I have been with my boyfriend for four years. He is 44. He has openly spoke about having ADD and he has the symptoms. Having said that I feel like it may be something more. He is always stressed. He has the worst explosive road rage I've ever seen. He blurts out horrible mean things to the point where I'm usually shocked and taken aback by what he says. He collects papers, post its and clutter. His house has become what looks like a "hoarders" place. He can't even live there anymore and essentially has in with me. He has started with this paper/clutter thing on my dining room table and I tried to gently bring it up to him and he screamed at me telling me that I don't know what it's like and that I don't help his Brian think clearly. His explosive anger is always disproportionate to the situation. I frequently feel like I'm on eggshells afraid of when he will explode next. He is chronically late and I don't mean a little late I mean like a party starts at 2 and he decides to turn on a movie and we go at 5. When I say we will be late he says "I don't stress about being on time like you do". He criticizes me constantly. He is loud and I mean really loud. He slams doors runs up the steps and the walls shake. He doesn't like to be touched most of the time. When I try he says "get off that's annoying". He proscrastinates like I've never seen and he will start something or a lot of little things and never finish them. He stays up almost nightly to 3 or 4 am.... And the worst of it is sex. We don't really have normal sex. What typically happens is he grabs me in my area and it's not gentle and then gets frustrated very very quickly because I'm not able to perform immediately or that hurts me. And then he gives up and gets pissed or angry and tells me I have a problem and I need to fix it. I fully admit I am not the girl who can just have sex without intimacy or foreplay and when I try to explain that he says "you always have an excuse" " if I cheat you will know why" or "you need to get help" he doesn't know how to talk rationally or calmly about anything... It is always anger. When we first started dating I felt differently. He paid more attention and was kinder. We broke up two other timses and when we got back together it was always great and then ends up like this again.
Im sorry for the rambling however my question is... Is this ADD only? This seems like so much more than the symptoms I read on websites and books. It seems like verbal abuse or just plain out self centered selfish behavior. One time I convinced him to go to the doctor and he went but the doctor downplayed and said he had add too so my boyfriend didn't feel like it was a big deal... I've never been able to convince him to go back. I am miserable and don't know what to do. I feel bad for him and love him when he is "normal".... But normal keeps moving farther and farther away....please help. I don't know what to do and I spend every day looking up symptoms of other disorders like bipolar or borderline personality dosorder and he has those symptoms too. Am I right to think that medication could make things 100 percent better. I find myself becoming a mute and just living in my head because I'm so afraid if say anything for fear of the explosion over nothing that will ensue....thanks
You need to get out.
Submitted by overwhelmedwife on
You are right. this is more than ADHD. This is abuse.
Of course things are great when you get back together after a break up. That's how it always goes, but it never lasts.
Get out of this relationship. GET OUT.
WOW! ...does my BF have a twin out there???
Submitted by sickandtired on
Wow, Verysad, this sounds just like my BF. He cringes when i touch him, and we have been together for 10 years with no sex the last 8, partly because he fears intimacy, and because his anger is a HUGE turnoff, huh? Your relationship sounds like an earlier version of mine, like I could have written your post 6 years ago. I do not know if there is any real hope for a cure for these people, but at least we can walk away because the disease, the anger, the slights from others, etc., etc. etc....it's all in their head.
I got my BF out of the house only yesterday, after bending over backwards trying to help him, support him, listen to his endless stories of how others have wronged him, pay all his bills, everything. I gave up friends for him, broke off communication with relatives for him (because he thought they did not respect him) made excuses for him, cut people out of my will because he demanded it. I let him drag me down into that dark bleak mindset that he lives in, and I am angry at myself for not seeing this sooner, whatever it is called, and I am regret ever choosing him as a mate in the first place. I met him online, and my profile said i was looking for someone with a positive attitude, hah! what a laugh...I probably ended up with the most negative guy on match.com. He was too good to be true at first, saying he had found his soul mate, but then I gradually started seeing that he did not respond to things like other people, he would see insults when none existed, he would ruminate over things he had no control of, like politics, cops, the suffering of others. He never had any constructive thinking or actions on these topics that bothered him, like getting involved in the community or helping the poor or anything, he would just get more and more angry. His anger is so disproportionate to our situation...I inherited a lot of money from my parents, and neither of us have had to work, and we have no kids, so we have the freedom to travel, do whatever we want, but no matter what, these types of people will find something to be mad about. What a shame...we had it all, and he ruined it because he was never satisfied. One time for his birthday, I bought him first row seats to CSNY, his and my favorite group. His comments after the fabulous music seemed to focus on some guy in the audience that he thought was too loud. So you see, I've been there, and have gone to extremes to make his environment better, but that does no good, because he is programmed to see the world as a horrible place where others are out to get him. he is very angry at his parents, at God, angry at the world. In psychology, there is a term called free-floating anxiety, maybe caused by childhood trauma, and the brain has this need to attach the anxiety to something in the outside world, so that the anxiety makes sense, has a "cause' assigned to it, and I think that these people manifest that anxiety into anger, and attach it to something or someone close to them, even though the reality is you did nothing wrong, his brain is just attributing his anger to you. It is like people in this state of mind only have one direction...increasing anger, never able to resolve it, only adding it to the big pile of anger that already filled his mind.
