Submitted by Brindle on 09/01/2018.
He’s untreated for his ADHD. It’s pretty bad.
My kids have ADHD. I’m working to get them the therapy and meds they need. I run everything around here, except the job part. (I am truly thankful that he can earn a nice living right now and does so.)
I’m so exhausted. We’ve been together about two decades. Every single day I’m exhausted. I am sure I’m depressed, but that’s also been there for years. Looking back, my stress level has always been high. His refusal to do anything more than his job is so hard. I’ve worked to try to stop walking on eggshells, but there is still an undercurrent of stress.
I’m trying to do things for myself. Nothing really seems enough anymore. I feel like I just don’t have stamina. I feel like I’m wearing out.
Brindle, I understand. I am
Submitted by dvance on
Brindle, I understand. I am so sorry. None of us signed up for this type of stress and unmet needs. My kids are now 17 and 19, but they were a project--17 year old is an Asperger's guy and had many health issues on top of that growing up. His Asperger's makes him incredibly inflexible and DH is zero help--he is the fun dad, the watch TV but don't do homework dad, the go out and play dad but who cares if the chores are done dad. I am the bitch mom who comes home from work and makes him turn off the TV and do his homework. Dad's response?? "Mom wants you to do your homework". The 19 year old had drug and alcohol issues (8 weeks in rehab, barely graduated high school) and now lives home and started community college. I insist he have a curfew so I am not worried he is dead in a ditch somewhere (my mom's expression!!) but DH doesn't care either way so again I am the bitch. Exhausted doesn't begin to cover it, I know. I take Wellbutrin daily and xanax as needed and I have no shame about that at all. What we all have to do is super human--way worse than being on our own because we have someone acting AGAINST us. I understand about no stamina. Are you able to sleep? That is the one thing that saves me--go to bed as early as you can. Take something for sleep if you have to--even just Tylenol PM if you don't want to take prescription sleep meds. It helps a lot. Are your kids school age? Do they get services at school? Can you see a counselor to get some support? I am sure you have thought of all of these things.
sending hugs
dv
Thank you, dv.
Submitted by Brindle on
Thank you for your understanding, compassion, and brainstorming. Your caring response perked me up a little.
I really do need to get better sleep. You’re so right - it makes a big difference.
I am so sorry you are feeling
Submitted by Libby on
I am so sorry you are feeling exhausted. I am right there with you. For me under all the exhaustion lies intense loneliness. I spent most of this morning in tears because of this. I am just so very lonely in my marriage. And I am tired of putting on the cheery smile for the outside world. I wish I could speak my truth about what I live with on a day to day basis. I did start seeing a psychologist again and I also hope to start Alanon.
loneliness
Submitted by jennalemone on
Yes, this is my biggest grief and disappointment. The loneliness of being tied to someone who is not there.
Do you feel like an unwilling subject of a science experiment?
Submitted by Will It Get Better on
Do you ever think somehow you are an unwilling subject of a science experiment where the subject is emotionally isolated and subjected to shifting interpretations of reality? A lifetime of interacting with an ADHD spouse who is in grudging denial of the impact on her ADHD on others sometimes makes me feel this way. The loneliness and its companion, hopelessness, are among the worst aspects of this reality for me. How can you accurately describe it to someone who has never been inside it himself? I've never found a successful means so it is one reason I value these blogs to give me some reassurance that I have not 'lost it'.
Unwilling science experiment
Submitted by Brindle on
That’s a humorous way to say it. And yes!! I especially related to the “shifting interpretations of reality.” Boooo.
Yes, lonely.
Submitted by Brindle on
The loneliness sometimes feels desperate. That feels pathetic to say. But it is true.
Let us know how AlAnon goes. I’ve toyed with the idea of going, too...
I am hoping to go on Tuesday.
Submitted by Libby on
I am hoping to go on Tuesday. I will update.
I went to my first Alanon
Submitted by Libby on
I went to my first Alanon meeting yesterday. It was a very positive experience. The meeting is run by themes and yesterday's theme was "what does it matter". Each member takes a turn to speak shortly on that theme. I could relate to what every single person had to say. My DH is not an alcoholic but his behaviours are much the same as one. I was up front with them and told them this. They encouraged me to come back and I believe I will.
this is for Brin
Submitted by dvance on
Oh honey you are not pathetic. I am so lonely I feel like I could break in half. It's awful. To be in a marriage where the person doesn't actually KNOW you and barely notices if you're even there? Awful. I could vanish and I doubt he would notice. We did okay for about the first 12-15 years and then it all started to unravel and there is just no getting it back. I think that was the extent of his interest, that length of time. The kids got older and needed more--more attention, more complex attention, more activities, more discipline, more management, the issues weren't as straightforward as when they are toddlers, my attention is on them, not him. He has to grow up and act like their PARENT not their buddy. Jobs get boring after a few years, people get boring after a few years. Real life is kind of a slog sometimes and what ADHD person has the patience for that??? The loneliness is really terrible, I hear you. I have some very very good friends that I go out with regularly. For a while I would make plans and then cancel because I was too tired but it turns out I can be at home lonely and tired or out with friends, still tired but not lonely for a little bit so I started making myself go out and now I feel a little better. Not all the time and it's not a substitute for a life partner, I know, but it's a little something.
