Submitted by Libby on 07/07/2018.
I truly feel like my mind and comprehension has been damaged in dealing with my ADHD spouse. Maybe it is weariness or PTSD or something. I have so much more trouble understanding what he is trying to say to me than I used to. Could the stress of dealing with untreated mental illness have that effect on a spouse?
Yes.
Submitted by PoisonIvy on
Yes.
[Edited to add the following:] Often, talking to my then-husband left me feeling as though I was speaking a language he couldn't understand, such as Turkish, because his inability or unwillingness to respond in a comprehensible way seemed appropriate only for a situation in which I was speaking a foreign language. Based on this, I put a huge amount of time and mental effort into clarifying my statements to him and doing so was very stressful for me.
I have more of an issue with
Submitted by Libby on
I have more of an issue with trying to get him to clarify. He usually ends up screaming and shaking his head because I just don't understand what he is trying to say. He claims there is something wrong with me and I am beginning to believe it. Maybe it is me. He spends hours every day chattering to anybody and everybody. No one else seems to have an issue with him.
I don't think there's
Submitted by PoisonIvy on
I don't think there's anything wrong with you. My ex doesn't speak clearly either; he thinks he does, but he doesn't.
Keep in mind..
Submitted by CaliforniaGirl on
This could be due to the fact that other people don't spend as much time around him or aren't as highly attuned to the same things as you are.
No one else
Submitted by vabeachgal on
No one else is trying to communicate with him on an intimate marital level about important things. He's just talking and they're just carrying on a casual conversation .... at least that was my experience. My ex H also had a very difficult time trying to explain what he was saying. He specifically had difficulty describing emotions or the steps he took to reach a decision. I think he had difficulty because he really can't describe emotions and there were no logical steps toward taking a course of action or making a decision. I've been there. I don't know how many times I've asked "what do you mean by that" or "why do you say that". I haven't said it in a mean way, just to try to understand something that was said that didn't make much sense at face value.
I don't think it's you. Consider what your H discusses with others. My ex is very competent at work, up to a point where he needed real executive functioning capabilities, but then he downgraded his position. He has done his job for well over 20 years so he knows how to speak about it. Other conversations... well, what's he talking about? weather? cars? kids? sports? the lawn up keep? I mean, really, everything else was pretty superficial and he could carry those conversations. It actually brought out his need to be liked and validated so he could do very well with it. Communicating with me beyond the superficial level? Not so much.
Libby, honestly, most of the time I never could understand what he was trying to say because he wasn't actually saying anything. I'm not being snarky here. He literally would make a statement. I'd ask for clarification and he would make "umm", "ahh", "well" noises and flutter his hands around and shrug his shoulders and say he couldn't put it into words... and he would say that I knew that about him, what did I want? He wouldn't scream or get angry but he would definitely stonewall and end the conversation.
Exactly..
Submitted by CaliforniaGirl on
If you want to talk about the latest cool tech gadget or how great a certain musician is or a fancy new car that just came out my ex can do that, no problem.
If you want to understand why he felt a certain way about something, or how he came to a decision/conclusion about something, or why he made a particular choice, or what he might do to achieve a goal ..... he generally could not express it and ... no matter how gentle you were trying to be.. he would get extremely frustrated. His frustration then turned into anger and lashing out at others.
Many times he would start to talk down to me as if I were stupid for not understanding him, many times I heard "Well, you just don't get it!" and often the end result was him screaming at me and storming out.
Only one set of very close friends ever saw this because we ended up having a complex discussion over dinner a couple times (though even then not to the extent of his usual anger at home)... and his family (dad, etc) saw it occasionally as well.
You're not listening
Submitted by adhd32 on
I get "You're not listening" as a response to my questions for clarification. H gets annoyed because I can't follow whatever he is rambling on about .So instead of restating what he is saying in another way, he repeats it over and over, elevating his voice. I usually say my hearing is fine I don't understand what you are trying to convey. He then gets angry and yells and I walk away. For the record, I worked in a job for 25 years that required excellent written and verbal communication skills and I rarely had issues understanding other people .
I get told that too. Ummm no
Submitted by Libby on
I get told that too. Ummm no buddy you aren't communicating!
Exactly, too
Submitted by jennalemone on
This is so helpful to me to see others talking about this. The difficulty of being able to put sincere, important, vulnerable ideas and feelings into understandable words and exchanging those words with trust and truth.....being intimate.
Exactly
Submitted by cdrbar on
You hit the nail right on the head. Ask my husband about any type of car and he can carry on a conversation without any problems. Ask him to remember something simple and no dice. Outsiders don't really get to see what it is like to leave with an ADD spouse.
I think so, yes.
Submitted by CaliforniaGirl on
I was living in a state of near constant anxiety, fatigue and confusion with my ex. Many things he said did not seem feasible or make any sense (friends of ours have since commented on this after the fact, as well) and often his ideas, the thoughts he was trying to express and even his sentences were incomplete and unclear. He denied saying things. Accused me of saying things I didn't say. Would jump from topic to topic, couldn't or wouldn't get back to what he was saying before, would get angry if you tried to steer him back to the beginning or get clarification... and on and on.
