It probably isn't fair to your husband or co-workers because you are more likely to have bad breath. This generates frustration and resentment, This frustration leads to anger, particularly when the ADHD spouse does not respond to criticism that he/she is ignoring you, The non-ADHD spouse, particularly if this is a woman, ends up with all the scut work around the house, feeling like the maid, rather than a cherished wife. Many thanks, Submitted by GabyA on Sat, 10/25/2014 - 15:21. I think I may be on the other side of that and I wanted to tell you what snapped me out of it. We saw a family therapist and agreed that I would end the friendship before the end of that year. It is very lonely being in this kind of relationship. I do not matter. I have suffered but continued to fight. I'm sure I could write a book and still not cover everything that I am angry about. I 'jokingly', but not, asked him if he had noticed anything different about my breath, citing the information I had read. I might get a couple sentences out, and that will be all - the conversation is focused on her. But she claims she is happy. I don't know if I helped or answered your question. I've seen this with all the ADD guys who find out after years of torturing their wives and families, when their wife feels like she'll die of exhaustion if she has to live with them any longer. You can sugar coat it and place it on rose petals on a silver platter and some ADDers are just going to deny it is a problem because they have no 'risk' involved. Didn't last more than six months. It sounds like you're struggling with some very real issues (that are not just you!) soon. I had walked barefoot to my doctor's office that morning (3 blocks). Every. P.S. She would not speak and I would get angry, which was due to how we used to communicate and I understand that. He tells me now just to leave him. Just remember this - it's not okay for him to say, "Well you knew I had ADHD when you married me, so deal with it". Submitted by SherriW13 on Thu, 12/30/2010 - 10:00. Have they been tested? This just lead the non-ADHD person to be confused because of course you would interpret this as selfishness and rejection. She also reads into what I am saying so that my words somehow are an attack on her. Our finances are also wreaked because she doen't understand when an emergency or vacation comes up you just can't keep charging it, you need cash. I no longer look to her for anything. I AM TIRED OF EVERYTHING ALWAYS BEING ABOUT HIM!!!! Eventually. I don't want to lose him. Submitted by Bea-nonadhd on Sun, 05/30/2010 - 23:05. Do you want to spend the rest of your life dealing with these kinds of patterns. Here is the madness of a relationship with someone with ADHD: he rejected me, I felt and feel the loss of being valued, and he continues to say that our marriage was the best thing that ever happened to him. - When she does agree to a "date" with me, she takes non-urgent phone calls during the date and will sometime forget that we even had a date scheduled (claiming that I did not remind her enough times), Submitted by Bea-nonadhd on Fri, 07/30/2010 - 21:53. but ironically, the last few things you mentioned - I'm going through myself. Submitted by kenya on Sun, 01/03/2010 - 11:39. well this site is a start.. if you hear of anything else I'd be open to knowing about it.. ( he filed because he was done with me). What you love about them you can also hate in other respects. After we have a long drawn out argument (over days sometimes), he usually agrees that he only saw things his way, promises to improve, etc. He blows up when he's angry, calling me names, cussing, and yelling in our neighborhood. I still love her and care for her in a way, but it's nothing like what I expected from a spouse or marriage. You might want to keep tabs on him to figure out exactly why he is so "fine" without the intimacy and love. We now have six adult children. It took me many years into our marriage before I gained the insights that helped me understand better and focus on improving my response to his behaviors. And surely that is the caveat - being willing to try to change. Sometimes he would disappear for days on end, only for me to find out he was on vacation on a different continent. It's gotten worse, the older he gets. I have settled on the reality that I'll be doing all the work and raising the kids with very little support. I can see how most of this would work. In reading The ADHD Effect on Marriage is understand a lot more than I did, but I'm very bitter, even resentful. Thanks for responding. She is also double whammied, you mentioned you have a daughter who has it. That's the excuse he's giving me. I have always pulled my fair share of things and I am not lazy. He still doesn't know when to quit work if he is still working when the meds wear off he just keeps going for hours. So when my parents passed away I was home more often and took a part-time position