To think I maybe just have to lower my expectations and realise that DH will never change?

[confusedlots]

Numerous conversations about similar issues have been had over the past few years, but it’s clear DH never thinks he’s done anything wrong, and usually turns the conversation around to being about me nagging him, and we never get anywhere.

Dirty plates left on the worktop right on top of the dishwasher (why not just put them in the dishwasher?). On the odd occasion he might empty the dishwasher he leaves half of the clean plates on the worktop instead of putting them away in the cupboards which are right beside him.

Empty milk cartons left on the worktop instead of being rinsed out and put in the recycling bin.

He took DS out recently and they ended up getting soaked heading back to the car. They came home, DH got dried and changed and made himself a cup of tea and sat down. I was sorting laundry and just asked where DS was and he had left him in dripping wet clothes to play in his room and hadn’t thought that he should maybe make sure he got changed into something dry. DS is 7.

DH takes the kids to breakfast club 1 day a week (after I insisted on this) but this still involved me sorting out the uniforms, lunches, getting kids and myself ready etc. DH just got up and showered, had his breakfast and dropped the kids on his way to work. So I asked that on his one day, he sorted everything out for the kids too, like I do every other day. It was a disaster and the mornings were so stressful for everyone that I have had to intervene for everyone’s sanity.

The final straw was when I tried to calmly bring this up again recently and he actually told me that he didn’t think I did that much in the home, and I could tell that he actually really believes this. I do all the laundry (his included), the majority of the food shopping, a lot of the cooking (he does cook 2 or 3 nights a week due to our schedules to be fair to him), all the life admin, kids admin, sorting birthday parties/presents, booking clubs and lessons, etc, you know what it involves! So trying not to antagonise the situation I calmly said that if he felt I didn’t do very much around the home that he wouldn’t notice if I continued not to do it for the next month, and then he accused me of being petty and not trying to do the best for our family.

I honestly don’t know where to go from here. It’s the fact that he can’t see my point of view that upsets me the most, despite me trying to talk about things calmly and not be accusatory. He’s definitely got a degree of neurodiversity going on, although never diagnosed, so I’m sure that’s a major factor in this.

Help! I really think we should be able to make this work but I’m struggling to see how when he can’t see my point of view.

I would list the duties and the. Say to him which half are you going to do, and leave him to it. So say he has to empty the dishwasher, and he leaves the plates on the side, I would simply reload them in the dishwasher, and if he queries it would say they were left out so I assumed they were dirty

it will be hard leaving stuff but until he does it he won’t learn

My husband has adhd and can be pretty useless and chaotic sometimes. However he thinks im a goddess for juggling everything that I do. Anything less than complete appreciation would be a deal breaker for me.

Sorry to say this bluntly but he knows what he is doing. he will never change, this set up is working perfectly for him. he has mastered weaponised incompetence to the degree of happily making your son suffer the consequences. thats his way of punishing you for asking the baseline.
non of what you have described has anything to do with being neurodiverse.
I’d not want to live with a man like this, I’d think carefully how you want the rest of your life to look like.

My DH has ADHD and while I accept these things are on spectrums, I don’t think he’d do half the stuff in your post.

I was very sympathetic in the first points - DH struggles with exec function and will just not see dishes and mess. But he would never see the kids wet and unchanged. I do have to project manage a lot, but he does everything I ask of him, he just isn’t great at assessing it.

You have my sympathies, it’s one of those things that isn’t ’big’ but will grind you down over time.

This too - he thinks I’m a superwoman!

(Spoiler: I’m not, I’m just good at lists 😂)

He knows exactly what he's doing. If you ever get serious about breaking up then he'll change, showing you that he could have done all along, he just chooses not to.

I would start by not doing his laundry. Ay the same time I would not buy any presents/ cards for his family. Do not do anything at all which fascilitates his side if the family. So if he invites his parents around, you don’t prepare anything at all. Just sit there and if he asks what’s for dinner say how should I know. Let his parents know that he says you don’t do anything in the house. Embarrass the lazy sod.
This has nothing to do with neurodiversity.

What everyone else has said.

If you are resolved to stay with this man I’d stop doing anything for him and see how little he thinks you do then! It’s clear he isn’t going to step up for the kids, sadly, so he can sort his own stuff. The vengeful part of me wants to say I would be actively inconveniencing him the way he does you. However, I think if you’ve gotten to that point it isn’t great for the relationship and you need a serious talk, or you need to re evaluate.

I assume he has a job, and can multitask there and show initiative and meet the demands of his role. Therefore he’s just choosing to be a lazy husband because it’s easier. What kind of man is he, is he a good dad? I’d say not…

What job does he do? Does he have to be micromanaged at work or does he somehow manage perfectly well outside of the home? What I am asking is has he always been this way all through life or is this some new facet of his personality that has come to light since having children or living together?

Depending on all of that my response might be different. You do seem to rescue. If there are clean plates put on the worktop tell him to come and put them away. Same with dirty plates left by the dishwasher. He needs to get into a routine of finishing tasks.

The one day a week where he takes the children, ask him what he is planning to do next time to make it a success. Stop doing it for him.

Are you going to stay married to someone so basically incompetent?

I fought this battle for many years.
Then I went: why the hell am I stressing this much? He tells me I am the one who wants to go on holiday, not him, so I just booked it for me and DD. He didn’t blink. He then asked: so, when are we going on holiday as a family? When you’re booking it. He called his mother, she booked us all for a week in Devon. I went along on a couple of occasions, then I let them two take DD on holidays that involved getting lost for hours in the car and tea in thermoses in the car.

