I’ve followed this blog/community for a while...reading all of your posts, trying to validate the things that I’ve been dealing with and I’ve found them all very helpful. I’m starting to find my voice and this is my first attempt to tell someone what I’ve been dealing with my husband for 19 years, married for 13 years on May 6th, and the last 10 years have been a train wreck. When we first met we had all of the typical ADHAD hyper focus stuff. He made me feel like no other man had ever made me feel. I was his world. I was everything. And because no other man had made me feel that way I, being a nurturing person, had no issue with taking care of our household. But as the years have waned on things have progressively gotten worse. After several years of marriage we decided that it was time to have children. At the time I was 36 so the potential for conceiving and possible miscarriage weighed heavily on me. We were able to conceive but that ultimately lead to a devastating miscarriage. I was broken! He showed me no support. And then he proceed to have an affair that I found out about a year later. During his affair, I’m not going to lie I drank a lot, but he also gaslighted me. He insisted the I was the problem with our marriage. All the while he was cheating on me. After I found out about his affair and confronted him about it he insisted that it was only online and that he had no physical contact with her. A fact I still don’t believe. We were in counseling for two years and that is when our therapist suggested he has ADHD. He went to his primary care doc and was prescribed Adoral. On the occasion that he remembers to take it things are better than when he doesn’t. I probably should have left him years ago but I love the guy. But, as I get older...I’m now 43, I’m starting to think that I deserve better. He has systematically, over the years, separated me from the people who meant something to me. The people who remember the strong woman I used to be. I am a broken woman. I want my marriage to work. But I also can’t keep doing this for the rest of my life.
So, what I guess I’m looking for is anyone who can relate. Anyone who can maybe shed some light on what I am supposed to do.
Greeneyes
Submitted by AdeleS6845 on
What you wrote spoke to me.
But, as I get older...I’m now 43, I’m starting to think that I deserve better. He has systematically, over the years, separated me from the people who meant something to me. The people who remember the strong woman I used to be. I am a broken woman.
I felt the same way when I was married.
May I suggest that something other than or addition to ADHD is at play here. Separating me from my family and friends is what my ex did and the hallmark of an abusive, controlling man. (Lundy Bancroft author of "Why does he do that? ") My ex did not have ADHD.
My marriage situation wad different from yours. After 20 years together, 17 married and over 10 of those years abusive...I filed for divorce and I left. I was dying inside. Clinically depressed. It was not easy to leave. I hadn't worked outside the home in 8 years, was raising 2 children. At 45 I was starting over. Hardest thing that I have ever done.
You need to reach out and find a support system. Let your family know what you have been through.
Leaving will set you free.
Submitted by sickandtired on
I left 4 years ago when I was 60. All of the heartache, blame, and hassle you will experience is WORTH IT to be free to find happiness and peace.
Welcome to the forum,
Submitted by PoisonIvy on
Welcome to the forum, although I'm sorry you need to be here.
One part of your post particularly struck me: that your husband had an affair that he insisted was online only and involved no physical contact. In the final months of my marriage, I discovered that my then-husband had been having very long phone conversations with a woman who lives in another state. I believed and still do that he had never met her in person. Nevertheless, and even though our marriage was on the rocks by this point, I felt shattered when I discovered that he was having these conversations. We were living apart because he chose to be his parents' live-in caregiver. He rarely (as in, maybe once per month but often not even that) called me. He didn't respond to my emails. It was suggested to me, both by my then-husband and by some folks in the ADHD community, that he didn't call me because "people with ADHD don't do that" or because "that's just who he is and you can't expect him to change for you" and that I shouldn't mind because the lack of communication didn't mean anything and that if wanted more communication, I should ask him for it, which I did, many times.
I think a person who has an interpersonal relationship with someone other than his or her spouse, whether in person or online, is conveying to the spouse either that the spouse is not important or that the person is uncomfortable being in an intimate relationship with someone to whom he or she has legal, financial, and moral obligations. I consider this to be cheating by the person and, whether or not it's related to ADHD, it can be a reason for the spouse to end the marriage.
