I have coped all these years of marriage to ADD husband by distracting myself, rationalizations, prioritizing, working for the greater good, having occasional tantrums, and denial all while being confused.  Yes, those are exactly what a sane person does to cope with a situation that is not to their liking but needing to accommodate.  I am new to the realization that DH has ADD.   With this clarity, I am glad for the confusion to be lifted.  As I process what has gone on all these years and how we are today, I see how good I actually did with it and how I survived the confusion and "took it on the chin" all the times I felt unloved, overwhelmed and alone.  Now that my children are grown and I have this new information, I am trying to face things, learn more and be the person I want to be.  Denial gets to go be dealt with now that I have a clue what has been going on.  I don't want to use distractions (kids, house, events, work etc) because I want to live a life with passion and be real and true to myself.  As I work through these steps, I am angrier than ever as I take into account the habits we have in place where I am expected to clean up the mess, schedule, care for the family, forgive, change my expectations, (I could go on but you all know).  It has become a system of me being responsible.  I want to cultivate a state of mind where I can tell my life story (to myself) and give myself the accolades of what I have done rather than constantly beating myself up because things for 35 years seemed so frustrating and wrong somehow.  As I try to put my anger on the ADHD rather than my husband, I am so sad we didn't know, that I seem to have lost myself, that I didn't know how to be true to myself with all this.  And DH does not have a clue other than he is trying to do the best he can and can only focus on a small part of the moment he is in with whomever he is with at the time. His main focus seems to be to detach from anything unpleasant, detach from responsibility and distract himself with idle activities. I accomplished what I wanted to.  DH has self confidence and believes in himself and is happy.  When young, I thought that was a good thing to work for because he would have to be the breadwinner and I would support him in all ways.  I thought he would love me for it.  It feels to me that he hates me because I have turned into an unhappy, workaholic harpy. And he is not the breadwinner. He has become very proud of himself for his ability to manipulate me. He has quite a big opinion of himself. He is an "expressive,expressive" if you know what that means - no introspection. I feel manipulated.  His reality is now so off, I am so alone.  It is too late for us to do anything to change our relationship - other than me leaving.  We are in our 60's and looking at retirement with my 401K and his outstanding business loan he took out 20 years ago and "just didn't get around to paying off".  Meanwhile his "babytalk" and jokes and casual, cocky manor that seem endearing to others makes me want to hit something.  That's not the ADHD.  That is just from lack of responsibility and the confidence I worked so hard to support.  Thanks for letting me vent yet again.  Just trying to work this out of me and know I am not alone.