Submitted by EMUGrad1999 on 05/19/2008.
This is my first post ever on any site dealing with ADHD and I am hoping I can find the answers I am looking for. I am sure like many others I have a complex background that has brought problems into my current marriage. I have been married for almost 4 wonderful years to my wife Amanda who I found is my one true love. She was that one person you met and immediately changed your entire picture of what was and really felt like. I was diagnosed late in my teenage life with ADHD after it had cause a lot of problems in school and relationships. I was on medication and trying to control things that had previously caused me great discomfort. I was told that college wasn't probably a good idea because it would be so hard for me to get good enough grades. I was a bad test taker and it was really hard to sit through lectures. I wanted to prove people wrong and I did, I graduated and went to work right out of school for a very large company. The part of college I didn't tell you was I was in an emotionally abusive relationship for a couple of years and still managed to get through things. I got help after the relationship ended but never went long enough. I went from relationship to relationship and never felt what I thought it needed to continue. Then I met Amanda who showed me a new outlook on life, she was a wonderful woman who I finally felt comfortable with. We got married in May of 2004 and its still the happiest day of my life; I can smile every time I think about it. We had a wonderful first few years of marriage but I think my ADHD that I had left behind with college was still present and doing small amounts of damage without really knowing it. I had figured I had outgrown the problem and I could get along fine on my own. Our first daughter was born on 5/5/05 and things were wonderful. In January 2007 we were getting close to our second child together and I remember the day like it was yesterday. January 3rd when we were going to bed I did what I did a lot, I was feeling her belly and feeling the baby kick and move, it was a wonderful feeling and I loved doing that before we went to bed, I remember the baby having hiccups and we were laughing about it. The next morning same usual moments I felt and nothing out of the ordinary. She already had her OB appointment planned for that morning so i was excited to hear all about everything. She called me and told me that she was at the doctors and they couldn't find a heartbeat. I immediately ran out of work and over to be with her, I was a total wreck. We learned that the baby hadn't made it and they didn't know why yet. We would have to go to the hospital and deliver the baby as normal and that happened on January 5. That was the hardest day of my life and Amanda's. I was as strong as i could be for her and my family as she needed every ounce of support. We learned later from reports that there was nothing conclusive that caused the death, the placenta was more calcified than it should of been and there was some news that Amanda could have issues if we had another baby. This was all coming at us so fast, I am still wondering how with everything going on in my head I help it all together. To make things worse we had to make a decision of not having any more kids for Amanda's safety, I didn't want to lose my wife. Now during this time I was working a lot more and doing anything I could to take my mind off of things. i was talking to others and trying to understand why things happened the way they did. I had a friend that I had dated before I met Amanda and she was there to comfort me and we were still friends and nothing more. I remember spending a lot of nights awake trying to understand why all this happened to my family, Amanda, and me. I know I wasn't thinking clearly and Amanda asked if I needed help but I just said I would be fine. Well I wasn't fine and I ended up one day doing something that wasn't anything I ever said I would do once I was married. I had an inappropriate relationship with this past person. I don't know why I let it happen and i knew it was wrong but none of that came to me until after it had happened. I was so mad at myself and struggling with all the pain and mixed emotions. I did what I had learned to do before when you are emotionally abused, hide it deep inside and don't even think about remembering it. I went on as if nothing had happened and it was fine until a few weeks ago when Amanda found out about things and confronted me about them. To me nothing happened and I just denied everything, I really wanted to tell he everything because I knew I needed help and we would probably work through things at that point, but no, I lied like I have done in the past. She moved out the next day and is currently staying with family while we try and sort things out. I was in such denial that I needed help with my ADHD and how destructive it can be. I went over there last night and sat down with her parents and admitted what I had done with another person and how I didn't mean for it to happen and I tried to tell them about my ADHD and I am currently going to a psychiatrist to get all the help I need. I am going to make sure that I get everything sorted out and every ounce of help that I need. The bad part is that her parents and her see it as an excuse to explain what happened. I never went looking for this to happen with another woman and its not something I wanted to do but how do I say that to her. Maybe I am nuts and there is no hope for me but I am hoping by telling my story there is someone else out there that know what its like not to be able to control your decisions no matter how wrong they are. I also know that with lots of help and dedication that I can over come this and work with my wife to get things straightened out. I want to earn every ounce of her trust back. I broke a promise to her when we got married and I am so upset at myself for doing that. If anyone can help me out with this I would really appreciate it. Amanda is my one true love and I have known it all along but so many things got in the way and I hate blaming it on ADHD but looking back at the signs, they were all there. I love her and I am going to do what ever I need to do to show her I can beat ADHD and make sure it never controls me again. She deserves a loving, caring husband and father. Thanks for anyone’s help!
