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Tired Of Babysitting Grown Adults: 30 Acts Of Weaponized Incompetence Women Have Endured
If you’re a longtime reader of this site or have spent enough time on Reddit, you likely know what weaponized incompetence is. For the uninformed, it’s deliberately doing a bad job to get out of a task, much to the annoyance of the people around.
For today, we’ve scoured the Ask Women subreddit to pick out firsthand experiences of weaponized incompetence. Most of these responses were relatively harmless, but the idea that someone is trying to put one over on you via feigned ignorance is nonetheless irksome, to say the least.
Scroll through these stories, and feel free to share similar experiences in the comment boxes below!
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
My soon to be ex husband refuses to learn to cook so our kid has to cook their own dinner if I’m stuck at work late. He also won’t do the weekly shop, diy, even put washing away. He is flat out lazy and soon he will be single and lazy cause I’m over his bs.
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#2
My parents are in their late 70’s and they have the typical old school relationship. My Dad worked and my Mom stayed at home and did everything. Even the stereotypical “man stuff”. Lawn mowing, fixing things that broke, just an overall bada*s who gets s**t done. But I digress… Well, my Mom’s work included doing the laundry for the 50+ years they’ve been married. This became an issue last year when my mom had a health issue and was in inpatient therapy for 2 months.
My Dad, who ran companies, said he “didn’t know how to use the washing machine” and wanted one of his kids to come wash his clothes. We said absolutely not. We’d show him how to use it and if he later acted like he couldn’t do it then he was just going to have stinky clothes until our mom came home. It’s a washing machine, not a dang rocket ship.
#3
My ex husband told me on Friday that he couldn’t pick our sons up from school because he doesn’t know which school they go to..
#4
My ex roommate and a guy I knew for a decade. We decided that we would switch off cooking/dishes so whoever cooks the other person washes up. My dinners were actual meals, his dinners were ramen or a frozen pizza even though he's a grown man. I would wash all the dishes, he would 'let them soak' then wash them poorly and say "but you're soo much better at it then I am!" We tried just cooking for ourselves but he would hover and "oooh can I have a little bit?" Ever so slowly I realized I was taking over all the cooking and dishes "because I'm so much better at it". It was like boiling a frog and I honestly didn't notice it until he started nitpicking a dish here or there. He didn't last long.
Jeya Mackelle 1 month ago
The person who does not cook does not complain. Unless it's poisoned, then you won't really be complaining anyway, but still.
#5
I had a friend whose husband claimed to be unable to cook to the extent that he apparently couldn’t turn on the oven and put a frozen lasagna in it. He wasn’t being expected to decide when it was done or anything, just literally turn on the oven and place an object inside. Apparently he was incapable of operating the oven.
He was an electrician.
#6
He told me he couldn’t pick up dish soap because he didn’t know where it was in the store.
Sir….
Sue Denham 1 month ago
Tell him it's like going on an adventure. Look for clues and there are even friendly creatures who can point you on your way.
#7
There’s a post from today where a father says he can’t watch his 4 y/o because he doesn’t know what to do. He’s unemployed and at home. His wife can’t afford daycare and is upset her sister won’t watch the baby because she’s doing online college and “has time”.
BlackestDawn 1 month ago
Poor sister to be "blamed" like this. No one inherently knows what to do when they get a child but this dad has had 4 years to learn so there is no excuse for him to not actually be a parent and take care of their child.
#8
My husband (now ex)
Him: (at home) I want pizza.
Me: (busy working) why don’t *you* call it in?
Him: I don’t know how.
Me: just call them.
Him: I don’t have the number.
Me: neither do I, look it up.
Him: what’s the name again?
Me: (still busy at work) really?
Him: I don’t know what to order.
Me: I think you can figure it out.
Him: do they deliver?
Me: no, you have to go get it.
Him: can’t you order it and get it on your way home?
Me: (I need a divorce)
I wish I was exaggerating but I’m not.
#9
My brother spent his and my entire childhood dodging our parents' extremely basic "how to take care of a house, balance finances, and not starve" lessons because of weaponized incompetence. As an example, mom would have us make our own lunch once we got old enough. Really basic things like soup, or sandwiches, or reheating leftovers. All the ingredients were easy to find and provided for us. She just wanted us to, you know, be able to make a damn sandwich. My brother would go to the fridge, open the door, stare inside it for a few seconds, close the door, and declare he couldn't make lunch because there was no ketchup for a sandwich. So, my mom would say something like, "It's on the top shelf." So, he'd go back to the fridge, open it, stare at the top shelf for a few seconds, close the door, and say it wasn't there. So my mom would say, "It's on the top shelf, on the left." He'd do the same thing. She would have to give instructions so specific that it ended up being something like, "Go to the fridge. Open it. Look at the top shelf. Look on the left side of it. If there is a yellow jar that says mayonnaise on it, pick it up. Look behind where that jar was sitting. The bottle is red." It was infuriating to watch.