Exhaustion
Submitted by 1Melody1 on
I feel the same way. Completely utterly exhausted. Like another poster, I started taking anti-depressants. I had a bad reaction to the first one which has left me with permanent tinnitus. Then I started Wellbutrin and couldn't sleep even a half hour with that. Then I got a prescription sleep aid. And I looked at myself and everything I was doing to cope and thought... what the heck?? Because he will not do anything... anything at all... to treat his ADHD, I am medicating MYself? Enough is enough.
I think what makes me most nuts is that he can't (won't?) see himself or our marriage clearly. When I table things, I am labeled emotional or an over-reactor or just mean. He doesn't see it. He doesn't see that I do 99% of the work for our daughter, run my own business and cook 98% of the meals and that therefore I have very little time for myself. He doesn't see that the fact that he is absorbed in the computer every waking hour means I am alone and lonely. He doesn't see that his porn addiction has left me 100% sexless for almost a decade and doubting my worth. He doesn't see that impulsive cruel words hurt long after they're said even though HE didn't mean them and has forgotten them. And I have said all of this out loud but he doesn't see it. He just doesn't.
I'm so sorry, Brindle. I know how you feel. Totally exhausted. I am actually afraid I WILL wear out if I don't make a drastic change soon. I have seen firsthand that stress can contribute to serious physical ailments and I need to do something more before that happens to me. Melissa notes that ADHDers need to "try differently." I think we do, too.
Good point, Melody
Submitted by Brindle on
Yes, we need to try differently, too. I like that you said that. I will be turning that over in my mind.
Yeah, I’ve done antidepressants, too, and it really is very !!!!!!!! that we are medicating ourselves to deal with their unaddressed symptoms.
I’ve also started being concerned about my own health. I don’t want to wear out, either.
It is 100% back-ass-wards
Submitted by dvance on
It is 100% back-ass-wards that WE are the ones taking the meds to deal with them when they will not take the meds that would at least HELP them be more livable. I gave up trying to understand that a long time ago. I look at my DH--he will be 50 in November-and he is so inefficient-it takes him FOREVER to do regular things--who would want to live like that?? I just don't get it. The embrace of their "weirdness" or "quirkiness" or however they define it to themselves so WE are the problem, not them. I don't know. I look at my DH as an obstacle-a giant boulder in the road that I have to navigate around. That visual actual helps me. I can expect nothing. If I ask him to do something it may or may not get done at all, let alone correctly. He seems incapable of the simplest task. If you read here regularly, a few weeks ago I lost my mind because he went to Target and I asked him to get sheets for the oldest child--I asked him to get 100% cotton and NOT the stretchy jersey fabric. Know what he got?? 100% polyester, stretchy jersey. One has to wonder if it's on purpose-the defiance. So I had to return them and get the right ones. I asked him why he didn't read the label. He didn't have his glasses with him. Always an excuse. How does he keep a job??
A giant boulder
Submitted by 1Melody1 on
A giant boulder. I can see why that image works and I just might borrow that! I am the same. I expect almost nothing from him and am pleasantly surprised now when something gets accomplished. But it's awful to take such a high percentage of the responsibility.
I get losing your mind over the Target sheets. It's not the Target sheets. It's the fact that something like the Target sheets happens ALL the time. The button has been pushed too many times. Last weekend we went up to his sister's cottage. I brought wine. Pop. Water. Salads. Cookies. Side dishes. And then at the last minute his sister asked if we would bring corn. I didn't have time to go to the store anymore as I was working right up until we were leaving so I told DH he would have to get the corn. He did... but it was all moldy and inedible. As a one-off, sure... maybe that could happen to anyone. But he didn't check the quality of even one piece. This happens with so many things and I just don't understand it.
And I hate that my patience has worn so thin. I feel like when something small happens, I am instantly resentful/angry because it pushes the same button that has been pushed over and over again for 20 years... from losing his glasses... to being late... to a simple corn/Target sheet errand gone awry.
