I’m getting tired of being the household beast of burden. Last night I decided to try and make just ONE damned chore in the house equitable. I assigned one kid to empty the dishwasher, the other to fill it, and my husband to wash whatever large items wouldn’t fit in the dishwasher. We discussed it. He agreed it was fair. I HATE a dirty kitchen and can’t cook when it’s filthy and I’m tired of doing all the cleanup before slaving away at the stove and then repeating.
Spoiler: he did not wash the dishes. He played video games and then went to bed. I washed them this morning.
I was mildly annoyed (read this happens constantly so I’m used to it) and told him just now that since I washed those dishes, could he please put them away. He’s doing that now, but his response has me fucking fuming.
“Why wouldn’t you just wait until I washed them? Why did you HAVE to do the dishes just to make me feel bad about it?”
I was mildly annoyed before and now I’m just fucking furious. He has no idea why I would even consider that manipulative. I’m so mad right now I can’t even find the words to productively explain to him why that statement was so offside.
Help me, sisters. I can’t even find the words.
His response is absolutely not an appropriate response for an equal partner to make, and he knows it and knows you didn’t do it to “make him feel guilty.” He feels bad and so he wants you to feel bad, and that’s just not how adults deal with their feelings. I feel close to this because I could see myself slipping into being like this person if I weren’t devoted to being an equal partner.
If he wants to be an equal partner, he needs to own up to his mistakes, acknowledge the emotional labor you’re doing, and come up with accommodations for his shortcomings. You have tried to accommodate for him, and that’s just taking on more emotional labor without any payoff. You’re not his mother, your his spouse, you shouldn’t have to tell him what, when, and how to take care of these things. He may need accommodations, and he can ask for help, but you can’t accommodate for him.
That said, my spouse and I both struggle with ADHD and one way we’ve accommodated our shortcomings is we have a stamp sheet which we fill out every week with cute stamps depending on who completed the task (mine is a penguin). It’s taken a lot of the emotional labor off of both of us, and shows what we need to do or if we’re done for the week and can relax. I’m not saying that solution will help in your case, but recognizing he has a problem, needs accommodations which may involve the whole household is the second step he needs to take. The first, of course, being that he needs to stop trying to make you feel bad because he feels bad. He’s gotta cut that shit out.
Another thing with ADHD (as you might know) is that the frontal lobe isn’t fully developed, which makes it harder to regulate your feelings and how to respond.
I love the idea of a stamp sheet or something like that to make it clear what needs to be done, I often don’t see things that my wife finds obvious and that can lead to irritation, but we have been able to get past that since we talked about my shortcomings and what I need support with to be able to do them.
This is blowing my mind right now and the exact insight I was looking for. He wants me to feel bad because he feels bad. Holy shit.