I Am The Female Bad Husband

Every time I hear about the "last straw" that led to divorce, it sounds like something I'd do.

Heads up that while this article deals with somewhat similar subject matter, it’s not a response to

Emily's Version

’s recent essay about “good” (or not so good!) husbands. She and I have different views and experiences on this topic, but I’ve actually been working on this article for a while, so not only is it NOT meant in opposition, but I want to take this moment to highlight that she’s a great writer and you should subscribe to her!

Second disclaimer: I asked my husband if I could write this, and he said yes. He has a very good sense of humor about himself, and has roasted me on this Substack before, so this is all in good fun. Also, be nice to him because he WILL be in the comments section.

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My husband Nick and I went to Paris together in 2018. Given that we both worked full-time and didn’t have kids yet, I felt guilty about the fact that the burden of the vacation labor fell to him: I packed, but he booked the travel, booked the hotel, and planned everything. I offered to schedule our leisure activities while he secured restaurant reservations. (Important note: we both have OCD, but his, oddly enough, is triggered intensely by several unexpected things, including restaurant reservations, or lack of control around restaurant plans.) Given the restaurant anxiety, I figured it wouldn’t be helpful for me to take control of the reservations, but making other plans could be a good way for me to carry some of the burden.

I planned what I thought would be a lovely day at a co-op garden, a place about which I had read in multiple tourist blogs. The idea was that we would pick up some cheese from a local shop and then eat it at the garden for a peaceful view. What I somehow didn’t realize was that it wasn’t a garden at all—it was a restaurant, and it had terrible food. There was a garden component, but it was basically just an overgrown, bushy patio which was part of the awful restaurant. In denial that I had planned Nick’s worst nightmare, I insisted we could sit outside and eat the cheese anyway. We unwrapped one singular corner of cheese paper before a waiter confronted us and told us to leave. Then, on the incredibly long, uphill walk back through an unappealing part of town, it began raining—other things I had failed to anticipate.

Nick was justified in poking fun at me for this flop, but I felt like his criticism was a bit much. It went on for a while—and I mean years. He “joked” that I couldn’t be trusted to plan anything again. It made me want to bow out of planning anything for future vacations, and this resignation also pissed him off because it put even more work on him. He didn’t use the term, but I’m sure he felt I was weaponizing incompetence. I was, essentially, the female version of all the subpar husbands you hear about—the guys who aren’t abusive, evil or mean, but who are so lazy, unhelpful and complacent that they slowly drive their wives into a neurotic, resentful meltdown. You know, the guys written about in books like How Not To Hate Your Husband After Kids. The wives of these men sometimes divorce them, look back on their marriage, and say that a pair of socks on the floor was the “tipping point” when they realized they needed a divorce.

I’ll be honest—I am that guy. My socks are probably on the floor right now, and if it’s only my socks, that’s a good day. There is a zero percent chance that all of my drawers are closed right now, or even physically capable of being closed. Hello, it’s me! I’m the problem, it’s me!