Forgetful spouse

[Jonjojobs123]

It drives me nuts.

He forgets most things i tell him. I'm at the point now where I find it rude because it feels like he really can't be bothered to log what i say because he knows I'll remember on behalf him and everyone else in our family. Why should it be solely one person's responsibility to remember everything for everyone.

Example:-
We talked of taking some friends out for dinner and we discussed options and agreed on a good restaurant that we thought would be nice, I asked if he'd be able to book a table, reminded him later that day and again once more in the evening. This morning he said oh no i forgot to book the table, he clearly had no recollection of where it was he was supposed to have booked and reeled of some random other restaurant. I have to admit i did have a bit of a 'oh ffs' moment.

Obviously if this was a one off no bother, none of it is important stuff but it is all the time and i find it completely draining, like every conversation with have he is just nodding and making the right noises but is paying absolutely no attention. Or like nothing i am saying is interesting or important enough to log in his memory bank. It is everything to do with kids/house/life

He manages to have a successful job. his memory is quite shocking granted but it can't be to the extent it is with me as he would drive the people he works with mad. It only really appears to be anything i tell him or speak to him about.

Should i just learn to suck it up and just accept my place is to keep tabs of everything and remember all the small stuff for him? He says he can't help it and he has a genuinely bad memory and finds it as frustrating as i do BUT on the flip of that we could be disagreeing about something and i'll say he never told me something and he'll be 100% certain he has and will say i remember it clearly....so what is it? Selective memory / just making stuff up to suit him or he genuinely has a bad memory and i'm an arse for getting so annoyed and taking it personally???

"He manages to have a successful job. his memory is quite shocking granted but it can't be to the extent it is with me as he would drive the people he works with mad. It only really appears to be anything i tell him or speak to him about".

He would not be able to hold down that successful job of his if his working memory was that poor. He's only behaving like this to and around you.

What seems to me to be happening here is that all the mundane day to day life admin stuff is not important enough for him to be at all bothering with. Therefore he leaves it all to you and if you ask him to do anything re above life admin stuff, he'd do such a bad job of it that you would never ask him again. A win-win for him.

On a far wider level I would also be considering if this is a relationship you actually want to remain in as these types of men do not change.
I also note that he is not above trying to gaslight you either; an insidious form of pyschological emotional abuse by forcing the person on the receiving end to question their thoughts, memories, and the events occurring around them.

What do you want to teach your children about relationships and what are they learning here?.

On a far wider level I would also be considering if this is a relationship you actually want to remain in as these types of men do not change.

^ yep.

If he genuinely cared, he would be capable of coming up with successful strategies to enable him to step up and be half of the team. At home, not just at work.

I bet he is forgetful and crap at work too, but you don't see it.

My DH is the same, but I occasionally I do see how he forgets work things as people ring him at home, or he has to drop something off he should have left at work etc.

I think many people are just crap at remembering things. They are unorganised, and not orderly. There is a personality test you can do that scores your organisation and orderly nature. I bet yours is high and his is low.

With things that need to be done remind him clearly, and he deals with the consequence, for his own things, do not get involved.

It is bloody frustrating though I feel your pain.

DH has a shocking memory. He can literally forget we're going to call at the shops on the way back from somewhere else. Successful driving instructor with his own business. He is quite badly dyslexic though - and apparently memory and time management (he's terrible for being late too) are also factors.

He's also convinced he's told me something when he's not, or blurts out a sentence mid way through the 'conversation / thought process' he's been having in his head.

Genuinely not gas-lighting me (lots of experience with ex on that) or deliberately rude. Just how he's made.

Let him deal with the consequences. If he forgot to book the table, that's fine. He can tell his friends you're not meeting for dinner then.

In the particular example, it does sound like something that was more of interest to you and so in that instance, I would have booked it myself TBH. Other stuff, say to do with the house etc I would just leave it and let him get on it with it or not. But he deals with the fall out too.

He's also convinced he's told me something when he's not, or blurts out a sentence mid way through the 'conversation / thought process' he's been having in his head

Mine does this as well. We have discussed (LH) that he is not telepathic and should not assume that because a thought enters his head, it has also entered mine.

He does lots of the other stuff too-it pisses me off-he seems incapable of remembering simple things I’ve told him-I think he just hears, ‘blah blah’.

My DH is a bit like this. He is part owner of a business and so has a lot of stress and responsibility at work. He often puts all his energy into it and I often joke with him that when he gets home, it is like he turns his brain off.

Most things that need organising, I do as I just can’t trust him to remember. I just think that he thinks nothing else at home is important enough for him to worry about and so he genuinely doesn’t remember.

Like you, I have conversations with him and then not long after, he will ask a question he should already know the answer to!

It is frustrating and sometimes I double check whether he is listening/taking things on board.

He would say I don’t listen to him but that is true when he tries to explain in minute detail some technical info that I don’t need to retain.

I’ve no advice apart from doing the organising yourself although I get you shouldn’t have to. Ultimately it’s teamwork and my DH has other good qualities that make up for this.

Good luck!

I think its 100% this.

He's not gaslighting me .... he literally couldn't because i have a memory like no other and he couldn't convince me he remembers something over me 😂

I think he just genuinely wishes he could do both. Hes a prolific list writer.....maybe i should suggest he starts a 'thing my wife has discussed with me list'

Applies to husbands too.

OP Why couldn't you book the table? Why did it have to be him? Do you both work ?

It's interesting you say he's a list writer. I am too because my memory is pretty poor. People think I'm very organised but without my filofax I'd be completely lost.

