As I wrote in another posting, our family physician told me that I need to hold my husband responsible for things. That he is not an in-valid and should take responsiblity for his action or lack of action. Exactly how do you do this? He is an adult not a child. I can't punish him if he doesn't do something that is his responsiblity or that he agreed to do.
I understand that his brain does not function in the same manner as mine and issues such as how I would like to see things done and how they are actually completed is not what I am questioning. I understand he processes things differently. But shouldn't he be held responsible for contributing to the family in some manner. I'm not asking for him to do this the way I want them done I just want him to contribute and follow through.
He doesn't work (on disability). I work FT plus do extra paid assignments at home in the evening on top of typcial house chores. Basically I am working from the time I get up to the time I go to sleep. The problem is that he doesn't contribute to the upkeep of the house or the daily chores. He even waits until I come home from work to ask what we are having for dinner. I've tried to have calm discussions with him regarding what he could do to help me. The wash, clean the dishes, maybe vaccum once a week, take the dog for a walk, etc.. but nothing every comes of it. I've even offered suggestions to him, like make a list of things that you want to accomplish each day and work on the top one until it is complete and then continue to the next one (Something his therapist suggested). I told him it was ok if he didn't finish the entire list but just that he worked on something.
I guess I'm just wondering how many spouses struggle with the problem of the ADHD spouse not contributing or using the ADHD as an excuse to not contribute.
Bellajovi is your list too long?
Submitted by vcalkins on
I'm guessing that when he sees the entire list, he's overwhelmed. How about a calendar with just one thing a day. Getting one thing done a day would be better than a list that goes untouched for days. I remember when our son was overwhelmed in school and I found that the teacher had a stack of worksheets for him to do and as he finished them she would add new ones on the bottom of the stack. The problem is that he was never finished. In his mind he had to get them all done "today". ADDers have trouble with seeing things that are not done. They don't get the idea of doing part of the list today and then finishing it tomorrow. When I ask my husband to do something, he thinks I mean right away. He doesn't understand the idea of getting something done on his own time....probably because he can't get things done on his own time. So please give it a try. Hey, you never knows what will work if we don't try. Usually if I ask my husband to do something while I'm gone, he waite until just before I'm to get home.
fair contribution
Submitted by arwen on
Bellajovi, I believe it is quite reasonable to hold your spouse accountable for contributing to the family. He is supposed to be one of the adults, not one of the children.
The rub comes with determining what is a reasonable or fair contribution. On the one hand, it is reasonable for him to deal with the kinds of items you've identified, *if* the work is structured in a way he is capable of handling. When I've had the same kinds of issues with my husband, I've found that it doesn't accomplish anything to just give him a list, because he is incapable of making a *plan* to get them done, even though he's perfectly capable of actually executing them. If I expect him to *plan* getting the chores done in addition to actual execution, I'm doomed to disappointment a lot of the time. In our situation, that would be unreasonable for him to deal with, because it wouldn't be structured in a way he could handle.
When we first tackled these problems, we addressed this situation by making a chore chart -- for *everybody* in the family, including me -- so everybody was being treated the same way. Everybody was expected to check off the finished chores. The chore chart didn't just list the chores, it also indicated a period of the day when the chore needed to be done -- our day was divided into "before school", "before noon", "after noon", "after school", and "after dinner" (or maybe that last was "before bed" -- I'm not sure, it was a while ago!) We also had several different windup alarms for my husband to use to remind him when he needed to get started on the chores in each period. This worked reasonably well at the time -- not perfect, but he definitely got more done, and that made us both feel better.
I'm not saying this arrangement will work for you, each situation's needs are different. Nowadays we don't use a chore chart -- instead, my husband uses a PDA and we have meetings two or three times a week to schedule things. We make sure everything gets entered in the PDA with an appropriate alarm, and we check status on open items at every meetings, just as if we were a business or a club.
