I can't count the number of times H has said he's going to do something right now and then does something completely opposite. What is it in their brain that makes them say things when it seems like they have no intention of doing it? Just this past weekend he tells me at about 2PM after he just got done with about 2 hours of video gaming "Let me take a shower and then we'll go run errands". What does he do 20 seconds after telling me that? He grabs his guitar and sits down and plays that for about 30 minutes and THEN goes to take a shower! Then later on that night he tells me "Tomorrow why don't we head downtown and do some stuff?" I say "That sounds great" because I'm up for anything to get me out of the house. The next day at 2PM he is in front of his computer in his pajamas and has not said one word about going anywhere. I bring it up to him and he goes 'Nah. I'm pretty comfortable right here". He tells me he's going to go online right now and send me his share of money for the bills. 5 minutes later I walk into the computer room and he's playing his video game. I say "Did you send me the money?" He goes "No. I'm going to wait until my accounts stabilize and I'll send you some in a couple of days." He tells me he's going to go lay down for a nap, yet he goes into the computer room to play his game and never does nap. He does this with other people too. He gets all excited about getting his motorcycle on the track and tells this one guy he'll do a certain weekend with him and gets him all hyped up about it. Then tells me a few hours later "I really don't want to do that weekend. It will be so crowded." Yet he doesn't tell the guy that and lets him believe he'll be there. Same about fixing a guy's motorcycle. He worked on a bike for a friend of a guy he works with. This guy told his friend and he contacted H. H says "Sure I"ll take a look at it". This guy then texts H saying "Great. I'll be home after 2PM both Sat and Sun and will be available then." H then complains to me that he doesn't want to fix this guy's bike but doesn't tell him that. The guy is obviously excited to get it looked at and texts H saying "I'm home now so anytime is good." H ignores the text. The guy texts again at 2 on Sun. "I'm home" and H ignores the text.
I mean I just don't get why he says all this stuff when it seems like he's just saying it to say it and has no intention of following through.
Me too
Submitted by kathy1208 on
My husband if notorious for saying stuff that is meaningless.
My husband is very much like this, but I think things have gotten better (not without a lot of arguments about it unfortunately). It caused him to constantly make commitments to which he couldn't adhere. He would casually say "ill be home at 8" even if i didnt ask and dont care, and ten come home at midnight, or "ill be home at 1 pm" and get home at 6 pm, etc - times when i didnt even care, but he voluntarily set up an expectation, and broke it. PLUS the times I needed a time for some reason, and he broke those, PLUS all the plans we've made that he's double or triple booked, etc. The list goes on.
It took many years but my husband I think has gotten the point about casual social stuff....about when hes coming/going, what plans we may have on a whim together over the next couple of days - just don't offer up things unless you're 100% sure you'll deliver. When he says "we should run errands after i shower" you should assume it won't happen. Ask him to only offer up things you are going to do "right now", or otherwise for things that require planning, keep a schedule. my husband would often accuse me of misremembering or making it up when i insisted he said hed go to X with me and then two weeks later he planned Y for the same time slot. It was doubly annoying/insulting if it was somethign i was excited for - it's easy to feel like youre on the backburner if it's something youre so excited for but for him it is so insignificant that he cant even remember it's happening.
I have communicated to my husband many times how that stuff makes me feel and i think it took five years but he got it. Hes come a long way with that stuff actually. When it comes to longer term planning versus casual stuff happening that day or the next, we have an excel spreadsheet. Any time we make plans (or he has other plans, or i do) ill update the sheet immediately and email it to him. He does better when he sees things written down, and it also helps to show him that he did commit to it on the occassion that he doesnt remember doing that at all.
