Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The dryer thing happens all the time and I threw it in his office the other day. What is wrong with men?

Yeah I’d fold my own clothes and throw his half a**ed pile in another room.

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Anonymous wrote:OP I get it. I have a DH who likes to claim he "did 4 loads of laundry today" when he's working from home but what he actually did was move 4 loads of laundry through the machines and then pile them all on a chair in the living room where they will stay for days unless I give up and fold them first. I've told him that I don't really consider myself to have done a load of laundry until it's put away and he was like "oh you're too hard on yourself -- I think just getting it cleaned is an accomplishment."

This would break me.

The hardest part of laundry is folding it and putting it away after. If you don't fold it right away then it's wrinkly and you have to look at each thing and decide to fluff it or iron to make it look decent.

Finding a massive unwashed pile of clothing in the hamper is preferable to encountering a mystery stack of wrinkled but clean clothes.

PP here and yes I totally agree. I thought of this example reading OP's post because last week we were both working from home on Friday when he did this and it was a genuine source of stress for me to watch that pile grow throughout the day. I said something to him about it ("maybe we shouldn't do anymore laundry today as it's going to take a while to get through all the folding") and he was like "don't worry about it -- I want to get through all the washing first." The pile sat there all weekend until finally I broke down on Sunday and folded it. I didn't fluff or iron anything because I just refuse but it took me a full hour and I was very irritated. But if I say anything he'll be like "I can't believe you are mad at me for doing the laundry."

It sounds like “we” didn’t do laundry that day… HE did laundry and “we” weren’t involved until you did YOUR share and folded it… an entire week later. I’ll bet HE didn’t complain, though.

Well I was working and didn't have time to fold four loads of laundry that day -- I was working. Turns out he also didn't have time to fold the laundry either because he didn't. Anyone can just move laundry through the machines during little breaks between calls or whatever -- this takes maybe a minute or two per load. So he spent 10 minutes doing laundry on Friday and I spent an hour folding and putting away laundry on Sunday (2 days later not an entire week -- eventually we actually needed those clothes to wear).

Why would he complain about this. He actually thinks he accomplished something but I did more than half of the work.

LOL. Then why the heck didn’t YOU do any of it? By your own admission you were BOTH working from home and yet HE is the only one who did any laundry chores. And I guess you guys don’t sort your laundry or have any delicate or stained items if it only takes a minute or two per load to get them clean.

And finally, folding is not that difficult. Stop being a drama queen.

I didn't do laundry that day because I did not have time to fold it and put it away. I did it on the weekend when I had time to *complete the task.* I didn't want to start a chore and then leave it sitting in the middle of the living room for two days because I don't want a pile of wrinkles clothes sitting in the living room for two days.

If my DH wanted to do laundry he should have done only as many loads as HE could fold and put away that day. But he wants credit for doing the first third of the task (the easiest and least time consuming part). I could have done laundry on Sunday when I was doing stuff around the house anyway and the folded the clothes as they came out if the dryer before they got all wrinkled and I would have been no worse off. But DH wants a cookie for half assing a task and then leaving it for me to finish. He didn't help! It was inefficient and poorly done. Why should I be grateful for that?

He doesn’t want a cookie, though. He just wants you to calm down and get off his back. Your position is literally “if I had done this task I would have done it better than you!” But the fact is that you didn’t do the task! You did *nothing* but are complaining bitterly about him doing *something*!

You could have *easily* folded laundry as he was taking it out if the dryer, but you chose not to because you thought if you pouted enough he would do literally everything on HIS breaks while you did absolutely nothing on your breaks.

I. Was. Working. It was a work day. I was on my computer writing a document that had to go out that day. I did not have 30 minutes breaks through the day to piddle around the house. Instead I just watched while he through pile after pile of laundry on a chair where I knew it would sit until I folded it.

When I do chores around the house, I finish them. I do way more cleaning than he does. I do all the organizing and most of the tidying. I do not halfass any of these activities and expect someone else to finish them for me and then on top of it expect them to be grateful that I "got them started."

1. Your husband was also working, maybe not to “writing a document” level of exertion (lol btw) but working nonetheless
2. You didn’t do any chores to any level of completion, but you are incessantly whining about a chore that was done, objectively, good enough. (Were the clothed clean when you needed them? You already admitted this, and your husband, not you, is the reason you had clean clothes to wear on Monday.)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you were gone for three weeks all this 20% work would get done, especially if there was a weekly housecleaner he had to prepare for. So it’s NBD, just him working on a different timetable than you.

