AIBU to leave DP because he's not very bright

[williaminajetfighter]

It's brutal I know but I just don't think I can stay with DP any longer because I find him quite ignorant and not very bright, and it is causing huge problems in our relationship and communication.

I know DP had a pretty poor education, left school at 15 and so is lacking in traditional educational knowledge. Grammar, spelling are very poor as is his general knowledge of maths, literature etc. His parents did nothing to foster a love of learning.

But then there is 'learned knowledge' since then and he isn't intellectually curious, hasn't really picked up a book since school, barely reads a paper (except the Metro) and thus has a fairly limited worldview. He actually shows disdain for knowledge, IYSWIM.

Finally I just don't think he's very sharp so he doesn't pick things up quickly.

It sounds incredibly mean when I write it all down but it causes huge problems on an everyday basis. For instance things I've faced this weekend in our conversations:

(a) I tried to talk to him about politics but the conversation blew up because he's so uninformed and got angry when I used the word 'libertarian' (really);
(b) I tried to have a conversation with him about household finances (which I lead) but he hates numbers and got cross;

(c) I tried to have a conversation with him about some elements of childcare such as more natural ways of dealing with baby eczema or limiting paracetemol but he thinks whatever I read is nonsense because all parenting should be 'assumed' and
(d) I tried to talk to him about about being a vegetarian and having veggie-only nights for the children but he scoffs at me because he's read nothing about the merits of vegetarianism.

These are just a few things I dealt with over the weekend and a reflection of my day to day. The other day I made a reference to Pip from Great Expectations - a pretty well known tome - and he just looked at me blankly. It sounds trite but it's pretty wearing.

When we got together I found him 'light and fun' and the years after were heavily 'operational' focusing on getting a house and having young children. Now that time has passed and we have more time for each other I am finding that we are just not a meeting of the minds and his ignorance and lack of intellectual curiosity is really offputting. I would like to grow older with someone who I can have engaging conversations with and although he is a fine father and a supportive partner who has never cheated and is really loyal, I just don't think I can be with him.

It sounds so harsh but AIBU? Has anyone else experienced this? From his POV I suppose it's not really fair to stay with him if I think he's not bright!

I think, in your case, OP, where he is being defensive and upset about the disparity, it is a problem, I am afraid.

Yes, I can see it would be frustrating. I was just warning you that these kinds of feelings can lead to really hurtful and unreasonable behaviour - blaming him for being thick rather than just acknowledging you both probably married the wrong person. The break needs to be swift and clean or you could really damage each other and your kids.

Time to end it and move on.

i was with someone I was intellectually incompatible with. At first we were great friends and had a laugh. After a few years it started to grate that we had little in common; he didn't read, wasn't interested in learning, mocked me for reading etc!

had to leave and felt so much better afterwards, I felt like I could be me again! Also it was nice to have proper conversations again.

I would say end it and find someone you are more compatible with. Unless the other stuff outweighs this issue in a postive manner. Do you love him?

Sounds like you think your way is the " right" way OP.

What a sad situation.
You will be hoping your children inherit your brains not his .
Do you love each other ? Sorry if I missed that bit

You're fundamentally intellectually incompatible, OP. I think you realise this. I could point out that this is maybe one of the major reasons to hold off before committing to someone and having children with them, but you know that yourself. There are probably people for whom intellectual disparity wouldn't be a deal-breaker in an otherwise decent partner, but I couldn't live like that. As a clever child with illiterate parents and who attended a rough, unacademic school, I spent enough of my early life pretending not to be clever. I won't do that again as an adult.

My husband's cleverness is, along with his kindness and funniness, the chief thing that keeps me interested in and engaged with our relationship after 24 years. I think you need to decide whether this is the ultimate breaker for you. He clearly has other good qualities, otherwise his fundamental lack of intelligence and intellectual curiosity would have been an issue at the start of the relationship...?

FFS, he might be a bit slow and thick but not as stupid as the person who shacked up with him and had his kids.

You think your views are the correct ones and his views are wrong. I think as others have said, you are just not in love with him anymore.