Bottom line is this, I can tell you that after 10 years, it gets worse, and Overwhelmedwife tells me that after 20 years, it gets even more worse.....please, cut your losses, and get away from him. Read our posts and see what else you can expect living with a man like this. Good luck to you, and NEVER give up hope that there is a better life out there for YOU.
Meaning Shifting
Submitted by kellyj on
I also just started reading about this as a psychological phenomenon. I was wondering about this in relationship to what you were saying about free floating anxiety and externally attaching it to things to make sense. Meaning shifting appears to be related to this or somewhat the same. the whole concept of selective hearing and meaning shifting as an automatic defense to reconstruct what a person hears to make sense of it or to fit what they need things to be. I think this has a lot to do with denial and perceived lying. If I understand this correctly.....a person in denial will meaning shift something they hear and/or respond or say things that are not true or accurate to fit what they perceive about themselves. I think this would account for the lies as you and I see it but they are completely unaware that the words coming out of their mouth are not true? That and all the difficulty with trying to talk or communicate with someone who is doing this in the moment to have a regular conversation with.
I've been trying to explain why I have so much trouble talking to my wife at times when I am talking about facts and she seemingly does not understand or can comprehend what I am saying. I think for a person who is severely in denial.....this can be part of this internal process and an automatic psychic defense mechanism that goes on with a complete disconnect or unawareness that this is happening with them.
related: framing/distortions of facts and cognitive shifting in therapy (as a means of counter measure )
J
denial is a big nasty deep river........
Submitted by sickandtired on
Yes, I think they have to make the words someone says to them fit their view of the world or their view of themselves, like when I nicely asked BF to not put his battery operated fly swatter on the new inlaid wood formal dining room table, he did not hear my words, which were: "Let's not put the fly swatter or other tools on the table any more, OK" He must have heard something like "You worthless bastard!!!! Quit throwing your fucking junk on MY new expensive table that is obviously worth more than you...I love that table more than you, you are not welcome here...you're SCUM!!!" A horrible abusive statement like that would of course be very hurtful, and it would make sense then why he would respond by saying I treat him like an employee, verbally abuse him, care more about material things than him, that he does not feel welcome here, that he walks on eggshells never knowing when I will "give him hell" for doing something wrong blah blah blah yada yada....and run into his room and stay locked up in there for over 2 days like some troubled teenager....he must have heard something like that in his head to react the way he did. It's like he's 58 going on 15.
Yep lol
Submitted by kellyj on
Something like that.lol I have the hardest time trying to say things to my wife sometimes without her taking offense at something (not nearly as bad as as your situations though...no comparison). For example....last night I was trying to tell her about a program I watched about the "Wrecking Crew". A group of musicians who are famous for doing the music for tons of famous groups in the 60's....Phil Specter, Monkee's, Beach Boys...the list goes on and on. Anyway....I'm trying to tell her how I watched this program and how interesting I thought it was. I got about 1/4 of the way through telling her about the show and she blurts out...."I don't like the Beach Boys...they're sexist."
Okay?? (now curious) Why?
She says "Two Girls for Every Boy!!" ( contained in the song "Surf City" ).
I said, "That's one line in one song? You think their sexist because they make that reference? You realize this is not a sex thing right? It's not a sexual entandre....theirs no double meaning or reference to group sex or anything like that? You know...Frankie and Annette bouncing up and down on the beach in granny pants bikini's and drinking non alcoholic beverages...common....this was the early 60's...you know....surfing, cars and good wholesome fun at chaperoned functions with Dick Dale playing in the back ground?"
