AIBU re DH

[Highnone]

having had a really difficult few weeks at work DH and I had a heart to heart and he agreed that he needed to pull his weight a bit more.
was promised a lovely evening tonight, my favourite drink ready and a nice dinner.
he has form for not listening to what I actually want and getting food etc that I don’t really like.
I explained clearly what I wanted (vodka, soda and lime)
home after work, he has bought lime and mint cordial and tonic water. I pointed out that this wasn’t what I wanted.
Big sigh, him pissed off and says I’m ungrateful. Big argument followed with me saying I’m sick of not being listened too
He has decided to go out and watch the kids play sport and left me to it. (This wasn’t the plan)
Amongst my sheer frustration I told him if he goes out I won’t be here when he gets back, said I was sick of it all.
I want to follow through on this but am
mindful I am ranging and full of emotion at the moment.

Awww I'm sorry OP, I get you and it's absolutely rubbish to feel like you're not important enough to be listened to, when he's quite capable of organising things when they matter to him. Makes you feel so small and insignificant doesn't it?

If I were you I'd go to the pub, even just a Spoons if you're a bit cash strapped. Have your voddy, relax a bit, have yourself a burger or something, then go home when you're good and ready.

Disagree, he made a mistake with the drinks!

Thank you for that article, it resonated with me very much.
I’ve grabbed a sandwich from a supermarket sat in the car eating it
He had bought a ‘posh’ ready meal - he doesn’t really know how to cook. It looked nice, but again was low effort.

I’m glad you found it helpful. Perhaps it would make a useful starting point for the discussion you need to have with him? If he reads it and doesn’t get it - or tries to avoid reading it - then you have your answer I’m afraid.

He won’t understand it sadly. Or won’t attempt to is what I would say.

I’m sorry to hear that. Perhaps that says something about the future of your relationship? Some thinking for you to do. Not rushing you into anything, but just saying, trust your feelings.

I haven’t read the whole thread but I completely understand where you’re coming from on this. My now ex, I knew everything he liked and didn’t like due to us being in a long term relationship, and I made the effort to get him the things he liked. If we went to a do anywhere and it was a pre-order menu, I could pick what he’d want without asking. I always made a special treat meal every now and then for him and made sure I got everything he likes.

Turn that round and he would be unable to know what I’d like out of three choices of dishes on a pre-order menu, he couldn’t buy my favourite things for a special occasion even though I told him, and I don’t like complicated things.

Vodka, lime and soda is not complicated. Mint and tonic water is totally different to lime and soda. For me it shows a complete lack of effort, recognition and also feeling like your partner doesn’t care enough to even know what you like. Almost like ‘this will do I can’t be arsed to look’

People will probably say I’m unreasonable but for me it just made it feel like I wasn’t worth spending the time getting things I loved and wasn’t worth the effort, like it didn’t matter. The effort was never reciprocated.

Edited for typos

I'm sorry to say that I think behaviour like this is deliberate passive aggression. He may or may not be consciously aware of it, but it betrays a level of resentment with you or with your life together. You may even be a proxy for someone else (e.g a parent or an ex). It doesn't really matter. What matters is that if it's a regular, repetitious thing, it's unlikely in my experience to improve, even if he acknowledges it and apologises. I stayed too long in a relationship like this, heard a lot of apologies and promises to 'do better' and absolutely nothing ever changed. Now I've left and have more perspective, I can see that it was an abusive relationship with a 'mr nice guy' type, who hid his passive aggression behind a veneer of trying and failing to please controlling, perfectionist me. The only thing that can improve a relationship like this is the aggressor genuinely engaging with his (ymmv) issues and getting therapy to unpack them. Your prediction about his reaction to the dishes by the sink article makes it sound as though that's not likely. Be assured it's not you who is the problem.

My Dh is a bit like this. He has inattentive ADHD.

Hes a good man though, and his intentions are good, so l forgive him.

I had an ex that would do similar with me. I would ask for specific items and he always bought something similar instead. And then would act like it was no big deal and that similar was good enough. It always felt purposeful done or as if he didn’t really give a shit and I should just be happy he bought SOMETHING. To me it was undermining me and my wants as not important.

I’m always a bit torn with these threads. It sounds annoying in a way, but then I try to think if it was my DP how I’d feel.

