How can i be more tolerant

[dizzybiatch]

I am at the end of my tether with DH

I risk sounding like a complete cow but the problem is his complete inability to follow instructions and his stupidity. Wish i could word it to make it sound less harsh but Im stuggling.

This weekend alone he has managed to break a 350 quid bit of machinery just by brut force, drive over our sons bike and completely mangle it, pour a whole bowl full of oil down the kitchen sink despite having on going problems with drainage (wonder why?)

I feel like I have no support from him only responsibility for him.

I gave him a list of 5 things to pick up from the shop. He came back with the exact thing it said not to buy. I had written 'DO NOT BUY XYZ CHECK INGREDIENTS FOR XYZ' . This isnt a new problem I have been allergic to this thing forever and we have been together 8 years. He knows, he just doesn't check despite it being written down.

I know people have bigger woes but tbh I am totally on the edge, i feel unsupported and like i have so much on my plate yet his only responsibility is his job.

He is intelligent enough, has a basic education to degree level, holds down a professional job although chooses to work p/t in a non stressful position since being made redundant from a very stressful job. I fully support this decision but it comes with a price. Biggest one being money. We scrape by and I spend a lot of time and effort doing budget food shops and preparing meals from bugger all. I guess this is partly why i get so bloody frustrated when he breaks things that cost money to replace and is careless with things like the drains which ultimately cost time and money to sort out.

Sorry if i sound like an intolerant cow but I just feel like i am banging my head against a brick wall.

This sounds so much like dyspraxia ...

www.dyspraxiafoundation.org.uk/services/ad_symptoms.php

Im not sure amilllioyears. Being a naturally suspicious person I have always felt he was trying to cover up so I didnt think he was an idiot but he makes the same mistakes time and time again. He gets fed up of me being on his back that i am sure of.

I have looked at the inattentive add and he does display a few of these symptoms. He is definitely a starter not a finisher. Procrastinator. Cannot multitask. Trouble listening in conversations.

Actually the trouble listening in conversations has caused a few big rows. Once when I was about to make a 4 hour late night journey with the kids I had asked him to meet me with the dc at a supermarket petrol station nearby where i would fill the car, do tyres etc for journey. He had been at his parents with the kids and was staying there for work reasons. The point of him doing this was to save time and get the kids home in bed as early as poss. I waited in the petrol station for nearly an hour. After driving to the other side of town to the other supermarket i eventually found him. He had been in the supermarket car park and swore he hadnt heard me mention the petrol station. I lost it that day. And cried my fucking eyes out with frustration. This is not an uncommon situation for us to find ourselves in.

Thing is if i said to dh have you heard of inattentive add he no doubt would have. He has worked with people with all sorts of SN and learning difficulties throughout his career. He would be completely outraged if I suggested he might have this condition. This is not a reflection on those who have SN just a reflection of how he sees himself. He has quite a high opinion of himslef and thinks he does ok. He is very prone to over estimating his abilities. For example he would struggle to put up a shelf but talks of building a house for us

Sounds like he could be a bit depressed but I think the real reason is because he's not listening or paying attention to you.

He's not focused, because to him it really doesn't matter about the shopping - or the bike. He's not bothered about the impact this has on you or the dc. Sadly this sends a strong signal to you that he's not considering anyone elses feelings.

Don't know much about it but if it was dyspraxia wouldn't he be more bothered about the family?

I expect it's his attitude that hurts not really the mistakes

I understand that this must be intensely annoying to live with. But he lives with it too, and he is the one doing the work to put these things right.

It's not fun being the person who takes twenty minutes to clear yr own kitchen table because y have to pick each item up before you can think about it properly, and therefore put it away.

Or the person who turns their ankle on a weekly basis, making you look permanently drunk in the middle of the day.

Or the one who loses their keys so often that it's sensible to clip them to your bra

Or who walks out of an aerobics class after five minutes, not because of lack of fitness, but because your brain keeps forgetting where your limbs are.

Or who cannot keep track of a conversation in a cafe, and pulls an inappropriate face at someone's bad news because you didn't filter properly and you just heard someone funny from someone else.

Or who has to return to the supermaket three times because you forgot bread, milk and eggs.

