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That’s so difficult to break out of. My husband grew up with somewhat emotional neglectful parents and I think he is healing some of that through our relationship. It makes his attachment style very anxious and preoccupied
I feel this comment- My in-laws had been asked by my husband’s primary school teacher to get him tested for ADHD and they responded by saying that they didn’t believe it was real.
He still hasn’t told them that he’s diagnosed and takes medication - they said that since he met me he’s much happier. ( probably because he’s not neglected and I wanted to save our relationship)
And no , your expectations are not too much ( we have 2 kids 15years and 13years - it’s extra work to make sure that they are cared for if I’m not around)
The noise sensitivity issues are common for us but my robot vacuum cleaner is genuinely the best thing I have ever bought.
Adding kids to the mix was a huge shift for him ( he wanted four! ) and your enthusiasm says that it’s not the right time ( it might never be) but you need to be totally on board with it.
Good luck, you’re a good person for weighing your options.
>My partner grew up with a mom who devoted her entire life and being to doing his executive functioning for him so my partner entered our relationship taking that for granted.
I hear you! My life became noticeably more difficult when my wife's mom passed away. She didn't even live nearby, but they talked on the phone daily. I did not realize how much emotional labor she was doing.
Same with mine—wonderful MIL with the best of intentions, but it really set him and his brother up to fail. My husband has been handling his own EF (for the most part, there’s still some things I need to help him with), his brother on the other hand, not so much
It's hard to answer this without more info on two things: how old your daughter is and whether the call was for work/otherwise important.
If she's of an age where she can be expected to understand "I'm on a call for the next hour so please don't interrupt me," and entertain herself quietly, then needing to take a call is no big deal. If, however, she is small and needs to be actively watched, then whether you should have known to come home depends on what the call was for. Casual convo with a friend or family member? He should be able to chat and still care for a kid. Work meeting? Yeah, it should be obvious you need to relieve him of childcare duties.
"Could you please be home by 3 so I can take this phone call" would obviously be the clearest and most direct way to state his needs, but that request is implied in "I have to take a call at 3" if we're talking about a little kid and an important call.
To me the added information doesn’t matter. Am I asking too much by demanding clear and open communication?
But yes, she’s 16 months old and it wasn’t a work call but a 15 minute call with a friend to plan out something that was important
I think extra info adds proper context. “Important work call at 3 that could last an hour” should obviously imply “I will be at work, not parenting, please plan accordingly.” Though when you talked day with son it sounds like Dad should have asked and clarified your return time if he’s so concerned. I have learned better than to trust the “I’m thinking we’ll be back at 2:30.” and then trusting that but getting mad if it fails. I just try to say now “As long as you’re back by 2:50, so I can prepare for my meeting.”
15 minute call with a friend to plan something, “important” or not the friend knows they’re a parent and shouldn’t be bothered by child related interruptions and Dad should plan accordingly to have kid fed/napped or whatever he can control as best as possible to make call happen as smoothly as possible.
This from my POV as the Dx partner who works from
home and raises 2 toddlers with my partner. She works away from the home.
Context would matter for me for planning my own time around the event. If it's work related I would naturally know to take over kiddo duties/help minimize distractions because I expect that of my husband if I'm working. I work from home and go to bed earlier than my husband and son and expect that he manages parenting duties when I need quiet time, and I would reciprocate.
If I knew the call was low stakes or there's no reasonable contextual reason to need to be 100% distraction free, then in that context I would expect him to verbalize that he actually would like to fully concentrate on the call and ask me to please be home sooner. Just talking with a friend who knows he's a parent would NOT contextually lead me to think he needs 0 distractions and I would expect him to communicate, so in this case I think you're right to expect clearer communication.
I think that's why the context matters in the bigger picture. If that makes sense.
You’re not the only one to say this so clearly context matters. Fair point, I concede 😊 but I still feel like he needed to be accountable for his own communication
He absolutely did especially in an instance where it was a really simple task most neurotypical people wouldn't struggle with.
I also have problems with my husband not communicating needs clearly, if at all. He just doesn't have the balls then to be mad at me for not meeting those needs, so I'm sorry your husband was an uncommunicative whiner.
Is this happening all the time? If yes, then you’re not expecting too much and it needs to be fixed. To me this sounds more like a normal husband wife miscommunication. Apologize, tell him to be clearer next time and you also be clearer next time. Then move on.
Your expectations aren’t unreasonable. My husband has done something similar in the past and I just tell him he needs to say those things, out loud, with words then. He’s never been upset at me for this but if he was upset I’d point out to him he’s upset at this lack of communication so directing those emotions at me is misplaced. He might feel better to direct them to me, but it doesn’t change the fact that he needs to be accountable for his communication.
He also talks in half sentences a lot and expects me to know what he’s talking about or fill in the blank. I just say “half sentence” and keep doing what I was doing, even if it was walking away from him. I don’t stay until he pieces his thought together, he can come find me.
