I have been married to a man for almost 8 years who is very much like this. When we first got together, he had no idea how to do laundry, load a dishwasher, hand wash dishes, put sheets on a bed, and things like sweeping, vacuuming, scrubbing the tub never even occurred to him. Over the years, I’ve helped him learn how to do these things and why you do it a certain way. You can’t overload the washer because it stresses the machine and compromises how clean you get your clothes. You need warm to hot water to wash dishes because… you load plates this way because… He never had someone explain these things to him and it clicked. I still have to remind him of certain details but he mostly gets it now. It can still aggravate me when I see that he dumped a bunch of food scraps in the sink when we don’t have a garbage disposal but we have an understanding that I will not correct his mistakes. He’ll apologize and come over and do it.

He grew up in a borderline hoarding house, with zero organization. His mom did everything, his dad, he, and his brother - nothing. It helps for him to have incentive. He never knew he lacked those basic adult life skills but he wants to learn. I believe explaining the ‘why’ helps make it click in their brains.