Worried my 'dream' relationship is starting to look a bit shit...

[TwinkleInYourEye]

Hi, I've NC..Partner and I have been together 2.5 years. I'm calling him 'partner' but we don't live together. We both have teenage kids and live an hour apart. We see each other mid week for a date or sleep at one another's home, and most weekends. He has loads of annual leave and I m self employed so we actually manage to see each other quite frequently. I'm early 50s, he's a few years older, I felt I'd met the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with pretty quickly after meeting him. And I still feel like that - we love each other, we get on well, we have lots of common interests and we both have good friends and hobbies away from each other. Of course, I don't expect things to be perfect but I seem to be getting increasingly irritated with him and I'm worried we might become incompatible.

I am definitely an impatient person and I have to reign in my 'irritatedness' but I honestly do try. He is a lovely, kind, funny, intelligent, affectionate person but I find him quite clunky sometimes. We will be relaxing and he'll suddenly jump up or suggest we do something else. I'll be telling him an anecdote and he clearly isn't listening and he'll get distracted by something pretty standard like a tree (I mean something that he could easily wait a few seconds to remark on but instead will just cut in on the story instead) so I frequently don't tell him news or anything that will take much concentration from him. He has problems sleeping and, particularly in the past, drove me insane by saying hello in the middle of the night, banging into me in bed or asking me to look at something out of the window. We've talked about the fact that after we've cuddled and said goodnight, I don't think want any conversation or contact til morning (I think this is normal!!??) and he says he is fine with this but then occasionally still does stuff that totally pisses me off. Other day, I felt really ill and had to stay extra night at his house. He was lovely, looked after me with glasses of water etc. He said goodnight and was going to sleep in another room (and I know that's really lovely and considerate of him) but then a few hours later, when he was going up to bed, I'd accidentally left his ensuite light on so apparently he assumed I was awake. He said hello loudly and woke me up. I know this sounds minor but I was feverish and felt horrendous and had just dropped off to sleep...I felt so upset that he'd woken me up again!!! I know he doesn't mean to do it. It's like he's incredibly clumsy around social and sleep norms. He thinks he has ADHD and I have close family members who are neuro divergent so whilst I know there are many and varied characteristics of ADHD, I do recognise some of them. It's obvs not a problem in the least that he's probably ND,but I do worry that he can't seem to recognise that the sleep issues are a problem for me. I think writing this down make me sound like a proper diva. I don't think I am but I am definitely not the most easy going person either. Does this relationship sound hard work?

Ahh no I laughed when I read the post by @Ilovegoldies because it reminded me of me and my boyfriend. He's definitely neurodivergent and insists I am too, but we say things like this to each other very directly and it makes us both laugh while getting the point across. Every relationship has their way.

OP I was going to suggest something similar, being very direct. Tell him under no circumstances is he to initiate conversation after you have said goodnight. No judgement calls whatsoever. Unless he's dying and needs help, communication is closed. Could there also be a visual cue to remind him, like you wearing an eye mask? Just thinking of strategies that would work with my ADHD DS.

Cutting you off when you’re speaking is rude and you should say so immediately as it happens.
The thing with the bathroom light sounds like a genuine misunderstanding, the chatting in the night sounds irritating but like he is trying to improve.

Only you know your tolerance level for this stuff but he honestly seems like a good guy who cares about you and the strengths of the relationship would outweigh the negatives for me.

I'm not an impatient person, but I'd draw the line at being woken up in the middle of the night for the sake of saying Hello! Bonkers. The other things you mention don't sound like a big deal. If you can get him to stop waking you up, it might be ok!

Waking me up unless it’s a life or death emergency would be a deal breaker for me. Disturb my sleep and he’d be gone

I'm not sure how the ADHD is relevant or why you've made such a big thing about it 'obviously' not being a problem. Perhaps I'm wrong but that sounds like virtue signalling which is not a foundation for a relationship.

