Anyone married to someone with PDA and managing everyday family life?

[Ittakeslonger]

Anyone on here married to someone with PDA? Just recently dawned on me, after 30 years of marriage, why my very affectionate, protective and loyal husband struggles with me asking him to do anything (to the extent I no longer ask him to do anything). Just wondering how others have coped with getting support for household chores, looking after children, planning holidays, getting things repaired in the house, getting rid of clutter etc etc. Mostly just would like to hear what it's like for others.

I’m now single. It’s funny he couldn’t do any of the stuff in our home but now he has his own home it needs to get done and somehow does! I love knowing none of that shit is my problem anymore

I wouldn't. I hate lazy people and prefer those that are productive and with pep and get up and go. We should all strive to make the most of ourselves. I've always been attracted to people who have vitality and like to achieve, learn new things, etc.

This, honestly. The things men get away with.

Oh god, who can be bothered with having to babysit men through being asked to do anything and everything? I want that stage over before the end of toddlerhood.

If PDA is real, then it must always have existed - how did people in the past react to how society around them then was?

Food security is pretty recent, mid 20th century onwards I would think; before that it was perfectly possible to starve to death in the UK. Would that have happened to people with PDA? Unable to stomach taking orders, as most of the working classes would have to do? Would they have become outlaws / highwaymen as the only way to eat if you couldn't work for/with others? Would they have only been able to work alone, becoming inventors and hermits? They definitely wouldn't have become monks, submitting themselves to God!

Seriously - how would they have survived being PDA in Victorian, Georgian, medieval Britain?

I think there have always been people who really struggle with authority to a pathological extent and who are defiant essentially for the sake of it. Occasionally they hit on a righteous cause and make history - and as a society we probably do need some people who just will not fit the mould - normally they really struggle through life and make everyone around them miserable. I think what's new is seeing this as a disorder that the person cannot help rather than a personality flaw they should be judged for and encouraged to overcome.

If I’m planning say, empty the dishwasher, and DH asks me to do it, I feel so angry about doing it I can’t do it - even though I had every intention.
Similarly, if he asks me to do something now, I feel so mad about it I passionately don’t want to do it, and it’ll ruin my mood to do it.

The second part of this feels much more honest than the first. It isn't that you 'can't' do it - it's that you won't because you'd rather your spouse was unhappy than that you have to do something you don't want to.

If he has PDA (or even 'just' demand avoidant traits in autism without it being full on PDA) then it isn't selective - he will self-sabotage or be unable to begin things that he desperately wants to do just as much as things that he finds tedious, because wanting to do them badly creates an internal demand. (The one exception is if a hyper-focus special interest overwhelms him, but that is very distinctive, a sudden burst of 100% attention and lots of energy on a single topic or activity to the exclusion of all else, possibly including eating, sleeping etc - think Sherlock Holmes on a case).
If he can't bring himself to load the dishwasher but has no problem going to the gym then it isn't PDA.

But I have PDA and I don’t get angry. I become irrationally anxious about the task, even if it’s something inconsequential, or something that I want to do. And I feel as though there’s a wall blocking me from doing it.

My partner asked me to take a milk bottle outside and i had such a visceral over whelming reaction to the demand

i hate hate instructions or demands daughter s autistic with PDA

at work i have to do intense deep breathing when demands and instructions are given and remind myself of all the jibs I've been sacked from due to my reaction to demands

at home( and work ) i work hard to pull my weight and i prefer it if we have allocated jobs and stay in our lane

my partner has learnt to phrase requests v well and a sense of humour about all this helps

I have a long history of anxiety and much sympathy for how awful it feels, and the way it makes you feel like you simply must obey it. But the answer to anxiety is never to stop doing the things that make you anxious and expect everyone else to act accordingly, which is what the no doubt well-meaning suggestions that OP should only ask 'in the right way' amount to.

Does he hold down a job where he’s told what to do? Surely given its his own home he can see when things need doing so shouldn’t have to be asked. Though I know that many men seem to have a problem with recognising when tasks need to be done, as usually they are magically done by someone else!