Does his timetable include kids? Because that is often when a couple gets "out of sync" over household tasks-- when they have kids. Kids multiply the work while reducing the time you have to do it. So if pre-kids you often took a week to put away laundry or only put the dishes away when the housecleaner was coming so that she could deep clean the kitchen, it was NBD because the rest of the time you were working or socializing and who cares with there's some partially completed tasks around the house.

With kids the math is different. There's twice as much laundry and if you don't fold it and put it away, you're spending every morning picking through the pile of clean laundry trying to get your kids dressed for school. If you never actually finish the dishes there aren't enough dishes for a single meal featuring the entire family. You have to make lunches on the edge of the counter not covered by dishes. You can't finish that last 20% in the morning because you're helping a toddler get dressed and doing a school run. And you can't bank on doing it on Saturday morning because the kids have soccer or swim.

This is when women start getting frustrated because having kids forces women to function at a higher level-- more efficient, more multi-tasking, keeping track of more tasks and schedules. But many men expect their lives to operate exactly the same as before. They are convinced that if their approach to chores and schedules was working okay pre-kids, well it must still work. But it doesn't and this puts even more pressure on moms to over perform. This is how DH becomes another child to be managed. And that kills intimacy and breeds resentment. And then the DH wonders why his wife never wants to have sex anymore and why she always seems annoyed with him.

Kids change things but fir some reason a lot of men are determined to prove this wrong.

Or…you can put your husband in charge of dressing the kids, making the dinner, cleaning, etc. I did this simply by getting the higher paid job and leaving the house early and coming home late.

I have the higher paid job and we have the same hours and my DH still does not account for the kids in his thinking about anything unless explicitly reminded to do so. I can "put him in charge" of kid stuff and do (though please note that the act of "putting him in charge" is a task in itself -- my DH does not need to assign household or parenting chores to me) but he will not do it on his own. In the end I wind up resenting that I make more money and still have to be the one to just know all about all the household and parenting items we have to know and to be responsible for making sure one of us does it and then on top of that having to complete tasks for him that he halfasses even after it has been explicitly assigned to him and he's agree to do it.

This morning was "his morning" to do the camp run which meant he sat down to work at 7:30 and did not get the kids up or get them breakfast or help pack their bags or make sure they were wearing appropriate clothes and sunscreen or pay attention to the clock so that they left on time. Instead I wound up getting them up and fed (20 minutes after they should have because I thought he'd do it) and then making sure they were ready and I still had to say "shouldn't you guys be leaving" at 8:55 (10 minutes after they really should have left) and DH just stood up from his desk and walked the kids who I got ready out the door. Please compare to the three days a week that I do camp run on my own without him at all because he works in the office on those days and I do all of it without anyone reminding me or helping me. And again -- I make more. But he just absolutely refuses to make kids or household chores a priority and I always have to decide between rescuing him (and thus training him to continue to rely on me to pick up his slack) or let my kids' lives be chaos because one of their parents thinks 50% of any parenting task is good enough.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can be guilty of this. I do think ADHD is something I struggle with but can mostly manage. I wish I could say why my brain does it. It's like. I know the laundry needs to be switched over but I just end up doing something else and keep saying "I'll do it later". The difference is that I know it drives DH crazy so I make a real effort to follow through on everything. I make a lot of lists. For whatever reason physically crossing things off helps me. I also make myself stop and say "no, bring the glass to the kitchen when you stand up. Don't say you'll do it later"

So, so, so soooo, sick of the ADHD excuse. There, I said it.

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Anonymous wrote:Try FairPlay cards.

Men need to be called out that they are acting like babies and can, just like they do at work, take on adult responsibilities.

NP here who tried FairPlay. DH wouldn't read the book and ignored the cards, and announced that it was a waste of his time because everything was going ok already.

So he doesn't care if you are unhappy with how everything is going?

He said we should only put in the effort if both of us were unhappy and that he "compromises on other stuff" so I should compromise on wanting to do FairPlay.

It's one of those things that is just as maddening when you're living it as when you're reading about it, but it's easy to say someone should leave and just get a divorce. I wouldn't want to leave my child in his care until they are old enough to easily communicate with me and take care of their own basic needs and surroundings.

