It's a lost card, but it may be the last straw..

[ginnybag]

I'm mostly venting, and it's nothing to wht some people here are coping with but I don't think I can do this anymore.

In the last week my DH has managed to lose: his keys, his bank card, his £200 leather coat and now my company car park pass.

It's typical of him, and the grouping of them has made me realise how typical. He's feckless and careless and I'm sat here, knowing that tomorrow I have to go into work to confess 'I've' lost the pass, and knowing that I'm likely to face serious disciplinary action because of it.

The keys were a pain and somewhat expensive. The coat was his issue - except that replacing it will come from family money and will mean yet another year without sorting out the back garden and another year our 2 yo DD can't play in it. The bank card was just 'one of those things' (I've done it - everyone has) but it has caused chaos all week as he's been off work with DD so has had to borrow mine, or not have a way to take her out - which has meant I'm a week behind being able to sort out all the bills and stuff.

But the car parking pass, as daft as it sounds, may be about to blow our family to hell - it literally might cost me my job.

And the worst thing - he doesn't care. He's sulking because I'm making him look for it. He's 'turned the car upside down' but when I ask him if he's looked in x,y or z, he hasn't. Ad now he's trying to blame me, saying I moved it.

I didn't. I haven't and I've had enough.

It's every time we just get straight. We've had years of issues, mostly caused by his family's various problems. It's life, it happens and I don'thold it againt him, but every time, everytime we get organised and top of things again, he does something thoughtless and sloppy like this and lows it all to hell.

He's gaffed car insurance, he's forgotten to ring people.

I feel like his mother, not his wife. I'm always the one to organise everything, always the one who plans. He just drifts through life, gormless, and I fix shit when it happens.

And I can't do it again. I just can't. I need a break.

Today, I literally paid off the last of mortgage and council tax arrears generated from bailing out his fmaily from the last crisis. It's taken us 2 years to get right - two years of worrying about every bill, of getting to week three of the month and panicking.

I got 5 hours to breathe, and then this. Tomorrow, because he couldn't be careful for 5 minutes, I may be fired, and then we're screwed. I'm half our income, and I'll not get nother job in our area, in my field without a credit check I can't pass for at least 12 months.

I love him. I've loved him for twelve years, but, right now, I'm done.

Sorry for babbling.

You should get him a separate bank account and his own card, so he can't misuse/lose yours. Make it clear that he's totally responsible for it and that it's nothing to do with you.

I'm no doctor and wouldn't want to attempt a diagnosis, but your comment that he can handle certain matters with great detail while being very poor with others does rather sound like a certain known condition. I really think he should see a doctor.

"The coat was his issue - except that replacing it will come from family money and will mean yet another year without sorting out the back garden and another year our 2 yo DD can't play in it."

Since when does the £200 leather coat get priority? Point him to Primark if that's how careless he is!

So when he came back £60 short with the childminder money, did you send him straight back out to withdraw the rest?

Because if there's never any inconvenience to him then there's no incentive to buck his ideas up, is there? What does it matter to him if he couldn't be arsed listening to you properly or working out himself how much money the childminder needs... He know's you'll fix it.

Your whole relationship sounds exhausting for you, it sounds like you are a single parent to two children but sadly one of those children is an adult.

He SHOULD NOT get a new coat at the expense of the garden! He can get on from ebay for a tenner and that is what my DH would do in the same situation!

I feel for you OP. I was married for ten years to a man like that and it is exhausting physically and mentally and emotionally and I am afraid I just couldn't hack it.

Lost keys, lost passports, lost documents, lost wallets, lost asthma inhalers, smashed windows where he let himself in after losing his keys and guess who had to sort out the repairs?

He nearly blew up the bathroom when he lit a candle under a plastic shelf that had aerosols on it, forgetting to turn off the gas oven, forgetting to pay bills. I actually had a sign on the front door saying in huge letters DO YOU HAVE YOUR KEYS? Didn't work.

I stopped bailing him out. I just refused. Lost your asthma inhaler again and haven't sorted out a repeat prescription? Tough. Lost your bank card and need cash for lunch? Fuck off, you can starve.

I cannot believe looking back I was that constantly angry, stressed out person.

Good luck OP - you will never change him whilst you bail him out.

Sorry OP but I agree with MrsGaff, whilst you are there to pick up the pieces why should he make the effort?

He doesn't look after things or bother to remember because he knows that you will pick up the flack and always have.

Why did he have your car parking pass in the first place? If it's that vital to you and you know how irresponsible he is, then why did you let him have it?

Personally I would make him start taking responsibility for everything he loses or forgets to do.

If you have a joint bank account then you should have 2 cards, one each and if he loses his DO NOT LEND HIM YOURS. Yes he will sulk, yes you will row, but until he behaves like an adult with responsibilities why should you treat him like one? He only acts in this way because you let him get away with it.

I know it's easier to keep bailing him out, you wonder if it's worth the rows, the sulks, the inconveniences. Well, is all this bailing him out worth the stress it's causing you now? It is worth your job?

When we discipline our children we do so because we know it benefits them in the long term. We let them learn by their mistakes. I'm afraid you will have to go back to treating him like a child and let him learn by his mistakes too. That will make life difficult, just like it is when a toddler has a huge tantrum and sulks all day, but you know that in the long run it will be worth it to save your marriage and your sanity.

So, no more excuses for him. You must take responsibility for the car park pass as I'm pretty sure that you weren't meant to hand it out to family members. So that's on your shoulders and you'll just have to suck it. I'm sure that even the Head of your Company has misplaced their pass and whilst it might be a security breach, it happens, we're all human. If you've never caused a security breach before and have a good reputation then you'll get away with a warning. But with something as serious as your job, you should not be trusting your incompetent dh to borrow things.

