Do you or your H frequently lose things?

[rbp]

(PDQ, will DD)

I am so fed up with my H misplacing/losing important things. In January he called me (I was on winter break and working at a nearby coffee shop) because his car was in the shop and he had lost the USB drive that was normally attached to his keychain. He was freaking out because it had really important research data on it, and he didn't think he could get away from work, so I drove to the shop to look for it. We never did find it.

Then in March we needed a new electronic car key because we had lost the spare. I can't necessarily blame him for that because I drove the car until a year ago and we never used the spare, so who knows where it was. Anyway, he assumed we needed the car title to order a new key, and we couldn't find the title anywhere. He started freaking out while I was running late to a daycare tour that I'd had scheduled for a month.

Now this morning he couldn't find his cell phone and asked me to help him look. I get really annoyed when he asks me to help him look for something but can't tell me the last time he used it or even narrow down where it might be. Find iPhone said the location was not available. After a few minutes of looking under couch cushions, inside bags, etc. I remembered that one of our neighbors had posted on FB this morning that he had found a phone in the complex's courtyard and it could be picked up from him this evening. Sure enough, I had a voicemail from this neighbor a few minutes later saying he had it. (My phone doesn't get service in certain parts of the house, so it didn't ring.) This means that H dropped his phone on the ground when he took Biscuit out at 10 pm last night, and it sat out for nine hours. I guess the phone still works as the neighbor called from H's phone. But UGH!

I don't want to give him too hard a time because I don't exactly have my shit together, but this losing stuff all the time and then freaking out when he doesn't immediately find it is exhausting. He frequently loses his keys or his wallet when he's running late for work, leading to regular emergencies. Today I told him "I need you to keep track of your shit," and he laughed it off saying "sorry, I'm dependent." I honestly think that part of the problem is that I'm (usually) really good at finding stuff, so he doesn't have that much motivation to keep track of it. At the same time, it seems cruel to not help him look for something, and my life is miserable when he's freaking out and stomping around the house due to the thing that's missing that day.

Anyone have experience with this? Any tips? I feel like just having a place for things, period, would help, but I keep telling him that and it doesn't seem to stick.

[acr]

My exhusband was constantly misplacing stuff. Nothing really helped. Still he's trying to rely on me when he's lost something (Recent Text: Hey - can you send me a copy of my health insurance card?). I can commiserate, it is crazy frustrating for your time/resources to be spent on someone else's boneheadedness

[chickens987]

No advice, just commiseration. It's annoying.

[mbcdefg]

MH doesn't lose things forever, but he's really forgetful about where he put things. He immediately gets pissy when he misplaces something, or when he can't find something he wants right away (like if the remote control falls between the couch cushions). He has zero patience.

Sorry. It's frustrating. I either silently help look, or I just walk away, because I have no tolerance for tantrums.

[ssmjlm]

Can you give your DH a drop zone for things? Like a hook for keys and basket for his wallet?

DH doesn't lose things, but he's the queen of deciding he needs to re-organize something, organizes it, and then can't find things b/c he's moved them around "organizing" and forgot where he moved them to.

Prime example, he "re-organized" the garage when we got a freezer. Which was code for: moved most of it out to the shed. Now if I ask about something that used to be in the garage, it's a 50/50 chance it got to stay or is now in the shed.

[ddi741]

I am always losing stuff. Normally it's stuff my H gave me. I've lost multiple Christmas gifts (like I opened the gift on Christmas Day and 3 days later I can't find it). I lose my phone, important papers etc. It's just a matter of doing too many things at once and not paying attention to everything. I eventually find it. (although I do believe I threw out a $200 gift card once) but there is major panic until I do.

[starburst]

My H is the same way. It's seriously annoying. I wish I had the answer.

[IrishBelle]

I can commiserate too but I don't have any advice. For me, its my DD rather than my DH though. I'm hoping to nip it in the bud now for her sake (and my sanity).

[badgergrl]

I am your husband. Maybe not so bad, but I can never find anything.

[randp1]

i can sympathize with your husband. I lose things alot. i used to pride myself on being organized, etc. i feel like my life is so chaotic now (working FT, 2 young kids,etc), that i misplace things so easily. I'm usually the one freaking out. i just have so much on my mind or am always rushing from one thing to the next that i forgot where i put something.

you just gave me insight into what my husband probably thinks about me.

