Hi all,
I have posted a few times over the years regarding our various struggles as a couple and for my ADHD husband. We have been together for 17 years.
This makes me so sad. I'm spending yet another Christmas alone because my ADD husband screamed at me, slammed the door in my face and left for a day. We live with his parents due to poverty, and I'm disabled living without teeth or denture (I need a bone graft we can't afford to wear a denture). I'm in a foreign country, unfamiliar state, can't really even walk far or get anywhere without help, and my inlaws don't really like me (they don't appreciate that I keep asking their son to get treatment because his ADD is "not a big deal", according to them.
It's been a while since I posted. Been having quite a hard time recently in my relationship. I am now married (2 yes) but things not going well. I have ADHD my partner does not. She is extremely supportive nearly all the time but there are certain things I cannot bear at all and my being unable to bear them is really causing problems. These are issues for when medicated and uneducated but without drugs I just can't *do* anything about them.
Could you guys help me (us) out???
BOTH of us are diagnosed with ADHD AND Depression. Both of us hate chores. Both of us resent each other for it. Our house is a mess - fleas, fruit flies, dirty dishes everywhere, laundry piled knee-high on the floor of the closet..... etc. It's a disaster. We ended up having to give our dog to my mom bc neither of us would remember to take him out, and he would always be getting into the trash or something and we just couldn't handle that AND our depression at the same time. We still have the two cats.
H hasn't been to work all week. He's been too into his video game to leave the house. I sent a message to H about whether he was at work and he sent me a frowny face. Day 3 of not working. Then he tells me "I've been looking for a temp job." Okay here we go again. I say "What kind?" He goes "Leaving options open. There's a couple of restaurants looking for cooks and asst cooks. Might be time to learn something new." Great! You'll go and work at a restaurant with crappy hours probably making minimum wage.
Does anyone else have a spouse who is constantly asking why? Most of the time it is in reference to something I don't want to do or that makes me uncomfortable, and not anything that directly relates to him. The answer of, because I don't want to or it makes me uncomfortable is never enough. It has to be explained in detail and gets worried like a dog with a bone. If I try to help him understand why, well then all of the reasons are argued against like my being comfortable or not with something is up for negotiation.
I recently told my husband that unless he was willing to talk more honestly with me about issues that our marriage has been dealing with for the last two decades, that I did not see any hope in us continuing to move forward. I thought about divorce every day for the last 20 years and because of his ongoing mental issues it is a very real reality that I will most likely be forced to deal with in the next couple of years. My husband is a very good man, but is extremely childish and immature just like many of the other husbands that deal with ADHD. He is basically an eternal child.
I have been reading a bit lately about ADHD and this idea of how it is hidden compared to a person with some more obvious disability. I find the comparison to a blind person to be particularly amusing and misplaced because ...
After running into a couple walls a blind person would no longer deny the problem.
In my experience that is simply untrue of an ADHD person. Instead, the ADHD person rationalizes their predicament by claiming they are not running into the same walls so that is somehow different.
Sunday afternoon H was making soup. He was in a great mood. He had cooked down a pork roast in a pan and then put it in the pot with some stock. He then went and took a shower because we were expecting guests. Well I see dirty dishes in the sink and put them in the dishwasher. I see the pan he used to cook the roast sitting on the stove so I wash that too. Big mistake! He comes out of the shower and sees that I washed the pan and gets mad saying "WHY did you wash the pan? I use that to cook the vegetables because it gives them a good flavor. You did this last time too!
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The ADHD Effect on Marriage was listed in Huff Post as a top book that therapists suggest all couples should read.
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