So, I have no idea if posting this will help at all. But I need to tell someone and hopefully someone who understands.
Where to start I am not sure but, here I go. I am lost, confused, anger, depressed, scared and yet not ready to give up.
Lets start with some history. I am a woman with 5 kids.(4 are mine from past relationship, age 14, 13, 11,and 9 and we have a 2 year old together) My DH (been together 4 years and engaged never made it to the alter) was diagnosed as a child with ADHD, took medication for a very short time in his teen years. Decided he didn't like the meds and went off them. And has never been bak on them or re diagnosed as an adult. He is an Identical twin, and does not in anyones opinion have a healthy positive relationship with anyone in the entire world. Not his mother, not his father (very abusive from what my DH recalls haven't spoken since he was a teen). Not a good relationship with his brother or with any of his friends (who are very few because he believes all people cause drama and it is all there fault he hates everyone and every thing) as well as he has never had a romantic relationship that has ever ended any differently then with angry frustration and fighting.
He has severe impulsivity which after quitting high school, due to being told it wasn't for everyone he had never managed to keep a job longer then 8 months. He has now since our daughter was 4 months old, managed to keep this job, but not with out the stress of calling me almost everyday (not an exaggeration) to tell me he cant do it and that he is quitting and sick of it. That they are blaming him for doing something wrong or not doing something, which he strongly believe is them picking on him. and that because he cant remember doing or being ask to do what he didn't do, that it is them that is wrong and he is tired of being treated that way. (thank god his employer is not the type to fire people, but he has spent many of days at home wondering why the guys below him have work yet he is at home) On top of all of this, he feels like a child cause he cant budget a book or save money. If he has money, he literally has a melt down until it is all spent. example, he sold his car (which might i add he was his 9th vehicle in 3 1/2 years) for 3 thousand dollars, I told him he could deal with the money that we needed oil in the furnace and that the van needed some work but, that other then that he could do what he wanted. He did put 500 in the oil tank (half filling it) and gave me 500 for the van (which got spent later on other things he wanted rc cars) the other 2000. We went out on the next day Sunday morning and drove around to all the stores that had things he wanted and he made a list. He wanted new tools, he wanted a desk and computer chair and computer , he wanted a large tool box etc. We managed to make it home without him buying anything cause well he wanted a desk and chair, but the store didn't have it in and god forbid he have to wait till Wednesday to get it. He needs instant gratification. which lasts all of maybe that day. When we got home it was 4 pm, here where we live the stores close at 5. he went down to our bed and had a melt down lost his mind, broke down in tear got physically sick, and came upstairs and said I am going shopping alone I cant do this I have to buy something. He came back with An x-box 360 with all the extras, a wii for the kids for Xmas as this was in November and a 900 dollar camera for "me" the one he had been talking about wanting since we had gotten together. Broke. Again. A week later he had a melt down because his twin brother had bought an rc car and he just had to have one. That was the first of 3 that he bought and spent 1400 dollars on over the month of December. Where the money came from , everything I had managed to save and keep away from him. Any way the moral of this part was him feeling like a child because it got to a point he had to bring his pay cheque home and I would give him back what he had for the next week and needed for gas smokes etc. and the rest I would pay the bills and save for those days I knew he was going to have a melt down.
Every fight and argument we ever have or have had, is a "right fight" it is either all or nothing with him.. There is no compromise, if he believed the kids were doing something wrong that I didn't agree with. we could not discuss it , it was either let him have his way and yell and argue and tell them they could do nothing right, or say this is not working for all of us can we discuss it and have him say what does it matter you dont give them shit for nothing I am always wrong , your going to do what you want anyway, (which is so not true. although if it wasnt for others telling me I did start to believe him after hearing it so much) It always came down to being right or wrong and I don't believe anything is like that , just a matter of finding what fits and works for all partys involved.
So I became the typical , Controlling everything, angry person I hated myself, and started reading here several months ago , in hopes of finding a way to get to him. That it is not him and it is not me. We loved each other for the first 2 years. Hyper fous stage I assume. He was amazing. and I still love the good moments they are great the best I have ever had. But the ADHD symptoms have slowly taken over our lives. to the point he doesnt know if he loves me anymore. He has now left, and is living at his mothers. And left telling me I need to get help and counseling and I need to get it for the kids as well . Which I didn't disagree with we all definitely can and will benefit from that. And I have since seen my doctor and we are all enrolled to start counseling.