[sproutmd]

Mudroom/Laundry Room: Each person has a hook for coats and bags

Kitchen: DH has a drawer and basket (he is the only one in our family with a catchall place in this room - haha)

Our room: He has a catchall on our dresser

He still misplaces things or leaves them out. I throw them in the closest catchall/drawer assigned to him. I've resorted to the response of, "That sounds like a whole lot of not my problem. Put things in the same place every time, and you won't lose them."  (devil)

[pattieice]

My DH is like yours to a lesser extent. I bought an extra phone charger that stays plugged into an outlet in the kitchen. So he is good about keeping his phone charging in that one spot which has cut down on his lost phone tendencies.

When he loses something like his wallet or keys, usually as we are leaving the house, I pretend to help look. Then I suggest that he start carrying a purse or wear a fanny pack.

[illgetthere]

I misplace my phone a lot, but it's always in the house. I have H call it probably once a week to find it under the couch cushion or whatever. I'm also constantly asking him where my car keys are, but that's because we share a car and I don't feel like looking for 10 minutes to find them under a random paper on the kitchen counter after he last drove. H misplaces his stuff a lot, but I blame it on the TBI. It's always in the house.

[Marmee]

I am your DH, maybe worse. I loose my keys, wallet &/or phone pretty much every day. I don't ask for my husbands help anymore as I know it's annoying to him. I have improved on the keys over the years but still am not great. I have a hard time being "present" in the moment & have been pegged a "space case", "day dreamer", etc all my life. In reality it's ADD but I'm not interested in medicating myself & just struggle & am annoying. It's something I work on but it'll always be a character flaw.

[bunch]

Yes. He's lost his wallet and several pairs of sunglasses. He also loses things around the house frequently and then has the nerve to imply that I misplaced them. It is VERY irritating.

[ellipses84]

Not usually, but this year I've had an awful streak of losing things/ leaving things I need behind and DH has had to bail me out a few times. I'm normally the one who is very responsible, so he thinks it's a little funny, but does get annoyed when I freak out. My only explanation is I'm busy, stressed out and not sleeping enough. Multi-tasking makes you forgetful.

[rbp]

I get that he has a lot on his plate. He works probably 80 hours a week. Still, I have a lot going on too and it makes me feel like I'm not respected when he asks me to stop what I'm doing to look for something that he misplaced due to his own negligence.

It's not that I never lose stuff--I misplaced my college ID card for several months. I don't use it for much of anything, so I figured it would just turn up when it turned up. I left my phone sitting on the counter when I picked up Biscuit from doggy daycare a couple weeks ago. I realized this before I got home, turned around, and picked it up. H charges his phone every night. I don't understand how he left it sitting on the ground and didn't notice that he wasn't plugging it in before he went to bed. But maybe this is just me being really attached to my phone. 

I guess my issue is that H throws a tantrum and gets me involved. I think I do need to put my foot down and refuse to help, but he makes SUCH a big deal and he's ALWAYS in a hurry to get somewhere, so what am I going to do? This morning I was just sitting on the couch drinking tea, though I was about to get up and take Biscuit out. 

[Deleted]

My H lost his passport the night before we were supposed to go to Mexico on an all expense paid trip. It was going to be our babymoon (I was 27ish weeks with dd1). We could not go.

So yeah, I feel you.

[niq]

I lose things all the time. Always have. Frequently I throw tantrums and for help.

Growing up, losing things was a proxy for not being in control. Like, I am an ace student and yet I can't remember where I put my swim goggles, WTMF?! I've mellowed out on this score a little, but I can still get very frustrated. None of this is meant as an excuse, BTW.

The only way I've learned to deal with it is to minimize the number of critical things, have redundant copies of as many things as possible, and try to realize that if things go missing _within the house or office_ they'll turn up eventually, so it's okay if I can't find it for a few hours or even days. The last bit only happened when babyniq showed up, so maybe baby peppers will knock some sense into him.

