To be put off by his literacy issues?

[Saratoga212]

It's becoming increasingly clear that bf (9.yrs older) has literacy issues.

After numerous things I, gently, suggested perhaps he could be dyslexic but not diagnosed due to lack of awareness and diagnosis when he was at school ..... He didn't say much at the time but has since expressed considerable offence at the suggestion
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(I actually thought I was being diplomatic, as opposed to saying "how can your literacy be so poor, coming from a family of teachers?" (The females in the family are/were teachers; I get the impression his late father was not literate)).

I'm also finding it off-putting, especially because he sometimes overcompensates/deflects by acting as though I am slow and obtuse when not grasping what he is saying in his incomprehensible texts.

(He mostly avoids texting).

Would this put you off someone for a relationship?

From his offence at what I said, I don't think he would be remotely open to eg an adult literacy course.

I completely agree with this. There is nothing shallow about wanting a life partner with a similar level of education and intelligence.

I can think of a lot of poor literacy mistakes that have nothing to do with dyslexia that I would find unacceptable in a prospective partner.

For example:

Not knowing the difference between bought and brought, effect and affect, loose and lose.

Writing should of, would of could of, instead of should have, would have, could have.

Writing or saying John and myself (instead of I), I'll give yourself (instead of you) a call, if you have any questions, don't hesitate to call ourselves (instead of us).

Use of all and any of these examples would tell me that the person is poorly educated and not a reader.

That doesn't mean I think people who make these glaring errors are bad people, but it does mean I wouldn't want any of them as a life partner.

We all want different things in our partners and most of us want a partner who is like us.

A lot of people don't think good literacy is important. Some people don't have good literacy skills themselves and/or don't enjoy reading. Those people will find each other and be happy.

There is someone for everyone.

This thread is unbelievably ignorant and so patronising 😅 many of you don’t have a clue what dyslexia is. Why are you assuming he has dyslexia???
such an old fashioned view that poor literacy skills= Dyslexia ….its not.
i found that when I worked as a teacher so many parents labelled their kids dyslexic when they simply had poor literacy skills.

My literacy and language skills are pretty bang on and I’m severely dyslexic.

Dyslexia actually includes

• finding it hard to distinguish left from right
• struggle with directions
• time keeping
• telling the time
• written words moving on the page
• unable to order things and sequencing
• at the age of 40 I struggle with saying thr alphabet!
• general disorganisation
• hard to recall instructions and the sequence given

I just hate this age old trope that if you’re dyslexic then don’t worry you can go into the arts or be a dancer ….im shit at dancing.

its just so narrow minded.

unless you are a professional or you have dyslexia please stop posting on and speaking with authority about dyslexia.

as for the OP if you’re not attracted to your partner leave and let him find someone he’s more comfortable with.

I find it hard to believe that someone whose mother was a teacher would spell the word special as speshul. I would expect that kind of spelling from a 6/7 year old or an adult who didn't attend school that much as a child.

That’s great if you are just on one tablet. My patients are on an average of 11. How do you know which to take when if you can’t read the labels?

(What my patients do is not take any of them at all, or take a random selection of tablets when they think their blood pressure might be high, ie when they get a headache or their sight gets blurry. And that’s why they are all on dialysis now, and half of them had strokes in their 50s)

My adult daughter is highly intelligent (at Oxbridge studying maths), but can’t spell at all (she’s diagnosed dyslexic). She recently spelt negligible as neglabel for a piece of uni work and has said that if your spelling is really bad the spellcheck and autocorrect don’t even work 😳.

My husband is way more intelligent than me but I can spell better than him.

I think some of the problem is that at school we are taught that spelling is very important and it is made out that those who can’t spell aren’t clever. It’s taken me years of being surrounded by intelligent people who can’t spell, to learn to not let it bother me.

Cause she doesn’t want a relationship with a numpty.

Aside from this issue, are you well matched? If you are, it really shouldn’t put you off. I couldn’t be happy in a relationship where there was no intellectual conversation. My DH and I discuss politics, current affairs and lots of other interests daily. I would be bored and put off in a relationship where someone couldn’t do that. The important thing is that both members of a couple are on the same page, they don’t have to be able to spell the words on it IMO!

You are being completely unreasonable.

Gosh! Because being together can be complex. There are many things that OP will need to take a lead on. It will be OP fully responsible for any arrangement re insurance (cars, homes, life, pets), any mortgage, legal agreements, finance .... long term it will be OP sitting with kids doing reading and that list is the top.of the iceberg. I don't even mention that long term it maybe crucial to communicate via text during the day etc.

I couldn’t be with anyone who I felt was intellectually inferior to me. I tried dating a really nice guy when I was younger who was a bit of a “Tim, nice but dim”. It was excruciating. I find witty dry humour extremely attractive and it soon became painful obvious that we were operating in different worlds.
Being dyslexic, however definitely doesn’t mean a person is not intelligent. They just process information differently. They are often extremely good verbally, but struggle to express themselves on paper. Dyslexic people are often creative and see the bigger picture - musicians, actors, architects etc - think Richard Branson.
But I find it worrying that if he has literacy problems he is not open about it or is trying to mask it by being defensive/deflecting.
How old is he? Was he from a generation where dyslexic people were just written off as thick by the education system?

If it annoys you that much... dump him.

No, it would not put me off.

