I had been gone for three days at a workshop. I phoned him I would be home at 6:30 pm. It is after 11pm now. I have been home for over three hours. He wasn't home when I got here but when he came home he went to the garage. He is sitting in the garage "putzing" with I don't know what, without eating dinner. Not coming in the house. I am always the one to initiate every conversation. I am the one to try to communicate. He just doesn't participate. I feel like a fool. I feel hated. I feel alone and lonely. I am frustrated. I am going to bed. He didn't come in to say hello or eat dinner. How does a person know if it is ADD or hatred or selfishness or rudeness? My mind starts guessing, Is he hiding something? Is he feeling guilty about something and doesn't want to face me? Does he not want to talk to me? I can't even imagine doing something like that to even someone I wasn't married to much less the person I promised to love. If someone I lived with even casually was gone for three days and came home, I would acknowledge that they came home. I wouldn't forego dinner and ignore them so rudely. Thanks for listening. It helps to have a place to let someone know I am going through this. You could say, why don't you go out to the garage to talk to him? I have done that for 35 years. I feel unloved and like a fool that I have to do that all the time and that he can sit there - what, obstinate or clueless? I don't know, but it is weird and rude.
When he came in he went downstairs and ignored me. When I went downstairs and asked what he was doing in the garage all that time, he said he had to get the recycling done so he didn't have to do it tomorrow. When I asked why he didn't come in for dinner, he said because he wasn't hungry. I had not seen him for over 3 days, he didn't come to talk to me because he was "too busy" (taking appart appliances in our attached garage - recycling). It is too odd.
I have often thought to
Submitted by PoisonIvy on
I have often thought to myself that I am more considerate of and helpful to people who I don't like than my husband typically is to me.
The workshop...
Submitted by YYZ on
I'm sorry, but I cannot remember if your husband has been diagnosed or on meds for ADD. Your questions could have many answers, he could have done something he feels guilty about, he could feel guilty for something he did that he did not realize was hurtful to you until it came to light, the longer the lack of communication goes, the harder it is to start communicating, because feeling the pressure to begin communicating causes me Extreme anxiety because if my first attempt sounds to trivial I can get blasted for the initial subject matter. Starting a conversation when there is no immediate topic the begin with makes you try to figure out Why conversation has ceased and that is not easy to define and really hard to begin a conversation about. In my pre-diagnosis days, like you I'm sure, she had to initiate all important conversations and she is sick of it. After diagnosis I can communicate much better, but I'm still pretty new at this and it is not easy to start productive talks, especially if my method of breaking the ice causes "The Look" and a nice ice cold comment which pisses me off, of course, and further stalls communication. This is just my situation, of course... As far as doing things in the workshop, he may feel that he is working on things that need to be done, so he might think this is okay. This is classic ADD of course, avoiding conflict with you, and in his mind justifying the zero communication by working on things that need to be done. These things can of course be things so far off your priority list that you think WTH?!?
I could be wrong, of course, but I was using my own pre-diagnosis behaviors as my ADD model. I hope things improve for you...