My husband is also like this.

I also think this is why my SIL divorced my brother --she unhappy with division of labor (among other things) but when she explicitly told my brother she was unhappy and it needed to be addressed he would blow it off and say he didn't think it was that bad and they certainly didn't need couples therapy or to read some books to get on the same page.

She divorced him when kids were 10 and 8. It was very hard on the kids even though they really tried to make it as easy as possible. Also my brother now has another wife who also has a kid and that is ALSO really hard on his kids from his first marriage and there's just a lot of strife generally.

So I keep working at it.

So I keep trying.

Good but unfortunate point.

It is a NIGHtMARE to co-parent with an adhd/ASD ex-spouse. Very tough on the kids too. Losing stuff, missing appts, forgetting things, bad habits, no rules enforced. It’s a joke, but a sad one.

And if said clueless ex-spouse goes and remarries and has more kids, it’s even worse. Guess who constantly gets left out like the 20% ?? Kid batch 1.

These types are not adults. Not parent or marriage material. Ugh.

Except a lot of us end up married to them. You can't leave while your kids are still at home, because they need/want contact with their parent. So for the duration, you have to put up with the irritation.

But [here comes a certain level of financial privilege; I know this isn't possible for a lot of women] start creating a fund that is just your money. Be open about it with your partner:

"I cannot live like this forever; it's exhausting to have to play Mommy/housekeeper to a supposedly grown man. When the kids move out, I'm moving out too. You can stay in the house and use it as a central meeting place for holidays, whatever. But from day to day, I want to know that I only need to worry about my own needs. I will buy my own food and pay my own bills and deal with my own mess. And you can have the chaos all to yourself."

I think you really need to look at yourself and investigate what caused you to either miss the signs, or agree to it. You didn't "end up" married. Stop being passive. You said "I do". You signed the marriage license. You probably planned the whole wedding FFS. You made this choice. Why and how?

Anonymous wrote:How did so many of you marry someone with ADHD? Did you really not notice any signs when you were dating? After living with a ADHD roommate in college, I could spot the signs 100 miles away and avoided these people like the plague.

Anonymous wrote:Give him a really great blowjob, but then stop when he’s almost done.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you were gone for three weeks all this 20% work would get done, especially if there was a weekly housecleaner he had to prepare for. So it’s NBD, just him working on a different timetable than you.

Not necessarily. Some people just don’t care if their clothes are wrinkled or they live out of a laundry basket. My mother and sibling don’t. I do. I am lucky my DH cares a lot and doesn’t do any of the stupid stuff on this thread. But it’s got to be innate because one of my kids would just throw his stuff on the floor if he could get away with it, while the other neatly sorts and reorganizes with no input from us (and she’s 4 years younger than DS so it isn’t an age thing either). I’mtrying to train DS better but I recognize that at some point it’s up to him. I can make him fold now but when he’s an adult he’ll probably live in a pigsty and be happy with it. Like my sibling.

And that’s when you need to learn to let some things go. If he’s fine with wrinkled clothes, dump his clothes in the floor and call it a day. Focus your energy on getting him to complete the things that really affect you—like when he leaves dirty dishes all over the house.

Anonymous wrote:OP I get it. I have a DH who likes to claim he "did 4 loads of laundry today" when he's working from home but what he actually did was move 4 loads of laundry through the machines and then pile them all on a chair in the living room where they will stay for days unless I give up and fold them first. I've told him that I don't really consider myself to have done a load of laundry until it's put away and he was like "oh you're too hard on yourself -- I think just getting it cleaned is an accomplishment."

My husband does the same! Literally same conversation. So frustrating.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you were gone for three weeks all this 20% work would get done, especially if there was a weekly housecleaner he had to prepare for. So it’s NBD, just him working on a different timetable than you.

Does his timetable include kids? Because that is often when a couple gets "out of sync" over household tasks-- when they have kids. Kids multiply the work while reducing the time you have to do it. So if pre-kids you often took a week to put away laundry or only put the dishes away when the housecleaner was coming so that she could deep clean the kitchen, it was NBD because the rest of the time you were working or socializing and who cares with there's some partially completed tasks around the house.

