Hello. This is my first time posting though I have been reading for a while. I have been engaged to a diagnosed ADHD man for 18 months and we are just under two months from the wedding date. We have been together for a total of 6 years and have lived together for the last year.

We had a fantastic relationship for the first 4.5 years or so. We had fun together, we talked about everything, we had similar interests but outside ones as well. I have a new job in a city about an hour and a half away from the areas we had lived before (separately), I bought a house in my name and he has been living with me. 

Now the problems: In the past year, things have been BAD. He constantly critisizes me. Sometimes in a big long discussions where everything turns out to be my fault (really?). How I don't help him and and am not meeting his emotional needs. How I don't support him. How I keep changing my mind. How I complain to him about money and that is all I think about. How I don't want to have fun anymore and I just want to live like a 60 year old couple instead of mid twenties. I always end up crying, and then he says I am just trying to make him feel guilty.

I am overwhelmed. This new house has many new responsibilities that I have never dealt with before. I ask for help, but he isn't listening. I would LOVE to have fun, but he is constantly running off with friends to go kayaking and the to do list just keeps piling up. He wants intimacy and conversation but I don't have any energy of sympathy for either right now. He was motivated to work before, but since I have a better job now he is staying home all the time, and being fine with calling off work. He hasn't contributed to any household bills or paid any rent in the year we have lived here and I am frequently paying his truck payment and cigarrettes as well. I have been neglectful of him. I get very caught up in the tasks that I complete each day (most of which are for him) but I forget that he himself actually needs my attention too. I enable this behavior in him I know and I am a poor communicator of my needs in the last year or two as I feel that he could blow up at any minute. (Have I mentioned the ADHD anger?).

Here's the final thing that might be the nail in this coffin. He has a very close "friendship" with another one of his friends girlfriends. He lived with his friend for a couple months while we were closing on the house and he and this other woman got close. His friend lived with his girlfriend and their baby.They are very similar and share interests. He has admitted to me in the last month that he is attracted to her and she to him, but they have talked about it and decided they wanted to stay with their current SOs. Despite this, they are on Snapchat constantly, and call on the phone for hours (while away from me and her boyfriend. I have always read the phone bills religiously due to trumped up charges in the past). He has always been a night owl but now waits for me to go to bed and then calls her or she calls him at 11:30 or midnight for an hour(!) almost every night. He runs off to spend the night at his friends house every chance he can it seems like. His friend though, is working out of state right now, so it is my fiance, the girl and her baby alone. We hang out with his friend and the girlfriend almost EVERY weekend. Between them and family, we literally have not had a DAY alone for months. I have continually asked if we could do something just to two of us to start reconnecting. It is like I shot his dog. He would rather hang out with his friends (with me though too). Do I think he has PHYSICALLY cheated on me? No. Is this an EMOTIONAL affair though? Yes.

I feel like I am failing. I have enabled this behavior and stopped treating him like a man, more like just another task. I have stopped trying to communicate with him ( with the exception of the past few weeks). I am NOT blameless. I have never been that interested in sex, but he always had a high drive. I try, but I am so exhausted emotionally and physically at the end of the day that even though we do have sex, I am not as enthusiastic as he feels I should be at the end of the day.

I am seriously considering breaking this off or at least postponing the wedding. Please give any advise. Will this get better with conseling and conversation? Are emotional affairs commen for ADHD? I LOVE him. But I am unsure about spending my life with him anymore.

Hi, everyone, my name is Rebecca and I believe my spouse may have ADD or ADHD.  After being married for five years (not a first marriage for either of us) I am completely at a loss to understand some of his behavior.  I feel like a tornado touches down sometimes with no warning at all.  I am exhausted and hope, by reading some of the information here, to learn some types of skills that I can use to cope with this situation.  I don't want to leave him but honestly, I can't see living another 20-30 years this way.

Any advice is appreciated.  I am going to do some reading and see what I can learn.  Thank you for your support.

Hello, I'm very sorry If I'm not going to be very clear -I"m disabled and it's 5.00 A.M here in Arkansas. I'm typing this after another terrible fight with my ADD husband who is snoring right now peacefully in a separate room after calling me insane, blaming all of his and his family problems on me and my disease, and threatening yet another time to cut off my medication and not pay for my basic needs, all this over a screaming fight that he started in the middle of a Walmart today for absolutely petty reason.  Precisely because of me trying to swap one type of razors for a cheaper one -I thought it would make him happier. He screamed at me as I stood there with my cane, toothless (I'm 38 but lost my teeth due to this disease and have no dentures because we are poor), begging him to stop yelling and embarrassing me.