If he’d gone out making an effort but got it wrong, I’d do my best to be grateful and enjoy it. Problem is I hate tonic water and he knows that, so that would be a bit different! But if you don’t hate it (and he’s no reason to think you do) then he may genuinely have been trying to get you a drink to enjoy. On its own it doesn’t seem worth storming out or being ungrateful for.

F

Only you know how you feel about the relationship in general.

I'm married to a dickhead who would fuck everything up that he's asked to do, so I have to text it to him clearly. That gives him no margin for error.

Hope you're ok xx

FFS, it's not about one drink, it's a chronic pattern of behaviour and lack of effort.

"Im not a perfectionist at all. But he clearly doesn’t bother with attention to detail when it comes to me"

"he has form for not listening to what I actually want"

"He can pay attention to the things that appear important to him."

If you think this kind of treatment is acceptable, your bar is very, very low.

Bullshit. He couldn't even be bothered to get it right. My H drives me mad in very many ways, but in this situation, he'd have phoned to make sure he was getting what I wanted!!

You are showing OP the same level of care and disrespect her DH is showing her. You couldn't even be bothered to read her OP.

I explained clearly what I wanted (vodka, soda and lime)

I keep seeing you post "F" on threads. Why? You can just click "watch this thread" if you want it in your list of Watched threads. Or has something gone wrong with your posts?

I have inattentive adhd. Do you know what I’ve noticed - women with ADHD tend to ‘forget’ to meet their own needs/mess up things they need to do in order to meet everyone else’s needs. Because they’ve usually been in so much trouble since childhood about forgetting things that it’s lead to a lifetime of anxiety about upsetting people. So even though it’s really difficult to get things organised and not forgotten, women with adhd will prioritise getting what other people want/need correctly to avoid that inbuilt embarrassment/become ridiculous people pleasers and remembering everything they wanted/needed to minuscule detail.

Men haven’t had the same childhood conditioning. They will recognise that they need higher levels of self reminders to get things done correctly, but they will prioritise themselves and getting their needs met without fault. When it comes to remembering the little things, other people (like spouse/family) will come last on the list. Not because the capability to put in that extra effort isn’t there, but they’ve never been pushed to realise they have to make that effort. There’s no consequences, and often just cries of ‘well that how they are, at least they tried’.

Sorry, seems a bit of a sidetrack from the OP but it does come back around to making excuses for men - even in 2024 people will find any reason to say ‘well that’s just how they are’. It’s really not, they’ve just been conditioned to believe that they are the priority in their own life and everyone else is just along for the ride.

I understand your frustration, OP.

Last night, DH and I went out for ice cream. He went in to order and I stayed outside. He asked what I would like. I said ‘chocolate, caramel, or coffee, please. Surprise me’.

He surprised me with pistachio.

We have been married for 10 years. I fucking hate pistachio ice cream. Pistachios are ok, but not in ice cream!

I know he had the best intentions but I just wish he would listen sometimes.

For me, it isn’t a flounce worthy issue. But if similar things were happening in other areas of our relationship, I would react differently.

This. I wouldn't get worked up by tjud I'd just have asked him to get the vodka to add.

I think you should have stopped at coffee. The surprise me bit would possibly have made me think get anything.

Same

I would book into a cheap hotel for a bit.
Leave him to it.
I'd be moving forward with a divorce too.

I totally get what you mean op. It’s the lack of knowing you that hurts, even if he just got your fave chocolate bar/crisps something small to show that he knows you better than anyone. It’s not what he bought it’s the lack of thought and what it means behind it.

This is so common in men. Male entitlement means they only take real interest in stuff that directly benefits them. When doing things for other people, even simple things, they do it half arsed. This is also why they're not so sloppy at work, as their job and pay is directly connected to their performance.

The main problem is that he only thought about the immediate benefit to him, and couldn't see one as it was drinks for you. Completely missing that if he did it consistently then it would benefit him, and now by being sloppy he's made your relationship worse.

But of course, he's probably being deliberately simple minded, because then he can act all wounded about you being ungrateful. Completely forgetting that no one has to be grateful for receiving something different to what you asked for. That's why you can refuse substitutes at supermarkets!