Hi,

I just found this site and forum and have been reading posts all day instead of working.  I've been with my husband for 24 years, married for 18 and we have two kids. It wasn't until our oldest was diagnosed with ADHD that my husband realized that it is something that he's had for his entire life.  He was always my best friend.  We were considered by everyone to be the perfect couple.  He was fun and smart and spontaneous.  When we first started dating I wasn't the most responsible 20-something either and we just had fun together.  But after we got married and had our first child, I grew up where he seemed to become even more irresponsible. He got laid off when our first was only three months old.  This was after years of hopping from one job to the next.  I had already set up a job share situation at my office, so  we decided that he would get another job at night to stay home with our baby and we would see if we could swing it.  Well, after a month or two of this, he just stopped going all together.  Made no plans to find another job, just sat home  playing with our son.  We had money saved for a house at that time, but we just blew through it.  He finally got another full time job and I went back full time after our 2nd was born.  It took another 2 years to re-save for a house.  He got fired from that job after a couple of years and really went off the rails.  He's always been a party guy and a pot smoker (self medicating I guess), but when he got laid off this time it got really bad. He got a job at a restaurant late at night and he'd drive home completely wasted.  He finally got a DUI and had to take the train to work, but one night I got a call from the ER that the police had picked him up at the train station and brought in.  I was so upset his brother had to go pick him up the next day.

After that he promised he would change. Went to a couple of AA meetings, saw a therapist and started medication. That lasted for about 2-3 months.  And then the new job was gone after only 4 months.  Since then (the past 6 years) he's been working part time while trying to get his "fantastic" real estate business going.  It's going to make us rich, I swear, if those other real estate agents and his pesky customers would stop pestering him.

I guess I've been his enabler all this time.  I was very supportive of his trying out the real estate thing because people do love him. He is very charming and people immediately like him, but I should have known he doesn't have the self discipline needed for that sort of career.  Luckily, I've been very fortunate at my job and I've been able to support us for the most part.  But we had a time where we almost lost our home, our credit was destroyed, etc.  He does almost nothing around the house.  Comes home from his four hours of work, smokes pot, watches TV, then starts drinking wine around dinner time.  But God forbid if the kids or I don't take out the garbage when it's full (his one chore). 

Now I'm here, found this place, because of my children.  My oldest has ADHD and now that he is a teen, we've been having a hard time with him.  He's a good kid, but he has a mouth on him and struggles in school.  You would think my husband would be understanding.  Grateful, that with all his issues, our kid doesn't drink or do drugs, has nice friends.  But he is so nasty to him.  I mean down right mean.  And he's always threatening him with physical violence when he mouths off.  This past weekend our son was in our basement horsing around with his friends and he fell over and his foot put a hole in the wall.  I wasn't thrilled either, and I told him that I was going to show him how to fix it and that he'd have to pay for the supplies, but when I left to get them pizza, my husband flipped out.  Threw my son against the wall and hit him.  Screamed at all of the kids to get out of the house.  It was awful.  My husband and I always joke with our siblings and parents how we were hit on a regular basis as kids, but I don't hit my children.  Some friends and family members wouldn't even think of this as abuse, just a kid getting what was coming to him, but I don't feel that way.  And for what had actually happened, it was complete over-reaction!  Part of me thinks that some of my son's issues are BECAUSE of the way his dad treats him.  But then I feel like if I say he is abusive, I'm exaggerating, but if I say he's not, then I'm hurting my child.  Our son had been on medication when he was younger, but we had a lot of problems from it, so we stopped, but i feel he might need it now to get him through HS.  My husband is completely against it.

I feel like I've been in denial for so long.  I don't even know if it's denial or just such a strong desire for us to be a normal family that I've made excuses for him, ignored the behavior, made up for it, blah, blah, blah.  I'm thinking of divorce now, seriously, not just the day dreaming about it that I've done over the years, but my head is so screwed up I'm not sure if the way I perceive things is the way they actually are or am I just exhausted.   Does that make sense?  My kids love their dad but his behavior hurts them and now that they are getting older they notice how much he is around the house, and I'm sure they can tell when he's been drinking or smoking. 

Thanks so much for letting me vent, this is a little rambly, but I'm so burnt out.  Any advice would be appreciated.  Because if I try to get it from friends and family I know it won't be unbaised.  My heart goes out to all of you going through this too.  It's so f'ing hard.

Hi everyone,

I live in the Netherlands (where the only ADD forum for adults is very inactive, hence my trying here for support and ideas) and my boyfriend of two years had undiagnosed ADD.

