Imagine you and your partner have been living together in the same apartment for a reasonably long period of time. 

On the whole, your partner seems great. They’re smart, supportive, and totally on board with an even division of chores. But over time, you notice something odd - no matter how long you and your partner live in the same apartment with the same responsibilities, they just never seem to get the hang of any of the chores. Your partner can grasp complicated technical concepts for their job or hobby, but several months into living together, they still claim they don’t know how to properly operate the washing machine or dishwasher. They don’t know where you keep the toilet cleaner or what time they’re supposed to feed the dog. They have no idea what day the garbage gets picked up or how they’re supposed to sort the recycling. 

When you do manage to wrangle them into doing chores, everything they manage to do is done poorly or with little effort. They put dishes back in the wrong spots when they unload the dishwasher and crumple up the laundry instead of folding it. They bring the wrong things back from the grocery store, even when you send them with a list, and do such a sloppy job of mopping that you can barely tell the floors have been mopped at all. They require so much assistance to do basic chores and do such a poor job that, eventually, you just stop asking them to do chores at all - since you end up re-doing all of their work, it’s easier for you to just do it right the first time. 

But despite how it may appear, you don’t actually have an incompetent partner. 

You have a partner who has learned to weaponize incompetence. 

“Weaponized incompetence” - also called “strategic incompetence” or “performative incompetence” - is a manipulation tactic, where a person will purposefully feign incompetence to get out of doing tasks that they find unpleasant. The idea is to intentionally do tasks so badly and require so much help that you grind other people down; you convince other people that you simply aren’t capable of pulling your weight, or you make yourself so difficult to deal with that it’s simply less effort for others to just do your chores for you. It doesn’t matter if you work as a literal rocket scientist - you just keep insisting that you can’t figure out what to feed your children or when the electrical bill is due until other people feel they have no choice but to take over for you. 

If you’re living with someone or dealing with someone who has mastered the use of weaponized incompetence, here are some quick things you should know:

This behaviour is an act. Let’s get one thing clear: your partner (or whoever else you are sharing chores with) knows how to wash dishes. They know how to vacuum the floors. They are capable of remembering that Thursday is garbage day. These are not complicated tasks. Even if a person is genuinely new to household chores, we live in a golden age of information; all of us have instant access to a wealth of blogs, articles and video tutorials that will teach us any household skill we need to know. If a person is genuinely making an effort, it does not take years to learn how to separate laundry or figure out which cupboard the plates are kept in. It’s true that most people will be better at certain chores, or prefer certain chores. But a partner (or anyone else) who claims to be hopelessly bad at everything they dislike is putting on a show.

This is a learned behaviour. Why would a grown adult pretend to be so incompetent that they can’t figure out how to make a simple dinner? Because it works. It gets them the outcome they desire, which is other people taking over their responsibilities for them. Having other people think you’re clueless is a small price to pay if it means you get to do whatever you want while others scramble to cover your responsibilities. 

Weaponized incompetence is different than ADHD. There is a big difference between someone who wants to pull their weight but gets distracted halfway through a chore, and someone who does a bad job on purpose so no one will ever ask them to do chores again. A person with ADHD may need more reminders and take more time to do chores (or any other tasks), but they produce high-quality work. People with ADHD also tend to be aware of their issues with task management, and work on strategies to overcome it. People weaponizing incompetence will simply insist that they are hopeless and see no point in trying. It is possible for a person with ADHD to use weaponized incompetence intentionally, but this is different than their own inherent struggles with executive functioning. 

There is a gendered component to weaponized incompetence. Anyone, of any gender, is capable of faking incompetence to wriggle out of chores, but there are some gendered differences in who actually does it - this is a tactic most often observed in men. In a world where women still do the majority of housework and childcare, even in households where both partners work full-time, this is one tactic that women are increasingly observing in male partners who want to get out of domestic work while still touting egalitarian ideas. Our culture has a much greater tolerance for incompetent men than it does incompetent women - the dad who drops his kid off at daycare with two mismatched shoes and three packs of cookies for lunch is an overwhelmed parent doing his best, but the mother who does the same thing is viewed as a shitty mom. 

This is not limited to romantic partnerships. Anyone can weaponize their incompetence, not just partners - it could be friends, coworkers, roommates, teenage children, or just about anyone you have to share responsibilities with. That roommate who claims they don’t know how to pay the wi-fi bill or clean the bathroom wasn’t raised by wolves - there’s a good chance they’re simply choosing not to figure these things out because they know you’ll do it for them. 

The only way to combat this behaviour is to not tolerate it. People use weaponized incompetence because it works - eventually, you break down and do the thing for them. The key to combatting it, then, is to make sure that it stops working. Don’t jump in to help. Don’t offer to do it for them. Don’t spend hours drawing handmade maps of the grocery store because your husband insists he’s incapable of buying toilet paper on his own. When someone insists they can’t possibly do a household task that they’ve been asked to do dozens of times before, resist the urge to take over and simply say “I’m sorry, I have my own work to do. You are capable of figuring it out.” Remind them that figuring out how to do the chore is, in fact, part of the chore - if they don’t know where the clean bowls go or what needs to be on this week’s grocery list, it is their responsibility to investigate and work it out for themselves. 

