Smart people who can't get simple things

[lllll]

nm 

 

Edited November 1, 2017 by Catheryn

[maize]

So reading this thread has made me decide that having a dh with hearing impairment may not be a bad thing--when miscommunications happen I just assume he didn't hear clearly; no reason for irritation.

[katilac]

So reading this thread has made me decide that having a dh with hearing impairment may not be a bad thing--when miscommunications happen I just assume he didn't hear clearly; no reason for irritation.

 

Also, when I am overly snarky and regret it, he usually didn't hear it!  :lol:

[LuvToRead]

My dh does the above all. the. time.  It's EXHAUSTING.  

 

I just talk.  And I hate having to stop and evaluate every little word that comes out of my mouth to make sure it's perfectly precise, knowing that if I don't get it EXACT, he's going to 'correct' me.  I say 'Whatever' a lot.  ;)

 

Sometimes reading someone else's mind and trying to figure out what they mean can be exhausting too!  My husband always says "You know what I mean" and I say "why don't you just say what you mean".    Neither of us are right, and neither are wrong, we are just different.  

[goldberry]

This made me laugh.  But who knows.  Maybe.

 

My dh is quite famous for telling loooong stories.  For instance he starts telling a story about something that happened in CA 25 years ago and 2000 miles away.  'My friend Jack....um, Jones? No, Johnson, Wait maybe it was Johnson.'......Of course the audience cares nothing about what the guys last name is.  

 

DH does that too!   :lol:

[katilac]

I have to add that, as a smart(ish) person who often doesn't get simple things, your post title made me cringe. Nothing makes a person feel more stupid than to be told the thing they don't understand is simple and obvious. The more the other person says, "This is really simple, there's no way you don't understand this," the worse you feel. Because how stupid must I be to not understand something everyone else thinks is so simple? 

 

In my old age, I'm getting much better at owning the things I am not good at, lol.

 

Yes, I am going to write down, in excruciating detail, the simple directions to a place "you can't miss." Because I promise you, I can miss it! The directions aren't simple to me. 

 

No, I actually cannot figure out how that doohickey works, no matter how obvious it is to the rest of the world. And no, I will not remember how to do it next time just because you show me once, I will need to refer to my written directions. Repeatedly. 

 

These days, I can usually calmly say, "I actually do need to write it down, that's the way my brain works" and also "Please stop telling me it's obvious, that doesn't help, just give me the information I'm asking for." 

 

I try to be patient with other people in return, when they have deficits I don't understand, because I think most people try to avoid looking stupid. Therefore, if they are asking "obvious" questions, it's likely they truly don't get it. 

 

 

[MaeFlowers]

My dh does the above all. the. time. It's EXHAUSTING.

 

I just talk. And I hate having to stop and evaluate every little word that comes out of my mouth to make sure it's perfectly precise, knowing that if I don't get it EXACT, he's going to 'correct' me. I say 'Whatever' a lot. ;)

Mine, three. And I get irritated...not with him, with the situation. I dont want it to be the way it is.

 

This morning I wanted to talk to dh about something thay I knew he would pick apart. Instead I just walked away. That's hard, too.

[Scarlett]

I have to add that, as a smart(ish) person who often doesn't get simple things, your post title made me cringe. Nothing makes a person feel more stupid than to be told the thing they don't understand is simple and obvious. The more the other person says, "This is really simple, there's no way you don't understand this," the worse you feel. Because how stupid must I be to not understand something everyone else thinks is so simple? 

 

In my old age, I'm getting much better at owning the things I am not good at, lol.

 

Yes, I am going to write down, in excruciating detail, the simple directions to a place "you can't miss." Because I promise you, I can miss it! The directions aren't simple to me. 

 

No, I actually cannot figure out how that doohickey works, no matter how obvious it is to the rest of the world. And no, I will not remember how to do it next time just because you show me once, I will need to refer to my written directions. Repeatedly. 

