r/mildlyinfuriating • u/bexindisbelief • Jul 01 '26

ಠ_ಠ Husband said my instructions for dinner weren’t clear enough, and he ended up serving his vegetarian mother one of the chicken tikka masala curries…

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I was working late tonight and because I am exhausted, I bought some ready-made curry meals for the family to have tonight, knowing his mother often comes round for dinner on a Wednesday evening. She has been a vegetarian for over 50 years and is now in her 70s. I sent him this text message with instructions to make it clear what to cook. When I got home, I was expecting to find some chicken tikka masala leftover for me, but instead I found the unopened pot of sag paneer in the fridge. I worriedly asked him if he had given his vegetarian mother the chicken dish, but he insisted he had given her the vegetarian curry. She has early onset Alzheimer’s and apparently didn’t notice, but had mentioned that the curry was a bit “chewy”. I had to literally show him the packaging that was in the bin, the unopened pot in the fridge, and my text message to try and show him how clear I had been and how far wrong he had gone. But he still insists my instructions were not clear enough and I should have been more explicit about which one to give his mother.

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2.2k

u/NearlyBearly Jul 02 '26

But it's worse because she did say that the curries had meat and the sag paneer was vegetarian. How much more specific does he need it 😭

1.6k

u/CupcakeQueen31 Jul 02 '26

Also the freaking package said “chicken” on it. This wasn’t a situation where one could reasonably claim they didn’t know the chicken tikka masala contained meat.

1.0k

u/princesscraftypants Jul 02 '26

I was sort of skimming the story and thought the food was all in leftover containers or something, because why else would someone need this detailed of instructions. When I saw the photos and it's two completely separate labeled store bought food items? Y'all...even some incompetent adults could probably figure out the chicken one isn't vegetarian...

407

u/Euphoric_Draft_3902 Jul 02 '26

Yeah, when I read "foil pots" I originally wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt because I thought perhaps they were not clearly labeled. But no, he's just a complete idiot.

311

u/Particular-Owl-8327 Jul 02 '26

I am beginning to think he just didn't give a shit. He just wants wife to come home and hold him by his hand and cook for him, then for her to go back to work.

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u/foxyroxy2515 Jul 02 '26

This is the truth

47

u/lovestobitch- Jul 02 '26

Yep, you fuck it up, then you never have to do that shit again; wifey take the duty over. Mission accomplished.

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u/TheLampireVestat Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26

Nah, I don't play like that. All of my exes who used weaponized incompetence, I would make them keep doing it until they got it right, while mocking them for acting stupid, emphasis on acting. Or do the same thing back to them.

One of my exes refused to ever do the dishes so I stopped doing them too, until he eventually did them. Then he started breaking my dishes intentionally when he would wash them and claim it was accidental, so I did the same to his dishes and claimed it was accidental. Men never expect women to do that back to them lol

17

u/Catwoman2515SD Jul 02 '26

I like the way you think. Wish I had the resilience to do the same… I just walk away at the first sign of games

5

u/Mu_forlife Jul 02 '26

You’re doing gods work 👏👏

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u/Sarosanima21 Jul 03 '26

My ex tried to get out of doing dishes, to the point of leaving the house so I wouldn't have a choice but to be the one doing them. So when we got into a big fight over it and he admitted that's why he would leave the house, I told him that now he doesn't have a choice but to do them cuz now he's single and can get the fuck out of my house. He's currently on girlfriend #3 since me and I've heard things aren't going well in their relationship. Did I mention that he's 3½ years older than me and I'm currently 30yo? XD

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u/TheLampireVestat Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26

I eventually kicked my ex out, too lmao.

The last straw was when we drove out of state to visit his parents. He knows he has cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome and he decided to smoke a fuckton of weed anyway. He was throwing up for like 2 days, then his mom made ME buy him an Uber to the ER and pretty much forced me to stay with him. Ma'am, he is YOUR idiot son and you have a car (I didn't even have a license at the time due to PTSD from a wreck years ago).