It was suggested to me, both
Submitted by AdeleS6845 on
It was suggested to me, both by my then-husband and by some folks in the ADHD community, that he didn't call me because "people with ADHD don't do that" or because "that's just who he is and you can't expect him to change for you" and that I shouldn't mind because the lack of communication didn't mean anything
I call BS on that one.
Perhaps it would be different if we were married or living together, but my BF calls me.
I left my Ex 13 years ago
Submitted by daizzebelle on
Best.decision.ever.
Please reach out for help. If you can't talk on the phone, you can chat online with a trained advocate. https://www.thehotline.org
I also highly recommend Why Does He Do That? It was eye opening.
Another book that was helpful to me is The Betrayal Bond by Patrick Carnes.
Take care of you. You do deserve better and you are not selfish for wanting a better life.
Leaving was hard...but it saved my sanity.
Submitted by freshstart2018 on
I was in my marriage for 26 years and decided to leave while I'm still young enough to re-build my life and save my sanity. As Tina Turner said in her famous song, "what's love got to do with it"? I FINALLY realized, he can't/won't change. Therefore, I had to change. In spite of my love for my husband, in the end-I FELT nothing. I am numb emotionally and must work on FEELING again. I am 56 years old and my current focus is on trusting God and enjoying a new and positive life. Best wishes and God speed.
It’s so sad to hear about marriages that have been destroyed
Submitted by BIGREDDOG on
I am the partner with the ADHD. My wife just told me last night she is done. This is the third time and I’m sure the last.
I love her with all my heart, she is my world and I’m completely crushed. I take the medication, I read the books, I try very hard to control my ADHD but over our seventeen year marriage it has just piled up one grain of sand at a time until she got so worn down that she wants out at any cost. I understand, if I was in her shoes I would want to get away from me as well. But that doesn’t stop the agony I’m feeling from losing her.
it really cuts like a dull knife to hear some of you say “it was worth it” and “so happy they got out” I know everyone has their own circumstances and my situation isn’t like yours but it just hurts to think my will look back and be overjoyed that she got away from me.
I think the main difference between myself and a lot of the other husbands I read about is that I do not deny any of the symptoms that affect our marriage. I know they are there and I’m willing to do ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING to change my ways to save our marriage. Like I said, she is my world and I want to grow old with her and take care of her for the rest of our lives.
My heart is broken and I’m bleeding out, the devastation and sense of loss I’m feeling is so painful I want to crawl into a hole and die.
I am divorced, I filed for
Submitted by PoisonIvy on
I am divorced, I filed for the divorce, I think I'm probably better off divorced, but I still think about my ex-husband (who has ADHD) every day and I still wish that I had been important enough to him that he would have made an effort to save our marriage.
What does that look like.
Submitted by BIGREDDOG on
like I said, I’m the one with the ADHD. And as much as I would like to believe that I made her a priority in my life I’m pretty sure if you asked her she would say she didn’t feel important.
In my heart and soul I know without a doubt that she is the most important person on this planet to me but I don’t know if I expressed that to her well enough. Or at all maybe.
It looks like this
Submitted by adhd32 on
First ask her what it would take to save the relationship then do those things without comment or minimizing their importance to her.
Plan a date night start to finish not "let's go out" and expect her to get the sitter, feed the kids, and pick the activity. Contact her during the day to see how she is. Pick up groceries on your way home. Clean the bathroom. Wash the dishes, sweep the floor, take out the garbage, bathe the kids and put them to bed, do the laundry, mow the lawn, cook a meal and clean up, finish things you start! Own your mistakes instead of deflecting and blaming . Put down your phone or video game controller and go for a walk together. Be reliable so she can count on you.
Don't lie to cover your lack of motivation, don't minimize her feelings, don't ignore things with deadlines, don't avoid hard topics and shut down or become argumentative because you don't like dealing with problems.
The bottom line is the frustration we non spouses feel when we have to handle 90% of daily life. We are drowning in the choas of living with a partner who takes and takes and contributes as little as possible in return. Maybe ADD spouses truly cannot see the fallout from their actions or inactions. But the sting of being treated like hired help by the person who is supposed to cherish you hurts more that you could ever know.
