Losing keys and remotes was very easy to do and you are the
remote person I'm the. Key person I I don't lose.
Don't you even dead. Do you know what do you know?
What our daughter and I did this morning, what did you do?
What? We spent about 15 to 20 minutes
trying to find the remote that you had the night before.
It's on the table, but it doesn't matter where it's.
On the table because every single night I put it on the
table for the dog. Thank you very much.
Hello. Welcome back.
To honey, we need a chat yes, we are a podcast all about
communication in relationships and we believe that when
communication dies, bad things happen so we like to chat and.
We chat about it. We do, and you might notice
something different this week. The old swapsarunis.
We haven't. It's actually throwing me big
time. Really.
Why? Yeah, because I have to turn my
head this way. It's like almost like muscle
memory and this microphone's not sitting where I'm using.
It this seat is more comfortable, is it I?
Actually like this one better. Maybe we'll do it permanently.
Oh really? Yeah, let's do that.
The reason being I have a a small bleed on my eye and it's a
bit creepy looking. So we thought instead of having
that face the camera all the time will have me face this way,
and then you'll never know. Do it look, look over it.
No, no, I meant so I'll see if I can see it in the camera, but
look at the camera. You might see it a little bit.
Maybe and the pictures all. It's blurry for us.
It won't be blurry when I I'll just try and talk to you mostly
this episode. It's not bad.
It does happen to me a little bit.
You're more self conscious about it than anyone else.
Well, yeah, in terms. Of I'm not self conscious
looking at you. The lady at the store looked a
little bit freaked out by it today, maybe I was just really
aware of it. Anyway, welcome back to Honey,
we need to chat. We have a good Reddit story
episode today with input from you guys, which is always the
best, best way. So really keen to discuss a
topic that is similar to mental load and is very trending, I
guess within the women's area, especially mums.
This is a topic that comes up a lot when they're discussing
their partners. And I think it's something
that's really, really important to be aware of from both sides
because it can play a huge part that you might not even know
about. Yeah.
So this came up because we had done our survey.
Thank you for those that did complete our survey.
We've been given a lot of feedback and topics that people
are pretty keen to hear about. This is one of them.
So I thought it was a great idea and I'm really surprised I
hadn't even thought of it. So good job to that person that
submitted it for us. Really important conversation.
Before we dive into the discussion, though, we're gonna
start with our tea chat Tea. Chat and talking about tea chat.
We got a lovely, got a lovely message in from one of our
chatters over on Patreon. They gave us a gift card.
I listened to last week's episode talking about how with
tea time, we want some special mugs.
Yeah, to go with that. And so they gave us a gift card
to get special mugs. We cried out and the listeners
listened, and the chatters, the chatters, the.
Chatters are amazing. Thank you guys.
So. Much that is just such an
incredible gift. So it was really nice.
It was actually really nice. And I know I was like, oh, it's
just a mug. But actually to me, I'm like, it
was so nice. Like to receive that from
someone like that's listening to the episode.
Why not think it just shows support that we're getting from
our chatters, But two, that we're, you know, we're not just
talking nonsense and it's not actually helping anyone.
I think that was quite refreshing because we we do get
feedback, but to that level, we haven't had that level of
feedback before. So again, it's just made it
really exciting and it's an absolute honour to do this as it
really is. And, and we want to thank
everyone that's inputted into us to be our share those sorts of
things with with everyone else. So yeah, as we really, really
special. So you went to the shops today
and you picked out my mug. I did.
And I'm going to go to the shops tomorrow and pick out your mug.
And then in next week's episode, we're going to reveal mugs.
We're gonna do a hand over Swapsy Rooney.
Yes, and make sure that you watch that one or listen to that
one, but mainly watch. Mainly watch.
See it as well. Yeah, that's a really fun little
waffle, fun little gift, fun little kind of activity to do
and breaking that 4th wall a little bit of the podcast.
So thank you so much to that chatter.
You know who you are. You know who you are.
And we're really grateful. And we expect everybody else's
gift cards for mugs in the following weeks.
Yes, please. Thank you.
I'm just kidding. All right?
T Chat. Yeah, let's chat.
For T chat, we're gonna go to the chat job.
If we wrote a book about our relationship, what would the
title be? Honey, we need a chat.
You need. To drink tea while you do this.
I do, I was drinking chat but I'm trying to handle things.
You gotta figure it out. That's what it.
Is drink handled? That one's nailed that.
That was very easy. What tradition do you want to
start in our family? Have we done this one before?
I. Think we've asked that question?
Before. All right, maybe none.
Come on chat jar. Come on, chat jar.
Don't do we like that. All right?
What's a bad meal I've cooked and you ate it because you love
me? Is that what I certainly there
are bad sauce mixtures that not bad.
There are intense sauce mixtures that you've done previously, so
I don't remember specifically. I remember things like soy sauce
with like Worcestershire sauce and something else but aren't.
They let's go together. Yeah, but no sweetness to
balance it out or, or like yeah, BBQ sauce or it'll be on
something that that then it's with another flavour that
doesn't match. But in the recent cooking
expeditions that you've done, yeah, really.
Really. Yeah.
I'm so proud of myself. I've I've been having fun.
So no complaints. That's the last thing I did.
Oh no, last night's dinner for you there.
You go, guys get Blair to cook for rap.
What about me? Oh.
Man, there's something specific that you made recently and I ate
it and look, it wasn't great. I don't remember.
Because. I just remember the experience
of eating it. I don't remember it was semi
recently. I think it might have been more
like it was like super dry or something rather than it was
just like. I don't remember.
Oh. No, I actually think it was
because you cooked a bunch of rice recently and I had like 11
meals straight of rice and I I think that was especially.