If any of this strikes as ridiculous, as stuff you "shouldn't have to do", I sympathize with your feelings, but it may serve you better to be pragmatic and just aim for getting some of the burden off your back. Over time, hopefully, your spouse will become accustomed to dealing with these things and will require less management from you.
It helped me to think of all this as something he should have learned when he was growing up, but his parents were unfortunately unaware of his problem and therefore did not teach him the way he needed to be taught, so I had to do instead, if I wanted the reap the benefits of that education.
I echo the suggestion by vcalkins that it may help to "start small". Big steps seem to be especially tough for folks with ADD. If your spouse feels overtasked, he may feel too discouraged to even start. By starting small, with a few things he feels he might be able to handle, he will learn that he *can* contribute and this will help encourage him to do more down the road. (But beware of overconfidence, too! Don't undermine the progress through impatience!) Eventually, by trial and error, you will find that right balance of what is a challenge but do-able. It is hard, it takes time.
You say you cannot punish him -- I know well how you feel. But I ask you to examine the concept -- fundamentally punishment is simply the natural undesirable consequence of one's inappropriate action. It's not your responsibility to dole out punishment, that is the job of nature, or God, or whatever supreme order you believe in. Instead, I suggest you look at yourself as the representative or embodiment of the natural undesirable consequences. A case in point: my husband had a terrible habit of strewing his books (he's an avid reader) all over the house -- on the furniture, on the floors, on the stairs -- as many as 50 scattered all over, mostly in inappropriate places. I considered them a tripping hazard and I got really tired of picking them up in order to walk safely or sit down. Finally, I warned him several times that if he did not eliminate this danger to me, I would be forced to do so out of self-preservation. When he did nothing to deal with it over a period of several weeks, I picked them all up and donated them to the library, so I wouldn't have to keep picking them up or risking my neck. He could still borrow them from the library if he really wanted, but I had solved the problem of the danger of *those* books to me. He understood that I was prepared to do the same thing with every book we owned, if he left them lying about in hazardous ways. He was shocked -- it only took once to make the point. It takes an effort to find a way to demonstrate the natural consequences of his inappropriate actions, but I've found this approach to be far more effective in dealing with this kind of situation.
You are dealing with a common problem, but hopefully the experience and guidance available here can help you address it to your mutual advantage. Good luck!!!
You make total sense Arwen
Submitted by ajr on
Arwen,
I could read your posts for hours, you are so articulate in your writings! I love the strewn books as a safety hazard and boxing then up to the library due to lack of follow through....Very creative! My husband saves things that he plans on fixing and our house and garage has all sorts of " Ill get to it projects." A dining room chair which need recaining, vaccum cleaner attachment that needs fixing "someday,an old banjo from his high school days ( 20 years ago).... that needs restringing and is in a moldy case in the basement..( by the way Ive never seen him play a banjo EVER since Ive known him!...yada yada yada....Im not sure if he thinks he might need it someday.... My strategy here is to communicate to him to move forward and pick one item to get fixed in the next 2-3 weeks.( a reasonable amount of time)....If in 3 weeks he doesnt work to complete, Ill take it to Goodwill- Recycling etc....Fair yes? Its just not fair to the household to have this stuff piling and piling in case we can use it someday...Its easier to go buy a new chair, vaccum or banjo !
Sort of like the books in your house all over, my spouse may not like it.. but the gist is that he has ample opportunity to fix the items....If he determines its not important enough to follow through in a reasonable timeframe, the natural consequence is Donate to Good will etc...
Your comment about " I've found that it doesn't accomplish anything to just give him a list, because he is incapable of making a *plan* to get them done, even though he's perfectly capable of actually executing them. If I expect him to *plan* getting the chores done in addition to actual execution, I'm doomed to disappointment a lot of the time. In our situation, that would be unreasonable for him to deal with, because it wouldn't be structured in a way he could handle." This is spot on.....I cant tell you the amount of disapointment Ive had as my husband in not a planner....He never will be either.....Not a core strength like me....But he certainly has more compassion and patience than me, so we each bring different qualities to the relationship....I truly want him to plan to take pressure off myself sometimes( I plan everything !) but ive found it works better it I do an overall plan ( ie: plan a big vacation) and delegate to him to set up the hotel, car etc.....only certain tasks, rather than have him try to do the whole thing.....Its a major brain event for him to complete and he churns and churns for days trying to decide....I think he gets overwelmed...
