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[quote=Anonymous]DH has what I perceive to be major communication deficits that he refuses to acknowledge. When I communicate things verbally, he often mishears or does not remember what I’ve said. So, after many years of struggles and problems, we agreed that important and non-important things must be communicated in writing. Tedious, but fine. In theory it should work better. But it doesn’t, and when something goes wrong because he’s ignored what I wrote or made up something entirely different and he is faced with the consequences, he deflects and throws blame at me, and gets so upset when caught in his mistakes that he’ll raise his voice and essentially tantrum while demanding that I “drop it.” Our neighbors live very close so this is effective…but also manipulative and doesn’t improve our communication.

Today he blew up for the dumbest thing ever. I texted a 3-item grocery list at his request, which included “pasta shells” for a pasta salad that I frequently make or have him help me make.

While I was driving and unable to see his text reply, he asked “penne? Rotini?”

I came home and both types of pasta were on the counter. No shells. I showed him the text and said “I asked you to get pasta shells. What happened?”

He said, “how was I supposed to know what kind of pasta you wanted?” And it blew up from there. Instead of owning the mistake, he blamed me for mentioning the mistake and said I was making him feel stupid and we couldn’t talk about it anymore because “you’re just trying to make me feel stupid.” I wasn’t, but I do think he felt stupid and I also don’t know how to manage being on the receiving end of his joint communication/ego problems.

I have NO idea how to go forward- I literally cannot communicate any more specifically and I also cannot take over grocery shopping, which is one of the last tasks I don’t already do due to blowups like this.

How can I communicate with someone like this? I’m lost and frustrated and feel stuck.

To preemptively answer your questions:
1) he is on ADHD medication
2) he was not like this before we married or had kids, but he did travel a lot for work and was free to focus on nothing else. He is very very successful at work but not so successful that we can hire someone to buy proverbial pasta shells for us.[/quote]

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