Hello,

Our family is new to the ADHD journey. While we have been living with it for quite some time, it's been newly discovered in the last few months, in my husband and so far pre-teen son.  Our son has been causing some strife in the family, angry outbursts, refusing to go to activities, refusing to eat, etc.  This has caused major strife between my husband and I.  In our last marital counseling session, I brought up that I need help with our son - taking more time off work to help him with school work, getting him to eat, getting him to do chores, and getting him to activities.  Mostly so I can have a break, since the majority of our son's anger lashes out to me specifically.  Our marital counselor and I brought up that the way Jason is approaching his parenting style is to somewhat one-up me, or making it seem like his parenting model is better than mine.  That is my feeling right now, and that I'm not feeling very supported.  Since that appointment, he now is refusing to sleep in our bed, and has not spoken to me since.  He has advised that it is clear that everything he thinks is wrong (told by me and the counselor), that he should be grateful for all the things I do - these are his words.  He does not want to go to counseling next week with me, cancelled our weekly date night, and has already cancelled his next individual therapy session.

I'm at a bit of a loss for how to engage him - the words that he's using were not how I saw the conversation and now I'm feeling like I can't even safely express my frustrations about things without him automatically shutting down completely.