To pull DP up on his forgetfulness

[lastqueenofscotland]

DP is a lovely man to preface this moan with...
However he is painfully “forgetful” but only with certain things
So he knows exactly who his football team are playing this season in order and which games he’s going to and when. Remembers gigs he booked for months in advance and travel arrangements etc.
If he’s not that interested, game over.
We are off to a friends birthday thing this evening and in the last two days I’ve been asked four times about how we are getting there/will he have time to do XYZ in between.
I’ll tell him I’ve sorted something and he’ll ask me a day later if it’s been sorted. So on and so forth.
I’d not mind if it was a one off but it seems like it’s most things.
Aibu to actually find this really fecking irritating.

No, YANBU. We just got back from a driving holiday. It was me that organised, booked, planned, and paid for it, but it was totally my decision to do this particular trip, so I thought, fair enough. What was really annoying was the lack of buy-in or engagement once we were there, though. Every five minutes, it was "how long will it take us to get from A to B?" "How many miles is it?" Then he'd ask the same question again 20 minutes later. Every day. For three weeks.

It was unbelievably annoying, though I accepted it on that holiday because he was doing all the driving, which was A Lot, and generally he's great. If that constant questioning were magnified in our normal life, though, I'd be really exasperated.

Are you married to my husband? It’s incredibly frustrating. We’ll have a conversation about, say, who was taking which car to work. 1 minute later I’ll look outside and he’s driving the other car. Totally forgotten.

If it’s not something he’s invested in or organised by himself then he switches off. Then it’s either auto pilot or blankness.

He says he can’t help it but I don’t agree. If you’re that crap you should work on getting better at remembering!!

YANBU.

I also have one of those irritating bastards.

Does your bleeding head in.

Murderous rage inducing on ocassion in fact.

Mine is up the high street now. I know he can't remember anything to do with my needs or wants. I need some ballpoint sewing needles for my sewing machine. I gave him the packet (5 pack, sizes 11 and 14 only, still on the blister pack with all the writing on) and say while you're out please see if the shop has this IDENTICAL packet. I just got a phone call asking if this packet of 7, 5 different sizes, standard point, twice the price is the one I want. I mean, how the actual God damn fuck has he managed to forget what I want when he's holding the fucking old packet in his hand.

Bastard drives me up the wall, cannot look or think what he is doing (unless that is, of course, it involves football)

And....breathe!

He’s literally done it just now about the train we need to get later. I’ve been over this like 38718749189274792747284782 times

So, so annoying. DH does this all the time including holiday dates. Put them in your fucking diary alongside your golf tour dates, ski trip and football match schedule. He’s never once missed any of those and will move heaven and earth to accommodate these.

Family visit or birthday....when did you say it is? 🙄

Mine does it too. Or he'll start talking about something and I have to remind him that we had EXACTLY the same conversation yesterday. He just looks at me blankly. I think he hears words but doesn't actually listen to them, so he just doesn't retain the information. It drives me up the wall.

I think he is me. I have a memory like a sieve. I have to write everything down. Get a calendar

Yup. This is my DH. Quite early in the relationship I realised it was just a blind-spot. He is forgetful about all sorts of stuff and I have an excellent memory so it drives me insane.

I decided to ‘let it go’ and whilst I do still get irritated at times I think if it as a quirk rather than wilfulness which helps.

It’s everything with him though (except chunks of dialogue from fils he’s seen once) so it’s not deliberate.

He keeps a diary and notebook as an aid memoire but it doesn’t help much.

Mine too; unless it's about is hobby or other interest, completely switches off. The biggest bugbear though, is the not remembering a conversation we had about something. I can tell him where, when and virtually verbatim both sides of the conversation, he will deny deny deny, then get stroppy if I insist.

Mine expects me to remember the stuff that affects him. Like he's going to an away match or whatever. We all remember the stuff we deem 'our responsibility'. That's why we have a shared calendar, that way we don't plan each other's time badly!

Mine is the other way round. He researches all the holidays. Spends hour on it to get us the best deal. He gets a folder ready with a print out of everything. Even maps incase the day nav doesn’t work.

I forget everything.
I’m rubbish.
If I didn’t have him we would be late or be in the wrong place all the time.

I love him. 😍

I think he hears words but doesn't actually listen to them, so he just doesn't retain the information.

I think mine just politely waits for my lips to stop moving, then starts talking about something else.

Unless they are also like this at work it's deliberate/cant be bothered and can be fixed.

Yep. DH remembers every tiny detail of something he's interested in or wants. Rep live grown up stuff? I might as well be talking to the wall.

I thought I was alone in having a husband like this!

I have pointed out to him how he can remember the stuff he likes/is most important to him but can't remember decisions we made about 10 seconds ago (quite literally just a few seconds beforehand) when it is not to do with things which mean the most to him. I can understand it when he's not fully concentrating and doesn't take things in, I have been known to forget things too, but all the time!

