I have been married to my ADHD husband for 5 years and known him for 7. I had a brother who had ADHD as a kid so when we met I felt like I had a good understanding of what kind of problems ADHD would bring to the table. I was so wrong.
My husband has had trouble keeping jobs or being successful because he can't complete tasks. After several failures he fell in to depression which ended in a suicide attempt. He let me know in a letter that he was doing it because he felt I did not love him. I know I have messed up and not always been the best wife, but to this day he blames me for his suicide attempt and it breaks my heart. He was then unemployed for several months, it was financially stressful and after years of being the breadwinner I started to wonder if we would ever be able to start a family.
I grew increasingly tired of being the responsible one and often found myself saying that I wanted a husband and got a kid instead. I was embarrassed and frustrated by his chronic forgetfulness. I turned in to a nag because I didn't know what else to do, I hated who I was becoming and he hated it too.
My husband also had emotional outbursts that ended in broken dishes and windows. He hated that I never wanted to have sex. I know sex is important, it was just so hard because I had so much anger and dissapointment. I wasn't happy, ever. I often said I felt alone, that my husband had left me holding the bag that was our life.
We started going to counseling after a big fight we had and I was working very hard to get through some of my bitterness and feelings of being abandoned. I really felt like the counseling was working and we were getting somewhere, our sex life was improving at least. He still forgot all the time, but I was willing to be patient and remember that not everything happens overnight. After 2 months of counseling and improvement I came home one night to find that he had left me. I was shocked, I thought we were working on this. It may not have been perfect but I had been working hard towards progress.
This was followed by 2 weeks of ugly fighting. Everything was my fault in his eyes. I cried, told him I was sorry, that I loved him and I wanted to work things out. He wanted me to take responsibility for everything and say that every problem in our marriage was my fault. He started believing that everyone was against him and I was the ring leader.
Eventually we managed to sit down in a room together. I apologized again for everything I had done wrong and to my surprised, he forgave me. Then, to my surprise, he did not want to give me an apology for anything....he still didn't feel he had done anything wrong. I told him I needed him to understand how his ADHD had hurt me and others around him, that I didn't think he could make any true change until he recognized the damage it does. He plainly said he just isn't sorry, and he'll call me when he is. But when? Ever?
I don't know what to do. People have told me he is emotionally abusive and I should leave, but I don't want to leave. I NEED an apology, I have been hurt for years and I NEED him to understand that intentionally or not he has hurt me deeply. I NEED him to want to change so badly that he is willing to make it a priority in his life. I feel like I will never get through to him, he doesn't even get how much he has hurt me. I feel so lost, and I feel like my marriage is slipping away from me. I love him, but I just can't keep doing this.
You need something that may never come.
Submitted by phoenixgirl78 on
There is no way you can have a healthy relationship with someone who honestly believes that his suicide attempt was your fault. I've been suicidal before. I have read books on depression, vivid accounts of personal pain and tragedy that come with such scenarios. None of these cases ever blamed anyone -- except perhaps him- or herself.
People who are suicidal don't really want to die. But, at that moment, it seems like the only way to get the pain to stop. Because every minute you're alive, you're harangued by the deepest, most painful feelings of inadequacy, disgust and all other forms of self-torment. And while people who are suicidal can, at times, be very manipulative, I really and truly believe that anyone who blames a suicide attempt on someone else is doing it only as the ultimate form of passive aggression.
All of that being said, I understand the need for an apology. It's visceral and there's a part of you that believes that you can't get on with your life -- with or without him -- until this thing occurs.
I spent years with a father who never raised a hand to me, but emotionally abused me from age 7 or 8. By the time I was 21, I was thoroughly convinced that our relationship was bad because I was an ungrateful, unloving daughter who just couldn't get over her own issues enough to let her father love her and to love him back. All this because I never wanted to run errands with him on his day off as a version of "quality time." (One, I should point out, that inevitably required me to have a book.) And because I didn't want to go see grown-up movies and then go to restaurants where I only liked one thing on the menu. And because I didn't like to be around him, given that he had a hair-trigger temper and would make life miserable once it went off.
Damn me, eh?
