I am a 56-year old widow (7 years) and was engaged to a 55-year-old widower (2 years) who recently told me that he is just too busy to get married on September 27th as planned. All of the signs of ADD/HD are there - and since he stopped the clock, I have learned much more.
A bit of background - he also has three children with ADD/HD, and two of them (twin 18-yo boys) are developmentally disabled and autistic. I know I have brought a great deal of stability into their lives and love them, but they definitely have issues with lashing out verbally and physically. Life would not be easy here.
I made an appointment for couples therapy, because he said he was too busy to go to a doctor/therapist - he finally agreed to go, but only after getting quite angry and saying he did not have time.
At this very moment he is downstairs working on taxes that must be paid by midnight tonight. I know he will be late, but since I checked in a half hour ago and found him trying to locate tickets for a musical with his daughter and "reminded" him - at least I think he is doing it now.
Part of me wants to run away. I feel guilty leaving but he has lied about things to cover his symptoms, spent enormous amounts of money I now know was money he did not have to spend... but I feel like the boys need me too. And how can I n he has agreed to go see someone?
Yet I am 56, and do not know if I can or should even try to walk into a hornet nest like this.
I have the option of going to stay at my son's home and relax and think for a week or two. It includes cuddle time with my little granddaughter.
Yet I feel I have a commitment to stay and get the boys ready for camp next week... I said I would.
How do I even begin to sort all this out?
Comments
can you do both?
My soul has dwelt too long with one who hates peace. Psalm 120:6
..." Well. I can only tell
..." Well. I can only tell you that you may risk disappearing as a person if you pursue a marriage into that situation"...........Standing, is correct in her statement here. My ADHD husband (very under-diagnosed and under-treated) and I married 31 years, have seen lots of years of "out of control" ADHD. He is just now getting used to the "idea" of reading about it, but he does take meds. The thing that happened to ME ALSO, was that I LOST myself during all these years. There is no dealing with it, if the ADHD person isn't actively engaged in treatment. While you are trying SO HARD to make things work, exhaustion sets in, your self esteem plummets, and you feel very much alone. I agree with Standing, to keep a safe distance until you REALLY know where you stand with this man, as well as him getting serious treatment.
Someone please tell me...
Is it right/fair/permissible for me in this situation to say "I can only stay in this situation if you commit to getting help, following your doctors' plan of treatment, and sticking with it"??? I know it sounds like an ultimatum (which I hate), but if he is not willing to commit to getting treatment, I do not believe there is any hope for our relationship... and I had best be making plans to extricate myself from this difficult situation. I have presented this to him and the answer was, "I have to do this for ME". I totally agree with that, and I KNOW that if he is not doing it FOR HIM, there is little chance that he'll follow through. Yet he has a strong history of NOT following through on some very important things (treatment plans for the boys, for example) when they proved difficult and time-consuming and required more consistency than he/his late wife were able to muster up.
Maybe I'm being unfair, and if so, I hope the wisdom of the group will tell me that.
As for me getting lost - it's already happening. The boys' needs exhaust me emotionally and physically, even with PCA's and para's and others to help. Dad's "stuff" just adds to this. Yet I feel that if Dad and I could be on the same page, and he could be consistently supportive and follow through, that would be much better. As it is, I feel very isolated. I'm new here and don't have friends/family nearby.
Fairness
My soul has dwelt too long with one who hates peace. Psalm 120:6
Eye roll (from the land of DeNial):
"I may have some of the symptoms, but it's not nearly as bad as you seem to think it is."
his view
My soul has dwelt too long with one who hates peace. Psalm 120:6
And now I find he's been cruising a dating site since May?
I was NOT nosing around - it was the kids' computer and I was doing some stuff with Net Nanny. Found that the pc had been used @ 11 pm one night to access a dating site. THEN I started nosing arouind, and lo and behold... I found a motherlode of stuff. We were engaged until the last week!!! I confronted him; he tried four different (and insane!) lies before he finally just said he was stupid and he was sorry.
This may be a symptom of ADD or it may not. At this point I don't think it matters any more. I don't think I could ever trust him again.