I do think you are being unfair. You knew about this when you settled down with him. It's like marrying someone obese, it's there, they might not change, you either accept it or you don't. And you did. I imagine you thought you would try and educate him or change him. I do think you sound a bit pompous about this. (sorry, that sounds rude). Are you acting a bit supercilious with him? (i.e. using the word libertarian) If so, he is probably kicking out and going the other way. If you lowered your expectations a bit, you could maybe meet in the middle? Mentioning Pip fro Great Expectations - you will have known he'd know nothing of this, why say it?

I fell in love with my DH's brain (big as a planet). I always do myself down as I'm really quite thick compared to him but he was happy with what I am good at, opposites attract etc. The only thing is, I read a LOT and my knowledge and general intelligence has been enhanced from that. I am appalling at maths but it really inspires my DH - when I'm struggling with something mathamatical I'm working out, he has very occasionally harrumphed with irritation. I tell him off sharpish and he backtracks, it's just in him as it comes so easily to him but he knows that I can run rings round him on plenty of other things. What is your DH good at? DIY? Plumbing? Tiling? I would love a DH who could do anything on those lines, I do it all!

Have only read the first page so will read the others but had to post..

Your OP really strikes a chord as this was me and my exh.. I remember reading in bed and him just staring at the ceiling which in turn made me feel that I couldn't read as it was just awkward.

As you can see from the post, we are now divorced and whilst his intellect wasn't the cause, he left me for OW, I made a cast iron promise to myself that I would never be with someone who wasn't my intellectual equal again. This sounds snobbish but I am not uber intelligent but I want to be able to debate and throw ideas around, something I could never do with my ex.

Like you, William, I got a lot of that from my friends and colleagues but it would've been nice to have that at home. I may be single forever more, but this is something I just wouldn't compromise on again as it is a very lonely home existence.

Oooh, someone with a name similar to mine! Never seen you before hereand - hello

No judging from me. I completely relate to what you are saying though I experienced it in previous/younger relationships and threw the towel in when it got too embarrassing/irritating.

I'm sorry that you have a much more complicated relationship to unpick and there will be fall out for the children but don't live your life with someone who makes you unhappy.

Hmm. Sounds like me and my DH.

Great guy, kind, loyal etc. It does bug me substantially that I'm the one who has to do all the 'important' stuff (for eg dealing with a solicitor when we sold our house etc)

But he's practical, hands on. The most amazing father. Can fix anything. Good fun, good at sport.

TBH he had a crap upbringing. Parents didn't give a toss about education. I always remind myself that had DH been brought up by my parents, he's been well educated and probably a lot lot brighter than he is!

I'm able to deal with our differences because the pros outweigh the cons. It's whether it does in your situation?

(fwiw, previous serious bfs, all very educated/intelligent..my god it was tiring them constantly trying to prove they were cleverer than I was. It's actually great that DH just says I'm the bright one Although, yes, I'll be the one doing homework. I'd put DH about Year 4 level!!!)

I'm really confused how you could have got as far as starting a family with a man you don't consider to be intelligent enough for you. Surely you can't have been so lovestruck that you didn't discuss anything weightier than, I don't know, maybe pop music. Did you not discuss politics, where the food you eat comes from, things that are in the news? Did you do all the work, research, planning etc when you bought the house together or did he play a part in it, expressing worthwhile views about what mattered, what sort of mortgage you should get and so on?

I agree that if you're incompatible, you shouldn't stay together because it will be miserable for both of you. And like you, I would worry about someone who doesn't get that paracetamol has a given dose for a reason and much more could be fatal, and who doesn't seem to care enough to want to learn.

Roussette - my DP is very handy, very practical and very experienced in the world at large, just not much of a thinker or reader.

I don't think I'm being pompous or purposely using language or references he doesn't understand - sometimes these things just come out (I work in the arts so a bit more normal to make cultural references as I mention a lot when talking about work)!

I think the reality is that I had a sense of what he was like when I met but it's taken a long time - literally years - to really understand, partially because he's not much of a talker IYSWIM. I'm as cross with myself as I am with the situation.

I can understand how a couple can get married and only later realise the incompatibilities as it happened to me. My ex was a fun guy and I enjoyed being with him however I was young and didn't know myself. We both shared similar backgrounds so on paper it could have worked. However when I hit my late 20's, early 30's the differences between us became to great and we separated. I think that as we started to share our values parenting the children the differences become very real. An example - I would not take the children out of school for holidays however it was something he would do - 'they will catch-up' attitude.Both point of views were not 'wrong' but they clashed.

