This is my first time properly posting here, but I have been reading through thread after thread for a while now and I cannot even begin to express how helpful this has all been. I feel like I am on my way to better understanding my ADHD husband’s reactions and triggers and feel as though there is hope for us and that there are things we can work on to improve our relationship, which had started to seem like it was doomed. But I’m still struggling with trying to figure out how to react and cope with my husband’s short temper and rages, which is what brings me to actually post.
What is happening now is like a chaotic cycle of cause and effect that leaves us both spinning and I would like to figure out how to break that.
Cause: It seems like the smallest things sets him off, he over-reacts to things that are just a part of everyday life and he is ALWAYS right, no matter what the situation. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to talk to him without things turning into a fight. He has been working a lot lately and is exhausted and stressed and all of that ends up being taken out on me. Even if it isn’t about me, I end up being where he focuses his energy or I end up being in the line of fire.
Effect: I take all of his words and frustration and aggression very personally, which makes me feel as though I need to stand up for myself and not let him walk all over me. I have always been a very independent and opinionated woman, something he often praises me for. And to me, it feels like if I recognize the reasons why he is angry and reacting that way and let the situation diffuse or if I comfort and calm him down, I am giving in to this behaviour and making it seem like it is okay for him to say some of the cruel and hurtful things he says to me. Basically, I feel weak and like a doormat if I just take it and don’t push back.
Cause: So I push back. I tell him that he can’t talk to me like that and that he is being rude and cruel and I'm not going to take it. Which of course he doesn’t respond well to and the fight escalates to another level.
Effect: To avoid all this, I go to the complete opposite side of the spectrum and end up walking on eggshells around him in order to avoid setting him off and I try to maintain a peaceful environment by avoiding speaking my mind or standing my ground. A change in demeanor that he notices and questions and something that makes me feel like I am not my own woman and I am just his punching bag. And then I start to feel insecure and vulnerable and vie for his attention and reassurance and he doesn’t understand why I’m acting like that, so he irritably brushes me off, which makes me feel more neglected and we continue to spiral in that pattern until we’re both exhausted.
I’m struggling so much with what to do and with this sense of myself, with how I can remain confident and secure in who I am and in our relationship without feeling like everything he is saying is directed at me personally and requires me to push back against him. I want to be able to be that strong woman, to not take his words personally and support and empathize with him when he is in a state like this, but I feel like I am just accepting him lashing out and I’m volunteering to be a punching bag.
Is there a middle ground? Is this just a perception of things I have in my head that I need to get past? Is part of choosing a partnership with these ADHD struggles just to accept this?
I genuinely just want to make sense of this, or figure out what I can do to will help us break this cycle and hopefully avoid a lot of the recent unnecessary blow ups we have been having.
[Brief relationship background: Have known each other for 10+ years, been together for 5. He's been diagnosed since childhood and continues to take medication. This was not a surprise to me getting into things, but I did not realize how much of an impact it had on him and would have on me and our relationship until we moved in together two years ago.]
I don't know
Submitted by Dipity on
No, he doesn't really do
Submitted by soapathetic on
Under no circumstances should
Submitted by Hopeful Heart on
Under no circumstances should you accept verbal abuse just so he can feel better about himself !!!
From what you wrote, it seems like the problem starts with him working long hours, which creates stress. Stress is very damaging. It effects people's health and relationships. Would he be willing or able to restructure his life To work less and lower his stress.
However, if he did start working less what would he do with the extra time? It's impossible to predict how is brain will work.
I have asked my husband to restructure his life and priorities, but he is unwilling. He enjoys working long hours in a complicated business. He thrives on it. He says it keeps him out of trouble. He even goes so far as to say he will never quit working, never retire. I also asked him to completely give up TV. I thought this would free up time for him to spend with me. He agreed to give up TV. But instead of spending time with me he used the empty time to start a new hobby, reading books. (Btw, he has always claimed that he hates to read) I can't force him to want to spend time with me. I can't force his brain to work the way I want it to.
here is the point I'm trying to make. I don't think the cycle can be broken unless both of you want it to be broken. You can't force it. I would ask your husband if he wants to change the current situation and what he is willing to do to change it. You should decide what you are willing to do. Possibly you both can come to an agreement that will work.
He works in the entertainment
Submitted by soapathetic on
We do get stuck!
Submitted by I'm So Exhausted on
soapathetic,
I certainly had myself stuck for a really long time. I allowed myself to shoulder the responsibility for issues that were not mine, and in doing that, turned my marriage into a parent/child relationship. In hind sight, I am even discovering that there were parent/child dynamics directed from my spouse to me when I first met him. He rescued me, and that was start of a poor cycle of communication - his 'taking care' of me, rather than sharing his life with me.