With kids the math is different. There's twice as much laundry and if you don't fold it and put it away, you're spending every morning picking through the pile of clean laundry trying to get your kids dressed for school. If you never actually finish the dishes there aren't enough dishes for a single meal featuring the entire family. You have to make lunches on the edge of the counter not covered by dishes. You can't finish that last 20% in the morning because you're helping a toddler get dressed and doing a school run. And you can't bank on doing it on Saturday morning because the kids have soccer or swim.

This is when women start getting frustrated because having kids forces women to function at a higher level-- more efficient, more multi-tasking, keeping track of more tasks and schedules. But many men expect their lives to operate exactly the same as before. They are convinced that if their approach to chores and schedules was working okay pre-kids, well it must still work. But it doesn't and this puts even more pressure on moms to over perform. This is how DH becomes another child to be managed. And that kills intimacy and breeds resentment. And then the DH wonders why his wife never wants to have sex anymore and why she always seems annoyed with him.

Kids change things but fir some reason a lot of men are determined to prove this wrong.

Or…you can put your husband in charge of dressing the kids, making the dinner, cleaning, etc. I did this simply by getting the higher paid job and leaving the house early and coming home late.

I have the higher paid job and we have the same hours and my DH still does not account for the kids in his thinking about anything unless explicitly reminded to do so. I can "put him in charge" of kid stuff and do (though please note that the act of "putting him in charge" is a task in itself -- my DH does not need to assign household or parenting chores to me) but he will not do it on his own. In the end I wind up resenting that I make more money and still have to be the one to just know all about all the household and parenting items we have to know and to be responsible for making sure one of us does it and then on top of that having to complete tasks for him that he halfasses even after it has been explicitly assigned to him and he's agree to do it.

This morning was "his morning" to do the camp run which meant he sat down to work at 7:30 and did not get the kids up or get them breakfast or help pack their bags or make sure they were wearing appropriate clothes and sunscreen or pay attention to the clock so that they left on time. Instead I wound up getting them up and fed (20 minutes after they should have because I thought he'd do it) and then making sure they were ready and I still had to say "shouldn't you guys be leaving" at 8:55 (10 minutes after they really should have left) and DH just stood up from his desk and walked the kids who I got ready out the door. Please compare to the three days a week that I do camp run on my own without him at all because he works in the office on those days and I do all of it without anyone reminding me or helping me. And again -- I make more. But he just absolutely refuses to make kids or household chores a priority and I always have to decide between rescuing him (and thus training him to continue to rely on me to pick up his slack) or let my kids' lives be chaos because one of their parents thinks 50% of any parenting task is good enough.

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:OP I get it. I have a DH who likes to claim he "did 4 loads of laundry today" when he's working from home but what he actually did was move 4 loads of laundry through the machines and then pile them all on a chair in the living room where they will stay for days unless I give up and fold them first. I've told him that I don't really consider myself to have done a load of laundry until it's put away and he was like "oh you're too hard on yourself -- I think just getting it cleaned is an accomplishment."

This would break me.

The hardest part of laundry is folding it and putting it away after. If you don't fold it right away then it's wrinkly and you have to look at each thing and decide to fluff it or iron to make it look decent.

Finding a massive unwashed pile of clothing in the hamper is preferable to encountering a mystery stack of wrinkled but clean clothes.

PP here and yes I totally agree. I thought of this example reading OP's post because last week we were both working from home on Friday when he did this and it was a genuine source of stress for me to watch that pile grow throughout the day. I said something to him about it ("maybe we shouldn't do anymore laundry today as it's going to take a while to get through all the folding") and he was like "don't worry about it -- I want to get through all the washing first." The pile sat there all weekend until finally I broke down on Sunday and folded it. I didn't fluff or iron anything because I just refuse but it took me a full hour and I was very irritated. But if I say anything he'll be like "I can't believe you are mad at me for doing the laundry."

It sounds like “we” didn’t do laundry that day… HE did laundry and “we” weren’t involved until you did YOUR share and folded it… an entire week later. I’ll bet HE didn’t complain, though.

Well I was working and didn't have time to fold four loads of laundry that day -- I was working. Turns out he also didn't have time to fold the laundry either because he didn't. Anyone can just move laundry through the machines during little breaks between calls or whatever -- this takes maybe a minute or two per load. So he spent 10 minutes doing laundry on Friday and I spent an hour folding and putting away laundry on Sunday (2 days later not an entire week -- eventually we actually needed those clothes to wear).

