Hi everyone,
This is my first post though I have read through many of the posts in these forums. I had a huge post that just got eaten somehow, so this one will be much more brief...
Just for some quick background, my husband and I have read the ADHD Effect on Marriage and it described our marriage perfectly. He is in the process of getting a diagnosis/treatment right now, but it takes a little time with his insurance. I am feeling overwhelmed as I take care of nearly everything, including our 3 year old child, all the time, though he doesn't understand or recognize that. (When we fight, he says I "don't support him" which I do not know how to respond to). I feel like I am drowning in all this responsibility and I want to step back from it but I'm not sure how. (There is ample evidence in our past that when I leave him responsible for something it falls apart, though I am hoping this will improve with treatment). If I don't want to take on his problems, he accuses me of only thinking about myself. It hurts me and leaves me feeling bewildered because I've done nothing BUT take care of all his problems for the last 10 years.
I just want to know how you manage to talk about these issues without anger or blame or judgment? I DO feel anger and I DO feel judgment when it seems as though he is unwilling to recognize the sheer amount of work I do to keep our lives afloat. However, I want to talk constructively in order to change things, not throw around blame. How do I approach this topic? Will things get any better when he is receiving treatment?
Thank you for any suggestions or insight you might have.
JM
might have small improvement,
Submitted by lovehurtsalotwi... on
but not guaranteed that he would change completely with meds it's not a magic pill, only him willing to make change for himself first.My ADHD husband never took meds and do not believe in them that's why today we are not together because his sickness took him over,but I am not here to discourage you.I can advice you to go to the communication caper in Melissa Orlov's book and read it again and maybe you can use the tools there to help you relate your feelings to him and to understand the ADHD reactions and thinking.
good luck.
from:lovehurts.
I recommend counseling for
Submitted by dazedandconfused on
I recommend counseling for you both. It's extraordinarily hard to talk about things like this when there is so much emotion behind it. Having a mediator present is a huge help. My ADHD husband and I didn't make any progress in our marriage until we sought out a counselor. Nine months down the road, we're still at it, we still have a ways to go, but we've come a LONG way. There are still bad days/weeks, times when I want to throw in the towel, but we're still trying to make it work.
As a warning, even if your husband gets diagnosed and treated, it's not a magical silver bullet. He will most likely need some time to digest it; he may go into denial or he may grieve for all the things that were vastly altered as a result of the ADHD. Being able to support him through this will take a huge amount of effort on your part, but it will hopefully go a long way to showing him that you can support him. You need to reach within and find some inner strength to do it all because I have a feeling that if he doesn't think you support him in the diagnosis, he may become belligerent and refuse treatment.
If it makes you feel better, my husband often says "you don't support me" or "you don't listen to me" and I don't know what to say about that either. It makes my head want to explode and that's about it. We need to work on creating a "safe zone" where he can confide his fears and problems and where I won't judge him or try to give advice. A lot of the time, he just wants to vent and I don't know when to keep my mouth shut.
Best of luck to you.
Oh the old "you don't support me" chestnut!
Submitted by Blue on
During our therapy session last week, my husband said that he doesn't feel I respect him. I practically saw stars. I have taken care of almost EVERY detail imaginable to keep our family going and enable him to work the crazy hours he's put in at work over the past few years. And all these crazy hours he's put in have given him success in his career, which I definitely take some ownership of. I sat back and accepted the late hours, the last minute work schedule changes at the expense of our family plans (which I would have to carry through on my own), and the feeling like he always put his job first. Because I knew that if he was going to succeed in his career, this is what he needed. Yeah, and maybe also because I didn't respect myself as I should. But if that kind of support doesn't equate to showing him respect, I don't know what I could possibly do to convince him. It's making me angry just thinking about it so I'm going to stop typing now.
me too
Submitted by Tired of Supervising on
Yeah, what I get anytime I bring up organization or planning or anything, he gets all defensive and says "You don't understand all *I* do!".
Which I do, but he doesn't understand how much of his life I am supporting.
I pay the bills because they didn't get paid when he was responsible for them. I attempt to do retirement and savings planning, which is difficult because I can't get him to make decisions about his own income. (I take care of my own and hope for the best.) I do all the vacation and travel planning. Every bit. I work my butt off trying to keep the house from descending into total disorganizational chaos. Just keeping his trail of trash and dirty laundry picked up is a challenge. (He does help with actual cleaning, but keeping things picked up and organized is beyond him.) I do virtually everything when it comes to our son. I have to even push him to take quality time with his own son. I make most of the home repairs. I cook all the meals. I do all the laundry.
But the interesting thing is, that I really don't mind doing most of that (except the picking up of his messes).
What makes me feel sad and exhausted is the fact that I cannot rely on him. If I happen to drop the ball, there is no one to pick up the slack: I have no backup, and it seems to me that that ought to be part of a spouse's role. Plus I cannot rely on him to do what he says he is going to do. It boils down to "If you want something done, better do it yourself."