I spent several years living with a (now-ex) partner who had mastered the use of weaponized incompetence to squirm his way out of everything he didn’t want to do in life. He got himself fired from numerous jobs so his parents would continue paying his rent and bills - eventually, they gave up on the idea of him working at all. Over and over again, he put the wrong soap in the dishwasher, over-loaded the washing machine until it flooded, and scraped non-stick pans with metal spoons. He quickly learned to use complex recording and sound equipment for his hobby, but scraped a Swiffer across the floor with no pad attached, claiming he just wasn’t capable of using one properly. I, inevitably, would get frustrated and take over for him, inadvertently teaching him exactly how to get out of his chores. 

The incompetence only stopped when I did. I reached a point where I was tired of hounding a grown man to wipe up his own spilled juice or wash his own underwear. So I stopped picking up after him. And when the apartment finally got disgusting and he reached the absolute limits of how long he could re-use the same underwear, something miraculous happened - all of a sudden, he realized he did know how to do laundry and dishes after all. 

Remember, there’s a point where you aren’t helping others by saving them from their responsibilities - you’re only hurting yourself. 

Help! A Person I Don’t Live With Is Messy!

Carolyn Hax, Washington Post,21 October 2021:

Dear Carolyn: My girlfriend of five years and I are splitting up; it’s completely amicable. We realized we both want different things long-term, so we will be moving out of our shared apartment within the next month. She will probably be living with a roommate. Should I suggest that she work on her tendency to be messy, and if so, how? By messy, I mean she regularly leaves things throughout the apartment rather than putting them away or disposing of them. It bothered me a lot at first, but I learned to just clean up the small things myself or remind her when it got out of hand. It’s possible that whomever she lives with next won’t be as easygoing, but would saying anything at this point be helpful or sound like bitterness?

Dear Completely Amicable,

It is incredibly refreshing to see genuine altruism in action. In our cancel-culture society these days we are so hung up on criticizing each other — picking at strangers for the smallest offenses, demanding people we barely know conform to our narrow views of the way humans should treat each other. But not you. You just want your ex-girlfriend’s possible next roommate to live their best life — free from your filthy ex’s foul detritus. Because you’re a swell person who would hate it, just hate it, by golly, if your loathsome ex-girlfriend ends up with her next domestic keeper without being properly trained. It’s very kind of you to be concerned for her next roommate, if they exist, but honestly, your concern for your ex’s wellbeing is nothing short of admirable under these circumstances.

And hey, good for you for getting ahead of the curve. You’re not even sure if your ex-girlfriend is going to have a roommate in a few weeks, but you’re already looking out for them! That’s just downright neighborly! And this person isn’t even your neighbor! They may never be your neighbor! They may not now or ever even exist! But that’s just how neighborly you are! You’re making sure a non-existent person’s home isn’t strewn willy-nilly with your former lover’s revolting old junk mail! If that’s not a fast-track to sainthood, I don’t know what is.

One thing that women in particular don’t get enough of is feedback about the way they live their lives from people they’re not fucking or dating or involved with in literally any way. Certainly people love unsolicited advice of all kinds, but they especially appreciate hearing about their shortcomings from former partners who they specifically and intentionally wish to no longer be associated with.

After silently suffering for years, stuck with no recourse in a home with this slimy bitch’s day-old coffee mugs, the least you can do as a kind parting gift is to chide her, a grown adult, about her living habits as she’s dragging her record collection down the stairs. She’ll be comforted by the fact that, like all the things you’ve done to go above and beyond for her — such as pick up a few things she left behind in the den — you’re doing her a great kindness with this final reminder that she’s a slimy hosebeast guaranteed to offend anyone who crosses her path. Imagine how grateful your ex-girlfriend will feel, as she peels out of your driveway blasting “Since You’ve Been Gone” at top volume, that she got to spend a short part of her mortal life on this earth with an actual angel!

Letting your ex know that she’ll be despised and resented by the next person she shacks up with if she doesn’t get her act together is a friendly and helpful favor to do for her.

i love living in this city with you - we will always have new adventures and beautiful places to explore together. i hope that one day we can do it hand in hand, heart in heart

It Was a Good Idea

Damien: Why are you smiling?

Rosalie: I had an idea!

Damien: What’s your idea?

Rosalie: I think I’ll keep it to myself.

Damien: Well, that sounds like a good idea!

*laughing sarcastically*

 “Maybe next time you won’t forget to put the books back on the bookshelf in alphabetical order.”

I got up early this morning and applied at Dollar General and Home Depot! The only downside is that I put down I could work until August 8th. Reason being is that I will have family visitng from the end of this month all the way till the 7th. I only get to see them and spend time with them once a year so, of course, I want to spend as much time with them as I possibly can.

I’m hoping that Whit starts applying soon because I really don’t want to be the only one bringing in money by myself. We’re a team and I feel like, as a team, we both need to bring in the income and both take equal responsibility for OUR home. I’m serious about this trailer and wanting to do work on it so I’m going to do everything I can but I don’t want to be doing everything by myself.