Still realtively quiet on my home front.... Nothing really to add to the posts.....I just enjoy hearing your stories as the parallels are so absolutely similar Im amazed.....Got to go remind my husband to follow through on something before sleep time! .Tee Hee. Stay tuned and keep posting...
disappearing projects
Submitted by arwen on
AJR, thanks so much for your kind words! I'm glad my experience can be worth something to somebody!
We also have the problem of projects that disappear into oblivion. My husband is actually *very* handy, but heaven help us if the project is big enough to run longer than a few hours or requires more than 10 minutes of thought. My husband has a workshop in the basement, and for years things he was going to repair ended up down there indefinitely. I started calling it "the black hole of Calcutta" because anything that went down there never came out again! There were actually times when I refused to relinquish a lamp or appliance cord in need of simple repair, until he brought the appropriate tools upstairs and repaired it on the kitchen table -- yes, I could have done it myself, but he does a much better job. (Of course, then the tools never got put away, lol!! But I found ways to deal with that well enough.)
Our basement is our husband's regime, almost completely. I don't mean to say I never go down there, but when I do, it's a case of "enter at your own risk", and I accept it as such. About every three years, my husband decides things have gotten to a point down there where he can't find anything anymore, so we spend a weekend attempting to restore a small semblance of order. I figure two days of my time every three years is a pretty reasonable price to pay for not fighting about where his stuff should go. I make sure I have my own small set of handtools (that he knows about but cannot find to borrow when he can't find his) so I don't have to risk my neck too frequently.
One of the lessons that I learned about my husband really early on is that we get along a lot better if he has a certain amount of space that is totally his, not open to the public, where he can be ruleless to his heart's content. Obviously, I would not be OK with something that was hazardous to other family members in any way, so I do have to check occasionally (since he might not even notice it). If he accidentally kills himself in these areas from unsafe conditions, that's his problem. We negotiated that he has control in 90% of the basement (the exception being the corner where the water heater and furnace are), a small room for his home office, and he can also utilize half of the garage during the summer for outdoor projects, if he is willing to park his car (not mine) in the driveway. I am allowed to comment on the condition of these places, lol, but he is not required to take any action about them and I can't nag. Because my ire has been swift and terrible on the two occasions when he *did* allow a hazard to others to occur in these areas, we don't have much of a problem on that score.
This arrangement gives him places to stash stuff when the remainder of the house needs to be cleaned or picked up, and with my husband that is more than half the battle, since he doesn't object intrinsically to being asked to pick up or clean, he just has absolutely *NO* idea where anything should go!!! (This used to boggle my mind, but I understand it now. For example, "here's a sock. Is it clean or dirty? I don't know, I can't remember if I wore it, I can't really tell by looking at it, I'm not even positive it's mine. If it's clean, where does it go? If it's not mine, I don't know. If it is mine, since I can never remember where my socks go, I have socks in every dresser drawer. If it's dirty, where does it go? Probably my hamper, but I don't know where that is, it could be in the laundry room, or somewhere in my closet, or maybe the bathroom? *Why* did I pick this up again?" His memory just isn't reliable enough, and the whole process ends up constantly reinventing the home storage/filing system -- and not necessarily the same way he invented it the last time he tried!). If he has only two rooms in which to put his things, it limits the scope of what he has to remember or figure out. Wow, what a difference this made for us! Of course, the rooms do eventually fill up, so periodically he has to take a weekend or two to purge just so that he can walk across the room, but that doesn't seem to bother him nearly as much.
