Is this normal for couples or am I slowly being driven mad?

[Binky55]

I really would like opinions on this. I feel like I’m going mad. Am I asking too much here?

Boyfriend and I have been going out for nearly 5 years now. We have a 2 year old ds together and I have a 7 & 9 year old sons from previous relationship.

We only moved in together when I had our baby, so for the last 2 years I’ve been learning to live with my partner, with a new baby and my 2 sons in a new flat.

My partner has a good heart, I fell madly in love with him after the rotten break up of my previous relationship. He was everything I wanted but something niggled at the back of my mind that I was compromising myself....he makes me laugh but hes never made me crack up laughing, his jokes are awful and sometimes just not funny. He doesn’t have that ‘banter’.

Anyway, living with him is becoming a great drudge. I’m going to list a few cases in point:

Never takes the bins out, when asked he always says ‘what? Now?’
Never takes the recycling out.
Never takes the dirty nappies out.
Constantly talks about what different job he’s going to do and I mean every day and night, truck driver, driving instructor, taxi driver, gas engineer, windscreen fitter - I even got a letter from google addressed to a psychic medium (him) the other day. No lie, it’s constant.
Never buys electricity or checks if it’s running out.
Never washes anyone’s clothes apart from his own.
Never cooks. Takes no part in meal planning.
When he comes in he never asks what’s for dinner.
Never is interested in feeding anyone, I swear not even breakfast or lunches for the kids. He doesn’t eat, food is nothing to him. Where as to me it’s everything! I love taking about food and he couldn’t care less if he eats.
I’ve been losing weight recently and every night he buys cake and cream and asks me 10 times if I want any.
I have almond milk in my coffee, he never uses it when he makes me a coffee, I get whole milk.

He drinks coffee to excess, I’ve never know anyone who has coffee after coffee all day.
He never puts our son to bed.
Has only ever bathed him a handful of times in his life and that’s after I’ve had to ask him to.
When we’re out supermarket shopping he stands around with the trolley, expecting me to do it all and drop it in the trolley rather than him walk around with me.
His driving is awful, whenever we go out he has numerous people bibbing him. Just recently he didn’t even know the right hand lane on a round about was to turn right 🙄

I could go on, there is so much more but I’m starting to feel upset re-reading this.

The biggest thing is he doesn’t listen. Now I know most men have their moments but my partner will not take in an arrangement, I have to tell him numerous times the hour, the date etc. right up until we’re practically leaving. He cuts in and talks over me, he does this with the kids as well. When I’m talking he is always looking at the tv, never takes in anything I say because I have to tell him the same thing again and again.

Really would like your opinion of him because I feel despair at living with this.

this is not normal!

Really my initial thought was this must surely be a joke? Why on earth would you want to be with this person? Why are you bothering to post about him? Just leave him.

You've gone off him.

These 2 points contradict each other completely:

Never is interested in feeding anyone, I swear not even breakfast or lunches for the kids. He doesn’t eat, food is nothing to him. Where as to me it’s everything! I love taking about food and he couldn’t care less if he eats.
I’ve been losing weight recently and every night he buys cake and cream and asks me 10 times if I want any.

Maybe OP doesn't feel that cake and cream count as feeding a family with 3 young children. I wouldn't.

OP, I can't see what you're getting out of this relationship. You deserve better and no, it's not normal.

It sounds like you made the classic mistake of 'well, I'm having a baby with him, so I'll persevere and he won't be that bad eventually'.

Being a single parent isn't easy, but really, what is this man adding to your life? You've made a long list of his bad points - what does he do to make your life better? You haven't given any examples of how his 'good heart' shows.

There are lots of things to sort out. Maybe some of them can be attributed to mismanagement of a medical condition. But plenty of them stem from being a lazy, selfish man who takes limited interest in his partner's life. I honestly don't understand how he could make your tea wrong each time - if he had a poor memory, a post-it note next to the kettle would sort that. He just doesn't care.

The only thing you've been unreasonable about is the amount of coffee he drinks each day - the rest of the list is just awful.

Reflect on what your life would look like without him in it. I suspect it will look happier.

The moment I read "he has a good heart" I knew he was going to be a waste of space.

Why women tolerate this is beyond me.

Raise your standards, and give your kids a decent role model.

He's not going to change, do you want the rest of your life to be like this? Maybe I'm being harsh, you could try post it notes by the kettle, getting a chores routine going or talking to him seriously about how his behaviour makes you feel. But be prepared for all these tactics to fail, and when they do, make some serious decisions about your life.

Good luck OP, life as a single mum is tough, but might be better than what you have now.

