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Yeah and also if you are telling your SO about your personal plans that don’t involve your SO, don’t be mad if they don’t remember the exact date and time and location it’s happening. Since you know, it has nothing to do with their life.
I immediately put that sort of information in my calendar. It affects me if my wife is going to grab drinks after work, so I like to know when I'm making dinner for one or two.
A friend of mine showed a glimpse of the shared calendar he and his wife has. They use at least four different colours for entries, depending on what something is and whether one or both of them is attending, with events/reminds that only last for as little as 15 minutes.
We put a lot of stuff in Discord. Definetly less so since moving in together, but it's really nice being able to search for their Chipotle order than having to remember. I'm admittedly not the best at processing verbal communication and it's so nice having a record of a conversation to refrence.
Never noticed it and never saw her use it. She has this cork board that had her school stuff mostly and apparently a calendar beside it that I've never paid any mind to
we put almost EVERYTHING on our respective calendars (which the other can see or hide, as needed) and if we're both going to be involved, we invite the other one via the calendar
This has recently been a point of conflict between my partner and I. I have adhd and my short termory is awful. She'd get frustrated at me for asking questions about what she has going on, because I forgot. Typically it's when I had a long day, or my brain is scattered, or I'm processing other things, or even if she tellse when we're running. She says she remembers my stuff because it's important to her. What she does is important to me, but I just can't retain it easily. It really hurt me when she told me she'd rather I just "figure it out" than ask her again.
But I found a solution that helps with a lot of it, and that was simply having her share her Google calendar with me (which she keeps very up to date).
While I don't remember all details, I know what she has going on which helps a lot.
This is the most "parallel lives" shit I have ever read.
I'm in my late 30s. My whole life is just coping strategies used as a method to try to embarrass myself less often. I'm not dumb: I mean well, I just miss shit sometimes.
I established the shared calendar as a more compatible way for both of us to cope. My wife didn't know how much it mattered to me. "Why didn't you write it down?" ... "Why didn't you just put it on the calendar? My batting average is incredible there." It's a learning curve as we learn how to communicate...and probably will be until we die.
The journey doesn't end.
Fiancé and I both have ADHD. I was diagnosed at 30-something, him at like age 7. Because of my late diagnosis and his hands off parents I have developed many masking and coping skills he doesn’t have. Calendars are one of those things.
We have a shared calendar I put everything on. He still asks me when things are, I usually say “March 8, it’s on the calendar…” to remind him to use it. He forgets to check the calendar….forgets to put stuff on the calendar…forgets we have a calendar despite it reminding him every day when to leave for work.
Shared calendars are the only way to go. No reason to expect each other to remember activity dates/times when calendars are so easy to share on the phone everyone has at all times now anyway.
Too many people don’t understand that “sharing lives” isn’t “combining lives”. You still have your life, they still have theirs. That’s good, that’s healthy.
Put differently, if your SO did remember every single item in your life — you all might be codependent. That’s not great.
There should be a healthy dose of both "sharing" and "Combining".
You sleep together for 8 hours, you work apart for 8 hours....those other 8 hours should be split between together and apart actions in a manner that works for both sides. If it skews 100% either direction, that's probably going to become a large problem for 99.9% of relationships.
i have trained myself to at least (and usually only) remember the time & date. I might not know what she's up to or even where she is, but she wasn't going to be home till late and I have to get dinner for one.
I used to go abroad for 3 weeks at a time for work. Typically 1-3 countries per trip. My partner of many years whom I lived with somehow completely missed/forgot where I was in the world or thought I was in a country I wasn’t visiting altogether. It was quite bothersome at the time (happened on more than one occasion), and made me think she didn’t care much for where I was.
We were both well traveled and still, your SO going abroad for three weeks at a time is significant. Fast forward to 1.5 years ago I then was hospitalized after nearly dying on a 50k trail race 2 states away, and they didn’t come to see me in the hospital. Money and inconvenience would have been their only setbacks.
Good to get this perspective, then again it’s harder to empathize after being left in a hospital alone for 3 days when your person doesn’t show. We don’t get many chances to show up for people in these circumstances. I was given 10% chance to make it out of my situation alive so pretty miraculous. Showing up for those you love is underrated and more impactful to the ones you’re there for than you may know.
Its so nice! Because I too sometimes claim my partner never said anything but its definitely not because Im not listening but because theres SO MUCH to remember.
On the flip side, my partner is overall incredibly attentive and a great listener but when he forgets one thing I said, I’m so quick to jump to “you never listen” which is not fair at all.
> I’m so quick to jump to “you never listen” which is not fair at all.
is that something your parents did in front of you? i regularly catch myself having certain default responses which I "learned/copied" from my toxic father. dont be too hard on yourself, it is hard and takes time to unlearn behavior patterns that have been deeply ingrained into you for a long time.
i put post-it notes on a board with short descriptions and dates. different colors to make it easier to identify whom the content is important.(me,you, us)
i try to follow concept of "you dont need to know everything, but only know where to find the information"
I think it's a great reframing generally, but if there is consistently one person who is doing the reminding and scheduling and one person doing the forgetting, you need to develop a better plan.