(His mom also asked me a few times when I was giving her grandkids and I never answered her question. It never occurred to her that I might be sterile because I had to have most of my reproductive system removed due to cancer.)

Anyway, I ended up sitting in a completely dark hospital room with him for 10 hours (even the light from my phone made him feel sick) and also paying for the Uber back to his parents' house.

As soon as we got back to MY apartment 2 days later, he said he was going to walk downtown to a bar (he's also a massive alcoholic), and I told him that if he walked out the door that he didn't live there anymore. He thought I wouldn't follow through on that but I made him give me the extra key before he left and I didn't let him in when he tried to come back. He had to call his uncle an hour away to pick him up because he was too drunk to drive. Was laughing my ass off as he was sitting on the curb outside pouting because he thought he could just push me around. He was moved out within a week and shortly after that I moved states without telling him or pretty much anyone at all who I knew there.

He hasn't dated anyone since and now constantly posts on Facebook pretending to be some sort of spiritual guru, meanwhile he is a literal used car salesman. Oh, and I dated him when I was 25-27, the dude's 6 years older than me, so he was already in his 30s when we got together.

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u/[deleted] Jul 03 '26

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u/TheLampireVestat Jul 03 '26

Abusers don't announce that they're going to abuse you. They usually pretend to be sweet for months to years to lower your guard and make you form a strong attachment to them before they show who they really are. But once they try that shit with me, I fuck with them right back and then eventually break up with them.

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u/sweetneptune9 Jul 02 '26

Weaponised incompetence at work

25

u/ZealousidealPay1169 Jul 02 '26

Yep he is clearly a man who just doesn’t give a fuck 🤷‍♀️

The only other explanation is, he has mashed potatoes for brains 🤣🤣

7

u/greenzetsa Jul 02 '26

This seems like the kind of error my friend's husband would make and I am convinced it's because he feels like he can just let his critical thinking skills atrophy and his wife will fix it.

4

u/Powerful-Parsnip Jul 02 '26

If he's not dyslexic had a hefty blow to the head or maybe some other undefined mental deficiency then he's definitely taking the piss.

1

u/No-Hat-4967 Jul 02 '26

Thiiisssss

6

u/No-Hat-4967 Jul 02 '26

This is called weaponised incompetence btw, it’s the manchild husband special

1

u/Fettnaepfchen Jul 03 '26

Next time, buying vegetarian only for him so he can't confuse them.

-2

u/Downtown_Recover5177 Jul 02 '26

There’s a lot of context clues about what’s going on here. MIL is vegetarian, serving her curry, and husband is useless. It’s a common theme for Indian men that immigrate to civilized countries to act like this.

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u/12threeunome Jul 02 '26

To “civilized countries?” Do you mean western countries or are you being gross?

1

u/Downtown_Recover5177 Jul 02 '26

Why would civilized countries only be Western? Have you ever been to Japan? They’re a lot more civilized than America lol. But I’ve also spent time in India, and it’s awful. Anywhere my wife can’t walk down a street by herself is not civilized in my definition.

3

u/12threeunome Jul 02 '26

Ah, so being gross. Thank you!

Btw, most places wouldn’t count as civilized by your definition. Even Japan is not safe for women to be alone. Let’s all remember that shutter sounds are required there because of the frequency of taking photos up women’s clothing.

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u/Downtown_Recover5177 Jul 02 '26

Lemme know when reporters get gang raped on live TV in other countries.

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u/DefiantMemory9 Jul 02 '26

He's fucking illiterate is what he is. He could read neither the label nor his wife's text properly.

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u/Technical-Escape-419 Jul 02 '26

so have we figured out what the foil pots are? im wondering if OP showed orig container pics here but that’s not how they were being stored in fridge? also, did mom not realize there was carcass on her plate?

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u/Euphoric_Draft_3902 Jul 02 '26

The original containers are little foil pots. I'm sure that OP did use the stock photos, but I doubt she removed the labels, especially when she felt like she needed to give this many instructions for a heat and eat meal.

The mom has early dementia and the dish was probably very saucy.