Anyway, after years of trying to form some relationship with him, one day I just decided I was done. My mom had left him, but ended up coming back. I decided that I was done dealing with him and his manipulative ways. I didn't speak to him or email with him for abuot 4 years. Once my mom did finally leave him, he expressed an urgent desire to communicate with me. (He had heard that I was suicidal.) He claimed to have been working on himself, so I gave him another chance.
But whenever I wanted to talk about the past and try to get him to see how he had acted, he would say that it was over and he didn't want to talk about it. And if all I wanted to do was rehash and place blame, it was pointless to talk. Controlling bastard to the end, really. And I fell back into my old role and tried to placate him.
So we talked banalities and eventually I realized that I would never the apology or acknowledgment I needed. More than that, I was giving him permission to continue to hurt me every time he didn't apologize. Every time he acted like nothing was wrong. Sadly, that wasn't even what made me stop. It was that I couldn't take his "help" anymore.
At age 19, I became very ill with a rare neurological disease. Had me temporarily paralyzed and on life support for the better part of three months. I had to learn to walk again. I was never the same, and had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and severe fatigue ever since. And he ended every other email or so with a suggestion of what I could do for work. Among the examples were: freelance writer (he's a journalist, so it's particularly funny, since he knows how much work it takes just to GET a freelance piece), math teacher (because once a teacher told him I was good at it and could probably teach it if I ever wanted to) and baker (because Mrs. Fields started out baking at home and I used to make those really terrific brownies).
After one email, I just started crying -- out of anger and frustration and some self-pity. I realized that I was never, ever going to get that apology. I was actually only going to reopen the wound every time I corresponded. And, perhaps most terrifying, I had fallen back into the role of trying to keep him happy and being anxious about not upsetting him and playing along, trying to find the perfect pitch of a good daughter.
And, trust me, it took me months to get to that point. And days after I was still second-guessing my decision not to write him back. I kept thinking that, if there was any chance of it, I should stick around and get that apology. Deep down, I knew I wouldn't get one. He might want to talk about how he was working on himself, but that was only good enough so long as you didn't make him apologize for anything in the past. Like your husband, my father didn't really seem to understand that what he did was wrong. Or, if he did, it was in some general way that he thought he could gloss over with a basic, evasive apology along the lines of "I'm sorry that things were so bad between us" or some such.
It was hard. Really hard. To do nothing was one of the biggest acts of willpower I have ever managed. There was that little girl side of me that just so desperately needed to be apologized to. That thought that if her dad said he was sorry (and meant it, and understood the magnitude of what he had to be sorry for) that she could start to heal. But he wouldn't do it. So I had to make my own closure.
I can't say if your husband will ever get a grip enough to realize he had a role to play in this. What I can say is that he's clearly not going to figure this out in the near future. And you can't depend on him -- or an apology -- to make your peace with it. What happens if you wait for years and he does eventually say he's sorry? Because you have to realize that it may not be enough. In fact, it almost certainly won't be. It won't erase all the self-doubt he planted in your mind when he blamed his suicidality on you. Or all the other problems in life on you. Then you'll be angry at all the time you wasted just for that one little thing.
So you have to ask yourself what you will do if he never apologizes. It will be a hard question and you probably won't be able to really contemplate it at first. You need to decide whether you can live with someone who refuses to accept his part in a marriage -- except for all the positives, of course. Can knowing that you're not the whole problem be enough for you? If you think so, then you need to get some private counseling to cope with it. And I'm curious what the marriage counselor had to say about your husband's assertion that it's all your fault. I have a hard time believing that he/she didn't try to confront your husband about this. Perhaps this was part of what pushed him to leave you? Humans don't deal well with being questioned on the most basic assumptions in their lives.
for manda and phoenixgirl
Submitted by arwen on
Great post, phoenixgirl! You put the dilemma in great perspective. And my heart just breaks for what you have been through. My own father is another guy who is constitutionally incapable of apologizing, except to perfect strangers about trivialities (you know, as in "I'm sorry to bother you, could you tell me where to board the bus to River City?"). He's a very very smart guy, and growing up as the town genius brought him to believe that he could never actually be wrong about anything -- except of course he's no more brilliant about relationships than most of us. But he sounds like a pale shadow next to yours. My father liked to control, but was willing to listen to my mother and let his kids have some of it as we got older. Your relationship with your dad sounds so -- desolate. But it sounds like you have emerged wiser, and unvanquished. Good for you!!!
