I have been married to my lovely husband for 5 years come july. It is second time around for me and third for him. We began speaking on the internet via facebook we struck up a conversation through taking part in a game it was purely accidental. It took off from there, we were married a year to the day we met, i swore i would never marry again, however i fell hook line and sinker, it wasnt hard as i felt no-one had cared about me as much as this person, no-one listened to me as much as this person. Text messages were intense half hour intervals throughout the day. At one point i thought ...hold on a minit this is a bit OTT. But then i thought that was just him. I had moved in with him after 3 months, we couldnt bare to be apart. I look back and did feel that it was too good to be true but i felt so worshipped and loved i just went with the flow. The first night we stayed together i would wake up and find him staring at me. I was a bit freaked by this at first but then i thought to myself i felt the same way, loved to look at him, i was in love. I have read similiar stories on here the fairytale romance. However it has gone from such heights to feeling like i dont exist anymore and have been wondering what have i done wrong ?
He was in work when i met him and had been in same job for 12 years, but he started talking about finding another job needing more of a challenge. I work full time. He has 2 adult daughters from his previous marriage. In short he left his job, found another only to be made redundant after 7 months and now he has another job. Its all i hear about everyday, every move he has made at work every conversation he has had, i try to speak and he just rolls straight on talking incessantly not listening to a word i say, to a point where i have given up trying to talk. This is only part of it almost like slowly the tap of emotion,feelings, thoughtfulness interest has been turned off it gradually started to run dry. not doing anything together, not talking as it isnt a 2 way conversation, when i express my feelings its almost like he is oblivious in fact he just blanks me untill i get to the point where i could scream and throw things. i tell him he dosent care about me anymore he is not interested in me we do nothing together dont talk to each other, he dosent listen he shows no emotion.
He is always engaged in something on his phone or on the computer. he started having little bets on horses on line. i know he dosent spend a lot of money on it so i dont mind as he works hard. but its first thing he does in the morning and throughtout the day when he is not at work. He used to clean up for me coming home ( as he works shifts ) now he dosent do anything that tailed off quite quickly, i am fed up as i run the household completely. his new job is permanent nights all the more reason for us not to do anything together he is too tired, but yet he has plenty time to be totally engrossed in what he likes doing. He obsesses over stuff e.g, he heard a song on tv within a week he had bought cd signed up to fanclub on face book and sent friend requests and was looking for concert tickets. He wanted a pair of kicker boots he must have spent every waking moment looking on the internet for the right ones. days hours ! He starts to like a tv programme he requests friends on facebook of the actors/actress. it becomes an obsession.
The most frustrating thing is the talking, i have never wanted to tell him he talks too much didnt want to hurt him wanted him to communicate. I find its not a conversation, friends family notice the same thing too, he interupts when they are speaking, ignoring what they have said and carrys on with his own theme. He forgets things. I ask him to do stuff...didnt have time ...forgot. I am thinking things like he is useless hopeless, boring got no interest all the time and it hurts because i never felt like that about him. I have started to think he must be having an affair because i feel like he just dosent see or hear me. He says i am silly and he loves me and there is no-one else. I COULD GO ON !! It came to a head this past week i was thinking over all of the above and the realtionship was over and i wanted to leave i was crying out and he was blanking me saying i was just stupid always getting on at him. couldnt see what he was doing wrong.
Something was missing something was not right, there was something i just could not put my finger on. It didnt seem like normal behaviour either for me to constantly be nagging him only for him to appear like he was on a different planet and not hearing me. His daughters know their dad dosent listen, i feel that sometimes i have to tell him to ring them, invite them over. i feel if i didnt push he wouldnt. He rings them and i can hear the conversation. he asks if they are alright then goes headlong into a conversation about himself. I started to think this isnt normal behaviour, showing no emotion, carrying on as normal whilst i am cracking up. This excessive talking and not listening, must be a word for it, the fact that he goes through phases of being totally engrossed in stuff and then its out the window. i feel like i am an activity he must have been interested in for a while and then couldnt be bothered with anymore. He has been making me feel like a raving lunatic that i am paranoid being silly, because i feel he must have interests elsewhere. I decided to put these charactoristics into an internet search and here i am. Some of the messages on here sound like an exact copy of me, i could have been writing them.
I could sit here all day and write more, i feel so frustrated. We hadnt been speaking for a week, my search led me to look at adult ADHD, i found your website 2 days ago. I feel i have found an answer. Then could this be half of the male population ? I decide to break the silence with steve, i read out some of the scenarios on here. I got him to do a quiz, which said he had mild symptoms however he says knowing what he knows now he may have answered the questions more honestly. He thought oh what now ? I explained to him how i felt in the context of everything i had read. we talked until 4.30 am. cried and hugged. He admits that some of this does sound like him well a lot ! Now i am worried as he is verging on maxing out on info on adhd etc. I realise that i am not the same person that he met either i have been turned into a droning nag. He cant see how his behaviour has helped that happen, until we read some of the articles on here. Is this it has steve got adhd ? It came back to me the storys his mum told about him when he was small, handful, always on go, little sod, his school report chatters too much bit disruptive. He looks back and wishes he had done more at school, feels he could be doing something better, Steve always seems to be a fairly happy person, he never gets angry just stays really calm and dosent say anything. Most of things i read about adhd say they have short fuse etc. he says he is mad inside, but it dosent seem normal to me he just keeps calm exterior, even if the house was suddenly falling on his head. He smokes heavily and he is always getting up and down out of his seat. He is always rubbing his hands and rolling movements with fingers. he seems on edge but he always says he feels chilled, but he dosent look that way. Reading this has helped me want to save my marriage. I told him i have looked and looked for the reasons as to why it has only seemed to go wrong, how much i love him and dont want to nag him. For the first time he listened to what i was saying he says he feels relief. ? I know its not all as simple as that we have to take a real good look at this now and be sure if it is adhd. Does it sound familiar ?
