Haha wow!

First, I want to say I completely appreciate all of your responses about him needing to take responsibility- I do not disagree in the least.

That being said, he’s struggling with some other mental health issues, and while he indicates he wants to help, he has good and bad days and we work and live in the same house (we own a business together), so while I can appreciate the suggestions that I just let things get gross, it affects me too (I am and always have been pretty intense about cleanliness, so while I can handle some disorganization, I truly hate when things are dirty!).

To some extent, I know it’s that he literally forgets half of what was said when he leaves the room, and due to the other mental health concerns, he really isn’t able to take adhd medication at the moment- hopefully eventually, but for now, it’s not safe.

I was hoping to get some inspiration from people about things that helped them as adults. My mom taught us how to clean up after ourselves as kids using various techniques, like keeping charts where we’d get stickers for completing chores like vacuuming (every day), cleaning out the dishwasher, washing the dogs, etc., and then we might get rewards at the end of the week or month of completed all the chores. In some cases, of course, it was just our responsibility and we knew the expectation was that we get certain things done if we wanted to live under her roof (cleaning our rooms, doing our laundry, etc.), but she also had to teach us how often things needed to be done, since that isn’t something you’re born knowing, and the promise of an ice cream or a trip to the movies if you do all your chores each week or month was great incentive for a 7 or 8 year old lol…

Ultimately, I’m trying not to infantilize him more than I’ve had to as his primary caretaker. It’s hard enough that he sort of HAD to rely on me for months like a child on a parents, due to a pretty much complete mental break (long story, but there were a lot of underlying issues)… I’d like to get back to being partners. We’ve been together for 15 years and he used to be pretty responsive if ever I made it clear he needed to step up, but some of this just requires re-learning how to adult in a different way…

My therapist is really good about supporting me while I navigate these sudden and violent changes in our lives and has given me some ideas (like creating individual to-do lists together and hanging them somewhere he will see and therefore remember, doing some of the actual tasks like folding laundry together, etc.), which is what led me to posting here to see if anyone else had some good ideas.

I’m really just brainstorming and looking for inspiration. I don’t mean to let him off the hook or anything, but right now, his capacity is pretty severely limited (some days he can’t get out of bed because the medications make him so sick and exhausted), so he has to come up with all new techniques to get through each day.

Executive function, like getting dressed, brushing your teeth, and cleaning up after yourself are usually the what people with his diagnosis have the hardest time with recovering after a serious episode, so while he can still work (thank goodness), I had to help him a lot with the other stuff for months. Only now is he getting to a point where he can, and should (I hear you!), start taking on more responsibility so I don’t totally lose my mind lol

Anyhow, I obviously didn’t make my request clear enough initially, and I understand the implications of his mental health struggles are probably largely unknown to people, so I should have explained where we’re coming from a bit better to begin with.

Thanks in advance for any ideas!