I've been trying to wrestle this beast that is my marriage, my relationship.  When I found out about adhd, I felt relief.  I had read all kinds of marriage books but none of them hit home.  And then I found books about adhd by multiple authors who all somehow knew the weird land I lived in, who could describe the things that left me holding all the responsibilities.

But there was still more, and I could feel it.  His way of being wasn't entirely adhd.

Recently I came upon a blog about emotionally immature people in risky situations.  How they make poor team members.  The blog post mentioned a book about emotionally immature people, so I checked out the book (Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay Gibson).  The behaviors, the thinking patterns, the avoidance of emotions, etc, of an emotionally immature adult that are laid out in her book strikingly accurately describe my husband.  (And they line up with the posts here of so many other posters, so if this intrigues you at all, please check it out.) 

Putting these together, adhd and emotional immaturity, really is a very poor combination.  Indeed, some of the traits overlap.  And possibly compound!  One such area is the poor ability to self-examine or self-assess.  Gibson said more than once that they can mature, but they won't do so until they can see their behaviors, and many never see them.

What a double whammy.

Her book helped so much that I got the second one about recovering from emotionally immature adults.  Both books are from the viewpoint that you're the adult child of emotionally immature parents, but I find them very helpful as a spouse of an emotionally immature adult.  Her books show that not having these emotional skills damages and hampers every relationship they have.  

So I'm reading Codependent No More again. I never got all the way through it because last time I was still so consumed with him and his problems that I felt frustrated with the book.  Isn't that so very funny?  Feel free to laugh; I did!

I'm so tired of thinking about my marriage and having so much space in my head be taken up by this man and this dynamic.  I've grown and learned a number of things already over these last several years, but it's time to let go of some things.  It is time to start truly investing into myself, which I find so hard to do.