Rali Meyer 1 month ago
Seen this too many times. I really like to know how moms (or dads) can solve this
#10
My FORMER boyfriend who couldn't put sheets on the bed correctly, and acted like he had never seen how a fitted sheet was supposed to look. He also gave up when the pillowcase got twisted because he just stuffed the pillow in it.
#11
I was with someone for 5 years and they would only ever cook tenderstem broccoli and steak if ever given dinner duty. I got COVID from him - thankfully we both didn't get it at the same time (his ended and mine started). Not only did I cook for him when he was ill. I ended up having to cook for us when I was ill. I asked him to cook me a meal he has seen me make countless times as I was craving something comforting - he started blaming me for not teaching him prior to when there is literally the internet for instructions. If I didn't cook, I would have had to live off the burgers or whatever heavy c**p he would order from whatever delivery service. Oh and during this, he would wake me up if he ever thought I was napping for too long, not ever considering the fact that I was really ill and not getting enough sleep at night.
This man works in Amazon as a Technical Operations Lead.
#12
My husband purposefully f***s up whatever task I ask him to do. I started catching on and now when he does it I say things like, “it’s concerning you can’t do this… as an adult.”.
#13
Im a nurse. Patients who are fully capable come into the hospital all the time and won’t wipe their own a*s.
#14
My dad. My mom cooks him breakfast, lunch and dinner every single day. Whenever she’s not home, he tries to make her feel bad by not eating anything. He can’t even make himself a damn toast!
zububonsai 1 month ago (edited)
If he's so "malevolently incompetent" (and not really, truly handicapped in any respect), I'd let him starve until he's hungry enough to eat the toast raw. He won't die of it.
#15
My ex invited me over to hang out. When I got there, he was getting ready to go to an event later that required him to wear a nice shirt. He got out the ironing board, iron, shirt, and said, "OK, here you go."
What?
He asked me to come over to iron his shirt because his mom usually did it for him, but she was at work.
He was 28.
#16
My ex took care of himself perfectly well before I moved in. Once I'd been there a while, I took over cooking, which was fine at first because I like to cook. By the end, he acted like he'd never been inside a kitchen before (even though he cooked for himself before I was there). The peak of this particular nonsense was one night when I was just tired and Done for some reason I don't remember, but he deemed insufficient, and he got pouty and whined about not having any dinner. I told him he could fix himself something, whereupon he went to the kitchen, brought back two slices of bread, and ate his bread sandwich at me.
Earthquake903 1 month ago
Buhahaha, he ate his bread sandwich at you! Lmfao! He sounds exactly like my ex and you sound exactly like me.
#17
My ex kept leaving his dirty boxers on chairs. When I confronted him about it, he said "I don't know where the dirty clothes box is".
He had been in my house for two f*cking years.
#18
Went to school with a guy who bragged about telling his girlfriend he didn’t know how to tie his shoes so “she would always have to do it”. Never spoke to him again. Probably a m*****rer.
#19
Whenever my dad is left home alone for more than a day my mum cooks food for him in advance so he doesn’t starve to death.
#20
I had to clean my ex gf’s apartment all the time because she saw no problem with basically living in a litterbox. I ended up managing her finances/budgeting for similar reasons.
#21
My ex. Pretended not to know the vacuum isn't vacuuming when I told him to vacuum his dog's hair. He had a PhD.
#22
My current husband cannot fold clothing and put it away. He can wash it. But it either stays on the top of the dryer in a wad, or on the wool rug in the living room gathering lint.
I have shown him (multiple times) how to fold towels to fit in the cabinet, tee shirts so they don’t wrinkle, and everything else. He can’t do it.
Whatever.
He flew a spy jet around the coast of Russia, and was a commercial airline captain, but he cannot fold clothing.
Sigh.
Damned_Cat 1 month ago
My former husband used to hate hanging clothes on the line. One day I asked him to hang the clothes but put the sweaters on the rack to dry flat. He hung the sweaters on the line anyway by their outer bottom edges. I came home to 3 sweaters all stretched out on the edges. When I showed them to my hubby, he asked me how they shrank up in the middle like that.
#23
That guy that stopped for at a drive through coffee while his wife was in the car about to give birth to their baby.
#24
My brother has a high IQ, went to mechanic school, started his own business, sells solar, grows his own pot plants, goes on hikes in the mountains solo, obtained a gun license, and made smart investments in Tesla years ago.
However, he acts incompetent so my mom makes his doctors appointments for him and brings him to the appointments. She also picks up any medications or toiletry products he needs from CVS for him. My dad does all of his laundry and puts it away, does all of his dishes, takes all of his trash out, and pays for all of his bills. When my brother has a problem with his car, my dad makes an appointment with a mechanic, brings my brother’s car in for him, and then takes an Uber back.
My brother is the smartest person I know, and yet, my parents treat him like he’s an incompetent child.
