#1

I was on a work trip that I was really nervous and excited about. My ex husband knew this. He called me 6 or 7 times during a meeting and I assumed something was wrong with one of our kids. No, he was at the pharmacy and couldn’t find kids ibuprofen and wanted me to place a pick up order for him to get it.

I could name countless other examples but that one really stuck out. He has our kids regularly now that we’re divorced and I’m always shocked when they regale me with tales of him taking them to the doctor (the doctor who’s name he claimed to not know when we were married!) Or administering medication to them… he was capable all along, he just knew that I would do things for him.

© Photo: GreenMountain85

#2

Months after moving in together, I asked my (now) ex to unload the dishwasher while I did something else. He said I should do it because he didn't know where anything went. I just looked at him and eventually said "And you never will if you just make excuses. You're a grown man, figure it out.".

© Photo: ExtraHorse

#3

My grandfather used to practice weaponized incompetence back before I was born. He went to do laundry one day (in the days before liquid detergent) and put the whole box of powder in instead of a scoop. Flooded the basement with suds. Gram wouldn't let him do laundry again. He pulled the same stunt with the dishwasher and flooded the kitchen with suds once, too.

But I do have to give him credit for eventually growing out of it. After I was grown and on my own, gram fell and was hospitalized. He wanted her to come home to a clean house and called me to come help him start the laundry. I talked him through starting the first load and wrote down instructions for him to do the second load and he successfully ran the machines. He even made her bed and put her clothes away by himself, and did it right.

He really was devoted to her. During his end of life (cancer) he'd lost a ton of weight and was a walking skeleton. Gram fell and was hospitalized again, and he was scared he would pass away before she got to come home. He borrowed a wheelchair from a neighbor and we drove him down to see her, we lined the chair with pillows and blankets because it was uncomfortable for him to sit in with his bony frame. Thankfully she did make it home before he passed. That day she fell, he was putting his shoes and coat on like he was going to ride in the ambulance with her! He didn't want to leave her side. Sweet man, I miss him every day.

© Photo: sai_gunslinger

#4

When I was living at home, my stepmother would go out of town and told me I need to cook dinner for my dad. This is not just a problem for him, it’s a problem for her, because she doesn’t prepare simple meals - she prepares feasts every night. That’s what my father expects. He expects an elaborate, wasteful feast of a meal, every night, which he doesn’t clean. (Side note, but I still defend my childhood self for not wanting to do the dishes, because doing the dishes in that house was *genuinely* a nightmare. Imagine cleaning up thanksgiving dinner every night, that’s what it was like)

My father will get annoyed when no one gives him *exact* directions on how to do simple things. He can’t make toast, he can’t heat something up in a tabletop oven. He wants exact temps and times. How long to heat up leftover pizza? I don’t know, figure it out. This is not some exact science

But the biggest thing, and this was a final straw. We all went to a theme park. We split up into two different parks, my father was in charge of my 7 year old nephew. We agreed on a meeting spot at 8pm. My father waltzed into the park with less than 10% on his phone, did not bother to remember the name of the restaurant we were supposed to meet at, decided to sit at another restaurant and hope we would find him. He was lost until midnight. He was sitting there talking to people, watching the game, and not once did it occur to him to go inside to ask for a charger, or ask to borrow someone’s phone or even *think* to figure out how to contact us, while his family members were frantically searching for him and my nephew. For hours.

We found him, completely by chance, at midnight, claiming that he was “just starting to think about going to a security guard”

Worse, is that he didn’t have the address of the rental we were staying in. So even if he decided to just take a cab or an uber out of the park, he could not provide an address.

The whole incident was a prime example of how my father is so used to having his wife do all his thinking and common sense for him, that he could not even handle a day trip to a theme park.

© Photo: anon

#5

My ex used to use the “I don’t know how, I’m not handy” excuse all the time. Well bro I don’t know how to replace a swamp cooler motor either but I’m up on the house with YouTube on figuring it out! He was rather really good at looking up the new league of legends champion and learning how to play them but couldn’t be bothered to learn to do things that idk, would actually be beneficial in the real world.

© Photo: Pale_Lavishness_6661

#6

Water was getting on the bathroom floor from the shower curtain slightly gaping open so I bought clips to hold it closed. Told my male roommate that we needed to use the clips to prevent water damage. "I don't know how to use those" I was fuming. I've never seen someone act like they have no brain as bad as this guy. I told him he needs to stop acting like he's an idiot because he's actually a smart guy. This is the same guy that whines he can't keep a gf because he's not rich

© Photo: Ok_Commission9026

#7

My ex always had me order his toiletries for him, claiming that he "didn't know how to use Amazon" and "didn't know which kinds to get". You look at the empty bottle and you find it on the website. It's not rocket science.

© Photo: Charloxaphian

#8

My husband quite literally asked me where he could buy diapers when our son was 5 days old.

I told him “I’m going to pretend that was rhetorical and that you’re actually not that helpless”.

