I am new to the website and have yet to find a posting about this issue. First some background. My husband and I have been together 17 years and he was not diagnosed with ADHD until about 4 years ago. Long before he was diagnosed I began to compensate for his behavior. I did everything that needed to be done in the house and for him. On bad days when he didn't want to get out of bed I made that ok too, all the while thinking I was doing the right thing. He never asked for these things but I really thought that by making his life easy it would cause the overwhelming days to happen less. Problem is, what I did was make him have less reason to get up, less reason to want to get going...Yes he works but for himself and his work is very forgiving so when bad days or sometimes weeks happen there was still not any real consequence, for lack of a better word.
When he finally went to the doctor I thought all our problems would be solved when he was placed on Adderral. The doctor actually said he had never seen such a horrible case of ADHD in an adult and was unsure how he has functioned up until that time. Problem is he doesn't take his medication as prescribed. His reasoning is he doesn't always need it or some days it is just to hard to even take it because he feels so over whelmed. This leads to me getting mad because life is so much more pleasant when he can actually participate in it. I and his doctor have tried to explain to him that he has a medical condition much like diabetes or high blood pressure and that the medicine is a necessity not an option.
Anyway I've decided that I have to stop being an enabler and help him be motivated to be the awesome and accomplished person I know he can be. But how do I do that? I tend to lose my temper (I know it's wrong) when I want him to just snap out of it and try to get some things done and he can't seem to do it. I've tried lists, small goals and positive reinforcement but honestly none of it has worked.
I just ordered the book but I'm just curious if anyone has advice on how to stop being an enabler and start being a helpmate.
Thanks
I need advice for the 'Enabler' too!
Submitted by purpledaisy on
Did you ever find any more information or help on this topic? I would love to know more about this myself. About a year ago, we rediscovered my husband's ADD - meaning that I knew he had been diagnosed as a child, but neither of us really understood how much this was still affecting him as an adult until he mentioned it and we both started reading up on adult ADD. I read Delivered from Distraction and The ADHD Effect on Marriage, both of which were awesome books and really helped me to understand ADD better and become more aware of how this was affecting both of our lives. However, I was left feeling like I still didn't understand what I can do as a spouse to make things better. It seems like most of the information and advice out there is directed to spouses who have taken on the 'Nag' role, but I feel like I've fallen into the 'Enabler' role, which isn't healthy either. I have no idea how to pull out of it, and I would love to find more information/ get some advice/hear from other's experiences!
Fools rush in
Submitted by jennalemone on
My counselor gave me a sentence to say to my son....when my son rushed to move his girl friend's plate out of her hands and into the kitchen saying, "She doesn't eat pickles"...He quickly took them off her plate for her. This is what I need to say to him. "I am amazed and shocked how much you are like me. I am working hard with a counselor about my over zealous concern to make things right for others." It is embarrassing to me now when I think how I rush to make things OK.
Jennalemone I Hope You Watch the Video....
Submitted by kellyj on
.....because this was the basis from the things I was attempting to convey to you in the other post you made when you said you hated yourself. You also asked me what the catalyst was for me in my past to get where I am now and I answered you by saying it was my divorce....saying "that will wake you up!". In context to this video and what Eckart Tolle is saying in it......I came to the same place he did and how he discovered this concept himself. I just got tired of living my life in so much pain and I couldn't accept living this way even one more moment. The pain and devastation that I was feeling back then brought me to that moment and I had to choose whether I could keep on going the way I was going or to cease to exist because living in the way I had up until that point had just become intolerable and unacceptable. The pain was too great so......I had to let it go. I had an experience previous to that time where I had quite by accident, discovered the thing he is teaching others to do and for a while at least.....I was at peace with myself and the world for a time but it faded away eventually without my understanding of it even though my memory of that experience told me that it was possible and I did believe in myself enough to understand that it must be possible again.
When I discovered Eckhart Tolle and heard his story about how he had done the same thing I immediately wanted to know how or why this happened to me so I could find it again as means to try to end my pain....The experience that I had was the "Satori" he mentioned in Buddhist teaching but I knew nothing about Buddhism or Eckhart Tolle or any other spiritual teaching in a way for this to happen. It was just did like he was describing later in the video..... I guess I was ready for it to happen for the exact same reasons he said......my pain and suffering had become too great to live with but....I didn't want to die either.
That was the death without dying I was trying to explain to you and without even thinking about what I said about my divorce "waking me up" in that moment when I responded to you.....whether subconsciously or not (using those words )....that is exactly what happened to me. That's the clarity I was trying to describe to you and why I was so sure in telling you that you will be Okay once you get to the acceptance part of the process. (also described in the grieving process I mentioned in the book I recommended even though it doesn't tell you HOW to get there)
It is the exact thing Tolle is telling you in this video and it's why I suggested it too you. I really urge you to watch this right now if you haven't already because this is the answer to how you can move past where you are right now in your process and is why I'm not qualified or would even begin to try and teach or tell someone else how to do it or even try and relate my experience with someone else without some kind of reference or context to it like Eckhart Tolle does so simply and eloquently (and humorously).
Anyway.....I just watched it all the way through again (it's been some years now since I've revisited him.....thinking it's been too long ha ha ) and thought I would mention it in way to try and explain all the things I said earlier that might make more sense now once you could see the thing I wasn't going to try and attempt to explain to anyone here on the forum. That's WAY out of my league!
