Any advice on improving communication when disagreeing?

[buckeejit]

Just that really. Dh is great & I love him but he is oblivious to a lot of stuff. I think he doesn't see or value a lot of the things I do. He goes to work, comes home. Does do some housework etc

We get on great until there is a minor disagreement

Usually it's me that's driving dc about to their activities & tonight after a long day I said, do you want to take him to club? He said he'd take dc if I picked him up an hour & a half later, (I usually just stay & get a cuppa). I said no I'll drop him off & you pick him up....then dh said 'alright, I'll take him & stay or you'll get a cob on'.
I really wasn't bothered but while he was out thought that's a bit rich & brought it up when he was home in what I thought was a non confrontational way, e.g. ' I think you could have chosen your words better earlier, I've done almost all the driving in the last 6 weeks, instead of doing it because you're worried I'd be pissed off if you don't, you could have said You'd gladly go as I've been doing the lions share of late...'

Anyway, it descended into bickering when really I just wanted to get my feelings out. He trotted out the whole 'I work full time, I couldn't possibly take dc2 to club, I wouldn't be home on time. This is one of 4 to/from journeys in the week he can't do, fair enough but what about the others?! I pointed out that he'd done 2/24 journeys since school started for dc evening activities & then he said I take you to your club, (less than once a month) & I'm taking you tomorrow night-drop off a few miles away on a very rare night out.

The full time thing pisses me off too as I work at least 3 full days & do all the other grocery shopping & cooking.

Ideally what I need is a graph to show visually how disproportionate things are & how many hours I put in overall. Does such a thing exist? It bloody should. I might have to do my own spreadsheet. I think I started one before some years ago.....

Dh is a fairly recent driver. He's capable but gets the train to work so not overly confident & therefore reluctant to drive but I can't be the default taxi driver forever. I'm already the default parent!

I digress - anything that helps things feel less confrontational would be good. The fucker is lying here snoring now & I'm making a seething mental list of all the stuff I do that doesn't seem to get counted.

Meant to say when he brought up dropping me off tomorrow, I said 'it's a one off' & he said 'what's in it for me?'

I said it was like when he complains about mess & says 'none of this is my stuff'. It's mostly the dc stuff but he seems separated from the family sometimes

I only said yesterday it's no wonder so many women end up as single mums: men prepare them perfectly by doing fuck all for years beforehand!

The men of most families I know are exactly the same. I even read an article recently about how many fewer hours women sleep because we're the main care givers, housekeepers, organisers and facilitators in most families.

@KellyHall that's so true & every woman
I know has the same complaints. I want to hold dh to higher standards than that though, which is why I brought it up in the first place as I want him to think about what he's saying & in turn improve his thought process to be more equal.

I was just fantasising about me not being here to see how he'd cope but I would actually have to be in a coma or dead. If I was just bedbound, I'd still be directing & organising family life.

OTOH, if he wasn't here it would make little difference to me practically. I hate feeling pissed off like this as we rarely argue but he hates any kind of confrontation & gets super defensive when there's no need & now I'm just fucked off & feeling unappreciated.

From the description you provided its sounds like you both bickered over who did the club run. Then you argued and it’s doesn’t sound like the argument achieved anything. They rarely do because in an argument, people don’t listen, end up in a blame game and descend into point scoring. None of these are great approaches to communication or influence. In fact they are rubbish approaches.

On average women do more then men but it’s not a massive margin and it can be bridged. The issue in your family is that you disagree about what the difference is. But I wouldn’t focus on that because you will just debate and blame who does more or less.

From what I understand you want him to hear is that you work very hard and can no longer cope with the workload. That you need to do less. That’s the message you want to communicate. It’s not about him it is about you.

Saying that and then acknowledging that he works hard too and that he may struggle too avoids the blame game. Agreeing that it causes you both to be tired and therefore tetchy allows you to address the bickering and pointscoring.

Then you can both look at all you do and decide what can be dropped and what better distributed.

Lemon you are spot on there - that's the crux of it but tbh we've never sat down to discuss this sort of thing - he will get defensive if I say anything slightly critical. I'm annoyed as it takes me to pointing out an imbalance to get him to chip in.

I'm going to research a book about better communication for his Christmas gift box. Slightly passive aggressive maybe but I've had in my head all morning his 'what's on it for me comment' & it really rankles.

My advice would be not to focus on his deficiencies because this is not about him and what he does or doesn’t do. It is about what you do and the fact that you are doing too much to maintain your well-being. In other words you are going to have to drop things. The question as to whether he picks them up is secondary

Hey OP - I don't have any specific advice but when I was going through a similar thing with my DH and looking around for ideas on how to argue better, I came across this youtube channel called School of Life - they've got a video on here about how to argue with someone you love:

Just to be aware, I'm ASD so I have significant issues with real life communication at the best of times. As such, these videos might be a bit basic for someone with better emotional maturity than I. However, they did give me some really good ideas and things to keep in mind to make the arguments more constructive and find different ways to approach issues - but, as always, YMMV

Thanks - finite that was a great vid, I ended up watching the next couple that YouTube put on randomly & they were good too. Now I just need to work on losing my resentment & putting some of that into practice....