Manda, I know it doesn't seem like it now, but your husband may have unintentionally done you a favor by leaving. He seems to be deep in denial about the nature and seriousness of his problems, and those emotional outbursts could easily end up with you as the punching bag in the future instead of the glassware. This is not a promising indication for any healthy future relationship. I was separated from my husband for a little less than a year at one point, and the break was good for both of us. It gave me an opportunity to step back from the angst of our everyday interactions and look at the situation more objectively. My situation with my spouse was quite different from yours -- my husband was not in the kind of denial yours seems to be -- and we were able to ultimately resolve our problems. I don't think the outcome would have been the same if he had been dealing with me the way your spouse has dealt with you. I hope that you will be able to use your separation to equally good advantage. Good luck!!!
I agree. That is a great
Submitted by Jeannie on
I agree. That is a great post by Phoenixgirl. Manda, your husband has regained control over you and he is quite happy with it. I know how heartbreaking it is to deal with someone like that. My severe ADHD (ex) husband pushed me to the brink in our marriage. I put up with all of his antics as long as I could, trying to be the sympathic, supportive wife. But when my health (both physical and mental) and life became endangered, I decided I had to leave to survive. When it finally dawned on him I was really leaving him, he made it look like he was the one leaving me. It has been extremely painful to think my "loving" husband would have done all of the things he has done. I am still discovering all of the underhanded, sneaky, deceitful things he did during our marriage. After two years of being apart, I still cry frequently over my loss, although I am not sure what I lost. A dream, maybe? I do know the longer I am away from him, the more realistic perspective I get of our situation. I also know I have laughed more in the last year than I have in many years living with him because of his lack of involvement in our marriage and concern for my well-being. I now have a supportive network of friends who make me feel good instead of a husband who tells me no one would ever want to be around me. (In reality, people didn't want to be around him. Another thing I am discovering as people come forward and tell me things about him they wouldn't while we were married.) There is light at the end of the tunnel.
Jeannie
Manda, I'm not a doctor but I
Submitted by hubby123 on
Manda, I'm not a doctor but I have some life experience with my wife who has adhd, depression, threats of suicide, etc. A few quick thoughts:
1) Mental Illness is an illness just like heart desease or cancer. It can be just as deadly. A depressed person can not change their condition any more than someone with cancer or heart desease can. I was often very confused with my wifes mental illness, giving advice, but I've come to realize advice won't cure cancer, heart desease, or depression.
2) Suicide needs to be taken seriously. We have a friend who just lost her husband to suicide. When someone says they are going to kill themselves take it seriously, and dial 911 to get them help, just as if they were having a heart attack. Don't be afraid to call 911, they are there to help.
3)IMHO, depression and ADHD are not closely related in the same way as high blood pressure and heart desease are related. Treating ADHD probably won't solve depression, and treating depression probably won't solve ADHD.
4) ADHD traits can make any desease worse. In my wifes case she is fine when she takes her depression medicine. However due to her ADHD she doesn't make the doctors appointment to get here perscription refilled for the depression medicine. I notice that she starts taking about she can't handle her life, and she wishes she was dead, and I know instantly she hasn't made here appointment. That becomes the immediate focus. This has happened a few times, and now she realizes herself that she needs the medicine for depression. I had to ask her straight out if I needed to call 911 because she threatened suicide. I've threatened to have her committed for mental health issues unless she immediately makes here doctors appointment, and I follow up on it to make sure it's done. This truly is a matter of life and death. The same could be true for any prescription.
5) My last comment is the hard one to swallow. I've come to learn we can only change ourselves, and we can not change another person. You must change your actions, and not enable the other person. For example, for years my wife was financially irresponsible. We had a joint credit card, and she would charge way beyond our means. Eventually I had to turn it off. She beat me up emotionally for months for doing this. She then started writing checks without knowing what amount of money was in the account. I took the checkbooks away. She then turned to her personal card. She quickly maxed it out, and it was turned off due to no payments. I told her it was her card and she needed to deal with it. She didn't do anything for several months, and then eventually she realized I was not going to bail her out, and started making payments. It really helped to isolate situations where it's not a "joint" issue, but something the ADHD sufferer has complete responsibility over. For example you might say, I'm dialling 911 because you said you are going to kill yourself. Your death will not be my responsibility, etc. Net of the message, you need to focus on your own actions, and not expect anything from them. Forget the apology, you know the truth in your heart. What I call "the blame game" is very common with ADHD.