Behaviour matters. If his behaviour is incompatible with having a relationship with you then it's not going to work out long term. Getting a diagnosis for why he behaves in a certain way isn't going to change the way he behaves. Though frankly, everyone has certain foibles which become irritating after the initial honeymoon phase of a relationship.

We all know the feeling of "for God's sake the way you are chewing is driving me insane!!" creeping in despite them having been doing it for the first 2 years when you found everything they did was totally endearing.

The real question is whether the relationship is strong enough to survive this inevitable shift from early bliss to the more mundane, long term coupling.

Sorry op but given that you are only 2.5 years in to the relationship, and in fact it’s much less than that bc you don’t live together, it sounds to me like you are getting the ick.

It’s a shame bc your partner sounds like a lovely man.

If you were really in to him then I think being woken up a couple of times in the night wouldn’t matter to you that much, especially this early on in the relationship. One of the pleasures of a newish relationship is having a wee chat or giggle in the night surely? You sound a bit rigid to me.

And on his part I would find the not listening thing difficult. Do you take a long time to tell anecdotes though?

I’m probably more like your dp though so I’m probably biaised! Either way, talk to him again about the issues and see if he makes an active effort to change. But if his behaviour is down to ND then he won’t be able to probably. We all have our flaws though. No one is perfect. It’s a shame bc the way you describe your relationship, the good seems to far outweigh the bad. But the title of your thread seems to contradict that.

Maybe money is the issue? Not everyone has over £1000 laying around for initial diagnosis. Also private psychiatrist offered me half an hour phone call as opposed to thorough assessment I have had done on NHS

Definitely sounds like ADHD (or ADD), DH has the same issue with interrupting because whatever has popped into his head feels INCREDIBLY important at that particular moment (and because he'll probably completely forget it if he doesn't say it there and then!). He's learned to apologise and remind me where I'd got to in whatever I was saying to him, I've learned that I have a bit of a tendency to monologue and probably go on a bit too much at times 😁

This whole thing about 'relationships shouldn't be hard work' is a bit of a misnomer tbh, people in general are hard work because we place incredibly high value on our relationships but none of us comes with an instruction manual and although we all tend to think we're normal in terms of how we see the world, we only find out we're not by considering ourselves in relation to others. Before you throw this relationship away, do some hard thinking about:

How many of these issues are real issues not just temporary irritations

then

How much of that issue is your 'stuff' - is the irritation stemming from you feeling that what he's doing isn't normal because it's not what you're used to

And

How much is actually causing you problems (the sleep habits would be an obvious one) and whether there are ways around it e.g. not sharing a bed every night.

Oh, and with the not paying attention when you're talking thing? Next time someone's talking to you, telling you about their weekend at work or something, grab a pen and a bit of paper and put a mark down EVERY time your mind wanders a bit, every time you notice something around them, every time you check your phone or think about what you're meant to be doing next, or what's for lunch, or oh look there's a squirrel outside... Most of us 'surface' listen most of the time, real deep attentive listening is exhausting and we save it up for when we need it. It's even more tiring for ND people and they tend to find it harder to mask when their attention wanders.

Dare I ask, but are you shit at telling stories and go on about stuff for too long? My neighbour’s wife is so boring once she launches into a story. We all can’t wait for her to finish, him included I imagine.
Is he 100% inattentive, or is it with some things and periodically?
Sleeping thing is both sweet and annoying. But given you’ve told him you found it annoying, it’s definitely annoying that he doesn’t stop.

That’s true they don’t but they could save. .
Although the option for private assessment wasn’t there it was just simply to cut the guy off.

I couldn’t cope with someone who woke me up in the middle of the night when I’m ill to say ‘hello’. Whatever their reasons or diagnosis.

it really depresses me seeing these responses about how the OP ought to be more patient and just smilingly put up with being interrupted any time she tries to talk and awakened any time she tries to sleep because the poor man can’t help it. Maybe she can’t help wanting a mutual conversation, or sleep. Her needs also matter FGS.

