To be stressed out about DH and his portion of the "mental load"

You know that saying “Why have a dog and bark yourself?” Your husband has decided who can do all the barking in your house. He’s far too clever and quirky to be bothered with such trivial things as putting his snotty tissues in a bin, it’s beneath him, but not apparently beneath you.

Are you American? If not, the word is rubbish.

people who struggle like this SOMETIMES have executive functioning issues which are often an indicator of ADHD.

if he has ADHD he needs to learn about how his brain works and how his executive functioning is letting him down. Dr Barkley has some fantastic material on this - I listen to Spotify podcasts but there are lots of other ways to access it.

if it is an executive functioning issue then he will struggle to work out the remedial action and then on top of this he will struggle to put it into place consistently, eg he will get better for a while and then revert back to old ways.

some ADHD brains have a little voice that tells them to cut corners. This may or may not be happening in your husbands brain. you are labelling it as forgetting when it’s actually impatience and the inability to do things in steps.

the best solution I have found is a reminder on a phone with a list of steps saved in the text part of the reminder. He will have to be very disciplined to open the reminder and let it interrupt whatever he is in the middle of. Some ADHD brains cant cope with interruption.

he will be completely unaware of all the little things you do and have no idea what mental load feels like.

if he has come from a dysfunctional family he may start to belittle what you. It depends on the severity of his condition - in severe ADHD taking responsibility is a massive issue.

the other option if he doesn’t have ADHD is that hes a bit arrogant and doesn’t see mental load as important.

My DH is a bit like this. My DH probably has ADHD, but feels he is a it old to do much about it. As he doesn't work as much as me, he does pick up quite a ot of housework. He is completely responsible for the washing, getting our DDs' clothes for the next day and the dishwasher.

I do almost all of the admin and I do find it frustrating when he asks me things like "which day do I have to drop DD1 to school?" Because it is always the same day each week and it just feels like he can't be bothered to remember. But I think he must not see the patterns in our lives and every day must be a confusion for him.

The thing I've done recently is put an A3 plan for the week on the fridge. It shows what kit and uniforms our DDs need each day. It's in lots of detail as it has to cover things like which week is which for DD1's 2 week timetable.

This has made me realise that I don't have to manage everything for him, so much as manage the bits that I find annoying. I'd be creating tick lists or process flows for the things that are most frustrating.

Why be a martyr? Get them on school dinners if they’re too young to make their own packed lunch. If they’re secondary school age, they should be doing their own lunches.
I’m interested to know what hours each of you work out of the house and at home. If he is out of the house from 7.30am til 6.30pm every day, whilst you’re out 9 - 5 3 days a week, then I think you should be doing more.

IMO, you have to really negatively impact men before they change.

Stop cooking for them. Stop cleaning their clothes. Stop doing things to benefit them.

My DH drove to meet me in town with our DD's. He didn't bring their coats, but he was wrapped up warm in his. I demanded he took it off and I put it in the car. If he thought it was fine for the children, it is sure as hell fine for him. I will never be on the side of these feckless men.

Well, the thing that did it for me definitely won’t work for him!

I joined the Army Cadets and then the Army. The self discipline they instil in you is amazing but as I joined in the 90s the methods are no longer in favour! Basically it was fear, shouting, drill, drill, practice, practice, practice, fear, fear, shouting, PT as punishment, shouting, fear, drill, practice.

Before I commissioned I had a female WO2 standing nose to nose with me. Yes touching! Screaming and screaming at me for a transgression by another Gunner.

I had to get a grip on my personal admin, my field admin, my battle admin, my hygiene admin, everything just to make it through basic training. I did not want to be RTUd (the shame! Returned to unit)

My personal admin is now shit hot as a result.

Yes, I agree, however.....my husband is 75 yo and seems overall more competent.

Ok, practical - his chores are those he can do at the start or the end of the day, and they are inviolate. So if that means getting up 30 minutes earlier, or going to bed 30 minutes later, so be it.

DH used to be terrible at managing lunch boxes foro the kids. I got annoyed I had to spoon feed him. On plus side, now he does it fine. I just did need to get him started.

I agree with a previous poster - he can do all the cleaning up at the end of the day, put a load of washing on, on a timer, for hanging up before he leaves for work. Lunch boxes and breakfast in the morning. Bins can be done at the end of every day too. Once a week that involves putting them out for the bin men as well.

Do not use the word "nagging" about yourself. All nagging is, is justified annoyance at someone failing to do what they should be doing.

It sounds like he is doing so little to contribute to the household/mental load that I can't believe that this is all personality based.

I have a personality that easily forgets and I struggle to tidy up as I go but I set myself reminders, use routine and tend to do one big tidy at certain points in the day rather than tidy as I go. I'm quite chaotic and can be prone to a bit of mess and forgetfulness. Just saying, there are ways that he can overcome these personality challenges he has even if it may be a struggle for him.

Having worked with some of these "quirky, gifted, intelligent" types I can tell you that they're the same as everyone else in terms of not doing what they should do and have to be forced and managed to make sure they do, when they should.

Adopt the same at home if you want things done and don't put up with their nonsense.

Does he "forget" to do half his job when he's at work OP? What would his employer say about that? Honestly, this is all complete bullshit and weaponised incompetence and the worse thing is you've actually fallen for it.

Bloody hell, he's got it made hasn't he?
He has managed to get a wife who thinks he's just far too intelligent, wonderful and 'quirky' to throw his snotty tissues in the bin!
Really, he needs to set up a Ted talk thingy so other men can pay him to find out what magic he used to suck you in and be so completely under his spell....
Take it from someone who hasn't met this 'amazing' man that he is taking you for one hell of a ride and you seem happy to go along with it.

