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by: sickandtired -
“I'm craving sex and intimacy with my wife constantly. In addition to that craving, I find myself becoming angry at my wife for seemingly refusing to make any attempt to improve our sex life together.”>>> on Forum topic - Coping with anger at a sexless marriage despite treating ADHD as best as I can
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by: sickandtired -
I’m sure your wife can sense your growing anger and resentment about living in a sexless marriage…. unless she’s in a coma. If you want intimacy in a committed relationship with your spouse and not just sex, why would you tell us you are considering going outside the marriage for sex???? Please stop with the personal insults like calling me a liar and accusing me of gaslighting. Quit gaslighting yourself. The truth is that you just don’t like what I’m telling you. If this is how you argue with your...>>> on Forum topic - Coping with anger at a sexless marriage despite treating ADHD as best as I can
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by: honestly -
That rather confirms my instincts. You won’t get back to a satisfying sex life while she’s still seething. That’s where the work has to go; dispelling her anger, making her feel happy and relaxed and trusting. And that really has to be about her, and the two of you as a couple, not as parents or householders. Good luck.>>> on Forum topic - Coping with anger at a sexless marriage despite treating ADHD as best as I can
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by: sickandtired -
Can’t you see that she can sense your anger? You can’t “stifle it”, it’s obvious to us who are complete strangers. Your wife can definitely sense your anger, simmering just under the surface, ready to explode if she says or does the wrong thing. You need to focus on addressing your anger, not just stuffing it. It still bleeds through into everything you’re trying to accomplish. Also, personal insults like a jab about “reading comprehension” shows that you’re not willing to actually face your...>>> on Forum topic - Coping with anger at a sexless marriage despite treating ADHD as best as I can
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by: sickandtired -
You want sex, and you’re so angry you’re not getting it from your wife, that you said you are thinking about getting it elsewhere. Your wife is not a machine who can stuff her feelings and have sex if she’s not comfortable, she’s obviously not getting her emotional needs met, but you are blaming us for telling you like it is from the wife’s point of view. You need to look at YOURSELF instead of blaming us for not telling you what you want to hear. You act like none of us have feelings. Women were not...>>> on Forum topic - Coping with anger at a sexless marriage despite treating ADHD as best as I can
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by: sickandtired -
You said yourself that whatever you’re doing is not working with your wife. So you need to do something different. If you react to your wife like you’re reacting to us, you will find it very hard to make any progress. As a woman, I can tell you there is no bigger turnoff than a man angrily demanding sex.>>> on Forum topic - Coping with anger at a sexless marriage despite treating ADHD as best as I can
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by: sickandtired -
You need to recognize your symptoms right here. You are assuming we are dismissing you when we are trying to tell you the hard truth. You don’t want to hear the truth, while asking us why your wife is not responding the way you want her to. Swedish said you need to be patient. You really do need to work on that. Life does not run according to your timeline. Other people have feelings besides you. If you want to know where your wife is coming from you need to listen to us. We are not here to enable you...>>> on Forum topic - Coping with anger at a sexless marriage despite treating ADHD as best as I can
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by: sickandtired -
This angry response to Swedish’s heartfelt answer to your question is the root of your problem. You are dismissing what she has to say, becoming very defensive, and becoming angry at a total stranger who is only trying to help you. She has lived the life your wife has. So have I. Why do we even try to help others when they think they already know it all??? You asked for feedback, and now that you’ve got it, you’re angry. Your anger is blinding you to the truth of your situation.>>> on Forum topic - Coping with anger at a sexless marriage despite treating ADHD as best as I can
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by: sickandtired -
It’s been a while since I’ve seen one of your posts. I hope you are doing well. Nice to hear from you, but I hope you’re not beating yourself up over not doing those things. I did all of those things, but it did not help me or the situation. I spoke up. He would argue literally for HOURS. I was not nice. I stood my ground, but he would just steamroll over me. I quit doing things for him, but he still did nothing to help himself or help our situation. I fought back. I agree with you that fighting is...>>> on Forum topic - I wish I woulda________.