My bottom line in all this is to ask myself, "is <whatever> really causing a problem for me? How is it really hurting me?" Safety is sine qua non -- I grew up in a family that worked for old Ma Bell, whose policy was "No job is so important, and no service so urgent, that we cannot take time to do our jobs safely," and I've always wholeheartedly subscribed to that. Beyond that -- "Is it making it harder for me to do my work? Is it making it so much harder than it my extra effort is bigger than his effort to address it would be? Is it costing us money? Is it money we can fairly easily afford?" My husband has a half dozen rolls of duct tape scattered about "his domains" that he cannot find (and I have one I can find and he can't). Duct tape is cheap, it doesn't go bad, it's in his special areas, I don't care. As long as I have a roll I can dependably access, it's no skin off my nose. The power tools he left plugged in around the house when our kids were little produced a major eruption on my part. The cabinet my husband was planning to stain is still unfinished in the basement after 20 years, and it would have been really nice to be able to use it all this time, but we managed to get along without it OK, it didn't take up too much space, and now our kids are at a stage where they want to take it off our hands and finish it themselves -- so was it really that terrible it sat there all that time? I'm a pragmatist -- not that I lack standards -- but where is the good of adhering to high standards and everybody being constantly upset or miserable, if lower standards won't hurt anybody and the degree of misery is noticeably reduced? Where are the real priorities? Even after all these years, and the progress we have made, I have to keep asking myself these questions at times.
In your case, it would certainly be fair to toss the banjo if he doesn't fix it as negotiated -- but it may be more useful to your relationship to ask yourself if you really *need* to toss the banjo. If it's for truly good cause, something that will actually produce some tangible benefit, obviously it should go. If it's just so that you won't be irritated that he isn't repairing it, it might be more appropriate to find a place for it where you won't be aware of it. It's possible that banjo carries cherished memories he hasn't told you about, or represents some part of his self-image. (That moldy case, though, is a potential health hazard and imho should be removed.) From the standpoint of moving forward with the projects, I think your plan has merit -- just make sure that the timeframes are negotiated, not imposed, and the consequences agreed upon, not dictated. You need to get your spouse to buy in to the concept that things you agree need to be addressed cannot drift along in limbo indefinitely. He may be more likely to do that if *he* can pick the item, or if the two of you prioritize them together.
Hang in there!
To AJR and Arwen
Submitted by Elaine on
I get so many great ideas from reading your posts. I especially like the idea of *natural* consequences instead of nagging. I know Melissa has talked about this, too. My only question is whether any of your husbands have ever resented the agreed-upon consequences you have set up once you actually follow through on them? I haven't tried this with my husband but I'm pretty sure this is how it would go:
We would agree that if a certain item wasn't cleaned up by a certain day, it would go to Goodwill. He would probably agree to this just to have the conversation over. Then, when that day comes and I follow through with taking the item to Goodwill, he would most likely start by asking for just a little more time and then get really angry if I reminded him that this is the deal we agreed upon and then went ahead and took the item to Goodwill. On top of that, I anticipate that he would not like having "consequences" doled out only on him (even if we had agreed together what they would be ahead of time) and would come up with some task that he wants me to do or else I would have to deal with a consequence. He tends to want me to have to go through the same things he goes through so that I have to suffer as much unpleasantness as him.
So many of you say that your husbands are compassionate or loving or that they try really hard to work with you. I don't experience any of that from my husband. Granted, he is not on meds or in therapy, but it's hard to believe that he would ever express any care for my feelings. I find him to be completely self-centered and yet he would say that I am the selfish one (no one else I know would ever say this about me). We see the world through totally different colored glasses and when I try to see it through his, I get confused and angry. He doesn't even try to see the world through my glasses.
