A 4 hour casual wedding reception.
No alcohol.
Close to 200 guests.
432 cans of pop/soda in a variety of flavors.
2 hours into the reception, one flavor has only a few cans left.
There is still plenty of pop for the remaining 2 hours. Over 200 cans in a variety of flavors. Plus coffee. Plus tea. And guests are already slowly departing.
The Father of the Bride feels there is just not enough pop and leaves the reception to go purchase more. He needed to go buy more. He HAD to go buy more.
After the reception is over, there is close to 300 cans of pop left over. . . . . . . not to mention the dent in the reception budget.
These are the sort of battles that plague me. Leave him alone to do his own thing versus I knew what I was doing, I had it under control, but he bulldozed over me and did what he wanted anyway.
I chose to enjoy our daughter's reception. He had to get pop, he went and got pop. Oh, how not to stuff my feelings, oh how to live with this stuff. Oh how not to lose my sanity.
Yes, I wanted him at the reception.
Yes, I wanted him to ask someone to help him.
Yes, I just don't get it.
I would like to think if we were independently wealthy these things wouldn't matter. But we are in 10's of thousands of dollars in debt. And this is the sort of spending that messes with our finances every time.
And I don't know the steps to handle these situations when they arise.
More guessing. He wants to
Submitted by sunlight on
More guessing.
He wants to contribute.
He sees a problem (lack of a particular flavor).
He knows you would be happy if he contributed to the family by fixing problems when they exist and he thinks you will be happy if all the guests are happy and if he fixed the problem (in fact that's double happiness - happy you and happy guests, who could complain at that?).
He cannot understand the relative priority of this particular problem (lack of a flavor) when there are plenty of other flavors, tea, coffee, people leaving - these alternatives might mean to most people that maybe it doesn't matter that one flavor runs out but he has an executive processing disorder. He is unable to prioritize and he is unable to see consequences as easily as you and to clearly formulate alternative courses of action and examine the tradeoffs in real-time (later will be too late - the guests might be gone soon and then you will be disappointed and so will the guests - remember he doesnt understand that the guests probably won't care).
So the idea of considering current happiness vs future debt - again this is one of those things where he has physical (neurological) limitations.
But he knows one thing - he wants to please (and specifically wants to please YOU).
Of course, you'll end up dealing with the consequences (the bills) and he'll think he was helping only later to find out that he couldn't do anything right (again) (looking at it from his point of view and yes, he probably thinks money drops off trees).
"handle these situations when they arise"
Always have something else that you "need" him to do more urgently. A distraction ("yes the pop is an issue but we absolutely have a problem over here that is one of those things you love to sort out".) Does it require supernatural foresight on your part? Yes. Shouldn't you resent having to foresee these things? Yes perhaps, but he does have a disorder and he didn't ask to be born with it. Do I know how frustrating this is? Yes. I haven't found another way though.