My ADHD husband is 58, recently diagnosed and now medicated with no improvement, only worse. I have already taken the decision to end the marriage but we have to live together until financials are sorted out.
He has told me within the last 6 months that he has had suicidal thoughts for most of his life (I was unaware of this) and last Christmas said to me "was I trying to get him to hurt me" and "are you trying to get me to kill myself". I appreciate this type of language is making him appear that his actions are the fault of someone else, like it's not him it's me (gaslighting) but the problem is that he is saying about killing himself to other people too, more that he has suicidal thoughts. When he does this they think that they are the only person he has shared this with whereas in reality, he says it to anyone that he has even a superficial friendship with.
My main concern is for the people he draws into this because they feel very burdened with this information and try to then give more time to him, one of the people has recently become a father for the second time and has many new commitments to think about and because they feel they are the only people with this knowledge, they feel they have a responsibility towards him which I feel is unreasonable of him. I honestly do not believe my husband has any intention of committing suicide, his doctor is aware and it has been on record apparently since he was a teenager but when I asked him if he had ever tried to kill himself, he said no.
I wandered if anyone else had any experience of this and could give me some advice on how best to handle it and what to tell him when he seems to want to draw others into this.
if I genuinely thought there was a risk to him and he had the intention of doing this, I would immediately seek medical help. I honestly believe it's just something he's saying.