I am so sick of DH and his shit communication

[Pissedoffandneedtovent]

It’s ruining everything at the moment.

We had a new oven installed a couple of days ago. DH was wfh, I was out, he said to leave the initial clean to him. I come back, the racks are washed and drying on the side, he mumbles something about having run the oven. I assume it’s good to go.

Tonight I cooked a meal in it and noticed some sort of flakes and debris lying at the bottom, making a pungent smell. I looked at the manual and it says very clearly to wipe away the debris after running it and to clean the insides.

Why the fuck did he not just say that to me? ‘pissedoff, I’ve run it but it still needs wiping down afterwards, do you want to do it or shall I?’

This is one in a long, long line of such incidences where 1 clear sentence would’ve saved me a lot of unnecessary work. So many times we have argued about this yet he mumbles, omits relevant facts, or ‘assumed you would find out yourself’.

He’s wonderful in every way but I am so very very very sick of this.

There are obviously better examples of what you are experiencing than this one because it is clearly very upsetting for you but I honestly cannot see what he has done wrong here. He washed the racks and ran the oven. If you noticed a smell you’d surely just give it a quick wipe and move on.

YANBU. My DH is similar and it’s exhausting sometimes.

I would have just done what he did. Rinsed the shelves/racks and made sure everything inside was clear of packaging stuff like tape, polystyrene, cardboard.

Not sure I'd have run the oven or wiped it though, after all, it's new. You are usually warned that a new appliance can smell a bit odd when first used, but that it isn't anything to be alarmed about.

So running the oven incinerates the ‘film’ from production (the leaflet says) which then collects at the bottom and needs wiping away. The steps in the leaflet were very clear and he followed 3 of the 4 steps word for word, before abandoning the final one.

Therefore when I opened the oven door it stank and was smoky.

In isolation no it’s absolutely not the worst thing ever, it’s just he does this all the time.

Every Friday I try to iron out what we are doing over the weekend (2 small kids, dog) and every time he barely responds. I go ahead and make plans, then while we are out he will announce we need to rush home for this or that sports match that he wanted to see. That’s not a problem but why didn’t he just fucking say when I asked so we could time accordingly?

Have you told him you are sick of it? Sat down and had a proper talk about it?
Is he mumbling because he's not engaged or interested? What's his viewpoint?

Yes, I have. I know it sounds dramatic but I’ve been in tears of frustration. It’s like he just doesn’t care, he avoids conflict at all costs so just says ‘yeah yeah’ and pretty much ignores me. I’m so utterly sick of it. The last annoyance was duplicating our entire food shop because for reasons best known to himself he randomly decided to go out and do it, despite the fact it’s my domain and he knows very well we have an online shop delivered weekly.

I think that whenever possible you need to make it so that the bad communication makes things inconvenient for him, not you. Like if he doesn't tell you about the sports thing he wants to rush back for until the last minute, just refuse, and stay put. Make the point - once - about how this is an example of the communication issue you've raised before, and then stop discussing it. It'll probably take a few goes.

Would he be up for counselling?

Now that is the example you should have led with…

This is a serious problem - I would be really annoyed with the waste of time, food and money.

Ah ok I see now, I didn’t get what you were saying from your example. Is he in the spectrum by any chance? my husband has a combination of time blindness, a complete inability to plan ahead and a different communication style to mine which means we confuse the hell out of each other, the absolutely obvious to anyone else in the world scenarios do not register with my DH. It sounds very similar to your DH in a way.

This weekend our difficulties included him planning a weekend away and only telling me at the very last minute that he had decided to leave our not very confident 16 year old daughter at home alone one of the nights which obviously I had to overrule, crashing a van when I had just said maybe you shouldn’t reverse here because there are obvious risks around, and finally forgetting his car key meaning I had to drive two hours extra to drop the keys to him or else my son would be on the side of the road I’d have happily left DH there

I have to constantly remind myself that he has a disability and murdering someone for their disability is thankfully for his sake very frowned upon.

The food shop thing is quite strange. However if you’re out and he suddenly remembers something he wants to do you need to refuse , stop enabling it you’ll find it changes much quicker.

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sorry, the above was a mistake.

OP, please can you tell us a bit more about him? It certainly sounds very frustrating!

Like PP, I was also wondering about the possibility of neurodivergence but there is too little information to fall strongly into that camp.

With the shopping, is it possible that he just likes going to the shop in persons and somehow thought he told you? He could have thought he was helping.

Is he very stressed?

What sort of work does he do? Does it rely on good communication?

How did he do at school?

Does he have any intense interests or hobbies?