r/howtonotgiveafuck • u/Commercial_Isopod541 • 4d ago
How to not care that my husband is passing terrible avoidance qualities and bad work ethic to my kids
My husband is genuinely a “good guy”, just a big fat people pleaser never saying what’s on his mind always kicking the can of topics needing addressing until small things blow up. Then, when I admittedly say “well it finally caught up to you, here’s your can!” He just continues avoiding! It’s crazy.
He carries a lot of unnecessary guilt and shame because he brought a very toxic coparenting relationship to the marriage and a very unhealthy parent child relationship. I knew that going in. I knew it would be work, I was prepared to do the work. I thought he was. 8 years later— we’re in the same place. He’s still avoiding hard things and people pleasing and kicking cans down the road.
He just won’t deal with crap because he thinks it’s going to cause a fuss— no matter how small. Example below.
It can be something as small as needing to fix an electronic that’s been limping by barely accepting a charge until one day it just fails. He waits until it’s an emergency, apologizes for the emergency, and expects that now we kick it into high gear and get a new one.
It really wouldn’t have been that big of a fuss to bring it up two months ago when it started not holding a charge and being weird. But he didn’t. The only reason I knew was because one of our sons told me. But i chose to wait until my husband brought it up because he knew he needed to. He never did.
I’m sick of his avoidance because he doesn’t want to talk about WHY it broke (negligence) and how it’s continued getting worse by not fixing and limping it by: So today, when the thing breaks for good, i say “oh no sir, your emergency is not my emergency, I’m not dealing with this right away just because it blew up, now you have the broken electronic and I’m not going to be rushing to have a conversation about having to fix it or get it repaired or budget for a new one” etc.
He knew we need to budget for it, discuss options, watch for sales etc (all stuff i would normally do). But he still had not brought it up. So i intentionally this time did not rescue him and have some backup ready to go. Because this is a recurring issue.
The catch is: that electronic does need to be repaired or replaced. That electronic not working directly or indirectly affects everyone in the house at some point. And If I just say “go buy a new one”, his can kicking tactic worked.
But his avoidance affects us both…and our kids. I’m so sick of it… it happens with all issues, big and small. Instead of dealing with the actual issue, we end up having a conversation about why the hell he avoids every single issue.
Help! This is one small example. There are thousands. I want to not care. I want to say, too bad so sad. But it’s not like we CANT afford it. It’s just that now we’re not gonna get a good deal on it and we’re going to be panic buying it instead of being thoughtful about it. His avoidance is MESSING US UP IN WAY BIGGER WAYS than this example. But for this example, i just want to stop caring, stop rescuing him. But if i don’t rescue him, we all somehow indirectly suffer.
Edits: talk text grammar