Content Warning: Mentions suicidal thoughts
My wife and I have been married for eleven years and have two kids. My wife's inattentive ADHD wasn't diagnosed until about a year ago. I love my wife and want to stay married for so many reasons, but I'm feeling trapped in an un-winnable dynamic where life just isn't functioning and it's been leading to depression, a desire for divorce, and even thoughts of suicide. There's no serious intent of divorce or suicide, but they linger there because everything else feels pretty hopeless.
After years and years of wondering why things don't really happen, ADHD has offered a pretty strong explanation. For a long, long time, I've wondered, "Why don't things happen unless I start them? That seems so.. odd." or "Why am I the first person to suggest a plan, make a list, or want to budget available time? Isn't that necessary for everyone?" or "We keep running into the same issues again and again. Why am I the first person to suggest a change?" ADHD helps explain all of that. Time blindness, lack of urgency with deadlines, lack of hopefulness about the ability to reshape outcomes through systems thinking, lack of initiation across the board, but an everpresent appetite for the new idea that came up today. It's all there, all the time.
At first, I overcompensated. I became the family's project manager, the "clean everything I see on the spot" person, the time keeper, and the look-before-you-leap time budget-er. But that lead to deep exhaustion. I realized, "Wait a minute, I shouldn't be doing all of this. I need help, and I should ask for it!" Asking quickly became demanding, shaming, and resorting to ultimatums. We would hit rock bottom and I would get buy-in after very intense arguments, but it was a caving in, not us finding common ground. Once the drama faded, so did any follow-up.
So I acknowledged I lacked control. Things that I wanted to spare the family from could happen even if I didn't want them to. I couldn't carry everything. Expressing despair raised my wife's baseline stress and defensiveness and invited conflict where we went in circles. It didn't lead to things getting better.
Today was Halloween. I was so drained from a day of plans falling through, time budgeting not working, and what is becoming chronic depression that I stayed home. I went to a coffee shop to read The ADHD Effect on Marriage looking for ideas to help with our dynamic and tried to find some hope in knowing that we're about to see a couples counselor who has first-hand experience with ADHD. My wife and kiddos wrapped up Halloween, I got a text, and confirmed where I was. My family dropped by the coffee shop and I had nothing to really give. A sense of joy for the celebrations going on? For the surprise visit? For my wife wanting to be friendly? Nothing was there.
I have felt hallowed out because it feels like no matter what I do, anything I build is a sandcastle on the shore. Dive in and clean-up? One thumbs up to the kids to do a creative project and it is quickly erased. The idea that we may want to protect some organization so we have a sense of peace is not there. Creative projects just stay.
Turning to a bigger example, external relationships feel erased too. I'm deeply embarrassed by how chronically late we are, by how, after kids, we have never had a home that is clean and inviting, and by how little it takes to throw the family into chaos and conflict so that it's very difficult to be relaxed and in the moment ahead of get-togethers with friends and family. Becoming a hermit feels preferable to feeling like each social event invites embarrassment or meetings where I'm fuming from frustration.
All of this feels like the new norm and I don't know how to change things. All of these problems feel so avoidable, but nothing seems to happen unless I initiate. A decade into this dynamic has me feeling very worn down.
My wife has an executive function coach, which has helped, albeit not nearly as much as I hoped. We also are going to start seeing a couples counselor who has experience with ADHD. Finally, we are also looking into individual counselors. Like I mentioned, though, things are feeling deeply hopeless and I feel like I'm losing myself and the ADHD is dominating how our family lives. Has anyone else been here and seen things turn around?
Comments
Excellent description
This you just wrote is such an excellent description of life with an inattentive ADHD partner. I recognize all of it. The love, the trying, the exhaustion from compensating for their inertia. The social isolation and embarrassment.
It’s maddening with a situation like this. I felt I was losing my mind, and that our life was slowly transformed into a nightmarish landscape of inevitability.
I wish I had advice, or something useful to offer you. Instead there’s only this: I’ve spent three years picking up the pieces of myself after ADD divorce. I understood a bit too late I was actuallly vulnerable.
With your clear understanding of what’s happening, you will know what it’s doing to you. And you will surely protect yourself, even though it seems strange that the one one loves can inadvertently be a destroyer of one’s world.