Hi everyone,

I am 37, partner to someone who I think has ADD, and mom to 2 great kids.

I think he has ADD because he shows all the signs of it, even jokes about it sometimes, but never has gotten it checked out.  Going to a doctor isn't on his radar, unless it's to the ER for something and even then...

One of my biggest complaints is that we are not married.  He lied to me about being divorced, when in fact he didn't ever get that divorce done.  Five years into the relationship, he finally said he hadn't done it because he wasn't sure how to do it without me finding out, so rather than being honest in the first place, he let me think for five years I wasn't good enough for him (my issues, I know).  When I found out, I did an online search and there are people who will do all the legwork for you (his wife is in another province) - the first search result in fact - so I guess it just wasn't on his list and he avoided it.  Two years later, it's still not done and if I bring it up, it's my fault because it costs money that 'we don't have' - yet he'll get other things that over the years have costed 10 times the amount it would have taken. 

The day to day things I deal with, but at the same time, get so annoyed with.  He does not help with household things much at all - he'll 'clean' by grabbing piles of things and throwing them out without looking through them, meaning important things (to me) have gone into the garbage many times.  He'll gather up the dog/cat hair on the stairs into a ball, but then leaves it on the counter or on a dirty plate.  He'll offer to do something, like take a box downstairs, then trip over it for WEEKS until I take it myself.  I'd be thrilled if he did it within days, but never happens.  When he comes in the door, his stuff gets dropped everywhere, then in the morning he's swearing and stomping around because he can't find his shoes, keys, papers he needed, you name it.  At least once or twice a week! 

He also likes to just do half of things, and have me do the other half.  Drives me insane, because if I have to do half of something, I may as well do the whole thing and it's done.  He'll say 'if you get all the garbages from the house, bag them and put them on the deck, I'll take them to the truck - but really by the time I've done all that, walking 20 feet to the truck is not a big deal and then it's done.  If he takes the garbage out all by himself, he won't put the bags back into the cans, or return the cans to where they belong - I end up coming behind him and putting the bags in and then returning the cans to each room, so they're not in the front room.

He also forgets what he's said or what I've said.  He's very money focused and always says 'we' for things that aren't really us, it's him.  I don't have much say in what we do money wise, because he won't give up that control (because he knows I'll say 'no' to his impulse buys).

I've brought it up and he will admit he likely has ADD but won't go get checked out or get help.  It's no longer cute and charming though and I'm tired of it.

At this point I don't know what to do.  I don't want to break up my family, partly because he's not a bad person most of the time, and partly because I'd be scared to leave him with the kids alone for too long - that's another post.  But the resentment and hurt are still there - do I really stay with someone who can't see me worth the $500 or less he'd have to save up to actually get a divorce, who barely listens most of the time?  As it is I'm starting a separate bank account so I have emergency money and some say in my own business (instead of the money going into the joint account where it's gone), and not going to tell him about it, which is just horrible.

Lana