Living with a distracted person can be very demanding. While you miss birthdays, forget to pick up your kids from school, think the car is stolen because you can’t remember where you parked it, lose your passport, your partner may be approaching the brink of collapse. How can you make amends? For starters, you may want to bring home flowers or chocolate, buy surprise tickets for an event, make reservations at a romantic restaurant. It might help.
A Strong Force
At the same time, your partner needs to understand that distractedness is a strong and irrational force, genetic, and often enhanced by stress or a focus-demanding activity. People have contacted our association admitting that they forgot their baby in a parking lot and had to drive back and pick it up. It is obviously the last thing a parent would want to happen. A fireman said he had to call his neighbors and ask them to turn off the stove in his apartment. Twice.
So, if your distracted partner forgets your birthday, or worse, your wedding day, it does not mean that he or she no longer loves or cares about you. It just means being . . . distracted.
Accommodate
My wife, who obviously knew and accepted what kind of person she was marrying, helped me by setting our wedding day the day after her birthday. "That will help you remember, love," she said (though I still have to check which day is which.)
The point: If you live with a distracted person, don't exhaust yourself trying to change him or her: write reminders, make some extra calls, arrange buffer time and practice mental preparedness for unexpected events triggered by distracted mishaps. Focus on what you like about your partner. It is always good for love.
Good luck!
Johan Rapp – Chairman
www.distractedpeople.com