How to keep patience

[Rosalind]

I have just had a week away from my husband, who has VAD. Now back, I am finding it desperately difficult not to loose it when he repeats himself. He had a letter, headed 'for information' about some local issue, and asked what he was supposed to do about it. Answer was nothing, if was just for information. Asked same question 10 minutes later. And again later that evening. And the next day. Yesterday we were going out, and he asked if clothes were OK. I said sweater, which actually included embroidered logo indicating it was 26 years old, might be a tad past it. Crossly, he went and changed. 'Is this all right'? Yes, that sweater is fine. Goes out of the room, comes back "Will this do?'. Yes, like I said, that is fine. 5 minutes later. "Is this OK?" Oh for goodness sake, why do you think I said yes the last two times. To which he tells me not to make such a fuss as it is not that important. I feel like a coiled spring of tension, and have only been back 5 days. We have never had children, so I have not had to be patient before, and it certainly is not in my nature.

How do others stop from snapping, and prevent back of neck going rigid?

 

[Brucie]

I found that to treat a conversation as one might a game of badminton or tennis helped.

To try and make sense of an exchange of repeated words does drive one mad.

But to make a repeated return becomes easy, given practice. You can vary it, to make it less boring, by changing your intonation, or the precise words you use - make it like a Reader's Digest "Towards More Picturesque Speech" article, or make it like BBC Radio's "Just a Minute" and contrive that you won't repeat exactly what you have said before.

Always remember that in years to come, you may earnestly wish you could be at a stage where he is able to say anything at all to you.

He is correct - it isn't that important.... you are just quite naturally concerned for him. You have many other agendas, fears and worries you are trying to handle. He just wants a sweater.

 

[daughter]

I know it doesn't always work when you're not feeling in the mood, but Bruce is right, making a game of it does help. My Dad has remarked so many times about a tree in his Home being really tall, that we turned it into a word game for us! Mum and I started coming up with new words to use when agreeing with him; "Yes, isn't it enormous... stupendous... humungus..." (you get the picture!) When one of us thought of another word, we even brought up the subject ourselves to use our word! Of course, to Dad, it's the first time he's mentioned it and always sounds amazed at the height of this tree.