How to act after a big fight?

Your story is so painful for me to hear...thank you for sharing it with us. Some of what your husband is doing may be ADD-related. What you write about his comments about your marriage being a mistake may be related to lack of impulse control, which is definitely an ADD trait, as well as what seems to be a desire to fight (and be stimulated...ADD people are often high stimulation people.)

My impression is that there is more than the normal amount of jockeying for position going on in your relationship...lots of comments about how you position yourself to the one you love, seemingly some manipulation on his part. Given when you hear them, the cruel words seem as if they are part of a "I have power over you" attitude (or, perhaps, I WANT to have power over you attitude.) Okay, I'm playing therapist here, and I'm not one. So, here's the best suggestions I can make at this point with the information you've provided.

• get some good birth control that you control. Don't put him in charge of your body or your life. Don't have a baby "for" this man until you know for sure that he is a person with whom you are interested in raising a family
• in spite of his bad behavior, continue to be the best person you can be.  If this all falls apart (and it may, or may not) you want to be able to look back and LIKE how you behaved.  Don't let him drag you to a place that isn't you (i.e. to a nasty, bitter, mean person)
• help him, gently, learn about ADD.  It may be harder there to find a good doctor who can help him, should he ever choose to take it seriously, but some education may help.  I know many, many men who say that reading Driven to Distraction or Delivered from Distraction was a real turning point for them, so I might try starting there.  Present the book to him as a request - something he can do because it's important to you and because you are asking - when he is in a good mood (okay, I'm not above suggesting you appeal to his "protective" male side...!)
• Find an outlet for you personally.  This site can help, but a good therapist might be a good idea, too.  If at all possible, find someone who is familiar with ADD and understands it.  (Perhaps someone who is American trained????)
• try to understand that he may harbor a great deal of shame, which is not at all uncommon for people who struggled with undiagnosed ADD throughout their lives.  If you ask yourself, how can I approach him without adding to his shame? perhaps you will be able to find easier paths for communication than the fights that you have been having (fighting is one way to deal with shame - push the blame onto someone else with great aggressiveness).  His shame doesn't make him a bad man...it makes him a man who has had to deal with a lot of criticism and self doubt over the years...even if he tries to hide it.

There is more, but this is a start.  I hope you stay in touch.

Melissa Orlov

Another reader just wrote what her response to how to give up control over things that she cares about (in this case it has to do with kids).  Read the first two writers at this post (or were the first two when I wrote this).

It sounds to me as if you need to create better boundaries for yourself.  You are stuck in this place where you feel that your husband should be able to anticipate your needs and respond to them, rather than just react to your requests.  The good news is this - when you do request help, he gives it.  The bad news is this - anticipating what someone needs is not an ADD trait.  People with ADD live very solidly in the present (see my blog post on "now and not now") and you can either try to hold your husband to some standard that says that he has to learn a skill that will be very, very, very hard for him to learn, or you can accept that he has trouble in this department and make yourself more comfortable with asking him.

I used to have this same issue, so I empathize with your issue - I hated both doing all the work and having to ask for help all the time.  And unlike your situation, lots of time when I asked for help I still didn't get it because the thing I asked him to do wasn't of interest to him.  My solution was two-fold - 1.) stop doing all the work and 2.) come to terms with the fact that my husband has lots of great things, but anticipating what I wanted to have him do wasn't one of them.  Once I stopped doing all the work - and he had some specific jobs that were ALWAYS his own and that he had chosen out of a list of many (ie. no anticipation needed - they were always his) he actually was able to see without any anticipating what it was that he needed to do.  Sometimes he didn't do it on my schedule, but at least he owned it (if he forgets the dishes, I just let them pile up.  Eventually they even start to bother him and he takes care of them).  To help him remember the shift in duties, a sign might help.

Second, I let go of having to have everything done my way.  I don't like the fact that my husband can't deal with visiting his mother, who lives 1/2 a mile away in assisted living.  But she's his mom, not mine.  I help take care of her as I can, and have stop worrying about their relationship or feeling guilty that her family isn't with her more.  I wouldn't have liked it if he were telling me how to deal with my parents, so I don't feel I can dictate his behavior there.

Don't pack his clothes for him for a trip!  He's not a child!  If he forgets his underwear, figure he'll get to the store while you go to the pool and read a book (or maybe have dirty underwear)!  Don't take on buying presents for his family.  You're setting him up to fail.  What incentive does he have to take responsibility?  If he forgets a present for his family, it won't be the end of the world.  If they have a question about it, he can work it out with them.

You are only making yourself miserable!  Unless you are a saint, you have to resent doing all of this stuff...but you need to understand that you aren't doing it because he is asking you to do it, you are doing it because you feel it ought to be done.  But that means that YOU are responsible for your misery, not HIM.  You also communicate to him that he isn't adequate when you pick up all this stuff for him.  Do you really want to communicate both resentment at having to do this stuff and that he is inadequate?  Yes, he responds with anger about you approaching these issues because you are stepping all over his autonomy here - you are trying to force your priorities on him.  Better to let up, then when things have relaxed a bit between you, use his honesty and talk with him about the trouble YOU are having not trying to force your ideas and priorities on him.  Ask for his input, be honest about why you got drawn into this bad pattern, try to figure out how you got into this bad habit (expectations of what a "marriage" looks like, perhaps?)

Also, you think his loyalty is elsewhere, but I bet that if you asked him, he would tell you he loves you deeply.  You are personalizing his inability to anticipate (an ADD symptom) as he doesn't care about you.  And personalizing that he will spend time with family or at work as an indication that he likes them better.  But as you are doing all of this other stuff - working, and the long, long list of things you resent having to do - are you even AVAILABLE to spend fun, quality time with him???

Please don't think I'm jumping on you here, but you will benefit greatly from an immediate shift in priorities!  Forget about the stuff that "has" to be done, and start putting having fun with your guy first and foremost!  Don't buy one more card, schedule one more visit, pack one more bag - stop being his mother!  Start being his girlfriend again!  A good, easy to implement first step is agreeing to spend 10 minutes of each day (before you get up or before you go to bed) just cuddling together and telling each other your positive feelings and stories.  If you do this, I think you'll find quite quickly that you start to feel as if you are getting much more emotional support out of this relationship than you were.

Perhaps you are being too independent here.  Best of luck,

Melissa