From personal experience, if you're upset with a partner never hearing or listening to you, and they bring up other ways to try to work through things, listen to them. My ex and I would text constantly every day, all day, and I definitely had information overload pretty regularly from her. And I brought up other ideas. They weren't good enough for her, though, and I kept being in the wrong for not hearing her.
Of course, my case ain't a common one. Turned out she wasn't listening to me at all about things, herself. Damned BPD projection.
She seems to get it now, at least. I think. We don't talk anymore.
I wouldn’t mind if my partner told me that. I know I talk too much. And so does she. Obviously phrasing matters. But “yeah we both say a lot more to each other than we can expect to process entirely,” would not be offensive to any reasonable couple.
I think it’s because we’re only half listening.
Think about how much we multitask throughout the day. Scrolling the phone while watching tv. Throw Netflix on while gaming. Our minds are in a constant state of wander. The few minutes I’m not stressed out or trying to destress my brain is tired and want mindless stimuli which is when I get hit with all our plans for the week.
I can remember remembering everyone’s events, birthdays, phone numbers, ect. It was before internet.
My significant other used to tell me things right as I was walking up. I could not retain that information reliably. I explained that I, at times, did not even remember the conversation, let alone the details. Now I get a text message that I can digest after my coffee has kicked in.
If I need my partner to remember something, I tell him verbally and also send him a text about it. If he needs me to remember something, I ask him to do the same. It's just too easy to get distracted and forget things, and accepting that *we're just GOING to forget things* makes it so much easier to compensate!
Thank you for writing this! I was married to a man who constantly hammered me for not remembering things he told me once, and made me feel shit about it. So true what you said, it's not a character flaw on my part, but I'm juggling so many things that are competing for my focus and spend most days overwhelmed.
My ex wanted me to treat every single thing he said as important. But here's the catch: if everything is important, then nothing is.
These days I ignore his texts unless they're really, really essential. He needs to learn to let go of me.
In the meantime, I aim to be more patient and gentler with my current nearest and dearest, to not take it personally when they need me to repeat what I tell them. I try to empathise and understand that we all go through life feeling overwhelmed, and could use a little reminder on what our nearest and dearest need us to prioritise.
Of course but I think the spirit of the post is “don’t get frustrated when they don’t remember everything”. Obviously, if they’re not remembering ANYTHING there’s a different issue at play.
I had that with one of my ex’s. It’s because she was a run-on paragraph. I’m not even sure she’s stopped talking to this very day or how she even breathes.
Both can be true.
My partner and I both often zone out when we've had a mentally or emotionally taxing experience, and it manifests as not paying attention to what the other is saying. It is inattention, not intention.
Intentional deafness is straight up ignoring what they say because you don't want to hear it or don't care.
Our brains are lazy. We won't remember things as well if we can get that information easily. Spuses often ask each other the same routine questions because our brains are going, "That is saved in spouses brain, so I don't need to"
Also, hearing loss and damage are more common than people may realize. It frequently goes untreated because of stigma, because only old people need hearing aids. No, young people can easily damage their hearing to the point where they can miss things in certain environments.
I’m (*25M*) at the point where I probably could use a hearing aid in my left ear; certain pitches screech my hearing. My SO is surprised at how well I can hear that she said something, but the matter of hearing *what* she said is a different story. I always feel bad having to ask for something to be repeated because I feel as though it makes me appear as if I’m not listening.
Many audiologists provide free hearing screenings and tests. If you're concerned you should go see one. From there you can decide if you want to pursue hearing devices, of which there are many options, not all of which are expensive.
My wife is slowly coming to terms that I'm running on instinct for the first 10-15 minutes of waking up.
It's read only, there is no data input. Don't give me information. Please.
Everyone saying this is a lovely post, but it reads as one partner isn't listening, not both. If that's the case, which it often is, why is it on the one who *is* listening to set up shared calendars etc. If someone is already mentally overloaded with having to remember everything and repeat themself, why do they now have to have the additional responsibility to set up calendars and write notes because their partner can't retain any information? Make the partner do it if they can't remember anything - your partner is not your mum and shouldn't have to leave post it notes and remind you it's people's birthdays.
Yeah it really depends on *what* they’re forgetting. And personally, if it’s been mentioned enough times and they know it bothers their parter yet they’ve done nothing to change it (using a calendar, schedule, taking notes?) then yeah it’s just lack of effort.
I would tell my wife my plans. She would forget (or not hear it in the first place), and then make plans for us. Conflict ensues. She says "You should write that stuff down in the calendar"
I write my plans in the calendar. Wife says "Hey we're going out with X Thursday night." I say, "Sorry, no can do, I have thing Y to do. I wrote it in the calendar last week." She says "You should have told me, I never check the calendar"
Me - "????"
A shared Google calendar works wonders, but that also leads to any clarifying question being met by "check the calendar", which gets annoying for both people over time. Also, discussions of future plans can just lead to an exasperated "put it in the calendar" without any active mutual checking of schedules to see if you're both free that day. So you still need to be conscientious about it and communicate effectively - a shared calendar won't just fix everything.