But now I have a 2 year old , who he wants access with and well I cant deny him , based on fear. But I let her go for the first weekend and she spent the time completely with his mother, out shopping and playing with her, well he fous on working in the garage on a truck and three wheeler. Let me add that before this weekend and new found interest in her cause his mother is pushing it. He has never spent more then 30 minutes alone with her. She doesnt and wont go to him on her own. half the time she wont hug or kiss him unless I push the go give daddy a hug . and make a game of it. As well he can be sitting with her and then just lose site of the fact he has to watch her and get into something else that he is "interested in" he has never bonded with her and his excuses is work and yes he spent a lot of time away for work but he never tried when he was home on weekends or evening. NEVER. The relationship is like all the others he has when it is convinent and working for him.
as well he calls me every single day, 15-20 times a day complaining about his mom and step dad . how bad it is. that he has no money to buy a truck of his own or get a place. and that he is afraid I am going to be like everyone else and just give up on him.. But he cant tell me he loves me. he is stringing me along, it is all about him, dont mention how i feel , that I want him to come home and work on this. that I believe he needs to see someone too. (which at times when he cant see someone ie: weekends or 11 o'clock at night he will agree and say he does then its , I dont have time , cant miss work, and any other excuses, then when it is convenient I get you didn't want to help when I was having a moment and said I needed it)
Everything is all about him. in 4 years he has never once apologized to anyone for anything. He always believes he is right. he does what ever he needs to do to avoid dealing with anything. including not talking to his mother for months at a time cause she confronted him on something she didnt like. No one elses feelings thoughts matter at all. I evven said what happens when you daughter decides she doesnt like who you are or what you are doing, which he replied I cant change the way she feels so oh well.
He is like having another teenager. One with anger issues and who hates the world, except with a teenager I actually would have some controll , over no video games, or internet, dont pick on the kids . clean up your mess (which he makes a bigger mess then they do) and believes the rest of us should clean it. If I do everything he is angry with the kids that they do nothing around here. if the kids help he is angry with me that the kids do to much and I do nothing ( cause he doesnt see , that all the worrying, toilet training our daughter , teaching her everything from colors to how to dress her self, to helping our kids with home work and cleaning the house, making sure I am here so he has someone to talk to, to keep him from quiting his job, paying the bills, making sure the budget works, de-escalating his melt downs and I hate the world days. Making sure he is fed and eats , making his lunch and getting up all through the night with our daughter to only get told I need to get up at 4 30 in the morning to make his lunch and see him off to work. remembering where he leavves everything . from his wallet to the keys , his hat, his boots , his coat is not a full time job. oh and then here about not going to work . but when I mention going . he doesnt trust anyone to watch our daughter and how dare I think of putting her in day care. cut the lawn, but you didnt do it right and you might break the lawn mower) Ya I do nothing in a day because I can do all that and take time to play on the computer and watch some tv. because I have to or I would be insane and well time management is something I do well thank god.
I dont want to give up on him. there is a great guy in there. A wonderful man who deserves more then what he is getting out of life. How do I help him . help himself, and get us back to a place we both love. Please Please help. I know I have only touch on some of the stuff. But every story I have read on here is my DH to a T. seriously. I even read him the for husbands who dont believe ADHD plays a role. I even went to blaming symptoms instead of him. I evven told him I play a big role in this and I am sorry that I became this person we both dont like, and that I want to try hard to learn to deal with the situations differently. and be more helpful . HELP US PLEASE BEFORE ITS TO LATE...
