Is it common for men to tell their female s/o to do heavy lifting to save installation charges?

If he has a hernia, he shouldn’t be lifting something that heavy. If you can’t lift it easily, and you don’t want to pay for installation, why can’t you just ask a strong friend or neighbour for help?
I wouldn’t pay $100 for someone to install a microwave, either, but if I couldn’t do it myself and my fiance couldn’t do it either, I’d just ask someone for help.

Of course, we don’t know the neighbors, who are old, yet. We moved here in Feb. We left our friends, or the male ones, back home. And they have pacemakers or look like they need one.
This is pathetic. I said I’d pay but he said nope.

I am not sure if it is common,but I am all about performing feats of strength.
If I can do it myself,then I will:)

@Aster – That’s really too bad. Sorry for assuming – I’m still a noob and missed out on your moving story!

In that case, I’d just pay. It’s not worth either of you hurting yourselves (in his case, even more than he’s already hurt) – hospital bills would cost more than the installation fee, no?

So….why don’t you help him? This doesn’t seem like a unreasonable request to me…Sixty pounds between two people is not a lot….
unless you’re injured as well…..or incapable of lifting 30lbs (ish)......or you’re too short to reach the required hight….

I sure as hell wouldn’t pay anybody $100 to install a microwave. Especially if my SO was able-bodied and nearby. 60 pounds isn’t bad, it’s not like you’ve got to benchpress it 50 times.
I don’t understand why gender has to play a role here. It’s a matter of doing 20 seconds of simple work yourself, or spending a good sum of money to have somebody else do it.

I’m a pretty strong female, so I lift all sorts of heavy things. But a person with a hernia, or a person (woman or man that is not so strong or is not very fit or elderly or someone with medical problems) should not be doing that kind of lifting. But, you can always find some friends or relatives, the more the merrier, to help with heavy lifting projects and you can avoid paying installation fees. You could probably find some neighbor boys and make some cookies or buy them a pizza, which is still less than the installation fee.

I would wonder what the hell was wrong with my SO if he wanted to pay $100 instead of asking me to help him lift 60
Lbs.
We’re in good health and fairly
young though. If there were health concerns, paying would make sense. I really have no idea what gender has to do with it though. Do people still believe that women are delicate little flowers?

Very common @Aster. Any heavy lifting I need done I just call @lucillelucillelucille…all it costs me is a piece of Chocolate Cake and a cold beer ;)

You wouldn’t believe some of the things I’ve helped my husband lift and carry.

@Dutchess_III Yes! And it usually involves walking backwards upstairs, shifting an awkward load so it will go past a tight squeeze and humping it into an attic! In the rain (like yesterday).

Yup! I once moved a hide-a-bed down some basement steps, virtually by myself. My Mom and daughter were “Helping.” I was slowly walking down the stairs backward, holding the couch over my head with both hands, and with each step the couch/bed came down a little more from vertical. Mom and Jen were charged with not letting it go into free fall on me…then Mom said, “Why don’t we just drop it?” I came unglued (you’d have to know my mom…she’d do just that without thinking about it.) I screamed, “DON’T DROP IT!!!” Jebus. It would have killed me.

Yes. It’s a guy thing. We can’t help it. $100 for a microwave is ridiculous. I would definitely ask my S/O to help.
That’s one of the important “must have’ qualities in a S/O. If I didn’t have one, I’d be screwing a block and tackle pulley system in the ceiling so I could do it by myself. ;-).

Consider it exercise for both of you.
Be thankful he is so reasonable, thrifty, and handy.

@Dutchess_III The worst kind of heavy lifting comes from when the other person (who’s plan this was) actually has no plan and you get to a certain point where the tendons are tearing out of your arms from the weight, but because the object doesn’t have a stable bottom (or it’s raining) you can’t put the thing down. Ouch!

@worriedguy My dad would totally hang a block and tackle, and HAS done so. You should see all of the stuff that is hoisted and hanging in the rafters of our garage. Oy vey!