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by: StayHopeful -
Unfortunately for both of us, I can absolutely identify with what you're going through. Due to the very longstanding issues in our marriage (my ADHD being a larger part than I realized), intimacy sometimes feels like a distant memory. That being said, I arrived here after reading "The ADD effect on marriage" as well as several other books. Each has been useful and enlightening in there own way, even as they have been difficult to read sometimes as they shine a light on things I have not been...>>> on Forum topic - Coping with anger at a sexless marriage despite treating ADHD as best as I can
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by: Swedish coast -
I didn’t mean to be hurtful. I know just how painful this can be for both parties. Not being able to embrace the other’s reality goes both ways, I think, and is in a way natural when perception differs a lot between partners. I mainly meant perhaps it’s not doable. No blame intended. Wishing you all the best.>>> on Forum topic - Coping with anger at a sexless marriage despite treating ADHD as best as I can
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by: honestly -
I think you may have identified the one thing that will help. My kids are also neurodiverse tho ndx, (q. autism, inattentive adhd) and my dog is a nervous rescue who barks her head off when stressed. We split. Things are so much easier. For me and for the kids. And, for that matter, the dog.>>> on Forum topic - Neurospicy house
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by: Swedish coast -
To solve this, you’ll need to embrace her reality fully. To me it sounds you’re not capable of that. It doesn’t surprise me. Neither did my ADD ex. He was preoccupied with feeling unloved and unwanted. He thought that was the problem, rather than that I was suffering and exhausted after years of his untreated ADD. We are now divorced.>>> on Forum topic - Coping with anger at a sexless marriage despite treating ADHD as best as I can
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by: honestly -
you did ask what you can do. And we don’t know your wife, so it’s hard to say what will help her specifically, but there are so may repeated patterns across ADHD marriages so I’m going to give a few suggestions re what might have helped me and staved off our split. Accept that it will take time. It took time for things to get this bad; it will take time for them to get better. Listen to her. Initiate opportunities for her to express her distress over the past and explore that with her. Don...>>> on Forum topic - Coping with anger at a sexless marriage despite treating ADHD as best as I can
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by: honestly -
Have you perhaps conflated your partner’s needs with your shared responsibilities? My ex thought that in doing stuff that contributed to the household’s running, he was doing stuff for me. He was never able to see that I had needs separate from my need for him to contribute, as a fellow parent, adult and wage earner, to a shared responsibility.>>> on Forum topic - Coping with anger at a sexless marriage despite treating ADHD as best as I can
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by: honestly -
I get why you feel angry - you’re doing the work, it should fix the problem. Me and my ex were in this state before we split. He had been diagnosed about a year, he was taking the meds, taking on some more chores. Trouble was, I felt so emotionally battered and exhausted by the previous years, so let down and lonely that it was impossible to reconnect with him - especially as he wanted rewards and praise for stepping up and doing the bare minimum (not being angry at me for no reason, some cooking and...>>> on Forum topic - Coping with anger at a sexless marriage despite treating ADHD as best as I can
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by: Swedish coast -
You can’t expect her to reward you with sex for not hurting her as much anymore. You need to make her feel good - relaxed, interested, happy - for her to want intimacy with you.>>> on Forum topic - Coping with anger at a sexless marriage despite treating ADHD as best as I can
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by: Swedish coast -
The ADHD person seems to often overlook their part of relationship dynamics entirely. Your standards will always be too high - meaning impossible and insulting to them. How you overwork to compensate for their dysfunction may make them feel ashamed, however since shame is something they need to avoid at all costs, they may make an alternative narrative that makes it go away. The ADHD in itself and it’s importance may be denied. They in short want to view the world from their viewpoint and...>>> on Forum topic - This is hard
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by: jennalemone -
"....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.>>> on Forum topic - He blames me
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by: honestly -
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...>>> on Forum topic - He blames me
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