Forum topic: Is there hope?

We've suspected ADD since October, he was diagnosed (with ADD + depression) in December, started anti-depressants in March and tried an ADD med for a few days this month (made things worse )... We tried marriage counseling but were told that it didn't make a lot of sense until he had worked through some of his "stuff" first. So we're each going in individually. My counselor is nice but I think she's mostly dealt with ADHD in teens so she doesn't really understand what it's like to be married to someone... Reading "Is it You, Me or Adult ADD?" is the first time I really felt like I wasn't going crazy. That's where we're at now.

My question is how do I hold onto hope that this is going to get better? It was bad enough a year ago that I started thinking about leaving (something I never thought I would consider). I feel like I've been carrying the full weight of this and I'm not sure how much longer I can do it. Anytime someone says I need to take care of myself I just wonder how. Certain things need to happen: bills need to be paid, the children need to be taken care of, etc. With 2 under the age of 2 (and my DH feeling like a 3rd) I can't just shut down and take care of myself. If they both nap at the same time I might get an hour alone a day, but that seldom happens, and if it does I'm frantically doing bookwork or something. There was a comment in the book I mentioned above where the wife said people kept on telling her to let her husband take responsibility for things and see what happened. She said it was a nice idea to "let the poop hit the fan" but the problem was that it was her and the kids that got splattered. Not my favorite phrase, but it really describes how I feel. I can't just divide responsibilities up because if he doesn't feel like doing something if affects more than just him.

My DH is working at a temp job. He's been reprimanded for coming in dressed way too casually (if I had seen him before he left I would have said something) and he's told me that he spends a lot of time surfing the web at work (supposedly while he waits for the computer to complete a task but I can't imagine his employer would approve). So I'm lacking confidence that he can hold onto this job and he can't seem to motivate himself to start looking for something else since he has something now. I've done all the work of looking through job listings and sending him things that seem like possibilities but that doesn't help. I've even made specific times where he's at home with the computer and I'm out with the kids or they're sleeping so he can work on job apps but he just wastes the time. Some of this is probably non-ADD related laziness. Some of it is depression...

I know he struggles to stay engaged when he finds things boring. We only see him a few hours a day and most of the time I have to fight for his attention. Our son will be trying to play with him and he'll be lost in a book. I'll try to talk to him and he'll act like I'm really bothering him because he had to look up from his magazine. I feel like apologizing that we don't seem to be interesting enough for him to care... He told me once (over a year ago) that he felt "trapped" by marriage and fatherhood and that just keeps on coming back to me. I wonder if leaving would make him realize that he misses us, or if it would just give him what he actually wants?

The Dr he's seeing doesn't seem to know a lot about adult ADD. He told her the med didn't work and then has called back a few times but was only able to leave a message so nothing happened. He's unwilling to see someone else. His counselor as well is great with working through stuff from his past, but doesn't seem to really be working on the ADD side of things. I often feel like a single mother of 3 and I just don't know how much longer I can do that. I wanted marriage to be a partnership but when my DH is acting like a child most of the time (in the words of lady we were trying to see for marriage counseling) it just doesn't feel that way. I'm staying for the children and because I believe strongly that marriage is forever. I just want to be able to have hope that things will change.

Sorry that this is rambling... I just needed to be heard by someone who might understand and no one in my "real" life is in that position...