Unfortunate affair
Submitted by MelissaOrlov on
You don't mention in your post whether or not you slept with this other woman once or whether or not it was a longer, more emotionally charged encounter. It makes a difference, I think, in terms of how I suggest you approach your wife and her parents. I'll be looking for your reply.
Melissa Orlov
More info...
Submitted by EMUGrad1999 on
to EMU
Submitted by MelissaOrlov on
okay. I'll write you a thoughtful reply tomorrow (when I'm not at the end of my day)
Melissa Orlov
One Time Affair
Submitted by MelissaOrlov on
Thanks for your fast reply yesterday with further details about how many times you had slept with the other woman. I'm sorry I wasn't able to get back to you last evening, as I'm sure this is a tough time for you, but I try not to write about big topics at the end of the day when my mind isn't working as well. I know that people take what I say here seriously, and I try my hardest to be thoughtful.
Your situation is hard, but I'm hoping you and your wife will be able to overcome it and put your marriage back together again. Though you will never have quite the same relationship as you did before you slept with the other woman, you can hope for a relationship in which you both have a better understanding of both your strengths and your weaknesses and that you love each other in spite of them.
I would not use ADD as a reason for your straying from your marriage. I agree with your in-laws when they say that you are using your ADD as an excuse. Furthermore, if you do pin your infidelity on your ADD you risk having your wife decide that since ADD is a permanent part of you she isn't willing to risk having her heart broken again.
And it doesn't seem as if ADD is the issue, in any event. When you say that you thought before you slept with this woman that it might be an emotional affair, you suggest that you spent a certain amount of time getting to know her before you slept with her. That means that it wasn't completely impulsive. No, you reached out to her because you were completely, emotionally drained and needy from the trauma that you had suffered as a family from the loss of your daughter and your wife's medical problems.
What I hope you have learned from all of this is that you reached in the wrong direction. There is no doubt that your wife was equally as devastated by the loss of your child and by her health issues as you were. Hopefully, next time you run into emotional trauma like this you will turn to her...and work through the issue together. As you may have decided by now, a better choice, if you are faced with a situation this traumatic again, is to admit your feelings of being overwhelmed, and seek professional help for yourself and, if she wants it, for her. It is okay to be overwhelmed - everyone is overwhelmed at different points in their lives! But make sure you show the respect your marriage deserves by dealing with it constructively.
Since you are in another situation that feels overwhelming right now, I'm going to offer some suggestions about how you might deal with this situation constructively. Take those that feel right to you, and see if you can use them to start patching things up with your wife. As you are doing so, remember that trust takes a very long time to build (and can be destroyed in a second), so don't expect her to suddenly act towards you right away in the loving way she used to. She's going to be dealing with this for at least a year. At the end of this note, I will also give you some insight into the process that your wife will go through as she heals from the hurt you have given her.
Some ideas for constructively dealing with your current situation:
I promised that I would write a little bit about what it is like to recover from discovering your spouse has been stepping out on you. First, your wife may ask for details...or she may not. If she does, you should be 100% honest with her, with the exception that you DO NOT wish to say that the other woman was better sexually than she was, even if that was the case. In addition, it is not at all in your best interests to show any remaining enthusiasm for that other woman if any exists (I don't think this is the case with you, but I could be guessing wrong.) Now, some people will disagree with my statement about being honest about the other woman, but in your case your wife is making a big deal about your lying to her...and I think that she is going to be looking for you to lie to her again...and if you do, I think she will be out that door for good. I have some experience with this point of view and so may be biased, however. When my husband's girlfriend called me on the phone to tell me he was lying to me about her I made sure to get all the details about their relationship (where, when they had been together, etc) from her that she was willing (stupidly) to share. I then asked him a bunch of pointed questions about the two of them. If he had lied on ANY of them, I would have been gone. At that point I would have been in a position where I would have felt that I could never have trusted him to be honest with me again. Luckily, at that point, he knew better and their stories completely lined up. I think the honesty thing (properly and gently delivered) is about "is this person putting "me" and "us" before himself. If so, he can still be a good spouse. If not, then there is real question as to whether or not we can repair our relationship adequately." So that is the background of why I think you need to be honest, even if it is painful to you (and it will certainly be painful to your wife, so make sure that you are as gentle with your honesty as possible.)
