Hello all and thanks in advance for reading.
I have been with my fiancee for about 5 years now and I'm wondering if it's time for me to leave. I'm sort of a traditional lady when it comes to relationships, so I don't necessarily feel like leaving is the right thing to do. There's also some early childhood stuff in there related to my dad leaving which plays into it as well.
To sum it up, I am pretty sure my fiancee has ADHD. When we met, he told me that he couldn't be in relationships. But me, being young and hopeful, just thought that he had had some sadness and that we would be okay together. He was up front about not liking intimacy, but again I thought things would work out. But that wasn't all me. He would change the things he said and did depending on his mood. There were many times where he would flirt with me and play around and want to be near me-all the things that would indicate that "yes" he wants to be with me. Now we're living together and he asked me to marry him (over 2 years ago) but hasn't made any effort in going forward with it.
Over the years, I have changed myself so much that I sometimes think I don't know who I am. I have had to constantly edit the things I say around him because he is always looking for insults and has consistently accused me over the years of saying things to him that were meant this way (as insults). Everything that comes out of my mouth around him is filtered for whether or not it will piss him off.
And the job thing. He has had a lot of jobs-and he has spent the majority of our relationship hanging out at home in front of the computer smoking pot and cigarettes because he "couldn't find work". Well let me say this-he didn't know how to use a computer when I met him and would get extremely frustrated trying to send an e-mail. After five years he is now comfortable doing it. It didn't bother me that it was so hard for him to learn to send e-mails-but I don't see him really making the effort to send out resumes.
And you'd think that spending so much time at home, he could contribute to helping out around the house. I work an hour away and when I come home and look at him sitting on the computer in a cloud of his vices, and then see the mess he has left around the house (garbage on the floor, dirty laundry everywhere...) it pisses me off. Granted the mess is partially mine-but I'm at work all day! I used to clean everything up but I got really tired of it. So now-it's just a mess. He constantly throws recycling in the trash, even though I have asked him constantly over the years to throw it in the right can.
Something I am always doing is repeatedly asking him to do something-to no avail. He is generally unreliable. I was amazed when he remembered to take my prescription to the store yesterday to get it refilled. But if I ask him to fix the doorknob that he said he would fix 8 months ago, I get home and it isn't done, then I ask him about it, and he says he'll do it tomorrow. And the same thing happens the next day.
He is judgmental of things I say, although he is a relativist and will say similar things when he feels like it and act like his previous opinion didn't exist. He breaks and loses things constantly. Today I found one of my antique spoons in the trash can.
Intimacy is nearly non-existent. It has taken him so long to become even moderately comfortable that I now have almost no interest in sex. He had gone back and forth between enjoying it and hating it and spent so much time rejecting me that I just try not to even initiate anything most of the time. In the midst of all of this, he still has porn and used to spend a lot of time looking women up and down when we would be out. He has stopped this because (after 2-3 years) he finally realized that I had feelings.
He does not see how demanding he can be. "Can you massage my neck?" "Can you give me a ride here." (Does not have a driver's license). But he has asked these so much that it has really gotten to the point of being overly selfish, although he does not see it that way. I think he see's it more as ME being selfish because I'm contributing to his discomfort in some way. I started to say no to the massages a while ago, partially because I didn't want to hear the noises he makes and be reminded that they weren't from us being intimate, and partially because I am tired of conceding to his will. He usually gets petulant if this is the case. But he has also learned not to ask as much.
He doesn't really like to go out and do things, partially because he really would rather sit at home and partially because he's afraid that he's going to see someone he doesn't want to see.
He is extremely negative, pessemistic and paranoid. As I said before-I have been accused dozens of times of "implying" things and he almost always thinks that people carrying on their regular routines are insulting him in some way. If I try to convince him otherwise, I'm in trouble usually.
He told me he was diagnosed with ADD as a child and when I told him that I think he has ADD or ADHD now, he agreed that it was likely. But he doesn't think anything needs to be done about it. I tried giving him some natural remedies, but he can't take them on his own, I have to literally take stuff out of a bottle and and hand it to him with a glass of water like he's five.
There is more, but I don't really see the point in telling you all about it. I think many of the people here understand and I have gotten most of this off of my chest. I know the posting rules say not to use this board as a place to beat up your spouse, but I'm sorry. I have no one to talk to. I have found that he feels extremely betrayed when I need to talk to someone else about issues we have. I feel very alone and very isolated. I NEED support because he does not provide enough of it emotionally, intimately. Our relationship does not feel like a collaboration to me.
That's not to say we don't enjoy each other's company in other ways. We like to hang out together and laugh. He is very sweet. We have a cute cat that he loves to play with. If I ask him to go get me some chocolate thing in the middle of the night, he'll gladly do it. He cooks for me a lot and loves handing me a big plate of food. He's extremely intelligent and funny and charismatic. He is the most genuine person I have ever met. He tells me I am beautiful. He hugs and kisses me a lot. He tells me he loves me a lot. There are tons of pictures of the two of us smiling together. I just don't know that the things I adore about him are enough for me to stay anymore. I've given over a lot of myself to this relationship and I don't know that it was such a good idea to do it. I love him very much. More than this posting would indicate, that's for sure.
. I am just tired and frustrated.
Lya re: should I leave
Submitted by revelation on
Hi Lya. I'm not going to "fake the funk" here (so to speak).
When I read your post, I said to myself, "Yes, she should leave..." by the time I had finished reading your first tiny paragraph.
Then, I skipped down to your last paragraph and said to myself, "This sounds like a description of me and my brother."
Lya, you seem to be a rather reticent person; I don't REALLY know this about you, of course. I am inferring this from the tone of your post. You also sound like a very sensitive lady, and capable, and economically viable and loving and generous and would probably have some passion in you, had it not been stomped out already. Anyway, you know what you should do. You are asking because you need to hear the "Greek Chorus". Which is great.
Since you are not married, you are still free. You would be MORE free if you did not live with this person. Then you could enjoy those things in the "brother-like" paragraph to your heart's content, without all of the crap contained in the body of your post. Further, you would then be free to actually find someone more suitable for you, with whom you could have a "real" relationship, one of reciprocity (with sex and everything!).
Good luck
Lya, I just posted about
Submitted by snapdragon on
Lya, I just posted about grieving my ADDer, because we broke up. It's nutty because I felt like it became quite intolerable, so I gradually distanced myself to gain strength, but in the end, he is the one who initiated the breakup. I still second guess myself, now, but I think that is partially because I allowed myself to think these were things I could solve, and because I'm now having to deal with the grief. But I do know that when I was in the relationship, I constantly had moments wherein I was questioning it and wanting out. There is always good. I think the questions we have to ask are whether the abuse is worth it, for the good we get. It's a hard question to answer, but I think given all the things you say, you would have plenty of reasons to leave, and you would likely choose a different type of partner next time around.