Hello again, divorce from my severe ADD husband is slowly progressing.
Things are surreal. My husband who for 22 years has relied on me for all planning, prioritizing and all ideas, and the brunt of practical parenting, who hasn't been able to reliably work even part time in five years, now has great confidence in making an equal parent for our children post divorce.
He is convinced he will be able to work as much as it takes to put up a reasonably large home. He wants the children to live with him periodically or as much as possible. He thinks he will be able to plan and cook meals for them (which ADD has prevented up until today). He believes he will be consistent for them once he moves away from me.
Hearing this is certainly an experience for me. Basically he says I've been so negative for his health, that all psychiatric illness he's suffered will be gone with our relationship.
I have no words för describing how it feels. Imagine that I've overworked myself onto the brink of self-destruction for this. To compensate for him resting in bed all these years.
To anyone who hesitates to leave a dysfunctional partner for fear they won't manage on their own I'd say: go ahead and do it.
Actions vs. Words
Submitted by 1Melody1 on
Hi Swedish Coast. How awful this is for you. I'm sorry. I have been in a similar place. Don't forget that what your husband is SAYING and what he can/will actually DO are two different things. You have great evidence of his inability/unwillingness to DO things over the years, right!? My ADHD ex also said he wanted our daughter to live with him part time (despite never being able to plan or cook a meal, never doing laundry, not holding down a job for 8 years, etc.). What worked for me is NOT engaging in this "pre-planning." It's meaningless because talk is easy and actions aren't. I focused on myself and my plans. I got our house ready to sell, I bought my property in her school district, etc. HE fell behind. He did not line up a property and had to live with his parents after we sold the house (he was already there anyway). So by default, I got her. Then he did finally get a property many months later... BUT... the house was an hour drive away from her school (???). He still talked like it could work despite the fact that there's no way our daughter would want a two hour round trip commute to school and her friends and life are HERE. But even when he got the house, he didn't buy her a bed. Or blinds. Or anything at all that would allow him to have her there. Basically, when it came down to doing the adulting, he couldn't. And that might happen for you too. Whatever you do, don't help him. Even if your situation gets farther than mine and he's got a great place that's ready for the kids, wait 'til he struggles with meals or getting them to school on time or until the kids complain about how stressful it is there and tell him they want to live with you. Our daughter DID spend a couple of nights at her dad's on a holiday and was miserable. She told him she didn't want to go back. He hasn't bothered to fight for her, to set up her room even almost two years later, etc. etc. I'm just saying, it just might naturally work out. And if he does miraculously step up and become this employed, organized super-dad, well... that's actually so great!
All to say, what worked for me was leaving him to his own devices completely. I did not help him at all (as he did not help me). I did not even mention a child custody agreement. I just let it all fall apart on its own. It sounds like your husband really wants to talk about the divorce a lot, which is understandably causing you great anxiety. I think the less you can engage in this, the better because it's all conjecture at this point. And I wouldn't sign custody or support papers based on promises or hopes of him becoming organized... wait for actuals.
You are in the worst of it right now. It should get better. I'm sorry. Keep taking care of your wonderful self through all of this.
Thank you Melody
Submitted by Swedish coast on
There's literally no one I know who could give better advice or be kinder than you in this. You are so right. I will just silently wait through all of this. I won't do a thing to help him get his life in order. I won't be dragged into any discussions about the future.
Im so thankful for the support.
Similar experiences
Submitted by Elliej on
Hi Swedish Coast.
I hope you are well in these unsettling times.
Separated 10months. Divorce not underway as this is a temporary separation to see if we can resolve issues. This is unlikely given the minimal effort on my husbands side. More recently he says i have change him fundamentally as a person, we have grown into different people and even if he had have fought for the marriage it may not have worked. Ive put up with so much, as you well know. To be told he fundamentally changed who he was for me, he was always trying to appease me (unlikely given what he has done), and nothing he did was good enough is cruel. I dont know how it got to this point.
I wish you well in this awful hell journey.
Tough times
Submitted by Swedish coast on
So sorry Elliej. I recognize that feeling of lost understanding after some time apart from the ADHD spouse. It's like distance makes the incompatibility and weirdness grow.