Thank you for your perspective
Submitted by BIGREDDOG on
I appreciate your input. I think she is so numb to it all that her answer would be that there is no way to save it.
she says she hates the person that she has become with me and needs to go find herself again. I hate what this has done to her and I’m trying not to hate myself for what my ADHD has done to her.
my only hope at this point is to figure out as best I can what I’m doing that hurts her so much and change them. My hope is that there is enough time between now and the time she wants to separate that I can address these issues and she can see first hand that I have changed and they are real and lasting change. We have been down this road a couple times before and I got her to stay by making radical changes for the good but I couldn’t sustain them and fell back into my old habits. The first time I tried so hard I completely burned myself out.
We don’t have kids so that’s not an issue but you hit on some of the underlying issues. Lying to cover lack of motivation, being argumentative, not owning mistakes.I don’t avoid conversations but I do shut down.
There are some things I do know, I don’t put things away like my clothes, I procrastinate and do things in my time, I don’t ignore deadlines but I do forget them, I stay up too late and don’t get up early with her. I avoid her when she is angry or has gone cold.
I think that all I can do at this point is try my best to address my issues and be there for her as best as I can.
I agree 100% with all of this
Submitted by daizzebelle on
I wish my husband could hear me when I tell him what I need and what I want.
I agree, it is sad...
Submitted by daizzebelle on
And I would say it is inevitable that the marriage will end if the person with ADD refuses to get effective treatment or refuses to stick with effective treatment. I am leaving my H. Not because he has ADD. I am leaving because he doesn't use the tools he has that help him. I am not asking for perfection. I am asking for him to consistently use the system that helps him be responsible for his own life. When he used it, it worked. Even he admits that it works when he uses it. It's simply mind boggling to me that he would quit using something that works.
Hearing this just frustrates me to no end
Submitted by BIGREDDOG on
I get so irritated when I read about a person that has all of the tools and knowledge to maintain a quality of life that is both beneficial to themselves and conducive to a healthy relationship. Why anyone would actively choose not live a life without all the chaos and animosity is beyond my capacity to comprehend.
I’ve been down this road twice before and now for the third time. First time I came out of the gate with the best of intention and tried to do it all at once and failed miserably, the second time I took a more methodical and measured approach but failed to build a support system which included accountability and fell back into my old ways.
This time, we’ll there really isn’t a “this time” because my wife says she is done for good, but I have to try and give my best effort to get it right. If by the grace of God my efforts work and she is willing to try our marriage one more time I will do everything in my power to be the loving husband she deserves and if she isn’t willing to give me one last chance then at the least I will be a much better man going it alone into the future.
Thank all of you for your comments and input.
C
Your simple story here tells the reality of all of my struggles
Submitted by c ur self on
I will take your story a part BRD, based on my own failings.....
1) I didn't choose the chaos....It's the out working of my efforts to live (sadly it usually only becomes visible in my rear view mirror)....My attempts to live (based on my own thinking) is, and always will be faulty....
2) Lack of discipline, lack of sustained change, it's just another product of my fleshly inabilities....
3) Giving my best efforts.....And the Grace of God is exact opposites.....My best efforts while may look impressive at times (when the temptation before me isn't stronger than my will power) it's fleeting and vulnerable, because I'm again, just flesh...But the Grace of God (the covenant available through the Christ) is what makes me worthy to be his son (forgiveness of my sins)....It's what can empower me beyond my own will power (through his spirit) to over come, even though I wear this flesh....