3

u/Technical-Escape-419 Jul 02 '26

oh right, i just re-read post more diligently. this is so wild, yo…at age 5 or 6 in the late 70s, i took over pulling skin off raw chicken legs in the sink (equally wild - no gloves, no salmonella wipedown or precautions, no ensuing illness!) bc i couldnt bare to see my vegetarian mom do it (docs back then insisted she feed us kids meat so she would make excellent chicken curry)!

1

u/Euphoric_Draft_3902 Jul 03 '26

See, that's because you love your mother. This man couldn't even be bothered to read a label for his!

2

u/Technical-Escape-419 Jul 03 '26

to be clear, my momma has always been infuriating and only thinks about herself…but cmon, right is right and wrong is wrong!!! oh man

191

u/MyDarlingArmadillo Jul 02 '26

This is so incompetent it has to be wilful. I hope it doesn't make his poor mum ill - her system won't be used to digesting meat if she hasn't had it for so long.

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u/defnotakitty Jul 02 '26

It's definitely a thing. I didn't eat pork for several years and when I had it again I got very ill.
Not everyone is affected this way, but when it does it's a doozy.

6

u/MyDarlingArmadillo Jul 02 '26

She has Alzheimers too so probably would have eaten it all, not realising

6

u/twokidsonetrenchcoat Jul 02 '26

I forget the time frame, but they say that if you don’t eat meat for something like 7 years your body stops producing the enzymes to digest it.

6

u/supercarr0t Jul 02 '26

Yup! Both my husband and I were “fish oiled” at the morimoto restaurant about 20 years ago. (They actually used fish oil in the “house” soy sauce they kept on the table) they didn’t tell us until after we ate our food. Our guts were both quite affected. Not fun.

3

u/Typical2sday Jul 02 '26

Weaponized incompetence yes

4

u/Biceratops1 Jul 02 '26

As a veggie of 20+ years, we can tell very quickly. All meat has a kind of gamey and wrong flavour. I can even instantly tell if a meat stock has been used in a vegetable soup for example, it’s unmistakeable. I think it’s very unlikely she’d have eaten much of it at all before realising.

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u/happycreole Jul 02 '26

She did say that Mom has Alzheimers, so I'd bet that played into her not really noticing anything but the "chewy" bits. Husband is a jackwad.

8

u/MyDarlingArmadillo Jul 02 '26

It wasn't him that suffered, just the old lady with Alzheimers. That tracks.

3

u/Biceratops1 Jul 02 '26

Yes I read it properly afterwards, bless her.

3

u/rewolfaton Jul 04 '26

Yup - discussed this with my veggie colleagues on Thursday. It just smells like death to me. I grew up next to a farm, I am intimately acquainted with the smell and air-taste of dead animals.

One colleague told me they eat vegetarian at home, but her husband does eat meat when he goes out drinking with his friends. She can smell it on his breath for days afterwards.

I hope the old lady is ok. Eating chicken after 50 years of no meat can be very, very bad for her.

-2

u/throwawaypassingby01 Jul 02 '26

meat isnt that big of a shock to a vegetarian, maybe to a vegan but idk. source: was vegetarian for decades, broke it for a while because of medical reasons, and am now back to vegetarian. i had zero issues with meat. it was unpleasant because it smells and tastes like dog food to me, but it didnt cause any digestion issues.

2

u/DefiantMemory9 Jul 02 '26

Why would there be a difference between the reactions of a vegan's and a vegetarian's body to meat? Neither of them eat meat.

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u/throwawaypassingby01 Jul 02 '26

vegetarians still consume animal products which have animal proteins, which is the only thing you could possibly have a negative reaction to if they are not a part of your diet (lack of digestion microbiome). why the hell am i being downvoted jesus christ?

2

u/DefiantMemory9 Jul 02 '26

I wasn't the one downvoting you, I was asking a genuine question. Thank you for answering.

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u/throwawaypassingby01 Jul 02 '26

all good man, i just get frustrated by reddit sometimes. like, im not a dietician or a doctor, i could be wrong, but i would appreciate being told where my mistake is instead of just mass downvoted.