I don't want any conversation or contact til morning (I think this is normal!!??) and he says he is fine with this but then occasionally still does stuff that totally pisses me off.
Did he say your sleeping habits don't bother him, or did he promise not to disturb you?
My dp and I do not follow your pattern of saying goodnight and then having no conversation or contact until the morning. We don't say goodnight; we'll just drop off at some point. And if, say, there's a noise in the night, or one of us gets up, we'll talk to one another briefly. That's my idea of normal.
Still, him loudly saying "hello" would piss me off, as why would you need to say "hello" at all, let alone loudly, to someone you're right next to?

A couple of people have mentioned that if you love someone, you'll accept their little ways. I have to say that I see it the other way round; when you find their little ways endearing, that's a sign you're a good match. If their little ways annoy you then they're not a dream partner.

You’re too old to believe in perfection if you’re in your 50s.

You're too old to accept being permanently irritated in your 50s.

You could be talking about my partner OP! Honestly, the similarities are ridiculous. We’ve been together almost nine years and when he’s behaving he’s amazing, but my god he drives me up the wall sometimes. The wandering mind/interrupting thing is really annoying, but being woken up by him at night makes me absolutely furious.

He used to wake me up at night frequently when he was having trouble sleeping. Always on purpose because he felt ‘abandoned’ and lonely and wanted to chat. Just… ridiculous. I HATED it. Anyway it took a few very serious conversations/threats of leaving/me properly losing my shit but now he knows I absolutely will not stand for it. If he can’t sleep he has to go to the other bedroom because I’ve instigated a rule that he absolutely cannot wake me up before x hour.

I strongly suspect some kind of neurodiversity with my partner too. His father and both of his sons had varying diagnoses of autism and ADHD and DP has some clearly ND traits. I’ve learnt over the years that his mind just doesn’t work like mine does. He genuinely doesn’t think he’s being selfish or rude or unreasonable. So when he does do any of those things, I tell him. Sometimes quite forcefully..

I agree but I’m someone who can not cope with gage my sleep interrupted for anything less than an emergency. As an instinctive reaction, I would probably yell at him if he woke me up to say hello. He’s have had one chance with me, if he did it agein the relationship would he over. It could be Brad Pitt in his prime, and he’d still he packing his bags if he woke me up for no good reason.

I can’t believe the responses basically telling the OP to suck it up and she’s hard work because this muppet thinks it’s ok to wake her for no good reason.

It's very hard to live with someone who is very impatient. DH has no patience and it's bloody hard because you feel you have to be perfect all the time. And I'm not.

But do you interrupt your DH all the time and wake him up whenever you feel like it in the middle of the night? That’s not a matter of not being ‘perfect’ - that’s being bloody rude and selfish.

And also the responses insinuating she deserves to be interrupted because she’s probably boring! What is going on with MN today?

You sound grumpy and inflexible. Are you on HRT? I find my friends who do not take hormone replacement do become hard to be around with their sudden crankiness….

Separately - I didn’t think anyone in their 50s would be expecting to meet a perfect partner… Hw is not, nor are you.

None of the things you described are big issues - and all can be solved with communication.

His ADHD has nothing to do with most of it. Just different habits and preferences.

You sound like a bit of a miserable control freak - not attractive.
Is it possible that he may be reconsidering you relationship, too?

Amazed at the number of people who think they’d be ok with being repeatedly woken up in the middle of the night by their partner because they want entertainment. Are PPs framing that as something appealingly romantic? Because let me tell you it gets tired pretty pretty quickly.

The more I read these threads, I feel like MN hates people with ADHD. If you don't like us or can't stand us then just don't be with us...

He doesn't even sound like a bad guy.

All you have to do is clearly state your boundaries and ask him to stick to them. Don't expect him to mind read because we can't. If he walks over your boundaries, then it's a personality problem, not adhd....

I always say people should be with someone for 2 years minimum before committing in any way because that’s when the lust and excitement dies down and the irritation starts.

He sounds like a decent bloke. Up to you if you think a relationship is worth the irritation of living with another person. Personally it’s not for me. Can’t stand sharing a bedroom any more.

We are all irritating.