There is so much pain on this site, a lot of us have bled and cried over these issues. This isn't that kind of question! For those of you who are crying in the first flush of realization of how your mate's ADD has affected both your lives, this will seem petty.
I go to school 3 nights a week. I started when I realized I was probably going to have to support him indefinitely, as he had gone 5 months without even applying for a job. He's working now, but we made a joint decision that I should finish my degree.
How do I get him to record a TV show for me, when he's home and I'm at school? We have 2 VCRs, one records great but can't be programmed, and the other can be programmed but we can't find the remote.
I've made him lists, told him I was making them and taped them to the tv. He hasn't "seen" them. I've sent him emails and told him I was sending them. He "didn't check his email tonight." I've left him voicemails, but he "doesn't know the password" for his voicemail.
I know I could buy another VCR that I could program. I tried a universal remote but you can't program with it. I know I could buy a Tivo, or get a bigger-capacity DVR from the cable company, or get high-speed internet and watch the shows online. But all of those cost money we just don't have.
But I just need him to press a button! How do I get through to him that if he's watching a favorite show of mine, and I'm out doing family business, he should press the button and record the show for me? To me, that's just basic consideration.
not just a button
Submitted by arwen on
[I posted a reply to this earlier today, but it seems to have gone to internet La-La-Land. I'm trying to reconstruct it from memory. If it shows up twice because the earlier version reappears, I apologize.]
Sueann, to you and I it may seem like a simple matter of pushing a button -- but to your spouse, it probably does not seem so simple! For him, he has to remember, at the right time, under the right circumstance, specifically what he's supposed to do, despite probably being totally absorbed in something else -- challenging for someone with ADD. If you or I were watching the show that our spouses had said they wanted recorded, we would connect seeing the show with the memory of the request -- ADDers brains/memories typically don't connect ideas that way.
Since you can't afford the obvious ideal solution of buying a new programmable recorder, as you've noted, here are a couple of other thoughts you might consider:
(1) Buy a really loud alarm clock (you can get them cheap at places like KMart) with either a really annoying alarm or with a radio that you can tune to some really annoying station (I like to use loud Hispanic stations as alarms, so my husband can't be distracted by the words, since he can't understand them), and put it next to the VCR set for the time of your program. When it goes off your husband will have to get up to turn it off. Put a very large note on the clock that says something like "PLEASE RECORD MY SHOW NOW -- CHANNEL XX" (keep it simple so he can't get confused). After about a month he will probably be in enough of the habit that you can shorten the note to something like "CHANNEL XX -- Thanks!". Eventually the habit may become ingrained enough that you no longer need a note.
(2) Contact the manufacturer of your programmable VCR and see if you can purchase a replacement remote. When you get it, tie a long elastic around it (for this kind of purpose, I like to use headband-length hair elastics, or "twisties", made by Scunci -- you can find them in just about any drug store -- you may need to cut the elastic, or use more than one) and attach the other end to a piece of furniture. Make it clear to your husband that if he removes the elastic, there will be big trouble (e.g. I would say to my husband, "Take this off and you are dead meat. Do you understand? What will happen if you remove the elastic?" and make sure I got an appropriate answer). Since *you* went out and got it, it's *your* remote (unless of course you are responsible for the original remote getting lost -- then you have an obligation to replace it for the benefit of both parties, or suck up the consequences).
(3) "Lose" all the other remotes, and tell your spouse you'll be considerate enough to try to find them in exchange for his consideration in recording your shows.
I would use the last option as a last resort, since it will undoubtedly cause a certain amount of animosity! The first two, I would discuss clearly with my husband, making sure he understood my expectations.
I don't think there's much percentage in trying to get through to him the idea of consideration. He probably would agree with you, *intellectually*, that it would be considerate. The problem probably isn't with the concept, the problem is probably in the execution. Generally, I found with my husband that the easier I could make it for him to fulfill some task or responsibility, the more likely he was to be successful. That would make me happy (or at least satisfied), and then he would be more motivated to do it again -- positive feedback and all that. Eventually he would be able to do it without my providing the setup work. (Last week, for example, I had a bad cold, and did not cook dinner as I usually do on Wednesday, wasn't feeling up to it. In the past, if I didn't feel like cooking when I was sick, I'd have to call him at work, tell him the situation, ask him to buy or cook something, give him a grocery list if we didn't have all the necessary items, and remind him to fix it when he got home. Now instead, on Thursday, all on his own, without any prompting from me, my husband decided he would cook me a meatloaf, stopped at the store, bought the ingredients, and cooked our dinner. *That* is the great guy I married, who I lost for 15 years. It took a long time and too much work to get him back, but it sure is nice now!)
Hope this helps, or at least sparks an idea of your own.
Actually, coming from someone
Submitted by Ladyflower1 on
Actually, coming from someone who has ADD and has a lot of trouble remembering things I think notes help tremendously. However, I have to remember to read those notes. I really like the above posters idea of using the alarm clock, setting it to go off right before your show starts and putting the note on it to record your show. Really, there is no reason why this wouldn't work (unless he wasn't home when the alarm went off.) His problem is that he forgets to record your show and the alarm clock - with note - is an instant reminder of what he has to do and since he'll be doing it right away he won't have a chance to forget again.