Oh I understand--I too hate
Submitted by dvance on
Oh I understand--I too hate that I go from 0 to 60 over small things because it is 23 years worth of "small" things--"small" lies, "small" financial disasters, "small" jobs repeatedly lost, "small" projects unfinished, "small" illogical communication and then we are too blame for not understanding what they meant OR for acting upon what they said which is NOT what they actually meant and why did we not read their minds?!?!?! Another example (I wrote it here a few weeks ago but it fits): DH took the glass doors off the shower stall to wash them. Nice gesture but he broke the clips that hold them in the frame at the bottom so they went back in the track on the top but were swinging in the breeze at the bottom. For three weeks they were like this and three of us shower in that shower stall twice a day. I asked him many times what the hold up was to getting them fixed. He tells me the maintenance man in our building hasn't given him the clips. Huh. So after three weeks of this, I happen to see the maintenance man in the lobby one day after work and I ask him for the little clippy things and he says WAIT HERE and goes to the workshop in the building and hands them to me. So given how easy that was, I find it hard to believe DH ever even asked him. The package sat in the bathroom for three more days before it got done. There have been so many examples over the years of DH telling me why something cannot be accomplished because of 9 gazillion reasons NONE of which are his fault and then I make one phone call or go to one store and BOOM--problem solved. I just don't get it. Well, that's not true: I get it just fine. My ADHD person has a defiant streak a mile wide. He absolutely WILL NOT do a damn thing he does not want to do OR before he is good and ready. Add to that the fact that he cannot hang on to information for more than 30 minutes it seems and does not pay attention under ideal circumstances let alone normal life circumstances and I have myself a pretty low functioning toddler in a man's body living in my house. A few weeks ago he couldn't figure out Grub Hub and when he finally did two of the four orders were totally incorrect and he had to have the restaurant come back with the correct food. I mean really. How hard is some of this stuff???? So that is why so many of us lose our minds over stuff that if you and I were roommates, for example, we would just laugh about. I figure at this point if we got all of the non-ADHD spouses on this board together in one room we could run the world. We have all had to be so incredibly high functioning it's really kind of awe-inspiring.
Unfinished projects
Submitted by 1Melody1 on
This message made me smile a few times! And I feel like we're living with the same man. I have a house full of unfinished projects and promises made. Thankfully my dad is handy and willing to help me out when there is a repair I can't handle or afford to hire for. But I lose a little piece of myself every time I have to ask my dad again because my husband has put whatever it is off for weeks/months/years. I feel so embarrassed calling my dad when I have a husband who COULD do it and just won't. I feel like a chump when I'm painting rooms by myself when DH COULD help out. I feel like I am throwing money in the garbage when I have to hire for a job DH COULD do (and definitely has time to do) himself.
Your 0 to 60 comment is exactly me. I try to keep my cool - and for the most part I do. But occasionally I will go from 0 to 60 because he has interrupted me for the 10th time that day and the 10-thousandth time in our relationship. Or because the day before grocery shopping day he ate the food I specifically told him was for our daughter's school lunch (again) and now I have nothing to pack for her (again). And he looks at me like I'm losing it over one little thing. He walks away completely believing *I* am the unbalanced one. If/when we separate, he will probably tell people that!
Oh the food comment--my DH
Submitted by dvance on
Oh the food comment--my DH will ask me to get something at the store (I ask all of the folks in my house when I go shopping if anyone has a taste for anything) and yet when I buy whatever he asks for he often doesn't eat it and I end up tossing it. If I ask why he didn't it what I bought the HE ASKED FOR he says he forgot about it. A few weeks ago he wanted honey roasted peanuts. You know the bright blue Planters canister? Hard to miss right? It was front and center in the pantry. A whole week went by and the next week he asked me to get them again since I hadn't the week before. Um...they have been there they entire week. I took a picture of our pantry and sent it to a friend of mine and asked her to pick out the can of nuts and BOOM--right there in the front. Ditto the interrupting. Constant. And you never return to the original conversation. Ever. My DH tells me I am the one with the short temper, no patience, that lets everything get to me, that needs to just relax, not let the little things bother me, etc. I know I am the bitch in the house. I used to care. I don't any more.
Honey Roasted Peanuts
Submitted by 1Melody1 on
That's funny - I have similar experiences. He will ask me something like, "Where is the sugar?" while looking in the pantry. I know it is front and center so I wait a minute to come running and simply say, "Keep looking... it's in there!" But 90% of the time he will say he still can't find it after another minute or two and I still have to go, pick up the item staring right at him and hand it to him. I often wonder if he's really looking or just waiting for me to give up and come and do it for him.
