Hi all,
First time poster. I need advice on what to do about my relationship with my ADHD boyfriend. Bullet points:
-We met a few years ago.
-We started dating about a year and a half ago.
-It is a long distance relationship.
-When we met he was living with his parents and applying to teach English in South Korea. This was a big change for him after living with a roommate and working at a restaurant for a decade.
-After two visits and two to three months, I thought he had ADHD, and I told him that. Didn't go well at first, but about three months later and lots of me crying he saw a doctor and got a diagnosis and medication.
-I've also cried about him trying to figure out a job/career, and have cried every step of the way to get him to do things like update his resume, reach out to a company about jobs, etc. I have also been the main person giving him step-by-step advice on how to start the career path he's now on (technical writer). My mom has been the other person.
-He started these ages at 32/33 years old. I was/am 29/30.
-I am his first girlfriend.
-I am exhausted.
-Over this same period of time, I've had my own (physical) heath issues to deal with, which have been extremely difficult (reproductive diseases, partial loss of vision in one eye, bacterial overgrowth). I've also worked very stressful jobs in Hollywood. He has stayed with me for two two-month visits this year. Both times I have felt unbelievably overwhelmed. He wants to and tries to help out with things in the apartment, but it takes endless reminders and planning help from me, I can often do the chores faster but am too tired, and I also now live in fear that something will go wrong or break while he's doing a chore. I can't even look at the kitchen after he cooks because it almost gives me a panic attack.
-He needs to apply for full-time tech writing jobs sometime in the next six months, as well as move out of his parents house and get a car (doesn't have one right now). He also doesn't have any savings and is working to fix his credit (another thing I had to cry about for months and months in order to make anything happen). I don't want all of this planning he needs to do for his life to fall on me. I'm worried that if I take no part in it, nothing will happen. I'm not sure he can move in with me. I'm not sure I can take it. I am also a writer and have no metal and/or physical space to write when he stays with me, because he works from my apartment.
-I have gone to lots of (YEARS OF) (EXPENSIVE) therapy in my life for my own issues. I said I would be willing to go to some sort of couples therapy with him at a place SPECIFICALLY for ADHD in the future, and would even be willing to bill it to my insurance. Last nigh he told me he and his therapist think I need to go to therapy for myself now. That make me want to walk away from him forever. Because if ADHD weren't in my life, I wouldn't be angry. I wouldn't' be anxious. If all of his life issues were gone from my life, I would be free. The thought of his problems no longer being my problems makes me feel free. The thought of going to therapy just to manage someone else's life and problems makes me depressed in a way I can't describe. It hurt me so deeply. It make me feel like nothing.
-The fun times in our relationship were short lived. It has been so stressful trying to change his life from almost the immedate get-go. He doesn't live where I live, so in order to do anything that resembles a date, he has to stay 24/7 in my apartment, where he also now works when he's with me. There's no romance. There's nothing taken off of my plate. The responsibilities of another person's life on top of the repsonsibilities of my own life are crushing me. Crushing me.
-I used to be fun and care-free.
-I don't know what to do.
-I don't want him to take out things he ACTUALLY needs to work out with his parents (leftover anger/resentment from childhood, things like that) on me. I BELIEVE he has ADHD. I BELIEVE he can do more with his life. I have put blood, sweat, and tears into moving his life forward. I just want to say, don't you take out your resentment on me. I've changed your life. I'VE CHANGED YOUR LIFE! Are you mad that it came so late? Are you grieving that these things didn't happen for you sooner? Me too, and I had NOTHING to do with that! I came into your life and instantly started "fixing" things that were stuck. What more do you want from me? I don't know how to get back to myself and also give you more.
-I don't know how to be a fun girlfriend who is happy anymore.
Please help. What do I do?
I'm sorry you're going
Submitted by jessiet02 on
I'm sorry you're going through this. I am the same age, boyfriend same age as yours. We have been together for 5 years/living together for 4. I realized he has ADHD six months ago after googling crazy things like "why can't my boyfriend remember to pay the heat bill after I've reminded him 5 times???"