Pray about it. Your happiness has nothing to do with their actions.
Great discussions and
Submitted by Lost1972 on
Great discussions and comments, as almost always in here :)
I've inserted a few thoughts / comments on this site over the past few months, one of my latest over here:
http://www.adhdmarriage.com/content/overcoming-anger-non-add-spouse#comment-5535
Those who have read my comments before most likely have noticed that english is not my mother language. There are no discussions on ADHD taking place on the web in my mother language. What I find great about this site is that people in here seem to put my thoughts and experiences into words, that I haven't been able to do myself. Most often my head just feels, after trying to understand my spouse and read up on ADHD, clouded up. Then I come in here and my thoughts become much clearer.
Hubby123, the phrase "the blame game", really does ring a big bell in my head. I've had to play that game all too often with my spouse, in my believe. In my case, as I understand the phrase, "the blame game" are conversations that go in circles - again - and again - and again, without any result, other than the blame is cast on me.
I had a fight with my spouse last night. It started during the day, while I was at work, and for about 2 - 3 hours last night. My spouse is curently in hospital due to depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts and has ADHD. The fight was because of this:
- at this point we have received about 25 christmas cards
- some have only my spouses name written on it
- some have only my name written on it
- some have my spouses name "and family" written on it
- some have my name "and family" written on it
- one card has my name and our sons name written on it
This one card, made my spouse think, that I was indicating to my friends that we are not together. My spouse said: "I know how you can be vague when prhasing things and you often do some slight modifications to the truth". This is something that I cannot agree with. I do tend to phrase what I say in a gentle and carring way, if it is something that could otherwise sound hurtful. That can of course come across as vague but has nothing to do with "modifying the truth". My spouse came home for a short visit last night and said that he was convinced that he was right on this issue or that this particular friend of mine was just plain and simple mean. I told my spouse I couldn't say why my friend had taged the envelope in this manner, because i couldn't read his thoughts. Maybe it was because he had written 20 or 100 christmas cards that night and got confused, after all they have 5 children which could be a distraction. Maybe he had one to many beers while doing it (he has a drinking problem). This escaladed into a fight eventhough this is a really, really minor thing (in my view at least). I just can't take the responsibility or blame for how somebody tags a christmas card. I can't either explain it. So, I asked my spouse if he wanted to call my friend and ask him directly. The answer was no. I told my spouse I could call my friend (with the speaker on) and ask him about it. The answer was no. This strange conversation went on for a while, in circles. Then all of a sudden, my spouse threw in a small "bomb", and said that he didn't trust me, that he hadn't trusted me for a few years. So the whole matter only indirectly revolved about the christmas card - it was about trust.
(A short overview of our life since we met: met in late 2003, started of as friends with benefits from time to time. We started "formally" toghether in 2005, had our son in 2006. We had a trust issue in 2006, because I had written an email to a good friend - that I had dated a few years earlier and lives in another country - about how unhappy I was at that point - undiagnosed ADHD to great extent to blame, in my view (I have to admit I don't remember what I wrote that well, but in the end of the email I said that I missed his touch!). Split up in november 2007, my spouse left me for another person he had fallen in love with. My spouse wanted to come back a month later around christmas 2007 - then not - again wanted to come back a few weeks later - then not - again later - then not. We got back together in December 2008. From the beginning of this year, everything has been going down hill. Depression, anxiety, my spouse doesn't take any part in what has to be done, low selfesteem, hasn't been able to hold a job or stay in school, I feel like I'm alone carrying all responsibility and not being able ask anything of my spouse etc. My spouse seemed to manage, with difficulties, when we were not together but everything seemed to fall apart when we got back together. I've wondered if I "make" my spouse sick or if it is my co-dependence at work, my spouse knows I'll pick up everything that needs to be done. We posponed our wedding because my mother past away a few days before the wedding. This caused a lot of problems and my spouse just hammered me, I felt, during the time I needed support and time to do what had to be done in regard to the funeral. My spouse had received his ADHD diagnosis a few weeks earlier - in March / April, is seeing a doctor for it, started on medication that doesn't seem to work well - spouse also has Tourette Syndrome. His depression got worse and recently was hospitalized).
