I am a 41 year old female married for 19 years, i have not been diagnosed officially, and my husband has been committing financial and emotional abuse the entire time, and deception takes two. I can tell you the whole story from my slanted view, but i really need help with what he just did yesterday.
I wrote him another long letter explaining how he is keeping bills and information about our finances out of my reach, i wrote a list of things we needed to do to get out of debt. the last two on the list went in this order. 9. if i feel that you are currently deceiving me, omitting withholding information, ect that I will leave. Our trash guy didnt pick up the trash that day, he told me he paid them 2 weeks ago, it was a mixup at their office, that they would pick it up the next day. We sat up till midnight, made a list of financial goals had some great sex after weeks of anger and resentment, and we went to bed.
So as the afternoon dragged on the next day, i realized the trash was still out, so i called them. I was so embarrassed, ya he paid the minimum over a month ago, our account is past due, the bill is due every other month. So its not even that hard to keep track of.
He lied about something so trivial, and he fully had the opportunity to tell me the night before, while we were being honest?
Oh and by the way he has done this to me over and over again, we have been bankrupt, evicted with a newborn, left rent due and bills from the town that we left for his "new start."
How did I let this happen? Its a slow death, you start out telling them over and over, then your end up obsessed with trying to fix them, then you forget yourself and your own needs to deal with constant chaos. I always smoked pot, its helped so much with the adhd, but for a time I was using it to cover up my feelings of hopelessness and numb out the needs I was never going to get. It is a horrible cycle i got caught in for far to long. His financial lies has led to me avoiding doctors, he always works for small companies, and he has let medical bills pile up to where both our credit scores are shot. I have been a stay at home mom for the last 9 years, and my mental issues have went through the roof, at one point i actually believed I was manic or bi-polar. He doesnt take care of me emotionally, he enables me and avoids dealing with our relationship issues. He has always been a very, very nice guy. After he screws up he goes into fix it mode, all of a sudden he is looking up finance and marital things on the web and expects my full support.
So what happens is I take over the finances, I get everything in order and make a plan. A few months into it, i get sick, or I get a phone call, bill, my period hits, or i find information that he has omitted, I have another mental breakdown, I mean he informed me in the hospital while holding my son, that we had no place to live. that was 2010. I finally realized i have adhd, i cant keep the house up, I feel like I have to worry about everything by myself, and I cant get better in this environment. But im completely broken at this point and need counciling and help to clear my head from this shame and guilt I feel for allowing the deception..
I feel I am not strong enough emotionally, or financially to leave, on top of that they guy I am describing, only I know. Everyone else thinks my husband is this great guy married to a crazy lady, poor guy. I have no one to go to, and I grew up with functioning abusivie alcoholic parents. So I was literally trained for this type of relationship, before I even met him. I have always been insightful, but with add thats as far as it goes. The one thing I have to do is get in to see a doctor about my adhd, I think with a small amount of medicine, huge improvements could happen. He is awake now with that sad look on his face, here we go again. Anyone who can relate please tell me what I should do? I cant find a single adhd woman on here who's husband might also have add, and what to do if its making you want to end your life.
jenn
Financial deception
Submitted by Cmp on
Dear Jen:
I am not a woman with ADHD but I am a woman who was married to a financially irresponsible man for 16 years. What brings me to these forums is my ADHD boyfriend, who can also be fiscally irresponsible but fortunately he realizes this and takes his counsel from me. But enough about that.
I will preface what I am about to say with this: I believe in marriage. I believe in working things out.
But what I believe in more is living in peace. Not jumping every time the phone rings or someone knocks on the door. Not dreading going to the mailbox. It wasn't until I separated from my husband that I was able to achieve this.
My husband - even when we had the money to pay a bill - would pay it late. I could have wallpapered the rooms in our home red with all the disconnection threat notices I have received while living with him. He would get himself in so much trouble that he was forced to reestablish an account in my name--- unknown to me, naturally--- and then screw that one up too. When I threw him out I was on the verge of foreclosure, verge of having my electric and gas shut off and all my household bills months in arrears. Because he's such a thoughtful guy, he also drained our joint account and *my* personal account of money, to the point of writing fraudulent checks off my account (he's had never been an authorized signatory on it). What a prince.
And of course, he was out of work. I was the only one bringing in an income and it was an income which could not support my family and our home. In addition to working full time I was going to school full time. And I was in my early 40s at the time.
