You aren't the only one.

Inattentive ADD?

I can remind my ex a dozen times about something - in several different formats (email, text, in person, phone) and he will still forget it. Consequently, for anything important (camp signups, school registration, doctor's appts, etc.) I take responsibility. At one point he was calling me every night to ask what the school lunch was, until he finally figured out that he could download the app himself and look it up. He'll still text me to ask me when/where basketball practice is, when he's been the one taking her to practice for the last two months.

These are his limitations. I accept them. It's annoying, but it's our reality. It's not worth fighting about. I save my battles for the other stuff.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You knew you were with a man-child before you married him, but you convinced yourself that you had to become a wife and mother as soon as possible. You hoped he would change, even though deep down you knew he wouldn't. Following the life script of domesticity ("wedded bliss," "you'll never know real love until you have children of your own.") Or living the life you really want. You can't have it both ways.

100% this and most other women on this board.

+2

Anonymous wrote:My husband only remembers to take out the trash and recycling maybe 60% of the time and when he forgets he likes to say it’s because I forgot to remind him (I think he’s partly joking but partly not). Meanwhile, other than taking care of himself he literally doesn’t have to remember anything else. I’m the one who has to remember who needs school lunches on what day, who’s library book/homework/anything is due on what day, who needs money for the book fair etc. We both work full time so it’s not like I’m the stay at home parent but it is what it is. Meanwhile, tonight my husband was walking by and I reminded him recycling goes out tonight and he replied “I know!” in a very annoyed tone. I basically told him he doesn’t get to be annoyed with my reminding him if he’s also going to blame me when he doesn’t remember and his response is that he can be annoyed when I remind him when he’s in the middle of doing something else. I know this is a little thing but I’m seriously annoyed by this. He can’t have it both ways.

1) If you want to deal with the overall balance of tasks, deal with it directly and not by trash/recycling proxy.
2) In this kind of situation I would say “when you forgot to take out the trash and said “you didn’t remind me” I thought that meant that you want me to remind you. Do you want me to remind you? If he says the thing about “not when I’m in the middle of something” say, well, I can remind you when I think of you or not remind you at all, but I’m not going to wait around until it seems like you’re doing nothing to remind you. So do you want reminders or not? If he says no, then no reminders. If he forgets and again says “you didn’t remind me” then you say - look, it bothers me when you say I didn’t remind you but you also said you don’t actually want reminders. Can you just not do that?

Personally, if he’s said he doesn’t want reminders and then still says “you didn’t remind me” he’s either joking (in a way that may annoy you, but still it’s a joke) or he’s purposefully needling you to upset you, which is a bigger relationship issue.

Anonymous wrote:Mine is similar. I reminded him probably at least a dozen times to do work reimbursements for *three* trips before he did them. I would do them myself if I could. I have to nag or do most things my. Exception is food shopping and cooking since that’s fully his responsibility.

That's my DH. I literally get sick to my stomach thinking about how many thousands of dollars he hasn't been reimbursed for because he simply couldn't be bothered to do them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If he remembers 60% of the time and you take it out 40%, then it is a fairly even split, right?

Ummm, no. The fairly even split would be him also doing 40% of the daily tasks for the kids. Right now he does 0% of that.

+1
He's not participating mentally. The household stuff is one thing because it's obvious. You drop the ball on the kids, then they suffer. No book fair, no spelling practice, no homework, no permission slips... The dad needs to participate mentally.

Anonymous wrote:You knew you were with a man-child before you married him, but you convinced yourself that you had to become a wife and mother as soon as possible. You hoped he would change, even though deep down you knew he wouldn't. Following the life script of domesticity ("wedded bliss," "you'll never know real love until you have children of your own.") Or living the life you really want. You can't have it both ways.

100% this and most other women on this board.

Anonymous wrote:Whose. Not who’s. You sound dim.

Is the the only error in the post? Or is it the only one you were bright enough to notice?

Whose. Not who’s. You sound dim.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You knew you were with a man-child before you married him, but you convinced yourself that you had to become a wife and mother as soon as possible. You hoped he would change, even though deep down you knew he wouldn't. Following the life script of domesticity ("wedded bliss," "you'll never know real love until you have children of your own.") Or living the life you really want. You can't have it both ways.

I wish posters would stop with the.....well, you knew this before marrying him/her. That is not true in most cases. It takes people awhile to show their day to day faults, tempers, laziness, insecurities, etc. Stop saying that. It’s no help whatsoever.....just blaming the OP.

I agree! (New poster)
It is so easy to take care of a household of 2 adults. H was moderately helpful, I enjoyed doing what I was doing, I thought we had it figured out.
Ultimately I don’t think there is a way to radically transform a person once the roles are established after kids. It’s cost benefit analysis all the way. Ultimately there were more costs than benefits from my ex (heck, the only benefit was his income which he let me have less and less say in spending - so divorce ultimately made sense for me.
I would run a basic CBA. I have a friend who complains about her H but she does not realize he does a ton of drop offs and pickups.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You knew you were with a man-child before you married him, but you convinced yourself that you had to become a wife and mother as soon as possible. You hoped he would change, even though deep down you knew he wouldn't. Following the life script of domesticity ("wedded bliss," "you'll never know real love until you have children of your own.") Or living the life you really want. You can't have it both ways.

I wish posters would stop with the.....well, you knew this before marrying him/her. That is not true in most cases. It takes people awhile to show their day to day faults, tempers, laziness, insecurities, etc. Stop saying that. It’s no help whatsoever.....just blaming the OP.

Thank you. You can't see into the future. And people change. And when you are IN LOVE with them, their faults don't seem that glaring. And when you don't have children together ... so much easier!!!!

As soon as my youngest left for college, I divorced DH. Problem solved.

Anonymous wrote:My husband only remembers to take out the trash and recycling maybe 60% of the time and when he forgets he likes to say it’s because I forgot to remind him (I think he’s partly joking but partly not). Meanwhile, other than taking care of himself he literally doesn’t have to remember anything else. I’m the one who has to remember who needs school lunches on what day, who’s library book/homework/anything is due on what day, who needs money for the book fair etc. We both work full time so it’s not like I’m the stay at home parent but it is what it is. Meanwhile, tonight my husband was walking by and I reminded him recycling goes out tonight and he replied “I know!” in a very annoyed tone. I basically told him he doesn’t get to be annoyed with my reminding him if he’s also going to blame me when he doesn’t remember and his response is that he can be annoyed when I remind him when he’s in the middle of doing something else. I know this is a little thing but I’m seriously annoyed by this. He can’t have it both ways.

Then, I wouldn’t remind him nor do it for him. He can make a special trip another day.

Anonymous wrote:You knew you were with a man-child before you married him, but you convinced yourself that you had to become a wife and mother as soon as possible. You hoped he would change, even though deep down you knew he wouldn't. Following the life script of domesticity ("wedded bliss," "you'll never know real love until you have children of your own.") Or living the life you really want. You can't have it both ways.

I wish posters would stop with the.....well, you knew this before marrying him/her. That is not true in most cases. It takes people awhile to show their day to day faults, tempers, laziness, insecurities, etc. Stop saying that. It’s no help whatsoever.....just blaming the OP.

Anonymous wrote:If he remembers 60% of the time and you take it out 40%, then it is a fairly even split, right?

Ummm, no. The fairly even split would be him also doing 40% of the daily tasks for the kids. Right now he does 0% of that.