All Of The Above

We started out getting marriage counseling, but I ended up quitting when my husband stated that because of my poor relationship with my father I had no respect for him. I blew up. The therapist asked me why I was so upset when my husband was simply stating how he felt. I didn't answer her question. I felt that since this woman was a professional who allegedly specializes in addiction and ADHD in teens and adults that she should recognize a manipulative ploy when she saw one. My husband is the sole breadwinner. Could you imagine going to work everyday to provide for someone who had no respect for you? Could you imagine the level of resentment and contempt you would have for that person? Yet, that's not how my husband feels about me at all, and it took him nearly six months to own that. Our daughter has ADHD. Her first quarter of third grade was awful. I started medicating her without her knowledge and without my husband's knowledge; the change was night and day. There was no struggle to disguise medication, nor were there late afternoon meltdowns. Once he noticed the change I told him what I'd been doing and that I'd been given the green light from her pediatrician to medicate her without her knowledge. Previously, our daughter would go to pieces at the beginning of the day over having to take medication, and she'd go to pieces at the end of the day over the medication wearing off. My husband agreed this was the right thing for her, but then he informed her he was giving her the medication. Some days he'd forget to give it to her! I am constantly preaching to the third grader that organization is the key to helping her manage ADHD, and always remembering to put things back where they belong is an excellent rule to live by. These are hard to enforce when I'm the one constantly cleaning up behind Dad, and Dad is constantly losing something. I have been trying to teach my daughter mindful meditation, but struggled to do so because of my husband's interjections. Mind you, he does nothing outside of his half a dozen prescriptions to mange his ADHD. Any time my husband and I have a disagreement we never make any headway because the man is constantly changing the subject of the discussion searching for some way to attack me and make whatever is going on my fault. He does this even when I start out telling him its my fault! I am beyond angry. I find very little joy in this life. We haven't had sex in months. I don't even find him attractive not to mention I wouldn't know where to find the time. Tonight was the straw that broke the camel's back. Our son fell off the sofa. I was visibly upset until five minutes later when his nose started bleeding. Then I panicked. I couldn't find my shoes or bag. I rushed out of the house without my phone. Once I arrived at the ER I couldn't remember the first three digits of my husband's number. All I could remember was my mother's four hours away. It seems my son is okay. When we arrived back home my husband apologized for coming home so late. You see he'd just arrived home about forty minutes before. He tries to offer his explanation for being so late. I cut him off and explained what I just spent the last hour and a half doing. Nevermind the part where my husband didn't bother to even call and say he was going to be late. Nevermind the fact he didn't recognize the stress and hurt on my face when I walked through the door. Nevermind the idea he thought something might be wrong when he came home to discover lights on, and no one home. Nevermind the sense that the dogs didn't seem like themselves. I am simply tired. We live in a bungalow style home. Our front yard is about 11x20 ft. Our back yard is roughly the same size. My husband chooses to spend his weekends working on the yard-much of which has been torn up by large dogs that don't get walked. During many of our counseling sessions I explained that I need help with the house work and the dogs. I explained that the time would come when our brand new son would need free reign of the floor sans trace amounts of fecal matter that the dogs might track in. The therapist once again made it seem like cleaniness (i.e. My concerns) were trivial. So today after walking the dogs for two hours out of guilt over their lack of having been walked, I took my children for flu vaccinations, ran errands, picked up dinner, helped the third grader with her homework, had dinner with the children, sent the third grader for a shower, and tried to make a mad dash to put away my husband's dinner since it had been sitting out for nearly an hour. And my baby fell off of the sofa unto my filthy floor. I think I hate my husband.