Another thing is when he
Submitted by Mapper (not verified) on
Another thing is when he tells me he's just going to play one more round of his video game and come to bed which should take about 15 minutes and then doesn't come to bed for 3 hours! Last week I went to bed at 8:30. He tells me "I don't want to be up late so I'll be in by 9, maybe 9:30." I say "Do I hear 10?" sarcastically because I KNOW when he makes a point of telling me he's coming to bed soon it means just the opposite. He goes "No! I don't want to be up THAT late." Guess what time he comes to bed? 11:15!
Yep That happens a lot. "Well
Submitted by kathy1208 on
Yep That happens a lot. "Well, Ive got to go do X, then Y, then Z...so that should put me home about....5:00"
me: "7:30? ok! got it!"
him: "no, 5:00!"
then he comes in at 8....
stuff like that happens all the time. I feel like they've got two parts in their brains that should be one but that function totally independently of one another. When my husband is giving me timelines, i feel like he gives me a timeline totally not grounded in reality that just sounds good and sounds like how he wants things to happen. Like if he wants to do three things and make it to X on time, he says thats how its gonna happen.
Then, once theyre in reality, theyre in reality - they dont operate well on NORMAL timelines let alone the idealistic, unrealistic ones they verbalized.
There have been times when my husband gives a timeline for something - like, weve got to do XYZ and so we should be back in an hour." and ill be like that's not possible. "yes it is". "no its not, it takes 15 minutes to get to X, then we will be there 15 minutes, then another 15 to Y, then there a half hour to 45 minutes, then Z if five minutes form there, a half hour, then 15 minutes home. So even on a tight timeline it will def take us at leats a couple maybe even up to three hours."
"no it wont."
Then we get in the car and he gets back out of the car "wait i need to get my charger from the other car." then were in the car for so long bc hes fooling iwth the charger, then we pull out and he has to stop off for gas...so it ends up being something thats 3-4 hours.
Its a longwinded example but i am sure you know what i mean - the talking and the way reality work are two completely diffrent things.
This also happens with my husband and money. everything is always all "itll be fine" "itll work itself out" bc he doesnt account for all expenses in something.
He also has mentioned that it brings him immense relief to be able to say something outloud. Like, when he said "we can totally be in a house in six months" even though he has like a 600 credit score right now, i was so mad bc he kept the score from me but said that then i found out about it.
Gues what? he said he was so sorry, he didnt mean to mislead me, that he was frustrated with the score and he thought if he just says it then everything else will work out. Well, thats not how reality works! money, timelines, everything - they want one thing but cant commit to the many details
Oh have I heard the "Oh
Submitted by Mapper (not verified) on
Oh have I heard the "Oh everything will be fine and work itself out" when it comes to money issues or his not going to work for days at a time! He wants to get an electrician to work on some stuff, as he did this past weekend. It ended up costing us $315 and this should have come out of his account since this was all his idea. Seeing as how I am the only one who has checks, I had to write the electrician a check from my account and H goes "Oh it will be fine. I will give you some money when my accounts stabilize." He doesn't think ahead at all and just takes it as it comes. Then he had a locksmith come out and cut off a couple of locks which he lost his keys to. Actually they got stolen out of his car on New Year's Eve thanks to him not locking it! The locksmith says after it's all done that he only takes cash. H had to get in the car and run to an ATM while the locksmith waited on him! I would have had all of those quesitons asked well ahead of time and ready for whatever the guy would need.
Then there's the hearing about how we need to go over to get some race stuff from this guy, who is over an hour away, and we need to stop and have his bike looked at. Well I've been hearing about that since last October. How we were going to do it right after Halloween. Then we were going to do it around Christmas. Now we are going ot do it "soon". I said to him "You've been saying that for nearly 4 months". He replies sharply "Well I couldn't do it when I didn't have the key to the trailer locks which got stolen and now we can". Wait. The trailer locks weren't stolen until New Year's Eve. You said in October and again right before Christmas that we were going to do this! Of course, I'm being a nag and he is totally right and has once again adjusted the things he said in his mind to make sense!
BINGO!