From now on, just bite your lip, stand your ground and let him take full responsibility because only when he's had to face the flack and sort out the inconveniences and hassle and apologise to people will he start taking more care to look after things and remember things.

You are not his personal secretary. He is a grown man. It's about time he started acting like one. I hope you can take a step back too, for the sake of your marriage.

I cannot imagine how stressful this must be for you OP, it would drive me bonkers. I would be so angry with him!

OP it all sounds so exhausting for you - Thats the feeling I get and know only too well - I do agree with previous posters who have said the only way to make him stop is to teach him a lesson he wont forget in a hurry;

+Cheap useless coat from Primark or similar

+Take his keys off him and buy a key safe - This means there is a back up

+Do not let him use your card - Give him a small allowance each day and if he looses it or its not enough then tough titties

+Treat him like a child - When we leave the house I have to say to my DS "Do you have your X Y Z" and now I say it to my DH in the same tone - He hates it and in the last few weeks has started to pick his coat, keys, phone and other bits up before we leave the house - So it definitely works for us!

I know how frustrating it is when you try to get through to them only to pull a repeat performance out of the bag and you just feel like walking away - You have to weigh it up - I decided the good outweighed the bad but my DH is on very thin ice and he knows it and is doing something about it

And yes, start with the coat. Spend that money on the garden for your dd to play out in because that is WAY more important than a jacket.

You should not be replacing what he has lost all the time, that is not how they learn to manage responsibility is it? If you lost something you'd probably do without, so why are you treating him differently? He should not be putting his luxuries ahead of what needs doing to the house which would benefit all of you. What a selfish man if he actually does spend that money on himself!

Come on now, be strong. Close your ears to his objections and refuse to budge.

Oh god, I really hope things didn't go too badly at work. Best of luck.

Why do you think he lurches from one crisis to another whirling the rest of you round in the process? More importantly, why does he think he does it?

Sounds like a family thing? The OP has helped pay off "family debts" so they are obviously drawn to organised people who will then pick up the pieces for them.

If he's been brought up this way it'll take a lot to get him out of the habit. But habits can be broken and it might just send a clear message out to the rest of his family that you are not a pair of crutches for the entire family to use at will.

I think the problem here isn't so much that he loses and forgets stuff, more that he doesn't take responsibility for sorting out the consequences.

My DP would have apologized for getting the wrong amount of cash out, then gone back for the rest. Therefore there wouldn't be an issue.

He needs to face the consequences, as other posters have said.

But Natasha, for the OP to take control of the joint account (and indirectly, all of the household finances) just gives her more things to be responsible for - she shouldn't have to! She shouldn't have to give him his pockety money every week and make it clear that once he's spent it, there's no more. That's what you'd do with a six year old!

Teapot- I think the problem is not just that she is responsible for it but that the way he acts makes her job so much harder. She needs to arrange things so that his carelessness has minimum impact on her.

But isn't that just doing things for him, so she knows they will get done? Isn't that what he wants? He thinks that if he makes himself look as useless as possible, she'll just roll her eyes and give up asking, and just do it herself instead.

Yup, she needs spares so her life is not inconvenienced by him and then she needs to stop lending him things. Tell him simply that he can't have it and he'll have to resolve the problem himself.

I don't understand why strong women often make excuses for their partner and will put up with their own lives being majorly inconvenienced in order to avoid a row.

I do wonder if he likes crisis? It just sounds odd that every time things are ok he manages to lose/forget/mess up something. How on earth did a crisis in his extended family lead to mortgage arrears? Why would he get a new leather coat? Tough shit, he lost it.

I would give him an ultimatum and mean it. But do not give it if you don't mean it.

Open your own bank account, each month transfer your bill money into your account and anything else you'll need then at least the financial side of it is sorted and less for you to think about, if he then wants to bail family out then at least it won't be coming out of household money and there won't be much left for him to waste.

Give a neighbour / one of his family a door key, next time he loses his then he has got no excuse not to sort it himself. My hubby lost his for the millionth time, he had to wait for me for over a week every night in his car to get into the house after losing the last spare one. It was only when we went shopping together that he got another cut because I wouldn't let him have mine. No way!

OP hope things were ok at work today

I agree that you need to make him have responsibility for correcting the problems, that's the only way you can resolve this without feeling so resentful.

There could be a number of reasons why he is like this - it could be his upbringing as his family appear chaotic and lack responsibility. He could have a disorder which impacts attentiveness, he could be selfish and just couldn't care.

Either way you need strategies to deal with it - if you can't change him (which you can't) can you change how you react and feel about this? If you knew it was a 'disorder' not malicious would that make you feel differently about it?

Are you supposed to keep the pass in the car? Maybe you need to put it elsewhere when you are not in the car if he is careless but the li8kelihood is that it has slipped down somewhere, I second taking things apart!!!

Thinking of you OP and hoping things get sorted at work.

I do feel for you. It is so easy to slip into being the enabler as, then at least you know things are being done.

I handed over chunks of responsibility, like car tax, insurance etc and I resolutely refused to have anything to do with them. It did mean that I had no MOT for four months( of which I was blissfully unaware) but I think that shocked him into actually trying to manage things.

He also doesn't use any form of diary, address book etc which drives me mad as it means I am the household oracle....
Just lowers your respect for the man-child...

I feel so sad for you OP. I hope you are ok.