I'm new on here and have been reading many, many of the posts and getting a lot from most of them.

I think that Melissa’s class would help my husband and me in our relationship and marriage, but I somehow don’t see him agreeing to spend the $289 or doing the work that would be required to make it successful. I’m pretty sure he does have a severe “case” of ADHD even without an “official” diagnosis.

My husband is 69 and I am 60. We have been married for about 38 years. I always agreed with him that he is "impossible" (his words) but I was able to deal with it while our 3 kids were living at home with us.  Now that our last child has moved out, we are empty nesters and he is retired, oh, what a hell this has become for me.

I started going to a counselor well over a year ago because I was just so lonely, bitter, angry and miserable. Eventually H did come along and after several sessions the counselor suggested that he might have ADHD. H was none too pleased and replied that he didn’t believe that ADHD even exists. He did say one time long before we went to the counselor that he knows he would have been diagnosed with ADHD when he was a kid if it had been known. We stopped seeing the counselor because he asked H if he wanted to change and H said "no, my wife can just help me with the paperwork (meaning do the filing) and then things will be fine”, so that was that. H had agreed to fill a prescription of Ritalin, but only took 20 pills at most and it was very hit or miss. He deemed it useless and stopped taking it. Also, our 8 year old granddaughter was just diagnosed with dyslexia which goes hand in hand with ADHD from what I understand,so doesn't that mean that it is probably in our family?

He is “doing work” on the computer at least 12-16 hours each day, seven days a week and yet there is total chaos when it comes to our financial state. Needless to say, he gets very little exercise and it is so bad that when he finally went to a chiropractor and the doc looked at x-rays of his neck he couldn't believe what he saw, a bone spur going from one vertebrae, not to the next one, but trying to attach itself to the one above that!  He said he had NEVER seen anything like that!

As I said, he’s on his computer 12-16 hours a day. If I complain, I’m accused of not realizing how long it takes to do all of our financials. I'm terrified of something happening to him and then I would be left to deal with all of this. I've asked him if we can work to downsize our lives and responsibilities and he has refused.

As for other ADHD symptoms, he talks excessively.  But with all of his non-stop talking, he NEVER says “hello” when I come home or “goodbye” or “goodnight” on his own. He will just take off out the door and I have no idea where he is going or how long he’ll be gone. 

When I do get a chance to say something, he interrupts me, finishes my sentences or talks along with me, saying what I’m saying. That is really unnerving. Every time he does that to me it feels like he is stabbing me with a knife and twisting it. And when I get aggravated and say “could I please finish my sentence” he has the nerve to get mad at ME!! And yes, I’m sure I say it in “that tone”.  Pretty much everything I say nowadays is in “that tone”, I’m so frustrated! He interrupts other people too, but since they don’t live with him they just ignore it, I guess.

I eat most meals by myself, although in the last few weeks he has been eating more with me, sometimes once a day. Generally he just fills his plate and then carries it into his ‘office/bedroom”. We watch separate TV's and sometimes I can tell that we have the same things on because I can hear an echo. He is not capable of "lingering" and just enjoying someone’s company….at the dinner table, snuggling on the couch by the fireside or anywhere.  He never ever did do that, not even in the early years of our courtship and marriage. That should have been a red flag, but since I am the only child of a single mom I didn’t have any healthy marital relationship to compare mine to.

This past Christmas our 2 boys came to visit for a week. One is getting married in April, so this was the last time we will be together alone. H ate dinners with us and opened presents with us, but other than that, it was “business as usual” with him in his office. It is incomprehensible to me how a father who loves his kids more than anything in the world, and I KNOW he does, would not spend every possible minute with them.  But that is just the way he is “wired” I guess. And I know he loves me too, in his own strange way, but it sure doesn’t feel like it.

He has gotten a Fitbit and is trying to get at least 5000 steps per day here around the house, but he won’t even consider  going to the gym where we have had a membership for the past 3 years (at $60 per month) because he says he can’t afford to take the time away from his “work”.  He’s just too busy and has way too much to do!  I think he works too hard at getting nowhere. If he could really apply his intelligence properly who knows what he could accomplish, but he’s just too damn stubborn to realize how much the proper treatment and attitude could help him.

He’s about 40 pounds overweight, used to drink a lot of soda, but is cutting that down somewhat and claims to be trying to lose weight. But the empty bags of Ruffles and Doritos in the garbage tell a different story. I know that diet and exercise and even meditation (haha – never in a million years would he do that !) have been mentioned as being part of an ADHD program, but he would never believe it from me.

Now is the time in our lives where we should be enjoying each other and traveling and having adventures together!  There is no way this is EVER going to happen if our lives continue this way!

Is he capable of changing? Am I? He needs help and I do too! How can I approach him so we can get the help that we need?

I have ADHD!!!

The impact on my marriage has been devastating, in fact it may have killed it completely. The Jury is still out right this moment but this being the fourth time my wife has asked me for a divorce the odds are not in my favor and honestly they are pretty slim.