Submitted by overwhelmedwife on
>>>
When my husband is giving me timelines, i feel like he gives me a timeline totally not grounded in reality that just sounds good and sounds like how he wants things to happen.
>>>>
oh my goodness. YOU ARE RIGHT! BINGO!
I also think that ADHDers don't consider all those things that you listed. They don't consider travel time, or traffic, or the need to put gas in their cars. If they think they need to buy 3 things in 3 different stores, they're only imagining the process of picking the items up and buying them. They aren't considering that it may take a few minutes to FIND the items, then there may be a line at the cash register, and their gas tank may be empty....and so forth.
my ADHD mother in law was VERY LATE TO TWO OF her kids' weddings , simply because she does what you've described. In her mind, she figured that it would take 45 minutes to drive to the Church. But, likely she got to the car and realized that she needed a coat, and went back in. Then maybe her H realized that he needed to go to the bathroom (he has ADHD also), so that added 10 minutes, then maybe there was traffic and maybe needed to get some gas.....so they were late....very late.....TWICE. They didn't even learn after the first embarrassment. Likely because the first time, they just blamed "bad luck" ( common ADHD scapegoat)
My H also insists that money will be fine....until it isn't. And then he blames bad luck or something else.
>>>
He also has mentioned that it brings him immense relief to be able to say something outloud. Like, when he said "we can totally be in a house in six months" even though he has like a 600 credit score right now, i was so mad bc he kept the score from me but said that then i found out about it.
<<<
BINGO again! H will say something that is totally unrealistic....like....I'm not going to misuse my sleeping pills this month. And then he quickly does. I think just "saying it" makes him feel good.
Someone gave me a bottle of wine and I was going to give it away, since H is an alcoholic. H insisted that I didn't have to do that and that he wouldn't drink it....and that he would not look for it if I hid it. So, I hid it....and a couple days later he looked for it and drank it. Stupid me. But he would do/say the same thing NEXT week....AND....actually get angry if I were to say, "no, I can't trust that because of what you did a couple days ago."
They truly believe what they say.....it's the Now and "not now" thing going on. The NOW is their reality...and it makes them feel good.
Yes.....get it ON RECORD
Submitted by overwhelmedwife on
I, too, would face the issue of H "double booking" and he'd say that I didn't tell him or that "we can do both things" (ugh....we can't be in two places at one time!)
I started emailing him plans and asking for a "reply back" in agreement so that I'd know he got the info. That has saved me many times when he has claimed that I didn' tell him or I told him a different date or whatever.
I got tired playing "second fiddle" because if H did double book, he'd cancel MY PLANS and say, "I can't cancel the other person because I promised." *(ugh, he promised me , too!)
H's double booking finally bit him in the butt when he announced that he was going to visit his mom on a weekend that we already had serious plans, but H had obviously forgotten. I purposely didn't remind him WHAT the plans were, I just said, "you can't go that weekend, we already have plans." H smugly told me that he had "already promised" his mom that he was going and there was "no way" would he break those plans. I just smiled and said, "ok, so I guess you're going to miss our son's college graduation and graduation party." ooooooooppppppssssss!!!!!!! This is H's favorite child and his namesake. big ole egg on H's face.....he had to call his mom and cancel.
I have long told H that wives are generally the "keepers of the family calendar" and that he really does need to "check with me" before making big commitments. But, H refuses to do that because he was raised in a household where everyone did what they wanted to do without checking with anyone. His dad never would have consulted with his mom on anything.
I keep a calendar on the fridge with events written on it. Sometimes he notices, many times he doesn't. That's why I went to the email or text system....I needed the verification that he SAW the plans. And, I am sure to mention....date, time, number of hours the event will cover, the location, etc. I got sick of being told that I hadn't told him about plans that we had actually talked about!!!! I have to include ALL those details because I can't risk H saying, "oh, yes you told me the date, but you didn't say the time. Or you didn't say that it would be 4 hours long" or that it was in the next town over.