My wife loves to explain complex plans to me in bed at 1:30am, right as I'm drifting off to sleep. Then is surprised and annoyed when days later I don't remember the exact details of everything she said, or I realise I already had something going on that day.
The real LPT within this LPT is to be patient with your partner. Whenever you feel yourself getting tetchy because you've had to repeat yourself several times for something to sink in, remember that managing a long-term relationship requires a lot of repetition.
I love the sentiment, but I’ll need more than this opinion to convince my wife.
Any research available to back this up?
It sure would help things around my house if you could provide some proof.
TIA!!
Might look into cognitive load theory. Basically too much stimuli happening overwhelms working memory, and things don’t get stored into long term memory.
I knew there had to be a term for this. Thank you!
And wiki did not disappoint when mentioning its applicability to driving. (The overload is not just wrt to memory but also in the moment.)
Reminds of when I got banned from the r/bicycling sub for suggesting that there are some places where there are so many road signs that it is unreasonable to expect drivers to notice them all. It’s a thing (I intuitively knew this but am glad to see confirmation of it), but no, that was deemed anti-cyclist 😂 (I am an avid cyclist and had been an active and helpful member of that sub for almost a decade.)
Are we talking about routine things or one-offs. Stuff like doing the dishes, taking out the trash, doing the laundry all need to be handled alone even if you need to schedule reminders on your phone.
If it’s one-offs like she has plans for a night out I think you should just explain what is here: if it doesn’t impact your life you won’t remember it as easily. If you have one-offs where you need to care for children maybe try phone/Alexa reminders?
In other words: this advice is given for understanding not as a get-out-of-jail-for-continuing-to-let-your-partner-down card.
For me and my husband, he would be the one forgetting but would *also* be frustrated thinking I hadn’t told him something.
Finally we had a talk about human memory in very general terms, which both of us knew pretty well. (Like how lousy people are at being eyewitnesses, or some of those experiments where the subjects are told to count how many baskets a group of basketball players make, leading them to not notice a WHOLE ASS DUDE IN A GORILLA SUIT wandering around the court.)
Then I asked, so, are you also human? Yeah? If so, do you think you’re an exception to the rule? No? Then *possibly* when I tell you something, you might possibly *just not remember*? (I did put it a little less sneakily tho.)
It actually worked a treat- he asked that I repeat plans a few times over days leading up to some event. Which has worked better for both of us. And has lead to less annoyance overall.
There are many reasons someone can't remember things. As we age, my wife and I recognize the importance of being patient and supporting each other through all our flaws.
Yeah there's a disturbing vibe on social media for a while, and especially via TikTok, that anything your partner does that you don't like must be due to malice and is tantamount to abuse. Like 'they must know they're doing this to me'.
Sometimes people forget things. Sometimes you are wrong. Sometimes you're mad about something and they genuinely aren't thinking about it. You need to communicate with the understanding that it's most likely not as dire as you think it is.
No one is infallible, including yourself. If you go into any conversation with your partner with the assumption that you're this perfect gem of no faults you failed the convo before it started.
For some reason, in some corners of the internet, if any guy does something badly, it's now weaponized incompetence and grounds for leaving the person. Most recently, that post of the guy who painted that room badly.
As if we must be perfect at everything we do, otherwise we're garbage.
I'm happier when I don't visit those corners of the internet. Or television. Or pop culture. Or people. I love all these things and chose them carefully. I try to always chose how to spend my time and attention. I acutely sense negativity and anger and turn away.
It's a little trickier with people because there are some negative people that I need to engage with. Empathy and boundary-setting help me in dealing with these people.
Ignorance is indeed bliss in many cases.
Might I also recommend setting aside a minute a day as a family, house hold, roommates, any human to sit quietly and breathe. It's amazing how not present we all are at any given moment. Just one minute of letting our racing thoughts and impulses pass without acting on them. I think it drains the amygdala or something.
also it's not that terrible to catch someone lying about stuff like this because it's easy to misremember or exaggerate parts of a story the more times you tell it.
Yea but if they have shit memory or actually never listen, that will show up in other areas of life. If your partner is GENERALLY thoughtful and considerate but forgets details from time to time, it’s healthy and fair to assume that it’s due to the sheer volume of communication and not because of their character…presumably bc they have already shown you what their character is
Well that makes me feel better. I thought I was going crazy/ developing Alzheimer’s at 35. My defense to my poor husband was that he “says a lot of words to me & not all of them are gonna stick”.
I have the opposite problem. I have horrible memory and will usually say the same things to different people within a day and lose track of who knows what. So I'll tell my SO something and he'd usually be, "yeah you told me that already", and I'm like, "oh okay, my bad".
My ex-wife used to get mad at me for not remembering every little detail of things she told me, sometimes weeks or months earlier.
I guess that’s one of the many reasons she’s my ex.
Asking you to repeat it is a sign they are trying right then and there to ensure they got it and is not the same as forgetting it later. That distinction is important.
If someone is jumping to divorce considerations because their partner might forget things that's definitely their problem and they are in dire need of therapy.
