This will be hard to explain but it is a pattern I have noticed over the years. Here is an example from today. We were looking at an area of the lawn we want to turn into a garden. It faces south and on the right side there is a tree. I have been watching this spot over months to see where the sun is. It turns out the right 1/4 of it gets much less sun. Today I explained this to him and he would not acknowledge my observation. Instead, he started explaining the science of how that could not be. Then he asked me to explain to him how my observation could be true given the science. This same pattern has gone on for years. A couple of years ago, in my apartment I had at the time, he explained why I could not have sun in a certain spot of my apt. Ever. Well as summer came on, that area got really bright. He was wrong. LOL. Anyway, it's been so frustrating I ended up telling him to F*** off today. I mean, if he can't acknowledge my observations there is no point in having a conversation.
Partner doesn't acknowledge my observations
Submitted by LRHG on 05/31/2017.
Dog fight
Submitted by jennalemone on
Yup....been there many times. All the arguing and barking and king-of-the-hilling. It is maddening and futile. I used to (still do when I don't catch myself) go over in my mind a courtroom account of my offense/defense for these kinds of things...spewing anger silently. I've spent so much time trying to explain, justify and prove for my sanity and ego my right and justified responses in situations just like the one you described. Over and over and over. I had/have to STOP it. Don't take it personally. No one has to WIN a nonsensical verbal argument. You have to hold yourself in integrity by holding your head up and choosing to say ONE sentence on how you think/feel about the minor crazy argumentative topic. Then let is sit there ringing in the silence. Then, drop it for your own sake. Straighten yourself up. Learn and accept that he is holding on to a dog's battle of a pull toy and say to yourself, "OK. That is what he believes. I don't have to change him. But I DO know what I know. And now I know that him having a victory over me is more valuable TO HIM than is him loving me and speaking to me with open heart and mind." Words do not have to hurt. They can be nothing more than a learning tool...learning something you may not want to learn but people show you who they are if you listen and watch rather than join in an emotional game of "dog pull toy....grrrrrrr.....I can pull harder than you" game.
Thank you for your kind words
Submitted by LRHG on
Thank you for your kind words jennalemone. And your understanding - I so need that right now.
LRHG , yep, been through same
Submitted by dedelight4 on
Hi, LRHG. And, yes, I've been through hundreds of these situations. My ADHD husband has been oppositional for all 3 decades now. And, even if only state an "opinion" on something, he wants FACTS to support what I believe, otherwise he won't believe me, even if I tell him it's just my opinion. He will discount it, and often angrily, and act like I'm stupid for believing what I'm saying. So, I learned to stop saying things to him, because I KNOW what retort I'm going to get, which is NOT the answer. The answer is for us to learn better ways of communication, which has been difficult, since my husband still wants to believe his ADHD is only a "focus" problem, and nothing more. We need to know how to talk AND respond to each other in more helpful ways. I wish I could get him to listen to the videos here on this website, but he's not willing yet.
Oh I hear you--my DH is an
Submitted by dvance on
Oh I hear you--my DH is an expert on everything in the world. Even when something happens that prove him wrong (not me, like a circumstance or something on TV) he gets super defensive--"well, that's not what I meant" type of thing. It's exhausting. For the most part I don't ever bother arguing. Once he has something in his head, there is no changing it. Give up. A friend of mine who went through a very ugly divorce a few years ago told me something that stuck with me--she said if you stop pushing BACK, the other person has nothing to push against. It works with DH and my oldest son. It's not physical obviously, but If you give up, what can the other person possibly keep arguing with or about without looking ridiculous. It is crazy making though--I often have to go google something that I know to be accurate just to confirm that I am not nuts. My most favorite thing is with regard to his job--he has worked for his current company for 2 1/2 years. The company was around for a LONG time before that and is quite successful. Would you believe NO ONE else there knows what they are doing?? It really is shocking that my DH is the ONLY person who knows anything about anything that is going on in the company and thank god they hired him. These are his actual words--he has actually told me it's a good thing they hired him because he is the ONLY person who knows what's going on. How is that possible?? I mean, come on--if you were, say, a brain surgeon, it may be the case that you are the only person who can do a certain intricate procedure. Short of that--pretty sure we're all replaceable. Gimme a break.