J
Watching it now
Submitted by jennalemone on
J, I had started watching it (in the background while I am working. I am 66 years old...Dh is taking the day off. I am working to pay the bills and save for retirement.) My first gut reaction is, "Oh great, Dh spends 90% of his time experiencing the moment, smelling the roses, relaxing, enjoying, staring into space, dallying with games and patterns in the sky, enjoying his beer and his tobacco and tv and radio. How nice for him to now be approved of to live like a little child whose mother (me) takes care of his needs for him." A word come to my mind - irresponsible. Am I supposed to stick my head in the sand and smell the roses while the electricity is turned off and there is nothing to eat or wear? Dh's "living in the now" has been the REASON that I feel like the chair will be pulled out from under me. Because so many chairs have been pulled out from under me so often my nerves have been conditioned to EXPECT the chair to be pulled out from under me and not to trust the chair.....THAT IS ANXIETY and the CAUSE for hypervigilence. Now, if only I could just ignore the chair and not feel the pain when my butt hits the floor everything would be hunky doey. Oh yes, for 40 years I have been training my mind to pretend that the chair is stable and when my butt hurts again, I have been rationalizing "Oh its OK...doesn't REALLY hurt that bad....trying not to make a drama in my mind but dismissing the pain....like Tolle is telling us we are able to do...Yes we are able to do that but at what cost in the long run?
I lived in the present moment when I was a child. Yes, it was lovely. I was lovely. I would have happily stayed that way. If I had married my father, I could have stayed that way. But I DIDN"T marry my father and don't expect my spouse to be my father. I am hoping that Eckhart has a solution to BALANCE!!!!!!! in a partnership. I will let you know how this fares after I am through listening.
Ughhhhh!!!!!
Submitted by jennalemone on
I am done listening to a few of Tooles videos. I am just upset. I will have to look at this another time. Where there is anger, there is pain. Right now I am in anger/pain. I don't know how to let the house of cards just fall down and apart. I have worked so hard trying to have ambition and provide for the people I love the best i could and dh has been licking lollipops and playing with his head in the sand. To think that everything I have done and thought and lived and loved is now just a figment of my imagination and that we all should be like my Dh is So disheartening that i can hardly bear the weight of it. Dh just came in with a big grin on his face, giggly like Eckhart is often. I am still working...he just took 5 hours to go to a doc appointment that probably took 30 minutes really....he's been enjoying himself the rest of the time I guess...he won't tell me where he goes when things like this take 5 times as long as they should. And I think to my self. THIS is what we should aspire to? Because I am in pain, means that I should make up my own story in my head so that I don't feel pain? Even if that story has consequences in the future? Even if that story has some obvious incongruent falacies? THIS is what dh does all the time. He makes up stories in his own head...there are things he didn't do that caused pain and did do that caused pain and now he is able to "change history in his head" to relieve himself of it and not learn from it. It is done and gone. No future to plan for or think of because it will all take care of itself? OK. Here is how I have LEARNED that THAT will go if parnered with someone like that.
A knock on the door...he has not paid the bills. Now what?
a knock on the door...he has not shown up. Now what?
Electricity has been turned off...he did not pay the bill. Now what? Shall I laugh and shrug my shoulders and pretend this does not cause me to be AFRAID????
I can't talk to him .... he has been drinking beer so can't think seriously. He does not function.
I can't talk to him....he will not think seriously. Where can there be intimacy?
We don't go away together because unless it is jokes, he takes everything defensively and starts a fight.
Live for today. Don't plan for the future. Forget...no...don't feel the lessons of the past.
This is the way a hobo, a bum, a street person thinks and feels. I don't want to be a street person looking for others to "give me a hand" because I was so STUPID that I didn't want to bother myself with feelings or work or plans.
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Submitted by jennalemone on
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You Have Every Right...
Submitted by kellyj on
too feel the way you do. No one (including me) will argue that much in your situation. Your anger is legitimate and I would be angry too. The thing that ETolle is saying will not fix the things you mentioned or change any of your circumstances (or your H )....or fix your marriage. That's not what I'm worried about. My concern is only how you feel and the anger that you are feeling. Telling someone to let go of that right now is pretty ridiculous and I couldn't snap my fingers and let that go of that in the moment either. But staying in this state is what will only do you harm if you can't find a way to leave it at a certain point. That's really what the video is all about. Leaving it and not feeling the way you do right now. Even he doesn't promise that this will never happen and neither can I. I can't do what he's saying to do, to the level where he is.....but I can do it with some conscious effort in the way he's saying to do it. That's what you can do for yourself. It does work as described. It will make things clearer for you and make it easier to make the right choices and decisions too. It's exactly what my therapist keeps saying to me too.....no matter what you H does..... you don't have to suffer from the results of it emotionally. That will make it easier to deal with the other parts that you do have to deal with and do something about (which you have every right in my opinion to be angry about....just don't stay that way too long. It's only bad for you not him when you do. That's what ET is saying...me too) but all the rest of it is where I'm with you. I'd feel the same way. I'll leave my comments about your H's behavior right there.
J
Unfortunatley....The Answer Is
Submitted by kellyj on
counter intuitive. It's just the opposite of what your feelings are telling you to do. This is one time you need to listen to your feelings and do just the opposite instead.
I couldn't find the exact video that I was thinking of but....I found one similar if you interested in hearing the idea or concept of your "story". In the example that jennalemone gave about her son and the pickles......those pickles somehow did not belong on that plate or in his story.....the one in his head. If you haven't read of listened to Eckart Tolle before.....he was instrumental to getting me to see how I was doing just the opposite of what my feelings were compelling me to do. Just like jennalemone's son did with the pickles....except my own version. He's secular in his views but includes all religions in his example so if this is something that you are not comfortable with I thought I would mention it....but I find him extremely pleasant to listen to and he also has a very good sense of humor too. I've read most of his books and listen to many of his video and taped recording and it really helped me get through some rough periods of my life in the past. Anyway....I thought of him when I read this post because it really is at the heart of what you are talking about in wanting to stop being an enabler. Thinking it might help? This is just one of many and the closest one I could find at the moment.
https://youtu.be/dhyOUlilEhs
J