My ADHD Husband has cost us a lot of money since he has racked up about 7 parking tickets in the past 2 years. When we first met he didn't know how to drive so he learned to drive since I encouraged him and got his license and then we finally bought a car 2 years ago. In that time, he has been very irresponsible with the car on several occasions.
We both pay for the car, but I don't have my license so only my Husband drives it. Because of that I expect my Husband to be fully responsible when it comes to all the necessary maintenance and making the car payments on time.
When he drives the car to work, unfortunately to save money on parking he has to park on the street and walk a bit since that doesn't cost us money. He has a very difficult time keeping track of the street sweeping schedule so he has parked the car on the wrong side of the street which resulted in several parking tickets over the past 2 years. I feel like I can't trust him anymore when it comes to being responsible and I always worry that he made another mistake that will cost us more money. Saving money is extremely important to me and I'm rather frugal when it comes to spending. My Husband has never really seemed to be on the same page as me when it comes to money, but he knows that he can't spend money on unnecessary things so he has been really good with not doing that. He always asks me first before spending any money and we have a system where we only use cash to make purchases (unless we purchase online. We use a credit card for that). The only issues have been related to the car. He also backed into a truck once cuz he wasn't paying enough attention and one of our tail light coverings needs to be replaced cuz of it.
I really am tempted to leave him over this. I have no idea how I can trust him anymore. He prevented this from happening more often by setting reminders to check the side of the street he parks on in the past, but then he stopped thinking about it for some reason. He can set reminders in the future, but how long will that last and will that be enough to stop this from happening over and over again? I feel like I just can't keep dealing with this. We have already been to a few different therapists (none have really helped and they just cost us a lot of money). He is currently on 3 daily doses of 20 mg Adderall which he started on a lower dose 3 months ago. At times, it seems like it's helping, but then when he continues to make mistakes, it doesn't seem like it's helping as much as it should be. We're about to try a coach, but I'm not sure if she'll be able to help that much with this.
Did anyone else here have a similar problem and if so, how did you deal with it?? Am I being unreasonable since I'm thinking about leaving him cuz of this? If I do leave him, I also really worry about him continuing to make more financial mistakes and ruining my credit because he might forget to pay for them on time.
So nobody has any advice for
Submitted by mrsg13 on
So nobody has any advice for me? I'm supposed to either just deal with him wasting our money or leave him? He had his first discussion with the coach and of course he told her about the parking tickets and she didn't really have any advice other than setting reminders to prevent that from happening. The problem is I need to be certain that he won't get anymore parking tickets. Finances are extremely important to me.
Does he care about the parking tickets?
Submitted by lulu18 on
Is he at all bothered by the parking tickets? Is he willing to sit down with you and brainstorm different things to try as reminders? Sometimes reminders that work for people without ADHD do not work as well for people with ADHD. Maybe he needs to come up with an "action plan" to tackle this problem in a way that makes sense to him. I recall Melissa saying it doesn't help to try harder, but to try differently.
Unfortunately, there's no way
Submitted by PoisonIvy on
Unfortunately, there's no way to be certain your partner will get no more parking tickets. Finances are important to me, too, so I get how you feel. and I know there's little I can do to cause money not be an issue except to split from my husband.
Does he have a cell phone
Submitted by copingSAH on
Does he have a cell phone that you can help key in the *Tasks* for the day so he remembers.
Maybe he needs something visual, like a printed calendar and the parking days highlighted, sort of like a recycling schedule I post on my fridge. Except he needs it attached to his dashboard or the passenger seat of the car. Short of a timer in the car that goes off before he gets out of the car... I'm not sure unless he starts to pay for the parking tickets out of his own savings.
Would you say he is extremely anxious on the road? Is he anxious enough to get out of the car as quickly as possible? Or simply distracted?
p.s. My spouse is ADD but he is extremely exact on his driving/parking and finances, like extreme OCD. He will spend 10 minutes parking and re-parking when the focus is really bad.
Thanks so much for all the
Submitted by mrsg13 on
Thanks so much for all the input! I think the visual calendar of when the street sweeping is and reminders on his smart phone will certainly help a lot. He is definitely very concerned about getting these parking tickets and doesn't want to destroy my trust, but he really doesn't trust his memory either so he isn't very helpful at coming up with a good system to avoid this from happening in the future.
It doesn't help that I'm normally not with him when he parks so I can't remind him to check the street sweeping schedule since he parks after he drops me off for work. It also doesn't help that he hasn't been getting enough sleep so the morning is when he's at his worst and the mistakes caused by his memory issues usually happen when he is asked to go into work 1 hr and a half earlier. I told him it would be best for us to ensure he gets enough rest and to try not to work earlier on the days when street sweeping occurs. I also think it'd be a great idea if he starts briefly exercising every morning, but he will have to go to bed earlier and get up earlier every morning to fit that into our schedule. It's difficult to find a way to do that cuz I'm a night owl and I typically don't like going to bed early so we wouldn't be able to go to bed at the same time (which I like doing). It is tough to do that right now cuz we share a small apartment so there isn't really a dedicated place to go to truly be isolated from each other.
He makes it a point to be very alert when he's driving and he has avoided getting into an accident cuz of that. It seems like he sometimes takes longer to park so he can get it right, but usually he is very skilled at parking so he normally does it quickly. I think he is certainly used to parking quickly especially cuz he is rushed to get to work on time in the morning which is understandable so it's likely more of an issue of him being distracted.
Hi! I was just wondering
Submitted by smooti on
Hi! I was just wondering whether you ever found a solution the parking ticket situation?
I understand....
Submitted by Underwater on
my husband luckily doesn't get parking tickets...he just hits things. A lot. 3 deer with 3 different cars...then another deer, a stop sign, a turkey (he deliberatly didn't slow down even AFTER I told him too b/c he "thought' the turkey would go the other way), a frost heeve (big damage), mostly recently another car.
He did get glasses and that helped with the deer.