I realize I'm rambling but I'm feeling particularly hopeless these days because our couples counselor doesn't specialize in ADD and she is not making it a priority in our sessions despite me stating that it is a huge issue. I have been calling therapists all over our state to try to find a referral to someone in our area who knows about adult ADD and I have had no luck. No one seems to specialize in this area around here. I even had the one guy listed as a psychologist for our city on the CHADD website, of all places, tell me 3 or 4 times in our conversation that there's no reason to find someone who specializes in ADD; we just need a good therapist, according to him. I need a therapist for myself that understands adult ADHD, too.
My head is spinning with trying to understand what part I am playing in this mess and what things I do and do not have control over. I just wish my marriage were peaceful so I could focus all of my attention on our wonderful baby girl. I just don't have the energy for all of this and I feel completely alone.
Thanks for listening.
consequence resentment
Submitted by arwen on
Sure, my husband has resented the agreed-upon consequences of his action at times. And sometimes he has also asked for more time. Since you've read several of my posts, you know that my husband has SAD. This makes him very irritable in the spring -- that when he mostly gives me the grief over the consequences. In the fall he gets foggy, that's when he asks for more time! (And boy, do I know what you mean when you say he agrees to stuff just to end the conversation -- we've been through that so many times. The regular meetings we have really did help reduce that problem, interestingly.)
For the resentment, I ask him (ine a non-challenging way) what he expected would happen different. Did he underestimate the time he would need? Did he think it was all just an intellectual exercise? Did he encounter something unexpected that he thought would make a difference? Did we have a misunderstanding? What do the notes from our meeting say? Whatever he answers, we explore how he can learn from what happened so we can not have the problem again. It's important to be persistent and to make each problem situation a learning experience to whatever degree is possible (sometimes he's not very interested in learning!). It's also important for him to understand that you want to help him find some way to deal with it better so there's no need for resentment. Basically, my husband tends to not think on his own, so we go through these kinds of discussions where I ask Socratic questions to help him identify what is and isn't going on in his mind.
When he asks for more time, my responses are based on the reasonableness of the request. Is he only asking for an extra day or two, and will that still be an acceptable time for the task to be done? Did something come up at work to make him work overtime so he didn't have the time to complete the home task? If he has made me aware of the roadblock before the deadline, I take that as a good faith effort to at least keep me informed -- that indicates an awareness at least that he has a deadline in jeopardy, and I'll almost always agree to renegotiate the deadline. The key is that "good faith" aspect. If he establishes a track record of *always* needing more time, despite efforts to identify how he can better estimate what it will take, that's not really good faith.
The critical result of these processes is that he appreciates that there is a cause-and-effect relationship between things that are *not* done, and their natural consequences. My husband can sometimes see a cause-and-effect relationship between something he does and its results, but it's virtually impossible for him to understand how *not* doing something can have consequences, because "he didn't do anything", lol. In his mind, something he didn't do doesn't exist. How could it have consequences?
In terms of dealing with his anger in these situations, I guess in a bizarre way I was lucky in those cases that I am fundamentally an impatient person who can get really really angry. Don't misunderstand me! It's not a good character trait at all, it didn't help most of the problems we had, and it's much better that I've learned to be more patient and less upset. But as a result it was impossible for him to get angrier than me! And his anger didn't scare me, either, I didn't really give a hoot how angry he got. So I wasn't uncomfortable with drawing a line and sticking to it. It did help that he learned he could push me only so far, it gave him badly needed boundaries (even if he didn't like them very much).
I really want to emphasize that it was not possible to work with my husband this way before he got on the meds and into counseling. We would just have screaming matches. He almost never could see my point of view. He wasn't totally self-centered, but he certainly had no appreciation for the impact his behaviors were having on people. Obviously, there was no way to *force* him to do something on the schedule we negotiated, but I did stick to enforcing the consequences. Otherwise, he never would take *any* commitment seriously. (It's interesting that you have imagined that your husband would ask *you* to do something with consequences -- that's exactly what my husband did at first. I just always made sure I got whatever it was done. He got tired of that game pretty quickly, he didn't like "being showed up", it only emphasized his problems.)
