good response and one which indicates that he heard the edge of potential hysteria in my voice.) But the point is, here is what I think of: do the laundry, clean ANYTHING, supervise the kids, organize ANYTHING, write a grocery list, start on the lunches for tomorrow, clip the hedges, make the kids a snack…. and that’s just what I could type in real time as the thoughts went through my head. When you sit down, the potential for you helping with those things decreases dramatically, at least without your wife feeling like a nag or a bother.
2. Sitting down and lazing around is so… passive.
Women hate passive. It has to do with our evolutionary imperative to be with someone who can hunt and fish or whatever. It’s certainly not sexy. So, even if your wife was in the mood to have sex because she just had that dream about the high school quarterback in her old high school or what have you, seeing you sitting down doing nothing is going to snuff out that flicker of sexual energy like a Dyson snuffs out dirt. Conclusion: in addition to sitting being bad for your health, it’s also bad for your sex life.
3. If you’re sitting, it’s likely you’re not open to hanging out.
You’re on your phone checking the scores (that’s a phrase people use, right? I’ve never done it in my life), and you may think you’d be totally open to a conversation. But when your wife sees you engaged in another activity, she feels shut out. This is actually really common in couples counseling; the husband says, “But if you wanted to talk so badly, why didn’t you just come over?” And the wife says, “I was staring at you but you never looked up from your phone.” And in the cases where the wife does directly communicate, often the husband will say, “One second,” which may mean one second, but turns his wife off entirely, making her feel rejected (as rejected as men feel when rejected for sex), and she leaves the room and seethes.
4. You’re not in shape, and when you lay or sit around for extended periods, you can no longer keep up the farce that you’re trying to be.
If your wife just got back from her yoga class (where, ironically, mindfulness and living in the present are emphasized; oh, well), and you’re on the couch, unless you just sat down after a run, she is thinking: “Well, at least he’s not also eating Doritos. Oh for God’s sake, there’s the bag next to him. Does he wonder why his BMI is higher than our credit rating?” Again, sex drive, meet toilet.
5. You aren’t joining her in her life activities.
This is perhaps the most important one. If your wife, who is assuredly more anxiety-prone than you if this dynamic applies, is always up and moving, and you’re usually stationary, you aren’t joining her, and she feels alone and lonely. Think about getting up and doing whatever she’s doing as empathy, but expressed physically. You may think she’s overly Type A, but here is a little known phenonemon (just kidding, I told it to you in 7 Reasons Your Wife is So Stressed Out All The Time): if you act like she’s correct, and there are things to be done, and there is a need to hurry and do things, then your wife will experience a linear decline in her own sense of urgency about these matters. All it takes is your empathy, manifested as standing near her and asking what you could do to help, or offering to join in whatever activity she is doing. Also, read Overwhelmed by Brigid Schulte for more of a sociological perspective on why your wife feels that she has to be so busy in our current society.
This article is not meant to suggest that women shouldn’t learn to be more laid back and accepting, but rather to delineate why exactly they may be acting so seemingly insane about you just sitting there. Forward to your partner and see if this can start a conversation! And till we meet again, I remain, The Blogapist That Says “How Can I Help?” Is A Sexy Phrase.
This is why I am SO glad I’m not married anymore.
My sincere thanks to Mike for his Facebook post above.
He reminded me that this was a fun site.
P.s. Thanks for suggesting that my wife forward this article. I’ll still be playing Game of War on the couch…just with considerably more guilt.
Why can’t old husbands rest a bit more? I will be 70 next year. I exercise 6 to 7 days a week for 30 minutes to an hour each. I thereby stay in good shape, but I do get more tired overall now.
I do as much as my wife around the house despite working more than full time. I have no hobbies, rarely see my friends and I am the unsexy passive guy described coz I let her bully me with her emotions. This article helps me understand a lot of things about why everything I do to make her happy will never be good enough. Sad really. It’s the kids who will suffer most. I just can’t go on with her treating me like shit.
Holy crap nooo! There are women that will appreciate youu..u just need a backbone..make her realize what she will lose without you
Lol, this is why Men are losing interest in marriage. Women are nothing but complainers. Find a women from an asian or eastern european country and be so much happier. Western women can just go cry more.
I don’t know much about asian women, but you couldn’t be more wrong about the eastern europeans. Everything will be smooth in the beginning especially if their dependence on you is high (e.g. visa and stuff). However, once they feel that their position is more or less secure, it’s gonna be all the same shit, perhaps even worse.
Yes and No.
