Does anyone else have a husband who never ever ever listens, accepts or believes a single blasted word they say?

[Hecate]

ARRRGGGGHHH!

Ok, dh is lovely in many many ways. I love him to bits.

BUT.

He never accepts anything I say.

Today's examples

1
His coat is dirty. He said he was going to put it in the wash. I said, "Your coat can't be washed. The label says it can only be sponged down." (it's a treated, funny, waterproof thingie and the instructions on it are VERY clear. It cannot be machine washed or hand washed)

So he said that it was dirty and he was going to do it. I said that if he did, it would probably be ruined, but it was up to him. So he said he would put it in the bath. I explained AGAIN about the instructions on it, and he laughed at me!!!!! So I said fine, do what you will, but when it is ruined - and it WILL be ruined, I will be chanting 'I told you so' for the next 5 years!

2
he is repainting the house. He has a very odd painting technique, which is to get the brush/roller, scoop out a load of paint, balance it on the brush/roller and slap it on the wall/ceiling and spread it out. Now this results in paint everywhere and is a bloody mess. I have said SO MANY TIMES that you can't use the brush/roller like a trowel! I have done the painting myself before but he doesn't like that. I have demonstrated how to stroke the paint with the brush/roller, iyswim. I have pointed out the mess - new bloody carpet needed every time he paints a room! I have offered to find 'a little man' to come and do it.

He just laughs at me. and carries on doing exactly the same thing!

And this is how he is in everything. I DO know stuff, not that anyone would think it from how much I am dismissed! He never accepts anything I say, or believes that what I am saying is the right way to do something, even though it obviously IS THE BEST WAY!!

Now, it could be argued that I am a bossy control freak but really really really when I say X is how something is done, it is because I am quoting what the instructions say, or because, like for example, the painting, his way is CLEARLY WRECKING THE HOUSE!!!

I have to leave the computer now, because he is heading this way to paint the rest of the carpet ceiling. Back later to see if anyone read this massive massive rant and has any advice how to get him to obey listen.

So he's used about half a tub of paint on one ceiling and when I asked why he'd painted it 3 inches thick he muttered something about other people painting their ceiling more often, so I said that a 10 inche thick coat of paint will get dirty just as fast as a normal coat, and painting it so thick you could beat whales to death with it, with not give it stain protection It's not like you can peel a layer off, revealing a bright new ceiling.

At which point, he turned and said "Are you on mumsnet again? You're addicted" and that I should stop using the computer

Right now he's chanting "addiction addiction addiction addiction" at me, while he scrubs paint off the carpet.

Twat.

I am surprised you hav'nt beaten him over the head with key board

good job you love him

Could you paint his mouth shut? 10" might just about cover it...

Ah, but does he then take EXACTLY the same advice from a complete stranger/random bloke in the pub/work colleague as gospel and repeat it back to you like it was a new thing?

DH does this to me and it drives me NUTS!(usually only on films I want to see, to be fair - ie, Pans Labyrinth - read the reviews the week it came out, told DH all about it, said please please please can we go see it? He said (with his selective hearing)... subtitles? Spanish civil war? Having to get off couch and go to Central London to small independent cinema to see it?Sounds awful. I resigned myself to waiting for it to come to Sky. Come Crimbo, I get in from a rehearsal to find him watching it avidly - NOT Sky+ing it - saying 'ooh, bloke at work said this film is really good, you wouldn't believe the bloke with the eyes in his hands, what a shame you've missed most of it' - managed to restrain myself from beating him about the head with my script...)

Although I think the most bizarre thing that's ever happened to me is visiting a friend, she grabbed DH and said 'oh, great, you can help me fix my washing machine' before dragging him off to her kitchen (he with look of rabbit caught in headlights at prospect of DIY work). He hadn't a clue. I noticed that her seal was perished and suggested she get and fit a new one, not a diffuclt or expensive job. She acted like I hadn't spoken and said to DH 'oh, what do you think, DH, can it be mended?'

Yes yes lovecat my DH did that to me only the other day 'so-and-so had a good idea'...and repeated my idea I'd suggested to him a few days earlier and received no response from him...bless him he doesn't do it very often though.

Hecate because I have met your dh I picture these scenes you describe in detail and of course he is always chuckling 'hur hur hur' at the same time as per your previous thread . My sister who is sitting here with me wants to know what happened to the coat.

Lovecat - 100% spot on!

If some bloke he'd never met before turned to him in the bogs and said "I heard that the best way to paint is by putting only a little bit on the brush at a time." Dh would come back to me and say "Guess what, you only put a bit of paint on, I never knew that, it makes much more sense that way."

Further more, if I attempted to say "THAT'S WHAT I'VE BEEN TELLING YOU!!" he'd claim I never did, ask me to tell him the date and time of my alleged sentence to him and if I couldn't, take this as proof I had never said a word.

Men! can't live with them, can't club them over the head and drop them into the ocean....

Of course you have, haven't you, anorak was he particularly jolly when he came to your place?

Right now he's in the bath, scrubbing off 2.5ltrs of white paint , he still intends to wash the coat.

