So it's been a "hell" of a week for me.... but the trigger wasn't my spouse, its my mother and my unfortunate knowledge of how much of a co-dependant I've become and this has transferred to my marriage. Essentially my mother left me a 26 min voicemail that unsettled me so much Im now realising it affected EVERYTHING this week. And now my husband has disappointed me today (again. This is a daily occurance) and I find myself in a victim spiral that I now know is part of what is feeding my "need to be needed" co-dependancy traits.... and I want out of the spiral and not sure how to get myself out of it. 

How do yall ride this wave? When you're triggered by something that you're trying to work on/doing thr work and BAM it just spills to everything and you've started picking at everyone around you and being frustrated by every. Single. Thing. 

I cant fix my marriage at this exact point, I can't leave right now, I'm trying to pull myself into the moment bc I'm missing out on good things and life bc im so clouded with bitterness and anger towards a woman that is definitely a narcissist and undiagnosed mental illness...all while being in a house wirh a husband and marriage that is teetering on a cliff and about to go smashing to the ground. 

I just don't know what to do and how to unravel some of the cyclone that is happening in my own brain - basically do things that are in my control. Anyone feel this way and what did u do to get our of this spiral??? 

Hi everyone hope this is the right place. I'm looking for some help. My marriage is at breaking point at this moment in time. When I first meet my partner she had undiagnosed ADHD and her son also ( he was 3 at the time ) . Jump a few years ahead and they were both diagnosed with combined ADHD. We now have a child together now so their are 4 of us. 
 

Last week my wife wanted to talk and said that she wanted to separate because she was fantasising about someone she see on our holiday in September and she said it didn't feel right being together at this moment in time. She said she didn't know if it was something she wanted or a phase of her ADHD that she had previously had in the past. She said she has masterbated over him 3 times since we have been back. Once as soon as we arrived home which she thought nothing off it. Then twice just over a week ago. She didn't want to keep it from me that's why she told me so she could try and figure this out.
 

For the past 5 years I have struggled with her son ( my none biological son ) and he's ADHD. She has nagged me over the years to sort myself out and give him the care that he needs. I would be ok for a few weeks then would go back to normal telling him off and not giving him the proper care a child with ADHD needed and treated him like a child without ADHD as I have 3 other children from a previous relationship.

The last two days I have listen to both of Melissa's books. I can resonate with nearly everything in the books to my wife parenting me etc and one story that upset me so much because it describe everything my wife has said to me about the way I have been by not doing as much housework etc and pulling my weigh and leaving her to deal with everything. I believe that I too may have ADHD but only the inattentive type. But listening to these has made me realise that I now at 36 know myself. Because Iv just been plodding through life and accepting everyday for what it is.
 

When speaking to my wife about it she just says you probably don't have it you just show some symptoms and seems annoyed that I'm hyperfocusing on the issue. 

I don't know what to do to try and save my marriage because it seems that I'm trying and after a week my wife is getting cross and annoyed at me for trying to talk to her about it. Which I though she would of been caring and helpful over this but she has been the opposite.

What happen's to the nervous system of adults who allow the living of lives, not their own, to have a repeated negative impact on themselves? People who we chose, by association, (spouse, parent, child, friend) to engage with, who's words, and behaviors a lot of the time can be wrong, intrusive, abusive, but are excused, justified, and for the most part never truly owned, and may be delivered w/o remorse, or apology?

There are many symptom's we can experience by choosing to stay in, and engage with, this type mind and this type environment...After being married for 30 years and finding my self widowed...This current 16 year marriage has caused much pain for me...Especially in the first 5 years, before acceptance or her reality, and boundaries were placed on myself....A few things I experienced in those first 5 years....Anger, (felt lied to!) walking on egg shells in an attempt to avoid RSD flare ups, a constant fight inside me, attempting to ward off being used, controlled, or manipulated, dreams that I was drowning right off the edge of a shoreline w/ people all around, but, no one could hear my cries for help!

The past 12 years the self centeredness of her life has more and more taken her into the private and independent life she demands...Where the only thing her action's show I matter to her about is things like: My faithfulness to the responsibilities of life,....(Bill's paid, meals, cleaning, someone to ask for favors when irresponsibility catches up w/ her....Nursing her through trauma and injury when her thrill seeking mind, gets her injured...etc...

Why do I stay? Well I have stayed because one of us was married....So why did I file for a divorce recently? For me, it came down to who is benefiting from us living in the same house, and what about this relationship is God honoring? The answer from a God honoring perspective is, no one....There is no submission to the gospel lived out by her...Only selfish and independent desires, which has always been the next shiny thing the world has to offer her mind...So when there is no conviction of heart to love and discipline one's self to honor their vow's, then there is nothing honorable being lived out....Takes 2, always has, always will...

She also has been living 4 years or so in the guest room, and thinks it's perfectly fine to use my faithfulness and efforts like she is on a permanent vacation...So the paperwork of the Divorce, is nothing more than than placing her in the reality of her chosen life style...

After 15 plus years (I asked her to move back to her empty house in May 2024, she refused, so I filed for divorce in Nov. after she showed very little progress in moving out) I found myself in strange water's...I was done, my heart was broken, I have experienced a lot of anxiety, loneliness, and abandonment...I'm an HSP, and I love deeply....I'm not looking to marry again...But, I'm not ever going to allow someone to force me to live out the day's the Father allows me as recluse...There are to many responsible and kind people who just need a friend to share in times of their life....And even if I live as a recluse, it will be by choice, not at the hands of an uncaring person....

Blessings friends...

c

I would love to know how many non-ADHD spouses have been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder.

A few years ago, when we as a family were going through a terribly difficult time, I decided to get help for my spiralling anxiety. Turns out I've suffered with it much longer than I realised. I'm doing much much better, but sometimes I still get it thrown in my face that my anxiety is also difficult to live with, usually as a retort to when I say how much I'm battling to cope with 2 ADHDers in the household. Once, my husband actually spoke to my father about it, and my father said oh don't worry, she's always been like that. 

Well guess what. My father and sister had raging, undiagnosed and untreated ADHD, and my mother distanced herself as she too wasn't coping with the chaos. So, from very young, I become a hyper-responsible, super independent and capable person, to mitigate for the damage around me. Of course no one understood the dynamics back then, but it's pretty much textbook stuff.

So, do you think that ending up with an anxiety disorder is at the very least related to, if not actually caused by, living in a dysfunctional ADHD home? And if so, do ADHDers (yes I'm also asking those on the site with the condition), ever see the link? For me, it seems my anxiety would be much reduced if I didn't have to be on high alert all the time to manage our lives in the hopes of reducing the negative effects (on all of us) of ADHD - especially unmanaged ADHD. And yes, people say just let go. But honestly, financially and legally, I can't just let go on some things, because my hypervigilant brain tends to be able to see potential bad consequences of bad decisions, as well as their costs, and I cannot afford this anymore, on any level.

Curiously awaiting your responses!