Jenn, let me tell you, the day I threw his sorry butt out was simultaneously the scariest and most exhilarating day of my life. My ship might be sinking, but at least from this point forward, it was going to sink because I knew why it was sinking and not because I was kept in the dark and being fed BS all the time. My big ship DID in fact sink, but what I learned was that I didn't need a big ship. There wasn't any question i was going to lose the house, but I knew I had a little bit of time on my side so I banked the house payments. I rented a room to some friends and banked that too. I tried to sell the home in short sale, but planned hell or high water to move the following summer. My realtor said I was crazy - "you have at least two years before they evict". But it wasn't about that for me, it was about not fearing that knock, that phone call, that trip to the mailbox. I made my plan and followed it. I swallowed my pride and accepted help from any source that offered it. I "snowballed" the debts he left me, with the exception of the house, and paid them off and paid everything on time---- with the exception of one lone gas bill in his name. After learning from a very sympathetic-but-unable-to-help-me representative that i could not establish the account in my on name because he had closed it in mine with a huge unpaid balance, she did tell me that the current bill was behind but not terribly so and if it was kept up to date, she saw no reason why it could not stay in the current bill owner's name. (My husband was headed to jail at that point and couldn't contest). So, I left it in his name and because he had so kindly always paid that bill short and late--- the only utility that reported to the credit bureau, thank you jerk--- I returned the favor and did the exact same thing to him. :)
This is far longer than I had planned but I am getting to my point. You are raising a child and this child is looking to you for guidance and support. You need to pull yourself up and get treatment for yourself and you need to dump this jerk. What finally got me to do it was asking myself this question--- I have two now-teen aged daughters who were pre-teens at the time:
Is this the lesson I wish to teach to my children? By accepting this from him what you are teaching your daughter (if you have one) is "This is how you should expect to be treated by a man." Is this the lesson you want her to learn? If you have a son, you are teaching him "This is the way you treat a woman." In both cases you are teaching "Living in constant anxiety over your financial life is perfectly normal and how you can expect to live as an adult."
You see, the way a baseline of normal is established is to live it on a repeated basis. If every morning you arrive in a child's room, wake him up and hand him a Hershey's kiss, then that is what he will believe is "normal" because that is what he grew up with. He will be shocked later to learn not everyone gets one. I remember I went to school with a girl who had a father who made her breakfast every morning. She was shocked to learn my dad - and indeed nearly all the other dads- did not do this. Her dad making her daily breakfast (usually pancakes - isn't that sweet?) was her "normal".
So you are teaching your child(ren) that living on the verge of financial ruin is normal. Is that what you want? No. So you must change it and if your husband can't get on board, then you have decide what is more important, your marriage or raising kids in a home of peace.
My wake-up call came to me in watching some stupid television program and hearing a mother/daughter being interviewed, seeing the mom make terrible mistakes and the daughter follow right in her footsteps and me thinking "well, duh, of course that's what the daughter is doing, that's what she's been taught by her mom" and then the Fates, my guardian angel or the Universe whispering in my ear "well, missy, what do you think YOU'RE doing?!?" It was like a cold bucket of water over my head.
Like the flight attendants tell us "place the mask firmly over your own face, then help those around you". Get your mask on. Make a plan. Move on. if your husband is a good guy and smart, he will see you moving on without him, not want to be left behind and run to catch up. And if not-- well... what are you really missing then? I don't recall anything in the vows that said "You must commit to a life of misery and ruin the lives of generations after you in order to stay with this fool who doesn't cherish you enough to make some changes."
You give great advice! I'm
Submitted by on the edge on
You give great advice! I'm sorry that you had to go through so much to get to that point.
My ADD husband has a good job and we really should have a lot in savings but he's an impulsive buyer and can't manage money very well. Someone asked me if I would be ok financially after our divorce and I said yes, and in a way I'll be in a better position. I won't have to worry about money be spent frivolously.
My wake-up call came to me in watching some stupid television program and hearing a mother/daughter being interviewed, seeing the mom make terrible mistakes and the daughter follow right in her footsteps and me thinking "well, duh, of course that's what the daughter is doing, that's what she's been taught by her mom" and then the Fates, my guardian angel or the Universe whispering in my ear "well, missy, what do you think YOU'RE doing?!?" It was like a cold bucket of water over my head.
That's something that I've brought up with my therapist. I don't want my daughter to think this is normal. As it is, her normal is that daddy will skip family outings because it's not something that interests him and sleep until 2 p.m. on Saturdays and not help around the house.
I think I want to make a pillow with this on it: I don't recall anything in the vows that said "You must commit to a life of misery and ruin the lives of generations after you in order to stay with this fool who doesn't cherish you enough to make some changes." It's something I should have listened to years ago.