Who is being unreasonable - and what's the solution?

[AutumnDragon]

DS has a chronic illness, one of the symptoms of which is Hyperacusis (sensitivity to certain noises which causes extreme pain). He has had this for 6 years, so not a new thing.

At the weekend DH needed to mow and strim the garden. We live in a barn conversion and the "garden" is more field in nature and gets very wild if not managed. The petrol strimmer is one of the noises that hurts DS, the electric one is ok (not wonderful but manageable with headphones).

DS wanted DH to use the electric one, DH got in an arse and refused as it would take longer. He would not even compromise and do the back garden with the electric one, which would have been fine as DS could have stayed at the back of the house to minimise the noise from the petrol one in the front.

DS going out would have caused other issues to do with his illness, once or twice would be ok, but this is going to be a weekly argument until winter.

So who is right - DH as the work has to be done or DS as this causes him physical pain over and above the pain he is already in?

What really annoyed me is that DS can manage the ride on mower and did the majority of the mowing the day before. But if he does this amount of work, he then needs to rest the next day, so going out would be exhausting for him.
OP, is there any reason your DS can't do just a little bit, (not the majority of the mowing), on the ride on mower every second day, so he's not exhausted and it relieves your DH of some/most of the work? I have to confess I've never heard of Hyperacusis; there is whole world of people struggling with things many of us don't understand. He has my sympathies.

I should have read the rest of the thread before posting. OhNoNotMyBaby got there before me.

Mirador: Little things affect it, newspaper pages turning, the kettle, the beeping at a crossing, the engine noise sat in a car, even the sound of your own voice. I had to change mine in the beginning. The fear of the pain from noise can be such that it gets avoided completely, and with every thing else he's dealing with I can understand him not wanting to hurt more.

That's exactly it!

DH has had little patience with DS over this and felt that he was making it up at the beginning (DS has form!). It is the contrariness of it that I think exasperates DH. e.g. Our electric carving knife=hell, PiLs carving Knife - fine if kitchen door closed. The not going out is pure avoidance and I have worked really hard with DS on this. We run a business together (DS&I) and I have now got him going to the wholesalers quite happily, 3 years ago it would not have happened. But we can't push him out of his comfort zone too far as it causes massive payback. I push a little and get great results. DH pushes hard and I get the flack!

OhNo Yep, definitely a power struggle. I was reading another thread on here a while ago and the theory most commonly put forward is that the OP had 2 alpha males fighting over her. Her whole thread rang so true for the issues I have with my two, but I thought we were getting somewhere. The day before DH was the perfect father, then this and the pair are sniping and scoring points off each other again. 1 step forward, 50 back

PiLs live with us so can't be used for an escape route (except for me ), although sometimes MiL needs a lift somewhere and DS obliges (I love my MiL )

To those who agree with DH - me too, but DS is my PFB (and only one). I have an escape planned for the next weekend it happens although it is somewhere DH will want to come, so I'm not sure how that will pan out.

DS felt that he was doing DH a favour by doing the mowing the day before. He manages his energy levels very well, so had planned to do the mowing on the Saturday and do some office work (we work at home) on the Sunday as he can do this sitting down and it wasn't too tiring (mental work exhausts CFS people as well as physical). DH only decided in the morning that the strimming needed doing and he was doing it no matter what. If DS had known this he wouldn't have done so much on the Saturday. The mower is fine it's just the petrol strimmer that hurts, the electric strimmer is ok, not wonderful but manageable.

What a pile of crap.

How in the name of all that is real is this DS's fault or problem?

In essence DH is saying "I don't give a flying fuck if this causes physical pain to my child it's far more convieneant for me so tough shit"

I can not think of any other disability where that attitude would be considered acceptable.

How much of the mown area do you actually need to be short? Can you just mow a small area and leave the rest to be wild on purpose? Make it into a bee nectar bar.

Is there anything you could do make the garden require less strimming? I don't know how big the garden is but could you put down something around the borders, like stone or woodchip? Then you would be able to ride the mower right over the edge of the grass and no more stimmer? Or maybe do part of it like this so you could stimmer less?

It's not the mowing, but the strimming. The strimming is down the sides of the drive and so cannot get overgrown. The mover can't do this bit as there is quite a bank to it.

But the back garden is small and can be done easily with the electric strimmer but DH refused - which is why I ended up doing it.

I might ask MiL if we can test her hover mower on the bank, if it works and doesn't vibrate then I can do it. Of course, if I take over some of the gardening, DH will have to take over an equal amount of housework!