Weaponized Incompetence
Over the last year or so, I’ve seen the term weaponized incompetence come up quite often in the more feminist-heavy channels that the algorithm seems to think I want to see.
This term describes men in relationships shirking out of their fair share of household and childcare related tasks, begging off under the excuse that they “don’t know how do it”. This covers all matter of basic tasks like washing clothes, dropping kids off at school, and wrapping Christmas presents.
Many seem to believe this is a malicious and deliberate deception by these men, that they’re “pretending” to be incompetent in order to avoid doing tasks they don’t enjoy. And I’m sure this is true of some of them.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, I have a more compassionate view of men than the feminists do.
While I’m sure a few of them are deliberately manipulative and are using this as a tactic, I believe the rest – a vast majority – are almost certainly Nice Guys, and their “weaponized incompetence” is actually a symptom of their subconscious compulsion to seek validation.
A think a lot of women would be surprised to find out that their partner actually wants to contribute more, but he has mental and emotional barriers the he believes prevents him from doing so.
What is Validation Seeking?
Validation seeking is the attempt to confirm that what you are doing is the “right” thing to do (i.e. it meets someone else’s approval), or at a greater level, that you are a “good” person by other people’s standards.
This takes many forms.
Asking for permission is a common one, often phrased as a request for feedback before you’ve done something, e.g. “Do you think this approach is a good idea?”
Another common one is something I call Green Light Syndrome, where the guy is passive, awaiting instructions and permission before making a move, like a car stuck at the traffic lights waiting for a green signal. He might wait until his partner initiates sex; or only do chores if prompted to do them; or follow whatever the group decides to do on holiday without suggesting ideas himself.
His confidence will fluctuate depending on feedback. He only thinks of himself as a good person when others say he is, and will hate himself after receiving negative feedback.
And he’ll engage in excessive research before taking action. The guy just can’t seem to risk winging it, and has to find out the “right” way to do things before he can move, even when the task is basic. He’ll often check in with people he considers superiors and take their advice blindly without any trial-and-error on his own first, e.g. asking his wife how to fold the clothes.
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Why Do Men Seek Validation?
This stems from childhood trauma about getting “in trouble”. As a boy, he was probably subject to strictness and/or inconsistent boundary setting by the parents, leaving him on edge at all times, wondering what the rules were and terrified of the often excessive punishments for breaking them.
I had this growing up. I would find out what it meant to something “wrong” by getting in trouble. I never received warnings. I had to guess what the rules were.
The rules seemed to change randomly. What was OK yesterday was a crime today. And the punishments never made sense to me, like getting grounded for a month because I let my friend eat a muesli bar from the cupboard (something I didn’t know was a rule).
Perhaps as a boy he received “helicopter parenting”, where anxious parents made his decisions for him, forbade him from taking risks, exaggerated the harm caused by his mistakes, catastrophised potential disasters, and left him feeling like he couldn’t be trusted to decide for himself.
The boy would notice that his friends were not subject to the same restrictions and control, and come to the conclusion that something must be fundamentally wrong with him. Other boys could be trusted, but he couldn’t, therefore he must be defective in some way.
How this affects relationships?
Once a validation-dependent Nice Guy gets into a relationship, his first instinct is to look to his partner for guidance on right vs wrong. It’s like he has no baseline morality or competency himself. He’s scared to risk guessing what is the right way forward on even the most basic tasks.
When he comes in passively like this – subtly deferring to his partner, refusing to push back on her ideas, and pretending to agree with everything she wants (often giving them impression that he’s “easygoing”) – she’ll eventually get accustomed to leading.
Before long, she’ll start to believe that HER way is the ONLY way, and that he doesn’t know how to do the most basic of tasks.
On the rare occasions where he’s either forced to make decisions and handle tasks she usually takes care of, or he has a breath of courage and decides to go for it, he’s so nervous and unpracticed that he makes simple errors, further confirming in both their minds that he is indeed incompetent. She’ll often punish him in some way (usually with criticism), further reinforcing his belief that he shouldn’t even bother trying to help in the first place.
It’s a vicious cycle.
So what looks like “weaponized” incompetence is probably more of an unhealthy back and forth dynamic the couple gets into, where the man avoids the risk of getting things wrong, forcing the woman to take control, leaving her thinking the man isn’t capable, which is then confirmed by his shaky attempts to do anything.
How much of this is the woman’s “fault”?
As I once saw a comedian say,
“Before I got married, I didn’t even know there was a wrong way to put milk in the fridge!”