I totally understand your frustration. My DH spouts all kinds of theories that he KNOWS. The sad part is my oldest son generally believes DH over me or anyone else. Example: DH went into the Air Force right out of college and has never gone. I went to undergrad, grad school and did some post-grad. And DS has told me I know nothing about college and while he was applying to college during his senior year, he generally asked his dad over me. Here's a good one: we toured University of Indiana in Bloomington. HUGE campus. Son says something about scheduling classes and giving yourself enough time to get across campus between classes and DH says oh no, the school counselors make sure your classes are close together so you don't have to rush all the way across the campus. Huh??? In no universe does a college the size of Indiana care that their thousands of students are not inconvenienced by having to make their way across campus and perhaps might have to rush. How could they possibly do that?? The math building is where it is, the science building is where it is--you might have to rush. But no, he didn't go to college, but he knows they do this. Whatever.
My advice--quit arguing. You have eyes and a brain. Figure out a way to reconcile that he lives in his own little world and actual reality has little affect on his opinions.
Except for the fact that its my husband with ADHD...
Submitted by Chevron on
...and I'm the wife without it, LRHG, you described exactly something that happens at our house. Exactly.
Goes to show, its a relational communication problem, not an ADHD or non ADHD generated one.
Like your non ADHD husband, my ADHD husband often gets his presumptions from applying logic to abstractions. Euclid, the logical and mathematical thinker predicting what the world will do. Like you, I often speak up about what I expect, having watched it happen for awhile, long enough to see pattern in time and space life. Aristotle, the logical observer of the physical world. We have these Aristotle vs Euclid discussions pretty often.
I so agree with people that very often not much is at risk in the disagreements, and the thing to do is not to perpetuate a disagreement. You know what you know.
Sometimes more is at risk in the different conclusions from different methods of observation. My husband and I right now are in a long period of talk about something that will have us using a large amount of our rather scarce savings, and are using different coordinates in thinking, reaching different conclusions. So while I'm totally in agreement to trust what you know and trust that he doesnt know the way you know, and let it go, in this one going on at home, I cant let it go, and he cant either, there's much too much of our financial wellbeing at stake. We have to get this one right because there will be no do overs. So we're talking very carefully. Right now, we're where you and your husband were about predicting sunlight pattern.
There's a piece about one of the two trying to dominate the disagreement, and shut the other one down. That's what I've at times felt, and the frustration that you seem to be describing. Conversation dominators are a real pain in the rear, as you say, why even try to discuss anything with them.
It took awhile in this kind of a back and forth to be able to see that my husband was feeling as shut down by my insistence on what I thought and knew, as I was feeling when he insisted on his deductions from his abstractions about the matter. We were both feeling like the other one was discarding our observations. I'd suggest that that might be part of your husband's stubbornness, nt wanting to have his thinking and contribution discarded, either.
Perfect little storm. For me the key issue was whether either of us was being a dominator jerk, who had to put he other one down, to feel OK myself or himself.
My husband is a kind man. After I got out of my self focus on feeling bad about being talked down by someone insisting that Reality had to be the way he figured it out, I slowly began to notice that the pair of us, ADHD and non ADHD, were not great in noticing each other's verbal signs that yes, we were listening to each other, and e understanding where each other was coming from. So we both were editing with our attention, focusing only on the points of dissension, not on the attempts to share agreement, where we could agree, during the discussion. Too bad. That's the good stuff of the discussion, the dialogic parts we need to practice, as well as practice sticking up for our own thinking, which after all, is our contribution to the matter. I was missing my husbands acceptance of me cues. Often he wasnt registering mine of him.
But back to true conversation bullies, which my husband and I are not and you and likely your husband is not. True conversation bullies, who for whatever reason, anxiety at losing control, belligerance, self-centeredness...Insist on shutting down the person trying to talk with them, grinding them into silence...Itotally agree that there's no winning arguments with them.
Hi Chevron,
Submitted by LRHG on
Hi Chevron,
It's my partner that has ADHD and I'm the non-ADHDer. Thank you for your sentiments and I agree he may have been just as frustrated wanting to be heard. I guess I feel that in the end observations win out and challenge the science, not the other way around. It's the only way that makes sense to me. And I feel like I am being or what I am seeing is dismissed because it doesn't agree iwth his world. It makes one feel very alone - unpartnered.
Yes, it does make one feel alone
Submitted by Chevron on
I agree.
I've so been there! Bringing
Submitted by blytheandlove on
I've so been there! Bringing "facts" in because my opinion or observation isn't enough on it's own to warrant being heard. I've been fortunate, that I can drop it and come back when I'm not feeling belittled by my husband and angry, and typically, he eventually sees reason. I only do this every now and again, because not every observation is worth the anger and the fight for me, but sometimes he just needs to hear himself. I sometimes wonder how he can function at his job as a superior if people come to him with suggestions and they get steamrolled!
For what it's worth-- your observations DO matter and, in the specific case you mentioned, ARE RIGHT.