Submitted by mariaaz on 07/18/2008.
I am a woman with ADHD. My husband and I have been together for over 5 years and I think my ADHD has now brought him to the point where we are about to split up over it. I have no family close by and no friends to turn to and I don't know what to do.
I was diagnosed with ADHD about 4 years ago, after a lifetime of thinking I was crazy. Since I have been academically successful (I am in the final stages of my PhD) I have never sought counselling and no one ever suggested it; all of the resources that my university-based doctors offered were aimed at helping improve academic performance, an area in which I have never struggled outwardly. My husband has often complained that I push him away and that I am always negative and depressed (which is true). I have zero self-confidence and self-esteem and have never figured out how to make friends or talk to people, so he has had to shoulder that burden alone. I only just realized (in reading Sari Solden's book) that many of these symptoms are associated with ADHD and that ADHD affects far more than just academic ability and concentration. I desperately want to improve and learn how to live with this, but I fear it is too late to save my relationship with the man that I love more than anything else in the world.
I just found out that my husband has developed feelings for another woman, one that we both work with (we work together, and have done for most of our relationship) and one that I thought liked me and was a "friend". I know that nothing physical happened between them but the pain of knowing that they have these feelings is almost unbearable. My husband and I had a long heart-to heart and we both spoke more frankly than we have in years, which was good. He told me that he still loved me but that I'd spent so much time pushing him away that he wasn't sure he could ever feel close to me again. He said that he thought it was worth trying though, and we agreed to give it a try. He has agreed to go to counselling with me to try to understand and deal with my ADHD better, and to help build relationships with people and I feel like I can move forward with this. Unfortunately, for the next 3-4 weeks, we still have to work with this other woman, and he has to work closely with her since he is her supervisor. I can't bear to see them interact and be friendly together, even though I believe he is committed to trying to fix our relationship. I am afraid that my issues with this will drive us further apart. I hate to see him interact with someone he is close with, knowing that I don't have that closeness with him anymore. I feel like this is the kind of thing I should be able to talk to a friend about, but I have no one. Please advise.
I don't know if you have
Submitted by amb on
Danger Alert!
Submitted by MelissaOrlov on
You are at a really touchy point right here! Make sure that you ask your husband to be extra sensitive to your needs as you work through what will happen with this woman over the next few weeks (why only 3-4 weeks? You don't say...)
You have your own choice to make - you can get twisted up about this woman in your anxiety and fear about her, which will most certainly hurt your relationship with your husband and your chances of recovery in your marriage, or you can CHOOSE not to get twisted up. Tell yourself this - "the worst possible thing I could do right now is to push my husband further by getting uptight about this woman after he has agreed to talk with me openly about her, and after we have agreed to get counselling to work through this." Make sure that he knows how much you love him, and make sure that he knows that you are working hard to "subdue" your to-be-expected anxieties about her. Let him know that you are doing this in direct response to his openness about her, and to your hopes that he'll also keep up his end of the bargain and not pursue her for the time being.
Next, you have some soul searching to do. How badly would you like to stay married to this man? If the answer to this is "incredibly badly" then your job is to work with him to isolate what the key ADHD and relationship issues are, and figure out how to treat them. If one of your key issues is that you push him away, STOP! I don't mean this lightly and I realize that this has been hard for you in the past. I mean, open yourself up to trust him to love you well. This is really scary if you don't think you are worthy of loving, but your choices are to 1.) open yourself up to this man who has shown that he loves you and is willing to work with you or 2.) don't open yourself and end up divorced and then having to learn to open yourself up to someone else. If you eventually have to overcome your fear of being lovable, why not commit to doing it with this man? The time to make this leap, though, is NOW, before any further damage can be done to your relationship.
Also, he will have some baggage that he will have to get past. As you change yourself, he will need to see behavior over and over again before he trusts that you are changing. Don't assume this means you aren't lovable. Rather, assume that he is responding to what "the old you" has taught him...be patient, and continue to give him reasons to hope. Celebrate your forward momentum as it builds. Create a "new you" because a.) you deserve it and b.) it's the best thing you can do for your relationship.
The two of you do need to get this other woman out of your collective lives, at least for a while. Ask that he strongly curtail what he shares with her emotionally and that he keep the relationship totally professional for the time being. If it doesn't work out between you, he (and you) will know that he approached it all in the right (most ethical) way, and has given your relationship all that he can.
From a practical standpoint, though, understand that you are now in competition for his feelings. Time to "woo" him back. He's at a point where he is asking himself if he can ever be close to you again...while another woman is trying to show him that he CAN be close to her...it's a tempting apple that many people "bite", hence the high numbers of affairs out there. So, if you want to save this relationship, get in gear, put aside your hurt, and FIGHT for it! Forget about pushing him away, and invite him closer! Do fun things together so that he sees you in a new light.
Make special plans, write him love letters, and do things that emphasize what you both think is special about your relationship. (For clues to this, revisit your courtship.) Do this not as a temporary measure, but as the start to a new way of being together. One to which you are committed because you love him. And because being close to someone you love is always a hell of a lot more fun than pushing him away. You CAN learn to do this, if you practice. If you need ideas, open up just about ANY woman's magazine (many women struggle with these issues, not just you)
At the same time, open up your communications to find out what you both want again, and start working towards whatever goals you jointly create. Be patient, and ask for his patience as you work through these. Make sure to think about how you say things, but don't "not" say things because you are afraid to do so. Your relationship is more likely (in my opinion) to founder at this point due to poor communication than it is to good communication.