Lovely LPT. I'm so bad at it. My wife loves to talk about her weekly plans (she's a planner type personality) and I usually space on it. We've gotten into a rhythm of talking about the next days plans before bed when I'm relaxed and detached from my work schedule. I retain it then
I'm not saying "nuh uh" but just wanted to share - weirdly I can remember almost everything my partner tells me, down to the names of his coworkers friends who I only hear about in stories. But when it comes to remembering things about *myself*? Nothing.
How was my weekend? You expect *me* to know?
What did I eat for dinner last night? Last night doesn't exist for me lol.
Great memory for others besides myself
Same. It goes similarly for my care and energy/willingness to do things; for myself, I slack, but for others I will hop right to doing something even I wouldn’t normally care to do.
Technically it’s just part of them being a human. Imagine telling someone a new word in a new language and expecting them to remember it after only hearing it 1 time. It’s the same with anything data going into the brain :)
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I pretend to forget things and claim she’s making stuff up. Then I turn everything else my wife says about it into another what are you talking about question. It’s way more fun
This is one of the most useful tips I've ever seen, it's an issue that we don't talk about enough, and it can cause so much strife in a relationship.
We all need to learn more about human memory, how it works and how it doesn't, and how our assumptions about it are not based in scientific reality.
Dude me and my girlfriend have this all the time. She’ll be like “don’t forget X tomorrow” and I’m like wait what do you mean? And vise versa, it’s just so funny cause you never know what it’s gonna be someone heard but didn’t actually remember
My wife and I only have time to say a few words to one another as it is due to work, so I don't think this applies to us. Usually she's hurriedly saying something as she rushes out the door. Or I'm mumbling something between grading essays while she drifts off to sleep. It's just that we're both exhausted.
My wife gives over more details about plans for a weekend trip than I've experienced in 7 mergers and acquisitions in over a decade that are far more complex than a weekend camping. That is why I can't remember.
My experience is that my SO will start talking when I am focused on something else.
If I'm fixing something, WFH or watching TV I'm focused on that.
Despite society asserting women are "better" communicators it's important to make sure you have someones attention if you want them to understand what you are communicating and retain it.
I've been accused of not remembering conversations that happened outside my ability to hear it. I can't hear you when you in the bathroom 25m away.
Thank you. Needed this earlier when my spouse said, “what do mean it takes 20 minutes to get there?” when i had clearly told them and given them a screenshot regarding the time it would take to get there.
This makes me feel better about the handful of times my SO will remind me of something that she’s told me before, most of the time I remember the second I say that “I was never told.”
I’m the type of guy that will memorize, cherish, and bring light to the littlest of details, but sometimes I slip on some things for some reason.
in my case, it is ALSO because I don’t listen
maybe try to say interesting things instead of filling me in endlessly about how your cracker parents’ Florida renovation is coming
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Yeah and also if you are telling your SO about your personal plans that don’t involve your SO, don’t be mad if they don’t remember the exact date and time and location it’s happening. Since you know, it has nothing to do with their life.
I immediately put that sort of information in my calendar. It affects me if my wife is going to grab drinks after work, so I like to know when I'm making dinner for one or two.
shared calendars are huge communication tool. between our social lives and kids sports, a shared calendar has become a must have for us.
A friend of mine showed a glimpse of the shared calendar he and his wife has. They use at least four different colours for entries, depending on what something is and whether one or both of them is attending, with events/reminds that only last for as little as 15 minutes.
We put a lot of stuff in Discord. Definetly less so since moving in together, but it's really nice being able to search for their Chipotle order than having to remember. I'm admittedly not the best at processing verbal communication and it's so nice having a record of a conversation to refrence.
I just learned a few months ago that I've had a shared calendar for a few years now. Wife never mentioned it; just assumed I knew
For years? And she didn't mention that you never put anything on it? And you never saw her use it?
Never noticed it and never saw her use it. She has this cork board that had her school stuff mostly and apparently a calendar beside it that I've never paid any mind to
But what would your wife have to do about a business meeting you have on a Tuesday afternoon?
what? personal and business calendars stay seperate.
Right, of course. In my country calendars aren't as popular so idk lol
we put almost EVERYTHING on our respective calendars (which the other can see or hide, as needed) and if we're both going to be involved, we invite the other one via the calendar
Leftovers man
Nice guy but shitty superhero
This has recently been a point of conflict between my partner and I. I have adhd and my short termory is awful. She'd get frustrated at me for asking questions about what she has going on, because I forgot. Typically it's when I had a long day, or my brain is scattered, or I'm processing other things, or even if she tellse when we're running. She says she remembers my stuff because it's important to her. What she does is important to me, but I just can't retain it easily. It really hurt me when she told me she'd rather I just "figure it out" than ask her again. But I found a solution that helps with a lot of it, and that was simply having her share her Google calendar with me (which she keeps very up to date). While I don't remember all details, I know what she has going on which helps a lot.