In recent years I discovered that by trying to 'explain situations' to friends and family, I was in fact covering up for his poor behavior by making excuses for them. I got so distracted by feeling needed, I lost sight of myself and became his HELP. Bad, bad choice on my part. Certainly I didn't do it as a purposeful choice, yet it developed over time. I was not aware of, or in denial about, what was occurring in my own life.
I assumed the responsibility of meeting his needs for everything - financial bookkeeping, his main source of encouragement, and all the power and control he wanted, just so I could feel important/needed/valuable.
Soon I was just always walking on egg shells, learning to constrain and constrict my own feelings so as not have to deal with a negative reaction. Always keeping vigilant on HOW I would say things so as not to hit a nerve that would make him angry.
Yep, I got neurotic!!!!! My own sense of of value and the measuring stick I used of how well I was developing and growing was based on a standard he set. This was not a harsh demanding behavior from him, but the subtle disapproval had me continually trying to make MYSELF better.
Now I am at the place of not being sure how to improve my marriage. I cannot lay all the blame on my spouse as I can get sucked back into old cycles. It is not up to me to determine if he is narcissistic, or has low self-esteem, or any of the myriad of other labels I read about on this forum.
I do know it has become impossible to deal with any areas of conflict. I DO indeed feel bad that they cause so much discomfort for him. Living with all that unresolved stuff on my shoulders is too much for LIZ to carry. We surely need to re-negotiate a lot of things. The roadblock of not being able to deal with even the smallest of conflicts without having him fall into an emotional heap of anger or sadness is more than I can take,
It SEEMS, based on his words, and my last attempt to deal with a conflict, that he has determined he cannot meet up to what I expect from him, cannot be the husband I need, and has decided he doesn't want to try anymore.
Sure tends to get all my old behaviors up of not challenging, or backing down, or not wanting to hurt him.
But, I actually feel like it is all just a bunch of baloney. How do I get to the kind place of letting him be miserable if he so chooses, and separate myself until such a time as he chooses to do the hard stuff? I do NOT want to just understand him and enable him to stay where he is. If that is really HIS choice, I know I can do nothing about that. I want to be an encourager, not an enabler. In that, it feels as I need to take the position of being viewed as the meanie-wife who expects too much, while knowing in my own heart that is not at all who and what I am.
Melissa Orlov wrote a while back about emotional lability. This is what I so clearly see as happening, yet I cannot attack it on my own. He does not accept it, and it is very unpleasant to live with. He sees it as me judging him when I should be dealing with my own stuff. So sad:
When you husband develops the internal story that you are demeaning him or putting him down, he sees your actions through that lens whether or not those actions actually do what he perceives. Simple interactions that are in reality neutral become charged with negative emotion simply because he has this internal story going.
This is not a good place to be, but the good news is that with intentionality, internal stories can be "reworked" to be more positive, thus eliminating this filter. For example, he might get in touch with the emotional lability part of himself and, instead of saying "she's being mean" might say to himself "I wonder if I'm overreacting?" (I'm not saying it's easy to do this, and it sounds as if this would be a stretch for your husband at this point, but...)
Since this emotionality is a symptom, you aren't going to be able to change it for him. He is going to have to confront it himself...and that may mean counseling and/or working with his doctor on it.
Edited to add an afterthought: When I got to the place where I changed my thinking and planning and even feeling around the fear of his responses, that was when I realized I was not being truly Liz. That is no way to live. What gets really complicated is when my spouse will say I am expecting the exact same thing from him. Not so, but it really causes my brain to be upheaved as I try to sort it out.
Liz
Hi Liz, Sorry for the delay
Submitted by soapathetic on
Hi Liz, Sorry for the delay (I've been on vacation), but I wanted to thank you for sharing your experience and some insight into your situation. I definitely see myself in some of your words.
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Submitted by overwhelmedwife on
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Cause: It seems like the smallest things sets him off, he over-reacts to things that are just a part of everyday life
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Likely he has more than ADHD. My H is "jarred" by the smallest hiccups in his life. A line at the store, some traffic, dropping his keys, someone not hearing him and asking him to repeat what he said, someone misunderstanding what he said, can't get someone on the phone, looking for something in a store, any tiny thing upsets him.