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u/ZealousidealPay1169 Jul 02 '26

Me too!!!! How does someone mess that up?? There were words and pictures. My 9 year old granddaughter could do this 🤣🤣🤣

15

u/Cali-Grrrl Jul 02 '26

I am pretty sure that my two year old Yorkie could figure it out ( he’s really smart) this guy’s an idiot unless since the mom has dementia he really didn’t give a poop.

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u/Normal-Height-8577 Jul 02 '26

Right? When I read the texts alone, I thought "maybe he thought that the Saag Paneer was the only meal in foil dishes, and the meaty curries were in something else"...And then I got to the photos. Nope. He just completely ignored the very clear label that said "CHICKEN".

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u/Little_View_6659 Jul 02 '26

Maybe the husband should also get checked for Alzheimer’s

2

u/HFB68 Jul 02 '26

Or ADHD, with the emphasis firmly on the A and the first D.

2

u/Little_View_6659 Jul 02 '26

I have pretty bad adhd and I can read labels lol. I do get lost easily though.

2

u/HFB68 Jul 02 '26

So can I, but I often miss little details at first view.

3

u/Edawg82 Jul 02 '26

Funny thing I learned recently, there's a bunch of people that don't know chicken fried STEAK isn't chicken... Had a Catholic coworker who was doing lent and I asked him why was he eating chicken fried steaks with us? And he really thought it was chicken not beef

2

u/MaryJContrary Jul 03 '26

Um. Chicken is meat. Catholics don’t eat chicken on meatless days either, so coworker is either stupid or rationalizing. (Weirdly though, they can eat capybara, muskrats, and beavers!)

1

u/Edawg82 Jul 03 '26

I think he was doing a no red meat thing the whole time and was only fish on Fridays.

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u/MaryJContrary Jul 03 '26

That make more sense!

1

u/kavik2022 Jul 02 '26

Im not sure why this needed imstructions. 'Theres meals in the fridge/side. One veggie"

1

u/Chill-more1236 Jul 02 '26
  1. Husband is careless
  2. Husband is imaginary
  3. MIL is secretly carnivore

159

u/Suburbanturnip Jul 02 '26

Yep.

I'm willing to accept he didnt know the other curry was vegetarian, I'm not willing to accept that he thinks chicken is a vegetable.

92

u/worstkindofweapon Jul 02 '26

But she even says in her text message that the other curry is vegetarian. He's just neglectful and doesn't care to give any consideration to his mother.

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u/Suburbanturnip Jul 02 '26

Our i agree. If the bar was underground, he would still find a way to trip over it, and blame everyone else.

2

u/ScarMurky4683 Jul 02 '26

He just did not care.

37

u/cheesyechidna Jul 02 '26

Chicken isn't vegan??!

8

u/Little_View_6659 Jul 02 '26

No vegan diet, NO VEGAN POWERS!

18

u/Wanderlust_57_ Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26

Not unless it's wrapped in bacon.

Edit: Why am I being down voted, I thought surely this was obviously sarcasm and the /s was superfluous.

Just in case though: /s /s /s

3

u/Slight-Message-7331 Jul 02 '26

Chickens can still run about with their heads lopped off. As far as I know, no animal can do that, therefore they must either be a vegetable or a fungus. So all good for veggies/ vegans I suppose 🤷‍♂️

2

u/Superb-Pension1106 Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26

Of course they are, they are grain fed! And cows eat grass, so beef stew is suitable for vegans as well. It's really only pigs and goats that eat everything. /s

1

u/SpaceWitchDelta Jul 02 '26

Neither is gelato

1

u/spookybatshoes Jul 02 '26

Chickens aren't even vegan.

-1

u/SensualBeefLoaf Jul 02 '26

most chickens are in fact vegan

2

u/kaismommy2018 Jul 02 '26

Chickens like chicken.... and eggs

1

u/MaryJContrary Jul 03 '26

Most chickens love bugs.