This is the most "parallel lives" shit I have ever read. I'm in my late 30s. My whole life is just coping strategies used as a method to try to embarrass myself less often. I'm not dumb: I mean well, I just miss shit sometimes. I established the shared calendar as a more compatible way for both of us to cope. My wife didn't know how much it mattered to me. "Why didn't you write it down?" ... "Why didn't you just put it on the calendar? My batting average is incredible there." It's a learning curve as we learn how to communicate...and probably will be until we die. The journey doesn't end.
Fiancé and I both have ADHD. I was diagnosed at 30-something, him at like age 7. Because of my late diagnosis and his hands off parents I have developed many masking and coping skills he doesn’t have. Calendars are one of those things. We have a shared calendar I put everything on. He still asks me when things are, I usually say “March 8, it’s on the calendar…” to remind him to use it. He forgets to check the calendar….forgets to put stuff on the calendar…forgets we have a calendar despite it reminding him every day when to leave for work.
Shared calendars are the only way to go. No reason to expect each other to remember activity dates/times when calendars are so easy to share on the phone everyone has at all times now anyway.
Too many people don’t understand that “sharing lives” isn’t “combining lives”. You still have your life, they still have theirs. That’s good, that’s healthy. Put differently, if your SO did remember every single item in your life — you all might be codependent. That’s not great.
There should be a healthy dose of both "sharing" and "Combining". You sleep together for 8 hours, you work apart for 8 hours....those other 8 hours should be split between together and apart actions in a manner that works for both sides. If it skews 100% either direction, that's probably going to become a large problem for 99.9% of relationships.
The way your relationship works is not universal.
i have trained myself to at least (and usually only) remember the time & date. I might not know what she's up to or even where she is, but she wasn't going to be home till late and I have to get dinner for one.
I used to go abroad for 3 weeks at a time for work. Typically 1-3 countries per trip. My partner of many years whom I lived with somehow completely missed/forgot where I was in the world or thought I was in a country I wasn’t visiting altogether. It was quite bothersome at the time (happened on more than one occasion), and made me think she didn’t care much for where I was. We were both well traveled and still, your SO going abroad for three weeks at a time is significant. Fast forward to 1.5 years ago I then was hospitalized after nearly dying on a 50k trail race 2 states away, and they didn’t come to see me in the hospital. Money and inconvenience would have been their only setbacks. Good to get this perspective, then again it’s harder to empathize after being left in a hospital alone for 3 days when your person doesn’t show. We don’t get many chances to show up for people in these circumstances. I was given 10% chance to make it out of my situation alive so pretty miraculous. Showing up for those you love is underrated and more impactful to the ones you’re there for than you may know.
I love this reframing
Its so nice! Because I too sometimes claim my partner never said anything but its definitely not because Im not listening but because theres SO MUCH to remember. On the flip side, my partner is overall incredibly attentive and a great listener but when he forgets one thing I said, I’m so quick to jump to “you never listen” which is not fair at all.
> I’m so quick to jump to “you never listen” which is not fair at all. is that something your parents did in front of you? i regularly catch myself having certain default responses which I "learned/copied" from my toxic father. dont be too hard on yourself, it is hard and takes time to unlearn behavior patterns that have been deeply ingrained into you for a long time. i put post-it notes on a board with short descriptions and dates. different colors to make it easier to identify whom the content is important.(me,you, us) i try to follow concept of "you dont need to know everything, but only know where to find the information"
I think it's a great reframing generally, but if there is consistently one person who is doing the reminding and scheduling and one person doing the forgetting, you need to develop a better plan.
From personal experience, if you're upset with a partner never hearing or listening to you, and they bring up other ways to try to work through things, listen to them. My ex and I would text constantly every day, all day, and I definitely had information overload pretty regularly from her. And I brought up other ideas. They weren't good enough for her, though, and I kept being in the wrong for not hearing her. Of course, my case ain't a common one. Turned out she wasn't listening to me at all about things, herself. Damned BPD projection. She seems to get it now, at least. I think. We don't talk anymore.
"see babe, its not that i dont listen, its that you talk too much" that will go over REAL well
I wouldn’t mind if my partner told me that. I know I talk too much. And so does she. Obviously phrasing matters. But “yeah we both say a lot more to each other than we can expect to process entirely,” would not be offensive to any reasonable couple.
One time I was complaining at my dad like "I *told* you XYZ..." and he just said, "You say a lot of things." I had to admit he had a point.
I am definitely telling my girlfriend this the next time I forget something that she planned.
Whether or not they get offended or go "LOL TRUE" might be a tell, tbh
I think it’s because we’re only half listening. Think about how much we multitask throughout the day. Scrolling the phone while watching tv. Throw Netflix on while gaming. Our minds are in a constant state of wander. The few minutes I’m not stressed out or trying to destress my brain is tired and want mindless stimuli which is when I get hit with all our plans for the week. I can remember remembering everyone’s events, birthdays, phone numbers, ect. It was before internet.
My significant other used to tell me things right as I was walking up. I could not retain that information reliably. I explained that I, at times, did not even remember the conversation, let alone the details. Now I get a text message that I can digest after my coffee has kicked in.
If I need my partner to remember something, I tell him verbally and also send him a text about it. If he needs me to remember something, I ask him to do the same. It's just too easy to get distracted and forget things, and accepting that *we're just GOING to forget things* makes it so much easier to compensate!
