Is it "normal" for folks with ADHD to be checked out of their own lives? My husband has no interest in our life -- no interest in our child, either. He can't remember my phone number or his. He can't tell time on an analog clock. He doesn't always remember our postal code. He could not tell you how much money he makes or which is gross and which is net. He takes no responsibility in filing claim forms for insurance, checking prices, doing paperwork, etc. All the everyday stuff, he's checked out. It's like he is about 8 years old with not a care in the world at all. What IS that????
I am 41 years old and exhausted. I just want someone I can have an adult conversation with, who hears and respects me and who wants to partner together. Who is interested in their child's drawings, school work, accomplishments. Someone who can smile when their child says something funny instead of looking like a statue.
I am so depressed.
Huh?
Submitted by ADHDMomof2 on
My husband has no interest in our life -- no interest in our child, either. He can't remember my phone number or his. He can't tell time on an analog clock. He doesn't always remember our postal code. He could not tell you how much money he makes
Wow. I don't know where to start with this. Can't tell time? Doesn't know your phone numbers or zip code? Doesn't know how much money he makes? NO interest in your child together (that one really pisses me off >: (
The other stuff sounds like ADHD. Maybe part of the attention to your child is, too. But to be completely detached like that? Awful.
Is he depressed? Has he always been this out of touch? I almost thought "TBI" from the first part of your description, I have to admit. That's bad, even for some with ADHD, and mine has been historically on the more difficult end.
ADHDMomof2
My husband has been taken
Submitted by LyraHeartstrings on
My husband has been taken care of by his parents into his 30's. They provided him everything -- car, gas, food, etc. He has not worked. He complained about how soul killing work is and he only wants to do film work and write scripts. He has never been independent. Yes, very stupid of me to hook up with that train weck, right? I was on the rebound and he'd always been a good friend to me over the few years we knew each other. He seemed really great but I mean without the burdens of a family and a wife he had it made. Once we were in the picture he started cracking. I've encouraged him to work and most of the time he says he "won't" or "can't." His dad pretty much told him he had to work in the family business so he packed us up and moved us to Canada and I lost so much stuff in that move only to end up in a house owned half by him and half by his parents. We didn't even see the house before he signed for it. He didn't even ASK to see it. He asked them nothing. He didn't know anything, like a chick newly hatched. He trusted them to take care of EVERYTHING like a child would. Like he was just a kid and mom and dad were going to provide.
So his parents hate me because I'm actually a grown woman who never wanted that kind of control and involvement over my life. I have lost my identity. I lost a lot of stuff, stuff I wanted to keep because his father demanded that I give it up since he was paying for me to go up there. I have been miserable for 3 years there. There is a doctor shortage, it's all French, it's very expensive and I don't earn enough to keep us all going all by myself.
We have fallen out with the parents because he was always asking them for help with our bills. I gave him money as well for the mortgage. We keep separate bank accounts and I cover everything for myself and our child and he's supposed to cover the mortgage and stuff for the house. The dad paid the gas and provided the cars etc. The dad took over the car insurance, property tax stuff, our taxes etc. He dictated and would not let me in on any information. When we lived in the USA, I did all of this stuff. I did our life insurance, car insurance, books, taxes etc. When we went to Canada hubby was arguing with me about how his parents wanted to "help" us. Soon enough though they were sick of us needing money. But then they'd complain to his sister and the brother in law who would then come and yell at us about taking their money -- even though the parents were providing Brother in law with a job (at 60K a year for working maybe 5 hrs a day with any days off he wants whenever he wants and 3 wks vacation a year plus health insurance on top of the gov. one.) and they also provide them with ALL their gas and car repairs! But we got yelled at by the two of them telling us, "Why do you think mom and dad should be paying your bills?" I could ask them the same since that had been going on for 15 years before I got there.
So now husband is like a teenager in a 41 yr old's body. He is truly truly emotionally a teenager, and sometimes even younger. He talks back to me, argues with me, is impulsive, moody, angry all the time, feels like I'm attacking him over everything. I ask him to mow the lawn and he says, "I don't want to." Stuff like that. We got a notice from our town about the backyard because after a couple of years I finally said I should not be shovelling the snow and mowing and clipping etc. for a house that's not even mine while he plays video games. He let it go until the backyard had plants TALLER THAN I AM and then the city got complaints. We look like idiots on the block. :( I hate how he does not care that it makes me feel so foolish. I say our house looks awful and he says, "I don't care what the neighbors think" and launch into some thing about how things should be or how it's not fair for something to be this or that way, or "his thoughts on" whatever. It's like he is raging against the entire world.