Five - seven years is a time when many marriages have trouble (they don't call it the seven year itch for nothing) and clear communication and a commitment to making the changes you need to make can really turn things around. Time to be fearless. Stop thinking of someone with no self esteem (this just reinforces the bad) and start looking for why you are special (one thing - you are smart...I suspect your husband can tell you why he thought you were special when you were dating...you are lovable...in fact, YOU ARE LOVED RIGHT NOW!)
You don't mention what treatment you are doing for your ADHD. Make sure that you are doing whatever treatment you need to get rid of the symptoms that you mention are an issue. If you have specific questions about those, we can possibly answer them here.
I would like to say "you go girl!" at this point and encourage you to hold your breath and JUMP! Do it now, before it's too late! You'll be better for knowing you tried your hardest.
You CAN overcome the issues that you have faced with your ADHD - the first step is knowing that they are there, and now you do. The second step is figuring out which of the issues are the most important to address - in your case you and your spouse should work on this together, since your goal is to reinvigorate your marriage and he can shed light on those issues that make the biggest difference to him. The third step is to make a plan to fix these specific issues, and the fourth - celebrate your accomplishments as you move forward.
Melissa Orlov
Thank You
Submitted by mariaaz on
Consider a Coach
Submitted by MelissaOrlov on
One thing that you may wish to consider is hiring an ADHD coach who can help you learn tactics for moderating your behavior with your husband, as well as give you an outlet for your enthusiasm and need for instant gratification. Some coaches will work by phone, and email, rather than in person, so this could work for you.
In essence, you would put together a list of things you would like to accomplish, such as giving your husband more room, and downsizing some of your plans, and then your coach would be a sounding block for you to figure out good ways to do these things. This wouldn't replace talking with your husband, but it might take some of the pressure off of your relationship a bit. Your husband is right - you can't/won't fix things overnight, and working at a slower and steadier pace will likely help you in the long run (less exhausting for him, among other things).
Melissa Orlov
Update
Submitted by mariaaz on
Husband Wants Out
Submitted by MelissaOrlov on
It is very likely that your husband has this other woman in mind at least some of the time. Perhaps it is not because he is having an affair with her, but perhaps it is simply because she made him feel good, and you haven't recently done so. (A case of "the grass is greener on the other side of the fence".) The issue for you is that the other woman is a fantasy, not reality. In other words, whether or not she is a real affair, or only someone who is empathetic, he will place some of his fantasies on her, and she will look great (even if she isn't great). Furthermore, in this age of internet connectivity, moving away doesn't mean she is gone unless he decides she will be gone. And while you may be able to "demand" that he stop seeing her, the reality is that he is the only person who makes that decision.
Not fair, but that is the way it works (trust me, I've been there).
There is no way to "fight" a fantasy, other than to be yourself again. Your husband married YOU, not the other woman. He married you because there was something that you two had together that was special. Something that you gave each him that no other woman had given him before, and something he gave you.
Right now that special something is buried under a lot of bad stuff. Worse yet, you have no other person who can help you dig out from under that stuff (except your therapist, and getting her was a great move!) So, you have to rely on yourself to help yourself be the best person you have inside you (and, hopefully, start making some friends - you can't just be relying on your husband!) You need to do this for YOU, NOT HIM. You deserve to be happy (whether with this man, alone or with another man) and you now know enough about your ADHD to start to see a path that may take you to happiness. Would it be easier if you stayed with this man? Maybe. Is staying with this man the only way to remain happy? No. (Does that question mean that I think you should get divorced? No. It means that you can only control your own behavior, not whether or not he decides he wants to stay with you. BUT you CAN control whether or not you find happiness - with or without him. And chances are much, much better that he'll decide to stay if you find your own happiness. Or, put another way, it's great fun to live with someone who is happy and figures out where they are going...and not so much fun to live with someone who isn't.)
Understand right now that if you decide not to stay together, you will most likely lose the "best friends" status (someone else will end up the best friend). Does he claim to be your best friend and that you are his, or is just what you say? I have a friend whose husband left her after he determined that he was gay...and she had hoped that they could still remain good friends...and even in that situation they couldn't. So what is at stake here is not only your relationship, but your "best friend" friendship.
I don't want to make you more anxious. Rather, I want you to understand that you don't have control over him - only you - and that the best course of action for you is to be YOU. Or, more accurately, you without the ADHD symptoms that have plagued you and him for so long. He is going to be wary for a while, even after you start making changes, so just keep on your forward path and don't get overly worked up if he doesn't follow right away.
Taking you at your word on the "best friends" stuff, and assuming that he feels that way, I think it's fair to ask him for some time before any decisions are made one way or the other. To me, that would me "real" time, not "fake" time...in other words, ask for his word of honor that even if he is interested in this other woman that he do his best to be honorable about being married to you, and respect your efforts to find a place in which you are happy. And tell him that you hope that once you are happy he, too, will be happy. And then, consider including him in your trip in a non-invasive way. This is your journey, but he is clearly an important person to you. Invite him to join in as much as he feels comfortable doing.
Melissa Orlov
No idea where to go from here...
Submitted by mariaaz on
FOCUS!
Submitted by Kplee on
here's where you go...
Submitted by calgon.takemeaway on
here's where you go... (background)
Submitted by calgon.takemeaway on
Huh?
Submitted by cmdjls on
Back off
Submitted by mariaaz on