in which I could be home weekends. I support you to not over generalize and think that all relationships impacted by ADHD are disasters. In fact, if we swapped husbands you probably wouldn't even notice the difference. I am on the Internet researching ADHD and how it affects our relationship. He's got 24 hrs to play and he plays trust me. What's changed that the past 52 weeks just wasn't long enough? Doesn't that mean everything takes him twice as long is non-ADHD-affected couples? He has no interest in sex and never has, that is also apparently my fault. ... Write Down Communication to Your Partner. And now never comes. I had a new job and befriended a co-worker and asked her opinion about some things my guys friends would be useless to ask, and things that would cause friction between females in my family and my wife. I can tell you that adding children to the mix does NOT make it any easier. She said nothing in retort. We had a talk about 3 weeks ago and she stated that the time/space is really helping her de-stress and bring peace to her. To be completely honest, I am pretty much in love with him. I refuse to participate in his anger most of the time. I won't write anymore unless either of you ask me to. So how do I deal with that??? THEN it really might be too late to start again. Thank you for posting this! My biggest goal at this point in my life is to start a family of my own but as our problems got worse, I started to resent my wife. Submitted by robinshusband on Tue, 06/01/2010 - 17:06. I am not depressed, I wake up smiling and in a good mood, not about to let her ruin my day because she is mad at me, us or herself. I have never even been able to buy my two daughters bedroom furniture, because we can't afford it, they both have mattresses on their bedroom floors, and cheap plastic drawers that I bought them at walmart, and some crapy cheap desks, but he can afford anything he wants and always has to have the best. :). I'm a human being, not a super hero. My husband had a first wife. Sorry but I've been there done that. Medications are working, but the maintenance of things aren't. Thanks for all of your comments. Others just don't understand. I bought the book "couples guide to thriving with adhd" it was like reading about our relationship. Submitted by Stella N on Wed, 12/29/2010 - 09:36. it was always me.I spent most nights wishing I were dead so no one had to DEAL with me. I am so deeply grateful that I did not pull the trigger on that 45 I had in my mouth...seriously...it really was my little dog's incessant barking (and howling) that distracted me. Submitted by Paul K on Fri, 07/30/2010 - 16:43. All you speak of,: the ignoring, the lack of focus, the lack of follow through, the zero sense of time has all rung true for me. I saw your message a couple of days ago. I always thought that wild flowers were my wife's favorite and I would get them about every other week and set them on table. Clearly he was not listening, or hearing, or processing, whatever you want to call it. The answer is -- not ONE thing. I really could connect with what you shared! As he has never hyper-focused on me or our marriage in the past, I have little faith that he ever will and I do deserve to be some ones everything as I have made him my everything in the past. Some of them text him constantly. He was a bit annoying....But very sweet now that I think of it. I don't see how you can stand it. At one of our marriage counselling sessions, our counselor suspected it and suggested he take a test and then see a doctor. Usually in the a.m.'s he's in a lot of pan & is stretching something, not looking too happy at all. and when I see her at night, if I do, "how was your day? I don't know if Im the one you need to hear from because my ADHD spouse filed for divorce. should I think to myself that I'm better than you because I can do just about anything you put in front of me while you have to read books or take classes to even begin to see how it's done? 1. She is turning to her best friend who is in a worse marriage than we are! Sometimes a backlog develops, based on the amount of time in a day or due to a change in my scheduled based on some type of obligation my wife has created for me without my knowledge. Submitted by Stellaaaaaaaa1234 on Fri, 03/13/2020 - 16:01. He screams about everything, he throws things, puts his foot through railings, swears, blames me for everything from his missing socks to the weather. She has since gone off the handle. Despite all that, despite being encouraging and mindful of the differences between us, I still don't get from her what I need to feel loved in this relationship. My husband told me he gets frustrated but will never leave me. He has his medical friends convinced I'm the problem in his life. That's unrealistic, in my opinion. You are correct about listening to each other, and until recently we could not listen to each other at all. I think it's fair to