I know this is alot about him, But as I said I am the typical non adhd spouse. I am looking for things to help me as well. I have started the counciling process alone, and am willing and able to admit I am as guilty of letting these symptoms change me and not in a positive way, I became a nag, a controling parenting type partner, because it was all I knew how to do. I am now researching and reading on a daily bases and continuing to support him emotionally. In the best way i know how. I am looking for tools and tips to help us both. Is there a way to get him to see that if he addresses the ADHD, that the other things will become a little easier for both of us to begin to adjust and change for the positive and that we can both together become the people that we love to be with and around. and that it will help all other aspects of both our lives and the people around us as well. I know it is going to be hard work. I love this man unonditionally and I know he loves me in the only way he knows how to, with all that he is capable of at this time (was hard to get that but I am slowly getting there) and realize that I am not helping with the way I react to the symptoms. But lost for things to do to change it on my own????? Again please HELP BOTH OF US!!!
I am so so sorry for your situation
Submitted by Aspen on
And I believe you that you are married to a great guy "underneath it all", but I also believe 100% that you are enabling his behavior. I understand how hard it must be to be married to a husband who always seems so unhappy and you desperately want him to be happy.......whatever that takes. But it isn't working for your family to be all the focus and emphasis on his whims :(
Does he think he is right all the time? Apparantly so. He does NOT see that he is wrong, and you can't make him see it if he refuses. I can't count how many ADHD men have come here after years and years of struggle and frustration with their wives, and say they had thought their wives were full of crap all these years and they are just broken to find out it was them all along. The worst thing you can do is just go along to keep the peace....you are reinforcing that he is always right and you are always wrong. He THINKS YOU AGREE when you go along to pacify him.
He needs someone to be one his side, but that does not mean someone to agree with his delusions. You can validate his feelings, but the common denominator in his relationship problems is him. Could you get him to come to counselling with you since you are going as a family? Could you get him to see someone just because you hate seeing him so unhappy? If you made an appointment, would he go with you? I expect he really needs and outside, professional person to tell him that he is the problem and get him help. This poor man DESPERATELY needs help, but I am sure no more desperately than you do (((Hugs))))
You CAN"T RELY on him to do any of these things in the place that he is in right now, but there is hope that the wonderful guy could come out from underneath if you'd stop enabling the baby on the top. WHY would you tell him he could deal with $3000?!? Reading that made my head almost spin around. I am really impressed he handed over the $1000 to the things the family needed...even if you did eventually let him take a bunch back. That is an EXCELLENT sign that he really doesn't think all about himself, but he can't handle money so you shouldn't ever give him that kind of sum to handle. Especially when you'd describe yourselves as "broke" after he blows it all.
That kind of money is like being handed an entire candy store to take care of? Naturally he blew it all.....you wouldn't have and I wouldn't have but a very sick man who loves to buy things.......yep that is always what he was going to do. PLEASE try not to "reward" him like that any more.....no one even ENJOYED the process. He was just overwhelmed and seemed to go a bit temporarily insane.
But the thing I cannot fathom is that after he blows $2000, you give him the rest that was for your family so that he can buy his latest whim. I assume you did this because you were overwhelmed with the stress of listening to what he wants to buy? Please take this experience as a lesson.......as long as he is untreated, HE WILL ALWAYS be stressing over the next thing that he wants to buy. Buying it does not help.....he is sick...He will only find something else that he "needs" to buy that will make him happy. You don't give a diabetic sugar no matter how much they want it not because you are mean, but because it will make them worse.
I understand you want him to smile. Someone else has just been posting the same thing...that she gives in and buys him things to see him smile and not fight with him. Is this the lesson you'd teach your children in the same situation? No as a parent, you know that they MUST learn that
1. THINGS are not what makes anyone happy regardless of what they think and that
2. They HAVE to learn that money is finite and budget accordingly.
I get that he isn't your child and I am sure neither of you want to treat him as one, but these are lessons he never learned at home and he still NEEDS to learn them. The list he made was good. In the beginning my husband would find out he'd have an extra $100 or so, and his mind would go wild thinking of all the things he wanted to buy with it.......sometimes I would look at his list and say "Honey, you are spending the same $100 at least 3 times. You are going to have to choose". That is part of learning about money for someone who was never taught. The fact that he needed immediate gratification and bought other things instead, Ok that was his choice, but then when he wants MORE stuff?? The answer at that point HAS TO BE NO. Why didn't you say, "I am sorry that you spent all the money and that you really want something else, but there is no more money. The only thing left is for the family." That is the way of an adult. It is just how life works. Why do you think you are somehow responsible to protect him from the consequences of his own bad decisions?
