Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi.
First time poster here so please be kind.
My wife and I have hit an issue. In short she does most of the household tasks. I do what I am given to do meticulously however she is quite right in suggesting that if jobs are not part of my routine I simply don’t see and therefore don’t do them.
Convenient eh ?!
I can assure you I am not lazy but agree with my wife in that she ends up taking too much on leaving her feeling overwhelmed.
I am convinced that my ASD plays a part in not doing things if they are not an ingrained habit.
Has anyone else hit similar obstacles and I am interested in practical ways that have proved successful solutions for you guys.
Many thanks
S
I always find clear comunciation is key
I'm all over the place sometimes I get obsessive and I want to do everything or i'll do nothing theres no inbetween as for cooking my mum sorts that out as a struggle to prepare meals and also the motivation etc. I hope it gets sorted
I'm really bad at getting on with household tasks - but as I live alone I don't have to worry about not pulling my weight as there's nobody to fret if I don't get jobs done - but things still need to get done otherwise I will be living in a dreadful mess.
I know I need to get things done so recently I set up reminders on my Alexa device. It reminds me to do particular jobs on specific days. Perhaps you and your wife could sit down and have a conversation about fair division and sort out jobs that she would like you to do and set up some reminders
Im very similar too. I often say "tell me if there's something that needs doing and I'll do it" and she does fin dit odd that I don't see that there's always something that does need doing and it's always the same things, which I won't have noticed or thought of.
I assume it's a mix of PDA and a mono tropic focus on other things meaning I don't notice anything else that needs doing.
I tend to do all the cooking and always joked it was my share of the housework. I have started to do more washing and ironing while working from home etc though recently.(When I remember to!!)
Clear communication / polite reminders. People are not mind readers!
Many thanks Iain. That’s very helpful
NAS93655 said:Has anyone else hit similar obstacles and I am interested in practical ways that have proved successful solutions for you guys.
I've been in the same situation as you and thought the same way, but in couples counselling in later years of the marriage it was unpacked and it was me avoiding tasks that I thought were unimportant to me (probably coupled with a generational bias that I thought the chores were not for the breadwinner to deal with.
The solution we worked out that fitted my autism was for us to draw up a schedule of the tasks showing who and when they would get done.
Finding the spontineity for things takes some doing and I found that setting reminders to come up with something different (buy flowers once in a while, suggest a trip to something new or even volunteering to take over cooking on a night when it wasn't my turn) was a good way to satisfy my wifes need for this feeling.
I guess it is a form of masking but treating the advance planning as a mini project makes it much easier to do than come up with something on the spur of the moment.
Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance is the motto here.