Is this a sign of something or just generally being f**king annoying?

[MaryPoppinsPenguins]

My DH is driving me crazy.

It’s lots of little things but with increasing frequency. Just a couple of recent examples from this week. Two nights ago he asked where his sunglasses were because he left them on the shelf. I said ‘I didn’t move them, but if I did they would be in the sunglasses basket’. He stomped around, checked the basket, came back and said they weren’t there and I’d clearly moved them somewhere. Next day he text saying it was so annoying I lost his sunglasses... I was at home so went to check the basket and there they were. (And there are only four of us!)

I was running late home last night and text him to make pasta for the kids and not wait for me. My youngest DD will only eat it plain with cheese. He texts back ‘there’s no cheese’... I said ‘yes there is, there’s a whole new cheese.’ He denied it. I got home much later, opened the fridge and there was the cheese, right at the front, middle shelf. Unmissable.

This morning I was leaving for the gym and getting the kids ready, I said ‘you took my padlock can you put it in my gym bag please?’ He said yes and went out up the hall. I got to the gym, no padlock. Called him and he said he had no idea what I was talking about.

People can be annoying, I’m sure I am! But AIBU to think this is something more?

I joke that DH's method of looking for something is to stand near where he thinks it might be, and wait for it to leap out at him. If it doesn't, then finding it for him somehow becomes my job.

My DH is exactly the same...if it doesn’t jump out of the cupboard and grab him by throat then it’s not there! It is obviously a man thing unfortunately.

TBH without additional info, it sounds like gaslighting. Especially the text that says 'so annoying YOU lost my sunglasses.....'
If he had just lost the, he wouldn't be laying the blame so thick on you. X

I don't have a DH but my DM would tell you that my DF is exactly like this. He is, I've witnessed it many a time.

He's had several transient ischemic attacks - where blood flow to a part of the brain stops for a brief time - in the last 20 years, so I don't suppose they've helped. But don't panic OP, he was pretty much the same before them.

I think he basically believes this kind of domestic and personal management is my mum's job, so he subconsciously abdicates all responsibility. He's a lovely, dear, kind man but like most men he thinks he's entitled to leave women to do all the practical (and emotional) labour.

This is very outing to those who know me, but the phrase "Where's the chicken?!" Is legend in our household after DH wailed it into the open door of our tiny, three-shelf fridge. He could not see the whole roasted chicken sitting there apparently.

Sounds like your doing too much for him. Stop organising his life.

Poor sleep?
Something on his mind?
Something that is always happening but now you are taking notice and "registering" things that you wouldn't have considered beyond *normal everyday mild incompetence before?

I realised a few days ago why its a man thing though. They never have to be as tuned in to their surroundings as women do. I really think this at least contributes to it. Walking around oblivious to everything is a really high risk thing for a woman to do - you're always aware of where people are, what they're doing, so there's a constant low-level training in visual memory, or observation at least. Men just don't have this.

Could be work stress?

If nothing on his mind, persuade him to have a check up with a GP. A few conditions can cause this sort of thing, from low sodium to underactive thyroid. There are quite a few easily treatable problems which can make your brain a bit fuzzy or cause absent mindedness.

I think there is something in what StrangeLookingParisite says about awareness of the environment. That, and social conditioning.

When I was married my husband shouted that he couldn't find his brown shoes and insisted that I come downstairs to look for them. When I came downstairs, he was standing right in front of his brown shoes, actually looking at the bloody things! I thought he was messing about, joking about his inability to find things, but no! He didn't know where his brown shoes were.

How I love being single!

That would be perfectly normal for my DH. We can have a full conversation about something and then half an hour later he has no recollection of it. TBH I do waffle rant on a bit sometimes so I don't blame him at all .

You know your DH best - if he is being weird for him, then I think you should ask him if there is anything wrong/worrying him. But if he's like mine I would just ignore and carry on as normal.

Mine does this.

We were ready to end each other after a recent holiday.

Are there towels in the room?

Is there a safe?

What island are we on?

Is that our flight, look Singapore, is that it (we were going to Kuala Lumpar)

I'm sure the hotel staff took my money, I think I had more although I forgot I went to the beach today and I left it in the safe I forgot to lock.