Remembering- for Arwen
Submitted by Sueann on
I tried calling the company that made the vcr and it would cost as much to buy the remote as a new vcr , so that's not going to work. I'm still trying to think of ideas that WILL work.
I"ve got egg on my face today! When we got home last night we found that the dome light in my car was on, and it wouldn't start. We decided to wait until this morning to jump it because I didn't want to drive anywhere last night to recharge the battery, but we BOTH forgot this morning, and I've lost a day's work. I guess I should have put the jumper cables on his seat. So even people without ADD can forget stuff.
Try Ebay
Submitted by at_the_crossroa... on
for your remote. Sometimes you can find amazing stuff. I once found a spare part, exact model and all, for a 30 year old household appliance, it was as rare as winning the lottery and saved me a lot of money.
Or suggest to your husband to do the search on Ebay for you, so that the importance of the matter sinks in.
I wouldn't risk it
Submitted by arwen on
I personally would never risk suggesting to *my* husband to search on Ebay for something, even if it was to fix a problem he caused! -- the odds are way too high that not only would he spend hours fascinated by the stuff available there, and not take care of something important, but we'd all too likely end up with him buying stuff we didn't need or couldn't afford. For an awful lot of ADDers that I know, computers are an automatic hyperfocus machine. The amount of time my husband used to spent on the computer was a source of a lot of friction in the past. While it might be the appropriate "natural consequence" to have him do the research or followup, the probability of further problems (possibly very longterm) just wouldn't be worth it for me.
maybe it was not such a good idea
Submitted by at_the_crossroa... on
In this household, things are different. My SO would never have any patience to buy anything on Ebay. When he wants something, he wants it immediately, if possible, and he just buys it in the next shop. He might compare prices in several shops, but that is it.
Therefore I am the one, who sometimes buys household and technical stuff on Ebay for much cheaper than in the shops. I do have the patience to bid to my own maximum and nothing more, even if I have to bid and get overbidden on 20 auctions, till I get an item cheap enough.
At least, sometimes grudgingly, he lets me save money by using Ebay. After reading of all the trouble with debts of some other women, he manages his money ok as far as he does not spend more than his monthly income. Sometimes we fight over how to spend money. When he has money inside his budget, that is when he wants to buy stuff new, while I still want to get the cheapest and save the money for better use in the future.
Anyhow, Sueann, I hope that you find a remote for cheap somewhere pretty soon.
Sueann: non-ADD memory, link for remote?
Submitted by arwen on
http://www.replacementremotes.com/ has new and refurbished remotes for virtually all manufactures of remotes -- you can get a refurbished much cheaper than new. Please note this is not an endorsement of the site -- I've never used them before, and have no idea whether they are reputable or not (although I see they have a good rating from resellerratings.com). If you don't know what the model number of the remote was, the original manufacturer should be able to give you that information from the model number of the VHS recorder.
As far as non-ADDers forgetting stuff too - my heavens, yes! Although I have an excellent and well-organized memory, that doesn't mean I've never forgotten anything!!! For some reason I've never been able to understand, I've had some kind of terrible mental block about remembering *tickets* most of my life. I've left more tickets behind at home than some people ever buy. It's really embarrassing. Fortunately, I've always remembered them in time to keep from completely missing my flights, or performances, or sports events (but once -- before the day of electronic tickets -- I got all the way to the airport before I remembered -- good thing I'd left unusually early and the traffic was light!!!) As a result, we designated my husband -- the one with the terrible memory??? -- as the ticket controller in our house, many years ago -- because (again, for reasons we can't really understand) he *never* forgets tickets. One of those really weird and ironic situations!!!
Aside from this bizarre aberration, though, I think my memory experience is probably typical of most non-ADD spouses married to someone with ADD. I think a lot of people with ADD are attracted to non-ADDers with great memories because to them it's an especially admirable trait. Then, because the ADD spouse often has so many memory problems, the non-ADD spouse ends up not only having to remember their own stuff, but also the stuff of the ADD spouse. Throw kids in the mix, and maybe a job, as in my case, and you have major memory overload. And when you are cheating your sleep in order to deal with the impacts of the ADD problems, it doesn't help. So of course the non-ADD spouse is going to forget things from time to time, occasionally even something important.
I realized a long time ago that I couldn't hope to keep track of it all in my head. Before computers became so versatile and useful, I used a Day Runner to keep track of things, and *everything* went in there. If I had lost it, my life would have been over -- I would never have been able to reconstruct even half of the information in it. Later, when computer software for planning and organizing became available, I started using Lotus Organizer -- but that had its limitations, since I couldn't carry it around with me. I've also used programmable Casio watches for years. The system of several different tools that I've cobbled together and used for the last several years isn't as satisfactory as I'd like -- stuff still falls through the cracks at times. I'm very keen to see whether the new Motorola Droid (competitor for iPhone), due out in November, will finally provide a single platform to meet all my needs. As I age, my memory is definitely not as good as it used to be, and I need a better system!