It was best for the children that we separated as they would have lived with parents who didn't respect each other. We are better friends now and I see he should have only been a boyfriend never my life partner but for lots of factors - my age, upbringing, my knowledge of myself - I ended up in a marriage.

With my current relationship we don't agree always but generally we share values and I know we don't have that challenge. I would have been desperately unhappy had I stayed.

I often wonder if this is a recurring theme in the break-up of older generations' marriages. I've seen similar mis-matches emerge in my friends' parents' relationships, which have been exacerbated by the fact that the husband has generally had to study/train and go out to work, while the wife has taken the 'traditional' SAHM role (possibly with a routine, part-time job).

Over the years, they seem to diverge in interests, intellectual curiosity and world view; inevitably, the wife has become increasingly inwardly-focused, while the husband has sought wider and broader interests. In the end, misery results.

It's sad to see, but - I suppose - an inevitable consequence of such binary relationship roles, unless a couple is particularly well-matched emotionally or on a less superficial intellectual level.

I know quite a few women who have come to the realisation late. Not that they hadn't realised that their DH's weren't very bright/intellectually curious but they hadn't realised it mattered.

The early days were full of sex and partying (and both working full time). Then babies.

Then the school years come for the DC and Bam!It becomes galringly obvious that they are singing from very different hymn sheets.

You see, if you're passionate about the arts, then it's probably more than just intelligence that's the sticking point. DH and I are both intelligent, but we're STEM people. DH's intellectual interests are narrower than mine, though, as he doesn't understand bio/medical science, doesn't have as big a vocabulary as I do and struggles to pick up foreign languages. Then again, I couldn't do what he does for a living. I can code a bit, but he's the sort of person who can be asked by his boss to look at something in a language he's barely used before and use it as the basis for something new.

So, while we're not identical, intellectually, we are able to talk about the things that make us tick and we have complementary strengths. If you were to talk to either of us about Dickens, though, you'd get a blank look, at best.

Well William, I would love my DH to be 'handy' good at DIY etc, but he isn't. Yes, it's dawned on me more and more that he will never be able to do it (bit like you and your DH) but only you will know whether it's worth breaking up a marriage over. I wish he could do DIY but he can't and I accept that. He has other marvellous qualities.

Does he have the same parenting values? The same goals and aspirations for your DC? (by that I don't mean, what school they will go to, but is he someone for instance who doesn't believe in Uni, when you obviously do. All this you will have known I imagine, before you settled down with him....)

I'm just trying to say that being a total non-academic myself, it can be quite intimidating when someone pulls the brainy card in a certain way. My DH doesn't but there are people out there that do. I could, if I let myself, feel a bit foolish and useless. Maybe he feels like that, it isn't a nice feeling.

It does sound as if you've lost a bit of respect for him.

YANBU. People change so much in relationships. I may have missed how old you were when you got married, but I got married at 22, straight out of uni. I have changed so much in my twenties and early thirties - admittedly along the lines of becoming 'more me' if you know what I mean, being unashamedly interested in the stuff I love. Fortunately I was very lucky. My husband and I still have loads in common.

But now when I see 22 year olds getting married (and I know there will be many on here that age now and/or successfully married at that age) I just think 'you are going to change SO much over the next few years'. It will work out for some, but certainly not all.

Sorry that sounded a bit like a smug post. We still have our issues, just not the intellectually matching issue!

Yes, you sound totally incompatible. Try and be a bit more careful next time.

Suggest you don't tell him the reason you want to split. Hope none of your dc take after him, that would be awkward.

It's not just about whether someone is a good guy and you value their positive qualities, is it? One of the main reasons for marrying (as opposed to a few quick shags and a polite co-parenting arrangement) is for, hopefully lifelong, companionship. If you are on a quite different wavelength then it really isn't going to be a comfortable lifetime together. This is a legitimate concern, although when you are bringing up children together there's more reason to try to find ways to make it work if possible. But if it doesn't work despite trying, what do you do next? Stay together miserable, snipe at each other, set a really ghastly example to the DC?

I'm surprised only a couple of pps have picked up about the Calpol issue too - this jumped out at me when I read it. This is not just a man who isn't interested in fiction or politics; his willful ignorance could potentially be dangerous to his child. No wonder OP is a little edgy about it!