You are not doing anyone any good by enabling him :( You need to talk to your counselor about your poor boundaries &/or possible co-dependency. And once you get help for that, I really think it will help him. He desperately needs boundaries, and right now can't set them for himself.
Where it came to my daughter, there would be an agreement that he can see her at x, y, z times if the atmosphere is going to be safe. He may need a list of rules that a, b, and c have to be happening if he doesn't agree with you on what makes a safe atmosphere. Spending time with her Grandmother sounds like it was great fun for her, and even fine for an occasional treat, but he needs to be spending the bulk of his time with his daughter or he doesn't see his daughter at that time....the end. Needs to work on the garage? Ok guess this Saturday is out, let me know if Sunday will work for you.....Just draw your line in the sand and hold to it. You right now are the only responsible adult in your relationship :(
I know I sound harsh....I am sorry. But soo sooo sooo many mates here seem to have terrible enabling/co-dependency problems. I just don't get it. Of course we love our mates. We want them to be happy, and we want to be happy, and you have the additional responsibility of 5 KIDS!!! Wow I can't even imagine. I feel for you so deeply.
But the way you are going about things WILL NEVER get you what you want. You are being a doormat for a very very sick man, and you are letting him jerk your family emotionally around over and over. Someone has to stand up and say NO MORE.
Neither my husband nor I realized he had untreated ADD when we married. He is also an absolutely wonderful guy, but the first screwups he made were financial and I was baffled. I came from a family who didn't have a lot of money and we were all taught to budget. My husband wasn't, so even without ADD, he had a lot to learn.
He hates budgetting and has never balanced a checkbook in his life, and he was an adult living on his own when we got together! So I was always gong to handle the paperwork, but we quickly learned he had to be cash only for 'his' money. And when the blow money he got for the week was gone (and initially we had to do it for the week though now he is capable of having it for the whole month), it was gone. There was no more. I was sorry for him, if he wanted something else. ESPECIALLY when that something else was something he was going to have to save up for because in the beginning he was INCAPABLE of holding onto his cash long enough to put it together for a couple weeks to buy something bigger.
When he complained, I just said I was sorry it was like that, and if he would save all his money for 3 weeks he could buy it or if he saved half for 6 weeks he could buy it. I wrote out the budget, but we agreed on it together, so we both were aware of how much wiggle room there was in the budget, and sometimes what he wanted could be bought from joint funds and sometimes it couldn't. NEVER would there have been a penny spent on fun that really belonged on a bill. I might reduce an amount I'd hoped to save if it was something he'd wanted for a while......read more than a week or two.....because he works hard and always has provided for us.
But he learned how money worked. I should NEVER have had to be the one to teach him, but his parents abdicated and I wasn't going to live life as a financial mess, so I wrote it all down and let him help me decide where unallocated money was to go. Some months there was an emergency and no unallocated money, and he was expected to forego his "extras" too for the family. I always expected him to act like an adult about it, and he agreed even if he didn't like it. I think your husband is much sicker than mine ever was and may never get to this point without extra treatment, but that wouldn't have ever changed my position. Won't force him into a relationship, but if you are going to be in a relationship with a woman and a big family.....this is the reality.
I have always been and always will be the person who spends less money on myself in the marriage, but he'd never complain about anything I spent for just that reason. He knows I don't blow money, and he knows he does. He overspent his blow money this month and really wanted to buy something for an online game he is playing. He asked if I would be agreeable to him using paypal attached to our checking account for it. I couldn't help but laugh at him as he just spent an extra $25 in this game last month. I was entirely justified in saying NO, but he's done extra work this month and just had a death in his family, and I figured the extra game time was harmless enough.
