Patience of a saint

 Before I start, this is just really getting things off my chest/out of my already crowded head and down on paper (as it were), to sort my thoughts out and clear my head a bit.  I'm not asking for advice!

I'm finding it increasingly difficult to cope with husband and our life together.  Every day is a battle, things don't go smoothly, my patience is stretched to the limit every day, I frequently have to bite my tongue and walk away.  Repeating myself, telling him things I've already told him (several times) on a daily basis, umpteen times a day, gets more and more wearing too.  Although that I don't mind so much, annoying though it is, as I know he can't help his worsening short term memory - it's not like he puts it on deliberately.  It could be said that he can't help the rest of the things either, although I think he can in certain ways and with some things.

I suppose the main thing I'm finding so hard now is that he's becoming more and more argumentative and stubborn.  He argues with me constantly, virtually everything I say he raises an objection to or downright flatly disagrees with me.  Twice this morning I've offered suggestions for something he can do to improve things (his shed is becoming a piled up dangerous mess again, things keep falling over and blocking the doorway into the garden) - he gave his usual snort and pooh-poohed the idea.  He absolutely will not ask me anything - for example, yesterday when we were packing up to come home from the caravan, several times he put things in the car before I'd finished packing things into them, or was still using them.  When I said quite mildly that I wasn't finished with it (the laundry bag that I still had to put bathroom and kitchen towels, tea towel etc into, e.g.), he snapped that I hadn't told him.....I said he could have asked, he barked that he didn't know he had to and wasn't aware he needed my permission!

It's like he wants to fight with me all the time and prove that he's the boss.

When we were more than halfway home yesterday, he said he hadn't switched off the gas or water taps, and implied it was my fault for not reminding him.  When I said I had so much to remember myself and couldn't remember everything that he needs to do also (which is actually very few things), he bit my head off.  As it happened, I had actually asked him if he'd done everything 5 minutes before we left (he said he had), and there is a post-it note reminder to switch the services off which I'd written out and stuck in a prominent place ages ago.  I kept my mouth shut the rest of the way home.  Once we got home, he also confessed he'd left his GTN (angina) spray in his bedroom at the van - luckily I have a spare one for just such eventualities.

He's developed lots of little obsessions - the electricity here at home, e.g.  He reads the meter every other day (there's absolutely no need!), works out how much we've used, down to the last penny, and insists on telling me - I really don't need to know.  He asks me almost on a daily basis how much is in his bank account - he could check it himself but he buggers up the sign-in details nearly every time, resulting in him being temporarily locked out of his account.  We have an outstanding very minor repair booked in with our Housing Association - it's not important at all, it's on their non-urgent routine list and they'll get round to doing it as and when.  Not good enough for husband, he's constantly badgering me to get on the phone to them and arrange for them to come asap.  The Housing Officer is doing her rounds today, he's already said he's going to ask her to get it arranged, despite me telling him - yet again - it actually is already booked in and they'll do it sooner or later!

He's driving me nuts at the minute, and I know it will only get worse.  Being a carer means you have to have the patience of a saint.