Wow, I am so glad I found this forum. I can't even believe I am not alone. So many stories feel exactly like mine. My 6-year old was recently diagnosed with hyperactive ADHD (and other things) and as I am researching more about the struggles they have internally it dawned on me that my husband probably has ADHD of the inattentive type. My brother has hyperactive ADHD so I thought I had insight as to what it "looked like". I should also note here that my husband and I are living together but separated because of pandemic/finances/children (more on why coming). When I told him we had to discuss a strategy to explain our daughter's diagnoses to her (she was obviously very, very frustrated with herself) I described the struggles and description of the ADHD brain and he said, "Oh my God I must have ADHD!". This was a weight off my shoulders because it made it easier for me to let go of my resentment, anger, contempt, and to not take his ADHD behavior personally for all the lack of attention (I am not even someone who needs a lot of attention!), lack of attention to our two kids, irresponsibility, empty promises, messes, disorganization, lateness, forgetfulness, overuse of alcohol, meanness, anger outbursts and addiction to hobbies. It is like having another child and I hate what it has done to me and my own shell of a self. I also am very sure he has Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria and it feels like living with a mentally ill person.

At some point a last year I did put my foot down on a few things for the household he needed to do and he has done them, some better than others. Yes, garbage is spilling over the sides of the trash can before he takes it out. But I have had to come and take of things when there was a lot of money on the line and I just wasn't willing to suffer the consequences of large sums of money (like our house mortgage). My daily mantra/prayer whatever you want to call it was to figure out a way to let go of my intense anger towards him. I am just so tired of being angry. He has been a good and relatively stable provider and has a good career as a software engineer but I often wonder what his coworkers think when he is oversleeping and missing meetings frequently. I have had many (maybe All?) of my friends in my inner circle and my family say I am a saint. I don't want to be a saint. My mother would constantly say I am a much better person than she is because I put up with his shit and craziness. He told me about a year ago that he felt like I should do the vast majority of the tasks required to take care of the kids and the household everything and he would just pop in here and there to take part in a few things. I am a stay at home parent and our older daughter does have medical needs but to say he should be free to do his own things whenever he wanted and only be part of our lives "here and there" was heartbreaking (and maybe is not related to ADHD at all). I was so upset I couldn't even continue to talk to him. But I stupidly made the best of it. I feel like I approached our relationship with empathy and forgiveness and gave him a lot of space and freedom to be the man that he is and love him for what he did bring to the table. But I have been suffering. 

AND THEN to add insult to injury I got an email over the summer from a man saying my husband has been having a online affair with his girlfriend for well over a year. Sigh. This was not the first time. This was the third time over the course of our marriage (that I know about). I knew instantly that I was done with this marriage. Shame on me for not ending it sooner. When I approached him about it he was shocked that I was even upset. He said those women (ahh, there were two women at the same time!) didn't even matter to him. He said he didn't even think I would mind or be mad. I reminded him of the other two incidents and how I had made it crystal clear that it was not okay behavior and he was not to do it ever again or things would be over. I asked him if he didn't think I would be upset then why was he being so careful to cover his tracks? He told two other close friends that he really didn't think I would be upset and couldn't understand why I was mad.

I am heartbroken for my young children. This marriage was dead long ago. But now I still have another 14 years of co-parenting with him ahead of me. I will say that ending the relationship has made him take his children more seriously and that has been really great for them. And I still have to live with him for the meantime and that feels unbearable since he is a terrible roommate. He still is angry and insane towards me at time and I am getting better and better at not taking it personally. Anyway, I have said enough. It is nice to just vent my story and know that I am not alone!