 

These days, I can usually calmly say, "I actually do need to write it down, that's the way my brain works" and also "Please stop telling me it's obvious, that doesn't help, just give me the information I'm asking for." 

 

I try to be patient with other people in return, when they have deficits I don't understand, because I think most people try to avoid looking stupid. Therefore, if they are asking "obvious" questions, it's likely they truly don't get it. 

 

 

Well, you are right and I should NOT act the way I did about my wonderful husband.  I have to got to remember that he REALLY does process things differently than I process things.  And I am pretty sure all of the 'correcting' he does of me is actually just clarifying...so if I can remember that it will save me from getting irritated.

[Clemsondana]

Based on some other things, I sometimes wondering if people who think in details can't process anything until they've built a complete mental picture. So, in the shop/shed story (I have similar ones), he couldn't process what you were saying - he was just collecting information until he had to actually do something with it. We've had similar conversations where I'll say 'I told you about this...' and he'll say that he had thought I was talking about something else and it didn't make sense all together but since he didn't need to do anything with it he just ignored the fact that I seemed to make no sense talking about something irrelevant!?!? It fits with the 'taking longer to remember an irrelevant name than it does to tell the story', too - for THEM, the detail helps create the full picture, but for most people, the point of the story is all that they need to know.

 

I see this in our problem solving - we needed to move a heavy piece of bulky furniture up stairs with a turn without denting a wall. He immediately said 'I don't know how we can do this' and I churned out 3 suggestions. My approach is to think of ideas, then get the measurements that we need and see if one will work. His approach is to get a bunch of measurements and then study them until he finds an idea that fits...so, in that moment, he didn't have an idea but he could have come up with one if I had left him alone for a bit.

 

It makes me wonder if its a different way of thinking about lots of things. We have joked that our differences fit our areas of interest. I worked for years in biology research labs. The approach to the work is 'collect data, make a guess, test, collect data, make a guess, test' over and over. You never have all of the data, and half the time don't even know if you're asking the right questions - the cause of your results could be something that nobody knows exists! As an engineer, they work in the other direction - gather all of the information about parameters and build something that works. He says that if you do it right, you should be able to predict what will happen. I think that we had different mindsets to start with, and continuing along our chosen fields has exacerbated it. My mind is trained to look for trends and patterns and extrapolate, while his is trained to gather every last detail and then craft something perfectly. It can feel like we're talking past each other, with me not knowing why he needs irrelevant details and him wondering what the point of a conversation is, leaving us both tired. Of course, we now know that, if we come to the same conclusion using our opposite approaches to thinking, we're probably right.

[catz]

Honestly, reading that and not knowing the exact context I'm confused too.  I haven't read other replies yet.  It is not a well written text.  Smart people like exacting language and a whole picture.  He could also be irritated with your mom for not being more clear.  LOL. 

 

And I'm just kidding.  You seem to get irritated about quirks in other people that are beyond your control.  Maybe a better thing would be to focus on clarity in your langugage and letting this kind of thing roll off your back.  Find a sense of humor about it.  You can only change yourself and it's unlikely your DH is going to suddenly be intuitive about relationships your family has and the dynamics of them. 

 

My DH confuses stuff on my side of the family all the time.  No big deal.  Shrug.  I have to be pretty forward with my opinions and feelings with him because he doesn't intuit that stuff out. 

[Seeking Squirrels]

We had a discussion on a car ride this weekend that I just let go because I was so baffled that he was directly disputing a fact I knew to be true.  He actually was making me doubt myself.  

 

My parents bought a house on a corner.  Next to them lives a family.  Next to that family is an empty lot that is part of the property my parents bought.  The family in between has built a shop 1 1/2 feet on to the empty lot.  This was pointed out to my parents at closing.  There is a possibility dh and I will be building on that extra lot so we were talking about it this weekend.  Somewhere in the conversation I said, 'well we know where the property line is on one side because that shop goes 1 1/2 feet onto the lot.'