Is there any way you can discuss the subject of getting your husband on meds with the couples counselor in one of your sessions? I know a lots of people don't like to be on medication -- my ADD son doesn't, and he went off his meds for several years after high school, but he has learned the hard way that he can't make his life work without them and went back on recently. My experience says that the progress you can make without meds can be pretty limited.
I wish there was some way to make all this easier for you, I know how you are feeling! but I don't know of any cases of dealing with adult ADD/ADHD that was not addressed appropriately in childhood that were anything but time consuming and a lot of work. The one comfort I maybe can offer is that even if you feel lonely in your marriage, your baby girl will quickly help you feel less lonely as she grows. And you are not alone here!
Keep on keeping on! I will keep you in my prayers.
Arwen, I'll second AJR's
Submitted by newfdogswife on
Arwen,
I'll second AJR's comment about reading your posts for hours. We really appreciate your input. The parallels are so similar it's scary!!!!!! Our garage is chalked full of "get to projects", too. Also, very full of stuff that husband might need someday but I'm afraid that someday will more than likely never come.
Thnaks for the Replies
Submitted by bellajovi on
Thank you everyone for the replies. In regards to the list, it was only a suggestion to him. He never let me make one for him, denied that he needed one. I've tried starting slow- asking him if he would do just the laundry on a daily basis. I didn't even expect him to fold and put it away, just wash and dry and then into a basket. He managed to do this for 1 maybe 2 days and now he doesn't attempt it at all. When I mention it to him he insists that he still does it.
Last night we had a really big fight. I did not start it but I guess I am to blame for why he did. I have a bad habit of internalizing my feelings and frustrations until they get to a point where I literally start to ignore him. I KNOW this is wrong on my part. I believe it is a coping mechanism that I created to deal with him not being able to process most of what I communicate to him. Over the past few years it got easier for me to ignore him when he didn't follow through then it was to remind him or start a discussion about it again.
After reading more about ADHD, here and on other websites, I tried to apply some of the advice I've seen. I tried not to accuse him of the things he wasn't doing but tried to communicate some of my needs. In the end it just became so frustrating because he really didn't listen to what I was saying. It was like he was responding to his own questions and thoughts and not what I was actually saying.
He mentioned to me that his therapist thought I was wrong for not spending time with him. Which I admit I am- I need to work on this but it's hard when there is still so much resentment towards him do to his lack of contributing.Plus I'm working 99% of the time. I asked him if we could talk to the therapist together to try and work out some of our issues. He said we didn't need to do that. I'm sure that everything he is telling his therapist is what he thinks I'm doing wrong. I'm sure he tells her that he is trying his best. In his mind I think he believes that. I tried discussing some things that he could do to help make him contribute more. But it was only met with resistance.
In the end I ended up telling him what he wanted to hear, that I was wrong, he was right and I would do better. I did this only to end the argument. But each time this happens it pushes me further and further away from him and makes me feel worse.
I don't know how we can heal our marriage if he can't (not won't) but can't mentally hear my side of the argument. It is so frustrating.
crosspurpose communicating needs counseling
Submitted by arwen on
Bellajovi, your spouse may feel you don't need to see his therapist, but if *you* feel joint counseling is necessary, he should at least to agree to try it. He may not want to do this with his therapist for some non-obvious and non-subversive reason that he's not communicating. It may be more fruitful to tell him that you feel that you need to see someone together, regardless of his opinion, and ask him what kind of counselor would work for him. Maybe tell him *you* really *need* him to do this *with* you, for *your* benefit. In similar situations I've even told my spouse it can be his birthday or Christmas present to me. He may prefer to see a family or marriage counselor for joint counseling, rather than an ADD therapist, for example. You may have to present him with a set of counseling options to choose amongst, in order to get him to make a determination that will move your situation forward. (I've found offering a set of choices often produces more results than open-ended questions.) If you are able to get him into a joint counseling session but with another counselor, make sure the counselor and the therapist know about each other and ask them to communicate periodically.