This is how I feel. Ex DP probably has PDA, either that or he's a lazy selfish twat. Whatever, to be honest I couldn't be bothered any more and life is far better without him. He's now miraculously worked out how to use a washing machine/pay bills/ buy socks etc now he has noone else to do it.

So are you saying the issue is that you don’t like being told what to do by others? Rather than not being able to physically or cognitively do the task?

Both of them operate via routine and duty really so for my teen if we are going our i will give her the facts. I.e we will be leaving at 9 am tomorrow she then knows she needs to shower in advance, i will then remijd jn the morning. However if i told her she needs to shower at 8am it would be explosions. Same as if her room needs tidied i'll say it feels a bit cluttered in here bascily just facts instead of ever asking. She can sometimes become annoyed at her own demands of herself even if she tasked herself to do something. Husband is similar but he is a bit more relaxed eg has no issues if I ask him to go to shop / grab clothes for kids ect he is more big jobs if i need shelves put up if i ask him outright he does feel annoyed but can't explain why, if i say oh dc needs some extra space for her collection he will say oh i could Put some shelves up after dinner. Both seem to respond best to having problems / situations presented where they can plan. Edited to add he has his own tasks/chores in the house which he does as routine there is no issue with these

Isn't everyone like this generally speaking? I don't have PDA but would respond much better to not being told to do something. What you are describing does not sound out of the ordinary

Most adults and children strive for autonomy, some more than others, it's normal.

If I ask my DH to do something like cut the grass he often gets grumpy about it- he doesn't want to cut the grass- it's not something he enjoys, he hadn't made his own intention to cut the grass, he had something else like sitting in his office or doing one of his hobbies planned in his head. He will cut the grass, but he's less grumpy about it if he can do it in relation to his own schedule or he'll put it off until the grass is too long and I have to ask- he's not interested in the grass.
He doesn't have PDA.

It would be interesting to know how many women on here who are married with children have PDA and find they cant do anything in the home.

I think it is more extreme.. if my husband says to me could you please wash that pan while I prep vegtables please it wouldn't bother me at all if i did the same with him or dd they see that as a demand too. I would feel rattled if he said wash that pan.

@WhereYouLeftIt as a devotee of classic novels, I think the answer is that women did all the things that men didn't want to do, and were expected to be undemanding helpmeets - either wives/servants for those who could afford them, and wives/mothers/unmarried daughters for those who couldn't. Men who were widowed or otherwise alone would always fill the space quickly with a woman to "do" for them, or live in a boarding house with a landlady washerwoman, etc.

Thinking of characters like Dr Thorne in Trollope's Barchester Chronicles looked after by his niece Mary, or Molly Gibson sorting out her father in Elizabeth Gaskell's Wives and Daughters. Or for a woman looking after another woman, Mrs Jellyby in Bleak House expects her oldest daughter Caddy to sort out the house and the children as well as act as her secretary. The Cazalet Chronicles are also interesting showing the transition pre and post-war of domestic labour and the reduction of domestic service, and how most (not all) of those chores transferred to women in a nuclear family.

Actually I don't think this is universal. I absolutely hate the kind of communication described there - I find it infuriatingly passive aggressive if someone says 'oh it's messy in here', not 'could you do the washing up?'. I would much rather be directly asked.

I thought PDA was Public Displays of Affection, so I am bewildered 😳😳

Dp is clearly autistic. I doubt pda, but one of the kids is. I do find if I ever suggest something that is out of routine, he will agree it is a good idea, but then avoid it like the plague. Eg if he is taking the kids to his mum's and I say why don't you visit a local attraction, it won't be what his "mum visit" routine is. It won't happen, even if he would happily visit the attraction a different time. I have to scaffold all routine changes for the kids, so I guess I do it to him automatically too.

I suspect my grandfather, born early 1900s, had it. Was DEF autistic. I knew him but people who knew him better tell me he was a “true leader” but that he could not deal with authority and was always fighting any higher order. He ran away from an orphanage and swam to sea during the war to get away from certain scenarios. He changed his identity at one stage. I suspect in earlier times some of these people were either extremely anxious & ended up living alone and/or trailblazers.

Also if your PDAer also has the 'take things literally' aspect, they are just as likely to agree that it is messy and assume you were therefore volunteering to clear it up yourself, as take the hint that you want them to do it...