I enjoy a good laugh watching the tele. But most of the time I like the TV off. It’s distracting if I want to read or paint. Sure hubs helps around the house. My sore spot is that we just can’t seem to connect on how to spend our time together. I’m open to just about every thing possible. His high blood pressure, 50 lbs overweight, OCD and extreme desire to save money by sitting on the couch and passive/aggressive behavior really bums me out. I’m about 10-15 lbs overweight. We discussed a gym membership he was on board well that was six months ago and he/we never went once. I get hit on at the gym and don’t like going by myself. I’m telling you if the ‘right’ one says the ‘right’ thing I might not need the hubs anymore.
**PS. Djh… if you really feel that way maybe you both would like your lives better apart.
My husband absolutely will not let me relax when he is home. I have to “fetch”for him about every 1/2 hour. I tense up when he comes home from work because I know I will be a maid, butler, cook, back Massage service from ME. Get his drinks and or cookies, etc. While he is at work, I clean, cook, do laundry, unload dishwasher, run errands, the list goes on and on. I do this to free up time for him when he is home. I feel like a slave in my own home. He does nothing to help around the home. Anything I can do for myself, I do it.
Omg. So dead on our relationship. I cant stand a messy house. We both work, but i do all cleaning, laundry errands while he gets to come home and sit and flip channels, or play with our dog. Im furious. I have hinted to have help, argued over it, etc. It makes me so angry, i want to leave my husband. Im 55 now , andbi just need help. What should i do.
Read the book Love and Respect by Dr Emerson Eggerichs
Women want love men want respect!
Diane, these women are not frustrated because they do not think they’re being loved. They’re frustrated because they do not think they are being respected by the one person who should, at the very least, respect them. Respect is knowing that you both share something and are therefore equally responsible for it. Love is doing something for someone which you have no obligation to do. Sharing in the care of the household isn’t love, it is respect. It is respecting the health of the other individuals who live in that household, the finances of the individuals contributing to the household, and the labor of those who help to care for that household. That is an obligation. Love, is doing something you have no obligation to do. Of course, in the case of marriage, we make a promise to love. So there is a type of application there. But at it’s spirit, it’s the thing to be given freely, not grudgingly, and not because It was promised. so, in that sense, love is doing something which you are not obligated to do. there is a passage in the Christian Bible: ” If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.”
Perhaps two things need to be considered, one, that perhaps many men do not consider hygiene and cleanliness to be important and a necessity, and two, that women see it as being so much of a necessity, that the motive of necessity takes first place to the motive to love. And after an already hectic day, that is quite understandable to me.
So spot on.
Hi,
I do the cooking, dishes, laundry, pay for home bills, and grocery. I play games, its been like my stress reliever since I do work in the construction field and people who are also stressful. My wife gets angry when I don’t cook for her the breakfast she prefers, when i clean and somewhat she finds some small areas dirty she gets angry and says i have no future. When i dont cook food in time she cooks her food and eats alone (she arrives from work 4pm and arrive 7pm, i have to cook food for her in case she doesnt which happens everyday.) Im tired and I feel like she doesnt appreciate what I do, since i do the effort of cooking and doing house chores for her but she still gets angry. Other husbands i guess dont do what I do. She has anxiety issues and depression. One more her salary is higher than mine, but I pay everything, though after I pay for all I dont have money left for treating her outside, so she treats me once a month sometimes I do. Everytime she sees me sitting down with my phone she gets angry specially when she tries to do house chores. To prevent that every weekend i told her just rest ill do everything because im tired of all the nagging. What advice can you give me?
it is unfortunate. i know that i cannot cook but i do help her with kitchen work, especially the dish washing. i do it with a very concerned mind for her to feel that i am always there for her. even when she is cooking, i am standing within close quarters so that if she wants anything from the refrigerator, i fetch it for her. as for cleaning of the house, i always put my hand up and do it every weekend. though saturday is a half working day for me, i get back home around 2.00pm and as soon as i finish my lunch, i get into my cleaning kit and start sweeping. i like to finish the whole job even if i am to spend the entire remaining day because i love to relax a bit on sunday. but she simply hates to see me reading a paper, browsing the net or even listening to a song. all she wants to see me doing is to extend my cleaning job to sunday and spend another good 2-3hrs on it. the word ‘relax’ is no more in my vocabulary. music and reading is something which doesnt like at all. sex – cannot recall the last occasion we had quality sex. i feel down and out.