RE: food, he will complain constantly we don't have enough of the things HE likes in the house. And I almost always ask what he needs and wants when I go shopping (once or twice a week) and I always get everything he asks for. He is out and about almost every day and could easily stop by a store, too. He doesn't and still complains. I just ignore this one (and the one where he can't find anything above) and don't let it get to me. I just find it baffling!!
One more... just because this is therapeutic... he occasionally puts the dishes away. When he does, they end up all over the place in different cabinets, etc. I have put everything away in the same places for 12 years, but he will put a pot with the glasses and the mugs in a completely different cupboard. It is so hard for me to understand (not to mention find things the next time I'm in the kitchen!) and I can't imagine not knowing where the plates we use every day belong. Or maybe he doesn't think it matters where things go as long as they're away? I don't know! :)
We really should go out for
Submitted by dvance on
We really should go out for coffee! Mine will load the dishwasher...except for two or three things left in the sink. Why?? No one knows. Also he has phone and iPad chargers all over the house--one buy the bed, one on my desk, one by the side of the couch and two by the chair where he sits all the time. They are always draped over the back of the couch or chair onto the seat cushion and he sits on them so when he gets up there is the impression of the cord on the cushion. Drives me nuts. Why so many chargers?? He carries his phone everywhere though, so one never knows when it might die! And he does not have a job that needs that kind of monitoring. And when I call or text, he may or may not answer. It's a mystery.
I know we are laughing and trading stories of the stupidness that is our lives, but every darn day of this and it takes a toll. For me it's the inconsistency--some things he does are regular and normal and some are just so bizarre and illogical that I just cannot make sense of the WHY behind what them. In his specific case, there is a huge defiant streak-he wants to do things his way period. Most folks, when the eat cereal for breakfast, are likely to slice up the banana on the cereal, pour the milk over the whole thing and it it with a spoon, right? Nope--he cuts up the banana in a separate bowl and takes a spoonful of cereal, puts the banana on the spoon (sometimes with a fork) and then eats it. WHO DOES THAT? Why can't he just eat his cereal like everyone else? Why does the eating of cereal even have to become a project? The perverse delight in doing things an odd way is hard to live with. If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't. Marrying this guy was the worst thing I ever did. WAY too much compromise, WAY too little return. I am tired of second guessing myself and always thinking I am the crazy one. WE are not the problem!!!
The little things
Submitted by 1Melody1 on
Coffee? I was ready to go ahead and take you up on that whole roommate thing! What a relief it would be to live with someone who is working with me, not against me!
The banana story made me laugh because not surprisingly, my husband is similar. Every bowl must have an extra plate under it. Every mug. No reason. So we have to run the dishwasher twice a day. But more to your point of doing things in an odd way... it is like no one ever taught him to do basic things like brush his teeth. He mounds toothpaste on (he goes through a tube a week+ just for him... that's how much he uses) until it's spilling off the brush and he keeps dipping it under running water and then does a couple of passes on his teeth...; back under the water and back up to his mouth. Over and over. This process causes toothpasty-water and chunks of pure paste to go everywhere. Two bathroom countertops are completely ruined by this and the constant mess on the mirror and the chunks *I* get to pick off the sink with my fingernail if I want them dealt with are maddening. I don't know why he doesn't put the normal dollop of toothpaste on, perhaps dampen the brush once and brush his teeth like everyone else. It's his banana cereal.
Like you, I would not marry my husband again. I had no idea it would be like this and I wish I had. He is in denial and will not address his ADHD. Now I am struggling with how to get out. How do I share custody with someone who doesn't take care of himself, let alone our daughter? He has never washed a piece of her clothing, packed her lunch or set up a playdate. I am the one to help with homework, cook the meals, make holidays special and spend time with her. On the rare instance I have to go out and he is alone with her, he forgets to feed her (though he eats!) and spends no time with her. I know she would have to live in a mess, live on fast food and be ignored and on her own when she was at Dad's house if we shared custody. I can't do that to her though I am struggling to live with this myself as things are. How do I leave sustainably as the breadwinner AND involved parent? He refuses to hold traditional employment and no doubt I would end up having to pay him support when he is capable of working himself, which wouldn't leave me with much. HOW do I get my life and sanity back??? I am struggling to wait until my daughter is 18 when I would no longer have to worry about sharing custody. I don't know if I can wait because I am afraid I will be rocking back and forth in a corner on 3 different anti-depressants by then. And I am forgoing my health and happiness every day I stay. Where are you on leaving/staying?