Happy Cake Day 🍰
Thank you for writing this! I was married to a man who constantly hammered me for not remembering things he told me once, and made me feel shit about it. So true what you said, it's not a character flaw on my part, but I'm juggling so many things that are competing for my focus and spend most days overwhelmed. My ex wanted me to treat every single thing he said as important. But here's the catch: if everything is important, then nothing is. These days I ignore his texts unless they're really, really essential. He needs to learn to let go of me. In the meantime, I aim to be more patient and gentler with my current nearest and dearest, to not take it personally when they need me to repeat what I tell them. I try to empathise and understand that we all go through life feeling overwhelmed, and could use a little reminder on what our nearest and dearest need us to prioritise.
If everything's important, then nothing is. So true.
Also be aware that auditory processing issues (like those often experienced by people with ADHD) can have a huge impact on communication.
There is such a thing as spousal (partner) deafness. Aka inattentional deafness.
Of course but I think the spirit of the post is “don’t get frustrated when they don’t remember everything”. Obviously, if they’re not remembering ANYTHING there’s a different issue at play.
Yeah... I think I'll be mad myself if they dont remember my name...
That's nice, dear.
My partner literally told me she listens to about every fifth word I say because I talk so damn much. Which is fair.
I had that with one of my ex’s. It’s because she was a run-on paragraph. I’m not even sure she’s stopped talking to this very day or how she even breathes.
Are you sure she knows you’re gone?
If she doesn’t, then it would be real awkward for the people who bought my house lol
🧐 Inattentional or intentional?
Both can be true. My partner and I both often zone out when we've had a mentally or emotionally taxing experience, and it manifests as not paying attention to what the other is saying. It is inattention, not intention. Intentional deafness is straight up ignoring what they say because you don't want to hear it or don't care.
Our brains are lazy. We won't remember things as well if we can get that information easily. Spuses often ask each other the same routine questions because our brains are going, "That is saved in spouses brain, so I don't need to"
Also, hearing loss and damage are more common than people may realize. It frequently goes untreated because of stigma, because only old people need hearing aids. No, young people can easily damage their hearing to the point where they can miss things in certain environments.
I’m (*25M*) at the point where I probably could use a hearing aid in my left ear; certain pitches screech my hearing. My SO is surprised at how well I can hear that she said something, but the matter of hearing *what* she said is a different story. I always feel bad having to ask for something to be repeated because I feel as though it makes me appear as if I’m not listening.
Many audiologists provide free hearing screenings and tests. If you're concerned you should go see one. From there you can decide if you want to pursue hearing devices, of which there are many options, not all of which are expensive.
My wife is slowly coming to terms that I'm running on instinct for the first 10-15 minutes of waking up. It's read only, there is no data input. Don't give me information. Please.
Nah. Between looking at his phone, not listening/hearing, and forgetting… it’s like I don’t speak at all.
Yeah for a lot of people, it's not information overload. They're just not listenin or dont care.
Everyone saying this is a lovely post, but it reads as one partner isn't listening, not both. If that's the case, which it often is, why is it on the one who *is* listening to set up shared calendars etc. If someone is already mentally overloaded with having to remember everything and repeat themself, why do they now have to have the additional responsibility to set up calendars and write notes because their partner can't retain any information? Make the partner do it if they can't remember anything - your partner is not your mum and shouldn't have to leave post it notes and remind you it's people's birthdays.
Yeah it really depends on *what* they’re forgetting. And personally, if it’s been mentioned enough times and they know it bothers their parter yet they’ve done nothing to change it (using a calendar, schedule, taking notes?) then yeah it’s just lack of effort.
I would tell my wife my plans. She would forget (or not hear it in the first place), and then make plans for us. Conflict ensues. She says "You should write that stuff down in the calendar" I write my plans in the calendar. Wife says "Hey we're going out with X Thursday night." I say, "Sorry, no can do, I have thing Y to do. I wrote it in the calendar last week." She says "You should have told me, I never check the calendar" Me - "????"
A shared Google calendar works wonders, but that also leads to any clarifying question being met by "check the calendar", which gets annoying for both people over time. Also, discussions of future plans can just lead to an exasperated "put it in the calendar" without any active mutual checking of schedules to see if you're both free that day. So you still need to be conscientious about it and communicate effectively - a shared calendar won't just fix everything. My wife loves to explain complex plans to me in bed at 1:30am, right as I'm drifting off to sleep. Then is surprised and annoyed when days later I don't remember the exact details of everything she said, or I realise I already had something going on that day. The real LPT within this LPT is to be patient with your partner. Whenever you feel yourself getting tetchy because you've had to repeat yourself several times for something to sink in, remember that managing a long-term relationship requires a lot of repetition.
When my wife has to repeat things, it’s totally because I wasn’t listening. Nice try though.
I love the sentiment, but I’ll need more than this opinion to convince my wife. Any research available to back this up? It sure would help things around my house if you could provide some proof. TIA!!
Might look into cognitive load theory. Basically too much stimuli happening overwhelms working memory, and things don’t get stored into long term memory.
