I am desperately seeking help. Around 20 years ago I thought I met the girl of my dreams. She was beautiful, extremely kind and I enjoyed being with her. Even at this early stage I noticed that she was always on the move doing one thing or another, she spent money like there was no tomorrow and often her facts were a bit confused. I loved her dynamism as I am very slow to be motivated. I am very intelligent and analyse everything thoroughly and found her weird facts and confusion and slow brain a bit annoying. However, being lavished with gifts, presents and love overcame these issues. We had a fairly rocky courtship. I know at times I can be dismissive and self absorbed but I always felt that whenever my girlfriend was stressed I was to blame. This took the form of irrational blow ups, the silent treatment and I could never really understand where she was coming from. We would make up, things would be great and then the pattern would repeat. Sometimes I would react very badly to these irrational outbursts as in my view they were really hurtful and provocative. Whenever I would react, her parents or sisters were informed and because normally she is so sweet and kind to everyone else I was labelled as the monster. We overlooked most of the problems and still got married.
Things were generally Ok until the large mortgage and second child came around. I found her spending and lack of planning obscene and she found the fact that I left her to deal with the routine chores and kids all the time overwhelming. Both of us are working and my wife owns her own business. As I said I can be very slow to move but my wife has left 2 business partners because they left everything to her and I blame this partially on her inability to stop. However, I love it when she is away and I can look after the children in an orderly way without the ensuing chaos. I do not find it overwhelming and often question her about this. She says I criticise her constantly when she is doing everything for the family but in my view it is quantity and not quality she is looking at. Whilst I am planning she is doing.
We made some major renovations to the house. I planned all the work efficiently whilst again she just wanted to spend money we didn't have all the time. She got incredibly frustrated at the dust as she wanted to move out - not caring about the money required for rent. She got frustrated at the amount of time it was taking and I was to blame. From then on I spend my days walking on egg shells. Blow up after blow up.
She tells me of her learning difficulties at school, the fact that she is constantly overwhelmed, and she does not follow conversations very well. I researched and suggested she may have ADHD. She looked at the symptoms and said that I also displayed some of them.
I researched a bit more and found that even though I excelled in school, thrived on efficiency, that my inability to get up in the morning and procrastination was probably due to ADHD. I was relieved to discover what was causing my somewhat quirky behaviour.
The problem is now that she blames all our marital problems on this. However, I am sure that her total lack of efficiency, long term understanding of money, weird inconsistencies and inability to think through a logical thread is sympomatic of her ADHD.
I have bought the ADHD effect in Marriage book which I hoped she would read and understand but yet again she is unable to reconcile the theory with actual practice. She thinks because she does not procrastinate with doing chores or buying things she can not have ADHD and trying to reason with her is next to impossible. She says that love should overcome everything and that she overlooked my "laziness" initially but has now had enough because she is unhappy that I did not let her have her way with the house renovations. I am frustrated that I constantly watch someone dig holes for themselves and ends up making life a lot more complicated that it needs to be.
I know my ADHD makes me focus on efficiency but it's incredibly tough being married to someone who just does and buys but never thinks. Now I am pretty certain we both have ADHD at opposite ends of the spectrum I am reluctant to just sit and talk about our issues because I know they can't just go away now without her also going to get help. She does not have the analytical skills to realise that combining our talents would make us an awesome team and is now just focussing on the negatives. 2 weeks ago out of the blue I was given the silent treatment for no reason. We have not really spoken since. 3 lovely kids and a beautiful house but a marriage made in hell.
Any advise would be greatly appreciated.
I don't think that the logic part is ADHD.
Submitted by overwhelmedwife on
I don't think her lack of logic is ADHD. That sounds more emotional...like maybe a personality disorder or maybe bipolar.
My H has a PD, and he has very little ability to see things logically or even chronologically when he's emotional about something.
<<< I found her spending and lack of planning obscene <<<<
The lack of planning is likely either ADHD or a disorder that includes teh impulsive symptom....same with the spending. What is she spending on?
>>>>
and she found the fact that I left her to deal with the routine chores and kids all the time overwhelming.
<<<
This stuck out to me. WHY do you leave all the routine chores and child related chores to her? How is that fair? You both work. Why do you only do child stuff when she is out of town? Everyday you should be doing child and home related things.
>>>
Both of us are working and my wife owns her own business. As I said I can be very slow to move but my wife has left 2 business partners because they left everything to her and I blame this partially on her inability to stop.
<<<
What does this mean?
and what do you want help with?
Hi,
Submitted by Topupman on
Hi,
I never really understood why I was never eager to do a lot of the chores until being diagnosed with ADHD.Normally when I am alone I make minimal mess and can sort it out but I can't cope when I am not in control of making the mess/meal preparation and there are loads of things that need washing up. Weird, I know but that's my ADHD kicking in. The other issue is that I reckon my wife has some form of OCD. The house must be clinically clean when it is being cleaned but yet she won't tidy up immediately after a meal and will leave it until it is a real mess and then go on another mad over the top cleaning rampage. When the children were younger I also found it very difficult to do the routine stuff too with them but enjoyed playing with them. I am sure this was frustrating for her at the time but now they are older, this is not so much of a problem. We also have nannies cleaners coming at all hours of the day doing a lot of unnecessary and trivial work around the house which my wife pays for without a care in the world. I understand the house needs cleaning an ironing needs to be done etc especially since we are both working but a nanny will be called in for three hours to refold jumpers, cook a pizza for a party (cheaper to buy one) or wash the floor the nth time in a week. It is non essential work, completely over timed and does not work well with our long term finance plan (which we do not have!)
So my real issue is whether my frustration with her lack of financial responsibility, constant cluttering of the house with things we already have, muddling of facts, missing the point of conversations, total focus on the present without putting the situation into a historical perspective or an understanding of the consequences on the future as well as her superficial thought process is an indicator of her having ADHD or my hyperfocus on analysis, logic and efficiency. We both are highly frustrated and barely speaking to each other. From my point of view, because of the reasons above and the fact that she just doesn't get what I need (ie a logical life, an efficient house and a planned for future) and she is frustrated because she feels undervalued and not listened to. The truth of the matter is that I do find it hard to listen to her because a lot of the things she says are often misconceived ideas. If I try to demonstrate that she has not understood things correctly or the future consequences of what she is proposing, this will often lead to an argument. I also think that if she does have ADHD she is blaming a lot of the issues of her feelings of being "overwhelmed" caused by her own mismanagement on me.
I hope I have portrayed the situation as accurately as possible. I am definitely no Saint in this marriage but I am trying to address the issues of my own ADHD by seeking medical help. I don't think she can fully appreciate the anger and frustration she is causing me though and she does not seem to have any control on this repetitive behaviour. Could this just be my ADHD problem? Am I being too harsh?
Thanks for reading.