Because I couldn't eat the rice. Yeah, yeah.
And because I'm, I'm the the family garbage man, the self
waste man. No, I won't waste the food.
We had so much. Yeah, I don't know, but we had
so much rice food like leftovers that would have just gone in the
bin. And I'm like, I refuse to do
this. Take a sip, move on, get off
that bin high horse of yours. No, it was very generous of you
to take one for the team, but. Last one, if our love story was
a genre genre genre, what would it be?
Comedy, drama, thriller or. Fantasy.
What kind of person would say thriller or anything other than
ROM com or romantic? Fantasy, I would say.
I was 100%. Wrong that.
Answer itself is. Alright, well, no.
More No, we're not. Alright, cool, we gotta catch up
as well. We gotta say how we're going,
'cause that's what. How you going at 10?
I am now, I feel like an 8. A bit stressful getting ready.
Yeah, as it always is at dinner. Well, we got ready earlier too.
Yeah. So what we usually try to do was
we put the kids down, we have a little break chill before we
start recording. But this time we're like, let's
let's just hit it. Let's just get straight into it.
I had a quick shower 'cause that woke me up last time and I think
it's working. Good day.
Yeah. So yeah, that's good.
How are you out of 10? I am I I think I'm an 8 as well,
but I think I'm an up and down 8IN but not like number wise,
but more like, you know, other things affecting that eight like
I'm still good, but I'll get like work's been really intense,
as you know, and you've been helping me a lot with that,
which is great, but it's it's all over the place.
So it's like a mixture messy 8. Cool.
Well, now that we've warmed ourselves up and had our tea,
I'm just gonna have one more sip.
I also, we also drink it throughout the rest of the
episode. Every time I'm editing, I'm like
the whole thing is TJ. Yeah, no, But yeah, This is why
you're forcing me to drink more. So it's more of a teacher.
I'm wearing peppermint tea today.
Yeah, I saw that. How is it?
That's all right. Great.
All right, well, let's dive into weaponized incompetence.
We need to chat. The definition that I found from
Psychology Today says that weaponized incompetence, also
called strategic incompetence, is when someone knowingly or
unknowingly demonstrates an inability to perform or master
certain tasks, therefore leading others to take on more work.
This generally occurs in two domains, in the household
between partners and at work, between colleagues.
So essentially someone who, whether they're aware of it or
not, takes the stance of not being able to do the thing so
that they don't have to do the thing.
And it can come up in so many obviously different extreme and
in so many different situations. I'm going to say this because
it's going to be obvious from the stories.
It mostly is the male side of the story.
I found it really hard to find any examples of females using
weaponizing competence in a romantic relationship.
I'm sure if it was work or something there would be more of
that. And that's disappointing.
I think it falls probably in the similar category as mental load.
Maybe just something that goes UN acknowledged or on.
Yeah, unsaid and potentially that's why it falls more into
this category. We can dive into that as we go,
but I'm just going to say up front, it was hard to find
stories of females doing this. I think there's really a variety
of reasons for that which we can dive into.
But at the same time, it still isn't just unique for that to be
the case. Like you did find stories but it
was hard to find. Very hard to find, yeah.
Yeah. So in terms of don't just switch
off. Oh yeah.
Yeah, like if you're a female, also self reflect, you know, is
this you in this category as well?
Exactly. Otherwise it's very hard.
It's very easy for people to be like, oh, well, I'm not a guy,
it's not relevant to me. Still check yourself and and
still measure yourself against what we're sort of sharing.
And actually what's probably even more relevant to you is
that but also some of these stories, the question, it's a
question as well, is this weaponized incompetence or is it
something else? And there is a dynamic that
plays out that you will see come out where there it's like a
trigger happy word that is thrown on situations.
It's not very fair. And I think that's probably even
the bigger catch that a lot of females would find themselves
in. You might not be the one that
falls into the category of using weaponized incompetence, but you
may be the one that falls into category of over using that
phrase on your partner. Yeah, and which becomes a weapon
in itself, right? Yeah.
Exactly. So it's, it's a very important
conversation for both sides. And even if it's just a matter
of like, oh, I finally found this terminology to put to this
concept. Oh, so now I can communicate.
It and we've heard that so much over our stonewalling episode
and our mental load episode. People are just like, oh, I
finally understand. Like I finally have a word to
express what I'm trying to experience.
So this is The thing is this is not now a weapon for you to then
take back to your partner. This is just giving you some
terminologies and some understanding of my of your
possible situation so that you guys can unpack that together
and grow together. So that's really, really
important to start with because we don't want to be giving
people more ammo to just throw on the fire.
We actually want to give you the tools to constructively and
cooperatively work on these things, collaboratively work on
these things together. And one last thing I want to say
too is we've spoken about this as kind of a catch phrase.
It's kind of your responsibility till you communicate it.
So not putting the blame on you for someone else's potential
conscious like choice to be using something like weaponized
and incompetence. But until you're able to
communicate what's happening for you, your experience of that and
how it's affecting you, you do hold a responsibility in that
space. Same as with every other topic
we've discussed, there is always this kind of balancing act of
you need to be able to communicate that this is
something that's hurting you, that you're experiencing.
So the whole conversation, super important.
Do not switch off Very important.
So firstly, a little extra little tidbit that I did this
week before we recorded was actually put out on our social
media that we were going to be talking about weaponized
incompetence to see if anybody had an experience of it that
they wanted to share. Because I thought we could have
some rapid fire little comments and we did get a few.