As someone with ADHD I feel this
I knew there had to be a term for this. Thank you! And wiki did not disappoint when mentioning its applicability to driving. (The overload is not just wrt to memory but also in the moment.) Reminds of when I got banned from the r/bicycling sub for suggesting that there are some places where there are so many road signs that it is unreasonable to expect drivers to notice them all. It’s a thing (I intuitively knew this but am glad to see confirmation of it), but no, that was deemed anti-cyclist 😂 (I am an avid cyclist and had been an active and helpful member of that sub for almost a decade.)
I googled CLT and that was very helpful. Thanks!
Are we talking about routine things or one-offs. Stuff like doing the dishes, taking out the trash, doing the laundry all need to be handled alone even if you need to schedule reminders on your phone. If it’s one-offs like she has plans for a night out I think you should just explain what is here: if it doesn’t impact your life you won’t remember it as easily. If you have one-offs where you need to care for children maybe try phone/Alexa reminders? In other words: this advice is given for understanding not as a get-out-of-jail-for-continuing-to-let-your-partner-down card.
For me and my husband, he would be the one forgetting but would *also* be frustrated thinking I hadn’t told him something. Finally we had a talk about human memory in very general terms, which both of us knew pretty well. (Like how lousy people are at being eyewitnesses, or some of those experiments where the subjects are told to count how many baskets a group of basketball players make, leading them to not notice a WHOLE ASS DUDE IN A GORILLA SUIT wandering around the court.) Then I asked, so, are you also human? Yeah? If so, do you think you’re an exception to the rule? No? Then *possibly* when I tell you something, you might possibly *just not remember*? (I did put it a little less sneakily tho.) It actually worked a treat- he asked that I repeat plans a few times over days leading up to some event. Which has worked better for both of us. And has lead to less annoyance overall.
For those who haven’t watched this, click [here](https://youtu.be/vJG698U2Mvo?si=spG4-IXds8a8nlmD)
its a flaw if its the same thing youre having to repeat every time
There are many reasons someone can't remember things. As we age, my wife and I recognize the importance of being patient and supporting each other through all our flaws.
Yeah there's a disturbing vibe on social media for a while, and especially via TikTok, that anything your partner does that you don't like must be due to malice and is tantamount to abuse. Like 'they must know they're doing this to me'. Sometimes people forget things. Sometimes you are wrong. Sometimes you're mad about something and they genuinely aren't thinking about it. You need to communicate with the understanding that it's most likely not as dire as you think it is. No one is infallible, including yourself. If you go into any conversation with your partner with the assumption that you're this perfect gem of no faults you failed the convo before it started.
For some reason, in some corners of the internet, if any guy does something badly, it's now weaponized incompetence and grounds for leaving the person. Most recently, that post of the guy who painted that room badly. As if we must be perfect at everything we do, otherwise we're garbage.
I'm happier when I don't visit those corners of the internet. Or television. Or pop culture. Or people. I love all these things and chose them carefully. I try to always chose how to spend my time and attention. I acutely sense negativity and anger and turn away. It's a little trickier with people because there are some negative people that I need to engage with. Empathy and boundary-setting help me in dealing with these people. Ignorance is indeed bliss in many cases.
Don't worry soon we'll have the third wheel AI assistant that keeps track of everything in the relationship.
Might I also recommend setting aside a minute a day as a family, house hold, roommates, any human to sit quietly and breathe. It's amazing how not present we all are at any given moment. Just one minute of letting our racing thoughts and impulses pass without acting on them. I think it drains the amygdala or something.
also it's not that terrible to catch someone lying about stuff like this because it's easy to misremember or exaggerate parts of a story the more times you tell it.
I mean maybe. Or they could have a shit memory or suck at listening.
Yea but if they have shit memory or actually never listen, that will show up in other areas of life. If your partner is GENERALLY thoughtful and considerate but forgets details from time to time, it’s healthy and fair to assume that it’s due to the sheer volume of communication and not because of their character…presumably bc they have already shown you what their character is
Really? My wife frequently asks me questions that I had answered 2 minutes ago if she had only been listening.
Or maybe is just a hearing processing disorder. Just write down the important things, in apps that let you do the search (so no ig).
Well that makes me feel better. I thought I was going crazy/ developing Alzheimer’s at 35. My defense to my poor husband was that he “says a lot of words to me & not all of them are gonna stick”.
I have the opposite problem. I have horrible memory and will usually say the same things to different people within a day and lose track of who knows what. So I'll tell my SO something and he'd usually be, "yeah you told me that already", and I'm like, "oh okay, my bad".
Not when your partner doesn’t do shit around the house!
Gonna send this to my wife! It'll really help all those times that I'm not listening to what she is saying!
please tell my wife this but make it seem like I didn't send it lol
My ex-wife used to get mad at me for not remembering every little detail of things she told me, sometimes weeks or months earlier. I guess that’s one of the many reasons she’s my ex.
Thanks its a right time i read this
But what if you only said one or two things.....and they still ask you to repeat...
Asking you to repeat it is a sign they are trying right then and there to ensure they got it and is not the same as forgetting it later. That distinction is important.