Your story sounds so
Submitted by MFrances on
Your story sounds so familiar. Especially the talking! That was great in the beginning and great at parties if I didn't know anyone but with people we know and with family, I sometimes wish he would be at work so the rest of us can have normal conversations. And people can leave without him keeping them at the door (literally with one foot out the door) and still rambling on. I read the book "Is it you, me or the adult ADD" and it was wonderful, I cried all the way through because all of the people in the book were going through the same thing. I thought his incessant talking was just a lack of social skills (although I don't know what drug or therapy can stop it). That led him to get diagnosed, which was a slow start but we finally found a good doctor. He is having trouble following through with therapy. That's been hard, to find a good therapist that handles adult ADD. I'm reading through the ADD effect on marriage right now and it's very good and very helpful to me. You seem like you are on the right track and your husband seems to be willing to get help. I also think it's great that you realize your part in it too. That's something I just started figuring out for myself. Good luck!
Thank-you for your reply
Submitted by alisteveb2009 on
Thank-you for your reply pickles, i had to smile when you mentioned keeping people at the door. I have seen people go to leave our house and he is following them all the way out the door to the car and still talking. I began to notice when i realised he was talking but not listening, not to me not to anyone. When he has spoken to his parents or sister, i will ask him any news? and he really cannot say much about what was happening with them. His mum was really ill a coule of months ago and i had to follow him round whilst he was on the phone, mouthing...ask your mum how she is, hes just nodding at me and still going on about what he did that day. I tried to explain to him last night how it is for people once he gets started talking to someone. I have a relative who has a really bad stammer ( no disrespect to others with this problem ) I know some of my other relatives get frustrated by this and hate to be placed next to this person at family functions as the conversation can be hard work. I told steve last night the only way i could explain it was, it was like being placed next to joan at the table and people were just as frustrated with his talking as people were of her stammer! I could see he heard me when i said that, as he had experienced that same frustration. He never thought of it like that. He asks me how was work ? I open my mouth and hes already started on something else. I have given up talking its too much hard work to have a conversation with him, i know he isnt really listening, so i think why bother. Finding these pages have transformed things overnight. However i am a bit worried, as he went off to work he said go on the internet and find out all you can that will help us, now i know this is a good thing, but i could see the cogs wurring in his head and am thinking...oh no now he is going to research this subject untill he is exhausted with it and then it will be ADHD ? we need to connect it with us its not something that is happening to someone else. I love him so much i will help all i can, but reading on here the hard part is about to start. Thank you i will look at getting the books. We discussed the talking a lot more last night, i have asked him to start by trying to listen to his daughters on the phone give them chance to speak, I have asked him not to say anything yet. I want to see if he trys some of the things we have talked about, if they notice the change in their dad, will be a measure maybe that it works ? He seems really keen to do anything to help, i just hope the enthusiasm dosent fizzle out :)
Look up Aspergers
Submitted by lynnie70 on
Ex did a lot of that -- once when he was rambling on and on in front of counselor, she looked at me and said, "Does he always do that? Just go on and on?" Then she told me to start exploring Aspergers on the web and see if it fit. Rolling fingers sounds like it also. He could easily have both.
aspergers
Submitted by alisteveb2009 on
Thank-you Lynnie , will do :)
Lived with your husband, sweetie
Submitted by fixingme on
Could have been living with your husband all these years, dearie, they sound like the same person. Same scenario as yours, hyperfocus, dump it, hyperfocus, forget it, hyperfocus on anything dumb, stupid, useless or mentally deranged. Including really messed up people he drags into our lives. He has ADHD, will talk to hitchhikers, panhandler, anybody as long as they are pretending to listen to him. And he is always talking about himself, always calling up people so he can talk about himself, never asks the other person what they are up to, and even if he does, never pauses long enough to listen, just launches into what he did today. And if he did nothing, he makes stuff up. Total lies. Totally disinterested in anyone but himself. Walks into whatever conversation I am having with another person and takes over, actually steps between the person and I to interfere and changed the subject, directs it in the direction he wants it to go. Total asinine, clueless behavior. Typical ADHD. Went to see his grandson (six months old), child's mother and I are in the floor playing with the baby, like normal people. Who can resist an adorable, healthy, happy baby. ADHD's can and do, even if the child were dying, the ADHD would never notice, let alone respond. He and his ADHD son are engrossed in a video on the cell phone, watching a movie, an incredible app they have downloaded, never paid a bit of attention to the baby, never noticed when the baby sat alone for the first time by himself, verbalized, laughed, rolled over, crawled, nothing. Nope, there sat dumb and dumber, fixated on a stupid graphic image on a phone while they ignore a precious baby of their own biological material. They marvel at man's stupid and vain attempts to make animation look lifelike while they fail to notice the most precious, interesting, marvelous creation of God. Sad thing is, with these two as parent and grandparent, the poor child will probably suffer the same fate. I have been meaning to take this young mother aside and warn her about her child's father, tell her what to expect, what's about to happen to her and her child. At least send her to this site so she can see what she's in for.