Hello--Misty's introduction

Good day, everyone,

Thanks for providing a place to read and talk about these issues. My husband and I will have been married 5 years next Friday. The problems with his ADHD are just becoming more acute, however. I am trying to turn things around so we can make some progress.

I work from home; I have a well-paying job, while we live in a low cost-of-living area. My husband currently does not work, though we are trying to find him a job. We are presently living with his parents and younger brother and sister (we pay 1/3rd of the utilities and I cook and do all the shopping, as compensation). We are doing this in order to get out of debt, which for the most part means his $50,000+ student loans. Both of us are in agreement about our end goals of having me stay home with the children and homeschool them (2.5 yo and a 3 mo).

My husband is very willing to get a job, but doesn't feel confident that he ever will. This keeps him from applying to many places. He also doesn't want to apply for a 'lower' type job because he sees that as confirmation that he can't get anything better. There are positions he could be applying for but he's not, mainly because I don't want to do the work for him. He complains that the jobs he has had have come about as a result of me and he wouldn't have been hired on his own (one job at a theatre we both interviewed together; he feels it was my interviewing skills which impressed the manager but he was the one with more flexible hours...the other is when he replaced me at my position during my first maternity leave). This makes me even more loathe to do the work in applying for jobs for him, since when he gets a position he'll see it as more confirmation that he can't get a job on his own. And yet I want to balance that with providing my services in areas which are my strengths (I do write a mean cover letter and can negotiate a lot of this stuff). Then there's at least one of the largest companies in town he doesn't want to apply to because they don't inspire confidence, having let go a friend we know (they do have open positions for which I feel he'd be qualified). We live in a small town (about 10,000 people), so opportunities are limited here. We live about an hour away from two big cities which would have a lot more opportunities. However, he does not want to move for a job (and that would seem to move us backward from our goal of getting debt free...paying for housing -and- childcare).

We have tried a bit of counseling but nothing really came of it. I felt like he and the counselor just chatted about inconsequential things (movies, etc), such that I could not contentedly attend the sessions anymore. The very last time we went he felt so defensive at the topics I brought up that he refused to go the next time. We did see a psychologist this spring who started to work on his meds; we have not yet gone back to him but I am thinking I'm going to press for an appointment with him. That dr. made the point that we couldn't do anything until medication was in my husband (he's been unmedicated most of our marriage). That was 3-4 months ago, and we've finally just gotten to the point where my husband needed a refill, so he's obviously not taking his medicine on a regular basis.

Tomorrow we should be getting results from sleep apnea tests--I had insisted on those because he says he's always tired. He can wake up in the morning still utterly exhausted, lethargic, needing to take naps, etc. Which is frustrating as all heck. I really don't want to think of him as lazy, so I'm hoping it is something physical like that. And I know that ADD people are often suspected of being lazy, unfairly.

I guess I feel like there's no one who is able to help us. And if we're on our own I have to think of our options (my husband when asked to help solve the problem just says he doesn't know), and none of them seem pleasant.

I truly love my husband and enjoy being around him. If we were independently wealthy I don't think there would be any problem at all :-D But seeing as that's not the case....

Thanks for listening.

-Misty