It sounds to me like you are both doing something my husband and I did for a long time (fruitlessly) -- talking *at* each other instead of *with* each other, because although it may seem you are speaking the same language, you probably aren't. (Even today, I can't count how many times a year I say to my husband, "I don't think you are really understanding what I'm trying to get across".) My husband and I could not get past talking *at* each other without joint counseling because we both kept expecting the other to understand our language. By listening to both of us, the counselor was able to recommend changes in our communication dynamic that would be more effective for us. These were not "canned" suggestions from a book, but practical ideas tailored to our particular communications styles and personalities. They didn't all work, but some did, and to a certain extent, just trying a new dynamics tended to make us both "tune in" more.
In our case, it turned out that while my husband cared very much about me, as an individual person, independent of our partnership, independent of our living situation, he did not really emotionally connect that person with person executing the home manager's role. He did not understand that they were connected in me, because he himself felt no emotional connection in himself to a home manager's role (and he had no interest in developing one!). We tried putting him the home manager's role for an extended period of time (which had very mixed results), but even that didn't give him any emotional connection to that persona. I felt that if he really cared about me, the mere fact that this was so important to me should be enough to cause him to accept my statement of needs, and work with me on that basis, but the reality was that my issues just weren't real to *him* without that emotional connection. I had to figure out what kind of role he *did* have an emotional connection to, and then make an analogy with that in order to elicit his understanding. To a certain extent, I had to learn how to communicate with him in a language he understood, which was frequently not the one most of us use. This worked for us, but your issues may be different. A joint counselor can help you determine what the obstacles to your communications are and help you find ways to address them.
Of course, if one's spouse is not very interested in communicating in the first place, there is even more of a challenge. I used to say that I had to do the interpersonal dynamic equivalent of whacking my husband over the head with a 2x4. This sounds terrible, I know. And it is not quite like that. Getting hit with a 2x4 really hurts, and getting really hurt does not tend to make one real receptive. But often I did have to do something pretty far out of the norm to get his attention (still sometimes do), and it worked best if whatever I did produced a small to moderate amount of surprise or shock to slightly stun him, so that he did not *initially* react with any emotion, but only after I had been able to elicit a useful emotion. (A big shock was usually counterproductive, and I had to make sure the surprise or shock would only stun, not hurt.)
For example, last month he left his sneakers at the bottom of the stairs into the laundry, near our back door. I was carrying a laundry basket down and didn't see them and tripped over them (fortunately I didn't get hurt). If he'd been home at the time, I would have addressed it then, but I couldn't. Obviously they needed to be moved for safety, but if I just moved them away from the stairs next to the wall, he wouldn't realize they'd been moved, he'd think he'd left them in that new location. I knew he'd need these shoes to walk the dog later, so I hung the shoes on the hinges of the back door. Even my loopy husband would know he hadn't put them there, nobody hangs shoes on door hinges. Later in the day after he got back home, the surprise of eventually finding them in such a bizarre location "shocked" him into the realization that something was amiss. He actually came to me about it, said he was sure it meant something, was much more inclined to listen than if I'd just started a conversation about it when he got home, and apologized profusely afterwards. This was a small shock, I used to have to use bigger ones in the past, but we have progressed to the point where this was enough. With my husband, a visual surprise/shock/stun usually works better than an auditory one. Again, this worked for us, but may not be of any use to others. But perhaps it will give you food for thought.
I feel so keenly for you, I can remember my frustrations along these lines and I hear the same feelings from you -- it sounds like you feel you are talking to a brick wall. But I also have a sense from you that you haven't quite accepted that at the moment you actually *are* talking to a brick wall, in a sense, and you need instead to find a way to communicate with the real person that's trapped *inside* the brick wall. My prayers are with you!
I also ignore
Submitted by vcalkins on
Is ignoring my ADD husband a "natural consequence"? Sometimes that's the only way I can cope that day.
is ignoring a consequence?