And I think I'm going to do that more often when we're when we've
got a topic like this coming up. So just watch our socials for
that. For little comments you can
make, it doesn't have to be, you know, you're submitting your
full on story can just be making a comment and contributing to
the conversation before it happens.
That will be happening a little bit more.
Yeah, and if you listen to this episode, you're like, oh, I wish
I wrote something in go to our website at honey, we need to
chat.com. Don't worry about the WWW.
We've we've established that very, very clearly and I'm
saying it every time. So I was sort of, kind of.
Intuitive. For them anyway, go to our
website and then submit your stuff.
On cool all right so first comment we had I said has anyone
experienced weaponized incompetence or felt that like
they've done this themselves? First comment was from someone
on TikTok and they said my ex husband literally told me he did
things bad like chores so I would get mad and have to do it
myself and then he'd get out of it.
I was floored, which is so frustrating on so many levels.
What a selfish way of going about life.
Yeah, it's one thing to do that subconsciously and not maybe
allow yourself to be aware of it.
So another to actually say I'm doing this so that you do this.
Yeah. But I wonder at what point in
the relationship did he say that?
Did he say that when things like he knew things weren't going to
last? Or did he actually say that
beforehand? And that just shows the toxicity
of the relationship. But I mean, I don't get it.
I don't get it. I don't get how adults don't
want to be adults. Yeah, people say stupid things.
They do stupid things, and that's a stupid thing.
It's mind boggling to read this from the outside of that
situation be like, how could anyone say that?
And I still believe, how could anyone say that?
Yeah, but I also know we say really stupid things when we're
in. Really difficult places So I
wrote back to this person and said I'm really sorry that
happened to you 'cause that's not a fun experience.
So the next message actually came in on Instagram and it was
said I hadn't asked my husband to fold or do the washing in
ages because he would fold it badly or wash colours with
blacks ha ha ha. Which when I read this I was
like I wash colours. Yeah, like we've seen this so
much. People talk about, you know,
your white loads and your colour loads.
Wow, we're. Just one load man.
I honestly am so confused by we also only use cold wash, so I I
think that's Anyway, I did giggles.
I was like, how dare they? Yeah, anyway, so I'm going to
start again. I hadn't asked my husband to
fold or do the washing in ages because he would fold it badly
or wash colours with blacks haha.
I know he can fold and do washing because he does it for
work. I addressed it with him because
I'd seen a TikTok about weaponized incompetent.
But there is also the side of me that would like it done in a
specific way and I'd never actually said so I think we can
be so quick to say it's weaponized when there's also a
side that we haven't given clarity.
It can be a bit of both. There's a lot of assumptions
made, which I thought was a really good point.
I. Think that's a really good
point. Like, and this is the this is
the is the beauty of the self reflection and coming with your
part to, you know, it's not just like you're doing this thing.
It's like, Oh no, I identify that I might have like listening
to that. I'll be like, all right, you're
gonna go a little bit. Yeah.
And there's a balance. There's a balance and there's a
culture that's created. So there are things we bring in
from our family upbringing or whatever traumas, whatever it
is, we bring it into our relationship.
And then there's a culture that you create consciously or
subconsciously, and you do have to both be aware so that you
both can put things in place to make a difference.
And the conversation, if this person hadn't had this
conversation, they could have just kept on going, being like,
my partner is just doing this on purpose, like they're never
learning to do laundry. But really they had the
conversation and realised oh I I have expectations over how
laundry is done and I haven't explained that clearly so that's
why it keeps happening. So I loved that point and the
third comment which made me laugh so hard was just some
person. I don't even think they follow
us. Found my real and was like next
is weaponized incontinence and I responded and said I can think
of a few ways. So that's got nothing to do with
it really, but just made me laugh.
All right, so that's from our socials, our listeners slash
followers input, which is awesome.
Now we're going to dive into Reddit stories.
First one, my 31 male girlfriend, 30 female keeps
accusing me of weaponized incompetence when I mess up a
task. I'm genuinely just dumb.
Help. Like very good self awareness.
I'm facing a situation in my relationship that I could really
use some advice on. My girlfriend has been accusing
me of what she calls weaponized incompetence when it comes to
tasks she's asked me to do around the house.
For those who might not know what weaponized incompetence is,
it's when someone pretends to be bad at tasks to avoid doing
them. However, I'm not pretending.
I genuinely struggle with these tasks and often make mistakes,
but my girlfriend thinks I have ulterior motives.
I really am not doing this on purpose.
Sometimes I just don't get things right.
I want to improve and have offered to fix my mistakes and
work on getting better at these tasks, but she seems convinced
that I'm just trying to get out of doing them.
How can I communicate to her that my mistakes are genuine and
not intentional? I really want to resolve this
and show her that I'm committed to doing my part.
Here are three examples. Cooking.
For example. She asked me to help with more
cooking. I've tried following recipes but
I often end up either over cooking or under cooking things,
sometimes even mixing up ingredients.
It's not for lack of trying but I seem to mess up more often
than not. Another instance is when doing
laundry I've accidentally mixed colours with white a few times
which resulted in some clothes getting stained.
I genuinely didn't realise it would cause a problem and now
I'm extra careful, but the mistakes have made her sceptical
of my efforts. I also tend to misplace things
around the house, like not remembering where I put my
remote or her keys. Don't look at.
Me, even though I was the last one to use them.
It's never intentional, but it adds to her frustration and
feeds into her belief that I'm avoiding responsibility.
Thanks for any advice you can give.
Edit I do many other chores around the house.
We have an even workload. I might even do more than her.
I don't know why everyone is so keen for me to be a lazy useless
man, but there's that's not the case.
Going to stop replying comments from my own sanity.