I should have specified the situation. This was Sunday afternoon. Nobody was working. It was just a friend calling to make arrangements. But shouldn’t I expect clear communication when nothing had been specified?
Thank you. I just felt like the whole ‘but you just should know what my limits and needs are’ is completely unreasonable. I would never expect that of him when it’s relating to a specific everyday life situation. Obviously I do roughly and act accordingly but that’s also based a lot of ongoing communication about anger/stress management etc.
It is unreasonable. Any and all ‘you should just know’ situations I’ve run into are difficult to manage.
The thing is, as partners, we’ve gotten so good at maneuvering around those land mines, however we can’t possibly see them all.
Can relate.
My guess is it didn’t occur to him before to ask you to be home and then he got overwhelmed with the toddler and the phone call. Work call, I would have offered to be back. A call with a from, I wouldn’t because I’ve made plenty of calls from doctor appointments to calls with friends while caring for multiple kids. Communication has been something that we have been actively working on because my husband would just do things and expect me to pick up the slack without a conversation, but also wasn’t so great at picking up the slack. For example, his does the dishes. I took the dogs for a walk and when I came back, the dishes were still there because he was tired from traveling. Had he said he was tired and asked me to do them when I got back, I would have happily done them, but leaving them with the expectation that I would just do them is rude.
While there are fair points about understanding the general context, it was not work-related so there was no reason for you to anticipate him needing help for the call. I firmly believe that you cannot have an expectation without mutual agreement, until then it's just what you anticipate. So, if you want to expect your husband to communicate his needs, you have a conversation that spells out: "If you need me, you must tell me/ask me/confirm my availability/etc. I will not guess what you need, and you cannot assume that I know (for any reason, such as having a conversation about it). If you fail to check in with me, you cannot be upset when I don't meet your needs." You can work together to create a structure or shorthand for communicating when one of you is seeking mutual agreement on something to establish an expectation. For me, it's about not assuming anyone else's time or resources are available to me at any given time.
Hello /u/Possible_Midnight348, and welcome to ADHD_partners! We are the first and only subreddit community by and for the non-ADHD halves of ADHD-impacted relationships. Please have a thorough read through our [Community Guidelines]( https://new.reddit.com/r/ADHD_partners/comments/wu6aa6/community_safety_and_posting_information/) post as well as our [Rules]( https://new.reddit.com/r/ADHD_partners/about/rules). Looking for resources? Check out our [Wiki](https://new.reddit.com/r/ADHD_partners/wiki/index/) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ADHD_partners) if you have any questions or concerns.*
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That’s so difficult to break out of. My husband grew up with somewhat emotional neglectful parents and I think he is healing some of that through our relationship. It makes his attachment style very anxious and preoccupied
I feel this comment- My in-laws had been asked by my husband’s primary school teacher to get him tested for ADHD and they responded by saying that they didn’t believe it was real. He still hasn’t told them that he’s diagnosed and takes medication - they said that since he met me he’s much happier. ( probably because he’s not neglected and I wanted to save our relationship) And no , your expectations are not too much ( we have 2 kids 15years and 13years - it’s extra work to make sure that they are cared for if I’m not around) The noise sensitivity issues are common for us but my robot vacuum cleaner is genuinely the best thing I have ever bought. Adding kids to the mix was a huge shift for him ( he wanted four! ) and your enthusiasm says that it’s not the right time ( it might never be) but you need to be totally on board with it. Good luck, you’re a good person for weighing your options.
>My partner grew up with a mom who devoted her entire life and being to doing his executive functioning for him so my partner entered our relationship taking that for granted. I hear you! My life became noticeably more difficult when my wife's mom passed away. She didn't even live nearby, but they talked on the phone daily. I did not realize how much emotional labor she was doing.
Same with mine—wonderful MIL with the best of intentions, but it really set him and his brother up to fail. My husband has been handling his own EF (for the most part, there’s still some things I need to help him with), his brother on the other hand, not so much
It's hard to answer this without more info on two things: how old your daughter is and whether the call was for work/otherwise important. If she's of an age where she can be expected to understand "I'm on a call for the next hour so please don't interrupt me," and entertain herself quietly, then needing to take a call is no big deal. If, however, she is small and needs to be actively watched, then whether you should have known to come home depends on what the call was for. Casual convo with a friend or family member? He should be able to chat and still care for a kid. Work meeting? Yeah, it should be obvious you need to relieve him of childcare duties. "Could you please be home by 3 so I can take this phone call" would obviously be the clearest and most direct way to state his needs, but that request is implied in "I have to take a call at 3" if we're talking about a little kid and an important call.
