I’m gonna go with ESH because you shouldn’t have called him out in front of people like that. However, I’ve seen your situation up close and personal, as your relationship sounds a lot like my parents. I’m in my late twenties now so I’ve seen this behaviour go on for a long time and I’ll tell you, unless you’re putting your foot down, things won’t change.

My father behaved exactly like your husband in his marriage, and I say behaved because my parents are no longer married, and yes, his behaviour played a huge part in that. It drove my mum crazy. She had to make his doctor’s appointment, make any and all calls for him, had to do everything for him, it was like she had a third child.

The final straw for my mum came when my dad had been sick for a couple of days and kept asking her to call the doctor but not once decided he should just make the call himself, even after my mum telling him multiple times to do it himself. He made a big fuss about her not calling and that was it for their marriage. Loads of people saw the divorce coming, including me. My dad didn’t.

The sooner you address this situation with your husband (in a grown up, no name calling, no yelling, private conversation) the less likely you guys are to be stuck in this dynamic forever. It will be challenging, because your husband is so used to you doing everything for him. In fact, there’s a good chance in the beginner your workload will go up, as you’ll have to not only motivate your husband to do things on his own, you’ll likely also have to walk him through things. But that’s the investment you have to be willing to make to get your marriage into a better dynamic.

I know it’s easy to blame your husband for this as it’s so obvious to think “why the hell can’t you do this without me holding your hand” but remember that you had a hand in getting him to be used to the ways things are now. The way your husband experiences it, you are now making trouble where there was none before. That doesn’t mean there was no trouble, it’s just that he didn’t experience is as trouble because you’ve probably always to a certain degree helped him with things like this. It might have gotten worse as time went on, but I can’t imagine your husband one day suddenly becoming so dependant. So you’ve been nurturing this behaviour for a while.

As I said, start a conversation with your husband, explain to him why and how this impacts you, listen to his side of things, discuss together what is gonna have to change, how you two are going to get there, and when you want to have reached certain goals.

I wish you luck, and hope your marriage doesn’t end like my parents’. Though, I have to admit, my mum is much happier now than she’s ever been.