She said...."I'm not going to debate this with you....I think their sexist and I don't like them for that reason"
"Because of one line in one song?" I replied.
She say's "Yes."
I said " Okaaaaay??" So..I try and finish telling her about the program (which was not about the Beach Boys) and she stops me again and says "where did you meet these people?"
I go "Where did I meet who?
She says "these people you are talking about."
I said " I didn't meet them....I was only a kid at that time???????"
She says ..."Then why are you telling me about them?"
Me errrrrrrrrrrr "As I started out telling you....it was a program that I watched on Netflix about the Wrecking Crew who played back up for a lot of famous people like the Beach Boys and a whole lot of other people which you stopped me before I had a chance to tell you the whole story and all the other people they played with and you got you off on a tangent about sexism and how you didn't like the Beach Boys?????"
She said "I thought you were telling me about the Beach Boys????"
Jesus......who's on first. LOL
J
OMG - separated at birth or what!?!
Submitted by sickandtired on
He would do the VERY SAME THING!!!! I am AMAZED how similar the behaviors are in these people!!! He got in a huge argument with a friend of mine's husband over Leon Russell. During dinner at a restaurant, my friend's husband remarked that he likes Leon Russell (I am from Tulsa, and we were talking about Oklahoma musicians), anyway, BF just kept saying stuff like Leon has no talent because he sounds like church music (remember he hated church and everything associated with it), her H disagreed, and then IT WAS ON!!! My friend and I tried to change the subject to keep the boys from standing up and just going at it, and the bottom line is, we never saw them as a couple again...lost another friend.
What a Coinsidense
Submitted by kellyj on
Leon Russell got his start playing with the Wrecking Crew....same as Glen Campbell. Too funny. FYI...Leon Russell Played behind Frank Sinatra, Bod Dylan, The Ronettes, Sony and Cher and.......the Beach Boys (LOL)...just to name a few before he went on his own. I've seen him twice. No church music though unless you count a few gospel sounding numbers which he covered from Ray Charles. Leon Russell loved Ray Charles ...it was one of his biggest inspirations. Oh well????? lol
J
Thanks
Submitted by Verysad on
I know I have to get out. I don't know how...when he is normal it is fine but the anger and the constant yelling seem to be more frequent. He is stressed due to work and I help him as much as I can but he doesn't ever do what he needs to to make his situation better. He just complains and complains and says I don't understand how his brain works. What's odder is after he yells or hangs up on me he can literally call me later like nothing happened. Every once in awhile I get an apology but it's very very rare. So you really feel this is more than add. It says explosive outburst and anger are common and impulse control. Will medication help? Has anyone had experience with getting someone to go on meds? When I ask him too he generally gets angry and says that's not the answer... I don't know how to convince him. I've been printing articles and highlighting them and leaving for him but nothing so far. He hasn't even commented. Does anyone have any other ideas?
How are you doing?
Submitted by notgonnalosemyself (not verified) on
Wondering....
Thanks for asking. I'm doing
Submitted by Verysad on
Thanks for asking. I'm doing ok. I'm still in the relationship. I really don't know what to do. He is just so mean and I can't for the life of me understand why. Last night we went to get something to eat and I commented to him about a text I sent him earlier asking fora referral for something for someone at work. He said "I didn't get it" I said oh and went on to ask him about the referral and he started battering me with questions. I said "I'm sorry but they only asked me for a name" I didn't get other details and he says "you are so frustrating" forget it. Then he starts telling me how I don't appreciate that I have a lot of friends and family. I said yes I do and he said no you don't. It's not even just what he says it's how he says it. He has so much anger in him. It's like he looks for reasons to flip on me. When we got in the car he starts telling me how I can't drive etc... I said to him"what is your problem" and he says "you have to stop making such a big deal about everything I say"... I flipped out and we came in the house and I just went to bed and we didn't talk at all. This morning it's like it didn't happen. This is pretty much a daily occurrence with us... The thing is he really has very few people in his life and I feel like I'm abandoning him... He thinks everything is my fault and I'm defensive or I think I'm so perfect. It feels so abusive to me.... I don't know if this is all add or if it's more. He is never remorseful. I just don't understand and I'm so exhausted from the emotional rollercoaster. I keep saying next fight I'm telling him but then it doesn't happen because he gets so explosive it's like I can't get the words out because I'm so shocked at his behavior. Even after all this time I'm still surprised by it. Thanks for listening