My boyfriend and I have been together for two years now, and we have lived together that entire time as well. We were also friends for a few years before we started dating.

At the time we started dating, I was going through a rough period of my life which involved family issues. I have depression and at that time I was not taking my medication, which only made the entire situation worse. I told my boyfriend that his timing was terrible, that I was emotionally a mess, and if he wanted to stick it out with me, he was going to be in for a rough ride.

He stuck it out with me. After therapy and getting back on the right medication, my life finally began to even out. I had finally gotten to a good place in my life and things were going wonderfully. And then slowly I began to realize that something wasn’t quite right with our relationship.

I was so thankful to him for being there for me when I really needed a shoulder to cry on. But then small things began to creep into our daily routine that I knew weren’t right. The inattentiveness and the forgetfulness began to wear on my nerves a bit, and at first I chalked it up to part of being in a relationship.

But then as one issue began to stack onto another issue, I realized something was very wrong. I was able to get him to go with me to one of my therapy sessions, and after a diagnostic test, my doctor was able to diagnose him with ADD.

He started taking one medication, which had some strange side-effects. He changed to a different medication, which seemed to work. He did fine on his medication for a while, and once again, everything seemed to even out.

At some point, a few months ago, he decided to go off his medication. He thinks he can handle this by himself, and he doesn’t need medication. It took me a couple weeks to figure out he had gone off of his medication. I don’t know why this time it is different, but he is WAY worse than he was before.

And so begins my adventures in babysitting, because that is exactly what it feels like to me. We both have been married before, I have no children, and he has an 8 year old daughter from his previous marriage. We get her every other weekend. And I dread those weekends. She is a wonderful little girl, but when she is there for the weekend, I have two children to take care of. I have chosen not to have children for the sole reason that I don’t want to take care of somebody else. This may seem selfish, but it is the choice that I have made. So much for that!

I have decided to try to learn as much as I can about ADD to see if being informed will help me deal with the situation I find myself in. When I was doing some research on the internet is when I ran across this website. I sat and read a bunch of the posts from everyone and I found myself just reading and nodding my head in complete agreement. I finally found people who share my pain‼ Which is not a remedy in itself, but it is nice to know I am not alone. Pretty much everything you guys have written has become the story of my life.

So what now? After MANY discussions, he will be going back to the doctor next week to get back on his medication. We will see if that actually happens. If he doesn’t go back on his own, I just don’t see this relationship lasting any longer. I refuse to try to help someone who won’t help themselves.
When I was going through my tough time, I did everything I could to change what was going on inside of me. I know it is beyond my control to change others behavior, but I can change mine and that is exactly what I did. And after going through all the crap I had to go through, I felt like a new person. I was so freakin’ happy! But that didn’t last long. And I really want my happiness back.