Second, if she is like me, she is going to imagine what your having sex with that other woman was like for a long time. Your sex life with your wife will suffer as a result, at least in the short term. You'll need to remember that sex will sometimes bring anger to the fore, and rather than respond in kind, remind yourself to be patient and supportive. Try to make sex special, and follow your wife's cues while pushing for as much emotional closeness as you can (it's a tough dance - making sure that she knows over and over again how much you love her, and also respecting her hurt and pain when she expresses it.)
Third - don't be tempted to blame your wife for your infidelity. It does not matter that she was emotionally distraught or unavailable at the time (if she was). There are a number of ways that you could have responded to your own hurt, including seeing a therapist of some sort. You, and you alone, are the person who chose to have the affair. When she gets angry some time in the future (and it will come up in spurts and starts for quite a while) accept and acknowledge that anger, don't fight it. One of the smartest and best things that my husband did for us as a couple was let me be angry when I needed to be. By respecting my anger, he gave me the opportunity to get over it. If he had fought my anger by trying to justify himself or by pointing out how tired he was of my anger, he would have further fueled the flames, and we would have moved into permanent conflict mode (and probably divorce). I respect his choices (and they must have been hard at the time) and thank him for them.
In my opinion, there are a few more things that you need to deal with. You need to understand that in order to have your marriage remain successful in the future (should you repair it now, which I think you might) you must do the following things:
Well, that's plenty to start with. Let us know how you are doing. I wish you good luck, and good decisions! This does not have to be the end of your relationship, but you are in a critical point when you need to be ultra sensitive to the hurt you have inflicted and the pain that your wife is experiencing. Having been on both the receiving end of my husband's having an affair, and the giving end of myself having one, I can tell you that the devastation and pain on the receiving end is 100 times greater than that on the giving end. There is really no way to describe the intensity of that pain.
Melissa Orlov
You are Gifted and Wise
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on
Thanks so much for your advice!
Submitted by EMUGrad1999 on
Let's reframe this...
Submitted by cmdjls on
For cmdjls - on anger
Submitted by MelissaOrlov on
cmdjls - I noted in another forum that someone felt that you were being negative in your responses...and I have to say that I agree here. You seem to have quite a bit of anger in you - perhaps you have suffered from having a partner who strayed either emotionally or physically? Even if this is not the case, I would ask you to choose your words carefully in future posts. Note, I am not saying stifle your opinion - we value all opinions that aren't straight out flaming of other people. Just understand that it is hard for people to put their personal stories up here on this site - it takes courage to be so open in this type of forum - and so we try to encourage supportive responses.
On a slightly different tack, I think that the original poster has learned a great deal from his experiences and that was reflected in his seeking advice in the first place, and his response to what others had written here. He seems to have a much better understanding of the fragility of relationships and what is needed to protect them, and I hope that he and his wife find it in themselves to forgive and grow from their experiences. My impression (and these are ALL impressions, since I never see all of any story) is that he will be more careful in future crises.
Melissa Orlov
cmdjls
Submitted by EMUGrad1999 on
After an Affair
Submitted by MelissaOrlov on
You need to understand the underlying motives in an affair, I think, to guess whether or not someone is predisposed to do it again. My own thinking is that if someone reached out because they were in extreme emotional pain, and unable to manage that (as is the case with EMUGrad) then they can learn a great deal about themselves and what they value after they end the affair, take a deep look into themselves, and set a course for the future. This type of person, I think, can end up much more self aware and in control, and the relationship with the spouse (changed, to be sure) can end up much stronger.
On the other hand, someone who thoughtlessly has an affair because he or she simply has poor impulse control is a good candidate for doing it again, unless something significant changes (medication to treat underlying ADD symptoms, for example). So do sex addicts, and those who simply get bored easily and are seeking the new or the thrilling.
Sounds to me as if this case is one of the former, and I'm really rooting for the two of them to work through their pain and issues and work it out.
Melissa Orlov
Melissa: I have been
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on
You are still friends with
Submitted by AmyK on
To answer your questions AmyK
Submitted by EMUGrad1999 on