Turns out nearly of our previously un-nameable relationship problems were the result of ADHD.
I understand you feeling crushed by the weight of all the responsibility. I FEEL YOU when you say "What more do you want from me? I don't know how to get back to myself and also give you more." All of my boyfriend's childhood anger and resentment gets taken out on me when things get the least bit tough.
I wish I didn't have to live in the same house and feel smothered by the person who is supposed to be my life partner. He has promised change for YEARS, and now we even have a name for the problem and a therapist and loads of information on dealing with ADHD....but things have only gotten worse since his diagnosis six months ago.
If I had known everything you described/we've experienced about ADHD's effect on relationships 3 1/2 or 4 years ago, I would have run far away as fast as possible.
I do not want you to end up where I am now. Wasting years believing in broken promises of change, always carrying the burden of adulthood for two people. I kicked mine out a month ago, but that only lasted a week because I felt bad for his 9 year old dog sleeping with him in his car. He has been sleeping on the couch for weeks, and hasn't taken much initiative to get back in my good graces.
I know what I NEED to do, but I have no idea what I'm actually going to do.
I recommend not putting yourself through any more misery. The codependence only gets worse as the relationship progresses, and then it just gets more and more painfully difficult to extract yourself from something you've put so much time and emotional energy into "fixing".....
Edited to add: He still hasn't paid that heat bill that led to his diagnosis. The bill hasn't been paid since December. It will be August in three days. Absolutely unbelievable. I paid my half of the bill the entire time, but it is in his name, so.....whatever.
What do you do? Run. As
Submitted by dvance on
What do you do? Run. As fast as you can. In the opposite direction. Seriously--there are so many alarms going off as I read your post--you are his first girlfriend? At his age--why? And why does a person his age need step by step career advice? Most of us have been in our career for ten years by age 33, or if we have changed our minds, we are on that path of our own accord-we don't have to be coaxed every step of the way. What 33 year old man is satisfied living at home with no car? If he does not care to have saving or decent credit, why should you have to cry about it? If you value savings and decent credit, then he is not the person for you. I fear you are becoming his mother not his girlfriend and I can tell you from experience that sets up a terrible dynamic that is darn near impossible to break out of. It has been my experience in 22 years of marriage to an ADHD husband that learned helplessness is a big part of the ADHD personality. It's a bizarre combo of "I know everything but have no follow through" and "Woe is me, I can't do anything right". It is crazy making, as you are experiencing. Seriously-I don't mean to be cold but many of us have wasted a lot of years and have pretty much nothing to show for it--finances in ruins, our own sense of self shaky and damaged, difficult relationships with our kids because we are the parent and the ADHD person is the fun friend. I regret the choice I made 22 years ago and I am sorry I wasted all these years with my DH. He has screwed up our finances and my relationship with my oldest son, he has killed any hope I had in true love and the ability of two people to be happy together. At this point, my greatest wish is to be alone. I no longer have it in me to give myself to another person. I did that--gave my whole heart--trusted him with everything that I was and what I got was moods, affairs, irresponsible spending, opposite parenting, a 6-month separation, mess and clutter and unfinished projects, unclear communication, unpredictable behavior, values I cannot figure out that sure aren't what I thought we shared. I am both lonely and alone. At age 47 I feel old and used up and tired and angry that what I got was so completely different from what I hoped for and was promised. Get out now. It isn't worth it.
Your sentence "it is crushing me" is pretty much all I need to hear. Why would you voluntarily be in a relationship that you get nothing out of? Please--end it and find an adult to be with.
I agree with dvance. You
Submitted by AdeleS6845 on
I agree with dvance. You cannot "fix" someone else. That is true whether the other person has ADHD or not. Its a terrible feeling looking back after 20 years of marriage to someone who has no desire to change and feeling like I've wasted my life. I put up with over 10 years of abuse before I got out.