My husband, ADHD, no meds because he refuses to follow up on doctors appointments, has been unemployed most of the 22 years we have been together. Its always someone else's fault. At this point I have given up on him ever contributing, I make good money and he does a little housework. He is addicted to shopping and collecting and the entire bottom half of our house is filled with his stuff. There is no talking to him, I have tried that. I don't know what to do, I have resigned myself to the fact that he is my burden to carry.
He has the entire garage, two bedrooms, and two full-size storages. Mine and the kids' stuff is maybe a tenth of that. One of the things he has told me for the past couple of years while he's unemployed was that this was all going to be organized. Meanwhile, I work from home, using the kitchen table.
I know I'm allowing this but what do I do? Confront him? All that does is make him either scream at me or he gets all depressed and does less than he does now. So it's pointless either way.
I can't help him. I've tried, but nothing I do works. And he thinks he's doing just fine.
He believes his lack of success is because other people have dragged him down. Not due to anything he has done himself. He refuses to take responsibility.
The one time I was able to get him to talk to a therapist - several years ago - she asked him why he had so much stuff collected. He replied that it was worth a lot of money. She asked him why he wasn't using that to help his family (this was when we were really struggling),and his response was silence that went into a week long of him moping around the house until he finally got over it. So I'm not hopeful that he will talk to anyone with me, but i need to talk to someone, definitely.
He doesn't think there is anything wrong. He never has. He lives one day at a time, and as long as he can go shopping or play with his toys or rant at people on the Internet, it's a good day. Meanwhile I'm working hard, saving money, and doing boring stuff like finding a good medical insurance plan.
He does have a job interview tomorrow. If he gets this one, I think that will be it for me. Usually his pattern is to get fired or quit within 18 months to 2 years. If that happens again, I'm done.
He was supposedly diagnosed when he was a child, but there are no records. His explanation for this was that the government injected him with a lot of different stuff and is keeping the records sealed. I kid you not. He comes up with some pretty crazy shit.
He was discharged from the military with "personality disorder"; not a dishonorable, but definitely kicked out.
A lot of this stuff, when I write it down, sounds absolutely horrifying. As in, why am I putting up with this?
I have just been in this for so long that I can't see objectively.
We also have a small business that I run on the side; it's about to blow up due to some very hard work on my part, but I can't trust him to do even the simplest tasks for it. For example, we have four orders to pull and send out today; this will take him at the minimum four hours. It would take me about 45 minutes. He always has an excuse; usually he runs into someone he knows and ends up talking.
We have three kids. He's a good dad about half the time. He's a terrible dad the other half. He's said some stuff to our oldest that I can never forgive him for. I always am having to do damage control with his parenting. Our middle child is disabled and so that's extra - not bad extra, just extra.
He has no means by which to support himself, and spend his days in internet forums. He does not look for work, he comes up with ideas constantly to start his own business but never follows through. He does pick up the kids from school and other small jobs like that. I have supported, encouraged, and built him up with zero results. He needs someone else to step in but nobody knows what is going on. He is very charming and gregarious, not a care in the world. If I ask him when he's going to clean out the bottom half of the house so I can have an office, he gets depressed and angry. I have been working from the kitchen table for years, with constant promises of cleaning out his stuff. That's just one example. I don't know what to do at this point. I'm just worn out.
I asked him if I could talk to him about the progress on the bottom half of the house and his two full storages. He has told me multiple times over the years that he was working on these things to get them organized, in fact, he had just told me this week that he was going to get my office cleaned out so I don't have to work on the kitchen table (which is also full of his stuff). As I expected, he flipped out, started screaming at me that I was attacking him, and something new - started hitting himself in the face. He told me that he was going to get a U-Haul and just take every single thing to the dump, or, I could make him a schedule of what I expected and he would follow it. I told him that he was an adult and I was not going to do that. He continued to scream at me; there is no simply discussing anything with him, he takes it as an instant attack, and I really just wanted to talk about it. I ended up apologizing for bringing it up simply for the sake of peace, and told him I would not bring up the stuff or his progress ever again. He seemed mollified by that and the rest of the night was going around whistling little tunes and happy.