In H's case, I think it's his OCD and PD that are causing these reactions. When he drops his keys, he'll yell out a string of expletives that you'd think he just broke his arm or something. I can't tell you how many times I've been in another room and have heard an extremely loud !@#$%^&*, so I'll think something terrible has happened. I come rushing in only to find that he dropped his belt or dropped his shoe. His picture should be in the children's book, "Chicken Little," because the sky is always falling.
He's horrible with today's electronic devices (touch screens, and multi-button remotes), particularly small ones because he seems to have no knowledge of where his fingers are. He'll touch something and something wrong will happen and he'll scream, "this thing is possessed. I didn't touch ANYTHING!" Yes, he'll swear that there are evil spirits causing him trouble like that. He'll knock over a coffee cup and break it, and swear that he didnt' touch it. Of course he did!!! He'd open a brand new DVD and I'd say, "be careful not to get fingerprints on it." And, he'll insist that he's being careful, but then it won't run. Then I'll open the player and show him that there are a million fingerprints on it! How clueless can you be about what your own hands are doing??
I can't tell you how many things he's broken from laptops to tablets to phones to glasses to dishes to handles and so forth. And then he'll swear that he "didn't do anything." and he'll insist that ghosts are doing these things. lol
When H was a child, his nickname was "King Perfect" because he couldn't admit doing anything wrong and he couldn't stand losing (the worst poor-sport EVER....and he still is a horrible sport....and he literally has a melt-down when his fave teams lose or are playing badly).
H is now on regular anti-anxiety meds and that is helping, but he needs to also be on tranquilizers. He really just needs an IV drip...ha ha!
>>>and he is ALWAYS right, no matter what the situation.<<<
Ok...this is how I dealt with this issue that was ALWAYS a problem. I stopped arguing with him about who is right. When I KNEW I was right and I knew that I could prove it, I just waited till I could prove it and start doing that. (again, not arguing first).
Do NOT say, "well, I will prove to you that I'm right when we get home" (or whatever). Either don't say anything or say something neutral like, "well, the bill is at home, so we can look at it when we get home."
For example..... I told H to go to a certain store to get something. I told him to go down Main St and turn right on 2nd Ave. When he came back, he said that he had to go to another store because there was no 2nd Ave. He made some nasty comment about how I was wrong. Later that week, we were driving down Main St, as we approached 2nd Ave, I pointed out 2nd Ave and pointed down the street where the store could be clearly seen.
Again, no ugliness from me. I never argued with him either time. Just showed the facts when I was able to. Sometimes a subject will come up in the car. For instance, H might say something like, "Why did you spend $$$ on ________". And, I'll say something like, "It didn't cost that much. It only cost $$." He will insist that he is right. When I get home, I'll get the receipt and show him.
When you CALMLY do this enough times, not only do they realize that they're not always right, but they'll realize that you are often right.
But again, you can't argue about it. Once H yelled at me for the total amount of a credit card bill. At first, he wouldn't show it to me. He just kept waving it around and yelling. I started yelling back that I didn't charge much at all that month. He kept yelling and yelling. And, I was arguing back. Finally, he threw the bill at me. I looked at the bill and the line items and realized that it was our college son's credit card bill. The line items were for text books, etc. All the charges were from the city where his university is. H NEVER bothered to look at the line items. He just looked at the total and assumed they were my charges. When I tried to show him that the charges weren't mine, he ran into the bathroom and locked the door so that he wouldn't have to see that he was wrong after our big argument.
I learned from that and other similar incidents that once there is an argument, he's not going to back down . At that point he's made such a huge deal that he can't back-track. In some cases, after a big blow up where we both raised our voices, and he learns that he was wrong, he will twist the story to somehow make himself right.
So, that's why I learned that I can't argue with him about those kinds of things. I just say what I think is right one time, calmly, and then later show him the facts.
When it comes to things that are just opinions, let it go.
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It’s becoming increasingly difficult to talk to him without things turning into a fight. He has been working a lot lately and is exhausted and stressed and all of that ends up being taken out on me. Even if it isn’t about me, I end up being where he focuses his energy or I end up being in the line of fire
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Yes, before H retired, he would take out all of his work anger out at me. I learned to keep my purse, car keys, etc close to me at all times. As soon as I became the target of misplaced anger, I'd leave....go shopping, go to a friend's home, whatever. I would later say that I wasn't going to stick around to be his whipping boy..
Sorry for the delay (I've
Submitted by soapathetic on
Sorry for the delay (I've been on vacation), but thank you for your thorough response. I am starting to believe there is more here than just adhd. Other symptoms are starting to show themselves. But you have a lot of well thought out solutions to things, so thanks for sharing. I definitely feel a bit more in control of things now, realizing I'm not the only one also helps. Thank you.