Being a better man for me...Has come with the stripping away of my faulty view, (I am weak, but, he is strong) and my understanding that I must live in his Grace....Because I could never be good enough....Finding this kind of peace works in us....So with my wife or without her, I still can have a peace beyond words....She didn't give it to me, nor can she take it away....I choose to honor my vows, and love her, like the Father's words call for me to do...But I am only half of the whole....It takes two....
c
Man child
Submitted by Jon on
So, I am just going to put this right out there as probably one of the WORST insults directed at ADHD people ever. It's common, a LOT of neurotypical people do it. As if saying that is going to help any. Well when I hear it, I just think the person saying it has no clue. No offense. I just do. Increasingly I feel that the answer is NOT drugs, or being forced into being something we are not, just because the rest of the world can't deal with it. The answer lies in accepting that neurodiversity is like any other form of diversity.
ADHD is NOT a disease, and a lot of the time it is NOT a disorder really at all. It's a social 'disease' and it's society that has it. ADHD It's simply a case of different wiring, and guess what? It's not even a random or accidental element, because EVERY society has a percentage of people with it, so if it were entirely negative as seems to be always inferred on these forums, as a species it would have been selected OUT. Instead, what we find is that we actually select FOR it. That's right, we actually choose as species to have a certain percentage of the population with these characteristics. Why? Probably because having a percentage of the population with ADHD is highly likely to confer an advantage to the population in general. That's how natural selection works. So as an ADHD person who is sick to the back teeth of begin told by neurotypical people HOW I should be in order to suit them and how I have ruined their life, I say ADHD people need to push back and tell the rest of the world exactly where to get off. We ADHD people need to be exactly who we are, and to be proud of it. I am not trying to be insensitive here and I am truly sorry for all the pain suffered by neruotypical partners of those with ADHD, but two things, the vast majority of non ADHD people will NEVER understand what it is like for 90% of the interactions in life to be negative assessments of you personally and your 'defective" character, and they will NEVER understand what it is like to spend an entire life being rejected or the life long devastating consequences, the fact is, whether intentionally or not, you are probably doing it to your ADHD spouse right now. This is who we are, if it is impossible to deal with, those neurotypicals need to do everyone a favor and get out.
This forum is about making a marriage work
Submitted by adhd32 on
You have named the exact behavior most of us nons find marriage impossible, your last line is the reason most of us are so frustrated.
"This is who we are, if it is impossible to deal with, those neurotypicals need to do everyone a favor and get out."
I do not understand why if life is 90% negative and one spends an entire life being rejected (as you stated) that the ADD person is so unwilling to make changes. Because you are who you are? That is like shooting yourself in the foot. So instead of working at changing behaviors that get one fired from jobs, or estranged from friends and family, the goal should be to get on a soap box and tell the world where to get off?
Your theory would work if there was a parallel universe but in our world everyone needs to be to work on time, jobs need to be finished, kids need to be picked up, that is just how it is. Instead of ADDers acting like a team player and partner they somehow exempt themselves from daily chores, exempt themselves from following the rules, feel entitled to engage in hedonistic hyper focus activities above the needs of the family. If an ADD man is acting like a stubborn child most of the time, playing video games instead of paying the bills, it is like having a child in a man's body.
You said it yourself
Submitted by Jon on
You said exactly two things that I noticed.
"I do not understand why"
" unwilling to make changes"
And that's pretty much all that even needs to be said. So why bother? It just breaks everyone and the longer the delusion persists that anyone can change anyone then the more irreparable that damage becomes. This forum is "ostensibly" about making marriage work, agreed. Most unfortunately that bares little relationship to the relentless endless angry and insulting, offensive tirades by non ADHD people who quite obviously "don't understand why" and fail the see that is in itself a significant part of the issue. I am a long time member of these forums, many years. I come back every now and then within about 3 posts am swimming in the same bile, often from the same people who can't seem to or won't move on. The same tropes, the same accusations of laziness, or character flaws, the same old same old. So for the most part, it seems a good vomit box for angry disaffected desperate and sad nuerotypicals who have fallen to pieces, but if you are actually struggling with this thing called ADHD then you are the whipping horse with all the tired old cliches.
So all I am saying is bunk to that. Why is a whipping platform for ADHD people a net positive in the world? Is the expectation that ADHD people should come in here and lay themselves prostrate, begging forgiveness for their very putrid existence? And see again with the child/adult trope. It is offensive THAT is what I am saying. He is NOT a child. NONE of we ADHD adults ARE children any more than you are some humiliating or insulting term that I wouldn't be so rude to use, and if you don't understand that, then may I suggest that is part of the reason you are here.