Do you think he'd be open to a "home" list to ensure he focuses on this stuff, or is it more that he doesn't prioritise home stuff so wouldn't bother with a list?

Listen to @AttilaTheMeerkat. He’s doing it on Purpose so you don’t ask him again, because he doesn't think it’s his job. He thinks you are his servant.

I have a disorder that affects my memory, I have a demanding job where I can remember things really well but outside of that it's atrocious and affects my relationships. I care very deeply about that so write things down, repeat things back to make sure I heard (and help move into better memory storage), I have alerts on my phone, I make notes about conversations, have post it notes all over the house. I do things as soon as possible before I forget. If he's not willing to do any of those things then he is choosing to have it all fall on you and that is the problem. He is clearly not bothered by your distress which is also a symptom of something bigger. Even if it was related to a condition, you'd be perfectly justified to be annoyed at him, he's not considering you at all by the sounds of it and with any condition we have to manage it for ourselves and for those around us.

I also wouldn't rule it out that he's doing it just to get out of whatever is it you had planned!

If he knows he has a shit memory...why the fuck is he not writing it down or setting a reminder on his phone or something? He is a prolific list writer as presumably he doednt want to forget anything important...apart from the stuff you tell him about, which he doesn't give a shit?

Exactly @Colourmeclear. Everyone I know who is aware they have a poor memory takes similar steps.

My DD is studying a course with a large practical element. They have sessions where they do the task and tutors watch them and give advice/ instructions. She is the only student in her group who actually takes notes / draws diagrams at the time.

She doesn't have a good memory so she has learned to ask for clarification and repeat back the instructions to check she has understood. Consequently she is one of the top students, even though she is not the most clever by a long way. And of course the tutors like her because she is treating them and their teaching with respect, not just nodding along when they won’t remember half of it.

Part of the reason I left ex-h. It was like having a second child sometimes

I would pay attention to what it is that he's forgetting. My ex-husband used to 'forget' all sorts of things when on reflection, they were things that he couldn't be arsed to do (three things from the shop and only three things, comes back with a different three things, the unspoken demand is 'don't send me again) or things that mattered to me like birthdays/events/responsibilities/childten' s needs/life admin. During the course of the divorce it became very obvious that he hadn't any problem with his memory at all. It's the revelation about your partner' s job that has hoisted the red flag for me, my Ex-h had too. If your partner has actually got a bad memory he'll have a system to cope (has he got a secretary? Rare these days though.) there. One event-no problem but look at the pattern. 'I forgot' can be wheeled out to cover all sorts of passive aggressive behaviour including the interruption of an online timed test in advance of an interview for a job.

My OH is soooo forgetful. I'll ask him to do something and he will forget a few seconds later. I'm. Constantly reminding him. I have told him it's making me un happy. In all fairness he did have a motor bike accident where he went unconscious for a while... He went to see a doctor and they've sent him something to get diagnosed with ADD. Apparently ADD can cause memory problems. I personally think it's the motorbike accident but we'll see.

DP has ADHD. He actually manages pretty well in his job, but he seems to pour 99% of his mental effort into keeping up with that. When it comes to home life, it's like he just doesn't have anything left in him to be able to keep up. Fortunately I am extremely organised, but it does mean that I pick up a lot of the slack.

In his case I don't think it's just laziness, as it affects him too. Case in point, last weekend he phoned me so angry at himself as he'd booked a weekend away and realised when he arrived at the airport at 11pm that he'd booked his hire car for the wrong dates. It caused him a lot of hassle in the end.

The reason I raise this is because I think you need to look at his behaviour and work out whether he just can't be bothered, or whether something else is going on which may be affecting his ability.

Also, I have one that one thing which really helps DP is having Alexa in the house. Previously due to his crap memory he would always put the mental load back on me by saying "Can you remind me..." and then it was my fault if it didn't get done. Now every time he says that I tell him to tell You-Know-Who. She gives him a verbal reminder and he also gets an alert on his phone. He can also tell her to add things to the AnyList app (eg shopping lists). So if we run out of something he now has to tell her instead!

I think I have ADHD
I always forget stuff people tell me- even my kids. I hate that about myself and beat myself up constantly. I'm trying to work out how to remember more, but it does just go- pfft- into the ether.

I feel your pain op. H is very much like this. What I do is refuse to remind him of stuff that doesn't impact me - and esp if MIL will be pissed off as that's the one thing that does seem to worry him.

And secondly I don't allow him to argue with me and say that either I said x or he told me y. That's because since he freely admits he forgets things he cannot in arguments rely on his memory which is rubbish when mine is different.

But basically if it's important to me or DS then I do it.

Interesting responses many thanks.

It definitely doesn't please him and causes him massive frustration so realistically those who have said he does it on purpose, I don't think he does, however that doesn't distract from the immense pressure i sometimes feel when its all on me.

He provides for us massively as a family and also spends most weekends jobbing around the house (using his 'jobs for weekend list'). What i think i need to do is ask him to figure out some tools he could put in place to start remembering things.

Maybe the booking of the table was a poor example (and for the poster that asked why I couldn't do it and whether i worked...I could and I don't, we are on hols at the mo, anyone who has kids knows i still have a fair amount to do when i'm on hols, he's on hols from his job so is 'on hols' so booking a table wasnt really a stretch). Anywho I digress....its more frustrating the forgetting of just stuff we've spoken about. I will tell him something then a few days later he'll tell me the same thing as though its something he's found out (he did! From me!!!) and i will say 'i know, I TOLD you' and he looks completely confused. But these situ's occur daily.

Anyway i'll make some suggestions and try to be a little bit more understanding and work on not taking it so personally