Good day, everyone,
Thanks for providing a place to read and talk about these issues. My husband and I will have been married 5 years next Friday. The problems with his ADHD are just becoming more acute, however. I am trying to turn things around so we can make some progress.
I work from home; I have a well-paying job, while we live in a low cost-of-living area. My husband currently does not work, though we are trying to find him a job. We are presently living with his parents and younger brother and sister (we pay 1/3rd of the utilities and I cook and do all the shopping, as compensation). We are doing this in order to get out of debt, which for the most part means his $50,000+ student loans. Both of us are in agreement about our end goals of having me stay home with the children and homeschool them (2.5 yo and a 3 mo).
My husband is very willing to get a job, but doesn't feel confident that he ever will. This keeps him from applying to many places. He also doesn't want to apply for a 'lower' type job because he sees that as confirmation that he can't get anything better. There are positions he could be applying for but he's not, mainly because I don't want to do the work for him. He complains that the jobs he has had have come about as a result of me and he wouldn't have been hired on his own (one job at a theatre we both interviewed together; he feels it was my interviewing skills which impressed the manager but he was the one with more flexible hours...the other is when he replaced me at my position during my first maternity leave). This makes me even more loathe to do the work in applying for jobs for him, since when he gets a position he'll see it as more confirmation that he can't get a job on his own. And yet I want to balance that with providing my services in areas which are my strengths (I do write a mean cover letter and can negotiate a lot of this stuff). Then there's at least one of the largest companies in town he doesn't want to apply to because they don't inspire confidence, having let go a friend we know (they do have open positions for which I feel he'd be qualified). We live in a small town (about 10,000 people), so opportunities are limited here. We live about an hour away from two big cities which would have a lot more opportunities. However, he does not want to move for a job (and that would seem to move us backward from our goal of getting debt free...paying for housing -and- childcare).
We have tried a bit of counseling but nothing really came of it. I felt like he and the counselor just chatted about inconsequential things (movies, etc), such that I could not contentedly attend the sessions anymore. The very last time we went he felt so defensive at the topics I brought up that he refused to go the next time. We did see a psychologist this spring who started to work on his meds; we have not yet gone back to him but I am thinking I'm going to press for an appointment with him. That dr. made the point that we couldn't do anything until medication was in my husband (he's been unmedicated most of our marriage). That was 3-4 months ago, and we've finally just gotten to the point where my husband needed a refill, so he's obviously not taking his medicine on a regular basis.
Tomorrow we should be getting results from sleep apnea tests--I had insisted on those because he says he's always tired. He can wake up in the morning still utterly exhausted, lethargic, needing to take naps, etc. Which is frustrating as all heck. I really don't want to think of him as lazy, so I'm hoping it is something physical like that. And I know that ADD people are often suspected of being lazy, unfairly.
I guess I feel like there's no one who is able to help us. And if we're on our own I have to think of our options (my husband when asked to help solve the problem just says he doesn't know), and none of them seem pleasant.
I truly love my husband and enjoy being around him. If we were independently wealthy I don't think there would be any problem at all :-D But seeing as that's not the case....
Thanks for listening.
-Misty
nip this in the bud
Submitted by arwen on
Misty, my husband also had big hangups about looking for a job when he finished college. At that time in our lives, we had a 3 year-old and another baby on the way. We had agreed that after our first child was born, he would finish his degree and take care of our son while I worked, then we would swap roles when our second child was born. I was ready to tear my hair out when he wouldn't go on interviews. I screamed, I prodded, I asked him what in the world were we going to live on while I was out of work when the baby was born? After enough histrionics and constant pestering, he would go on a couple of interviews, and then just sit back and wait for something magic to happen.
I think the thing that finally made the difference and gave my husband enough confidence to persist with the interviews and get a job was the fact that I had been working with people who did the same kind of job that he was trying to get, so I knew what kind of competencies prospective employers would be looking for and that my husband had those skills. As a result, I was able to assure him that he could do the job just fine, and he believed me because he knew I had a sound basis for what I said.