You don't need motorbike helmets here (for safety) because there's no fine for not wearing them so that means there are no accidents here

Where are the tickets I gave you (he didn't give me tickets because the tickets were electronic), yes I remember giving them to you, check your bag, show me inside your bag (turns room upside down for two hours looking for nonexistent tickets whilst I drank from a coconut by the pool)

Have you seen my..... "yes, on the floor"

What's the name of our hotel? (text message at midnight after going missing in a monsoon and walking for 25km in circles on a three km wide island)

I have to ignore him or I'll lose my mind. I let him fuss and occasionally be silly enough to try blaming me, I've learned to go sit on the terrace/by the pool/anywhere calming and let him be.

My dh is terrible for this. Just this evening - ‘are there anymore nappies?’
‘Yes, the pack on the floor, right by your feet’ 🙄

Two nights ago he asked where his sunglasses were because he left them on the shelf. I said ‘I didn’t move them, but if I did they would be in the sunglasses basket’. He stomped around, checked the basket, came back and said they weren’t there and I’d clearly moved them somewhere

We are clearly with the same person. Sunglasses, tools, clothes. Fucking everything. Gives me the absolute stonking rage.

I have learned to treat these questions as rhetorical, so that life is much more peaceful.

Yes, he is looking for it, yes i could stop what i am doing and go and point it out, where it is hiding in full view of anyone looking. If it were a one off, i would certainly do so, but its all the time, so i let it run and some 90% are found (eventually). The rest, yes, i do ask if he really needs me to point to it, mostly he then finds those, too.

It also requires not relying on his opinion of what we have in the 'fridge, or wasting a lot of food. Sometimes, that goes wrong but mostly...

Yup; I ask if he had a him look or a me look, and instead of getting the thing, I'll find it, take a photo of it, text him the photo and make him come get it even if I am right there with it.

I think the PP was right - they just don't need to know.

Oohhh, @TellsEveryoneRealFacts taking a photo is genius.

XH used to be second user on my credit card. After he lost his card two or three times (I forget, it's been a few years) I got tired of having to close down the account and open a new one, so told him to jolly well get his own card. He proceeded to lose that too, but fortunately round the house so I could find it. Then he lost it again, the exact same way: carrying it loose in shorts pocket so it fell out when he sat down. Obviously it was beside the chair (first time) or behind the bed (second time), as a little questioning and quick look determined. He said it was very suspicious that I'd found it so quickly; I'd obviously hidden it myself because I didn't want him to have a credit card. I said in that case why would I have given it back instead of denying all knowledge? No answer, of course.

Oh, I am so glad he is ex!

This sounds similar to my preteens rather than my husband! They have the same ability to "look for" things. I warn them that I will be cross if I look and find the item exactly where I'd said to look. They usually then manage to find it. You'd have to refine the language for using the same method with an adult... Or use the texting a photo method suggested!

The "so annoying that you lost my sunglasses" takes it from annoying partially deliberate helplessness to something with an unpleasantly aggressive undertone though, I'd nip that one in the bud sharpish!

Obviously stress or even young o set dementia aren't impossible as causes, but unlikely unless this is entirely new and out of character.

I read a piece in New Scientist or similar a few years ago. From an evolutionary perspective, in hunter gatherer societies, the males were the hunters, scanned the horizon looking for things to kill, so their long range skills were stronger. The females stayed near to 'home' minding all the babies/children and gathering fruits. They had to learn to see detail and identify safe plants to eat, so got used to recalling where they had seen things.

No idea if it is true, but it makes some sense and certainly holds true in my house. DH is another one who can't see the block of cheese in front of his eyes, whereas I can describe which shelf it is on and what is surrounding it without moving from another room.

@LuMarie Jeez I would have done for him on that holiday - well done
you on devising a strategy for keeping sane.
When it's written down like that it did make me chuckle though.
I think there's a book to be written there - seriously, Lu

This is my DH all day long
Drives me nuts

Me : there’s a pile of clothes on the bed please could you put them in that big carrier bag
Him: yes no problem
LITERALLY 20 SECONDS LATER
Him: why is there a pile of clothes here, shall I move them?

It’s a man thing, isn’t it? Not being able to see what’s right in front of their face...

No. It affects some women too you know.

@Pinktails

It gets better, the night he went missing in a tropical monsoon on an island he did not know the name of and walked 25km into rice fields and the ocean at one point, he arrived back at 1am, completely soaked through and bleeding all down his leg and arm.

“I fell in a hole!” he announced cheerfully.

Cracked me up:)

Yabu for allowing a child to dictate what she will eat