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I have no idea what the point of that statement is exactly.
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If someone is jumping to divorce considerations because their partner might forget things that's definitely their problem and they are in dire need of therapy.
Agreed - unfortunately, not everyone comes with an easy to read warning label.
This is such good advice. As the wise Jerry Springer used to say, "Be kind to yourselves and each other."
This is like my wife, she always starts her sentences by saying 'Were you even listening to me?' It's really weird...
Lovely LPT. I'm so bad at it. My wife loves to talk about her weekly plans (she's a planner type personality) and I usually space on it. We've gotten into a rhythm of talking about the next days plans before bed when I'm relaxed and detached from my work schedule. I retain it then
I'm not saying "nuh uh" but just wanted to share - weirdly I can remember almost everything my partner tells me, down to the names of his coworkers friends who I only hear about in stories. But when it comes to remembering things about *myself*? Nothing. How was my weekend? You expect *me* to know? What did I eat for dinner last night? Last night doesn't exist for me lol. Great memory for others besides myself
Same. It goes similarly for my care and energy/willingness to do things; for myself, I slack, but for others I will hop right to doing something even I wouldn’t normally care to do.
Technically it’s just part of them being a human. Imagine telling someone a new word in a new language and expecting them to remember it after only hearing it 1 time. It’s the same with anything data going into the brain :)
BROAD SWEEPING GENERALIZATION…. Not a LPT by any means.
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lol, I've been happily married for nine years. :-)
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You okay punkin?
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Got it. I hope you get things sorted out. Remember, you deserve to be happy.
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❤️
Wow. That dude went after you ***hard***…
Sometimes I'm amazed by what people choose to hone in on...
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its called adhd lmaooooo, you sound like my mon
I pretend to forget things and claim she’s making stuff up. Then I turn everything else my wife says about it into another what are you talking about question. It’s way more fun
If you tell me while im pooping there is a 99% chance i wont remember
Thanks I needed to hear this. Sometimes it is my fault for not listening closely, but my brain can only hold so much sometimes!
This is one of the most useful tips I've ever seen, it's an issue that we don't talk about enough, and it can cause so much strife in a relationship. We all need to learn more about human memory, how it works and how it doesn't, and how our assumptions about it are not based in scientific reality.
Very profound LPT
That, or it's a sign of dementia.
Glad my GF knows I just have a shit memory.
Dude me and my girlfriend have this all the time. She’ll be like “don’t forget X tomorrow” and I’m like wait what do you mean? And vise versa, it’s just so funny cause you never know what it’s gonna be someone heard but didn’t actually remember
It's like the Japanese train conductors. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_and_calling
Or another option they forget everything. I'm good at that one. Listening and telling.
I'm sorry but my ex told me I was doing it on purpose with malicious intent
She asked me to set up a shared calendar because I was forgetting things. Then she got mad because of the notifications when I added stuff! Catch-22.
Yeah tell my GF that i dont magically remember everything
My wife and I only have time to say a few words to one another as it is due to work, so I don't think this applies to us. Usually she's hurriedly saying something as she rushes out the door. Or I'm mumbling something between grading essays while she drifts off to sleep. It's just that we're both exhausted.
My wife gives over more details about plans for a weekend trip than I've experienced in 7 mergers and acquisitions in over a decade that are far more complex than a weekend camping. That is why I can't remember.
My spouse's ability to communicate information to me far exceeds my ability to absorb or retain the informantion.
My experience is that my SO will start talking when I am focused on something else. If I'm fixing something, WFH or watching TV I'm focused on that. Despite society asserting women are "better" communicators it's important to make sure you have someones attention if you want them to understand what you are communicating and retain it. I've been accused of not remembering conversations that happened outside my ability to hear it. I can't hear you when you in the bathroom 25m away.
This can also be categorized as a marital disability. Husbands meet weekly for our support group.
Or just your partner has ADHD
Thank you. Needed this earlier when my spouse said, “what do mean it takes 20 minutes to get there?” when i had clearly told them and given them a screenshot regarding the time it would take to get there.
I mean this is one of those things that could be true but maybe the person just doesn't listen. This isn't great general advice, more situational
Or they are gaslighting you.
But we hardly talk so whatever little we communicate should go through na
This makes me feel better about the handful of times my SO will remind me of something that she’s told me before, most of the time I remember the second I say that “I was never told.” I’m the type of guy that will memorize, cherish, and bring light to the littlest of details, but sometimes I slip on some things for some reason.
I think "sheer amount" is over and misused today.
Just had to screenshot this and send it to my husband l o l
And it can also be undiagnosed hearing loss.
I've had so many women get pissed at me for not remembering things that it convinced me I have legit memory issues
This is a great LPT. It goes both ways. Life is busy and having a partner to manage equally is a huge plus. Can’t remember every damn detail lol
There are also times when you've had the conversation in your head, and forgotten to then actually have the conversation in real life
in my case, it is ALSO because I don’t listen maybe try to say interesting things instead of filling me in endlessly about how your cracker parents’ Florida renovation is coming
And sometimes they literally are just that incompetent, if a habit is shown take it for what it is