DH Sometimes Frustrates The Hell Out Of Me!

[Bunnylady54]

He shows every sign of listening to me but then won’t know what I’m talking about when the subject comes up again, sometimes only minutes after I’ve said it! I naturally get irritated but he doesn’t seem to really get why & will sometimes say stuff like I’m telling him off. It can be hugely frustrating & I do find it difficult not to sound impatient, particularly when I have only just explained something. He has got a lot on his mind but I have tried to solve it by asking him if I have his full attention or trying my best to tell him important stuff when there aren’t too many distractions. It does happen the other way round but not half as often. Also, when I try to discuss it, he sometimes gets defensive or sometimes says it will end up in an argument. This is frustrating again as it doesn’t get resolved. He did apologise tonight but it was still in such a way that I wasn’t filled with confidence that things would change.
Can anyone relate to this & what’s the solution? It almost seems like a lack of respect but he does respect me & as I have posted before, our relationship generally is tons better than a few years back.

Yes I can relate to that. Had this for 40 years come September. I can actually see him zone out when I'm talking.

Example: Every year he asks what I want for Xmas. Every year I say 'decent gold earrings because I'm allergic to every metal in the world except gold'. Every year he buys me rhodium plated shite. Every year I says 'they are nice but I'm allergic to them'. Every year he says 'I thought you said you are allergic to gold'.

Oh God thenightsky, so disrespectful! Know exactly where you are both coming from. Same here but I have sort of given up expectation of him listening after 30 years of being together.

It's deliberate. They understand completely even if they pretend not to. They're basically saying fuck off no way are you going to change or control me, but without the massive row that would result if they said it straight out like that. You're wasting your breath.

Even if they were forgetting and not understanding, how disrespectful to not bother either listening or remembering your genuine concerns.

Those half arsed apologies too! They're always sorry you feel that way type things offered just to get you off their back, not genuine remorse with active intention to change.

Solution? You're banging your head agasint a brick wall once they get like this. Put up with it or threaten that it's over and mean it. But once you have to issue an ultimatum to force them to treat you better it's emotionally over anyway. You can pour limitless emotional energy into dynamics like this until you're a resentful shell of yourself and it's all onto infertile ground. Only hope is counselling really but he'd have to want to change and many honestly can't see that they need to.

The solution is to break up with someone who chooses not to listen to you when you talk. Its really disrespectful

We had another talk this morning & DH apologised properly, rather than just to keep the peace. And we were thrashing out some ways to change the situation. DH suggested that I say something like “ Can I talk to you about so & so?” He actually admitted that he switches off from me sometimes but doesn’t know why. I am a talker so perhaps sometimes he can’t process it all or maybe can’t pick out the important stuff. His DM had dementia so I think he sometimes gets defensive because he worries he’s in the very early stages himself ( although he’s only mid 50s).

What was your relationship like a few years back?. How many more years are you going to hope for him to change; he has not and he will not. This works for him on some level.

His mother's dementia is a red herring designed to put you off and his apologies are really meaningless. It is only a matter of time before he starts on you like he has done again.

You need to get off the merry go around because that is what you are really doing now. You've probably become inurred to his abuses of you over the years and are very much stuck in his continuous abuse cycle of nice/nasty.

He’s never actually mentioned the dementia himself - that idea came from me. And he has changed beyond measure in many ways or I would have left him. He knows he behaved very badly towards me & to a lesser degree towards DD. We are having family therapy ( not as a direct result of his abuse but of course it comes up) & we will gradually be able to pick apart what happened so that DD is eventually able to fully trust him again. And the same for me, although I can see how hard he’s been trying & how he’s moving on from how he was reacting to things back then.
When he apologised this morning, I said that I appreciated him saying sorry but that we needed to do things differently. I genuinely don’t think he’s deliberately choosing not to listen. And I have stopped making excuses for him eg low self esteem ( although we both suffer with that & so does DD). The therapy is working on that too.

Would be interested in some more opinions. I don’t think it’s abusive but it does need to change and/or I need to change my reaction maybe.