Do you men realize that when you retire from you job, women don’t ever get to retire! If we had a full-time career and retire, we still have everything else at home that has to be done. You men quit working, drop yourselves in a chair and take up permanent residence. It’s no wonder women live longer than men. You sit and rust out. Yes, I am angry about it. Help your wives and see what happens – more sex, more time for fun, less irritability from her. You are abusing the woman you live. She isn’t your slave.
When men retire from their jobs and are faced with having to stay home getting henpecked by their wives all day long. What kind of existence is that?
You really wonder why a lot men don’t out live their wives?
Simple. Because these men don’t want to live period.
Guessing youre one of the sit in a chair all day and expect the wife to be your servant, if she expresses her disdain for being treated as a servant you resort to name calling because you are just that lazy and clearly dont care about your wife at all. The best thing you could do for her is leave .Trust me she probably daydreams about the day she can finally just take care of herself.
The problem is, wife’s keep score and husbands don’t. Every little thing they do they want praise for doing it and then say why didn’t you do it before me. Show me a wife that puts up or takes down a Christmas tree, cuts the law, rakes the leaves, cleans the gutters, shampoos the carpets (REGULARLY), cleans the garage or the car in that garage, fixes every broken appliance in the house, especially those garbage disposals you swear you didn’t put bones down or loge a fork in, show me the wife that shovels the snow or takes the burden of making sure the irrigation system is drained for the winter. As I said, women keep score and want praise, men on the other hand want to sit and enjoy their coffee for 30 minutes after waking up on a Sunday after working 65hrs in a week, BEFORE the complaints start.
if my husband did ANY those things I would be over the moon! If you’re married, and your wife complains shame on her!
Please I have the opposite, I do all those things I also do tiling tear up flooring paint carry and mix 50ib bags of cement mow lawn stain deck power wash change light bulbs clean garage do ALL household chores every damn thing He cuts the grass once and I never hear the end of it. We renovated our whole house and I never hear the end of how he renovated , umm no I did just as much maybe more plus ALL the reno cleanup and all the painting every room by myself. He literally does the bare minimum literally sits in his chair all day everyday and when I ask him to do anything its a huge fight how I ruin everything ruined the weekend because I asked for help. So now I keep quite but instead of loving him I cant stand him theres so much resentment. By you listing all you do it means youre keeping score, we all keep score.
Preach.
Me, i do all those things. Im a woman. On top of all those things you mention, i cook , clean, do ALL diy, decorating, shopping, etc. The husband goes to work, does no cleaning, no diy, no shopping, no decorating, nothing! So dont give me that rubbish about women dont do this n that, I DO!. then theres the invisible labour on top of everything. Dont try to raise a defence because its a crap misogynistic one. My husband works (so do i). He comes home, drinks, smokes and smells. I get home and start again…as well as on way home pick up food etc to cook. Atm im decorating all the house, alone. Inbetween work and keeping house going. I pay half. He pays half of bills and thinks thats hus job done. Im taken for granted, but, im not doing this for him its fir me, unless he ruins it (he breaks things regularly, gets dirt everywhere etc) is unhygienic. I am chucking him out because i dont need him. I can cope with keeping a house going, he cant even paint a wall without getting paint everywhere. Gl to him, he will need it..i won’t
I’m 51 and never got married, thank god!
I am really glad I read this. We can either choose to be defensive about our decisions (“what’s wrong with sitting in the couch for a few minutes”) or choose to appreciate what Dr Rodman wrote as simply being a lens into what our spouses are thinking and feeling. And I hope that would matter to us.
Good comment.
When you Google lazy spouse it brings back all husband related searches. That’s because house wives have enough time to get online and complain all day. Women are lazy. Look inside a woman’s car , bedroom or bathroom to see what I mean.
My girlfriend would complain constantly about me sitting around and watching TV and looking at my phone all day. The odd thing was is that she would do the same thing until she got motivated to do something and would do so without asking me for any help. Half of the time I didn’t know what she was doing. I would go out and offer to help and she decline it. So I felt obliged to stand around and do nothing but watch her clean her pool. This was an extremely unnerving position to be in. Her mood was surly and uncommunicative. It seemed like the only time she would ever relax was after she took a hit of marijuana. We finally broke up and I am so relieved that I have my life back. She was usually paranoid and hostile to me for no reason. I wonder if the pot has something to do with it. But I’m glad that is over.
Wow. Women that unthink like this truly are evil. No man should date or marry any woman like this otherwise your life will be a living hell of slavery to a wicked jealous envious woman who will make sure you can never relax, have peace or be happy, the exact thing a REAL wife or good wife WOULD help maintain.