u/CreditIcy2642

First time posting. Need advice. Please don’t tell me to baby him or find excuses.

My husband doesn’t believe in ADHD, autism, or anything similar, he uses the r-word for them. But he shows clear ADHD traits: always late, can’t start or finish things, easily irritated when asked (demand avoidance), hates planning, only acts impulsively, can’t stick to a plan, disrupt with sudden change of plans, can’t keep promises, starts random time-consuming tasks right before a deadline or when it’s time to go, and procrastinates past deadlines. He also struggles with open communication, he internalize change of plans and only thinks for himself.

This may be ok for day to day life for other people, but it is a nightmare during a kitchen remodel. We’ve been at it a year, it’s down to studs and subfloor, untouched for 11 months. I’m not allowed to hire anyone or do anything myself. He forbids any input from me. He wants absolute control of the whole thing, and gets irritated if I jump in.

Now he tore up the bedroom floor too, also an impulsive project, took him 30 seconds to plan and decide. Bedroom stuff is piled in the living room, floor unfinished, and I get blamed for not motivating him when I ask.

I’ve grown scared of asking him things to avoid being called a nag and to avoid triggering him. His family would find explanations for his behavior and put the burden on me to accommodate him but never asked anything of him. But what about the partners whose lives get buried under this?

If you have an ADHD partner, how do you actually get projects done with them? Please don’t say gentle baby talk or walk on eggshells, he’s 40.

My husband and I have been in the middle of a full kitchen remodel for an entire year now. The house has been very very messy and cluttered ever since. Last weekend, we finally tackled the bedroom flooring (80% complete) which means stuff that belongs in our bedroom is currently piled up in our living room, which also has kitchen stuff due to the remodel. This weekend, he promised to finish it, but he changed plans and left no time to finish it.

I’ve been putting in extra effort each weekend to keep the rest of the house clean and organized. Today, I had already spent four straight hours decluttering and organizing, plus I made a meal. When I asked my husband to please finish the flooring in the bedroom so I could start moving things back. I expressed that I was genuinely stressed out by the clutter.

His immediate response? "Don’t be a pig then" (or something along the lines of "don't live like a pig").

I was offended. After everything I had just done, he called me a pig because I was stressed about his unfinished project. But he said he didn’t call me a pig because he didn’t use the exact word. I called out the gaslighting right away. I asked for an apology, and he flat-out refused.

He claims it’s just a language barrier. He told me, "Here in America, we use the term 'pigsty' to describe a messy room," and that I shouldn't be offended because I just didn't understand the phrase. But he didn’t use the term pigsty. He legitimately said “don’t be a pig then”. How is implying someone is a pig the same as using English term “pigsty” to describe a room. I tried to call him out on the gaslighting, but he insists he doesn’t need to apologize for anything but an English language misunderstanding.

For context: I have lived in the U.S. for ten years. I know what pigsty means, but you don't say that to your exhausted partner who is actively busting her butt to clean up the house. He added onto that by saying “you need to clean up after yourself, I clean up after you all the time” which I had been doing outside of my busy work schedule. Sometimes I would be at work for 10-12 hours. But at the same time, how is this related to me stressing out about the bedroom clutter being in the living room?

More context:I offered to finish the flooring myself. He strictly forbade me from doing that or hire out. He insists that only he can do it, but only on his terms and when he wants to do it.

So, Reddit: Am I overreacting for demanding an apology and being incredibly hurt by this? Or is this genuinely an acceptable "American English" phrase that I'm just too sensitive?

So our flight is at 7am tomorrow. It is currently 7pm tonight. For the past two days, I have gently asked my husband twice to start packing. This is a 7-day trip, there's a lot of stuff. We have a Lyft scheduled for 4am to get to the airport, so I wanted to avoid the classic last-minute scramble.

He has packed nothing. Not even a suitcase pulled out.

He is currently planning to go visit his grandma tonight AND go for a 1-hour bike ride. That's 3-4 hours of activities when we have to leave the house in like 9 hours.

I walked up to him and asked, very nicely: "Can you please do me a favor and just pull out a suitcase before you leave to visit your grandma?"

Context: My husband procrastinates everything. We are routinely late to events because he decides to shower 10 minutes before we walk out the door, or he starts watering the garden 20 minutes after we were supposed to leave.

I get it, I don't want to be a nag. But flights don't wait. I have already packed 90% of the shared stuff and am ready to go. I didn't want to pack his things because I'm not his mom and I refuse to enable this behavior anymore.