He also cancelled all his doctor's appointments, including the psychiatrist, because he has a high deductible plan (the only one I could get him because of his multiple health issues) and doesn't want to pay for it (I would pay for it!). Yet he's spent $1300 in the last three months on his collectibles - he doesn't realize that I see what he's spending.
I really don't think I have the energy to keep trying to help him. He has a job interview today, so we'll see what happens with that. I am tired.
Sounds familiar
Submitted by chelsea on
Gosh this sounds so familiar. My charming and gregarious husband was always surfing ebay for collectible frisbees when he was supposed to be looking for work. Any money he happened to make went to his hobbies, not the household. I had to stop and ask myself whether what I was getting in return (love, companionship?) was enough to make up for the lack of partnership and additional stress that his behavior put on me. In my case it was not. Not only was he not helping pay the bills or do housework, but he was pretty much ignoring me and any need I had. He made me feel like a doormat. When I made efforts to set boundaries with money or chores, he would either agree but not follow through, or argue with me and try to convince me that my requests for him to help out or get a job were unreasonable. I realized that was never going to change, and there was nothing I could do to make him change. He had to want it himself, and clearly he didn't want it badly enough. He did go to his psychiatrist just enough to get meds, but never spent much time with the behavioral therapist he was supposed to see. I only get one life, and supporting someone who gave nothing back is not how I want to live it. I decided to divorce him. My life is much easier now and I have a lot more hope for my future, even though I am essentially a single mom of a 3 year old. I know that is not the answer for everyone, but it was right for me. I continue to get regular confirmations that I made the right decision.. I had to give him about $100K of my savings in the divorce settlement, and he continued to not work until he blew through all that. He only got a job when he absolutely had to. Found out yesterday that some heating duct work that he supposedly did was never completed, and that I've been paying to heat my crawl space since 2006. That's what brought me back to this message board.. felt the frustration again. Lately I've been frantically hiring contractors from Angie's list to correct all the "improvements" he made to my house in lieu of helping me with the mortgage.
I hear your frustration. I am so sorry you are going through this. Please find a way to carve out a little bit of sanity for yourself so that his problems don't completely take the joy out of your life. You can't fix him.
Thank you
Submitted by redhead1017 on
The thing is he does have his moments where he reminds me of why I married him. But those moments are few and far between. I feel like it's always on me to just "put up" with all his nonsense and be the good wife, you know? Which is a crock. I am so tired of having to fake everything.
I can't talk to him about ANYTHING other than kids stuff, and even then we're walking on thin ice. He gets very upset. For example, he doesn't realize that I can see everything that he is spending via PayPal on his collectibles. Since January, he's spent over $3k on his collectibles, and he's already got the entire garage and bottom half of the house dedicated to this stuff. When yet another PayPal receipt came through this morning, I got really angry. He was doing his usual thing of surfing on Facebook all morning and joking around with me while I'm trying to work, and when I get quiet he asked me "what did I do?" I told him it's just something that I have to get over and that I couldn't talk to him about it. He was fine with that. Meanwhile I'm working through my anger, once again.
I feel like life with him is one perpetual game of me getting over stuff and moving on, never expressing my true feelings, because I hate fighting with him. If I were to confront him on how much he's spending on this crap, he would get very upset and either threaten to get rid of everything or start destroying stuff out of spite. There's no discussing things with him.
If I do leave him, it's going to have to be absolutely quietly. Like I will not be able to talk things over. The other day I asked him if he would be open to going to marriage counseling and that was a mistake; he got very upset. There is literally no way I can talk to him about anything that is halfway important. I'm wondering if this is purely an ADHD thing, with the lack of an executive function center?