So then ADDers are unable to change?
Submitted by adhd32 on
Are you saying ADDers are unable to set an earlier alarm (or several if need be) and arrive on time or just that it isn't what an ADDer wants to do so they continue to arrive late regardless of reprimands? I am not delusional to think I can change someone but I would think that if someone was repeatedly reprimanded about their tardyness and they needed their job, they would figure a way to get to work on time.
I read an interesting comment
Submitted by Jon on
I read an interesting comment by Russell A. Barkley that if you are a doctor and you specialise in ADD, then you have to expect that at LEAST a 1/3 of patients will either be significantly late or not show up at all. Are there tools such as alarms etc to help? Sure there are, and I use them. But again, temporal distortion and a blindness to the future are defining characteristics of ADD. What is required to use these tools, like how to lists and various other organization tools is FIRST to have some grasp of time, otherwise it just doesn't happen. So if I forget to set alarms, or I don't get around to having to-do lists, it's not because I am obstinately being obstructionist or difficult. I don't' do these things to deliberately annoy whoever. As much as anything ADHD results in a near non existent self esteem. Our sense of self is constructed through the process of how others interact with us. So research shows that for a child to form a solid secure sense of themselves and their place in the world, they need a ratio of 5 positive comments to every negative 1. People who have ADD have had nothing like this. In fact it would be 99% negative. So for the most part an ADD person is formed with next to no self esteem, however, self esteem isn't just some useful thing to have. It's THE critical tool in being resilient and in being an active confident participant in the world. So we end up with a paper thin veneer of self esteem. It's our life support self esteem and holding on to it is for us a matter of life and death. Sometimes quite literally it is a matter of sanity and survival. There is to me as an ADD person a fundamental misunderstanding in your question of how someone with a near non existent self esteem or ADD operates when faced with a "big stick" or reprimands as you call them. *You* might see oppositional defiance when handing out such "reprimands" for what you perceive as sloppy behavior, but it's not, it's self esteem protection.
It's a person hanging on by a thread that perceives your criticism as a dire threat to life and limb and any sense of order or control (and trust me they do )and because there is so little to pad the life time of raw wounds, even slight criticism is felt this way. In FACT those of us with ADD who also exhibit the crazy mood lability that is a very common feature, also will frequently have an overactive sense of rejection, either real or perceived, this "Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria" is like a rampaging roller coaster of emotions that leaves us hype vigilant for any sense of rejection, social or otherwise. Now this is *important* to understanding how the ADD mind operates, humans are inherently social animals, we have evolved and developed in social groups because that has been critical to our survival as a species. The critical importance of being a member of social groups has been so core to our survival, and is so wired into the human brain that even the *perception* real, distorted triggers the EXACT same sense of pain and anxiety as if we had been physically threatened, literally it lights up exactly the same regions of the brain that a huge threatening man eating animal would. And if you think about it, it makes sense. We ADD people like this function always on the very edge of fight or flight 24/7. Always hyper vigillant to any signs of threat, always like a wound spring waiting to fight or run from any danger. Now it may not make any sense to you that telling someone off for being slack or untidy or late or whatever the multitude of things ADD people have heard their entire life would react as if their life or sanity is actually in danger, but that is precisely because you are not us. You don't have the same wired in response. Does it make sense? No. But that's the nature of the wiring we have, no amount of self loathing or reprimanding from others can or will change that. It will only ever make it worse because we will always react to it as a threat.
Now, none of this is to say that an ADD persons is or should be helpless, ultimately it's up to ever person to not be an Ahole, and it's sometimes easy to forget that the person is NOT ADD, they are an individual with a unique and often complex set of formative experiences, so there is nothing inherent in it that makes someone a crappy or good person or otherwise. Without fundamental understanding of how the ADD mind works, in a non judgmental or critical way and how we have been formed in the face of life long challenges and the many issues it presents effect our relationship to time and structure etc, and every single facet of our lives and perception of the world, then all that happens is everyone is condemned to walk his road of misery forever more, or until one or other completely falls apart and can't take it anymore. That hardly seems helpful to anyone to me.