Good thought. Yeah, yeah, but also you put it
on Reddit in the first place. Yeah, first of all, let's give
the guy a break, alright? Losing keys and remotes was very
easy to do. And you are the remote person.
I'm the. Key person.
I don't lose, don't you even. Death.
Do you know what? Do you know what our daughter
and I did this morning? What did you do when you were
out? No, not today.
Yesterday when you were out. And about what?
We spent about 15 to 20 minutes trying to find the remote that
you had the night before. It's on the table, but it
doesn't matter where it was. Supposed to be on the table
'cause every single night I put it on the table for the dog.
Thank you very much. I do not lose the remote.
I often as the one finding the remote that someone else has
lost. Well, I don't use the remote so
you so the other thing is too is no I got other one.
Look, I totally understand, and we've had this conversation
specifically about losing things because of the keys and your
sunglasses and your hats. I understand losing them a few
times. I've done that.
When you have a repetitive behaviour and you don't decide
I'm only ever going to put this thing in one place so I never
lose it, That's what I don't understand.
But what do I do now? You put things in one place.
Exactly. And I was going to say that too.
It's like, OK, I don't actually think there's an excuse here.
I think that from his perspective, OK, cool.
You know, like I've gone through many times where, you know, lose
my heart, lose my keys, lose my sonnies, whatever.
Or else right it's so I I get it.
I've had to work on this. The answer has been simple, just
just do what needs to be done. You know what I mean, but.
It's not even just that. So if you use the washing, for
example, then organise your washing before it goes in,
right. So I have two different spots
that you put your whites there, you put your colours there, like
put things in place to actually help you do that.
When you're continually making that same mistake over and over
again, well, that's when you lose the excuse the first couple
of times, like even with cooking, right?
You know, like again, with me, I'm the perfect example.
I was, you know, mixing these things point, I was having fun,
I was just experimenting. But at the same time, if I
actually want to make good food, I need to put things in place to
be able to do that, right? So there's a extra level of
preparation, There's an extra level of me learning.
There's an extra level of me taking responsibility for that.
So I don't think there's an excuse there.
I think that's at a point now where it's like, all right,
cool. You've identified the things
you're struggling with. What are you doing about it?
Yeah, like, it's not. It's like, oh, I did the exact
same thing again and the exact same result happened.
Yeah. What are you doing about it?
So he says like the laundry, for example, he's started, he's
doing better at it now. And that's exactly what I was
thinking. This story, he's saying I don't
really do things on purpose, but she thinks that I'm I've got
weaponized incompetence and she's now sceptical of my
laundry because of what I've done previously.
He's stained clothes. I would be sceptical if you had
stained clothes. I'd probably find myself every
time you did laundry being like, just remember, you can't put
whites in with the bar. Even though I would be, and I do
this, there's things that I'm always like, remember this,
remember this. And I there's like a balancing
like a tipping point where I guess the point where the more
that you have not needed to be reminded of it.
I need to ease up on reminding you because I also need to let
you now do that. But there's also going to be
probably extended from your perspective, time of me
reminding you because you have done this one or two or three
times, however many times The thing is repeated.
And so there needs to be grace on both sides.
It can't be like if you were to turn around and be like, why are
you reminding me? I'm trying to think of a single
example, but I know there's things I remind you of all the
time. If you were to turn around and
say, why are you reminding me of this and get annoyed at that, it
wouldn't be necessarily fair because I'd be like, well, it
hasn't happened. But if I keep reminding you two
years down the track and you've only ever done it a few a
handful of times and you've always changed and I remind you
in a way that's like undermining you, not just in a casual way,
then that's also not fair. And so I think that there's an
element of him regaining her trust in that space and proving
himself to be able to learn. And there's also an element of
her allowing him to letting. Go.
Yeah, yeah. Exactly.
It's. It's, it's, it's both sides
coming to the stepping to the plate.
So either taking on more, taking more responsibility, or letting
go of control. Yeah.
And I think there's things that are easy to let go or easier to
let go of. So like, you know, for example,
if he's losing stuff all the time, he just needs to find it.
That's kind of the thing. Like, if he's going to keep
doing that, he's not going to make a system that works for
himself. He just needs to find out.
I would be frustrated if that just kept happening.
But a lot of the times though, in that's in a relationship,
that that thing that it that's happening isn't just going to
affect him. Oh, no.
And it doesn't. Yeah, it it really is.
Very rarely would it be like a black and white cut.
So the answer isn't necessarily well, like you've got to suffer
the consequences because then it's then she's also suffering
the. Consequences, I think what I
mean more is that there's some things that are a lighter
hearted, they're not going to affect them so much.
And then there's things that really, really well, like
staining clothes. That's like, OK, well you've
actually ruined my stuff now. Or even the overcooking.
Undercooking. That's an easy one to do that I
do now and I cook regularly. I still find myself overcooking,
especially things like meat. But if it's a carelessness,
there's this element of you haven't put much care.
You know, this is something you struggle with and you haven't
put much care into giving the best of yourself to me when
you're doing this thing for us. And that is actually a hurtful
long term. It can be a a hurtful attitude.
This is something that you, I've really had to work on, but we've
worked on is that realisation that that comes across that way
because, you know, you've brought this up to me a few
times. It's about, oh, when you don't
do that, it shows that you don't don't care about that.
Yeah. But in my head, I'm like, it's
like you're saying that I just don't care.
That's not true. Like I do care.
But there's these elements where it's like, actually, you know,
how am I showing that I care? Like that's, that's a big,
that's a big difference is it's, it's not saying that he doesn't
care or whatever else. It's it's just really putting
that challenge out there. But how are you showing you
care? Like, I want to, I want to do
these little things to show that I care as well as the big things
because they're both important. If I, if I neglect the little
things, well, the big things are going to be nice, but they're
not going to be as nice, you know?