LOL! @Kardamom Yeah…we were moving a FULL freezer chest once. I was on the dolly leaning it back as he pushed the front end up. I don’t know WHY but he kept telling me to go lower. I knew when I’d passed the point of my optimum balance and weight holding abilities, but he told me to go lower still….then he just dropped it. Damned near killed me not to lose the thing, but I didn’t. I really think I hurt something in my lower abdomen…

Once the people in the office I worked for were moving the offices down the street. There was this big, heavy guy who was supposed to help us. He and I got a completely jam-packed full 5 drawer filing cabinet on a dolly, then we had to get it into the back of a pick up. He was grunting and whining the entire time. I just wanted to slap him. I was in the back of the pick up, pulling up on the handles of the dolly. He was at the bottom, pushing. Got it about a foot off the ground…when, being the big baby that he was, he just gave up and let it go. It jerked hard on me. Instantly I braced every muscle in my body and held on to the dolly handles with everything I had. Man it was heavy, but I held it. After Big Baby let it go, he stood for a second looking at the ground and feeling very sorry for himself and all the weally hawd work he was having to do…then he looked back up and this “Holy Shit!!” look flashed across his face when he saw me braced, holding all that weight alone, and he jumped to and pushed that SOB’ing filing cabinet all the way up into the truck WITH NO MORE WHINING! When we finished, I jumped out of the back of the truck without a word, and left him staring after me, slack jawed, with an ashamed, “holy crap!” look on his face. Big Baby.

If it is something I could physically do, I would do it over paying installation in a heartbeat. I’m not exempt from manual labor just because I’m female, but I do have more limitations in this area than my husband and most men.

@Aster Understand, I am not poor. I could easily pay to have anything done. But that would be like paying to have sex. There are some things you just have to do yourself.

My S/O is also the “Designated 911 Dialer” when I am doing lab testing. She’s the bench holder for mirrors when I’m testing a laser. She is the 4th hand when I need to solder.
That what the S in S/O is all about.

In the long run those traits are much more important in a partner than the ability to call someone else to do it.
He’s a keeper.

@Kardamom I’ll bet your parents have been married a long time.

@Dutchess_III I think I’m in love! Call me if you decide to dump him! ;-)

@Dutchess_III LOL! I’m totally picturing the guy at your work as “Big Baby” from Toy Story 3!

@worriedguy Yes, my parents have been married over 50 years, how did you guess? : )

I live alone, so I do all the heavy lifting in my house. I’m too thrifty to pay someone to do something I can do.

Well, ok. The consensus is that I should willingly help lift the microwave up over the stove while he tries to figure out how to secure it up there. That’s what S/O’s are for. Oh, great. I had no idea. My father ALWAYS WITHOUT FAIL had some guy help him do things like this. He NEVER asked my mother to lift anything heavy. Not because she was female; because he was afraid she’d hurt herself. I guess those men don’t exist anymore. Have to go with the times. even when this thing has sharp edges that scraped my stomach lifting it up onto the bar
@worriedguy , helping solder is nothing. This sucker calls for a professional wrestler.

@Aster I do think you should help, but that doesn’t mean that it should only be you and your hubby. The microwave sounds heavy and sharp. Best to put on a heavy coat to protect your front side (I’ve done that many times with heavy sharp objects and my next door neighbor’s cat when he needs to be put in the carrier to take him to the vet). You should always have enough people to carry the weight and also to be able to steady the object while (probably the 3rd person) secures it to the wall. Always work safely, even if you ultimately have to pay for the installation. If you don’t feel comfortable lifting that much weight and you know that your hubby shouldn’t lift it either, ask for help. But that doesn’t mean that you have to hire an installer. Good luck and be careful.

@Aster My friend tells her husband that she only married him so he could do the things around the house that she didn’t want to do, like mowing the grass.

@worriedguy You like dumping full freezer chests on women?!! Wanna hear the rest of the story?...It had bocome unplugged at some point and was full of ROTTING meat sloshing around! Another motivation to not let the damn thing hit the ground backwards!!

Uh! Last year. Bought an old large screen TV at a garage sale. Helped my husband load it into the back of a truck. In the rain. With tornado sirens screaming all around us!