 

He said no it doesn't .  As I said, I let it go but was scratching my head over it....Yesterday when we were there at the property it was mentioned again.  Turns out he thought I was talking about the shop on my parents corner lot where the house sits.  I just let that one go, but I was thinking WHY? would you think I was talking about the corner shop when we were discussing the empty lot. I think â€‹it is because I maybe used the wrong (according to dh's mind) word....He is calling the neighbor's structure a shed and my parents structure a shop.  So it is more of the same.  He gets hung up on precise descriptions and he can't see the big picture.  

 

And if he had realized I was talking about the neighbors structure he very likely would have corrected my wording.  'You mean shed?  It isn't a shop.'

I'll bet that is exactly what was happening. I'm guilty of doing the same. DH cannot get north/south. I see the world as a map. I'm constantly aware of where I and other places are. If he says "let's go up to (wherever)" when he's referring to somewhere south and so therefore I think "down", I correct him almost every time. It drives him nuts and I don't mean to be difficult, it's just my brain really does have a hard time accepting the rest of the sentence. I cannot make that place be up when my brain sees it as down, so I get "stuck" and must clarify to move on. 

[Seeking Squirrels]

Well, you are right and I should NOT act the way I did about my wonderful husband.  I have to got to remember that he REALLY does process things differently than I process things.  And I am pretty sure all of the 'correcting' he does of me is actually just clarifying...so if I can remember that it will save me from getting irritated.

This is so true for us! DH often thinks I'm being critical of something because of the questions I will ask. Like if we're driving somewhere and he turns somewhere other than where I would have, I might ask "Why did you turn there?" 

 

I'm asking:

Are we making another stop first?

Is there construction along our normal route?

Is there something better about this route that I need to know?

Basically, WHY was this route chosen?

 

He hears:

That was a dumb move, you're going the wrong way.

So he replies:

"If you don't like how I drive, you can drive next time"

 

Then we're arguing....

[Barb_]

This is so true for us! DH often thinks I'm being critical of something because of the questions I will ask. Like if we're driving somewhere and he turns somewhere other than where I would have, I might ask "Why did you turn there?"

 

I'm asking:

Are we making another stop first?

Is there construction along our normal route?

Is there something better about this route that I need to know?

Basically, WHY was this route chosen?

 

He hears:

That was a dumb move, you're going the wrong way.

So he replies:

"If you don't like how I drive, you can drive next time"

 

Then we're arguing....

One of my kids was always asking when we were leaving to go somewhere, what we were doing next, what the plan was for the day--things like that. It drove me batty because I go with the flow and just do the next thing on the list and save the rest for tomorrow. But she liked to have a plan mapped out in her head. It took me many years to realize she wasn't rushing me or trying to get out of going or talk me into something else. She just liked to know all the steps and had no ulterior motive. She's grown and moved out but my 16yo is the same way. I have to keep reminding her that I don't usually have an overarching plan and like to go with the flow and all the questions are FREAKING ME OUT

[Rosika]

One of my kids was always asking when we were leaving to go somewhere, what we were doing next, what the plan was for the day--things like that. It drove me batty because I go with the flow and just do the next thing on the list and save the rest for tomorrow. But she liked to have a plan mapped out in her head. It took me many years to realize she wasn't rushing me or trying to get out of going or talk me into something else. She just liked to know all the steps and had no ulterior motive. She's grown and moved out but my 16yo is the same way. I have to keep reminding her that I don't usually have an overarching plan and like to go with the flow and all the questions are FREAKING ME OUT

 

I'm in my 40s and have been driving my family crazy for decades doing exactly this. The ironic thing is that my own daughter is this same way, and it's really irritating!!!   :lol:

 

After a particularly stressful month of juggling twenty balls in the air and dealing with my daughter's incessant questioning of my every decision from sun-up to sun-down, I actually called up my dad to apologize profusely and to ask how in the heck he put up with me "as a kid" (when I was doing the same thing. Because in my head, I've stopped doing this and am way more "go with the flow" .. by sheer necessity, not design!)

