I know I am asking alot of questions, I guess doing a post mortem on my own life and relationship has led me to wonder what others have gone through, and how they managed and dealt with things.
I asked previously to folks who had left their relationship - what would have made them reconsider and stay in the relationship. And I got a REALLY good answer to that, which lined up alot with my own feelings. It was so helpful. So I wanted to ask another question of the folks here, not only to help me - but maybe help anyone else in the same boat, or maybe even an ADHD partner trying to make changes.
What was your breaking point? What was that proverbial "Straw that broke the camel's back" that made you realize that the situation was hopeless? Was it an "ah-ha" moment - or just a slow collapse of everything you worked towards?
For me - that answer is when, for the 2nd time this year, literally only a couple of months after my mother's death, he told me he wasn't in love with me and wasn't sure he could be married. The first time he said it - with in weeks of my mother's death, I didn't believe him because this happens every year this time (when his sister passed) and he always comes back with "I was wrong, my life is with you - I just get upset over the past and think I am broken". The second time was only 2 months after that, and this was after a relatively nice couple of months, we were getting along, smiling and laughing together. (even after me catching him in yet another lie, and telling him he didn't HAVE to lie, but that I understood why he did it - because of previous trauma from childhood). And then while we were talking (calmly and not in a position of anger) I asked him why, just a few days prior, he was happy and content, and actually quite loving towards me, and made me feel like we were building up better methods of working with each other. But - from his perspective - nothing changed. So when he said to me - "I am not in love with you, I dont know if I want to be married anymore, and I was only wanting to be married last week because i was in a good mood" (that is a summary, but basically what he said) - something inside me snapped like a twig. I realized that even though I had done the work, read the books, accepted the realities and dealt with my OWN anger and issues (always an ongoing thing) he still wasn't going to do it. Because it wasn't easy, convenient or immediate.... I realized that it didn't matter what I did. He didn't want me. And for the first time, I was OK with it and decided from that point on not to waste another precious moment on it.
I had been providing for him - he doesn't work. The vision of what our lives would be from *my* perspective would be he would not work, but would take care of the house a few hours a day, would spend time at the MMA gym, fighting practice and on his athletic goals (he does medieval fighting) and that i would support him in his goals - giving him what he needed to make it to the TOP of that sport. My role would be loving wife, admirer, and support system - which I was happily prepared to play. He basically gets anything he wants and doesnt have to hold down a 9-5 to get it. He had all the opportunity in the world to become his dream, but he squandered it.
So my vision had to change. My new vision doesn't include him, and that hurts, but I will get over it. I am strong, smart, and I KNOW MY WORTH. That last bit is key - it helped that trigger moment, when I realized he didnt value me, didnt see my worth and probably never will, that realization hit me hard, and from that moment on, my vision started to change. It motivated me to take charge of myself, and make my life a good one regardless of his decisions. I know I cannot change him, and I never wanted to be in a place where I felt I had to be parent. I want a partner, he doesn't. So be it.
What was YOUR "ah-ha" moment that made you realize things had to change, be it your relationship dynamics or YOU?
The final straw for me was
Submitted by dedelight4 on
The final straw for me was when my husband told me he had never been "in love" with me,and that he's always held a torch for his first true love in college over 30 years ago. He said they had even gotten together a couple (or few) times during our marriage and still proclaimed their love for each other. He said they both regreted not staying together.
After all the years of loving him, loyalty, faithfulness, undiagnosed then diagnosed but untreated adhd, a 3 yr affair, and then this confession, that was ALL I could take. NO MORE. I felt like a complete ass, wanting to believe in someone who never put his ALL into the marriage. It was all about him, and he still wants credit for doing all his "good things", but he wont look at any of the damage he caused. He's still in serious denial, and doesnt want consequences, but we all face them sooner or later.
I told him I wish he would have told me this years ago, because I would have left THEN. I never wanted to be married to a person who wasnt in love with me and was just doing it out of obligation. I dont know how he could live with that. It makes me feel like he was a coward for not being honest. I told him I would ALWAYS want to know a hard truth rather than an easy LIE.
Breaking Point
Submitted by NonADHD on
I don want one but I'm surely in one right now. I have been out of the house for over a month after her exploding during a discussion. My son's father (she didnt marry him) committed suicide in June and everything is crazy. This weekend my wife asked me to stay at the house while she, my step son and her mom spent a few days away. We had a decent conversation, just small texts and I was under the impression that I was home and we would work on this. About an hour out she texted me and said she didnt want me to stay, so here I am again. Noiw I'm looking to rent. We just talked on the phone and she goes from being decent to repulsive on me, why I left things around the house for my step son to see. I did not do that on purpose. I thought I was home, the lawn was done, I bought food, washed the cars etc. Being me. She is not working because she wants tto focus on my step son yet, she has no money, the cable bill was not paid, I gave her money but thaat doesnt matter. I feel totally rejected and it seems she hates me. She seems extremely stressed out and totally upset at me. Whe did she ask me to come home and stay there???
