True Life: I’m Married To A Chronic List Maker

True Life: I’m Married To A Chronic List Maker

The struggle is real, ya’ll. Being married to someone who suffers from Obsessive List Making Disorder is no joke.

Many women are list makers. They describe some sort of euphoric satisfaction when drawing a line through a task on a piece of paper. They report feeling motivated and focused when they see their tasks written down on a napkin, old envelope or fancy shamancy paper with a magnet on the back that can stick to the fridge.

I married someone who has OLMD. After nine years of being together, I’ve learned to overlook/laugh at/ignore/make fun of most of the common symptoms and characteristics. There is the frantic “I need a pen RIGHT NOW” dance when they are worried a new task won’t make it onto the coveted list. And there is the quiet muttering of tasks as a memorization tactic when a precious pen and paper can not be found. One characteristic of someone with this disorder is recruitment. They lack the ability to understand that other people do not jump up and down with joy after making a list, or can’t understand why others get so impatient when they have to “re-write the list so it looks pretty.” They are constantly suggesting (aka peer pressuring) people without OLMD to “just write it down” or trying to explain “if you write it all down you won’t be so stressed out.” Newsflash, list makers: putting it down on paper doesn’t make us less stressed. It is a visual reminder of all of the crap we have to do, and we prefer the mess in our head where we can ignore it by going on Facebook or shopping or sleeping.

Another common characteristic is a sense of utter helplessness and fear if something happens that does not directly correlate with the list. For example, my wife and I went grocery shopping together tonight. We made a list (of course we did) and were excited about our new, healthy eating lifestyle. As we browsed through the produce aisle, I suddenly remembered I’d been craving lime for my water. So I mentioned it and picked up a bag of limes. You would have thought I just told her I was ready for a divorce, right there between the limes and the lemons. There was no masking the look of worry, concern and confusion on her face. “Ooookay…” she said, like she was going to have to rework a math formula in order to see if we could get something that (gasp!) wasn’t on the list. “They’re limes. They are 69 cents.” I said, hoping her hesitation was a joke but knowing she was vey serious. “Okay, that’s fine. It’s just… not…on the…list” she said and broke into hives and seizures. Okay, that last part isn’t true, but she was close.  I’m pretty sure she even squeezed the word “limes” into the list just so she could cross it off. There is something about the comfort and control that comes with a list that people with OLMD have a hard time straying from.

Want to make someone you know with OLMD crazy? When they ask you what you’re doing today, spout off as many random tasks as you can, in no particular order. Repeat some, forget some, pretend like you “almost forgot” the really big and important tasks. It’s fun to watch them squirm. Another fun thing: When you’re headed out for the day of errands, tuck the list into your back pocket. Then watch the confusion turn into worry turn into panic as they search frantically for their darling list.

If you’re a list maker, stop trying to convert the rest of us to your ways. Stop pouting when we don’t get excited about color-coded outlines and spreadsheets. Let us manage our tasks and priorities our way, and don’t judge us when we forget something and give us that “if you would have just made a list..” look. We don’t want to make a list.

If you’re not a list maker but are married to one, hang in there. Take a deep breath and realize that making lists about what kind of lists they need to make makes them happy. Just like getting everything done without having to write it down makes us happy. (and better than them.)