We met on a dating site 2 years ago, and it was love at first sight for both of us. I had been divorced for 4 years and doing quite allright in my job and with my big kids, he had separated from his wife a year before we met, and his situation was still complicated: he lived in a house together with 2 other divorced men, had no paid job but was trying to get 2 small companies started up. I worried slightly about the situation but boy I was so in love.

Last summer he had to make a decision about his living place, the house he was living in with the two other guy was going to be sold and he needed a place to live, the situation between us was so good and he was so often at my place anyway that we decided he'd move in with me. My younger son (15 y.o) really liked him so no problem.

But... I have been confronted with so many issues since we live together that I wonder what to do. I still love him but I am so tired and frustrated that I sometimes feel like running away.

He still doesn't have a proper job. One of the company he was trying to start up collapsed when he and his older brother (they were in this together) decided to pull out. This also led to a break up between his two brothers (the older and the younger one) and he's still very frustrated about the whole situation.
He decided to carry on with the other company, a small software company. He designed a software a few years ago, based on some ideas he had on interviewing people and doing counseling online. Many people who used the software say it's great but it needs further development and he had no money for that . So he's trying to find funds here and there. In the meantime he sometimes does a small job like mystery shopping and earns just enough to pay his share in our household. This is something he's been doing very faithfully, and as soon as he gets money it goes in our common pot.

He's also bee trying to apply to various jobs in his old trade (he used to have a company as a business consultant) but he's 55 years old and he's been out of "real" employment the past 4 years. So it's quite obvious nobody is really waiting for him.

He's obviously feeling very down about the situation. I suspect he's quite depressed. His attitude with me varies from nice and tender to completely indifferent. TO add up, the contact with his two sons (19 and 15) is not good, they live together with their mum, and she refuses to communicate with him. Sheactually    broke up the marriage, because she found him unreliable.

So. What do I do next. I really DO love him a lot. I am also CONVINCED he has quite severe ADD. I am a teacher and I work with kids with ADHD and ADD all the time, and when I read a list of symptoms about adult ADD it's like reading a biography of my friend. Everything is there, absolutely everything. But he refuses to get a diagnose, because as he puts it: "he doesn't want to be labeled".. And the craziest thing? He studied psychology....

I am torn between two ideas: one of them is to run away and try to heal, but I also love him and they're are also many good things in our relationship.. I only wrote about the bad ones at the moment because I'm completely down. We share very many similar interest, have fun together, enjoy doing the same things, can talk for hours. I enjoy his erudition and the way he associate ideas in an unusual way. 

Who can help me sort up this mess????

Thank you for reading this long test.

Homerun

This is my first post on this forum which I have been following from the side lines for some time now. I even bought Melissa's book on ADHD and marriage. I have been with my partner for almost 4 years now. He grew up in an orphanage where he was emotionally and sexually abused as a child. Has been a heroine addict, then an alcoholic. When we met, he was on his way to rehab. I have tried every which way to help and assist this man, and it has not all be futile. He was diagnosed as having ADHD early 2016 and started on Concerta. There has been some improvement but it hasn't been marked, mainly as it has not been accompanied by any therapy as he doesn't believe he needs any. He has also still been taking buprenorphine which he had been prescribed in rehab in an effort to treat his alcoholism by treating his past addiction to heroine. Needless to stay he became addicted to this. In addition his psychiatrist at that time kept increasing the doses so that he was at a whopping 12 mgs per day. he manged to wean himself down to 2 mgs per day, but told me and the ADHD psychiatrist he had stopped. I discovered the other day he hadn't. These 4 years have simply taken a massive toll on me: the constant mess (both physical and emotional), the emotional outbursts, the impulsivity, the selfishness, the emotional abuse. Not to mention two totalled cars, stealing from my bank accounts, my purse. The constant lies. I feel I have let a monster in to my life. I am deeply unhappy and have nothing more left to give. I started out this relationship as a strong, independent woman, but these days I have no idea who I am. I feel so ashamed that I have ended up in this toxic relationship. I have asked him to leave (not the first time), but as per the usual he throws massive temper tantrums in an effort to make me back down. But this time I won't. I want my life back. I want to be able to look myself in the eyes again, to look other people in the eyes again. Just this evening I was called a cunt for letting the dogs out when he asked me to let the dogs out. They ate the cat food he had left out. He raged about this for a good 5 minutes. I am unable to love this man. 

:.)