© Photo: indicatprincess

#9

My coworker does this with committee work. He just doesn't do his job, cuts meetings short, refuses to communicate with everyone else, then claims he's busy/doing childcare duty/etc.


He weaponizes it to avoid transparency (I can't answer emails bc I'm busy), shut down discussion, and get what he wants. "No time to come to a consensus, I need to go home and watch my kid, let's rush a vote."


As someone who cancelled a trip to see my husband in order to attend one such meeting he proposed, that pissed me off. I don't have kids yet (and maybe never will) because of structural inequalities in my workplace, but my family obligations also matter. .

© Photo: nocuzzlikeyea13

#10

Today I found the bleach and kool-aid looking jugs of Mr Clean sitting on the lowest shelf, right next to my 4yo daughter's tutu skirt she put in there the other week.

I had to beg him to help with the chores because I was getting my son's birthday party ready and didn't have time. I try to avoid it because he always does SOMETHING to be an idiot.

I confronted him and he acted like I was being an overblown psycho and if I wanted his help he would do it his way, or I could do it myself.

I am so miserable.

© Photo: MocoLotus

#11

I made a guy wash the dishes THREE times in a row as they were still dirty.

© Photo: anon

#12

I work with a woman who got a promotion and now pretends that she is incapable of doing her previous job.

She says things like I'm not trained or I don't want to break it. She's a smart gal with multiple degrees who literally used to do that job. It's infuriating.

© Photo: anon

#13

Had a co-worker that used it to get out of doing anything important in the store. Inventory, nope she can't count to more than five. Close the store, nah can't trust her to balance the register. Over and over again, Oh I don't want to do that I was never trained how too. With me going "Bull, I've trained you once a month over and over again on that one thing.".

© Photo: wardensarecool

#14

My father did not attend my mother's funeral with me, his then 13 year old, because he "doesn't know how to talk to her family" and "his wife might not be comfortable with it". he dropped me off at the funeral home driveway and left.

© Photo: boojustaghost

#15

There’s some decent karma at the end of this.

Dated someone in college who couldn’t be bothered to learn what my major was. We had been dating for about 6 months when I found out he didn’t know. I found out because at a party, he interrupted the group (of his friends) I was hanging out with to ask me, because someone else asked him and he didn’t know. I tried playing it off as a joke because wth. It was super hurtful. Later he reprimanded me for embarrassing him in front of his friends for not knowing. Some time later, he told me I needed to keep track of when he needed to make some appointment because he wasn’t going to remember; I immediately shot back that I wasn’t his mom or secretary and was not going to do that for him. He was offended and shocked that I wouldn’t do it. I also did the driving for the bulk of the relationship; not entirely his fault, because he didn’t have his license for a while, but once he got it, he kept giving excuses for why he “couldn’t” drive so it would keep falling to me. I told him he was just going to have to get used to driving, he was not impressed.

It wasn’t just me dealing with his weaponized incompetence. He refused to cooperate with some classmates for their big semester-long project, always giving reasons why he couldn’t do the work so his classmates would have to do it instead. I didn’t think he was *seriously* putting off everything onto them, until the end of the semester when he failed the course. His classmates left him off credit all the work (good for them). He needed the class for his major and had to delay graduation, but he was not going to be living in our college city anymore, which meant he had to take the class out of the next nearest campus to where he was living then. The kicker? That meant he had to drive 45 minutes-1 hour to school. Guess he had to get used to driving after all.

© Photo: sharrrrrrrrk

#16

Yes but it’s my mother not a man.

She came down to “help” as six weeks after I had my first baby my husband had to travel on a month long overseas business trip.

She proceeded to sit on the sofa and do nothing but drink beer while I ran around taking care of her and my baby. She’s ask what I wanted for lunch and when I told her would say she didn’t want it and asked for “simple” things like a steak sandwich instead!

She did get up once and took my baby out of my room so I could sleep but bizarrely gave him a bath he didn’t need and then left dirty water, clothes and nappies flung around the bathroom as she evidently didn’t know what to do with them. I suspect she pretended that she didn’t so I wouldn’t ask her to help again but she was now able to go around telling everyone how she came down and helped me and would bathe the baby and take him so I could rest.

She informed me that she pretended to my sister that she didn’t know how to mix formula so she wouldn’t be expected to do it but she’d do it for me. She said this like she was imparting a huge favour but given that I breastfed it was a bit of an empty promise!

She would leave her dirty dishes lying around and say “I hate it when people stack my dishwasher too” so I promptly informed her that I actually hated it when people left things laying around for me to stack. She then picked up her glass and placed it in the dishwasher fumbling and dropping it before putting it in upside down pretending that she didn’t know how to put a glass in a dishwasher- a task my three year old can competently do.

After five days of doing nothing but causing me work i suggested she leave and spend time with friends. As she was leaving she declared that next time she would know things like where the broom was so could help with housework. She never once asked me where anything was kept and it was her fourth stay at my house!