[Deleted]

Apr 15, 2014 8:49:29 GMT -5 @lauralynne said:

My DH is the same - only worse as stress increases. It drives me bonkers. And it costs us money usually. Keys, phone, wallet, phone again, wallet for the fifth time, debit card, paperwork, I can't think of anything he HASN'T lost. We've tried SO many things to help him be organized and absolutely nothing helps.
It doesn't help that I'm METICULOUS about where I put things - it might not always be in the same place but I always know exactly where I put it. Even if I leave my keys in the fridge, when I go to look for them, I remember immediately where they are...my brain holds on to stuff like that.

this is my relationship exactly.

[UnderProtest]

rbp
I think we might be married to the same guy. My husband pulls that crap all the time. I have bought various things to organize him and made specific places for him to put his things so there is always one spot for each item. It never works. He leaves everything everywhere. Unfortunately it had gotten more annoying since we had kids. Now they get into the stuff he leaves out. What is funny is that our son knows where things belong more than my husband. I've started just dumping his random stuff wherever I want (like on his side of the bed) and ignoring his temper tantrums when he can't find something.

[egeiger]

I created a "drop zone" for him in 3 different rooms. When he panics, I say "is in it your basket? If I found it that is where it would be". Or, if its something general that he can't locate in the house, I tell him where it belongs / where I would have put it at. If its in a different place, then he will have to remember where he left it. He hates me. But, he has mostly stopped asking.

[mbcdefg]

Apr 15, 2014 8:40:25 GMT -5 rbp said:

I guess my issue is that H throws a tantrum and gets me involved. I think I do need to put my foot down and refuse to help, but he makes SUCH a big deal and he's ALWAYS in a hurry to get somewhere, so what am I going to do? This morning I was just sitting on the couch drinking tea, though I was about to get up and take Biscuit out. 

This is what annoys me about MH. I don't care what he does, I don't care where he wants to put his things, I don't care if he gets frustrated over something ... but it infuriates me when he gets me involved and/or gets a pissy attitude with me over something that HE did.

[Deleted]

I do.  It annoys my DH. I hate that I can't keep track of my shit.

[Deleted]

Generally I misplace things for maybe a day or two, and then I find them. The only thing I ever *really* lose is shoes.

My husband is incredibly organized so he knows where all of his stuff is at every moment.

[Pom]

Mr. Pom frequently leaves the house without one or more of the following items: phone, coffee, laptop, sunglasses,taking his meds-yesterday, his head, LOL. I swear, he makes me nuts. He is not allowed to touch our important stuff: tax papers, checkbook, etc...

We did leave for a couple days out of town recently and I forgot to grab my extra insulin pen so we had to turn around and come back home for it and lost an hour. To his credit, he never said a word.

[Deleted]

My XH was like this too. It never really helped, but we did buy a little dish to put his stuff in when he gets home so he knew where it was.

I actually used to be more like this too but I have developed pretty good routines to avoid it. Keys, sunglasses, wallet, etc are always either in my purse or on the table by the door. Phone gets plugged in every night so it's always in the same place in the morning. Etc. If I just make a point of putting the stuff I NEED on a daily basis in the same place, it's easy to find it and run out the door. I'm often running late so it's important that I'm not scrambling. Though occasionally something weird happens and I can't find my stuff anyway

Honestly I think it also helps not to keep a bunch of junk around and to live in a small space. I have a lot less trouble finding things (like spare keys) now that I don't have as many places they can be. When I lived in a larger place with more boxes/drawers of "random stuff" it was harder to find things.

[L]

Apr 15, 2014 9:26:42 GMT -5 @buckybells said:

Honestly I think it also helps not to keep a bunch of junk around and to live in a small space. I have a lot less trouble finding things (like spare keys) now that I don't have as many places they can be. When I lived in a larger place with more boxes/drawers of "random stuff" it was harder to find things.

Yep, this is what works for us.  I go through all of our stuff at least 2-3x a year and trash/goodwill things that we don't/won't use.  Minimizing the amount of junk to sort through when H loses things helps keep my sanity.

[boiler717]

Yes, my husband is more forgetful than losing stuff, but he is horrific at finding things. It gets very annoying that I have to do it all because I am "better" at it. I tell him he needs to work on his finding things skills all.the.time. I try to keep everything in its place, but that would require him to remember what that is and actually do it.

[mbcdefg]

OMG, I just got a phone call asking where his car keys are.

*bangs head into desk*

ETA: he left them in the basement. Why the hell are they in the basement??