Yeah. And I think we can go about
tasks in a way that just ticks the boxes for ourselves, but
it's easy to forget to think about what boxes need to be
ticked for the other person in order for them to feel cared and
loved in that space. And if your partner is barely
ticking the boxes, which means you then end up having to go,
which is this whole topic, you end up having to go and do all
the other things to make it fully ticks the box in a way
that's exceptional, acceptable or exceptional, then that's not
very fair long term. That can be really tough.
I think sounds like they're not too.
I think they're in that tipping point.
I think they're probably sounds like he's aware of it and she's
communicated it and she's probably still just a bit tender
about it and he's kind of still learning.
So that's not a bad place to be. It's just an uncomfortable place
to be. Such is life, you know?
Great, good job. Let's move on.
Hey guys, just wanted to pop in and take a SEC to talk about the
extra content you can find over on our Patreon and our Spotify
subscription. We have a fun little community
growing over there with extra episodes, extra stories.
We're also going to have resources, messages back and
forth and also submitting listener stories through that
portal as well. So.
Outro Themes. Themes.
If you want to be a part of our closer knit community here at
Honey Media Chat, please hop on over to Patreon or Spotify
subscriptions and join us there with love to see you.
Thanks guys. Thanks.
Second story weaponized incompetence or not question
mark. My boyfriend, 26 male and I24
female have been together for nine years.
For years he would act like he was incapable of doing things.
Like if I asked him to make a frozen pizza he'd do the whole I
don't know how to do that. You know I'm stupid can you help
me? Helping him would really be me
doing it for him. This happened with everything.
It would be so frustrating especially since most of the
time it was self explanatory and having instructions or a quick
Google search would have helped. I got tired having to think and
do everything, so to combat it I stopped explaining things that
were obvious to him and told him to figure it out.
For example, if he's looking for his pants and I walk into the
room to help and without touching anything I see it, I
just point and say it's right there.
I still do this, but today he asked me where his paperwork
was. It was sitting on the table
where it had been for the last three days.
One step behind him. He just had to turn and face the
table. Him, where are my papers?
Me, it's on the table in the same place.
He glances at the table and lifts the shirt directly next to
the papers. Him where?
Me Please look at the entire table before you ask me.
Him looks again and sees it. You could have just told me
instead of being mean. That's not.
The word I wasn't trying to be mean, I guess I just made a
habit out of not letting him play stupid.
I don't know if this is him using weaponized incompetence or
not. How do you even distinguish the
two? Yeah, that's definitely
weaponized incompetence. Incompetence I think there's two
points to this story that I see is one is like all right, cool
man, like open your eyes and I so get this with our son like.
I just oh. Man, but it's like, it's like I
can't find my jumper. Have you looked in the cupboard?
Yes, go in, look in the cupboard.
It's right in the cupboard. Yeah, or even exactly this.
Like it's right next to you. Where?
Where Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's right next to you and he's
looking the other direction. Yep, Yep.
And we're, we're trying to learn how to help him, you know, not
use that as an excuse because it's not, it's, it's just, it's
laziness or whatever it is. I'm not too sure how to.
I I feel like there could be an avoidance there.
I don't know that it's just choosing to be lazy, but it's
definitely something. Yeah, that's not helpful.
But at the same time as well, if if she's trying to do something
without communicating it to him, like that's just hard.
You I mean like that's not going that's not building something
together. As frustrating as it is to build
something is so like trivial. Is this like this should just be
done? Why, why is this even a thing by
at the end of the day, again, what what are you hoping out of
this is like, one, yeah, that he will stop.
He will actually look on the table properly.
But two, like ultimately is that you guys are going to grow
closer together as a couple. That's that's going to be a part
of the priority even of this silly, silly things.
And we've both had silly things we've had to work on.
It's just, it is what it is, right?
But the the growth is what's important.
So yeah, I think it sounds like she says she's got an she's
trying to do something to help him get better at it, but she's
not communicating that with him. So for him, it's like sounds to
do that. But if that, if that was
actually a conversation they were having, I think like, oh,
cool again. Yep, I should have looked at
first. Yeah, a lot of the times when
you read the story, you're like, well, actually, it's warranted.
That person's actually being really difficult and your
reaction makes sense to me. But that doesn't mean that your
reaction is a kind one or a helpful one or constructive one.
And I feel like this is a really, a really hidden one
because it doesn't seem that intense.
It's not like, Oh my gosh, that's in your face.
You're right. Like if you're not, there's a
few things that this kind of reaction can do it.
It sounds passive aggressive and it sounds like the kind of thing
that would just throw you into that contempt space because
you're not gonna, you're not communicating about this.
And who knows how many times she's communicated about this
because she probably has many, many times.
But unless you sit down and you're like, this is what I'm
experiencing. This is what I'm going to do Now
if she, I think if she sat down and said to him, this is what
you do, I've raised it with you and it's just not getting
better. So now I'm actually just not
going to do those easy things for you because I want to point
out, I want it to be more clear. You're obviously not aware of it
in the time. So I'm going to make it a little
clearer when there's something that I, I deem this should be
something you can work out yourself.
So if you notice me not pointing at it or picking it up or doing
that and just kind of directing you otherwise that's what's
happening, then I think that's OK.
That's like, that's a boundary she's put in place.
She's communicated the boundary. She's given him the opportunity
to step up to it and she's she can do that more neutrally if
it's something she's passively put in place, like you said,
hasn't communicated about it. It's not constructive for a
number of reasons. Even though it's warranted, even
though it is really annoying if you're facing this and it could
really easily fall trap you into that contempt space, it's not
just going to magically get better on its own.