Regarding the trust issue, I replied that I hadn't given my spouse any reason for not trusting me since we started living together again, that I had tried to be understanding and supportive. After reading up on ADHD for the past 9 months, I can see how ADHD is manifested in my spouses life, how his behaviour - temperment and feeling is explained by it. I've also gotten an explanation, from this website, why I felt the way I did before we split up and why I've been feeling the way I've been feeling the past year. It seems like the ADHD diagnosis explains almost everything. Manda627 (above), adressed it to some extent what I've been feeling like the none - ADHD spouse. I've been distaning myself from my spouse for the past few months. I've been trying to adress the co-depence. I've been trying to put in place some boundaries. And because of that and because of the fact, that I've felt completely exhausted, I haven't been able or wanted to show any / little affection. I'm just tired and been at the brinck of given up for a long time. There is only so much support, understanding and cleaning up that you can do. I just feel numb.
Further regarding the trust issue, I asked, just for the sake of argument, if he would understand if I didn't trust him - since he left me for another person about two years ago? (I don't have a trust issue with my spouse in that sense - not at all). His reply was, that he didn't think that I had any reason not to trust him, because he had been straight forward with me at the time - he had left me, but not been talking behind my back about beeing unhappy with friends and family and putting up a happy face when with me! The whole trust issue, on my spouses behalf, is based on the email that I mentioned earlier, as far as I understand it. In it, I described how I didn't understand why he was so disfunctional, the violent outbursts, how unhappy I was, that I felt alone and used in a sense (at the time - before ADHD diagnosis) etc. It was plain and obvious at the time to everybody that knows me that I was unhappy - including my spouse.
The conversation last night just went in circles. My spouse cried alot (I've quit backing down and trying to comfort him when that happens because it just usually means, probably due to co- dependence, that I end up saying I'm sorry or taking the blame for something that I don't agree with and he is re-inforced in the believe that he is right and there is no result or conclusion in the conversation). After some crying and talking on his behalf about how everybody around him (me and his family) feels that he is impossible in every aspect - worthless - useless - wanting him to change constantly etc. I asked him if he understood in what way ADHD has an affect on his life and others around him? If he had made any attempt to read up on how ADHD manifests itself? If he felt that he needed to take some course of action in regard to the ADHD or if he felt that there was no problem. But there wasn't any clear reply. He said he had to adress the ADHD so that he wouldn't lose me or his family. I know for a fact, that my spouse has done little (or no) research on the ADHD and I've sensed that he has little clue of what influence the none treated ADHD has had. (It might be unfair to say this, but at times the diagnosis has seemed like an excuse - sorry for saying that). I told him that he didn't have to do anything for me or his family. If he decided to adress the ADHD, then it would have to be because he recognized the problems it was causing and that the untreated ADHD was affecting the people surrounding him. I believe that my spouse, like Manda627 described (and others have before in here), doesn't feel that he has done anything wrong. He doesn't understand or want to understand how his ADHD has hurt me and other around him. And like many / most other none ADHD spouses, I feel that I need him to understand this because I don't think he can make any true and positive change until he recognises the damage it has done (well said Manda627).
Now, this was a "blame game" in my eyes. Take no responsibility, don't admit or face what the untreated ADHD has caused, just critizise and blame me. For not being understanding or compasionate enough, loving, trustworthy.
My spouse has at least at times dealt with OCD. I know there is no right / concrete analysis to the situation but, this whole conversation looks to me like a combination of feeling really bad and unsecurity due to: depression, anxiety, OCD, ADHD, a trust issue, imaginary hypersensitivity to a writing on a christmas card, that I simply cannot explain or had any control over. And believe me, this is not the first time that we´ve had a fight over something, that was completely and utterly beyond my understanding. I've called it "the clash of different realities" before. Our realities just don't go hand in hand. A friend of mine suggested last night, that I had been living in circumstances that for most people are not normal and due to this I was having a problem of seeing that. That I was too involved to see it, which was making it difficult for me to understand the situation. He asked me to step "back a bit" and said: your spouse is hospitalized due to depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts. He is dealing with ADHD, Tourettes and possibly OCD. He has little or no selfesteem, sees litle hope, is afraid and feels very bad. And then he asked me: has it occured to you, that your spouse is very "sick" (not meant in a negative way, just don't know an english word for somebody that is suffering from neurological and mental illnesses) and that you can't really reason with somebody in that state? Can you really expect somebody in this state to understand what the situation is and how things have been (keep in mind he is hospitalized, which is an indication of the situation)? Isn't he simply too "sick" for that? And as strange as that may sound, I hadn't really thought about him as "sick".
