I am not the keeper of all things - AIBU to be annoyed with DH

[SpookyPanda]

My DH has taken to asking me "do we have any xyz?" "Is the xyz dirty" "where are my xyz?" Its giving me rage. Today he was asking if we had any sellotape - he was right by the place the sellotape lives and I was in the middle of dealing with toddler DC.

AIBU to snap?!

Off topic, but dentist said he wouldn't recommend a shield until my teeth start splintering!! Does it help and was it a specially made one?

I wasn't suggesting he got an appointment, but that she should say it's serious enough to warrant an appointment.

This drives me up the wall. My husband says that he asks because it will save him searching for it and doesn’t understand my rage when I have to know where everything is. Even stuff that’s not mine. Yet nobody knows where my stuff is that I put back in the correct place and it’s not there as one of the muppets that live here has moved it and not put it back in the correct place.

it’s called a mental load and women carry so much of it.
I have taken the I don’t know approach but I get huffed at and the drawers and doors start getting slammed.

Suggest he has a word with his boss to see if they've noticed that he can't find things at work, because you're concerned he has a neurological condition. Say you need this information in order to raise the concerns with the GP.

Alternatively put a list on the fridge of every request that you get as you are tracking his neurological issues.

My DS, 12, does this. We ignore him or tell him to look properly. It works.
be damned if me or DW are going to run around looking and fetching for anyone old enough to do it themselves!
you try that with your DH.

If it’s his, I will say ‘where you left it?’, if it’s generic, I say ‘dunno babe’ in a vague way. Either way I keep doing what I am doing and don’t move. This has been a hard lesson after years of getting up and looking things and I am not doing that any more!

DS also claims he can’t make his own packed lunch = make it or go hungry
cant find his school lunch card = find it/sort it go hungry
cant find coat = find it/ be cold
cant find PE kit = find it or get detention
didn’t know he had homework = sort it, fix it or get detention
had no clean uniform = put dirty uniform in laundry properly or there’s no clean uniform
can’t load Dishwasher properly = made him do it for a week for ‘practice’
and on and on - you just have to leave them to it!
if that seems harsh on DS his 9 year old DD can do all of the above without complaint…

I recite ‘Backpack? Pockets? Bedside table? Kitchen Counter? Car?’ Whilst continuing with whatever it is I am doing. Whatever he’s lost will eventually be found somewhere he claims to already have looked!

@cul The standard answer in this house is "Dans ton cul?"

😂

My grandma used to say " In the coal-hole" (They didn't have one...)

This is my husband!!!
It drives me mad! I don’t help and often get cross with him for asking but still he does it!
Yesterday we were in a new car park and he was going to pay for the ticket before we left.
I said where I thought it was before he went and he came back having a strop because he couldn’t find it 🤦‍♀️
He wanted me to drive around to see if we could see it (no) and then he asked me where it was. I said I’d already told him and he claimed I hadn’t.
Told him to go ask someone else in the car park if it wasn’t where I said and he came back looking sheepish because it was exactly where I said in the first place!!
It really annoys me if I hear him on the phone for work as he is really competent there or finds out for himself the answer, just not at home!!!

My DH does this at times. Unless its related to something I was last using or cleaning, I used stock responses.

First time asking = "Don't know" in a very neutral tone

Second time asking using slightly different words= "Still don't know"

Any times after that is met with deep sarcasm = "Please keep finding different ways to ask me, this conversation is so enjoyable"

I think it's a "man thing" but I don't know why.🤔

Every women I know that lives with a man has this complaint.

My husband loses his mobile, glasses and inhaler on a regular basis.

Yesterday he lost 4 pairs of underpants.

If he asks me where anything is, I say "where you left them" or "under my armpit" then he stomps off, and I'm greeted to the sound of drawers being pulled out and shoved in, accompanied with a lot of huffing and puffing and deep sighs.

If he finds them I get accused of moving them....

Ah well...😬

My late OH was a sod for wandering round with something in his hand, putting it down insome random spot then not being able to find it, keys, wallet, Swiss Army knife, remote control, phone, the list is almost endless. The downstairs loo was one go-to place also the kitchen window ledge or the garage. I once threatened to buy him a bright pink wallet and phone cover.