Why would he complain about this. He actually thinks he accomplished something but I did more than half of the work.

LOL. Then why the heck didn’t YOU do any of it? By your own admission you were BOTH working from home and yet HE is the only one who did any laundry chores. And I guess you guys don’t sort your laundry or have any delicate or stained items if it only takes a minute or two per load to get them clean.

And finally, folding is not that difficult. Stop being a drama queen.

I didn't do laundry that day because I did not have time to fold it and put it away. I did it on the weekend when I had time to *complete the task.* I didn't want to start a chore and then leave it sitting in the middle of the living room for two days because I don't want a pile of wrinkles clothes sitting in the living room for two days.

If my DH wanted to do laundry he should have done only as many loads as HE could fold and put away that day. But he wants credit for doing the first third of the task (the easiest and least time consuming part). I could have done laundry on Sunday when I was doing stuff around the house anyway and the folded the clothes as they came out if the dryer before they got all wrinkled and I would have been no worse off. But DH wants a cookie for half assing a task and then leaving it for me to finish. He didn't help! It was inefficient and poorly done. Why should I be grateful for that?

He doesn’t want a cookie, though. He just wants you to calm down and get off his back. Your position is literally “if I had done this task I would have done it better than you!” But the fact is that you didn’t do the task! You did *nothing* but are complaining bitterly about him doing *something*!

You could have *easily* folded laundry as he was taking it out if the dryer, but you chose not to because you thought if you pouted enough he would do literally everything on HIS breaks while you did absolutely nothing on your breaks.

I. Was. Working. It was a work day. I was on my computer writing a document that had to go out that day. I did not have 30 minutes breaks through the day to piddle around the house. Instead I just watched while he through pile after pile of laundry on a chair where I knew it would sit until I folded it.

When I do chores around the house, I finish them. I do way more cleaning than he does. I do all the organizing and most of the tidying. I do not halfass any of these activities and expect someone else to finish them for me and then on top of it expect them to be grateful that I "got them started."

Anonymous wrote:How did so many of you marry someone with ADHD? Did you really not notice any signs when you were dating? After living with a ADHD roommate in college, I could spot the signs 100 miles away and avoided these people like the plague.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you were gone for three weeks all this 20% work would get done, especially if there was a weekly housecleaner he had to prepare for. So it’s NBD, just him working on a different timetable than you.

Does his timetable include kids? Because that is often when a couple gets "out of sync" over household tasks-- when they have kids. Kids multiply the work while reducing the time you have to do it. So if pre-kids you often took a week to put away laundry or only put the dishes away when the housecleaner was coming so that she could deep clean the kitchen, it was NBD because the rest of the time you were working or socializing and who cares with there's some partially completed tasks around the house.

With kids the math is different. There's twice as much laundry and if you don't fold it and put it away, you're spending every morning picking through the pile of clean laundry trying to get your kids dressed for school. If you never actually finish the dishes there aren't enough dishes for a single meal featuring the entire family. You have to make lunches on the edge of the counter not covered by dishes. You can't finish that last 20% in the morning because you're helping a toddler get dressed and doing a school run. And you can't bank on doing it on Saturday morning because the kids have soccer or swim.

This is when women start getting frustrated because having kids forces women to function at a higher level-- more efficient, more multi-tasking, keeping track of more tasks and schedules. But many men expect their lives to operate exactly the same as before. They are convinced that if their approach to chores and schedules was working okay pre-kids, well it must still work. But it doesn't and this puts even more pressure on moms to over perform. This is how DH becomes another child to be managed. And that kills intimacy and breeds resentment. And then the DH wonders why his wife never wants to have sex anymore and why she always seems annoyed with him.

Kids change things but fir some reason a lot of men are determined to prove this wrong.

Or…you can put your husband in charge of dressing the kids, making the dinner, cleaning, etc. I did this simply by getting the higher paid job and leaving the house early and coming home late.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Try FairPlay cards.

Men need to be called out that they are acting like babies and can, just like they do at work, take on adult responsibilities.

NP here who tried FairPlay. DH wouldn't read the book and ignored the cards, and announced that it was a waste of his time because everything was going ok already.

So he doesn't care if you are unhappy with how everything is going?

