Pain - His or mine?

If a husband is motivated by his pain and not yours, then you’ve got to think through how to help him experience that pain—pain not caused by you, but as a consequence of his actions. This is such a crucial distinction: you are not to intentionally cause him pain; rather, you’re stopping your previous practice of rescuing him from the painful consequences of the foolish choices he is making.   ...Gary Thomas, Counselor.

WOW!  I have thought often about whether my H would be happier living with someone else.  Someone who knew how to handle/manage him. I had turned into a resentful complainer.  I thought that there must be someone out there who would have the right attitude, the right perspective the right "way to be" to be a complement to his life and "live happily ever after" with him.  I thought I just didn't know how to BE with him.  At the core of that belief, that there is someone out there who could do better than me with him, is this -  That he must feel the consequence of his actions.  Not my punishments or my criticisms but the pain of the consequence of his actions.

I know that this is the panacea of many of us spouses of analyzing and chaos and desires.   That the ADDer become aware and changes.  We can't make them change.  But we don't have to rescue them from their own pain of their actions.   We don't have to be the fall guy for everyone in the family.  We don't have to hush it up, dress it up or put up with things that are unacceptable.  We can structure our family to turn things around so that the criminal feels the pain of his own crime.  So that the children and wife do not have to feel the pain of a parent's irresponsibility/name calling/verbal blaming. But step outside the cycle of enablement and silence and let the blowout happen.

How do we do that?  I'm working on that.