When I reminded him of the timeline (leave at 4am, he'll be out until 10-11pm) and asked him to please just start, he absolutely refused. He said if I pack anything for him, he will unpack it and buy new clothes at the destination just to prove he doesn't have to be told what to do.

I told him, "I don't need you to finish packing. I just need to see you pull out a suitcase. Just a sign you've started."

He still refused.

Then he dropped this gem: "If I'm not packed by the time the Lyft comes, I'll just drive myself to the airport."

We scheduled the Lyft specifically to avoid paying $30/day for parking. So he'd rather waste $210 on parking fees than just... pull out a suitcase.

He then called me a "terrorist" and said I'm "miserable" and that I ruined his day because I was explaining the timeline and why I’m concerned. I know people are gonna say I should just drop it and never explain anything. I thought normal couples would talk about logistical and planning stuff.

At this point, I've checked out. I don't care if he misses the flight, I'm going on vacation with or without him. I just can’t put up with this immaturity, especially when he blames everything on me for talking about it.

AIO for asking him to pull out a suitcase 12 hours in advance when nothing is packed? I'm not trying to control him, I just don't want to miss a flight. Do people normally wait until 2-3 hours before leaving for a big trip to start packing?

TL;DR: Husband won't pack for a 7-day trip 12 hours before our 4am departure. He has 3-4 hours of social plans tonight. I asked him to just pull out a suitcase, he called me a terrorist and said he'll drive himself to the airport if he's late. AIO?

I guarantee this is not fake or generated by AI, this is my real experience that’s been eating me alive. I wish it’s fake. AI also wouldn’t have so many grammatical mistakes.

A month ago, I came home one day to find that my husband (40M) had planted three bushes in a straight line right through the middle of our curvy, whimsical garden. These things are supposed to get 6 feet tall and 6 feet wide, and they aren’t planted in a harmonic way with the rest of the garden. He also plant 5 other smaller bushes that are way too close to other plants (half of those died by now). He never asked what I thought and did it without communication. I spend a lot of time maintaining the garden too, I planted about 50 flowers there and I care about it as much as he does. But he told me “ just because you lived here for two years it doesn’t give you any authority since I’ve lived here longer.”

When I tried to talk about it and find a solution we are both happy with, he shut down, says “I don’t want to talk about it right now” Wouldn't engage, calls me annoying and overbearing. I thought the basics of marriage is to make sure both people are happy. This went on for a month. I tried to respect his needs by not brining it up and fight about it.

So yesterday I tried to find a compromise to make us both happy. His goal is to block the view of our front door from the people passing by the house (the house is 50ft away from the street) I suggested let's swap one bush (instead of the 3, and 5 other he planted too close to other plants) for a few narrow, tall flowering plant and avoid the straight line formation. That way we both get ours needs met. I comprised on 2/3 of his plan and only asking him to change 1/3 of it.

He got irritated and said he's "sick and tired" of me needing my voice to be heard” but all I’ve been trying to do is to have a say in a shared space, in an equal marriage. Then he told me: "A normal marriage doesn't need someone to voice their concerns and demand to be heard. It should just be easy." He tells me get over it and not everything can have a compromise.

When I protest against it, he said I should be grateful there's food, shelter, and clothes.

It’s really not about one bush I can’t let go. This patterns shows up everywhere. We've been renovating our kitchen for nine months now. Not a single cabinet is installed. Everything runs on his schedule, his comfort level, his priorities. I'm not allowed to do the work myself. I'm not allowed to hire anyone. I'm not allowed to ask him to work on it on his day off without him getting upset. I'm not allowed to ask for a timeline or hold him accountable if he promises to do something. He always promises to do something (completely on his own, I didn’t force him to promise), then he doesn’t do it at all with 0 communication. This has been a pattern for 6 months. When I bring up this accountability issue, he gets nasty, calls me controlling, nagging, exhausting, and tells me to "stay out of it."

When I bring up the disrespect and his refusal to compromise on anything, he tells me to "just get over it" and "focus on what you have control over." It’s easy for him to say that cuz he’s in control of everything. He says the problem is we're "incompatible." As if me wanting basic consideration and respect is a personality mismatch.

I told him no sane woman would put up with a man who controls everything, refuses any compromise, and then blames her for reacting. And of course he thinks I’m just making it up, he thinks plenty of women would be happy with this. The only he ever compromise on is when I choose which restaurant to go for dinner or drinks, and I should be grateful he’s paying for food and shelter.

This is not about a kitchen or a bush I'm fighting over. It's about the disrespect and the pattern of avoiding accountability that I think is crucial to fix in a marriage. I deserve to speak without being treated like that. Am I the source of all the arguments or should he take a critical look at his behavior? He absolutely refuses couples therapy btw. He can’t be told what to do.

