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.

He is doing those jobs now because there is gun to his head.

His life is about to get very uncomfortable if you leave. He doesn’t want that.

But when it was just you is being uncomfortable, he didn’t care about that.

What is pda?

Its OK I've read about it now

Yeah in this day and age the word 'protective' doesn't sound all that great. Protective of what? Your abilities to think and do as you please? Does he think you're about to get eaten by a tiger? Protective of his own refusal to do any childcare or housework?!

My child with PDA can mask for ages gets home and can't anymore. My husband is the same. It takes work but if you both have understanding it can be worked on.

Demand avoidant

But children are still developing, and your husband is an adult who needs to do the duties of an adult at home as well as at work. As will your child with PDA when they grow up and live with other adults, or become a parent.

I still think it's absolute bullshit that all these men can "mask" enough to comply with requests at work, but at home their "PDA" suddenly emerges, conveniently preventing them from cooperating with their wife in running the household. The poor dears.

Sorry! I was quoting @Candy24
"My child with PDA can mask for ages gets home and can't anymore. My husband is the same. It takes work but if you both have understanding it can be worked on."

You have very little understanding clearly. I did too till I did a lot of research. It isn't an excuse and needs work on their part but understanding helps on my part to see he isn't always doing it on purpose

Sad that showing my husband with PDA grace is seen as a free pass. Also it doesn't conviently do anything. ASD with PDA isn't convenient for anyone everyone struggles sometimes. The other night we were both laughing at the fact really couldn't do something I asked.lol the other day I was screaming at him why as the frustration got too much.

Why oh why would you stay married with someone like that? My youngest is 13 and probably is PDA, and I only deal with it because he's still a child. No way I would take this from an adult! (My DS knows that, I would never accept his behaviour if he were an adult). Really, are you in a relationship with an adult or a child?

You realise most struggle to grow out of it

So when your DS gets to 18, how will you deal with him. Do you have a plan? And what will you do if he does not co-operate? It's not easy.

It's not easy because he's my DS, I raised him and, most importantly, I didn't meet him as an adult. But to answer your question, I told him that if he were an adult doing the things he does, I would have no relationship with him. After living with his dad for 16 years, I don't accept being treated like shit in my own home, or by anyone, so I would probably follow suit. (very important point: I have to set the tone so my DS learns he needs to treat women with respect).

Well good luck with your DS.
I did divorce my PDA DH eventually and I am very happy to be free of him now, but when you have children it's not easy to leave. I had to wait til mine were old enough to look after themselves as I could not trust my DH to look after them solo. No risk awareness at all, no executive function and easily disregulated.
Did not clock any of this until first child was born.
When I am reincarnated I will get a psychiatric assessment of any suitors.

I do think though from both personal experience and more general observation it is partly a male trait, to generalise just a tad. Not wanting to do things asked to do but happy to do them if they perceive it to be their idea, I learned a long time ago with exh how to make everything i wanted to be his idea! To be fair to my now dh, he does do things just because i asked him but his more enthusiastic if it’s his idea

But - whether he's doing it deliberately, or doing it because of PDA - he's still doing it. And that's going to affect those surrounding him, regardless of it being deliberate/PDA.

I think those being affected are absolutely entitled to say - 'I don't care if you're PDA or just a git, I don't want to live this way so I'm out'.

DC2 has it. The key with them is to give them an element of control eg would you
rather wash up or load the dishwasher?

Again you’re not getting it. PDA isn’t controlled it is managed but once triggered you sometimes just have to ride it out. No not fair

Often think my dh may have this. He is a really hard worker but has to work for himself and as long as he is deciding the jobs he can move mountains. What l have found is leaving a list, sending texts, starting something myself which he sees he can do better. ..these all help. Also just discussing getting someone in eg a gardener without mentioning him motivates him to do it himself. Last year l casully mentioned getting a skip and before the day was out he was off to the dump with trailer full of stuff but he would just procrastinate if l didn't take that approach. He just cannot cope with instructions..its like he freezes but l have my own way of getting things done!!
Also choice..so l might say do you want to hoover or wash out the floors and he will chose one.
He has never been good with the mental load although he has successfully run his own business for years. Fortunately l find that easy and being a teacher have had holidays etc to catch up with stuff.
Also from day one there were tasks l never touched. I have never put out a bin, washed a car, weeded the garden, ordered heating oil, dealt with builders, moved the lawn..etc so there is never a discussions about these. May seem like a sexist division but l cannot say he is not an extremely hard worker so l go with it.
I don't use energy on it now as l have found what works. He is extremely dyslexic and has all the traits of ADHD..our ds is diagnosed..but no attention was paid to those things in the 70s when he was in school.

Exactly. Leaving is not the easy option. If I knew then what I knew now I wouldn't have got together, but hey ho!
Next life I'll get a psychiatric assessment first too 🤣

Same. I love him but honestly he drives me nuts. This post has made me see just how hard it is.

They grow out of that.lol my husband has anyway

I strongly suspect ASD/PDA for exH. It really is crippling and massively wrecked my mental health.

To the people who 'helpfully' advise to get them to be assessed and seek out a diagnosis - we have lived where we live for more than a decade and exH hasn't registered with a GP (the marriage counselor gave him a bollocking over that). So the idea of him seeking a diagnosis is so fair beyond the realms of demands he can handle as to be unfathomable.

Also, the wording things right idea, I tried with little success, he would blow up and then calm down over night and do what I had, reasonably, asked the next day or so, or his version of it. I struggle with confrontation after an emotionally abusive childhood, so meant I tried to avoid this, so nothing got done and mine and the homes needs frequently remained unmet, unless they were something exH saw for himself and chose to do.

Interestingly since i moved out (February) he has done loads of outstanding work on the house, the day I moved out he fixed the toilet flusher that had been broken for most of the 10 years we lived there, that was like a gut punch, but I am trying to reframe it as just a feature of his PDA not a reflection on me. I think in part it is having a clear split of time (50/50) and not having me to communicate/ cooperate with on things takes the demand and anxiety away. He seems to be coping okay so far with 50/50 parenting, but has no life beyond WFH and DD, and the occasional trip to see his mother (once every couple of months at most). I worry how he will cope as DD8 gets older, she has been a pretty easy kid so far and I've dealt with ALL emotional parenting/ discipline, but she is determined, headstrong and sociable, so I'm not sure how the teenage years will go.

He had dinner round my house yesterday as it was his birthday and DD wanted to do him a birthday dinner. It was tough, I realised how much I had put up with and burried in myself for the last decade, especially in comparison to the new man I'm seeing, who actually reads my emotions and communicates. My exH can't even say hello, goodbye, please and thank you like a normal person.

His moto in life is 'I can do it by myself', when we first got together I used to just laugh along with him saying it when really I should have seen it as a massive red flag.

Mmm, people used to die violent deaths a lot more, even a few centuries back. Got to think more of the kids who couldn't cope with being told what to do would've died in accidents in pre-industrial times too.