A kick in the pants
Submitted by jennalemon on
I did this too for over 30 years (supporting his success), working part time/full time, doing all the home work, buying his and the kids clothes, washing his and the kids clothes, buying groceries, making meals, parenting, and in the last 15 years, I paid him a "fake" wage from what I made in my business so we could get group health insurance. I shopped for and paid for the health insurance. I worked full time to support us while he began his business that never really made a full living wage. He said this year to me, "What did you EVER do for me?"
Now, that said, I am working on becoming more aware of how good things are in my life. I am detaching from my co-dependence with DH (if you want to call it that - I would rather think of it as love and caring and family but if one person is giving and the other is taking, then it IS co-dependence). Anyway, I am consciously focusing on gratitude, all the things I have been able to do, ALL the people in my life. I will celebrate when one day I am not leaning on this forum for whatever it is I come here for. That is a goal. But for now, I am still here with you all.. appreciating the shared community while I am still trying to sort this all out.
"Support" doesn't necessarily equal "respect"...
Submitted by Pbartender on
Okay, I'm not privy to the details of how you and your husband interact so this might not specifically apply to you, but something caught my attention, here...
"But if that kind of support doesn't equate to showing him respect, I don't know what I could possibly do to convince him."
Now, normally, respect and support go hand in hand. But they don't have to. You can support someone without respecting them, and you can respect someone without supporting them (in the middle of an election season, you can see examples of both all over the news).
My kids, for example, support me, my wife and the family in general by helping out with the daily chores. They are teenagers, though, and so they often grumble and whine and complain and procrastinate when we ask them to chip in and help out. In the end, they do help and give their "support", but it's done in a disrespectful fashion.
It could be that despite how hard you are trying show support, you still have anger and resentment and disdain and contempt and scorn floating around deep underneath... He may be seeing it leak out in your attitude in a way that you might not be aware of.
Instead of getting mad about him expressing his feelings and frustration, which from his point of view only underscores the lack of respect, ask him about why he feels that way. And listen to what he says. Find out what he would need from you to feel respected, because your idea of how to show respect and his are not the same.
This is exactly what you (non-ADHDers) keep telling us (ADHDers) to do when we get all confused and frustrated and angry about our spouses complaining when we think we're doing great about something.
You think you're doing great respect-wise, but he's complaining... Find out what the difference is, and maybe you can both adjust a little and meet in the middle.
Pb.
But he's WRONG
Submitted by Blue on
Only kidding. Thanks, Pb, for the insightful comment. I do see your point exactly: different ideas of what showing respect means. The "dynamic" and the "interaction" between the two of us is really effed up right now in general, so any probing in this area is fraught with land mine after land mine. We're in a tremendously bad spot in almost every aspect of the marriage. And it felt good to vent a little in my post above. He has a lot of resentment over things I am aware of (yeah, it's legitimate) and things he hasn't yet told me about. And then...oh...there's that affair to contend with. It's hard to analyze the subtleties when I have a 2x4 sticking out of my chest.
Good points, Pbartender. I
Submitted by PoisonIvy on
Good points, Pbartender. I support my husband but at this point, I don't have much respect for him, because of his lack of support for me and others in the family. Also, he and I have different conceptions of support. For example, he told me recently that he felt that I had not supported him last year when he underwent an intensive mental-health treatment program (several weeks, every day). I was shocked, because I had encouraged him to do the program, consented to him not working (and resultant decrease in income), and covered most of the household tasks and parenting during the program. I asked why he felt I hadn't shown him support. He said that my failure to ask him for details about his therapy indicated a lack of support. I thought I was respecting his privacy!
Rosered
Submitted by NJTWINMOM on
I'm sorry to say, but that sounds like something my husband would say as well. Yet, if I ask each time, then he really doesn't want to talk about it :(
Sounds like you were very, very, very supportive to him during the last year when he sought his intensive treatment.
I hate to say this, but I feel as though we must always bow to them and their needs and tend to them and their issues. It becomes too much after awhile. I truly feel that I am ignored as a partner and as a human being, and yet all I do is pat him on the back all day and night and give "atta boys"......it's just toooooo much. I know Melissa lives it and preaches working through it and seems to have it all figured out. When I met her last summer that was the first thing I thought about her..."she's a far better person than I will EVER be". I have tried and I still feel the same way.
He's complaining. Boo hoo.
Submitted by MagicSandwich on
I just have to say, if somebody were sexually unfaithful to me and completely dismissive regarding the work I had done for "us" over the years, any consideration I might have for his yet ongoing complaints about MY "lack of respect" would be very small. Very very small indeed.
Bingo. Deal Breaker.
Submitted by jennalemon on
Bingo. Deal Breaker.