I've learned over the past 7 years of marriage to an ADHD man that it's very hard to not constantly supervise what he is doing. This makes him angry, he says I'm bossy and always telling him what to do. But so many times I have been burned by the consequences of letting him handle a situation on his own that it's very hard not to oversee everything all the time. We are married so the mistakes he makes more often than not affect me too. Because I'm his wife I can be held responsible for his bad decisions and his debt so it's hard not to make sure things are being done properly. My H has never really cared about his credit or paying bills on time so I don't trust him to handle issues relating to our finances. But I feel like I need to check on everything else too because I never know for sure if he will finish what he starts or be responsible in the manner in which he is handling it. I know this makes him feel like less than a man and he says i don't respect and trust him to handle things on his own. But how am I supposed to let him take full responsibility when I so often suffer the consequences of him not following through or not doing it right?
What to do about the consequences
Submitted by frustratedwife on 01/26/2014.
This is a very hard thing to
Submitted by MFrances on
This is a very hard thing to deal with. I'm not sure I have any advice for you. The books say to take care of only the things that will directly hurt you, but if you are married how do you do that? I haven't quite figured it out myself. He will do things half way or poorly and I'll say to him if you were paying someone, to put in a new floor for example, would you be happy with that or would you call them back and have them fix it? He'll say he would call them back, so I say then fix it or I will call someone to fix it. And sometimes I give him a deadline. I am reading through a book on codependency because supposedly it addresses this issue.
Please let me know what you learn!
Submitted by frustratedwife on
Please let me know what you learn! There of course are some things i can let him deal with on his own and if he screws them up it wont affect me much. As an example, he is taking a trip and leaving this Tuesday morning. He will need a rental car when he arrives and he hasn't booked it yet. If he waits till he arrives at his destination he may not get a car right away so this will affect him, but not me. However, most likely he will find a car but just pay a lot more for it and that will affect me because this trip is already a stretch so paying any more than we have too for anything will hurt us financially. Sometimes I wish we were just living together (although that goes against our beliefs) so the things he does wouldn't be as harmful to me.
It took me a while, but I
Submitted by PoisonIvy on
It took me a while, but I stopped bugging my husband about being on time. If he has an appointment and I know he's running late, I don't say anything. I also don't say anything if it seems that he's forgotten about an appointment. Nor do I bug him about remembering special occasions, such as family members' birthdays. I will remind him sometimes when he's not doing something that one of our children has asked for help with. I do this for two reasons: I don't want him to totally destroy himself as a father and I don't want our daughters to get hurt.