say, you and I are at the same stage here. I'm certain neither one of us want to lose the 20 years we have together, I'd be anxious to hear some thoughts on how we can go about rebuilding our relationship. That is the problem. It was a fast comment, something in passing but I ran downstairs and wrote it down. Us with ADD will not see what we have done because we think and actually see that we have done nothing. Then depressed. But I get it enough for both of us. Submitted by welltheresyourp... (not verified) on Mon, 03/18/2013 - 17:50. He also had some self medicating issues which he brought under control. Trust me these so-called conversations, discussions, full on fights of a disgusting level are definitely quite the reasonable response to the fact that I do not matter. And he traveled a lot cause family took him places where they vacationed or lived. Where we live now there is some support but I don't feel like I fit in very well so it's difficult. THANK YOU for your very insightful comment. I strongly suspect I am and if I am I will try medication because believe me I hate being this way. Ask what she's feeling in a way that says "I really care". In one breath he tells me not to be so controlling. It probably isn't fair that he's married to a person who can't walk at a normal pace, but he knew that when he married me. I can't say anything without causing a "tantrum" He is 55 yrs old but sometimes I feel as though he is 5. Submitted by waynebloss on Thu, 12/02/2010 - 14:32. Mine isn't so none of the strategies she suggests will work for our marriage. I prefer to just not go anywhere with him anymore. does she depend on you to take care of everything? You do not have to be a Christian to pray, I am, but there are all sorts of beliefs you can use to apply this to. That too, is ridiculous. I will explore what this anger and resentment does and how it changes everything that happens to you in a later blog entry, but here is a brief overview of a very typical cycle when a non-ADHD person is married to an ADHD spouse: Resentment is a difficult emotion to overcome because of the chemicals it induces in the brain (more on this in a different entry). Would you support her in therapy? It is not until now that I understand how my questions (without thinking about them) were the ones that touch very "raw" subjects and how they would turn into something more. ADHD seemed like a valid explanation. I'm not going to give explanations or ask for anyone to feel sorry for me because if I have learned anything in the last week is that this needs to not be about me. Submitted by anonymous5 on Wed, 01/05/2011 - 12:14. It is always hardest to admit oneself is making a mistake, but we are only human and we will make mistakes. When I found out about it, she cried and cried and completely denied anything physical ever happened. Im done!!! I don't even know how much he keeps in the basnk, tho I offer my info to him all the time. Like Puerto Rico n' stuff. Has your husband sought help or read about ADD? I won't even go into the times that I've tried to read his mind....eek! He was to be getting up soon so Ihad to rush to see anything.And get to put it back before he woke up or I would've seen more !! This isn't much different to me than the ADD spouse who refuses to get help or see their fault in anything. We have been together for 7. I just get tired of living in the negative space that follows the behavior and at times it is inexcusable no matter what the cirumstance is! Leslie is a holistic therapist working in South Florida. Then a few months later after, oh no, the commitment word, he's not as interested and it turns into a strange game of being swept off your feet only to be ignored again by false commitments. I am not always home for dinner so it really stresses me out that dinner is not on the table for our kids. They look normal enough but, in fact, are incapable of clear and reasonable thinking. It's all ended up being about him and how much trouble it is for him!! And I say that despite his alcoholism - he's been sober for two years now, the ebay spending binges, the ridiculous arguments about nothing etc etc etc. You are her husband for Christ's sake...her leaving and you not being allowed to ask where she is going and with whom is WRONG. Yes we are. I guess it is irrelevant whether she buys the ADD thing or not, it hurts, but If I continue to act better maybe we can save the marriage. You also need therapy, at least for a while, and you need to learn as much as possible about how ADD affects Everyone around you. Yes I went there with info. *sigh*. He will still be whining about what he needs, that he cannot take this seperation. This typical cycle was the same that I experienced at the very first day of my wedding, I struggle a lot during my first year of marriage, I went trough all of this as Melissa Orlov described . We don't really have anyone we can ask to watch him. He came home tonight and