This night, he broke into another fight after watching 7 hours of TV (I should have known better). I asked him to please, not yell at me. I cried as he stood over me screaming terrible things, insulting me, lunging at me, calling me insane, that I should be "locked up", that I'm the one with problems. He followed me room to room as I asked him to please stop. He teased me about my disease, saying that I never need his help getting off the floor when he isn't there (?), and ask him to help me up  when he is home, and it annoys him and "I must be faking that I'm in pain". I actually kept calm for a long time before I couldn't take it anymore. I was shaking at this point. He continued screaming, waking his parents,  and I told him that I don't love him anymore. I never said this before. It cause a terrible rage, he tried to take away my checking card, told me I'm not his wife any longer, followed me everywhere, slammed doors, cursed, told me again that he will not buy my thyroid medication anymore ( I have no thyroid gland and he knows it will actually kill me, he often blackmails me with it), I refused to talk to him and just cried, and he eventually went to another room and passed out. He knows he is ill with ADD, he has been diagnosed, he was a poster child in his time first diagnosed with it in his state, but he refuses treatment, he lies to therapists when given a chance to see one, skips appointments, denies his symptoms.I 'm I close to being suicidal right now with him. 

We have been married for over 6 years now, and when we met I was already ill and gradually became worse.  i have a rare form of thyroid resistance disorder. Over time I lost a lot of my hair, and all my teeth, I swell, I walk usually with a cane, I'm very weak and can't concentrate or work any longer. I'm generally giggly person, though, regardless of all of this. I love music and art, used to be a professional  artist. Despite my illness, my husband fell in love with me and I with him,  and we got married. We had an absolutely incredible "honeymoon" stage that this website talks about...he focused on me like crazy, I never seen anything like this before. He told me he had ADD and severe dyslexia  since he was a kid, but only said that it affects his attention and reading ability. My husband was an absolute knight in shiny armour, and still sometimes is like this-chivalrous, sweet, and kind. And then the focus was gone.

There are still good moments. In good moments we play videogames together, play with our dog, and discuss pretty convoluted subjects. I even read him books,  because it's very hard for him, do his paperwork for him, designed his resumes and helped in whatever  ways I can but of course he helps us a lot more. He sorta provides for us -for my medications-unfortunately barely, his Mom and Dad provide most of our food, but he works a lot. And I do still love him. But there are terrible sides to him that I cannot forgive or deal with. It gets so bad that I want to leave, never to see him again, but I have nowhere to go (we are extremely poor, live with his parents in semi rural area, I have no income of my own) and he buys all my medication that costs almost all his paycheck and works two jobs (he had no work for two years but now he works , after a lot of tears and pushing and shoving, he simply refused to look for a job and I basically got him one-one local church member felt bad for me and gave him a job,  and his Dad hired him for another. They both pay minimum wage. He does work very hard. Sadly, he blames how hard it is on me every time we have any argument. 

We always had it hard-sometimes we had no place to live, lived in hostels, now we live with his Mom and Dad. After the "honeymoon" stage he became more and more explosive-if we had an argument, he would scream and then started lunging at me; after lunging came grabbing me, throwing me around, he never hit me but crushed me with his body, body slammed me,  wrung my arms, it was terrible. It was real abuse.  I didn't understand what is happening. When we moved, he had an episode like this and his parents heard.  I told his parents about it. He went berserk, screaming obscenities at me, but his parents intervened and forced him to take anger management classes. He did,. He also sort of apologized, but I dont believe he actually felt it deep inside because sometimes, during a fight, he would get too close to me and growl and shake fists at me, and if I ask him not to go back to that terrible time he says that there was my fault in that, too.  I know I'm not a saint, but I never, ever laid hands on my husband and don't believe I deserve abuse, either. . 

Please understand that for me it was either this, or the street. I have no family of my own. At all. No close friends. I'm an immigrant, too; and we recently  moved to this state as well. 

He stopped laying hands on me thank God, and for two years we have not had a physical incident.  But something snapped, and the figths, the verbal terrifying fights became worse. They start out of nowhere, although often TV is the culprit-and there is no way to stop him from doing nothing but watching it when he is home for his brief weekends. He does work late hours,  and no, he doesn't have anyone on the side, his father literally picks him up from work, or his boss drives him home. We actually moved because I'm very ill, and needed a specialist,  so my husband promised me that his family will love me and that they will help. His Mom and Dad do help us a lot, even buy us food, his Dad drives us if we need a ride. Unfortunately when he turned to his extended family for help-aunts and uncles, even sisters-they stopped talking to him, some even pretended that he never called them. His older sister even sent us an unpleasant letter-she was upset at him for not taking the usual interest in her since he got married to the "sick woman". It put extra stress on us.It was apparently unexpected as he helped them before. Specialist didn't happen. Bone graft and dentures didn't either. 