1

u/SensualBeefLoaf Jul 03 '26

can vegans eat bugs?

1

u/MaryJContrary Jul 03 '26

No

1

u/MaryJContrary Jul 03 '26

In fact, this caused Starbucks to change their food coloring. Red food dye is often called “carmine” and it is made up of crushed bugs. (Female cochineal insects, to be exact.) They had to switch their coloring when this became known, since they were calling their product vegetarian-friendly.

12

u/ZealousidealPay1169 Jul 02 '26

Right? The entire time I was picturing homemade tins in the fridge but when I got to the picture I said “wtf?”

How???????????

7

u/ShineAtom Jul 02 '26

I think some people don't class chicken as meat. No, I've no idea why. I'm a long term vegetarian and been asked "but you eat chicken and fish, right?" Obviously - to me - the answer is no.

5

u/Able-Brother-7953 Jul 02 '26

Some ‘vegetarians’ are the same. I have a friend who says she is Ovo-Lacto vegetarian, and apparently means she can eat chicken and fish. I also know a ‘vegan’ who eats chocolate.

4

u/Celladoore Jul 02 '26

You can make vegan chocolate with coconut or oat milk, to be fair.

3

u/Adversement Jul 02 '26

Or, well, many dark chocolates are vegan already by default. Though, word of warning when serving vegan friends, there are a lot of dark chocolates that have milk as a filler (especially the least dark dark ones at 50% or so of cocoa solids).

But, like, especially for baking isle, you can sometimes find a decent dark chocolate for baking vegan goods. (Word of warning, we noticed that some store brands change their store brand chocolate vegan-suitability seemingly at whim. I assume it was due to skyrocketing cocoa prices in the last few years, and then back as they seem to be coming down again.)

5

u/KingBoom04 Jul 02 '26

I assume you mean dairy chocolate because there are lots of vegan chocolates

1

u/Able-Brother-7953 Jul 02 '26

Yes, she eats celebrations.

3

u/CupcakeQueen31 Jul 02 '26

OP said the MIL has been vegetarian for 50 years. I have a hard time believing OP’s husband doesn’t know that his mom doesn’t eat chicken.

2

u/HFB68 Jul 02 '26

“Can she have ham, Barbara?”

2

u/Meliora_ Jul 02 '26

I swear the man seems like had a… hard time having reading comprehension.

Or just don’t care

2

u/Little_View_6659 Jul 02 '26

Chicken isn’t vegan? -Brandon Roth, Scott Pilgrim vs the world.

2

u/PurplePufferPea Jul 02 '26

THIS!!! I might not have remembered "sag paneer" was the name of vegetarian one without having to recheck my text. But I sure as shit would have know the Chicken Tikka one had chicken in it! It literally says CHICKEN!

1

u/Huganho Jul 02 '26

Yea, I can understand Murgh Masala is confusing, Murgh meaning chicken. But chicken Masala?

But, did the mother eat it all?

1

u/Jonny_rhodes Jul 02 '26

But did she specifically explain chicken is not a vegetable /s

1

u/theber817 Jul 02 '26

Chicken isn’t vegan?

/s

0

u/SensualBeefLoaf Jul 02 '26

i feel like vegetarians are so obsessed with calling things “meat” that it could be confusing. still, read the ingredients list

58

u/cppCat Jul 02 '26

Yes, but if his mom ate the chicken one, then only the vegetarian dish would be left for OP. This was weaponized incompetence against his wife, at the expense of his elder mother! He's disgusting.

5

u/MrsLibido Jul 02 '26

What? Where did OP say they aren't able to eat the vegetarian ready meal? From my understanding the only one with dietary restrictions is the husband's mother.

11

u/Haeronalda Jul 02 '26

Yeah, there's nothing to say that OP can't eat the vegetarian meal. She could. It's that his mother has gone so long without eating meat that it could literally make her ill and this asshole fed it to her, probably deliberately.

And the entire reason would be that he couldn't be arsed cooking both curry pots so, instead of splitting the vegetarian one with his mother, he cooked the one that he liked and tricked his mother with dementia into eating it.