When it is ruined.... he will blame me, mark my words. He will say "you bought it, why didn't you check how it was supposed to be cleaned?"

At which point I will rip off his arm and beat him to death with the wet end.

Yes he was jolly all right

You need a little tape recorder Hecate. For evidence.

About 80% of the time is I say anything to DH I get "sorry?" "pardon", "what was that babe?" and says I mumble

BUT if I whisper "do you fancy a BJ babe".....tis another story

Hi
I have come to the conclusion that the male ear can not hear or process more than 10 consecutive words from a female voice.

Try saying with mock sincerity, "Oh, I didn't know it could be done like that." (that's an even 10, lol) Then just leave him to it.

From the Reading Rainbow children's show, Lavar Burton says every episode, and you might try it next time you try to help him, especially since you already know he won't take your word for it:
"But you don't have to take my word for it."
(whoo hooo! perfect 10 again)

I wouldn't bother with the 'I told you so'. I think he'd feel it more if you didn't say it, but gave it to him with a look (zero words ).

Hope some of this can help. He's probably not going to change, so try to work some humor into it for yourself.

I know that the situation is frustrating for you hecate but have a wonderful way with words and have made me laugh for the first time in a few days given my own unhappy state at home at the moment.

n fact my husband is the same in many ways to the point where I put it down to him knowning that I'm right but it just annoys him and he has to try and cover it up somehow. It seems the best thing is to rant and rave on here, let it all out and continue to have confidence in yourself which it seems to me he's trying, whether deliberately or not, to suffocate.

Hecate, put your advice in writing and get him to sign it. no "I told you so" ever again. As for the painting, hasn't he heard of dust sheets ?? Particularly useful given his method..

Sometimes dh does this and when I remind him that's what I said he just looks confused.
Don't you just wish you had Sky+ on real life and could rewind to prove a point...

I have to get DH to sign and date things to prove I have said something to him and he thinks it is a good idea otherwise in 3 months I get a very blank face, and 'You never said anything to me about this'

Keepbelieving, I'm sorry things aren't good for you at the mo and hope things improve.

yes, Jackstini!

re the recording him/writing it down - I actually have a dictaphone in my bag because him denying i've said something or he's said something drives me crazy..I just never seem to get it on at the right time!!

Mio - funny you should mention dust sheets. a few years ago he was repainting the living room of the house we had then. It was a town house and had the kitchen on the ground floor and the living room on the first floor. I was in the kitchen with the kids, he was upstairs, painting. My job was to keep the kids out of the way , I never went upstairs, not at any point.

After he'd finished, I went up to have a look and found that he had used.......

THE CURTAINS!! THE LOVELY FLOOR LENGTH, CREAM, BRAND NEW AND VERY EXPENSIVE CURTAINS!!! As dust sheets, instead of the old sheets.

How? I ask you, in the name of all that is holy, how can you take down the curtains and then get them mixed up with old sheets and use them as covers, and never notice???

But get this.

When I screamed MY CURTAINS, MY CURTAINS, MY CURTAINS...

He said it was my fault because

"well, you should have noticed, we've got equal responsibility."

WTF???

I was downstairs with the kids the whole time. How could I possibly have noticed? How could he think I could possibly have noticed? Spy camera in the end of his roller? (that's his paint roller you dirty buggers...)

To this day he maintains it was my fault for not stopping him.

Although.........it was 5 years ago now and I still bring it up.

My STBXH is one of those. No respect at all if I said something, any suggestions I had about how to do things were met with "don't be silly" as if I were a small, somewhat retarded child. I had to give him a few days to forget I'd said it and think it was his own idea. Oddly enough however, he seemed to want Mrs Idiot to sort things out for him, eg talk to tradesmen on the phone (and then criticise me for talking to them all wrong). One of the many, many reasons he is soon-to-be-ex.

hecate, am loving the dictaphone idea
and am chuckling at the dustsheets /best curtains
You must have patience

why are they all so crap?

Well I hope they're not all, I mean a lot of us have sons and we have high hopes of them growing up like decent human beings!

You do tend to see the worst side of men on discussion boards because that's where we come to vent about the little annoying, and sometimes major dreadful, things they do. There are a few threads about how lovely people's hubbies are but "no news is good news", or is that "good news is no news"?

yes i know.
But so many seem to share these very specific Crap Man Traits. And so many of said traits boil down to an exaggerated sense of their own infallibity/sense that world will cave in if they admit they were wrong/inability to freakin' laugh at themselves.

They need to learn that life is sweeter when you can laugh at yourself, no?

DS is lovely btw. Am trying to encourage lots and lots of self-laughing.

When he ruins the coat you will have this thread as evidence that you told him not to.

that invisible voice syndrome is alive and well here too!
the dh that listens to total numpty strangers and believes them over me...

ffs his ears are big, the lights are on, but no one listening....argghhhhhh..but they dont ever catch my soundwaves

lol at the paint incident..these are the things of family legends..
hecate sounds like you will have more than your fair share of these