So we had a lighthearted 10 or so minute convo about it, and how I had no problem with him spending an extra $15 for something he really wanted, but that he needed to understand that for at least a month I didn't want to hear about any game-type thing he felt he 'needed'....he loves to spend money on games but reins himself in pretty well in general now. He said he'd do his best to make it even more than a month before it came up again because he should be able to fund his games himself. 10 minutes and resolved to both our satisfaction......that wouldn't have happened years ago, but we learned to deal with this kinda budget issue LONG before we had an ADD diagnosis. Every couple has to figure out how to handle the money...it sucks but it is true and way way way too many never do.
After the issue, he came back with another offer. He realized he had enough credits in another account for a $25 Target gift card (seems able to get a $25 card to somewhere every few months), so he gave that to the household as a gesture of appreciation. That really meant a lot to me. He doesn't see money like it is out growing on the money tree anymore :)
We have never had any debt in our 10 years of marriage, always had 2 paid for vehicles, we both volunteer at least 3 days a week, we were able to pay cash for a $1000 repair on his work truck just last month, we have an emergency fund in the bank, and we take at least 1 if not 2 nice vacations a year....every couple years we go overseas because one of our goals is world travel. We started with nothing but a couple thousand dollars I had in savings and the $3000 we received as gifts at our wedding. My husband came into the marriage with no debt (this was our agreement) and nothing to show for the years he worked and was paid well except for 4 computers, various other electronics, and about 500 movies. It took a little bit for him to get on board with how you go about funding the life you want to have, but now he is fully aware that if you want X you might have to forego Y or just wait a little longer to have it.
Now you have 5 kids and your ideal life is going to look WAY different than mine. That is fine. It is just that money is supposed to provide for you the life that you want. It isn't working for any of you right now because he is using it as some kind of happiness button......spend money get a little happy zing. It doesnt last and it a quick way to bankrupt a family. You have to make some financial changes IMMEDIATELY, and get everyone into counselling as soon as possible.....most especially your husband.
I am really hoping for the best outcome for your family.....whatever that may be!
wow. Some great information
Submitted by tdsb12 on
wow. Some great information there!
It is interesting because I came on this forum and another looking to learn about ADD because of a recent Ex-GF. However, I was talking to my sister about it recently and it turns out her husband had ADD as a child but never treated. I can totally see a lot of the impulsivness and other issues with him so I can relate to the spending habits/impulsiviness issues. My EX also had the same issue and I couldn't understand when I would offer her suggestions to save a few dollars here and there but she just wanted "instant" gratification vs. saving money for future use. One thing that I first noticed was that she would rather have $200 in her bank account even though she had $500 credit card debt because she wanted to feeling of having "money in her account" vs paying off the debt to not pay interest. Another thing she would do is pay for a restaurant bill with her credit card because that was before portable machines and she didn't want to have to walk over to the bar counter to enter in her debit information
Anyway, to the OP. I really feel for you. It must be hard. Would you be able to convince him to read Melissa's book or maybe listen to an audio book version of it or another book like Delivered to Distraction? Maybe in the car when you are on a long drive. Or , maybe you can show him some of the amazing youtube videos. Not sure what you have done up to this point to address it as a possible ADD issue (without blaming him for it of course).
Thank you so much. I needed
Submitted by Nevadaleigh on
Thank you so much. I needed the harsh reality. I think I already knew everything you are saying. Just didn't want to admit it. Yes I did and do pacify him to save argument. but this is the reason he is the way he is, why change what works for you. Enough is enough. no more. I love him, but love isn't enough, he has to want it. As for counseling no. he hasnt hit bottom enough yet to get it. he believes that the issues we have all stem from me and the kids. So for now I say, I will let the cards fall where they may. Again he is still calling me several times a day, anytime his mom isnt around. and crying to me with all his issue , I guess cause I am safe. I always give him his own way, and try and see his point of view, and seek his happiness. But no more. Its about me and the kids. If he wants to join us on this road and journey then he can but other wise I am going to the best I can for the kids and myself. Yes I will be here to be his safe spot when he needs it, but I will not leave myself or our kids vulnerable to this situation anymore.. Again thanks for listening. and You are right . He is a sick sick man, and unfortunately it is a sickness he is going to have to except and work on before it will get better. But I need just as much help right now as he does. Difference is I know it. and am working towards being better and not continuing down a path of self destruction at the hands of someone else.