Hey all,
Just joined today. Came to the realization that my ADHD (which was diagnosed last year) has been a huge issue in how I've handled arguments and so many other aspects of my marriage and now we are at a point where we are separated. Our situation is that we co-signed a lease together on a little studio apartment and one of us spends a week at the apartment while the other is at home with the kids, and then we swap the next week.
This is week 2 of this and I've been at home with the kids struggling quite a bit. Communication is minimal, limited to essential and kid related communication. She scheduled a new Marriage Counselor for us, which I was thrilled to see, but I've also heard that often, unless the counselor has experience working with couples where ADHD is involved, it will usually just not work out well.
I want to be a better man for myself, my children, and my wife because they are my world, and it's so hard to feel so helpless right now. I don't want to be that husband that doesn't take action and gives up something so amazing and incredible.
Any and all advice as we work through this part of our journey would be amazing.
Don’t say hurtful things
Submitted by Swedish coast on
Only piece of advice I've got, I'm afraid: Don't say hurtful things. Keep arguments decent and respectful and avoid fighting ugly.
If my marriage problems were boiled down, ugly fighting would remain unsolved on the bottom. That one the marriage couldn't survive.
Great Advice
Submitted by cheffluke on
Thank so much, Swedish Coast. It's really great advice and something I've been trying to pay attention to lately. We've been communicating pretty well overall these last couple of weeks, granted it's all mostly just essential stuff and kids. Probably the space away has helped us be able to take a step back and communicate on a more even ground again, and I've made one somewhat impulsive decision during that time and immediately called myself out on it and apologized and just said that I'm still working on it and she forgave me and said "how about we set some solid rules regarding spending without making those decisions together" which was a great step for us to communicate better. She's clearly trying as well which helps me feel that sense of love still, even if it's just a little bit.
I think the tricky thing right now is finding the right way for me to be like "Hey, I'm learning that a lot of the things I've done in the past, and the heightened emotions I have are not helped by my ADHD. I'm reading a lot of resources to try and work on that and I've gotten some resources that might help you understand why I handle some situations the way I do. This isn't trying to push the blame on the ADHD as I ultimately am the one that said the things I said, and made the impulsive decisions that I did, but I just want to you know that I understand it more now and am doing what I can do work on it to better myself." without it just sounding like an excuse or anything. I genuinely am doing this for myself at this point as I know that doing it for her is not the right reasons as I don't know if we will even have a future, but yeah. I think I'm going to just see how the next few weeks go and ease it in there.
Consistency and dependability
Submitted by Swedish coast on
Consistency and dependability is what she will need from you to know you belong together.
All the best of luck.