Some of his behaviour is probably just husbandry twattiness ..... But it might be that a lot of it, although seemingly really twattiness and thick, he cannot help.

colditz i have looked into dyspraxia before as our middle child can be uite clumsy. SHe is also very tall and a bit 'dippy' but that is the only boxes she ticks. SHe walked at 9 mnths, rode a proper nike at 3 and is pretty switched on to most things.

DH is pretty co-ordinated. He is quite active, he played a lot of sport when younger and was in the national team. He also has great rhythm.

I would say his traits are more like those of inattentive add, not to say i think he has this but if I were to pick from the two, ADD sounds more like him.

sorry for the typos, dc's all kicking off. Going to get them to bed and shall return. Thanks guys. I do really appreciate your thoughts as I am so at the end of my line with this.

colditz his problems dont affect him to the degree you just described. Work aside he doesnt have too much placed on his shoulders and work is not stressful. He only works p/t since being made redundant from his stressful job a few years ago.

Have you looked into Auditory Processing Disorder?

Alot of what you are saying sounds like my daughter. She struggles with processing and retaining spoken instructions and clues.

golf i googled it. What you say sounds like him but other onfo on it not so much. Maybe im wrong but or example when the kids are all squabbling in the car he will turn up his music and sing while I can't stand all the noise together. Just that in itself makes me think he doesnt have this.

colditz describes it v well. (I also think I have aspergers, certainly have dyspraxia and was hopeless at sports.)

I reckon he wasn't paying close attention to your meeting instructions, expected to hear supermarket, and so heard supermarket. (This fits with one theory of speech perception, analysis by synthesis, which proposes a sort of second guessing by the listener of what people are going to say, which is then supposed to be kept on track by actually hearing what they say!) I am guilty of this on occasion.

Not sure if I have much to add on the diagnosis side. It does sound v frustrating. Have to dash but want to ask quickly is he any better if stuff is written down for him? I know I am awful since DCs at retaining stuff if not written down - and tbh it is how I functioned all though school/uni/work. If I just hear it it just doesn't go in. Hope am not sounding like I am trivialising it "just write a to do list" and it will probably be tricky to implement in some areas (like how do you have a continual to do list of "do not put oil down the sink". But maybe a post it by the windowsill may eventually get it to sink in. He will remember the words because he has seen them?

Fishfingers he does prefer a list. I know this. He makes lists for everything which cracks me up as by the time he has his list written i can have half it done. BUt tbh he went to the shops with a list of 5 items and a do not get xyz he came back with xyz.

I have to say though, his attitude to the problems are a major red light.
And what's this about building a house! I don't know what to make of that.

Dizzy - DD will do that too. Especially if it's a song she knows. It's far easier for her to block out squabbling cousins and focus on one source of sound. And even better if she is just listening to words she knows rather then unfamiliar conversations iyswim. It's less to process, not more. She has become very effective at blocking out random or background noise and focusing on one thing.

Apart from when she is tired - it all goes out the window and gets too much for her then.

I know how irritiating it is when people do the whole 'online diagnosis' thing based on tiny scraps of information, but as soon as I read your post I thought 'Auditory Processing Disorder'.

OTOH, I know that DH (and colleagues on occasion) find me rather irritating because I can do this same thing about breaking things and not caring. It just doesn't seem to register in my mind as a problem. I can actually see that it is a problem, if talked through the implications, but it isn't mentally a problem until that happens. TBH, I suspect it isn't going to change with me.

I feel a bit bad for being so harsh, now, when everyone has been all forgiving.

But... if his problem is 'auditory processing disorder', does that explain his inability to follow written instructions too? And merrily driving over his son's bike?

herbaceous tbh i dont think he has 'Auditory processing disorder' because he often has a list and still gets it wrong. There are only a few things that struck a chord, not enough for it to be likely imo.

If i said to him 'make sure you bring the washing in if the rain comes on' there is a strong likelyhood he would forget.

If i said 'oh tonight i might fancy a shag' there is no way on hells earth he'd forget that!

Makes me think its a bad case of manitis!

Op, do you ever make him repeat the instructions back to you? If you do that, he will quite likely be able to repeat it as he's only just heard it, and then he is more likely to remember it when he needs to as he himself has said it.