Staying vs leaving--that is
Submitted by dvance on
Staying vs leaving--that is the question isn't it. We will be married 23 years in October, I will be 48 also in October and I know I do not want to waste the rest of my life like this. That said, it's hard not to be bitter and angry that the best years of my life are behind me and WERE in fact wasted on this train wreck of a marriage. Seven years ago DH moved out for 6 months. I wish to God we had ended it then, but no, I had to try again. What was I thinking?? No sarcasm/humor there--I am 100% serious. That would have been the time to say Okay, we're done. He left without saying goodbye to me or the kids--I came home and his keys and garage clicker were on the table. I had to call him and say what's with this. Real stand up guy there, huh. But, now--the lease on our apartment is up at the end of May and I have mentioned many times that that would be the time to each get our own places. Our sons are 17 (senior in high school) and 19 right now, so next year the senior will be almost 18 and headed to college. The 19 year old took a year off after high school and just started community college two weeks ago, so he will live home this whole year. He may go to U of Illinois (we live in a suburb of Chicago) next fall or he may stay home and do one more year at community college. The point is they are just about launched so we may not need as big a place as we have now. Currently we rent a really big apartment that I LOVE--we've been here 9 years--three bedrooms, three baths, fireplace, two balconies, three garage parking spaces, laundry in our apartment--it's expensive but I love it and it wouldn't be hard to replicate where we live BUT it would be hard for us to pay rent on two apartments. What would we get-two 2-bedrooms? Have the boys share a bedrooms when they are both home at the same time? One of us get a 2-bedroom, one a 1-bedroom or a studio and the boys never stay over there? I'm not sure. If we just split this rent in half, neither of us could rent anything in the area we live in now. There is an agency in our town that counsels women looking into divorce, so I went to see them over the summer and I found out that I am likely entitled to spousal support for the rest of my life due to the long time we were married and the fact that he makes about three times what I make BUT he also gets fired every three years, so just like dead beat dads, if he were to get fired, it wouldn't really matter what amount the courts awarded me, there wouldn't be any money to give me. My current job doesn't pay enough to even cover our current rent. I hold the benefits for all four of us, and they are GREAT benefits, but that won't pay the rent. I am thinking of looking for another job for next year. I love my job, but it limits my options, which isn't good. Right now we have totally separate lives. I go out with friends a ton. He sits in his chair and plays video games. He has no friends and no hobbies. I used to feel guilty about going out-I don't any more. His choice. We can afford for both of us to go out. He prefers to sit home. I would be climbing the walls. I am glad I don't have the custody thing to worry about--that is a very real concern for you. I wish I had some advice about that. I really don't.
Staying vs. leaving
Submitted by 1Melody1 on
Thanks for sharing this with me. I am always curious as to where others are with this question and how/if they make it work once kids are grown. I can't even imagine us staying together as empty nesters. I understand the financial pressures of splitting. Like you, we aren't really doing that badly and I love our current house of 13 years. But once you try to get two places with what we have... neither of us would be doing well anymore. And like you, we live in a pretty expensive area. Both of us would have to move quite far to start seeing savings on housing, which would take us away from family and the communities we love. At the same time, I hope I can overcome this financial part of it somehow at some point. Like you, no obvious or easy solutions though.
I'm sorry you had the chance to end it and wish you had. I secretly wish that would happen to me. That DH would up and leave. But I know he won't. He is happy with a marriage where we barely speak to each other and I have finally stopped trying to get him to spend time with me. With the exception of a few things (he shovels the snow, cuts the grass, comes home for dinner, attends all extended family events), he pretty much does whatever he wants. As an ADHDer who doesn't seem to require any connection, what's not to like?
I hope you find your happiness. ♥
OMG THE DISHES!!!
Submitted by Dagmar on
This happens at my house too. He always leaves just a couple of dishes on the counter when he runs the dishwasher. I think dishes are what got him diagnosed with ADHD. It was before we had a dishwasher and I told the marriage counselor that he never finishes anything so if he does a chore, I still have to do it. She was giving me the lecture on lowering my high standards, when I interrupted her and said "no, it's not that he doesn't do the dishes the right way, it's that he doesn't wash the silverware or glasses and just leaves them for me." As with all our marriage counselors, eventually she stopped seeing me altogether and just started seeing him.
Trying differently is what
Submitted by Libby on
Trying differently is what Alanon is all about. I highly recommend checking that out.
I would write a longer reply,
Submitted by PoisonIvy on
I would write a longer reply, but I'm too tired ... even more than two years after my divorce was finalized ... and seven years after the beginning of the end of my marriage, when my ex left to start his "temporary" job for his parents. Sigh.