Submitted by learningtoloveadd on 02/25/2014.
We are 5 months into our marriage. We were together for 2 1/2 years before the wedding. He told me about his ADD upfront. I wrote it off, not understanding it at the time, or the immeasurable impact that it would have on our lives together. Although he knew that he had ADD, he was not doing anything to manage it. This contributed to his overdrinking on a regular basis. During the course of dealing with that nightmare, our relationship nearly fell apart and I finally started reading about ADD and realized that he was self medicating with alcohol. We dealt with it together and things are much better now on that front. Not totally better, to be clear, but better than they were.
Fast forward to us getting married and living in a relationship where we both are fully aware and present to his ADD. To try and compare it with something, it's like knowing that a car crash is going to happen daily and feeling helpless to do anything about it. Every day is like groundhogs day. He forgets do do something important, which impacts both of us, we have a fight. We don't talk the rest of the night. The next morning, we both acknowledge the role of ADD in the situation....the forgetfulness, the symptom-reaction-reaction argument, the parent-child dynamic, etc. We try and come up with a different, better way to handle the next time, and that is that. Until the next day, when it starts all over again. It's like the age-old story...we both know the hole is right there in front of us. We can see it, but neither of us can seem to walk around it. We fall in, and each time, rather than getting any easier, its getting harder and harder to climb out.
I am unbelievably depressed and quickly losing hope about our relationship. We've had yet another talk about him taking on the responsibility of keeping up on his meds and seeking out support, about me finding a voice for my building frustration and resentment, taking better care of myself mentally and physically. I'm exhausted and I dont know where to turn. I'm writing this post with tears streaming down my face and a throbbing headache, after yet another fight. This time, over parking tickets. We're up to over $600 now, in 2 months. Did I mention that we're broke?!?!
Help!!!!
Signed,
Desperate and alone
Wow...this hit me hard...I
Submitted by HurtButHopeful on
Wow...this hit me hard...I think because you guys are trying...actually having conversations and are aware of what's going on, but are stuck. I commend both of you for the successes you have had. As for how to avoid that hole in the future...I don't have the answers. Are you working with therapists/ADHD coaches?? It sounds too big for both of you to handle alone.
Keep trying to take care of yourself...mentally and physically. I hope he tries to do the same. You two have come farther than some couples ever get...some of us don't get past the denial...so I hope you can find a way to make things work.
"keeping up on his meds"
Submitted by sunlight on
It looks like the close-up nature of marriage has tipped him into overload. It happens. Does "keeping up on his meds" mean that he is not taking them consistently? And/or that they seem not to be working? My opinion - the FIRST step is that he MUST get his medication straightened out and take it every day. He may need to take more than one med to reduce the anxiety as well as the ADHD symptoms. You are unnecessarily living in misery and he is being irresponsible but is also suffering and talking won't help if his meds aren't right (in fact the wrong meds can make things horribly worse). Ultimatum time - without consistent treatment nothing will get better so he has to get his meds consistent and re-evaluated if necessary. Just my view.
You're definitely not
Submitted by dazedandconfused on
You're definitely not alone.
I think many of us had that realization when we first married. Heck, I honestly was contemplating an annulment on the plane on the way back from our honeymoon. I had the overwhelming feeling that something wasn't right and that things were going to way more than I could manage. Getting married seems innocuous when you've been with someone for a while, but it really is a big adjustment. You've got all the stress of the wedding planning and the actual wedding, and then you plop down in a house with someone you may or may not have lived with previously and it can be pretty scary.
That was before he knew that he had ADHD. It took over a year before he was diagnosed, and he embraced it, thank God. He tried the different medicines, etc. But by then I was in a deep depression and a lot of emotional damage was done during our prolific and very mean arguments. Nobody knows how to hurt you like the one who says they love you. We were both guilty of that.
Flash forward almost six years. We spent about half of that time living separately, and even though we're under the same roof now, we still live somewhat separate lives. He goes his way, and I go mine. Fortunately, I'm a pretty independent person, so this does not bother me like it may other people. Though I have my moments when I ask myself, "Is this all there is?" It can be scary. But with my hubby, the ADHD is only part of the problem. He has a lot of emotional baggage from being adopted, always feeling out of place, and having very poor self esteem. He never really reveals his full self, not even to me. I was telling my mom the other day that I had this random flash-forward moment when I could visualize myself 40+ years down the road saying after his death, "I never really knew him." I've tried to some extent. I know he's tried and I've cut him off at the pass. So we're both at fault. But the most important thing I discovered was that he would be this way with any woman. I think we often struggle with a feeling of failure, we want to blame ourselves, but making the realization that in general, we may the only ones who care enough, love enough to even tolerate them goes a long way to silencing that feeling.
But with all that being said, I would say that we are closer than we have ever been, and probably easier with each other, than we ever were. We are currently going through some sexual related issues which renders us more like friends (which is interesting since we were friends before we started dating). I can only hope that our trust levels will begin to rebound after all the tearing down we did. He is currently un-medicated and hasn't been in close to 18 months. He has learned some good coping strategies that have lessened the impact of the ADHD on me and our marriage. At least now he can, "I'm having a a bad ADHD day" and it be true (not an excuse) because he is able to accurately identify what's going on with himself. He's grown up a lot too; he was definitely a late bloomer in terms of maturity!
I will say that if you can find someone to give you guys affordable counseling, it makes a huge difference. We were in counseling for 18 months and would probably still be if our counselor had not moved out of the private counseling field. He has even said that we need to find a new one so that we can discuss the sexual problems we have. In any case, it went a long to getting past our past and healing old wounds. We were just getting to move into new phase of learning coping strategies for the future. If you go to your local department of health, they should be able to refer you to someone. Most will do a sliding scale in terms of what they end up charging you.
Good luck and hang in there.
Thank you all for your
Submitted by learningtoloveadd on