He said we should only put in the effort if both of us were unhappy and that he "compromises on other stuff" so I should compromise on wanting to do FairPlay.

It's one of those things that is just as maddening when you're living it as when you're reading about it, but it's easy to say someone should leave and just get a divorce. I wouldn't want to leave my child in his care until they are old enough to easily communicate with me and take care of their own basic needs and surroundings.

My husband is also like this.

I also think this is why my SIL divorced my brother --she unhappy with division of labor (among other things) but when she explicitly told my brother she was unhappy and it needed to be addressed he would blow it off and say he didn't think it was that bad and they certainly didn't need couples therapy or to read some books to get on the same page.

She divorced him when kids were 10 and 8. It was very hard on the kids even though they really tried to make it as easy as possible. Also my brother now has another wife who also has a kid and that is ALSO really hard on his kids from his first marriage and there's just a lot of strife generally.

So I keep working at it.

So I keep trying.

Good but unfortunate point.

It is a NIGHtMARE to co-parent with an adhd/ASD ex-spouse. Very tough on the kids too. Losing stuff, missing appts, forgetting things, bad habits, no rules enforced. It’s a joke, but a sad one.

And if said clueless ex-spouse goes and remarries and has more kids, it’s even worse. Guess who constantly gets left out like the 20% ?? Kid batch 1.

These types are not adults. Not parent or marriage material. Ugh.

Except a lot of us end up married to them. You can't leave while your kids are still at home, because they need/want contact with their parent. So for the duration, you have to put up with the irritation.

But [here comes a certain level of financial privilege; I know this isn't possible for a lot of women] start creating a fund that is just your money. Be open about it with your partner:

"I cannot live like this forever; it's exhausting to have to play Mommy/housekeeper to a supposedly grown man. When the kids move out, I'm moving out too. You can stay in the house and use it as a central meeting place for holidays, whatever. But from day to day, I want to know that I only need to worry about my own needs. I will buy my own food and pay my own bills and deal with my own mess. And you can have the chaos all to yourself."

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Try FairPlay cards.

Men need to be called out that they are acting like babies and can, just like they do at work, take on adult responsibilities.

NP here who tried FairPlay. DH wouldn't read the book and ignored the cards, and announced that it was a waste of his time because everything was going ok already.

So he doesn't care if you are unhappy with how everything is going?

He said we should only put in the effort if both of us were unhappy and that he "compromises on other stuff" so I should compromise on wanting to do FairPlay.

It's one of those things that is just as maddening when you're living it as when you're reading about it, but it's easy to say someone should leave and just get a divorce. I wouldn't want to leave my child in his care until they are old enough to easily communicate with me and take care of their own basic needs and surroundings.

My husband is also like this.

I also think this is why my SIL divorced my brother --she unhappy with division of labor (among other things) but when she explicitly told my brother she was unhappy and it needed to be addressed he would blow it off and say he didn't think it was that bad and they certainly didn't need couples therapy or to read some books to get on the same page.

She divorced him when kids were 10 and 8. It was very hard on the kids even though they really tried to make it as easy as possible. Also my brother now has another wife who also has a kid and that is ALSO really hard on his kids from his first marriage and there's just a lot of strife generally.

So I keep working at it.

So I keep trying.

Good but unfortunate point.

It is a NIGHtMARE to co-parent with an adhd/ASD ex-spouse. Very tough on the kids too. Losing stuff, missing appts, forgetting things, bad habits, no rules enforced. It’s a joke, but a sad one.

And if said clueless ex-spouse goes and remarries and has more kids, it’s even worse. Guess who constantly gets left out like the 20% ?? Kid batch 1.

These types are not adults. Not parent or marriage material. Ugh.

Except a lot of us end up married to them. You can't leave while your kids are still at home, because they need/want contact with their parent. So for the duration, you have to put up with the irritation.

But [here comes a certain level of financial privilege; I know this isn't possible for a lot of women] start creating a fund that is just your money. Be open about it with your partner:

"I cannot live like this forever; it's exhausting to have to play Mommy/housekeeper to a supposedly grown man. When the kids move out, I'm moving out too. You can stay in the house and use it as a central meeting place for holidays, whatever. But from day to day, I want to know that I only need to worry about my own needs. I will buy my own food and pay my own bills and deal with my own mess. And you can have the chaos all to yourself."