At last: we've been twice to a family family counselor, which we feel has done us good. Last night my spouse told me, that in those sessions I have threatened to leave him by saying something like: our relationship won't last if the ADHD issues aren't recognized and adressed. Here, as in the email that I wrote (mentioned earlier), I was simply trying to say what I felt and believe. I don't see a future without significant change. Is that a threat or a fact? I'm not really sure what the point is to see a counselor, if I'm not gonna say what I feel and what I'm thinking.
I´ve gone in many circles and am as puzzled about everything as before. But the good thing, if anything, that these scenarios (like last night) don't affect as much as before. I've probably partly become used to them and partly just numb.
Hope I didn't bore you do death with this entry, if you had the endurance to read this. Any comments on my thoughts and experience would be appreciated.
Merry christmas everybody and a happy new year - and thanks for being there :)
Thank you and update
Submitted by Manda627 on
First of all thank you to all of you who have taken time to share your own experiences and to give advice. I have been checking back every day and must have re-read this thread 4 or 5 times.
Something I feel like I should say is that I wrote about all the bad things my husband had done but none of the good. He did many good things. I know many of you said that your husbands literally did nothing to help. Not so of mine, he helped clean and cook which is more than can be said of most husbands. He also loved me very much. In many ways I was/am lucky. I'm trying now to focus on those good things, if I don't then I don't think I will make it through.
The last week has been mostly silence. Neither he or his family have contacted me, leaving me to take every small chunk of information that I pick up and over analyze it. The small things I have gotten have mostly not been good. I found out via Facebook that he is going to the doctor and having tests done, a good thing I hope. I don't and do want them to find something. I wish him health, but I also wish for some solution to our problems. I also found out that he continues to maintain a friendship he said he had cut off, one that I can't imagine will be anything but detrimental to our marriage.
Yesterday, Christmas Eve, I wrote him a small message to tell him I loved him and hoped he was ok. Today, Christmas Day, I text him to tell him I love him and merry christmas. The reply was not good: "You haven't loved me for years, please leave me alone". To which I replied, "I love you more than you know. I'm sorry you don't see that.". He replied "Bullsh*t. You love only yourself, leave me alone."
God give me strength, I don't know what to do. It's true that, as some of you had said it would, this seperation has given me some clarity. I think I understand myself better than I have in a long time. However what this seperation has not changed is that I love him, and I want nothing more than to repair this. But every time I try to reach out, he spits on it.
Manda, sorry I missed this
Submitted by arwen on
I haven't been on the site as much as usual during the holidays and I didn't see this post until today.
Many ADDers have routine trouble with listening carefully, it's very easy for them to "tune out". I've also noticed that it's common for them to take advantage of this situation when someone is telling them things they don't want to hear, and tune out on purpose. It sounds like this is what your husband is determined to do. And the reality is, there is little you can do about it. You can't *make* somebody listen to you who doesn't want to, all you can do is try to create a situation where they'd rather listen to you than deal with the alternative. Sometimes even that is not possible.
Since your husband has requested repeatedly that you leave him alone, it seems to me that you have very little alternative than to back off and wait. If you keep contacting him, he will likely perceive this as lack of respect at best, and harrassment at worst. However, if you have legitimate reasons why you need to contact him (e.g. regarding some joint financial matter), then of course you have a right to do so, with an apology for doing it despite his request and an explanation of why you thought it so critical. In your shoes, I would try my best to honor the spirit of his request as much as possible, and not use the opportunity as a springboard for any attempt to reconnect in other ways. I'd probably conclude my contact message with thanks for his cooperation in whatever matter needed his involvement, and an offer to help reciprocally in any way -- showing appreciation and goodwill may be more readily accepted than statement of affection.
I know this must be a painful experience for you, but try to be patient. It sounds like right now he's still very easily provoked and he may need time to get to a less emotional state. Good luck