Communication is such a funny thing, right?
And this is the thing, it's communication.
What we're talking about isn't just I've brought something to
your attention, it's the continual conversation about
this thing, right? So, for example, if we remove
ourselves from a couple relationship as an example and
go to more my work, right and the the where I'm work trying to
still work on a lot with my communication to my team, team
members. I've been repeating myself about
this survey that we need done from our participants for two
years, right, two years I've been doing that, but still
something's not happening for some reason we're not getting
the data that we need. There's miscommunication and
what I mean, I Amy doesn't work for me or anything, but she's
here's a lot of the conversations that I have and
I'll process some of these frustrations of terms of, you
know, what is going on here, Like what is going wrong?
Is it something wrong with my communication in the way that
I'm communicating? Or is it the team members?
And I don't think it is the team members.
They are amazing. They seriously do such a great
job. So what's the problem?
And you brought to my attention like, I just like, I bring a lot
of verbal information to a conversation where I need to
improve is the way that I bring it across and then how I equip
them with that information rather than just dump it.
So I could, I like for like, I would go through seasons where
I'm like, I'm communicating, I'm communicating like, what's the
problem? I'm communicating.
But the thing still wasn't getting done.
And it's really down to like, all right, well, how are we
communicating? And are they understanding it?
And that's, that's a wrestle. I don't have an answer for that
because that's something I'm still trying to work on and,
and, and get better at. But what I'm trying to say here
is that communicating isn't, you just brought it up once and now
you expect change communicating. Is that continual meant to
growing together over a period of time?
You know, like that's really important to understand because
even in this situation, you know, I'm sure she loves him.
We hope the best for this couple.
And what we hope though, isn't the, the just this annoying
thing is taken care of. We, we hope that they will grow
and strengthen through the way that they communicate with each
other, just like we're trying to grow in our relationship in the
way that we communicate with each other.
Understanding what we mean by communication is really, really
important. Yeah.
And I think like we mentioned in the first story, there's things
you put in place. If you recognise a pattern that
you are unable to contribute the way that you need to to your
family culture, then there's things put in place.
So put to your hats in the same place every time, with your keys
in the same place every time. So then then that cuts out most
of those instances of like where is this or or, you know, like
you said, separate the clothes before you put it in the
laundry. This is the same sort of thing.
And what you could do is if you find have it, if we find a
pattern of your communication doesn't seem to be sinking in
for the other person, you could break it down in a gentle, not
patronising way and say, OK, I feel like I'm not clearly
expressing what I need in this. So for a while at least we're
going to have, I'm going to share what I need.
And then I actually need you to repeat back to me what you've
taken in so you can check. And you could do this with work
too, like you can check, like I've given you all of this
instruction. Can you?
Just for my sake, because we're working on this communication
thing, tell me what you think I've just said and then you can
hear from them. What it is that they've taken in
that you've said and if you, if you're like, Oh no, no, that's
not my priority. Actually my priority is that
survey that I need you to do. Then that kind of gives you a
bit more of a circuit breaker. But you need to set up the
relationship to have that because if you just started
saying that to me, I'm like, that is sorry, parts of
aggressive right now. Have to be careful, like you
can't just go and be like, So what did you say?
What did I say? What?
Did I say to you, Yeah, yeah, repeat what I said, yeah,
because that's just not going to.
Help anyone It's not. And also if you were the other
way around and be like, I just don't take in things.
So you get me, like make me, you know, basically break it down
for me like I'm a child. That's another way you could
fall into weapons and companies. But I think finding patterns at
work. So if you're able to say in a
neutral space, maybe have a check in night and just be like,
I feel unheard in the space. I don't think you're meaning to
hurt. So when you figure out a way
that we can communicate about this, it's not going to be
hurtful. And to finish this part up is
what I want to say too, is this, you know, for example, the
server that I used for, for an example, it's, it's actually
very simple task. Do you mean?
But it's been this one of our biggest issues in this, in this
contract that we have is these surveys getting done.
So, you know, for us, we can sometimes get frustrated over
these simple things of like, it's so simple.
Why can't they just do it? It's it's even the simple things
that we need to be having this much intentionality behind the
commitment to growing in because it's a lot of the simple things
that build up and that where we can go to contempt and
resentment and all these sorts of things.
So the simple things are really, really important.
Sometimes things just don't happen.
The simple things just don't happen.
And they should absolutely. But some a lot of the times it's
the simple things that are the hardest to, you know, overcome
or get through and to navigate through because they should be
done. And having an attitude of
curiosity, yeah, across the board, really helpful.
Being like how this is not happening.
I would love to understand a little bit more about what,
what's making that so hard? Yeah.
Cool. All right, let's move on to our
last story. Wear a tea I.
Thought you were going to pick you up at the end of the story.
No, I have picked up, you know when you pick up like a coffee
or. Every day, all day.
Or a drink, whatever you're like.
Oh, looking forward to this last sip.
And there is no last sip. Well, how the turntables have
turned on that peppermint tea that you were kind of about.
Now you just want more. If you haven't seen The Office.
I didn't say that wrong. I said it right.
All right, so next story is, am I wrong for accusing my
girlfriend of weaponized incompetence?
My girlfriend, 28 female, and I, 31 male, have been dating for
four years. I purchased my first home last
year and we moved in together. She's not on the title and she
does not pay anything towards a mortgage.
She's in grad school and works part time, so she simply doesn't
have that kind of money right now.
