I have been sick the past week. I'm feeling better now, but I realize just how much my partner cannot be there for me and actually makes the bumps in the road of life even harder than they have to be. Here's just some of the things I've had to deal with this past week:
Not eating for 4 days because I was too sick to make food, literally could not stand up in the kitchen to prepare anything, because my "partner" refused to make me food or bring me anything.
Getting asked repeatedly when I was going to make him some of my famous meatballs because he was hungry. For 4 days. While I starved to death in the back bedroom.
Getting screamed at and threatened with being kicked out of our apartment because he's "sick of my sh*t" when I attempted to finally shower and make food after 4 days because I woke him up (he's nocturnal and sleeps in our living room so I can't do anything during normal waking hours usually).
After finally getting up enough energy to make him the goddamned meatballs, discover that all the cookware I need is dirty because he used it and didn't wash it. When I nicely mention (because I don't have the energy for a fight) that all the stuff I need is dirty, he goes on a rant about how I had left a bowl and a plate in the sink for a week. Yeah, a week when I was too sick to move and when I finally did have the energy got screamed at for waking him up which I suppose is my fault for not being nocturnal like he is.
I really had the urge this morning to go into the kitchen at 7:00 a.m. just after he got himself to sleep on the couch and wash that plate and bowl he was whining about. But I know the message would be lost on him. I would just get screamed at.
talk to someone
Submitted by lynninny on
Caroline,
I just can't stay off here today--I think I am processing a lot and trying to make sense still of some things in my failed relationship with my spouse with ADHD.
I am sorry you are going through this. It sounds like you are both very frustrated and upset. Right or wrong, it is tough to comprehend how differently the ADHD mind can perceive or react to things. If you go through these boards, you will find many examples of spouses feeling neglected and sad because their spouse with ADHD does not seem capable of being a caregiver (my own experience after surgery once still hurts--mine not only could not or would not help me in any way: I mean, it seemed like Mt. Everest to make a can of soup--and I had to get up early and hurt myself because he just could not cope with taking care of our kids...anyway...)
I can just tell you: this was my life! It sounds like you are relating a story from my experience. The sleep issues, the fixations on things that seemed really selfish or inappropriate (meatballs), extreme irritability when woken up, the need to keep tabs and tit for tat over household tasks (in black and white, hard for your spouse to be "blamed" for not washing dishes if you did, in fact, actually leave an unwashed bowl in the sink 8 months ago for 2 hours, lol--he is defending himself and he is probably hurt that you are mad). All of these could definitely be related to ADHD. And I am not telling you that you are wrong, because I felt the same way. Mine once said, "Just tell me if the kids need dinner," and I said, "How can you not know that the kids need to eat?!?" A normal person would probably "see" that the kids need to eat every night. I am not saying that you should put up with any crap or mistreatment, but I am telling you in retrospect, if I had accepted that he truly did not "see" that they needed to eat and I had just calmly asked, we would have had a much easier time of it.
But I will tell you, from my own experience: I know you are mad. You are hurt. You are PISSED. I don't blame you. I was furious after a few years of him becoming nocturnal again after our children were born and literally leaving me to handle everything that happened before 3 in the afternoon! But--he knows you are mad, and he is hurt, and he is PISSED right back. This is not healthy. It will not make either of you feel better. You can debate until you are blue in the face about the things you just mentioned, to try to make him "see," but to keep going like you are for days, weeks, months, will only lead to heartache, stress, and pain.
So, vent all you need to. I think everyone here will understand! Then, ask yourself. Do you really love him and does he really love you? Do you want to try to save your relationship? If so, read Melissa's book if you haven't, see a counselor, and have him do so as well and get assessed for the good of the relationship and for himself. Tough place to get to, but it can be done. You have to find a way to not be angry and let it go and focus on yourself. See the cycle? You can weep when he does not feed you when you are sick, or you can for now ask yourself what you would do if he weren't there. I know, it sucks, and a "normal" person would take care of you in a way that made sense. For this to work, you have to change, adapt, and understand, and he has to do the work. But don't keep going like you are now. Trust me. You reach a point of no return and leave nothing but burned out husks in your wake. And if he is not up for it, and you are this unhappy, and you are not bound by marriage and children, think long and hard about what you want out of life and from a partner. It will take a lot of work. Do not settle. You deserve to be happy. You CHOOSE whom you will be with, and it is one of the most important choices of your life.
Sorry if I sound dramatic, but I lived this way for a decade before realizing what ADHD really was and what was going on, and then it was too late. Best to you. Take good care of yourself.