My boyfriend 26m and I 24f have been together for 9 years. For years, he would act like he was incapable of doing things. Like if I asked him to make a frozen pizza, he’d do the whole “🥺 I dont know how to do that.. you know I’m stupid… can you help me?” Helping him would really be me doing it for him. This happened with everything, it would be so frustrating especially since most of the time it was self explanatory, had instructions or a quick Google search.
I got tired having to think and do everything so to combat it, I just stopped explaining things that were obvious and told him to figure it out. For example, if he’s looking for his pants, and i walk in the room to help and without touching anything, i see it. I just point or say “it is right there🙄” I still do this, but today he asked where his paperwork was. It was sitting on the table, where it had been the last 3 days one step behind him. He just had to turn and face the table.
Him: where are my papers?
Me: it’s on the table in the same place.
*he glances at the table and lifts a shirt directly next to the papers*
Him: Where?
Me: Please look at the entire table before you ask me.
Him: *looks again and sees it* You could have just told me instead of being an asshole.
I wasn’t trying to be an asshole. I guess I just made a habit out of not letting him him play stupid. I don’t know if this is him using weaponized incompetence or not. How do you even distinguish the two?
TLDR; Boyfriend use to act like he doesn’t know how to do anything so I stopped doing everything I felt was common sense. Now I can’t tell if he’s using weaponized incompetence or if I’m just an asshole.