These fights. During these fights he would blame me for the world's problems, tell me that I'm stupid, crazy, lazy, that I'm a wh*re living with him only for medication,  actually scares me into tears by screaming that tI'm insane, that I ruined his relationship with his family, tries to throw me out of the house that is not his, threatens to leave me without a cent,  mimicks me and repeats after me what I say, ,mocks my voice, tells me that I don't bring anything to our family (I still help around his parents' house, take care of his bedridden Mom when his Dad goes on work trips, still cook a few times a week,  and take 99% care of our dog- walk him, even  train him) , that I'm a freeloader, useless, and threatens to cut off my medication completely. When I break down and cry he never consoles me.He denies every insult, every word of his and twists my words all the time.  He gaslights non stop if you know what it means, crazymakes and provokes and then teases.   If he gives me any money of my own he actually gets angry, very angry if I actually use it, and  buy something for myself-a game or a book or a sweater, anything; the only things he buys is massive amounts of cigarettes. We have no connection, no intimate moments, and the only time he makes eye contact with me is when the TV and computer is off, and when he is not standing in the hallway watchign his parents' TV in another room. I"m not kidding. If I distract him from TV or the computer, he explodes and says things that I can't believe a person that loves me (and he says it a lot) can. He always blames his actions on me, an if he ever apologizes, he always takes apologies back next fight like a kid. If I protest his treatment of me like today, saying that I want to be treated humanely, he just tells me that next time he "won't help me, or won't go with me to the store, or will not buy me medication". He fights dirlty, and even proud of it. He will tell me out of nowhere that my estranged parents don't love me, bring up past hurts or anything that is not for him to even talk about. For no reason. To "win" the fight. As if it's about winning.

The most terrible  thing is that he would not talk to me for a few days after this fight, as if I was at fault. And then he would come home, call me " baby" and would try to share his workday details. And if I react in any manner but chippy, he will go into a rage and it all will start again. It's a vicious circle. 

I dont know how I found Melissa's website, I was desperate and googled it somehow and I read and cried, cried my eys out for days because this was us, and  then I bought her book.

It took me many monhts to convince him to even look at it. He promised to seek help, and then I found out that he lied. He fought me over it, and called me names and insulted me. I was in tears. He would even curse at me and then suddenly call me "baby" when his father will walk  through the room. It was a nightmare. He eventually softened up and promised again, even searched out names of ADD specialists. I later again found out that he never called them, and this time he found an excuse that they are far away and probably too busy/too expensive. . We've gone through a lot of promises and lies. He ended up finding a doctor who agreed to see him once a month on a sliding scale. Even then, he skipped appointments and yelled/lunged at me when I asked him to at least call and tell them he isn't coming. I managed to read part of Melissa's book aloud to my husband. He seemed to like the reading part, but teh fights started again right the moment the book was closed.Communication exercizes were futile- he will get defensive, I will get confused and scared that the conversation is always circling to how "bad" I was, and we will have to stop. They consisted of him saying that I'm being too demanding when I ask him to help me, disabled woman, minimally around the house or at least sit down and look at me once after work when he has hours on end for television.

His doctor, that he sees once a month and maybe, is not helping. Everyone esle is either elsewhere or costs money we don't have. We cannot afford a seminar. 

I know this is long, and I apologize terribly. I'm thankful to anyone,who even tries to read it. But please, if anyone has any hope or help, please let me know. I'm very ill, at my wits end, and have nowhere to go-and this will take me to my grave if there is no hope and no treatment for him. I think we both need extensive therapy than we of course cannot afford. If there is any hope at all, too. Please help. 

Maria

I'm hoping I can get some advice from families with small children. We have a 5 year old and a 6 year old who have both experienced the explosive anger from my husband. If I ever go out for dinner with a friend and my husband puts the kids to bed, I come back to crying scared children because daddy got so angry over something small. Now my daughter shakes and get anxious over the thought of being alone at night with him (I figure it's only at night because that's when he has a couple beer and it negates the affects of the med's). When she communicates that she is scared of his anger he always turns to me and says "it's your fault for brainwashing the children that I'm a bad person". Then he always says to my daughter " I guess nobody likes daddy and I'll just leave the family". He has no ownership over his anger and puts it on everyone else. For now I just go out the odd time in the morning with a friend and always stay with the kids at night, but my kids just told me they think " daddy is mean to mommy". I feel so trapped because I could never risk losing custody of the children because I don't feel they are safe with their dad. My husband feels it's ok to get rough physically with the kids because that's how he was raised.  The kids say they love their daddy and they would be sad if he was out of their lives.  He's a good father in many other ways but he does treat me like he hates me and blames me for the wedge between him and the kids..unfairly.