He's not interested in our daughter. I have to ask him over and over and over to help her by reading to her and being a little involved in her life. He even told me when she was a baby that she was too little to be read to, and then later when she was older he said he hated reading to her because she touched the pages too much. Now it's he doesn't want to read because she interrupts and asks questions.
He has actually told her when she was 4 years old, to "ACT HER AGE". SERIOUSLY. He said this to a 4 yr old. He also says he "doesn't have time for this" all the time even though he doesn't work now. He leaves messes everywhere and doesn't care that it bothers me. If something takes effort, he doesn't want to do it.
One time we arrived at our child's school to pick her up a few mins early and I got out to walk over to the gate to wait and asked if he was joining me and he actually said that no, he wasn't because that would involve standing and standing takes effort.
Right now we're in the States. I don't want to go back to Canada, it feels like prison. He is yelling at me about money (he has none) and telling me if I want to stay down here I have to get us an apartment and basically support us all (which is what I had been doing with 2 jobs back in 2010. I had asked him then to just watch our daughter so I could work but he complained so much about how he didn't want to just "sit there and stare at her every minute." Actually I think he said, "I'm not going to sit here and stare at her every minute." There's a lot of the "I'm not going to" stuff. If I had a dollar for every time he said it!
What is TBI?
I am considering divorce but he'd get stuck going back to Canada and not being able to come back in the States to live. So that would be hard on our daughter. He does not seem interested in staying because just today I asked him to start filling out immigration paperwork and he did the "i'm not going to put all that effort into something if I'm not sure it will work out." Seriously.
Oh yeah when we first got to
Submitted by LyraHeartstrings on
Oh yeah when we first got to Canada and I hated it from the start he was pretty much, oh well I signed for the house, nothing we can do. He is completely always all about "nothing I can do about it". Always. Nothing he can do. Expects ME to do everything. Find the answers, fix the problems.
I was so upset at one point I asked him to talk to his parents about things (as our lives are so enmeshed with them being dependent on them for everything) and he refused, saying if I had a problem I could talk to them about it myself. He said to me, "I'm not on their side, I'm not on your side, I'm on MY side." And that's been the slogan of our life together and his life in general. It's despicable, honestly. if you met him he'd be a nice, quirky guy who jokes a lot. But if you have to be any closer than that he's a crazymaking obnoxious man-child.
I'm still with him because I don't have enough money to leave. Nice, eh?
What's the min amount
Submitted by ChrisChris on
What's the min amount of $ necessary for you to separate from him? Have you pre-thought about it and come up with a rough estimate?
The roughest of estimates is
Submitted by LyraHeartstrings on
The roughest of estimates is probably a good 2500 - 3000. I have $560 right now. I have a couple of bills I'm paying down; one's 50 a month, one's 160 a month, one's about 25 a month. Just finishing up paying off my 2012 usa taxes, go me! ha ha now just have to pay off the 1300 left for canada 2012 and the new one which will be probably about 1800 for canada. Not unbearable debt but definitely not putting me in a great position to get out on my own. Have to invest in health care here if I stay, so that's a good 200 or so a month just for me. I'd have to look into medicaid or something. this state didn't expand so that's a bummer. Gotta get a second job!
Git 'er done
Submitted by ChrisChris on
OK so it sounds like you're really on top of what needs to be done for you. There's so much possibility for you and your daughter. Don't worry about his cold feet regarding Canada vs U.S. He's permanently on "his side" of any and all situations anyway, right?
I have not-so fond memories of my ADHD dad throwing tantrums and having zero interest in his family just as you described above. Every effort that my mom made to ensure my brother and I were "available" to him only seemed to make him behave more distantly. A person can only do so much.
Checked out
Submitted by ChrisChris on
Wow that sounds like my father - totally and decidedly offline.
Mine claims interest in his
Submitted by lauren07 on
Mine claims interest in his son's life and even calls about once a week to video chat for a good 30 min. In person, he just sits on his butt and has to be told to parent. It is completely pathetic and angers me the most of everything.
Mine doesn't know important numbers. He won't even keep them as notes on his phone or email, like I do. He just expects me to help him. Sometimes I do, but not without complaining. I want the complaining/scolding to annoy him enough to man up.
He can't tell his right from his left. He can't really be trusted to do anything completely right. And, no, I am not just being hard on him.
Mine will smile/laugh at something our child says if I point it out.
Mine was paying $170/mo for motorcycle insurance until I said something. A couple months later, he had it dropped to under $60/mo.
A TBI is a traumatic brain injury. It is possible mine has one, but he also had add. He's rather blame the possible tbi and just feel sorry for himself.