She helps pay for utilities and groceries, but that's pretty
much it. Honestly, I think she gets a
pretty sweet deal. I do however, expect her to do
chores around the house. She was brought up in a very
sheltered environment. She's the youngest of four
siblings. In my opinion, her parents
babied her a lot. Her dad in particular did
everything for her. When we first started dating,
she was still taking her car to him so he could bring it in for
oil changes. Since she's moved in with me,
there's definitely been a learning curve.
I had to teach her how to clean and do dishes.
She didn't know that you didn't just put everything in the
dishwasher. Cooking is a hard no from her
and she's perfectly fine ordering out for every single
meal. She's never used a rake or a
lawnmower or shovelled snow. I like to think I've been very
patient with her in regards to teaching her these things, but
pretty much everything I try to teach her is met with resistance
or it's too hard or too dirty and she gives up and expects me
to do it. I've let a lot of this go
because I love her and I know that a lot of this is her
parents fault, not hers. But last weekend I finally had
it. I had to go visit my parents to
help my dad with a project he's working on.
This had been arranged for weeks so my girlfriend knew about it,
but before I left I asked her if she could mow the lawn at some
point during the weekend because it was getting long.
It was literally the only thing I asked her to do.
When I got home on Sunday, the lawn mower was in the middle of
the Half Moon yard moan. Mowed.
Mowed, he said. Moan, that sounds weird right
now. Half mown yard?
Maybe that's how you say it. I asked girlfriend what that was
about and she said it had run out of gas and she didn't know
what to do. She said she called her dad for
help but he's out of town and he told her to fill up a tank at
the gas station, but she didn't know where the tank was or how
to fill up the lawn mower so she just left everything as it was
so I could help her. I told her I was tired of her
acting like she's completely incapable of figuring stuff out
on her own. I told her it's ridiculous that
she can watch a 5 minute YouTube video of a new makeup technique
and figure it out first try, but she can't figure out how to pour
gas into a lawn mower. I told her I'm tired of her
weaponized incompetence and if she's not going to pull her
weight or chores then she's going to have to start paying
rent to live here. She got defensive and told me I
shouldn't be treating her like she's a servant and expecting
her to do things she's never done before, and that I'm wrong
for expecting her to pay rent when I know she can't afford it
and you won't help pay my mortgage and get nothing out of
it. This one's interesting because
it's relevant to us a bit. Because that's kind of of my
upbringing to some extent. Not to this extent, but things
like more mourn lowing. Mourn lowing, mourn lowing,
mourn lowing at half the mourn mourning lawn.
I had never done anything physical.
And my dad was really, really like, he just had this whole
thing about the women, gender roles, gender roles, very
traditional gender roles. Women shouldn't have to do the
hard. Like if he knew that I did the
bins, sometimes he would be grossed out by that.
He'd be like, oh, you should not have to do that.
And but then the flip side of that, too, was, you know, he
never cooked. One time he did put a whole
carrot in water to boil. He didn't cook, which, yeah, so
that's fine. That is what it is.
Like people are going to have their family cultures that they
come into relationships with. Attitudes I think are the
biggest thing that stand out to me in this.
Values are the biggest thing that stands out to me in this.
And I think that's a value of your dad's too, right?
So when I was listening to this, I'm like, OK, yeah, I can see
how that'd be frustrating. I could see how for me, what
would be most frustrating is that she has left the lawn mower
in the middle of the lawn. You know, I mean, like, if it
all, you know, like, yeah, OK, you need help and whatever else,
but move the lawn mower. Don't leave it out in the middle
of the lawn. I put it away again and wait for
me to come back. And it's OK if you need help
because yeah, but I think for him, it's it's his values.
He has these specific values that he has.
But it sounds like he's he's got this expectation that she has
the same and, and does it say how long they've been dating?
For I think 4 years 4. Years and I wonder if that's a
conversation they need to be having rather than like a main
conversation they need to be having rather than you need to
learn to mow the lawns. It's actually our values
aligned. And so I think it's more of a
values conversation than a lawn conversation.
That's a really good point. I think so too.
I think it sounds like it actually sounds very similar to
our backgrounds to some extent. It sounds like different family
cultures with different expectations.
Obviously to him it's absurd that a woman wouldn't have done
this stuff, which is similar to you.
It's really weird that we didn't know.
So my mom did all. That stuff, that's what I was.
Used to right my mom, so my dad's a bricklayer by trade and
my mom actually did labouring for him right.
So my mom is very capable, physically capable woman that
would do stuff and and probably to a point is like proving like
she's like I'm going to prove that I can stuff too, right?
I didn't need not man. Yeah, but it's so.
Yeah. When I met you, that was such a
shock to me that you'd never mowed lawn before.
You didn't know how to use whipper, sniper, all that sort
of stuff. And it was probably, I'm trying
to think back, I don't think it was a very much a tension point
between us. What I think it was, was a value
point for me. Yeah, right.
I really wanted my daughter. Yeah.
To be like capable. I want my daughter to be
capable. I don't want, I didn't want her
to grow up. Not like to be like, I can't do
this. I need I need someone to help
me, whatever else. And, and I, I don't think I was
like, Amy, just go out and mow the lawn.
I think it was that process. If, if I'm remembering back,
because this has been a while ago now that we started having
these conversations, but it was like, I actually walked you
through everything. And one thing was is like, all
right, this is a value for me. But also at the same time, these
were your concerns using like machinery was quite a nervous
thing for you. You now you use out my circular
saw use, you know, tools, right? You're quite capable now of
doing that or learning that you might actually grab me to start
with. Like how can I do this safely,
which is important. But one big thing was this is my
value. This is your insecurities around
that or not insecurities, your confidence levels around that.