I know without doubt that I truly love my wife with all my heart and everything I am.

But I am coming to realize just how badly my ADHD  has caused me to hurt her. Although I am now reasonably medicated ( thanks to her) I have never done the research into what I am really living with and learned the behavioral and psychological tools I need for coping with day to day situations that need to be learned in addition to having ADHD meds. It's become clear that having an in-depth understanding of the different symptoms such as anger, addiction, procrastination, forgetfulness and so on is an absolute must for anyone that lives with ADHD.

I would go as far as saying that if you are in a long term relationship or planning to be in a long term committed relationship that you had better acquire these skills and master them quickly as possible or the odds you live a content and loving life with your partner is slim to none.

What I think those of us with ADHD need to know is, by not fully understanding what we are dealing with puts us in the position of not fully understanding the position we put our partner in and how difficult it is for them to live with our day to day struggles. If we don't get it how can they?

An Example: I say to you that I love my wife and I really mean it but here's the kicker. It became so easy for me to get lost in my own little world that I became withdrawn from hers. I would come home from work and expect her to be loving and greet me with a smile and a kiss as she is cooking dinner and after we ate dinner I would trot of to zone out on the television while she cleaned the dishes, did the laundry, took the dog out, etc. As I sat there zoning out on mindless bubble gum it didn't even cross my mind that showing her that I loved her would be getting out of my chair and helping her so she could bring her day to an end as well and if the thought did come to me it would disappear just as fast.

Here's one even better: for those of us that experience anger and frustration it's a very difficult and ugly reality that manifests it's self in many different ways for many different reasons and therefore is hard to notice it growing larger and larger over time until one day you explode or absolutely lose it with your partner or in front of people that you would never want to see you like that.

For me, my anger got worse and worse over time and mostly towards my wife because she was unfortunately the one pointing out how disengaged I was and I resented her for it.

Eventually she had enough of my lashing out and attacking her with verbal abuse.

The worst part for me was when I had to admit to myself that I had an anger problem and that I was verbally abusing my wife, the one that I say I love so much remember? If you want to try on a real mind f**ck, try to reconcile knowing you deeply love someone and coming to the realization that you are abusing them. My wife is a kind and loving, beautiful person but she became angry, resentful and withdrawn because of my continued abuse. How do I feel? Pain, sadness, sorrow, guilt, shame?

Yes, all of the above. She didn't deserve it, any of it.

What I am saying in all of this is, not knowing myself and how my brain works kept me from realizing that I was not involved in my wife's life or our marriage. I was not living up to the promises I made when she married me. I was just a guy she was living with and not a very nice one at that.

The best advice I could give to anyone that is reading this and can relate to it in even the smallest way is:

Yes, medication is a wonderful thing when prescribed correctly but it's not the end of the road. You still have to do the work, put in the time to learn everything you can. Read all the book (no matter how tedious it is) watch all the videos, find a good Psychologist (that knows ADHD) join a group and anything else that you can think of and learn as much as you possibly can.

In the end the more you know yourself, the better your chances of avoiding my painful mistakes and living a happy life.

As to what's next for me? Well, I need to take my own advice and begin my own quest for knowledge and find the source of my anger and gain a deeper understanding of what I am up against and how to best to control those parts that I can. Hopefully when I have found the best version of me my wife will be able to live with what I have become and choose to stay. To be truly honest considering the hell I have put her through for the past eleven years it's going to be a pretty tall order and just short of a miracle if she does. God willing.

Now go, learn, live, love and be happy.

(NOTE:  the original post included wholesale copying of another site's material.  We have erased that, and left the link to the original.)

I ran across this article and thought it did a really good job of answering one of those questions that keeps being asked here on this forum........why?

by Allan N. Schwartz, PhD

at

https://www.mentalhelp.net/blogs/behavior-disorders-learning-your-diagno...

Hello everyone. I can't believe that I have to write this, but I am a thirty-one-year-old female who is disabled, unable to drive or work, and I am basically homebound most of the time. I have no friends to speak of in real life. For the past four years now, I've found myself living nearly three hundred miles away from home with a man who is quite literally the most abusive person I have ever known. 

My past requires much explanation, so please forgive my candor. You see, my first marriage ended in 2011, and it wasn't until the next few months passed that I realized that my entire perception of that relationship had been completely tainted by the grips of my borderline personality disorder and severe anorexia. It's so difficult to admit this, but in the wake of those looming issues, I actually allowed myself to become the most tyrannical, controlling, possessive, and selfish person imaginable toward my spouse, and I was so wrapped up in myself that I couldn't even see it. For seven years, I tore the man who was the absolute love of my life to utter shreds, and all he ever did was try to appease me. At the time, I honestly believed that HE was abusing ME, when the truth was that I was treating him like utter crap, and his cruelties toward me were for the most part his attempt at defending himself against ME. 

Looking back at just how awful I had been to him, I simply cannot believe I let myself do all of that. In hindsight, I had felt so strongly that I simply didn't deserve my then-husband's love that I made it my mission to destroy him, without even noticing what I had done. 