 

He laughed and said I still do it, and rattled off recent examples. I was like  :blink: Lies! (Nothing worse than choking down humble pie!)

[Barb_]

I'm in my 40s and have been driving my family crazy for decades doing exactly this. The ironic thing is that my own daughter is this same way, and it's really irritating!!! :lol:

 

After a particularly stressful month of juggling twenty balls in the air and dealing with my daughter's incessant questioning of my every decision from sun-up to sun-down, I actually called up my dad to apologize profusely and to ask how in the heck he put up with me "as a kid" (when I was doing the same thing. Because in my head, I've stopped doing this and am way more "go with the flow" .. by sheer necessity, not design!)

 

He laughed and said I still do it, and rattled off recent examples. I was like :blink: Lies! (Nothing worse than choking down humble pie!)

:lol: :lol:

[Ravin]

This is why in legal writing we are taught to avoid using pronouns too often.

[MeghanL]

So, I must also be a mean wife, because I get frustrated a lot because of this exact thing! I feel like small talk should not require a dissertation from me. Like, I'm just trying to have a normal conversation and instead of just replying in kind, I have a million questions and all sorts of (in my mind) ridiculous misunderstandings and I am just like "Oh good lord, forget I said anything!" And maybe I was ambiguous with a pronoun...but also..maybe...he could just let me tell him about my day without me having to provide a powerpoint presentation with footnotes about all the possible ways my day could have also gone. 

 

We have a whiteboard in our dining room and I am often having to literally diagram what I am talking about. He's also very visual. And it's about the craziest stuff. So, I totally understand your frustration. 

What great news that the appraisal came out in favor of your parents as they try to sell their house. I hope that made their afternoon even if sharing that news caused such frustration for your afternoon :D  

[Barb_]

I have to totally do exactly this with my DH. For me, it's not that I can't "go with the flow" it's that I know that if I do that, I get less done. So, I do try to build a mental map/plan/picture of what's happening when. And it has taken me YEARS of telling DH that I am not asking him these questions to rush him or tell him what to do or change his plans. It's just that I need to figure out how to work around his schedule. I can be flexible, check up my schedule as needed, but yes, a good idea of his plan for the day helps me work out my own plan.

 

And, here's the thing.....if my DH doesn't have a plan or an idea of what's happening when...that's totally ok too. So for example, I grocery shop Saturday mornings. If I ask him what his plan is for the day and he tells me he is thinking of working on the car, but he will need to go to auto zone to get a part, then I can plan to just grocery shop and not run extra errands so that I can be home for him to go to auto zone. But, if he says he doesn't know what he's going to do, then I can decide to maybe hit goodwill, or do some christmas shopping at the toy store also, etc etc.

Thank goodness my husband and I have a similar planning style. I'm also good at extemporaneous speaking and often don't know what I think until it comes flying out of my mouth :lol: Luckily since it's my kids, I can just tell them to trust me and chill out lol

[PinkyandtheBrains.]

One of my kids was always asking when we were leaving to go somewhere, what we were doing next, what the plan was for the day--things like that. It drove me batty because I go with the flow and just do the next thing on the list and save the rest for tomorrow. But she liked to have a plan mapped out in her head. It took me many years to realize she wasn't rushing me or trying to get out of going or talk me into something else. She just liked to know all the steps and had no ulterior motive. She's grown and moved out but my 16yo is the same way. I have to keep reminding her that I don't usually have an overarching plan and like to go with the flow and all the questions are FREAKING ME OUT

 

 

YES!

 

 

 

But I do ask my spouse his plan, so that I know if anything I want to do is going to get blown out of the water. He has a habit of springing things on me last minute after I have finally decided on something to do.