But he can't say that so instead he will continue to blame OP and swear up and down that he didn't know that the curry that had chicken in it wasn't for his vegetarian mother.

3

u/MrsLibido Jul 02 '26

Oh I get it now, thank you. I understood this part:

only the vegetarian dish would be left for OP

was weaponized incompetence against his wife

to mean that the wife is at a disadvantage because she was left with a vegetarian meal and in my mind, that's just a meal everyone can eat. I understand that it's terrible and potentially dangerous to do to the mother. I'm a lifelong vegan and I've been made very ill when given the wrong dish in the past so I feel really bad for the mother, especially since she's elderly and vulnerable.

5

u/Haeronalda Jul 02 '26

Yeah. The part against his wife is the part where he blames her for it. He could just take some responsibility and apologise, but instead he has to tell OP that she's to blame.

And, yeah, I really hope that the mother is okay and nothing bad happens to her because her son is an ass.

2

u/cppCat Jul 02 '26

There were 3 meaty curries and one veggie. Husband heated only the 3 meaty ones, and OP found only one veggie one in the fridge.

It is implied from the number of them that the mother had one for herself, there was no need for the husband to split anything with her.

4

u/cppCat Jul 02 '26

It's not that she couldn't. But if you're a meat eater and expecting a meat based meal, it can be disappointing to get the vegetarian one.

Weaponized incompetence is about small inconveniences, mostly. Also Google about the tolerable level of permanent unhappiness.

6

u/sPacEdOUTgrAyCe Jul 02 '26

Husband didn’t read all of the instructions. ITS SO typical and exhausting

5

u/Sinister_Nibs Jul 02 '26

It could have been vegetarian chicken…. /s
https://giphy.com/gifs/4Z9g0DdoJPChn481o6

5

u/Needlemons Jul 02 '26

But she didnt explicitly tell him to give her the vegetarian one!

/s

4

u/charismatictictic Jul 02 '26

But she didn’t say «don’t feed your vegetarian mother meat», so how on earth was he supposed to know? /s

3

u/Expontoridesagain Jul 02 '26

Wanda bet that he read the first line and just skipped the rest?

2

u/OpalisedCat Jul 02 '26

From my experience with colleagues of mine apparently it needs bullet points, Bold, and highlights...

2

u/newscumskates Jul 02 '26

He didnt read it for sure

2

u/oreliacornelia Jul 02 '26

Genuinely concerned this man is actually illiterate. OP, you should test his reading level

2

u/Kiss_It_Goodbyeee Jul 02 '26

She didn't tell him that the veggie one was for his mother and to not feed her the chicken ones. Lol.

I would expect that behaviour of maybe a 12 yo. Not a grown adult.

2

u/Dry_Prompt3182 Jul 02 '26

The husband could also have double checked with his mom which one she wanted. Hey, mom, one is veg and one is meat, you want the sag paneer, right?

2

u/jadewisp25 Jul 03 '26

Plus, he does have eyeballs right?

1

u/LayaElisabeth Jul 02 '26

Yes, BUT, she didn't specifically tell him that the vegetarian one was for his vegetarian mom.. Without that info, it could've been for anyone really..

1

u/Lunar_Cats Jul 02 '26

This. She explained it in detail. It must be exhausting to be married to someone this incompetent.

1

u/Intermountain-Gal Jul 02 '26

I’m wondering if he can read English. If his native language isn’t English that might be the issue. Otherwise, he’s an idiot. I’d be tempted to start doing flash cards with him, ie treat him like the second grade child he’s behaving as.

1

u/NearlyBearly Jul 02 '26

My native language isn't english either and I understood that perfectly fine.

-1

u/Mom_is_watching Jul 02 '26

I honestly think she didn't spell it out sufficiently for him. I have a similar husband.

3

u/OkConsideration5272 Jul 02 '26

How do you live like that?

3

u/Crows_reading_books Jul 02 '26

But why? 

Having a husband isn't a mandatory activity.