It's been nearly seven years since my then husband severed all contact with me, and I yet I still cannot think of him without crying. I miss him every day. It is likely it hurts all the more because of the situation that I'm currently facing. That said, here is the main reason for my post. 

I have been married for four very long years to current spouse, who has markedly severe ADHD, although he denies its intensity.

When we first met, he seemed very caring, charismatic, and loving. Initially, it seemed that we had a connection that was worth exploring.  He even made a number of hours-long bus trips to visit me at my apartment. Strangely, it wasn't long before we ended up engaged, and I found myself preparing to leave the only place I'd known for twenty-seven years of my life.

soon after we were married, he began continually binge drinking and physically or psychologically abusing me as well. He did and said everything cruel thing that you could even fathom, from telling that he would love to watch me kill myself to stating that he "wished he could cut out my tongue so that he'd never have to hear my voice again" and he was obsessed with comparing me to his ex-fiancee, whom he constantly told me that he still loved and missed. He spent all of his off time either out at the bar binge drinking until very late in the night, home in front of his computer playing video games, or going out to hockey games, and sadly ALL of that still rings true FOUR years later. 

A normal day in my life now consists of him forcing me to spend all of my time by myself in our bedroom alone while he sits in the livingroom playing video games and watching sports and porn. This means that I typically spend about twelve hours a day alone when he's here, and double that if he isn't.

Not a day goes by now that he doesn't still psychologically and emotionally abuse me EVERY TIME I ever try to speak to him in person, so unfortunately, I'm left only ever being able to converse with him on the phone without some sort of problem arising. No matter what I say or do, he will find a reason to batter me with the most heinously cruel threats and insults imaginable- every time I come near him. Most days I am called "an insufferable b****" at least twice, and "divorcing me" is always a go-to topic if I ask him to speak to me. But, those things aren't even really scratching the surface. I could post examples, and I will if someone is curious.

 Still though, when he's off, he spends the night before binge drinking until the next morning. If I'm lucky, he sobers up enough not to be abusive when he finally stumbles home. 

So here is my new problem, my current spouse forced us to continue to live in a roach and spider infested apartment for THREE YEARS until just three months ago, when due to his mistreatment of the apartment management, he got us forced to officially vacate the apartment.

In my naivety, I actually believed that this new living situation might be a slight improvement in our relationship. To my utter dismay however, not even three weeks after moving to our new apartment, he called me at 3am from the bar and said that HE HAD JUST CHEATED ON ME!!!

This was after all of his excuses over the past four years for refusing to be intimate with me, and then most recently, he told me that he "HATED sex" and that it was a waste of his time, and that I'd just have to be celibate and deal with it. Worse yet, he tried to make me believe that he had been RAPED by this homewrecking woman he had met at the bar, when the truth was that he didn't fight her off, he kissed her, and he even allowed her to drive him to the gas station in order to buy protection for the sole purpose of having sex with her!!! To top all of this off, he when got home from having his affair, he mocked me for being angry, and even asked if WE could have sex the following morning!! He even said that he wanted to use the remaining condoms that he had purchased with me!!!

The next day nothing had changed, and he literally expected me to forgive him immediately. He spent the entirety of the next THREE DAYS following his affair playing video games and only stopping to eat, sleep, or be cruel toward me. My reaction to his affair and subsequent behavior was to tell him that I wanted a divorce right away, because I had always told him that cheating was an absolute deal breaker in my opinion. I thought he had agreed. Instead, he told me if that was the case, thst I should pay for the divorce myself, and find somewhere else to live, because he wanted to move on with his life if I was unwilling to forgive him and continue to be married as though nothing had ever happened. 

At one point about a week and a half after it happened, my spouse suddenly seemed to have a change of heart and told me that "he would do whatever it took to save our marriage including counseling, medication, even wearing a chastity belt so that I felt secure about him not cheating on me again whenever he's out at the bar". These, of course, was all false promises, because he never followed through with any of it. Instead, it's as though he never cheated on me, as he has already forgotten about it, and told me that it's "my job as a wife to forgive him and give him sex whenever he needs it, if I expect to continue to have a roof over my head and food in my mouth." He knows that I've called all of the shelters in the area to no avail and I have no family or friends to turn to for help. Also, due to permanent financial constraints, I'm now forced to stay with him indefinitely. He has told me every day since his affair that "he has a RIGHT to have sex with whomever he pleases whenever he chooses, and since I am unwilling to put out for him, he will ABSOLUTELY be getting sex elsewhere, because he CANNOT deny a person sex, and he needs to stay healthy and sane, so he WILL get it. He told me that if I'm not happy with that, to just move out, because I serve no purpose to him now, and he WILL be bringing other people home with him, whether I am still living here or not."

So, what all this amounts to is that I'm quite literally trapped living with a habitually cheating, binge drinking, physically and psychologically abusive spouse who sees no reason not to make me watch him have affair after affair, just because he can. Suffice it to say, at this point, I'm scared for my life..