DH wants us to go Left Handed. HELP.

[PetulaClarkMementoMori]

Not sure if this is the correct thread, but here goes....

My DH and I have been together for over 30 years and, as we're getting on we've both become more aware of and conscious to avoid what I suppose is called Cognitive decline.

I enjoy crosswords and reading, so I think I'm at least using my brain daily. DH has never bothered much with what he ( Mostly jokingly ) calls 'Book-Learning'. Anyway, all of a sudden he's become an 'expert'. He told me he'd read an article ( Although I suspect he means he's seen a two- minute video on Tok Tok ) which claims using your left hand for tasks that you would normally use your right hand for can stave off cognitive decline and now he thinks this is a miracle cure-all.
And, of course, he's become obsessed, everything has to be done left-handed, and if he see's me using my right hand, he booms 'Left!'. I can be chopping vegetables or opening a jar of coffee and I'll suddenly hear 'Left!' in my earhole. I've told him it's annoying, but he's as stubborn as a goat that's been struck by lightning.
Yesterday he spent over two hours repairing the lawnmower left-handed and somehow thinks it's turned him into bloody Einstein in a cloth cap.
I've tried suggesting some 'alternatives', as I read that learning a new language is effective. I've always fancied trying Portuguese, or even Hausa or Finnish. But I suspect trying to entice him with any of this will be met with the equivalent of 'Foreign Muck', and it will be the Moussaka situation all over again.
Honestly, I could scream. I know men get fixated, especially as they get older but this is honestly too much. I'm no Carol Vorderman so can someone explain whether there's any truth in his claims of Neural-plasticity in the brain?
I really need to get some answers because if I keep hearing 'Left!' I may well go hard right! In fact, the other day whilst driving he started rabbitting Left! Left! and it was only when I realised that he was pointing to the entrance to the Garden Centre, that I heeded what he was saying.
So, is there any truth to it? And is anyone else's aging husband going as mad as an Aardwark at an all you can eat Ant-Buffet?
I better go, I can hear him rumaging in the airing cupboard and if he see's me typing with two hands it'll be all she wrote. Literally!

First post nails it

I don't know. My parents always told me when I was younger to NOT do this as it confuses your brain!

Either way, your husband sounds annoying.

For me it was mad as an Aardwark at an all you can eat Ant-Buffet. You do have a way with words OP

Tell him that you are actually naturally left handed but you've been using your Right hand to exercise your brain

Get him a subscription to the Guardian

This made me laugh so much 🤣

The phrase you need is 'Fuck off'.

I'm a bit ambidextrous. But I'm pretty sure if I started chopping veg with the knife in the other hand I'd be in A&E

I need to know more about the moussaka incident!

The left hand thing does sound like a good idea…but it’s really just the same advice to do something different to challenge your brain…listening to different styles of music, learning a language, doing different puzzles instead of the same ones, dancing, learning a new sports etc

Honestly OP, if this were my DH, firstly I’d wonder about his cognitive state if he suddenly fixated on this. In your position I would simply say ‘No’. No, im not doing that, I do x y and z to stave off cognitive decline and im not interested in participating in you left hand idea. It’s not for me. Then repeat as necessary getting increasingly brutal as necessary. ‘I’ve told you I’m not participating in this, stop shouting at me. You are not my boss or manager to order me around, fuck off!’ This would finish, for me, with ‘Do I have to move out for you to get it through your thick skull that I am not participating in this?’

They used to make left handed kids use their right hand in school. My auntie always told me the teachers tied her left hand behind her back, and how awful it was.

It must be infuriating to have him yelling 'LEFT' at you whenever you use your right hand.

He'd be getting a right handed 🖕every time. And a divorce if that didnt stop him.

Apparently standing on one leg while brushing your teeth is good for balance and helps prevent falls.

Alternate legs morning and evening.

Well that sounds incredibly annoying and needs shut down! However, I’m curious as to how this works for people like me! My writing hand is my left, but tools, scissors, hair brush etc basically everything except writing is all done right handed 🤔 I wonder if writing left handed is enough to stop my inevitable cognitive decline…

Oh Lordy OP, thanks for the laughs but I feel your pain.

My dad started out left-handed and was forced to use his right hand when writing in school (this was the olden days, when left-handed people were seen as "sinister"). This resulted in him being ambidextrous.

He died with dementia.

I have heard of mixing in a little left handedness- as in doable simple thing like using your left hand to brush your teeth, not doing everything left handed! I think it would be downright dangerous cutting veg in your non dominant hand!!

Me too!

Yes this is what worries me! I can Julienne with the best of them with my right, but with the left I'm more like Visigoth with a claw hammer

So am I!

I am left handed, so by dint of necessity have had to do lots of things with my non-dominant hand over the years. There is probably some science behind it, but my god he sounds tedious in his approach! Can you get him a portable keyboard and get him to learn the piano (on silent / headphones only!). This is genuinely a very good way of brain training - you can't physically look at music and both hands, so have to learn to "trust" your left hand to do the plonky-plonky bits whilst your right hand does the fiddly-diddly bits.

Please tell us about the moussaka situation, op!
And FWIW you are absolutely right, that's a bit unhinged.
Left!
I'm a leftie and I think product designers should all have to do this. But you shouldn't.
Portuguese will be much better .

I think if I heard 'Left' like that, I'd give him the middle finger, on my left hand naturally.

As a born leftie, I think this is all perfectly reasonable, but thanks to the OP and the other comedians on this thread - we are both ROFLing🤣🤣

i really thought this was going to be a sex thread 🤣

My husband constantly says LEFT at me too. He wears his Fitbit on his right arm and is convinced if we hold hands he won't get his steps. I naturally gravitate to the right, it's a battle.