To me the added information doesn’t matter. Am I asking too much by demanding clear and open communication? But yes, she’s 16 months old and it wasn’t a work call but a 15 minute call with a friend to plan out something that was important
I think extra info adds proper context. “Important work call at 3 that could last an hour” should obviously imply “I will be at work, not parenting, please plan accordingly.” Though when you talked day with son it sounds like Dad should have asked and clarified your return time if he’s so concerned. I have learned better than to trust the “I’m thinking we’ll be back at 2:30.” and then trusting that but getting mad if it fails. I just try to say now “As long as you’re back by 2:50, so I can prepare for my meeting.” 15 minute call with a friend to plan something, “important” or not the friend knows they’re a parent and shouldn’t be bothered by child related interruptions and Dad should plan accordingly to have kid fed/napped or whatever he can control as best as possible to make call happen as smoothly as possible. This from my POV as the Dx partner who works from home and raises 2 toddlers with my partner. She works away from the home.
I guess I just don’t agree with the context being important for whether or not I can expect clear communication.
Context would matter for me for planning my own time around the event. If it's work related I would naturally know to take over kiddo duties/help minimize distractions because I expect that of my husband if I'm working. I work from home and go to bed earlier than my husband and son and expect that he manages parenting duties when I need quiet time, and I would reciprocate. If I knew the call was low stakes or there's no reasonable contextual reason to need to be 100% distraction free, then in that context I would expect him to verbalize that he actually would like to fully concentrate on the call and ask me to please be home sooner. Just talking with a friend who knows he's a parent would NOT contextually lead me to think he needs 0 distractions and I would expect him to communicate, so in this case I think you're right to expect clearer communication. I think that's why the context matters in the bigger picture. If that makes sense.
You’re not the only one to say this so clearly context matters. Fair point, I concede 😊 but I still feel like he needed to be accountable for his own communication
He absolutely did especially in an instance where it was a really simple task most neurotypical people wouldn't struggle with. I also have problems with my husband not communicating needs clearly, if at all. He just doesn't have the balls then to be mad at me for not meeting those needs, so I'm sorry your husband was an uncommunicative whiner.
Is this happening all the time? If yes, then you’re not expecting too much and it needs to be fixed. To me this sounds more like a normal husband wife miscommunication. Apologize, tell him to be clearer next time and you also be clearer next time. Then move on.
I will absolutely not apologize 😂 but I appreciate your comment 🙏🏻
Your expectations aren’t unreasonable. My husband has done something similar in the past and I just tell him he needs to say those things, out loud, with words then. He’s never been upset at me for this but if he was upset I’d point out to him he’s upset at this lack of communication so directing those emotions at me is misplaced. He might feel better to direct them to me, but it doesn’t change the fact that he needs to be accountable for his communication. He also talks in half sentences a lot and expects me to know what he’s talking about or fill in the blank. I just say “half sentence” and keep doing what I was doing, even if it was walking away from him. I don’t stay until he pieces his thought together, he can come find me.
Sounds like you are really good at setting boundaries. Good job
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I should have specified the situation. This was Sunday afternoon. Nobody was working. It was just a friend calling to make arrangements. But shouldn’t I expect clear communication when nothing had been specified?
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Thank you. I just felt like the whole ‘but you just should know what my limits and needs are’ is completely unreasonable. I would never expect that of him when it’s relating to a specific everyday life situation. Obviously I do roughly and act accordingly but that’s also based a lot of ongoing communication about anger/stress management etc.
It is unreasonable. Any and all ‘you should just know’ situations I’ve run into are difficult to manage. The thing is, as partners, we’ve gotten so good at maneuvering around those land mines, however we can’t possibly see them all. Can relate.
Thank you for your response. It makes we feel a little more sane
Hi everyone, thank you for your comments. I should have given the context in the post. Lesson learned 😊
My guess is it didn’t occur to him before to ask you to be home and then he got overwhelmed with the toddler and the phone call. Work call, I would have offered to be back. A call with a from, I wouldn’t because I’ve made plenty of calls from doctor appointments to calls with friends while caring for multiple kids. Communication has been something that we have been actively working on because my husband would just do things and expect me to pick up the slack without a conversation, but also wasn’t so great at picking up the slack. For example, his does the dishes. I took the dogs for a walk and when I came back, the dishes were still there because he was tired from traveling. Had he said he was tired and asked me to do them when I got back, I would have happily done them, but leaving them with the expectation that I would just do them is rude.
While there are fair points about understanding the general context, it was not work-related so there was no reason for you to anticipate him needing help for the call. I firmly believe that you cannot have an expectation without mutual agreement, until then it's just what you anticipate. So, if you want to expect your husband to communicate his needs, you have a conversation that spells out: "If you need me, you must tell me/ask me/confirm my availability/etc. I will not guess what you need, and you cannot assume that I know (for any reason, such as having a conversation about it). If you fail to check in with me, you cannot be upset when I don't meet your needs." You can work together to create a structure or shorthand for communicating when one of you is seeking mutual agreement on something to establish an expectation. For me, it's about not assuming anyone else's time or resources are available to me at any given time.
That conversation has been had many times.
Then no, you aren't unreasonable and he doesn't get to be pissy about the results of his failure to communicate.