#25
The IT one above (which was more just incompetence than weaponized incompetence) reminded me of an IT guy at work. I called IT at my large federal agency, because the printer wouldn't work. After an hour I get a notice that the ticket (sort of like a work request) was closed. Not because the printer had been fixed, but because he claimed he couldn't find my office. You know, my office. The one in the corner, where I oversee the rest of the staff on two floors.
I have lots from my first husband, but I prefer not to think of those.
#26
In IT I see this ALL.THE.TIME
But I got one story that's easily the worst
In my office building there's this guy, we'll just call him..."Dan" for now
Dan thinks he can fix everything, despite not having qualifications for the things he claims he can fix, he'll take on tasks that are WAAAAAAY above his head and even management tells him "Hey, don't try fixing that, you have no idea what you're doing" But he ignores them anyways because he thinks he's so awesome
He seems to become FUMING whenever I'm asked to do something over him and always followed me to a task despite me telling him to leave me alone
I was doing routine server blade maintenance for a network in the building, extremely easy job and to put it simply you flick a switch, take a giant server blade out of what looks like a bookshelf, put it back in, turn the switch back on and that's it
He follows me into the server room and starts TAKING THE BLADES OUT WITHOUT TURNING THEM OFF FIRST, the blades started literally SPARKING, and I started to freak out and tell him to stop because what he's doing could literally destroy the server, it was the equivalent of pulling the plug on something high voltage that's running, and when it's hardware that's worth literal millions, you don't want to f**k around with it like that
He then starts laughing his a*s off saying I'm freaking out for no reason and he knows what he's doing, I ended up going right to management and reporting him, the whole thing was caught on camera and he got in serious trouble for nearly damaging company equipment
Instead of firing him they put him on a completely different lower level team with a lower pay, he sent me a looooooooong message using the company email system about how I'm a horrible person for reporting him and how I should die and blah blah blah
For whatever stupid reason he thought he wouldn't be caught despite using the COMPANY EMAIL SYSTEM to send me this
So he got caught and got in MORE trouble, I haven't seen him in months, assuming they let him go.
Wherever you are "Dan" I hope your life sucks.
#27
OMG. My ex had an extra excuse; he's left-handed. Couldn't load a dishwasher because it was on the "wrong" side of the sink. The washer was on the 'wrong' side of the dryer, so obviously, he couldn't do laundry. Couldn't mow because, yes, the pull cord was on the wrong side.
He also couldn't empty the dishwasher or put away laundry because he didn't know where anything went. I know there's more, but I've tried to forget the majority of his BS.
#28
My boyfriend told me I was better at putting the flea and tick meds on our dog, it’s simply just squirting the eye dropper type packaging between her shoulders, and she’s good about it. Same with bath time, he just doesn’t like to do it and says in “better at it”.
#29
My current coworker. How many times can you say “maybe someday” to learning something new before it just becomes a no? It’s making a PDF, not rocket science. I have made her instructions with pictures and she still refuses to do anything more than email on the computer and even that takes her over 30 min/email.
She also turns every task into an hour long project no matter what it is and goes completely unchecked by HR or our boss. I’d almost be impressed if it wasn’t so irritating and draining to work with.
Tina Girard 1 month ago
I worked with a lady like this once - she was given to us because everyone else gave up on her. I literally wrote her a step by step checklist and she STILL asked me for help.
#30
Third date, after taking his virginity (27M), he asked me to get him an Uber home on MY PHONE because he didn’t know how. I told him to wait outside my house for his Uber and I never called an Uber.
What do you think ?
Trillian 1 month ago
I know it is not the women's fault but how are there guys husbands and fathers? Women put up with far too much in their partners. Don't enable lazy guys.
Aroace tiger (she/they/he) 1 month ago
Its hard to get out of toxic situations... ive stayed in worse
Load More Replies... Bernd Herbert 1 month ago
I am not surprised that those type of men exist, but I am surprised that they have a partner. Come on ladies, you all can do better
Ghostpotato 1 month ago
You want to pretend, I can pretend too. Oh you can't grasp simple things like how to to turn on the oven or use a washing machine? Like, you really really are incapable of learning very basic life skills? No shame, some people need help, lets see if we can find a carer for you! Or maybe a grouphome/assisted living of some kind would be a good fit for you! Since obviously you can't take care of yourself...
Trillian 1 month ago
I know it is not the women's fault but how are there guys husbands and fathers? Women put up with far too much in their partners. Don't enable lazy guys.
Aroace tiger (she/they/he) 1 month ago
Its hard to get out of toxic situations... ive stayed in worse
Load More Replies... Bernd Herbert 1 month ago
I am not surprised that those type of men exist, but I am surprised that they have a partner. Come on ladies, you all can do better
Ghostpotato 1 month ago
You want to pretend, I can pretend too. Oh you can't grasp simple things like how to to turn on the oven or use a washing machine? Like, you really really are incapable of learning very basic life skills? No shame, some people need help, lets see if we can find a carer for you! Or maybe a grouphome/assisted living of some kind would be a good fit for you! Since obviously you can't take care of yourself...
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