@Kardamom thanks. I will put on a coat that I wouldn’t care if it gets ripped. If I can find such a thing.
No one to ask to help, really . No one. If he can’t hold it up there while securing it into the opening who will? I will have to. I don’t think I can. He has been drilling more and more holes in the wall for hours. Right through tiles.
@chyna she actually could have been serious about what she said. But I wouldn’t have admitted such a motive to the poor guy!

@Aster If it’s something that will likely scratch up or hurt the people doing it, paying a reasonable amount someone else to do it safely isn’t unreasonable. But just 60lbs between 2 healthy people with regular precautions (like an old coat to protect you) is totally acceptable, I think.

Not sure if “healthy ” includes a man with a hiatal hernia.

@Aster Looking at it like that….that you have to hold it in place, up in the air, by yourself, that’s a different story, I think. I thought you were just helping him hoist it into place.
Get some 2 X 4s and make some scaffolding for him.

MAKE SOME SCAFFOLDING FOR HIM? YOU ARE A SCREAM!! He already walked down to a new house being built and got some boards for something like that. To slide it UPWARDS??

@Dutchess_III ” I was slowly walking down the stairs backward, holding the couch over my head with both hands…” ARE YOU JOKING AROUND?? HAHAHAAA!!!!

@Aster I wasn’t holding the whole couch up in the air! OK, it started at a vertical at the top of the narrow stairs and my mom and daughter held it in place. I went to the second step from the top and put my hands, palms out on the closest point on the couch that I could reach. That meant that at the point the vast majority of the couch was well above my head. Then I slowly walked backward and down, supporting the couch as Mom and Jen slowly let it “drop.” As I walked backward, sliding my hands down closer and closer to the other end, the couch came closer and closer to horizontal, then past horizontal, until I was at the very end of the couch which, at this point, was parallel to the stairs, slanting down. At that point I was able to pick up one end of the couch and slide it down the rest of the stairs. It was one heavy SOB! If Mom and Jen had dropped it…it would have done me some serious injury.

Is there something solid you can put on the counter that would allow you to rest your elbows on it?

Oh! So that’s what the little platform on a short board is for? I saw it in there but never asked. It’s way too small. its not for my elbows but to rest the thing on I guess. I dont envision my elbows being “rested.” I can see my arms out straight with the MW in my hands and him yelling.

@Kardamom “Yes, my parents have been married over 50 years, how did you guess? : )”
Any mope with a credit card can buy jewelry, dinner, fancy clothes – flashy unimportant things.
But once a woman finds a guy who’s fiscally conservative, healthy, handy, and a little creative she realizes she’s found gold and never wants to trade him in. Those are qualities money cannot buy. It trumps flash any day.
Look at the husband in any long term marriage. Every one of them has a workbench in the basement and full tool box in the hall closet or garage. Coincidence? I think not.
Congratulation to your parents! 50 years is quite an accomplishment.

He carried it by himself from the bar to the cooktop then we put it on a big box. Then we or he put it on an upside-down T shaped thing he made in the garage and told me to push the box out from underneath the MW. Now he’s on a stepladder with a drill . And the MWave is in the slot. We pushed it into the slot or big hole. Sawdust all over. Oh, my nerves. sounds of drilling

I don’t think so. Your SO is not only being cheap but he’s also being foolish to gamble you won’t lose your strength and become injured while hefting these things. I would ask him to enlist a stronger friend/neighbor so no accidents happen.

Well if you just moved in, that’s a great start to get to know your neighbors. I’m sure they will be very understanding, and more than willing to help.

That’s exactly what I said to do, @Aster! He built a “scaffolding” of sorts…

Yes, I know you had the right solution Dutchess !! GA

We women have to use our brains more!

As in plain common sense. I agree.

Men often do try to muscle their way through, rather than sitting back and taking a look at the situation….

@Dutchess_III That statement is absolutely true! They get one idea in their mind about how to accomplish a project and will not take any other/better/safer ideas in mind.

On the head, @Kardamom! My husband does exactly that. Decides on a course of action and off he goes! Bonzai!! Never gives any of it another thought. He’ll be tearing down a wall to get into the next room, and utterly miss the fact that there is an open door to the room just a few feet away! (This was an analogy, BTW!)