Maybe if you can find someone who does the kind of work your husband is seeking, and they can meet with your spouse, he can get the same kind of assurance and be able to overcome his anxieties. But you'll probably still need to do a fair amount of prodding! I would encourage you to pursue all job possibilities. If he gets the local job with the large company that doesn't inspire confidence, he will if nothing else gain valuable work experience. If he is offered a job in one of the nearby cities, you may be able to find some part-time work there to supplement your income and keep you moving towards your goal of getting out of debt.
Given your situation, with two little kids, I strongly urge you not to give in to any temptation you may have to abandon your home schooling plans and return to work full-time yourself. For one thing, people with ADD are often even less successful at being homemakers and caregivers than they are at other jobs. (This is primarily because homemaking/caregiving is very unstructured, and the typical ADDer needs a structured job to be most effective.) From everything I've heard and seen, if you don't get him over this problem now, he may *never* get over it, and you will end up supporting him.
Basically, as I see it, what you need to be doing is forcing him to commit to his responsibilities in your family (which includes taking his meds!!). Don't let him off the hook! I made sure my husband knew that I expected him to live up to his part of our deal, and any else was completely unacceptable and would lead to instantaneous divorce. I loved (and still love) my husband, but I have no use for a man who does not place the welfare of his children before his own, and I made sure he understood that in no uncertain terms. Between threats about the consequences of failure to do everything he possibly could to fulfill his responsibilities, and encouragement about how I knew he could do it (carrot and stick!), I got the job done. We haven't had any trouble along these lines since.
I strongly urge you to nip this wishy-washy faintheartedness of your husband's in the bud. Plant your foot firmly on his fanny and push. I also recommend reading everything you can on this forum. There is a wealth of useful information here about dealing with ADD in general.
Good luck!
Thanks for your reply, arwen.
Submitted by MistyP on
Thanks for your reply, arwen. It helps to hear how others have dealt with this same situation. It's hard right now because any job application basically means more work for ME because I have to be right there doing hand-holding to get him to finish it. I suppose I should keep reminding myself that it's time spent investing in the future.
pick your battles
Submitted by arwen on
Misty, you raise a good point. It's not meaningless to ask yourself if it is more important for him to get a job and start learning to fulfill responsibilities, or is it more important that he find the job without your involvement, regardless of how long that process takes? Both goals have important implications.
In my husband's case, he had previously had a good job and had worked hard at it to help support his family and meet his financial obligations. Unfortunately, he was laid off despite good performance when the national economy tanked during the dreadful recession in the early 1980's (we lived in the "Rust Belt", which was hardest hit of anywhere at that time). But I knew he could do the work, I knew he could meet his responsibilities, he just needed help getting over this one hump. I did very much see my role at that time as an investment in my family's future, and I still think it was now.
But in thinking about this further, I see I may have been hasty in my earlier reply, and I apologize for that! The background for your situation is not the same as mine, and that could make a significant difference in how you might best deal with it. On consideration, I see that I have certainly taken a different approach with my son (who has ADD) on this same subject. He does not have a spouse or children, but he has really struggled with finding work that he can stick with *and* that he can do well. In his case, I've felt that it's more important that I not hold his hand (or push his fanny!). Our deal was that if he was a student, he could have free room and board at home (or live in a dorm or apartment if he preferred, and we would pay for that too, up to a certain amount), but if not a student I've required him to pay room and board to live at home (although at very slightly more reasonable rates than he would find elsewhere), so I have created a significant incentive for him to go out and find a paying job -- but otherwise have left the matter alone. There have been a couple of times when he has asked for a small grace period, but only when he's gotten a job and he can't get his paycheck before the room-and-board money was due.
Part of the reason I have dealt with my son and my husband in different ways on this subject is because it was very clear while he was still in college that my husband had "found his niche" -- he knew what he wanted to do and what he was good at, and was just struggling with the process of obtaining the job to do it -- whereas my son has not found his vocation. I felt that the actual job-hunting process was important to my son's figuring out what kind of work he did and didn't want to pursue.
I wanted to bring these points up for your consideration, as they may have some bearing on how you are dealing with your husband's job situation. It can be very difficult, but very important, to assess what issues carry the greatest weight, and which ones can be dealt with most effectively, in order to determine where to apply your efforts, if any. Again, I apologize for not recognizing that these points were relevant, in my earlier post -- thanks for helping me realize my response had been incomplete.