Our 34th Wedding Anniversary is coming up in a week. We have a total of six (now adult) children. Three of them are our birth children together. Two of those were diagnosed with ADHD before age four. I already had two children from another birth father. Neither had any signs of ADHD. New husband in 1984, new DNA, and three birth children with him. Never having heard of ADHD I could not understand why I was unable to meet my children’s needs. I could not understand why my new husband had suddenly dropped his interest and attention for me. He had been SO attentive to my every need. Within less than a year he had almost no interest in me except for sex. I had been a great mom to my first two birth children then, I had children with a new birth father, and I became instantly incapable of understanding their behavior or thought process. Even when they were diagnosed and put on meds I didn’t understand what had happened to my once attentive husband. 

I kept myself up - I kept the house up - I kept the kids up - I kept the bills up - I kept the lawn up - I kept the garage clean - I did all the birthdays and Christmas and wrappings all the gifts and doing all the decorations and the cooking for the kids. He was rarely home. Unless he had lost his job. Then I made bread for the kids to eat, I went to our church for food, I supported him in his efforts to get new jobs and held my breath that he would keep them. He had plenty of education. When he did have a job I took care of the kids alone from 5:30am to 11:00pm. And as odd as this sounds I was just happy he had a job. As I tried to juggle all these responsibilities, I became depressed. No doctor had put it together that my new husband and our new birth children had their ADHD had the same DNA. He was undiagnosed and remained undiagnosed until 2014. I was on Prozac and every other med you could imagine just to cover for the ADHD levels in our family.

He became the CEO of a company for the last 15 years. He lied about his salary, our 401k, our taxes, his job, our retirement, etc.. He was edged out of this company and went to work for another company where, after two months, he quit without telling me. He lied and told my he was fired. We’ve been unemployed for a year now. He’s 63 and age discrimination is rampant. I’m on disability. He’s still parses his words (to fool himself into thinking he’s not lying). He says he tries to think of us as a partnership but he doesn’t. I’m still on a ‘need-to-know basis’; much like a roommate. My opinion means nothing. I should be used to that but I’m not.

I finally found a counselor who has been a great coach for both of us...Too little too late. If I had just found him earlier. Now we’re looking at selling our house and retiring in our daughter’s basement bedroom. Taking care of her tree small boys for our keep. Just the way I wanted to spend my golden years. I already have PTSD from raising my own ADHD children. I am convinced he will never respect me. I want to go a divorce mediation. I told him that a few days ago and he didn’t even flinch, didn’t care enough to even comment. Death sounds easier to face that the death of the dreams of 34 years of marriage.