I get really angry at your
Submitted by NowOrNever (not verified) on
I get really angry at your husband every time you mention what he did, Dede. I'm glad you're elsewhere and moving toward better. With the support of family.
I second Now. I read your
Submitted by SpaceyStacey197... on
I second Now. I read your post, and went and read your other posts... and I just wish I had better good words for you. But I am amazed at your strength Dede, and you are an inspiration that the end of a relationship with an ADHD person isnt the end of everything, but actually the begining of all things.
I am very lucky that as far as I *know* my H never cheated on me. However, considering how easy it is for him to lie to me, and how he can justify actions he takes that are contrary to his promises to me - I certainly have my inklings that things might have happened. I do know during a separation he went out with another woman - but said it wasnt a date. HE contacted her, HE asked her to spend some time with him. In my eyes - a date, and I can tell you that for sure i would NOT have let him come back into my life had I known about it (found out after he came back - and he said to me that it was no ones business, even though our seperation was one where we just lived apart, not a "break" in our commitement). I look at that and think about how devastated I was, and then I read what you went through and I just cant even fathom.
I know I dont know you Dede - but I do know this as sure as the sun rises in the East - YOU are an amazing woman, and this is his loss 100%. Little consolation I realize, but you are real to me even if you weren't to him.
Thank you Now and Stacey for
Submitted by dedelight4 on
Thank you Now and Stacey for your posts. There are days I question so many things, and I've questioned myself the most I guess. How could I have put so much faith in someone who thought so little of me? Its's a hard thing to face.
Spouses (regardless if they have adhd) who cheat on their significant others do so much damage to them, and when they wont face up to it, it makes it even worse and does more damage on top of what was already done.
I tried to tell my husband how important it was to see why the affair happened and ty to fix what was in the marriage so it wouldnt happen again. He didnt see why that was important, and told me he just wanted it to go away. Thats how a child reasons. They do something wrong and dont want to get caught, and all they want is for the bad thing to "go away", instead of just saying, "I'm so sorry", and "I will do whatever it takes to help rebuild whats been damaged or broken". I got none of that.
Being disabled now, and not being able to work makes it harder to distract my mind from this and I dont feel like I'm contributing to life like I used to, so I have to find something new. I'm so grateful to my daughters who are so good to me, and I love them so much.
I think about eveyone on this site every day, and you've all been so encouraging and your stories are like beacons of light. Thanks to all of you, and I'm grateful for this forum.
Traveling together
Submitted by NowOrNever (not verified) on
Dede,
I'm going to take a winger here. There's only so much religious talk that fits on a forum like this one, but as I remember past details you've told us, perhaps this will work as something between the two of us, not intended to speak to everyone's beliefs.
One of the consolations that the whole of the Bible has for me, in its content, read in sequence, not skipping around or dipping in to take out only some passages of it, is that it tells a story, page after page, of people living generation after generation, each generation having its own challenges, crises and breakthroughs...and going on, through it all, the next generation being born, growing up, often traveling to live in a new place, often dealing with situations that their ancestors couldnt have dreamed existed. Often hard times, but too, change.
The Bible, read this way, page after page, is also a millenia long history of God's continuing, voluntary relation with human beings. The lens of the Bible is on people who know themselves to be in relation with him, generation after generation, most of the time. From me to you: the Bible's account of God still in the picture, still communicating, still being communicated with, regardless of where his followers were, what they had done, what had been done to them, what their needs, that their ancestors couldnt have imagined existing, were, is something that comes through.
I think the big, long picture coming out of that is that at times change is so big or journeys so surprising that yes the life we lived "back there" cant be completely sustained, "here". How we tried to live well there cant completely carry forward to here. The journey forward for those people in the Bible rarely was toward a place that they chose for themselves; something else moved them forward toward a place they hadnt lived before, that would require them to do some things that their ancestors couldnt dream of because the ancestors were living in another time. Famine sent them to Egypt. God led them into living for two generations in the desert. Nebuchadnezzar's forces took many of them into exile. They hadnt decided to take these journeys and couldnt prepare for them ahead of time. But they went on. One of the big stories of the Bible is that they continued on. And the story says, God didnt stay behind
You have a lot of heart. In your new situation, near your daughters, you are meditating. You hadnt planned to be where you are. I'm glad, that like the Bible says about the people going forward, generation after generation, that you're with your next generation. I think God knows that human lives dont stay static, and at times where it's needed, need to do new things. The Bible says God will be there in the new.
What I dont know from what you've said, is whether or not your husband is ready to journey forward from where he is. You love him, but he'll have to work that one out himself, especially since he made the choices for himself that he did. I hope you dont feel like you failed in something because he made those choices, that look to me, but what do I know, to stay behind in immaturity. I hope that's not the case, but everyone packs and carries their own suitcase, and decides to walk. To a believer, God's back there with him too. No one travels or stays alone. I expect that you will have a long period of thinking through what has happened to you...it seems such a human part of being on a journey that your prior life hadnt expected or sought. You're not ever going to travel alone, Dede. You loved your daughters as you raised them...that shines through. ,