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Leah LaSalla's avatar

I'm reading "Fed Up: Emotional Labor, Women, and the Way Forward" by Gemma Hartley. 12/10 do recommend for all the Bens out there

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Mary Catherine Starr's avatar

It’s on my list! I need to read it! Is it so great (or infuriating)?!?

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Leah LaSalla's avatar

It is mandatory <3

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Meggie Orgain's avatar

Oh the getting frustrated because my husband doesn’t respond to my kid thing is SO REAL! After *many* conversations about this, I have come to a few realizations/reflections about how this shows up in my own family.

1.) My husband has adhd and sometimes genuinely believes he has said the thing out loud that he has said inside his head.

2.) It is especially triggering to me because my parents *frequently* ignored/talked over me/shifted focus to my older brothers (and still do! To this day! Even though we’re all grown-ups!) and my husband has seen this dynamic in practice and thinks it’s messed up. Which allows me to understand why it bothers me so much and allows him to understand why it bothers me so much 🤣

3.) Taking all of these things into account, I am now (not always, but certainly more than I used to) able to say calmly in a conversational tone, “hey, can you please respond to A’s question?”

But omg. JUST RESPOND! 🤦‍♀️

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Mary Catherine Starr's avatar

Yes! To all of this! I think Ben may also have ADHD and because of this, has learned to tune out all of the sensory overload that overwhelms him. But it’s hard being the one who never tunes out...

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Jenna Macdonald's avatar

Oh the tuning out of the kids’ questions is so relatable, and drives me nuts when I have to intervene to get my husband to answer them (and sometimes I’m not even in the same room as them!). But my husband definitely doesn’t have add/adhd…I think it’s just that his phone is super distracting 🙄

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Mary Catherine Starr's avatar

Ugh yeah, there’s that, too (the phone 🙄🙄🙄)

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Robin Donovan Bocchiaro's avatar

Sometimes my husband tunes out MY questions... Sigh...

Sometimes I repeat myself, and he says, "I heard you!" - except that he never verbally attested to the fact that he was listening, so how was I supposed to know that?

And then there are the mornings where I am working to get our little one to school on time, and suddenly just before I get in the shower (in the only slot I can get in the shower), HE gets in the shower, and I have to scrap the shower completely....

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Mary Catherine Starr's avatar

This happens in our house, too!!! 😫😫😫😫

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