Submitted by arwen on
Wow, tough question. My own sense is that it *can* be, but only under certain circumstances.
I admit I've sometimes ignored my spouse, but I'm not sure it's right to say that I did it as a natural consequence. My husband had a very unhelpful policy of bailing out of a conversation whenever it reached a point he didn't like, just leaving and then refusing to talk to me any further. If I let it drop for the moment but came back to the conversation at a later time, I just got the same treatment. I finally decided the only way to get across to him how uncooperative his behavior was, was to "mirror" this behavior for him (which actually turned out to be *very* hard for me to do). He was really upset, angry with me about it. I said to him, "All I'm doing is what you do when *you* don't like the conversation," and then clammed up again. It took a while, but he finally got the point, and we were able to work out a more cooperative dynamic. I had to repeat the process a few more times over a number of years, because he would slip back into his earlier behavior during times when we had more problems than average. Now it's not a problem. But I don't really see this process as a kind of "natural consequence".
I guess I would look at it this way -- when would you ignore someone who *wasn't* a member of your family? In general, a person would have to be really persistently obnoxious before I'd ignore him, and I certainly wouldn't ignore anybody without first asking them to please leave me alone or saying "No, thank you". The guy who insists on squeegeeing my car window even when I say no and then pesters me for payment is going to get ignored. If I felt my spouse's behavior fell into this general kind of paradigm, I would say it would indeed be a natural consequence to ignore him. The only other people I might ignore would be people I really *really* disliked intensely. If a spouse falls into this category, something else besides ignoring probably needs to be done!
In my experience, interpersonal dynamics rarely improve without communication, so ignoring someone would typically not be a helpful thing to do. Obviously, at times, ignoring someone actually can communicate something, but the message is pretty limited. Most of the time when I've had it up to my eyeballs with my husband, I just say to him fairly forcefully, "You know, I just can't take any more of your <pestering/anger/whatever behavior> right now. Please leave me alone." This suggests that while I don't want him around at the moment, I might be more receptive at a later time -- it's not a total rejection, which I think is very important to avoid, and ignoring can often unfortunately be interpreted that way. My spouse is usually so taken aback by this that it actually gets him to think more about what he's doing than ignoring him would.
So, I guess I'd say there is legitimate place for ignoring, just as there is in other social interactions with members of society at large -- but it has to be applied carefully and with due consideration for the message you are really trying to send and how it may be perceived.
PowrHouse might help
Submitted by jboxer on
I've been working really hard over the past few months on a website called called PowrHouse (http://powrhouse.net/). I think it might actually be really useful for an ADHD husband.
It's currently in beta, but it works well (we're using it in our household). You add everyone you live with (kids, spouses, roommates, etc.), add your chores (names and how often they should be done), and PowrHouse keeps track of whose turn it is to do each chore (and sends email reminders every night, with links to click to signal that you've done the chores). It sends nightly reminders about the chores a person as assigned to them, so your husband will always have a little reminder, and you won't have to be the one who gives it to him.
If you do end up using it, please contact me (my info is on the site) and let me know what you think, as I'm trying to make it as useful to as many types of households as possible. If not, thanks at least for reading this far :)
PowrHouse Beta
Submitted by ajr on
I tried it...Cant seem to see how you assign chores to a specific member of the household....Might have some potential but it looks like you are at the early stages of development.... We use a similar family system for calendars called Cozi.com Has to do lists, calendars so we can see all family members activities, and shopping lists. Works very well. It has really helped my ADD husband keep track of not just his own appointments, but everyone in the families, so he can keep track of when to pick up kids, coordinating pick up schedules with me etc....
Keep working at it....Would love to give you ideas or maybe be a beta tester.....
Assigning chores
Submitted by jboxer on
Hi ajr, thanks for the feedback. In PowrHouse, you don't manually assign chores to specific people; it takes care of that for you. Check out this answer on our support site: http://getsatisfaction.com/powrhouse/topics/how_do_i_assign_a_chore_to_o...