Even using a calendar doesn't help much, he forgets/doesn't bother to check it anyway.

Example conversation:

Me: So shall we go to Tesco after lunch.
Dh: Yes, do you have a shopping list?
Me: Yes, so if we have a sandwich for lunch we can go to Tesco at one o'clock.
Dh: OK. One o'clock it is then.
Me: (Getting up to leave) What do you want in your sandwich?
Dh: Maybe some ham, what time are we going to Tesco?
Me: One o'clock, we just agreed. (Seething silently because I know this will happen again, soon, time and time again.)

He is also notorious for not being able to do two or more things at the same time (apart from going to the toilet and reading), so maybe I shouldn't have asked what he wanted in the sandwich!

Calendar on wall with full details of family commitments... tell him to look at that.... repeat endlessly. If it’s not on it doesn’t exist. First come first served. Oh and I vary time we have to be somewhere as he is always late... anywhere between 15-45 minutes

Yep, this is me. Frankly, I'm sick of it. I'm expected to remember everything. He can even be bothered to manage his own diary.

All he's interested in is news. Tbh its got worse since DC arrived. He remembers nothing of our schedule. Takes DC swimming, same time all year. In June he's still asking if class starts at 12. Or we'll be talking about plans for the weekend, we're going to friends for a bbq on Sat at 3pm, all agreed. A second later his friend calls, do you want to come for a BBQ at 3pm Sat? Yeah no bother see you there. I'll ask how he's going to be in two places simultaneously and he just looks blank, followed with a I didn't think. Fucks me off.

If I pull him up on it, and on the last year in particular there have been many rows, he says he's very busy. Like, I work full time, do 75%if the housework and 100% of the mental load. I've encouraged him to see a doctor (refuses) and I've sought advice from a solicitor re splitting up. It's killing our relationship and he doesn't seem to give a shit.

@Lollypop701 I've tried the diary. He said we should use a notice board. Tried it. Still doesn't work. Any other ideas?

Calendar! Hahahahahahaha 😂
Why would he ever look at the calendar ???!! ( my husband, I mean)

I'm a bit rubbish too, worse now this menopause is wreaking havoc.

But. He likes techy ways - so once they have been discussed/agreed details are texted or emailed. The small stuff too.

This has the added advantage of providing evidence when he says 'but you never told me'.

Yes, perseverance.. put calendar back up on noticeboard and tell him to look at it. It is the only response to his questions. ‘It’s on the board, as agreed’ If he doesn’t, go without him. If someone is accepting responsibility for someone else ... in this case You are acting as his diary, then he has no incentive do anything himself. Ultimately he KNOWS you will do it, answer his repeated questions, bail him out. He doesn’t expect this for stuff he has arranged himself so he’s perfectly capable. Don’t get me wrong my dh was a bloody demon at it. It took a while (and was irritating af) but he doesn’t ask me now, he looks at the board! Good luck!

XH was the same. I always had the mental load of nearly everything.

He for OW last year and still expected me to carry on reminding him about stuff for the kids. Nope...not anymore. Told him l don't do "Wife work" anymore.

He was furious. Told him that he's got a new social secretary now so she'll have to do it

I have to confess if my dp sent me up town for something as specific as a sewing needle l would freak. I flatly refuse to buy stuff that there is any faff about as surely l would bring the wrong one. So sympathies to dh in that case.
But in last 2 days my dh has forgotten which cafe we were meeting and sat waiting in another/ forgot his phone when half way through arranging a meet up with friends which looked like we had suddenly dropped off the map...among many other forgetting episodes.

"He's always been too lazy to think for himself"!

That's one of the things my DM said to me over the two or three years I spent trying to convince her that my DF needed to be assessed for dementia. He does have dementia - now diagnosed and getting progressively worse.

Those of you with the husbands or partners who are also "too lazy to think for themselves" might want to ask them what's so great about living in such a way that their habitual laziness of thought is indistinguishable from dementia or cognitive impairment!

My DF is in his mid 80s now, and to be very honest, in many ways his dementia hasn't made much difference, so I can very much understand why his habits of many years made it so much easier for my DM to deny the inevitable.

Whenever he drove anywhere, with my DM in the passenger seat, he would ask her for directions - no matter how well he knew the route.

He didn't bother to remember his two daughters' names - we were interchangeable to him. I react to hearing my sister's name as much as to hearing my own.

Home life was a constant refrain from him of:

"Where's my .... ?"

"When is xxx starting/finishing/happening?"

"No one told me about .... (something he'd been told about repeatedly)"

And yet, he knew fine well the wheres and whens of things that mattered to him!

Can you not programme into his calendar?

Set alarms an hour before you set off?

People like this are not "forgetful." They are self-absorbed, selfish, and immature. They only things they care about are those that hold their interest, everything else is someone else's problem. I wouldn't stand for it.