said that he has just rented out some office space and that will give us the space he needs. I have basically raised our two children alone while he has been either drunk, inattentive, basically useless. I can't tell you how much stress it takes off of me to have him out of the house. Now lets talk about driving.. It's like it was written about us, our problems, her issues, my responses (parent) and our dysfunction. they way I see it....we are far sighted, you are nearsighted. I have no time left for myself or my REAL child. Well damn it, what about his kids ? Or is it really that literally all people with ADD cannot have a healthy, happy relationship? I feel bad for him because one day I'm able to cope with my frustration and be loving and civil to him, and the next day I can barely speak to him. And to top it all off - I am told by "him" that I have high standards. I still live with my husband and we have some good times. I allow him to treat me this way because I simply, for right now, don't value myself enough. Each of the rocks has a name: unemployment, six children, laser focused on ANYTHING else, accumulation of messes left for me to clean up, unfilled tax returns, overdrawn check charges, huge projects left undone for years, deferred home maintenance, borrowing against our 401K WITHOUT me knowing it (this is a NEW rock just hurled at me a little over a week ago). How much more pathetic could a person be to not care about anyone else but themselves? He knows everything, right? You're right, it never changes. I, too, amm married to an ADHD spouse. I decided it had to be me. I have two beautiful girls my husband went all through school and college and knew something was wrong, but just didn't know what. I haven't seen it mentioned here, but has anyone's ADHD spouse left their car door open over night, left the front door open? When he has access to a computer, it's an obsession. Love is given. I try to answer but honestly I feel trapped when people can reach me all the fucking time. I've been married 21 years to a wonderful man. I thought if he saw the words "rebuild your relationship" on the cover it would be exciting to him. I really hope that you continue to go to therapy, as they can offer useful techniques to help maintain the relationship. Like most of you I have been very frustrated and feeling very lonely for a long time. Its so weird. I had to become humble and had to take the first steps. He says - I'm going to do that now. The therapist has given us the most help because she has been able to give us ideas of how to cope and can correct him with his thought process and not me being the person correcting him which doesn't work well I then feel I am the parent correcting the child and I'm sure he feels the same. I value the honest feedback I get from this web site. His grandparents went soon after too. Hard to explain to others that it isn't the same as "giving up." He did, after all,.have ADHD. If she is trying there are lots of things you can do to help her, starting by writing a schedule that includes everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, including brushing teeth and personal hygiene. I'd gone so far as made a list on who I wanted to have certain items I possess. Melissa Orlov's book it written to help give hope to people in this type of relationship. For some more than others, medication can mean a huge difference in one's presence in a conversation, as well as one's life in general. I have to make concerted and focused efforts to do things that normally people would just do and not have to think about, and sometimes I just dont do it. I'm wondering how things are going now, three years later? You have now disclosed enough information for me to understand where this is headed. Its actually making me depressed and very sorrowful that I married her. Some of you may be reading this and thinking she was just a bad wife. It has been tough but we have worked through it. However, he keeps telling me that certain things "are just the way they are and not likely to change"...and I know this is not true. (Baneeners on Facebook), Submitted by AbusedADDHusband on Sun, 10/23/2011 - 20:51. However, besides medication and simply 'talking' to my psychiatrist, I am still in the same condition I was when she left (and I'm now trying to overcome depression as well) and I still don't feel like I have the tools to overcome my stupid mind. as an answer too "why did we come up short". I understand how focused he gets at work but I feel unvalued it was something he couldn't tell me even in chatting about how his day was. Pack him a lunch every once in a while with a love note. You sound like a nice man and I believe you are contrite and truly love your wife. Are all three of you men? I took over the checkbook a year ago. This precious doctor came out to the waiting area and took me to his office. It took the threat of you losing everything for you to finally 'get it'.