“What will you give me if I find it?”

Please do this, it’s genius. And tell him that it’s a massive turn off for him to view you as a mother figure who is the default adult in the house.

Yeah..

'Widdlin, where's my craft knife/selotape/super glue/the butter/the dog lead'..

'I dunno, where you left it?'

He persists - it has been 8 years since I could actually put anything away or get anything out without his assistance.

I can move things from my desk, to my work table. That is it. I cannot reach anything above tit height, or much below it, nor anything anywhere the wheelchair cannot get. Therefore, everything MUST be where HE left it...

Yet he carries on trying to use my brain instead of his!

My sister rings me to get me to Google shit for her because I apparently am better at that than her (undoubtedly, this is true, because she is absolutely computer illiterate), but really it's because she wants to know something right now and can't wait until she gets home and can google for herself.

Theres also some sort of assumption that I sit at my desk all day not because I have work to do, but because I am on standby, waiting for people to ask me where shit is or what route to take to drive from fucking Lytham St Annes to central bastarding London.

In this house I get asked "can I help you with x"

X being a household task that as equal homeowners, either of us should be aware of and able to do. So no, you are not "helping" me, it is your responsibility to do it, as much as it is mine.

Equally annoying, walking past a job that needs doing (e.g. empty bin) and then asking "will I do that?" when you see me beginning to do it. No, I am able to do it, just as you are. You just choose not to see it needs doing.

Part of it, I think is just diverting responsibility or having a break from thinking!! .
We were in the car the other day, DH driving, we didn't need sat nav*, we've done the journey before albeit the last time about a year ago but it's not a complicated route.
Me : we're leaving at the next junction.
(Next junction was M25 joining to another motorway)
About a minute later, pass a blue exit sign saying "works only" (or similar) so clearly not an exit for public use.
DH: here??
Me : that says works only...??
I feel sure that had he been on his own in the car he would not have inadvertently come off at the works only exit, and just carried on until the very obvious merging of 2 motorways!!

*even if we have the sat nav on he checks with me, and talks over the voice telling him what to do! But is fine following the sat nav when I'm not in the car.

I've decided I'm going to go for this approach

It's definitely wanting to use my brain power rather than his. I got asked when one of his relatives birthdays was this afternoon. We have them all written on the calendar..

Did you write the dates of his family on the calander?

I would stop facilitating him. Does he send birthday gifts to your family?
My OH's family is his concern.
If he forgets his mother's or sisters birthday then that is on him- not me.

Yes my DH is like this; it's not unusual for him to walk through the house to ask me about something that's in the room he started in . Drives me nuts. I have told him, doesn't stop him doing it..

I usually respond with "I don't know, is it/do we?

Yep my DH can't search for anything either. If it isn't immediately jumping out at him then "it's lost!". Then I'll look, find it, and he'll go "oh, I didn't look that deep". Not lost then...

My stock response to most things is how did you live alone for 7 years before we met? It blows my mind..

@Fizbosshoes Yes! Like your presence means their brain is totally redundant, default to your brain!

My sister does this too but.. then argues with what I say. So she will ask me what exit off a roundabout, I'll tell her, then she will say 'this one' just as its almost too late, which makes me hesitate because surely I just said that one so why is she questioning it.. so she sails past and then blames ME...

At all major junctions I now inform her 'I have shut my eyes, I cannot offer an opinion' and refuse to speak until we're past.

She is perfectly capable of navigating her ass round the country by herself and does, FOR WORK on a daily basis.

DP does the 'not looking' thing, for him an item is 'lost' if on turning 360 around the room with eyes open, he cannot immediately see it/it does not leap into his hands. Do that in all rooms in the house, item does not appear, item is now LOST FOREVER, DRAMA AND DOOM.

Then theres some back and forth about actually looking meaning more than standing about eyes open hoping for the item to walk up and prod him.. and then I look or make him look somewhere I can't reach and lo... the item is discovered, usually right where I said it'd be!