How to Train Your Man to Pick Up After Himself
Give a warning that if a certain behavior doesn't stop that there will be an adverse result. As an example, when my husband kept throwing his socks around, I told him that if he didn't pick them up they would go in the trash.
Be prepared to follow through with your threat. Nothing will be accomplished if you aren't prepared to follow through. Once I gave the warning about the socks, my next step was to throw them in the trash, which I did.
Wait for them to acknowledge that something is wrong. When your husband notices he has no socks he may want to know where they are. By this time it is too late. His socks are long gone. I actually only had to throw away a couple of pairs of socks before he noticed what I was doing. I made it quite clear I was throwing them away. After all, socks aren't cheap. I'm not crazy, just didn't like socks lying around.
I guess Pavlov's theory was correct. His reward was that he got to keep his socks if he didn't throw them around. (See, he shouldn't have let me take that Psychology course.) This proves that I'm a good learner. Conditioning is the key to training your husband. Not only will this work on socks, but I'm certain that it will work on other behaviors as well.
You wouldn't use this exact technique with children as I don't think they value their socks as much as a man does. A child will probably not mind going sockless, but somehow I don't think a man would enjoy going to the office without them. Also it's best to use this technique early in the relationship as it teaches your man who the boss is. Since that time he has picked his socks up quite diligently. After forty years this lesson still hasn't worn off. He's a good guy.
Ladies, don't despair, men are trainable, and in fact will love you for it. If you let them get away with the little things, who knows what they'll try to get away with later.
Published by Pat Bartels
Previously employed in the Human Resources field, Pat enjoys traveling and tweaking computers when she is not writing articles for Associated Content and Factoidz. She is fascinated with personal finance, th... View profile
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19 Comments
Post a CommentSooooo, how do you get him to clean up his dirty dishes exactly? I don't want to throw away my dishes........why can't parents just learn how to raise children right? My two year old boy is a bigger helper than his dad is. That should say something about how my husband's mother raised him. We were high school sweethearts- every time his mom asked him to clean the kitchen he always (not kidding) half-a$$ed it. Threw everything into the sink(cleaned not a single dish), wiped down the counters and he was done. Not joking. His mother found nothing wrong with this. I was the only one to take issue. How bout instead of complaining about men being irresponsible- we just raise them right to begin with? Quit being a weak parent and instill some good values in your kids, it will save them a lot of headaches later in life. Not to mention, adult life won't be as shocking to them. This is coming from a 23 year old mother who's parents didn't prepare her for the adult world. I learned the hard way.
How do you get your husband to be more helpful without turning into his mother?
LOL...I love this. It also keeps the wife out of trouble. I thought there was a buzzer you hit to shock husbands when they did something bad. ;)
My husband is a neat freak. He always helps clean up! great article!
I live alone now, but good luck to you on this.
Socks... can't let them out of your sight clean or soiled! They either disappear during the laundering process or by spousal magic! ;oD
I am blessed thank god!
I am the one who leaves my socks in the living room! My husband is well trained!
I didn't do it! My wife has a joke about well something like two words that should never be put together in a sentence is 'innocent' and 'man', however I clean up after myself ol' Ma taught me that a long time ago. Good article
Actually, my husband is great about picking up after himself. Thank goodness. :-)