It made me feel knocked off balance in such a way that I often questioned my own reality and my coping skills took a real nosedive after a while.
I do think it got worse as time went on, as well... In the beginning of the relationship there was some confusion over the random odd statement or something like that, but not nearly as many or as complex as the issues were near the end. Perhaps because we moved past the dating phase and into the day to day but I'm not sure.
Either way, I definitely think there can be an effect on the non-ADHD partner.
O. M. G. All this time
Submitted by barneyarff on
O. M. G. All this time I accepted that I was just mean because I would kind of shake my head and say "Wait.... what are you talking about? Did you switch topics?" I would hear his whole family do this. And when it's a large family reunion, you just roll with it and figure it was a part of a conversation that you walked in on or whatever but when having a one on one conversation about something vital..... holy cow.... And I got so I saw what was going on and I admit I got snarky about it and would reply to his remark as though the topic had NOT been suddenly switched just to see if he would notice (please know I had mentioned to him several times that I know conversations evolve but to jump from one thing to another ie "Isn't the sky a lovely blue today?" "Yes, hamburgers are fine" is difficult to participate in) He would get mad at ME for staying on the original topic. Or tell me that I would just keep pounding at the same point. Well, he wouldn't respond to me.....
It wore me out. It hurt that I could never get him to a conclusion of a topic..... Wait! Is that why they jump to something else??? Because they don't want to make a decision?????
Topic Switching
Submitted by 1Melody1 on
Barney, I feel your pain here. Topic switching is so difficult for my more typical brain. I try very hard to understand that he can't control a brain that is going in so many directions, but it is very difficult to maintain my sanity (as per OP's point!). ME: "So my mom has to have an MRI..." HIM: "Is there any bread left?" What??
The absolute worst for me is the combination topic switch/interruption. My daughter will be at the dinner table telling us something important... maybe about an assignment, a conflict with a school friend, or accolade she received that day... and he will interrupt her mid-sentence with something completely irrelevant that he cares about. This happens virtually every dinner and even more than once per dinner. It happens when I talk, too, but honestly, I try to speak with him as little as possible because of this.... and it just hurts me more when I see him do it to her because she looks so crushed when she feels she isn't heard by him.
On a related note, I am wondering if anyone else reading shares my experience of the ADHD spouse making constant jokes vs. contributing meaningfully to a conversation? This also completely derails communication and makes me feel unheard and mentally broken. ME: "Do you want to go to the jazz festival?" HIM: "Dad's funeral? Oh no... what happened!?" ME: "Jazz festival." HIM: "I know... I was just kidding." This happens literally ten times a day. My daughter and I have both expressed that we feel unheard when he makes jokes, especially in the midst of a serious conversation. He shoots back that jokes are his way of coping in this house. Sigh.
The bolded part of your post-
Submitted by dvance on
The bolded part of your post--making jokes--YES! My DH does this too. It's bizarre. He is so sarcastic I have stopped even trying to have meaningful interactions with him, haven't bothered for a long time. He's going on 50--it's not funny. Grow up and just have a normal conversation, not even something deep and life changing, just a normal conversation. Not capable. We have teen age boys so it drives me extra crazy because they do it too and I will NOT tolerate it out of them. I have told them, in front of him, your dad may think the sarcasm is funny, I do not. You can talk that way with him, not with me-knock it off and act your age. He says nothing. I too have brought it up multiple times, in therapy (when we used to go) and on our own and it never got any better, so I no longer initiate long conversations. If we speak 20 words to each other in a day I'd be surprised. When I used to call his attention to it, he would say I was overreacting, he was just trying to be funny, blah blah excuse excuse. I would give my left kidney to be invisible and follow him around at work for a whole week and see if he acts that way at work. I just cannot imagine it. He is in upper management at a big company-who would tolerate that?? Of course, his last three jobs only lasted three years, so maybe his sarcasm (or lousy communication in general) was a problem, I would have no way to know. He also has no adult friends because again, who could stand that all the time, even other guys??
Also topic switching here--I will start to say something and he will get distracted by something he sees (if we are in public) or if we are at home, he is likely to just interrupt me to say whatever (I did laugh out loud at your "mom's having an MRI--is there any bread" example) and then we never get back to the original thing that I started with. No links between the two topics either--just whatever shiny thought crossed his mind. I used to be really bothered by that, now I don't care. Clearly he doesn't give a rats a** what I have to say anyhow, so why bother. Just another way our marriage is very very empty.
So yes, I feel you regarding the jokes and sarcasm and switching topics. Makes extended normal conversation virtually impossible.