ADHD32
Submitted by Resigned2B on
If something is important enough to someone who has ADHD they do seem to find a way to get it done. Being on time, why you’d think that would be important, to the ADHD’ers in my family it is not important enough. On the other hand, my soon to be ex ADHD’er is able to hyperfocus on guns he lives them and breathes them. If you’re ever in a shoot-out he is your man.
However, if you are the IRS, he is not your man. We were hit with $80,000 in taxes, fines and penalties and my ADHDer is a CPA. Amazing, I know. Regardless of how much the $80,000 stung us, and it did, he did not file on time for the next three years. When I found that out I took the filing of our taxes job away from him and hired it out. And yet, after 35 years, six kids and twelve grandchildren later, we’re still getting divorced. It was simply not important enough for him to tell me the truth, ever.
It’s called, financial infidelity.
Being alone isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. But having self-respect is.
: /
Hmmm.
Submitted by AdeleS6845 on
I think that if a Man or Woman who acts like a stubborn child, playing video games and avoiding responsibility...is like having a child in an adult's body....whether that person has ADD or not.
** EDITED ****
*********************************************************
I happen to be in a relationship with a man who has ADD.
I have no complaints, just came here three years ago to figure some things out. My Fiancee is not lazy, stupid or a child. I see your point, I do. My Fiancee was abused by his stepfather, in part, because of his ADD. He was called horrible names, insulted and beaten. There is nothing wrong with him. . He is loving, has a great sense of humor, is silly, and he treats me wonderfully, like a queen. He does things for me without asking, which is still something I am getting used to. We are enjoying this journey of life together, and look forward to our future together.
I have told many on this site that abuse, cheating, selfishness are not to be blamed on ADD.
Thank you, Jon for your imput.
You cant see it?
Submitted by Jon on
And what you can't see that this is used frequently on here as an act of belittling and insult towards ADHD spouse? What if I also had a stereotype that called all neuro-typical people boring, lacking imagination and lousy at non lateral thinking? Would that be OK? And is also it alright for instance to also say Autistic people are weirdos? Because by this logic as they often act rather in rather non typical ways then "wierdo" is fine. But we don't do this do we? So I'm left wondering what is the difference?
Not so very long at all you said "it would be very helpful to have input from more than a few men and women with ADHD. Being that this is my first relationship with a man with ADHD, I don't know which behaviors are ADHD related and which are not."
What I saying is that you not likely to get much of that when we keep getting called insulting epithets.
****************** edited
"I have told many on this site that abuse, cheating, selfishness are not to be blamed on ADD." Then is sounds to me like we are largley in agreement.
Many years of doing the same thing
Submitted by Shell10 on
I too had an adhd spouse. Twenty seven years but if I had been true to myself, I would have thrown in the towel after 18 yrs. I helped to get him diagnosed and he was put on Strattera. His thoughts were," I'm on meds now so we're good". We weren't. I had too much resentment and poor coping skills and he had his favorite chair and the tv.
For us the damage was done. You just have to assess your own relationship and see if it's worth another 2,5, 10 years.I am only drawing from my own experience and wish I could share a more positive view but can't.
Are you sure it's love?
Submitted by overwhelmed wif... on
I read with sadness your post. Your situation is very similar to mine. But one thing I do want to question in the post is why you say you love your husband. Can you really love someone who has treated you so poorly? What does that mean? What does love mean to you? And when you say that you want your marriage to work, I understand in a way. We all want our marriages to work. But it seems so clear that this marriage is not going to work. Is it possible that you believe you love your husband because you want to be in a working marriage? Is it possible that what you call love is really a wish to have a husband that you love? I think it's worth it for all of us to ask ourselves these questions. When we are repeatedly treated poorly by the person we are married to, are we being honest with ourselves when we say that we love that person? And if we are, what do we mean by love?