While I don’t blame women for men’s behaviour, and it certainly isn’t their fault if their man is genuinely weaponizing incompetence (i.e. pretending just to avoid doing his fair share), we must recognise that any dynamic in a relationship requires both parties to contribute.
If you imagine the space of a relationship being completely full at all times, there’s only room for each person depending on how much room the other person takes up.
If, for example, the woman makes 60% of the decisions, there’s only room for the man to make 40%. For example, if she fills the weekend up with activities for the family before he’s had even a moment to think about it, there’s no room for him to wedge in any of his own ideas, so he won’t bother.
If the woman does 80% of the housework, then even the most eager man could only possibly do 20% of it. For example, if that man comes home from work and all the housework is done, he couldn’t help even if he wanted to – there’s literally nothing for him to do.
This is the problem from the woman’s side of things. She grows accustomed to taking up the decision-making and task-completion space within the home and relationship, so that even if the man wanted to improve, it’s not actually possible.
And to be frank, there are some women who push to create this dynamic. These are the ones that come from a background of entitlement or high anxiety, and have no tolerance for someone else having a say in how their lives run. Combine this with a Nice Guy, and the outcome is as predictable as it is inevitable.
In most cases, the woman is not to blame, really. It’s still on the man to respect himself, assert boundaries, and make decisions without waiting for her to sign off on everything all the time. If he was willing to risk upsetting her by doing things his own way, and was willing to push back on her ideas to fit in some of his own, there wouldn’t be a problem.
But if a woman is complaining about her man being “incompetent” and yet doesn’t regularly create space for him to lead, make decisions, do the tasks, and learn through getting things wrong (without being punished for his best attempts), then she can’t hope for improvement. She’s made it impossible.
Preferences vs Objective Outcomes
The problem often is that the woman comes to believe that HER way is the ONLY way, as I mentioned. This means her preferences become law, as if anything less is a failure. She can’t help but believe this because the weak man has reinforced this view over and over again.
If the man excepts this view, then he will lose sight of the fact that he is actually competent!!
Many married men were single once, and somehow survived on their own. Without guidance, they got the house cleaned and the shopping done and made it to their medical appointments on time. Men are not as stupid as they are led to believe.
However, they did such things in THEIR OWN WAY, which is rarely to the satisfaction of someone else, especially their woman (I know this sounds sexist, but find me a husband who disagrees).
Take the task of dressing the children. Wearing clothes that suitably protect them from the elements is good enough. Wearing clothes that match and are fashionable is a preference. Kids don’t need to look good by the mother’s standards. If you want your husband to dress the children, you must accept that the final result might make you cringe… but it won’t cause the kids any injuries!
If the man washes the clothes, he might mix the towels with the delicate underwear. He might not separate the colours from the whites. He might not use your favourite setting on the washing machine. But if, in the end, the clothes come out clean and undamaged, then isn’t that good enough?
Men, you must learn to back yourselves more. Understand that someone being upset with the way you did something is not objective evidence that you did it “wrong”. You need to get clear on what objectively good means. And you need to get in touch with your own preferences.
Respect your way as much as she’d expect you to respect hers!
This doesn’t mean you should be resistant to feedback, or obstinate about doing things in a sloppy way that barely gets the job done. This isn’t a validation of laziness or shoddy workmanship.
It’s more about you achieving things to impress yourself, rather than seeking to impress others. Do a good job by your standards.
If someone else disagrees, but when you measure the outcome you can see that it meets your requirements, then stand strong. They can do it themselves if they prefer their way, but they cannot complain about you not helping if you can do it to an objectively competent level and they refuse to accept it.
This isn’t about butting heads with your partner, but about the two of you understanding that the person with the “highest” standards is not necessarily “right” about everything. For a couple to take 50/50 responsibility for the partnership and the tasks it requires, each must accept the other’s way of doing things (if they objectively achieve the basic competency outcomes).
The Solution
It must be 50/50. The man must step up, while simultaneously the woman must step down.
The man stepping up means making decisions without seeking permission and doing tasks without waiting for instructions. It means he chooses what to do with the kids on Saturday. It means he puts the clothes in the washing machine when he sees the basket is full. It means he goes shopping with a grocery list that he wrote himself.
The woman stepping down means letting the man doing this. It means leaving the Saturday open and unscheduled. It means resisting the urge to do the washing and instead waiting an extra 30 mins for him to get home from work. It means holding her tongue when he comes home from the supermarket without the exact brands she usually gets.
In the end, what this really comes down to is both partners having an honest discussion about what it means to do things “right”, and how to share the workload.
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