My DP has Rhotacism (like Jonathon Ross), and struggles with certain words (says neegle instead of needle etc).

You do not owe anyone a relationship, but your reasons seem very shallow.

After my dad died, my mum was courted by a man whose attentions she did not welcome. He persisted, frequently writing affectionately to her.

She eventually returned all his letters with the spelling and grammar mistakes corrected.

Ruthless but it worked.

This. Your standards are so low.

Several things to unpack.

1. Is he educated? By that I mean specifically what qualifications does he have? Does he have GCSE's, A Levels, a degree?

If he doesn't have GCSE's, he didn't do well at school, either through having lower intelligence, or personal development issues or unfortunate circumstances.

2. Is he intelligent? By that I mean specifically does he self learn skills? Is he knowledgeable about things that interest him? Is he curious and does he observe and reflect?

Does he just go along with the herd or does he think about or have curiousity about things?

3. Go discuss with "the female teachers" in his life.

Is he specific about what whey taught or where they taught? Have you ever heard of a form of bullying dominance where people reference people of higher status they're associated with so you don't question their credentials?

I am very concerned that you're involved with a man 9 years older, who is making you do the run-around to prove what he is saying is not true.

He's exactly the personality type who will use domestic violent abuse to assume dominance.

I would honestly urge you to run for the hills.

You do not have the skillset. You do not have the strength. You are not streetwise. You'll become an abuse victim doormat. His ignorance (you'll plead he's flawed/vulnerable/he's sorry) will become your excuse for when he next hits you and why you can't leave him.

No woman ever listens. Low self-esteem women have a driving insecurity need to get involved with people who they perceive as "vulnerable and flawed" and "weaker than them", but whom they keep protecting even after their front teeth are knocked out.

But do yourself a favour. Ask a dentist how much it will cost you to replace your front teeth. Because you probably can't afford the £5k to replace them - and it won't help your self-esteem.

And if he lives in your neighbourhood, I'd honestly urge you to move. If you know him through your job - find another job. You're weak. You're a target. You won't stand up to him - so just get out of his line of sight.

You won't. You won't decide to find a better boyfriend who is articulate and literate. Is this the future you dreamed of for the rest of your life?

He will hit you. And then he'll become progressively more violent.

It could be that he's part of that unlucky cohort that were used as social and educational experiment. There's a few years of children that were taught reading and writing mostly based on phonetics/phonology

They were never actually taught to read and write properly.

So "speshul" would be a perfect example.

Most couples communicate via speach rather than text. It's fairly obvious what people mean when speaking even if they get the spelling of bought and brought mixed up and spell checkers won't pick them up because they are both words.

This is what worries me about the situation.

Speshul sounded out sounds exactly how some people would say the word.

It's one that spell check would pick up. However you still need a reasonable grasp of reading to pick out the correct option. Although some spell checks also let you look up the meaning, which helps if there are two words that both might be correct.

Two that regularly trip me up are quite and quiet. Spellchecker won't find them because they are both words.

But yes there has been many experiments over how kids are taught. And I've no doubt the "best" methods isn't the best method for everyone

You didn't read the OP did you?

You don’t sound compatible, OP, and it’s fine to admit that to yourself.

My FIL (83) was diagnosed with dyslexia in the 1950’s though so I think it would’ve been identified in your partner during the 1990’s. It didn’t stop my FIL getting a graduate degree and having a successful career in engineering. He’s a whizz with anything technical.

It sounds as if your partner isn’t interested in furthering his skills, I’d find that off putting, tbh. My DH (52) is the opposite.

While I can imagine the frustration and defensiveness the BF could be feeling, it's the fact that he visits it on the OP and his family that is absolutely not OK.

Years ago I taught a year 11 boy CSE English. While clearly an intelligent boy and not dyslexic, he had significant, very basic literacy issues, and simmered with anger, resisting all efforts to help. He gained a low grade CSE and left school.

About 18 months later he tagged along to a parents' evening as I taught his younger sister. He told me, without my asking, that he'd joined literacy classes and now couldn't stop reading everything: cereal packets, bus tickets!! The difference in him, such confidence and an open, pleasant expression. I imagine the new start, with older students, smaller groups and different methods helped him make that progress, but he had to make the jump.

I felt honoured that he'd sought me out to tell me. He must be over 60 now.

You are so right. I had a short relationship with someone similar a long time ago. He ticked most of the boxes (except the violence one). Initially I thought he was down to earth and uncomplicated. He wasn’t. He was just boorish and stupid.

That is true, but what is the quality of that spoken communication if you do not have the same interests, level of education and intelligence?

I want a to be able to communicate and share information with my partner on an equal level about the things that interest us both.

Someone who doesn't know the difference between bought and brought isn't going to be able to fulfil my requirement for an equal partner, even if we can understand each other on a basic level.

If you think basic verbal communication with a partner is enough, or have poor literacy skills are enough in a prospective partner, you will be happy with a man like you. That is fine. We all deserve to be happy with a partner like us.

@DelythBeautyQueen your missing my point. People with poor dyslexic spelling will use the correct word when talking, but may well mix them up in written text, either because they don't notice, spell check doesn't pick it up or their spelling is so wild that's the word predictive text puts into the sentence.

That doesn't make them thick, just poor at spelling.
I have a degree, which I got with out any additional help or time in exams. But came close to falling over "sentence" in my first paragraph.