So I finally met my severe ADD ex at the counselor’s, 18 months after divorce. We hadn’t spoken since he moved out.
The saddest at the meeting was that we both grieve so much. Both loved the other. Both would have wanted the relationship to last.
I struggle to accept the truth, that we can’t agree on anything beyond that. He doesn’t validate my experience of our last years together, he insists the main problem was he felt unloved and unwanted. I was exhausted, doing it all and worrying sick about him. In my understanding, untreated severe ADD caused his anxiety and depression. He blames me for the illness and pretends ADD wasn’t important. He claims I made him suicidal. How he’s subsequently treated me has taken quite a toll on my general health and I’ve been hurting terribly for two years, which he has done nothing about due to inertia. It makes me nauseous and I almost threw up at the counselor’s. She offered a bucket.
At the meeting, however, it seemed like he did understand some of my woes. He also seemed to take some responsibility for them. But as I’ve seen countless times, he often gives the impression of agreeing on things in the moment to please somebody (the counselor?) but later denies it. There have never been consistent agreements, they slide with shame. Perhaps I had a false hope of being understood. I left just as raw with pain as I came. The memories of the meeting are chaotic and hurtful.
He’s ruined my trust, my health, my sense of security. I know I have to accept it and move on, but right now I’m frozen in pain and disbelief. It’s like a nightmare, and there’s no waking up.
He’d said he wants a friendly and casual coparent arrangement, but at the end of the meeting I suppose he’d lost hope of it, seeing the state I was in. He has the face of somebody I’ve loved half my life. And he seems out of his mind. There is no discernible logic behind his words or actions, except that of avoiding fear and shame. He’ll twist reality to whatever shape to avoid it.
How does one accept this and move on? It would have been easier if I didn’t still feel bound to him by a thousand imperceptible threads of loyalty and intimacy. He was the love of my life, ally and closest friend. He cried, and I knew he longed for me, as I longed for him. He decided to sacrifice me rather than admit his mind is fried.
It’s also disturbing he’s a mental health expert. It makes the loss of trust worse, I think. He’s so terribly weak, still frightening. And speaking with the voice of authority, he still can’t persuade me to believe him.
Comments
I'm so sorry
Ah Swedish, I can read and feel your pain. It still feels so raw even after 18 months. I wish so much peace and happiness to come your way and it sounds like you're in survival mode consistently. And it's not healthy (but we already know that!) But it's so so hard to be in.
If there's any way that you can find a way to completely cut him out for a while even to just to give yourself some time to heal? It might not be feasible but I read your posts and comments and they are often brighter when you've had time away from your ex and have been able to tend to yourself. You deserve so much better. I do too. But it's so hard to believe it in our guts.
I’m so sorry
Your words really convey how much pain you’re feeling. It’s heartbreaking. Especially ‘he has the face of someone I’ve loved half my life.’ The impression I’ve formed of my ex is that he is in fact two separate people - maybe this is masking in operation- one who can be reasonable and calm with other people, and when, say, communicating with me by text. But then, when with me in person, the full chaos monster emerges: lazy, self-serving, prickly, thoughtless, rude. I think maybe they project this idea of what they’re like, controlling the other side, and we fall for the idea. But the other side is always there too, Hyde-like, and it gets more powerful or over time they stop bothering to even try and control it; so we do and did love them, but the Dr Jeckyll and not the Mr Hyde.
So true
Your words ring so true Honesty, so true.
And it also tickles me we both had the same title. You're our sister from another mister
weirdly
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Thank you both
Jekyll and Hyde is the perfect allegory.
I’m so glad you’re here and make me and my confusion and pain seem logical.
Thank you Off the Roller and Honestly.
I kept a diary
an on off kind of thing. Admittedly when things were at their worst, and I needed to get my head together. My now ex once told me, my diary reminds me, that he dreaded our son getting together with someone like me.
Someone like me who supported her partner through multiple health crises and work crises and paid the bills and put food on the table for a decade. Who he ignored and blamed and forgot and prioritised others over time and time again.
Someone like me who’s supported this same son through his mental health crises and who now seems to be coming out of them entirely now the split has enabled him to get perspective on his dad’s double standards and rudeness and inconsistency. The boy had blamed himself. He no longer does.
Funnily enough I don’t want to be with him. Weirdly, even though I am cleary awful, he still wants to be with me. Rereading and reminding myself of the real him and the self-serving chaos monster that he is helps so much.
Maybe you have a diary? Maybe you could start one now to help future you. Xx
Swedish, yes, you say it well.
"....I feel bound to him by a thousand imperceptible threads of loyalty and intimacy. He was the love of my life, ally and closest friend."
This is exactly where I had been. Swedish, you said it so eloquently.
Also, in a previous post, Swedish, you mentioned your dh would say, "I'm workin' on it." I heard that phrase a thousand times. He would say it in an angry voice, like I was a his task master while I was just asking a natural question between two partners. Conversation over.