I think ADHD partners probably feel they try very hard to please. Or change. Only it's maybe not perceptible to the non. And it's insulting to be blamed for a personality shift. I was yelled at last week that I had abused my husband emotionally through our entire relationship. He couldn't wait to get rid of me.
Why then has he been in hiding for most of the last half decade, wasting both our lives and leaving me miserable and overwhelmed?
You are so right, these are hard times. This last week has been the worst of my life.
Wish you all the best.
How are things?
Submitted by Swedish coast on
Hello Elliej,
Have been thinking about you. How are you doing now? What happens with your temporary separation?
Hugs
similar divorce experience
Submitted by dvance on
Wow--my experience with divorce from my ADHD ex is very similar. We were married for 25+ years when he walked out in May of 2021 to be with the fourth younger woman he cheated with. He told our sons (20 and 22 at the time) that he had no choice but to cheat because mom was too busy for him and who wants to be married like that? Never mind that I was the principal of an elementary school that was open during COVID and working on a masters degree while he was working from home in his sweatpants. Since then, he and the girlfriend bought a big five bedroom house for them and her kids. She moved out nine months later (I mean who could have seen that coming?!) and my boys tell me the house is a mess--the yard is unkempt and full of garbage, a pipe burst and the hole in the ceiling is still there a year later, the 2 1/2 car garage is so full of stuff no cars can park in it. The divorce took until August of 2023 because he went through multiple lawyers and couldn't or wouldn't complete his discovery accurately. It was the most bizarre thing--you know how you have to fill out a financial affidavit and then provide all this paperwork to back it up? The salary he wrote on the financial paperwork didn't match the tax documents that were ATTACHED to that paperwork. That his attorney sent over. Who does that? It took eight continuances to get any information out of him--stupid stuff like this paperwork. Finally my lawyer just filed a motion to compel which my ex didn't abide by and we settled with what we had. It was insane. He couldn't even get his paperwork together and he is going to manage a house?? In the discovery it did come out that he hasn't paid the mortgage on the house in over a year and had upwards of $70,000 in debt. But, yes, please tell the boys how I was the problem. Surreal is the correct word. He never paid a bill in the 25+ years we were married, was unemployed repeatedly, was never involved in the finances, but by all means--most people at age 55 are trying to down size, not take on a five bedroom house on a quarter acre. Bizarre. So yes, I feel your pain. It's a strange thing. Meanwhile I am in a one bedroom apartment with no savings trying to pay off the attorney fees he left me with after dragging out a divorce he asked for. I have no explanation for the behavior of ADHD people, but I wish I had never met him, let alone married him. It was a waste of the best years of my life. Except for my boys, I should have run the other way. Nothing about him was worth it.
So sorry
Submitted by Swedish coast on
So sorry about what you wrote. How is it even possible to keep one's own sanity, being dragged through these things.
I used to think people in general were transparent and easy to understand and get along with. After this nauseating divorce I'm cautious to assume anything about anybody. When it comes to entering a new romantic relationship at some point, I think I'll be hard to persuade.
I hope your practical and financial situation will clear up for you to have a pleasant life. Good chances for it I assume, your obviously competent self now being in control.
dvance
Submitted by 1Melody1 on
I hate to hear this is still dragging on for you. I hope you're fully free of him soon. You deserve a better second act and I hope that happens for you. Like you, I do also fear that what should have been my happiest healthiest years are behind me and while my couple friends in their 40s and 50s are now enjoying lavish vacations and stable retirement funds, here I am looking at struggling to the end. It hurts. I'm trying to look for ways to do things differently so I can still find some happiness and comfort for myself in mid-life and beyond.
I hope others will read our challenges and leave earlier so they're not in this situation.
Thinking of you, dvance. ♥️
The False Hope
Submitted by mpress on
I don't know if he will make any progress, but the delusions they have that they can do better really get old fast, and after they've shown that they are incredibly incapable and make our lives miserable, as destroy our health, the comments about how we have ruined their health just makes it all worse. There really is no real understanding of reality. A neurotypical person married to a neurodivergent person is fundamentally unbalanced and doomed to failure. The odds are against it. No matter how hard we try to prove that wrong.