Hi all.
My husband of 5 years has what we believe is ADHD. I have called to set up some therapy and get a diagnosis... Which of course, he is fully committed to and ready for change. I have been lurking on this forum for the past few days only to feel sad, relieved and full of hope for our future. Our marriage is not close to being on the rocks yet even having dealt with his outbursts and what I've considered up until now "crazy rants" . He's an exceptionally high functioning ADHD, he has his masters degree in, if you can believe, engineering... It sort of makes sense I suppose... The chaotic nature of engineering, he thrives in it. However.. I can recognize his behaviors of ADHD now seeing the symptoms and reading all of your stories. Its our life written on this forum. Everything you guys write is something we've argued about, something's I've even said, word for word to him. I don't think it's affected us so deeply as it has many of you because he is so aware of his actions... And we've always been a "no sugar coated" kind of couple. We vowed from the beginning of our relationship that we would always be honest with one another with our feelings and thoughts... That is not to say that it hasn't affected us. We definitely have problems, hence the reason I'm here for support. I only yesterday suggested this as a possible diagnosis and he read through the symptoms, I had him read through this forum even and he recognized all of our disagreements through you guys. He's completely on board with making us and our family work and willing to try medications and a full time therapist. So... You may be wondering, "well, if you have it all figured out, why the hell are you here?"... I'm asking for tips, anything you've tried that may be useful tricks? So let me run down the list of things we recognize as issues and maybe some feedback would be great!?
I read that in the beginning the relationship was awesome, because he was hyper focused on me, obviously, I did t recognize it for what it was back then. Do you think it was "real", that his feelings were real? I don't know how to feel about it. Any thoughts?
He is very angry often, outbursts over the tiniest thing, he blows up over small stuff and avoids large issues like the plague! He doesn't blow up at me usually... It's often toward everyone else. I think this part helps us as he seems to respect (?) me enough that he would never want to "bite the hand that feeds him" per se. But I have to get after him to calm down... Even in restaurants and other establishments, I fear we'll get kicked out if he doesn't calm down. Once I touch him, I can feel his body relax in my hand... As if I have some magical touch... But it's so quick that I don't see it coming. How do I calm him before he gets started? Is there some signs that I should be looking out for? Or is this something that needs to be managed in other ways?
He's severely I attentive toward me at times... He craves and needs my attention, except I'm busy running our household and working full time with three children that I often don't have time to just sit down with him. He won't do a ton around the house (his excuse, although not a terrible one, is that he works 13 hours a day and just needs to unwind..).but he wants me when he's ready, usually when I'm in the middle of giving the kids a bath, making dinner, cleaning... Then blames ME for ignoring his needs....ugh! I do make time for him! Which brings me to my next set of issues:
I make plans, because he likes a plan, structure, whatever... He refuses to make plans for us... I set out a date night, get a sitter so we can go out... Almost every week! But then he complains about the plans I made! As if he could have done better... But doesn't want to take the responsibility to actually make the plans himself... Because, he says, he doesn't know what I like and doesn't want to make me do something I won't enjoy. This confuses me because he has me make all of the plans, therefore he knows what I like, right? I've even made reservations at a hotel for the weekend so we can just relax together, with my sister watching the kids for a 4 day weekend... He took the wind out of my sails by saying we couldn't afford it!! Which brings me to my next set of issues:
He hasn't seen one bill of ours in nearly 6 years! He doesn't even know how much money we have! I took control of his bills long ago because he was in financial ruins when we moved in together. His ex took him for a huge ride and put him in huge debt! So when they divorced he had no idea how to fix it, it was too overwhelming for him. I have since paid off all of his bills, $90,000 worth of just credit card debt and student loans (I didn't pay them, we used our joint income) so, I repaired his credit and it took a lot of effort to keep him out of the bank account and away from the bills because it stressed him so bad that it effected our relationship to the point of severe frustration.
His thoughts are clouded and his organization skills are lacking. He's a manager at a pharma company and the demands at work have become overwhelming and we just had our third child. So home has become rather busy as well... I think it's more than he's ever d to deal with so any coping skills he had are no longer working for the more hectic life. I do have to say that he is a wonderful father and exceptionally attentive to our children. But he gets in what I call task mode... Where he starts to equate love as a series of tasks. I now know this is common. But it's hard to snap him out of it... Any suggestions?
Anways, thanks for listening... I know it's a bit scattered, but I have a baby on my lap while I write :)