Reddit: if a man provides food, water, and shelter, would you be happy if you don’t have a say in the shared space and be blamed for your reaction? He’s so confident that I’m just making stuff up out of nowhere, and other women would be happy in this situation.

Me F 26 and my husband M 39 have been together for two years. He has this habit of interrupting me when I speak and just jump in with his own thoughts. Therefore I often have to restart to finish my thoughts.

The start of this was when we were at a restaurant. I was talking about what was going on at school that frustrates me. Then he interrupted me as I was talking, started drawing his thoughts on a receipt and completely ignoring what I was saying. After he was done, I asked him if he remembered anything I said before his interruption. He said no. I wasted three minutes of breath because of his interruption, and I had already called out his interruption 3 times earlier that day and stated how it’s rude and disrespectful.

He was defensive right away. He said I did the same thing before too, and he only forgot because my upset shocked him, and when he's in shock he can't remember a lot of things. But the truth is, I only got upset AFTER finding out he didn’t listen. How can he predict he will be shocked and forget.

So I made an analogy. I used an example from a trip I had with friends. We're sitting down to talk about the plan for the day — where to go, who's driving, what's closing early, what does the group want to do. Then one person jumps in and says "everyone look at my dog, how cute he is." One girl called him out and asked him to please wait since we are all talking about logistics right now. I used this example to show how interruption is rude.

My husband said it's not applicable because he thinks his interruption was not changing the topic. So I revised the analogy. I said okay, imagine we are at the same scene making plans, and the same person suddenly interrupts everyone and only talks about where they want to go, while ignoring what the group has already discussed — that we can't go there today because of closing time. That sounds like rude behavior, right?

But my husband still called it a stupid analogy, called me retarded, said he doesn't see the point, etc. I got mad but I remained civil. I didn't scream, but I raised my voice. He called me out of control.

About two days later I tried to talk to him again about how disrespectful it is to call me stupid and retarded about my analogies. He said "I never said you are stupid." When I pointed out when and where he said it exactly, he doubled down and said "well your analogies were stupid. It's a waste of time. It’s never applicable, you don’t know how to make a good analogy.”

When I told him it's wrong and he needs to apologize for that behavior, he refused.

So I made another "bad" analogy. I said imagine if a man hits a woman, and instead of apologizing and owning up to the mistake, the man says "I'm allowed to do this because she disrespected me first, annoyed me first. If she wasn't doing that then I wouldn't need to hit her."

I made it clear I was not saying his behavior 100% equals hitting. I explained that analogies are about the takeaway — the moral of the story. In this case, the moral is: don't blame the victim of whoever you offend or hurt. Whatever someone does does not deserve to be berated or insulted.

I then brought up a common analogy people use with “intent and impact” like you hit someone with your car, you didn’t do that intentionally, but the impact is real, therefore you own up to it. The truth is what people do often aren’t equal to hitting someone, but the moral take away is to acknowledge the impact of your actions, not focusing on intent right?

He kept getting more disrespectful, kept doubling down on calling my analogies stupid, and kept belittling me. I had to explain again that an analogy doesn't mean A and B are the exact same thing. The moral of the story is the main point. Sometimes you need a more extreme example to wake someone up so they can look at it from an outside perspective.

He still didn't think he was wrong. He kept telling me I'm stupid. So I blew up. I screamed and cried.

Then he berated me even more. He said "you act like you don't have a brain, you are acting like a dog" and repeated that about ten times. He keeps making the excuse that if someone is stupid, he's allowed to call it what it is. He thinks I'm only upset because I'm too woke, because I'm buying into political correctness.

What I'm asking is: isn't this just common decency? To not provoke someone? To avoid offending someone after they have repeatedly told you what not to say to them?

I need someone who is not "bought into this political correctness" to validate that this is not about political correctness. This is just a lack of human decency regardless of political affiliation.

Does what did “demanding respect, acknowledgement, apology” deserve what he said? Does my “yelling and exploding” deserve that kind of treatment from him?

Before anyone asks: yes, I'm in therapy. Yes, I brought up couples therapy but he refuses. Yes, anyone should leave this kind of person. Yes, I know I can manage my emotions better by not exploding. No, I'm not asking whether I should leave him. I've already lost respect for him.

TL;DR: Husband interrupted me four times in one day, admitted he didn't listen, called my analogies stupid and me retarded, compared me to a dog, refused to apologize, and says I'm "too woke" for being upset.