@BalloonSlayer I realise that. He has a habit of buying lots of sweet things like cake, biscuits, chocolate. I don't agree with him giving this to the kids every night, who would but that's what he does. Even though I've asked him not to buy this stuff.

What does he do for a job now? How does he manage at work?

Do people with ADHD not bother to interact with their own kids? And get annoyed when asked to?

Not necessarily. I mean, also, having ADHD (or not) doesn't preclude somebody from also being an arse. But it doesn't sound like he's not interacting with them to me, more that he's not taking care/responsibility for them, which, TBH, if you have ADHD, you're not actively aware of that specific defecit and trying to compensate for it (with reminders or whatever), and somebody else is doing it for you (ie OP) - no you won't. When DH takes over too much in the house I stop doing housework at all and he has to poke me a bit to get me to remember I was supposed to also be doing it.

But I should hide this thread because they never go well.

Do people with ADHD not bother to interact with their own kids? And get annoyed when asked to?

This is a dealbreaker. Your ds you had with him is possibly the only reason you have hung on for so long with someone who contributes zero to the relationship or the family. He is pretty useless as a father too.

Do you think he miss you or ds if you left him (apart of your uses as a domestic appliance)?

He sounds a lot like my DH and interestingly I have recently been looking up possible issues he could have and ADHD ticked all the boxes. Worth thinking about.

Just be cautious about trying to explain away being an arsehole with amateur internet diagnoses.

Mental illness is stigmatised enough already without making it the go-to explanation for shitty behaviour.

I don't think it helps anybody to go looking for a mental illness label to explain away shitty behaviour. For one, there are too many women trapped in abusive relationships because they've bought into the excuse it's because of mental illness rather than the man choosing to behave that way ("it's not that he's choosing to make my life miserable and doesn't care about me, it's that he's mentally ill, so he can't help it and must really love me underneath the mistreatment and I don't have to face leaving him").

Had he got adhd? Sounds like he has short attention span. If you want to stay with him, stop taking things personally that may be outside his capability. Divide up the tasks and remind them until they become habits. This is slightly training the manchild but unless you rebound and landed with him then none of this will be new to you. 2 years is a long time and long enough to know if you like him for him

So he criticises you and calls you controlling. Mmm. That’s not so good. Is he used for everything being done for him?

Why did he leave he previous gf, or was he pushed? I

I missed the part where he called you controlling.

When I say anything or have a dig at him I get told I criticise him, I'm a control freak and he gets really annoyed. All this stuff is of no interest to him. He's totally laid back to the point of being horizontal.

Is this a symptom of ADHD?

Sounds more like a fuckwit. He does not know he is born. You are well rid, sorry.

And so why did you have a baby with him?
Surely you noticed some of these 'faults' before you became pregnant.

Just had such a stressful couple of days. Christmas Eve I needed to wrap all presents for DC's. Asked for Dp help, kept saying yes later. This was stressful to me as I only had a few hours before the 2 eldest boys were back from their dads. Also asked him to clean out guinea pigs while I did last minute shopping. Returned home to find nothing had been done and he was sitting there having a cup of coffee. I asked him again to help wrap and he said he was doing something (sorting out letters which didn't need to be done on Christmas Eve) I said wrapping is more important, he said no it's not. He didn't wrap one present in the end. I cleaned the guinea pigs then made dinner. Fast forward to today and I was making a Christmas dinner. He said can I help, I said yes, you can clear up the living room and put the table out and lay it. Time ticks by and he decides he's having a shower at 12:30 and going out to buy milk. Lunch is being served at 2. He didn't get back till 1:30 when I had done the table and cleared up. I said I thought you were going to do the table he said yeah I've been out to get milk. He ended up saying you shouldn't do dinner if it's too much bother. I've been fuming all day. I feel so let down by him.

Yes he does work, he's going back tomorrow which I'm so happy about. This is weird behaviour isn't it? He seems to hate it when I ask him for help.

What does he actually do for you? Does he lighten your load or add to it, are you ever pleased to see him? He sounds to me he’s in a relationship of one. You’ve got one crack at this life.

What most pp's have said.

• he sounds so boring to be with I actually cannot muster up the motivation to type what I think of his behaviour in your relationship

Ffs you aren't listening, are you?

That's one hell of a fucking niggle! Why are you putting up with it?

I’ve no idea why you asked us all for our opinion when clearly regardless of the answer (which can’t be a surprise to you), you’re just going to continue to put up with it all anyway. He behaves this way because he knows he can get away with it. I don’t understand the point of your OP.

He's lazy. That much we do know. But it's your life. Tell him he starts behaving like a grown up and help parent his children and do chores or you are leaving.

But I think you will just plod along growing more resentful and becoming more unhappy.