So how do I help you? Because you're seeing my values
and you've agreed to these values.
So how do now, how do I, I now help you get to that point?
Yeah. So you don't have a, you've
never used that as an excuse. You've been like, OK, I see that
value. I align with that value.
I just need help getting to be able to do that value.
Yeah. Yeah.
But also there's an element of just because it's your values
doesn't mean it has to be mine. So this is an extreme example,
but if you come. So if I had come into our
marriage really traditional roles and I was like, no, that's
how I want it to be. Like, that's how I've grown up.
That's what I've always expected to be.
I mean, for one thing, hopefully you don't get married to someone
who you've got like massive dis alignment and also you'll never
be in line. Yeah.
So. Compromise, hopefully, yeah.
If there's no compromise on things because of how strongly
you each feel, hopefully you don't end up in a committed long
term relationship because you work through that.
But there's there's a give and take of that stuff.
So there is a conversation you need to have as a couple to
decide what your family values, because you each bring your
values and your family values are a mesh of both of those
things. But yeah, I think you're 100%
right. It's a value thing.
It's an it's an expectation thing.
It's a value thing and it's an upbringing thing.
And this, the lawnmower one was interesting because I would not
change the oil on the lawnmower. And even if I you tubed it, I
could watch it happen and I would probably be like, I'm
fairly confident that I've got this, but I would still feel to
this day very cautious. I'd be like, I don't want to
mess it up. The risks are high.
It's not the same as doing a makeup look differently, which
is really compared it to I would not leave a lawn mower out in
the middle of the lawn. And so there's there's the like,
but. At the same time, even with
cooking, right, I'll, I'll follow instructions and stuff,
but if there's, if there's something questions are fine.
You know what I mean? Like, and, and having that, Oh,
I want your support while I'm doing this.
That's so OK. And that needs to be OK because
we're just helping each other get better, you know, because
otherwise it's just like, no, you're going to do that on your
own. That's not that's not great.
Again, it's not a constructive way.
It might be. It might look warranted.
It might look, Oh no, that makes sense.
They're not putting an effort, but it's not constructive.
It's not going to build your relationship closer.
I think the attitude that he's alluded to in here that she's
got where she's like it's too dirty or it's too hard, that
that would be a real issue. I think that's not a that again,
not a constructive way. If you are like, it's too dirty,
it's too hard and we're going to try.
It's totally different to me. Like I'm actually really scared
to try this but. I wonder if he's actually shared
his values in that too. Right.
And I wonder if if if they had those conversations, if they
had, I wonder if she would have the same response.
Yeah, You know what I mean? And because it could be, you
know, because once I have that values conversation, the
conversations can go in many other ways.
You know, that attitude of curiosity, why be is being dirty
such a difficult thing for you? You know, and being curious
about those responses based on that.
But unless she actually knows how much of A value it is for
you, I don't know. I think it's just going to be
like, right, It's just dirty. I don't want to do that.
Yeah. And conversation is quite
shallow. Exactly, I think as well,
obviously the end of this is where it gets a bit yucky as
well. So the things that are said I
think are pretty intense and probably indicate what's going
on underneath for both of them too.
Contempt, Contempt, absolutely. And expectations that aren't
communicated. So, you know, she's like you're
treating me like a servant and I can, I can understand where
she's coming from from that in some to some extent I can
totally understand as well. If you're like, you're here not
paying for this and so you and so you can kind of pay me back
by doing the suffering on the House.
But again, if that's not a communicated and agreed upon
thing, yeah. That's an expectation.
Yeah, and that's not fair either.
And I also understand her point being like, I'm not going to pay
your mortgage. It's your house and it's your
mortgage, although at the same time you're living there, so
there's like. And you've been together for
four years, like you're kind of into that point of view
relationship. If there's still a lot of
separations, what's what's happening there?
So there could be so many attention points.
She could be like, why are you not bringing me in on this?
They've been together for four years in your house.
Where where does my ownership start of this?
Put a ring on it. Yeah.
Well, and so I think values 100% first thing, maybe just diving
into some of these unsaid things that just came out when you're
upset, that usually when something comes out because
you're upset, it's because it's actually bubbling under the
surface. And if there's an attitude
that's bubbling under the surface too, she might be
feeling a certain type of way about the things he's asking her
to do. Basically, they should listen.
I don't even need to chat and they should just communicata.
Communicata, which is Spanish free Portuguese.
Portuguese. Portuguese for communicator.
Anyway, I hope they can communicate through this yeah,
argument that they've had and come out the other side and have
just a lot more grace for each other because not many people
wake up and choose to be this way.
And another thing I'll say, obviously most of these examples
have been men, but in this case it's not.
So that's not always the case. I don't believe, and maybe this
is rose coloured glasses, but I don't believe that many people
are satisfied knowing deep down inside that they're not bringing
their best would be satisfied knowing genuinely at the end of
the day that they're not being an asset to their partner in the
house. They probably maybe people
aren't aware of it at the time. There might be an unspoken
thing, an unknown thing. But if you're able to come to
these conversations with this curiosity and with this grace
for each other and communicating clearly what your needs are and
what aren't being met and your values or whatever it is that
you need to communicate through. I think many couples that
struggle with this space have so much potential to actually work
really harmoniously in this area when they can get very real and
raw and supportive in that conversation.
Yeah, that's good. Cool.
Incompetent. What is it?
Weaponize incompetence. Like we haven't said it enough.
Great, we are going to go record a chatters episode we're.
Going to talk another story on Weaponize Incompetence and this
story is called Help Me Communicate with My Helpless
Husband Helpless. So hop on over to Patreon to
hear that story. Good chat.
See you guys.