Then I stopped completely organising our weekends. I just organised me and DD, didn’t even tell him where we were going. Not to spite him, but it was always such a slog: he had to sleep till 11, then coffee, then wash, then moan about having to go out. I just left him to it.

I stopped doing anything he moaned I nagged about. His laundry, shopping, cooking, changing the bedsheets, sex, telling him anything.

I’ve been happily divorced for years now.

I have started to do this. When we were first married (10 years ago) I prided myself on buying Christmas and birthday presents for his family and remembering important dates etc. But in the past year or so I have made it clear that I have too much on my plate with our kids and my own family (who have some serious health conditions which takes up my time and energy too) and so his family is his responsibility.

Yes I do feel embarrassed when his family send birthday presents to our kids and they don’t even get a thank you. Or when he doesn’t bother to acknowledge a significant anniversary of someone close to him in his family. But I’ve tried to make it clear to his family that I have a lot on my plate trying to juggle lots of things on my own, although I’m sure they still judge me for expecting him to step up!

I came on to say something very similar as my husband is similar.

it’s the lack of appreciation for me that would grind me down.

I also realised, that for myself I wanted the control of doing things. Life admin, presents, kids stuff clothes etc - even if he was willingly doing it I would still want to barge my way to taking over for my own piece of mind.

there’s an article about my wife divorced me for not loading the dishwasher, or something similar to that. Have a read of it and maybe get your husband to read it…!

Here we go. He has ADHD, so he's excused from all boring, parental chores.

I'd actually rather my OH leave things on top of the dishwasher than in it because I always end up restacking it anyway. I don't really see why everyone gets their knickers in such a twist about it.

Heard it said numerous times, women marry men because they think he will change, men marry women because they think she won't.

That’s literally the opposite of what I said?

OP, have a read of this - I wonder if your lazy, sexist arse of a husband might benefit from it too. It's even written by a man!

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/she-divorced-me-i-left-dishes-by-the-sink_b_9055288

It seems a mixture of weaponised incompetence and wilful neglect. I have things I’m not good at and so does my husband but we both contribute.
The only way I could survive with a man like you OH is to live beside him and do nothing for him. No cooking or laundry.
Marriage is a partnership why on earth bother if one person in the marriage is simply contributing nothing.
Leaving a child dripping wet is cruel and beyond neglectful.

With a husband who is ND and lazy. Pick your battles if you want to stay married.
I never have done DH's share of life admin although I definitely am the default parent for our DD. I do the laundry but not his ironing.
I tidy up, but only as much as I want to do. Our house is not immaculate. Not it is a pigsty.
I too got fed up with waiting for him to organise days out etc, so just did my own - but he did notice and it's more equal now.
I don't mother him or micromanage him, but I do accept he is very bad at finishing anything and not organised. But he is also thoughtful and kind, generous with his time and money and is my choice for a partner.

We tried the Nipto app after someone on here recommended it. He did get a bit embarrassed when he realised how far behind me on points he was. App use didn't last but did show up how much I did. For me I can see my DP genuinely struggles with executive function and messes up his own stuff so I can see it isn't deliberate so I just work around it the best I can - leave his laundry, family stuff and stop jumping in to rescue him when he doesn't organise himself - and think that the positive is that I have control over lots of things which I have to admit I quite like (though some of it is that I just like it actually done in a timely manner) so stuff can be sorted my way, I plan what happens on holiday etc. I don't actually mind doing loads more and am better at it (dishwasher loading aside which he does have strong views on) but the lack of appreciation of all the invisible stuff is annoying

Do you work?

I feel like every other thread on here someone puts something down to “suspected” ADHD in themselves/partner/kids.

I have ADD - diagnosed. So I take medication so I can function well but before I did take medication - I ran a pretty tight ship on my life because I forced myself create systems and strategies to get shit done that needed to get done. The main difference now is can get the same stuff done without feeling compeltely rinsed of mental energy forcing myself to function. It’s not some excuse for everything.

Not everyone who has a short attention span or is bit scatty and forgetful has ADHD. It’s quite frankly annoying and insulting that now literally everyone is self diagnosing.

Some people are just lazy/rubbish and unobservant and it’s a very convenient fallback.

Yes of course I bet he does! 🙄 Jeez what women fall for and put up with…

Are all these men as incompetent in their working lives? Mmmm…

I think it’s nothing to do with not being able to ‘see it’ or neurodivergence. It’s pure good old fashioned misogyny - they think it’s women’s work and it’s beneath them.

All these excuses are what you tell yourselves because it’s easier to admit than knowing your DH is a selfish arse who doesn’t respect you.

You don’t need to lower your expectations. You need to raise them.

I hear you. I was married to a man who expertly weaponised incompetence, and, like your, also gaslighted me by saying I was controlling, ridiculous and clearly unable to do anything myself as I seemingly expected him to do it all. (There were many other issues, including abuse).

The individual tasks don’t sound in themselves a big deal. But they are. His approach ensures he has an easy life, no responsibilities or life admin, while simultaneously, you are left unsupported, without fair time off, without any true shared life. Using the ‘boiling frog’ analogy, you get to a point where you don’t even see how unsuitable and exhausting this life is, never able to switch off or truly trust him with anything.

You need to tell him very plainly. He can start to engage, and take whatever steps he needs to get there eg his own counselling (NOT couples counselling, at least not now, as he’ll only use it as another imposition by you & use it to air his perceived grievances) or - it’s over.

It’s that stark. You only get one life - can this be yours?