Teach responsibility

[deleted] · 2016-07-20T18:48:30+00:00

Overall horrible planning and organization skills leading to impacts to my life financially or time.

And this is the idea you need to get across in her head. You dont give a fuck if she forgets her nail appointment, but if your insurance goes up because she didnt take a class then thats a problem. Whats the process to lead her then?

1) Make sure you have your shit in order. Is she having to remind you of kids soccer games (not sure if you have any) or to pay the mortgage on time? Make sure you arent constantly forgetting or misplanning as well. Establish the precident.

2) Let her fail. Do this for a minor issue. She likely is convincing herself that she would have remembered to do X even without your nagging reminders.

3) Set the boundary. Simply "I do not want this happening again." Dont DEER it with an excuse as to why you dont want it to happen again, just state the boundary and ignore any words that come out of her mouth afterwards. If she fails again, be sure to stoicly state your disappointment.

4) Take over the task. Athol Kay had a strategy he called "hitting her L-spot" where you do your own damn laundry. I got to this point on my own when the wife just didnt have a fast enough turnaround on laundry (2 weeks) so I said Fuck It! I'll do my own laundry. The point is it isnt ideal, but you arent going to let your life be degraded (if you can help it) because she wont improve. In an odd twist of events, like when I also started cleaning the house on a regular basis, she picked up on this and started to as well, she may come around by seeing you take over the effort.

5) If all the above have failed then you can read from her actions that she is making a conscious decision to not provide value to your relationship in this way. As with all things, you cannot force her to change. As with all things, assess whether you want to live in a relationship where this value is not being given, or if your life will be better without.

[deleted] · 2016-07-20T17:10:07+00:00

actions and lack of actions have consequences.

This is actually simple as a concept, but may be more difficult in real life.

Why is she bad at a skill set that is important but not totally vital? Daddy can catch her and make the bad man go away. She gets to feel good about herself. Daddy took care of it. Setting overt consequences is going to be difficult at first.

Try teaching her to have pride in following through on things. I had, and sometimes have, a woman who spends money unnecessarily at least in my opinion. I've taught her the value of things and now she takes pride in telling me how she got a deal on something she wanted, how she got something on sale because she waited, or how she got an off-brand item for half the price because she thought the brand item was the same.

My point is, there are different ways to leadership... but lead you must.

Other than that, stop being frustrated with your choice of woman. YOUR CHOICE OF WOMAN its all YOUR FAULT anyway.

[deleted] · 2016-07-20T19:22:45+00:00

If you're shielding her from the consequences of poor action, and it's making her a worse person... I would get out of the way.

You don't need to apply your own consequences if they exist already.

Likewise you can try to minimize their impact on you which may provide further consequences for her.

Some things she also might just not be cut out for being responsible for.

"Why do you always step in and do X?"

"Because you don't and it hurts the family"

"Why don't we do X anymore?"

"Because you keep double booking us and you're late".

Give her HOUR lead times on actual deadlines to be places. If she figures that out and adapts, you up the timeline.

Sounds to me like you're leaving or delegating things to her she can't handle. Play to her strengths if she has them. If not...why is she around still?

chiefjohnwatts1790 · 2016-07-20T17:11:15+00:00

Maybe she has ADHD?

[deleted] · 2016-07-20T18:35:58+00:00

Lead her, teach her.

Not all people are mentally wired to plan things out. Not an excuse as she is an adult and should act as such, but maybe she just sucks at thinking like a planner.

What I would do, I would see if she was stressed about something and it took away from thinking straight.

Also, just sit and talk to her about not only the importance but ways to stay squared away. Maybe a planner?

Don't be condescending, just recognize someone in your clan needs some training.

[deleted] · 2016-07-20T19:48:27+00:00

I'm pretty well-organized; my wife is not. What I did was, I instituted a weekly planning time on Sunday afternoon with my wife. We'd go over everything each of us had planned for the week already, and then fill in various things like who would get kids from daycare on such-and-such days, etc. Then, we'd go through anything that popped up (such as the special class, or ticket payment, you suggested).

You need to be on track with keeping notes during the week as you hear about these things. Oversee it. Train her by walking her through this each week with the expectation that she will be scheduling her own week with her own responsibilities and this is more of a schedule merge than a schedule setting (where you do all the work).

Alternatively, you process all the mail so that all tickets, bills, special things/classes that are mailed to the house are known by you. Then make sure you cover these things in your meeting.

You may have to do this daily at the beginning.

[deleted] · 2016-07-20T23:00:51+00:00

Knew a guy called Frenchie here, whose wife just kept wrecking the family cars. He just kept getting her another Honda, not a BMW.

Why? She added so much value in other areas, even tho she was a shitty driver till the day she sadly died.

My point. Sometimes you can play to her strengths, and find work arounds for her weaknesses. Never forget that the work-arounds are not a cure.

UEMcGill · 2016-07-21T12:20:09+00:00

W. L. Gore has a management philosophy that I learned many years ago, and that's the "Waterline Principle". I've had reports and used it to the same effect.

What's the upside if events turnout well?
What'stthe downside if events go badly?
Can you live with the downside, truly?

When your wife fucks up your need to ask yourself, "Is this a waterline event?" Meaning is it so bad, like a hole below the waterline that it will sink the ship?

In the case of your wife, the things you describe are all waterline events (to me). But I also suspect there other more innocuous things in life that you "help" her with. I'm the house IT guy. Something wrong on the computer, "Hun!" and it magically gets fixed. My wife doesn't even think about it, it just happens. There's all kinds of real studies that show we defer responsibilities in a family to where everyone becomes a specialist. I bet your the organization specialist.

Title	Teach responsibility
Author
Upvotes	6
Comments	18
Date	20 July 2016 04:53 PM UTC (4 years ago)
Subreddit	askMRP
Link	https://theredarchive.com/post/207308
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/askMRP/comments/4ts3vr/teach_responsibility/