Anger, Frustration & ADD
Submitted by cdrbar on
I feel that as partners of ADD husbands we do become subjected to mental fatigue. My husband did not get diagnosed with ADD until he was in his late 60's. Throughout the many years of our marriage I would be subjected to my husband saying something and then later deny ever saying it. Have difficulty at times following a conversation with my husband. He would start a conversation in the middle leaving out the beginning of the story making it very hard to follow what he is saying. He would tell me that I have said something when it never happened. After all these years at least I have an answer to his behavior.
Oh honey you are not damaged.
Submitted by dvance on
Oh honey you are not damaged. Trying to piece together what an ADHD person is saying is crazy making on a good day and we have to do it every darn day. The cumulative affect of years of that is incredibly stressful. I have to ask multiple questions to figure out what DH is trying to say most of the time and then he accuses me of interrogating him. He forgets things I tell him. He does not answer texts with any consistency (I THOUGHT texting would be good because he would have time to process my question and think about his answer AND I would have a record of the interaction should it be forgotten but HA--joke's on me--he just doesn't answer them at all!!!) And anything I put in place to make MY communications to HIM more clear tend to backfire too. I have a google calendar for the family--shared it to him and both kids. For me, it is color coded and I put EVERYTHING on it. For the family, it's only family stuff. He neither uses it nor posts his stuff on it (like work travel). He claims to know how to use it but every time he says he has posted something on it it never appears and yet I can do it pretty much in my sleep. So I also put a white board calendar up in the kitchen, again, with family stuff on it. He WILL put his work travel on there, but he won't look at it for other stuff, so if he asks me about something and I say it's on the calendar he gets irritated: "well I didn't look at the calendar". Um...that's the point of the calendar. I also get a lot of "that's not what I meant" if I ask for clarification about something that didn't make sense or was incomplete. And man is he aggravated that I couldn't figure out what he actually meant. It often surprises me that folks whose brains are supposed to work so fast have so much trouble finding the right words. Is it because their brain is five steps beyond what they need to say? Because their memories are so poor they cannot recall what they wish to say? Because they don't pay attention to much of anything so their knowledge of anything is spotty at best? I don't know. I do know it's not us. Most of us here hold down demanding jobs in addition to dealing with the chaos that is our home lives, so I suspect we are pretty clear communicators out of necessity.
I think your way of looking at it as an untreated mental illness is actually really helpful. That way you know it's NOT you. I think many of us get so worn down and exhausted from years of SO MANY bizarre behaviors that the behaviors aren't necessarily worse, we are just so out of patience for them. And think about this too: it's not JUST unclear communication. For most of us it's that PLUS messes PLUS unfinished projects PLUS poor financial responsibility PLUS unsafe or risk taking behaviors PLUS lack of responsibility on their part for pretty much anything they do or say PLUS many other things. Add that all up and yep, we're exhausted and just cannot stand there trying to figure out someone's unclear sentences. I know I can't. It's not you.
DVance, the mental fatigue...
Submitted by vabeachgal on
DVance,
The mental fatigue is real. The divorce is final. The house is sold and pending closing. My biggest takeaway so far is that my mental fatigue is lifting. I have brain space again and it is simply amazing how well things fall into place when I have a non-anxious or stressed brain. Now, mind you, I am hitting up against some major life stressors - moving, financial stuff, divorce, new job.... but it doesn't feel as stressful as day to day life with my husband has been.
I don't need to worry about what he is or isn't doing anymore. For example... a large ebay package arrived at the door, obviously from an auto parts company. In the past, I would have been apoplectic with worry. You see, in the past he would buy car parts and not pay the mortgage. Not my monkey, not my circus anymore.
He is dating someone at work now. My son was horrified. He hates her and says she's not only stupid but very, very loud and low class. I think he's been "showing" a real interest in her for over a year, long before we even talked about divorce. He found a lot of ways to bring up her name in conversations and went to dig out her car on our snowstorm day... but it doesn't hurt me anymore. We're divorced, it's not cheating now.
I've also found that people I used to know and associate with have popped back up in my life. I've deepened my friendships with several people. I've received offers for help where I never used to. I don't know how to explain it except to say since I'm not consumed by fighting against chaos and filled with anxiety, life has gotten easier and simpler. There are many stresses in my life right now, but I don't feel horrifically stressed.
Another example. We had to do some work on the house before selling it. Ex insisted on doing it. The inspector dinged us on most of it. He did very poor work because he HAD to go help co workers with things during this time. This transaction wasn't important enough to him to focus on it excuslively. Well... now the prospective buyers are requiring licensed contractors to come to the home to remediate. I'm coordinating all of that. BUT, I had the forethought to include a stipulation in our separation agreement that he would be responsible for such - so no stress. My point is, when you can control things on your own, without anyone else's negative contributions, life is so very much easier and more peaceful. I guess some people managed to do it within the marriage. I couldn't.
OMG ME TOO!
Submitted by TrulyDisturbed on
You are not alone. I feel so sad for you! Yes it is mentally draining. I am dealing with depression and weight loss issues too. I am bone thin. Mentally I am flushed.
We both are broken from having to deal with our partners disorder. Im hoping to learn what we can do. But its good we are here for the support.