Routine is absolutely crucial. It's much easier to have a routine which you've become acclimatised to than to rely on noticing that things need to get done. It takes a lot of the mental stress off. So rather than thinking "Does the bin need to be emptied?", it's much easier to think "I pop the bin bag out on the way out with the kids every morning". No judgement or thought involved.

I think it is a good idea to have areas that he is 100% in charge of, as you are describing.
My suggestion would be checklists / alarms on his phone:

• on bin day: are the bins out? are the bathrooms bins empty? Are liners back in? Etc
• every morning before leaving the house: is the DW empty? Are there tissues on my nightstand? Etc

But stop doing things for him! For ex when the bins are full, just use a plastic bag for what doesn’t fit during the few hours until he is back from work. Hopefully, seeing a bag with rubbish in should be enough a clue.
Same with the liners, don’t you think he would remember it if he had to clean the bin because it was used with no liner in?

It is easier to remember things when you have experienced the consequence of not doing it.

I agreed with my husband what tasks he'd take responsibility for and got him to set a series of reminders on his phone. He once cancelled an alarm without doing the task, and I went so full-metal-jacket apeshit, I put the fear of God into him and he didn't do it again.

If I see things slipping these days, and now I'm perimenopausal and dont have an ounce of patience remaining, I take the approach of saying "Is there a reason why you think you can take the piss out of me and not sufficiently pull your weight?"

YABU for the ‘no fault of his own’. It is his fault, he’s a capable adult, and if he chose to there is lots he could do about it.

He’s pulled the wool over you eyes and made you think the “quirkiness” is him but it’s not it’s you being gaslighted and controlled into thinking he is incapable of putting a bin out but working at a high level of intelligence? Tell him straight you aren’t stupid so stop making out you are!! Get the bloody jobs you need to do done when they need to be done as we all know you are perfectly capable!! The only reason he stops doing them is because he knows you will take over!!

This. If he can repeat experiments at a high level in order to cure cancer ( or whatever) he can empty the bin and flush his tissues down the loo.

I have a 19 year old son with ADHD.

He deals with stuff like the bins by having a phone reminder to empty his bedroom bin the day before bin day. He also has phone reminders for other things like laundry (he does his own) so his clothes don’t turn smelly in the machine. He has come to learn that routine is the key to him getting everything done. When he was a young teen he saw it as boring and controlling but now agrees that things are better.

The problem I have as a woman with executive dysfunction is that no one has my back. If I fail, we're late for school, the kids don't have the stuff they need, we live in a tip and we're all miserable. Hence why I've started threads several times on this site asking for advice to make our routines work better.

The problem your DH has as a man with executive dysfunction is that, like many men, he has a partner who'll catch him if he falls and remedy his failings. So the only person he's pissing off if he doesn't sort things out is you. And in his mind, although I'm sure he's very apologetic about it, that's not the same as pissing off his work or his colleagues - men like him tend to be very motivated by external validation outside the family.

Hence why it's you on this site starting this thread about how you can implement changes to make things better.

If he's really serious about making your lives together easier, what he needs to do is identify all things that he's forgetting to do/not managing to do at the moment, and put in place strategies to embed them so deeply in his day-to-day routine that they become second nature, he just does them automatically. He needs to wake up and think "Dishwasher", if that's one of his jobs. It needs to be the first thing he does in the morning. He needs to programme his mind to think "bins downstairs" when he's brushing his teeth at night, and every time he leaves the house, he should be thinking "take bins out". Eventually, this will become second nature.

Tell him to tape a picture of the bins and the dishwasher to the back of your front door so he sees them as he goes out in the morning. It might take a few weeks, but it'll eventually seep in.

So because he's intelligent (supposedly) he forgets to take the trash out??

Give me a break

How does he do things at work? Does he have the sort of job where he gets told what to do all the time and just has to complete those tasks? Some science jobs are like this, especially the more junior positions.

If no, there must be a method he uses that works for him there which he could employ at home? Putting entries in the calendar reminding him to do things? Doing things on a set day? Making a checklist.

Agree why needs doing, pick the ones each of you would be better at and then leave it to him to manage. It won’t be immediate and you’ll have to just leave things as they are in order to show the consequences. But ultimately he needs to come up with a system himself so it works for him. I highly doubt he would be able to get away with this sort of thing at work unless he’s micromanaged and genuinely has no consequences if his work isn’t done!

Just leave him to be messy and stop cleaning up after him. There shouldn’t be that much to do after bedtime with 1 dc anyway.

I have adhd and autism and find task management absolutely impossible a lot of the time.

I need visual reminders like a whiteboard on the fridge with tasks and days they need to be done on.

Then I use the eat the frog method to get them done. Do the worst tasks first then move on to more palatable tasks as it makes the transition to relaxing much easier.

Obviously some things need prioritising. You can't put bin bags in a full bin.

I do also sometimes stack bin bags though in smaller bins. Like 5 bin liners ready to go and the top full one just gets removed to leave a ready to go bin liner already there. Only works in bins you don't put wet things in though so theres no risk of leakage.

Thanks OP. With the "can't multitask" thing I would suggest agreeing a pre-dinner to do list so whoever's home ticks off "lunchbox - check washing, fold or tumble as needed - stack DW" or whatever. He doesn't need to multitask, but would he commit to spending 10 mins doing this list tied to some trigger like coming in the door, or a 5pm alarm? On your days you do these things too.

If he doesn't like the idea, talk about why and see what other solutions he has. I'm not convinced this one is really about multitasking but intent and prioritising.