Anyway she’s not welcome back. She’s been like this my whole life and had a severely negative impact on me growing up as she acted like this around any task that a normal parent would be expected to do for their child

She has a personality disorder so I assume this is a manifestation.

© Photo: NettaFornario

#17

I want to preface this with my husband is amazing and is one of the few 50% partners in the world. But when we were first living together he would usually defer the cooking to me. I'm an okay cook, not amazing, but it's also not something I super enjoy.

He shrugged and said he didn't really know how to do it.

Well. This is a man who taught himself how to do basic maintenance on cars, how to re-wire electric stuff in the house, how to drywall etc etc. I told him that if he could figure out all of these complicated things, he could certainly follow a recipe and make dinner. And to his credit, he did.

That said, we have definitely fallen into a bit of a pattern of 'whomever is better at something, does it most'. He is great at fixing things, I am not. I am great at animal husbandry (we have a farm), so it's me castrating the pigs and doing most of the shots/medication, but he helps.

I am so glad his 'weaponized incompetence' was short lived.

#18

A guy on a renovation crew I worked with. Stood around while everyone else was painting, boss says "pick up a roller and get going!" And buddy says he doesn't know how to roll. Keep in mind this was a 50 year old man who had been working on site for a while at that point. Truly just an impressive display of weaponized incompetence. Goes without saying that was his last day on site.

© Photo: justheretocomment69

#19

My co-manager who tanked his side of the business and didn't tell anyone how badly he messed up because he just "wasn't good at accounting".

© Photo: avocado-nightmare

#20

My ex-husband treated me like his personal chef, secretary, live-in maid, etc. I don't think the man cooked or cleaned anything in the 7 years we were together. It's hard to pick one thing specifically but when he begged me to go to the store to pick up cigarettes for him, and I had to scrounge for change because we literally didn't have $20 in the bank. I told him we can't afford his habit and this man verbally cut me down for the better part of an hour before I finally gave up and walked to the store for him.

Looking back I cringe at how I let him take advantage of me. I found out after our divorce that he was using his side piece as his personal ATM.

© Photo: Deezus1229

#21

I left my ex alone for 2 or 3 days so I could visit family. He was supposed to pick me up at the airport but got trashed that weekend and forgot about me, so I had to get an Uber after waiting at the airport for an hour. When I came home, he was blackout drunk. All the lights were on in the entire house, there was trash everywhere, dirty dishes and old food all over the kitchen counters, dirty laundry on the floor, empty liquor bottles and drinking glasses everywhere. I had to clean up the house and nurse him back to health.

© Photo: anon

#22

I've seen it in small and big ways a bunch, including from myself! I'll share a few examples:


- The other day I dropped off flowers for a male friend and his wife - she asked him to put them in a vase and he grabbed one and put the flowers in there still banded together, plastic baggie of flower food attached, and no water 🤦🏼‍♀️


- I'm generally handy with household stuff, but my roommate is *way* better, and very well-organized and proactive. I've definitely been guilty of letting a broken thing or an issue sit unaddressed because I know she'll be better at fixing it - I try to make a point of watching and learning when she does fix things so I can do it myself next time!


- My dad is the classic, "don't know the kids' information" guy. My mom was functionally a solo parent who handled *all* of the minutia and logistics of kids. And she and my dad co-owned a law firm, so this wasn't attributable to one having a less demanding career.


- Most insidiously, I've known people of all genders who treat basic emotional intelligence as an innate trait rather a learned skill. They do a lot of emotional damage to their friends and family, and when called out on how their behavior affects others, they throw their hands up and say, "I'm just not good at that kind of stuff, I don't think that way." Some of those people have suckered others into managing that emotional labor for them, and some of them are chronically alone.

#23

“I don’t have good eye-hand coordination.”.

#24

I don't tolerate it but I did live it, lol - I *was* that teenager who practised weaponised incompetence against my own mother back at the age when it was still annoying, but at least fixable. I think it's because I was that type of teenager that I can now pretty easily recognise when someone is trying to do it to me, so I just refuse to deal with it. Either they figure it out (or at least make a consistent, robust, and bona fide effort at doing so) or I'm just Audi.

Actually, I low-key used to practise weaponised incompetence back at work when I worked for other people. I wasn't interested in doing the usual party planning/quasi-admin/etc. invisible labour so many young women entering the workforce get saddled with, so I just never volunteered for any of it - and when I was voluntold to do it, I told management I sucked at that stuff (and proceeded to prove it if necessary). My work was otherwise good enough that nobody really GAF, but yeah - I didn't go through all the schooling that I did to help find a caterer for the firm's Easter luncheon.

#25

When I was a teenager my father’s workplace offered discounted health insurance (unusual in NZ at the time). When he signed up for the scheme, he listed our years of birth as

1967
1968
1969

We were born in

1969
1970
1971.