The longer I am in this marriage with an ADHD person and raising an ADHD son, the more I think it's me that is the problem. I am only half kidding. My son is going to be 16 in May and he is basically a great kid--has a job, clean cut, swim team and water polo, grades--up and down. Here's what I don't get--he makes so many odd assumptions and then gets mad at me when I don't get on board. For example, he currently has mostly Cs in high school. He doesn't try very hard, isn't fussed if things are late, satisfied with mediocre and yet--wants to go to UCLA. How in the WORLD will that EVER happen with those grades??? We have sat together and looked at the entrance requirements on the UCLA website and I can tell you it's not Cs and yet there is no connection between what he wants and how to act to get it. When I do laundry I put his clothes on his chair and it's up to him to put them away. This hardly every happens. Currently he has so many clothes on his chair that they are spilling off onto the floor. And no matter how many times I ask, it does not get done. I know this sounds like typical teen behavior, but there is so much more!!! Now, why am I posting this on a marriage forum?? Because this is how hubby acts too. I can ask him to do something five times and there is absolutely no movement towards getting it done at all. No matter how little time it would take to do it. For example, we live in an apartment and have two indoor parking spaces next to each other-his is in the corner of the garage, so he only has my car on the other side. There is so much crap pilled up along the wall and behind our cars--it's embarrassing. We are the only people with stuff behind our cars. What is the stuff? Empty Home Depot buckets, a broken air conditioner, two ladders, leftover sheets of plywood, a huge budweiser sign that he found in someone else's garbage, wooden wine crates for some craft project that never got done, a beer keg for some other craft project that never got done. Just today I asked if we could toss some of that stuff and he said "I don't know". Okay then. Hubby cannot clearly communicate with me about pretty much anything. He travels for work. I will ask him when he is leaving (sometimes he flies, sometimes drives) and he'll say things like "I'll head out as soon as I get up". How am I supposed to know what time that will be?? Today it took me three texts to get it out of him what time he would be home from oldest son's water polo tourney. Why is it so difficult to answer a questions in a straightforward way? And this is why I think that I am the problem. I am the bad guy in the family all the time to everyone. I am the one who makes the oldest one do stuff when dad is out of town. I am the one who asks hubby umpteen times to do something that I really need or want done so it's nagging DESPITE the fact that hubby is the one who did not do what I asked. I am the one who asks basically the same question repeatedly to get the information I need despite the fact that it's hubby who can't give a clear answer to save his life. Nothing that bothers me bothers him--the amount of laundry on Oldest Sons chair/floor drives me nuts-not him. We have a LOT of medical debt right now-mostly from him. I seriously lay awake going over numbers in my head to figure out how we are going to get out of it. I have no idea if he ever thinks about it one way or the other. He never says a word about it. He asks me very few questions about what I'm doing. He makes a point to always ask about my day but all I say is it was fine-I don't say much because he has accused me of complaining too much about my job, so I just say oh, fine day, nothing special, and he doesn't persue it at all, but he will go on and on about his day. I posted a while ago about how I really don't like what I have become since living with an ADHD spouse. I have no expectations of hubby at all. Don't care if he asks me about my day, don't care to hear about his, but I listen to be polite. When he is traveling, he may or may not call us and I sometimes don't even notice or I have to think about the last time I heard from him. How sad is that? Sometimes I don't know where he is. He tells me, I just don't retain it. We can sit on the couch for a couple of hours in the evening watching something and not speak at all, much less cuddle. If we walk somewhere in the neighborhood to do errands, we don't hold hands any more (used to). In the car, one of us used to reach for the other's hand-that does not happen any more either. I don't even care. I think I am the problem. I don't have enough patience or compassion for this. I have tried for 20 years and right now all I can think of is when the kids go to college I can leave and live alone. I literally stand in my house now and look around and think about the items I would take with me when I go. And it's very little. I want to live in a studio apartment that's decorated all in white-white walls, white furniture. I want to have like two sets of plates/cups/silverware, two tea mugs, two sets of towels. I want to have loads of shelves for my books, a good sound system to listen to the classical music that I love, a rabbit or two to hang out with (we have had rabbits for 20 years--right now we have two--LOVE my bunnies!!!!). I want to not have a land line phone-no way for anyone to get ahold of me-I can turn a cell phone OFF. I just want to be left alone. I am tired of making decisions. I am tired of having to monitor everything I say, how I say it, how much I say, when I say it and how the mood of the other person is before I say it. We got a $5000 tax refund a few weeks ago and I paid back a ton of bills and never said a word to him. When I finally told him, he said whatever I did was fine. I signed a contract on a promotion at my school on Friday. I was negotiating with the pastor (I teach in a Catholic school--ironic, right?!?!!) for about a month before we came to this really really good agreement. I only told hubby when the contract was signed because I know I am capable of thinking it through on my own and I really didn't care what he might have to say about it. Again, not the kind of person I want to be. I think it is too late for me to be a true partner to someone. I don't think I can any more. I think whatever softness that requires is long gone. I am so tired of compromising, I don't think I can do it any more. I know I don't ever want to live with someone ever again. I sleep so much better when hubby is out of town and yet when he comes home, the first thing he says to me the first night he is back in our bed is how much he misses being in bed with me. What kind of monster does that make me that I prefer to sleep alone and he misses sleeping with me?? Any sharing, asking another person's opinion, discussing things before making a decision--I don't think I can do that any more because it's been so long since we did it here. ADHD thinking is so convoluted to me that I honestly avoid having philosophical or big decision-ish conversations because half the time I don't understand or agree with what he is saying so why bother. I think that is a skill set that has left me. Our counselor asked a few weeks ago what I need from hubby and I honestly could not think of a single thing besides his paycheck. I feel like over time so many parts of me have closed up--sharing, trusting, counting on someone to have your back, valuing another person's opinion, actually wanting to have a discussion before making a decision. Another teacher at my school (the math specialist) who is about 15 years younger than me and only married a year had to talk to her husband before agreeing to to teach an additional math class for a teacher who was going on maternity leave. I just cannot get my brain around that--why would he care? Why would you have to discuss that with anyone much less your husband? Why would he care how you spend the hours of your teaching day? She knows some of our issues so I actually asked her why she would even mention that let alone have a big discussion about it and she said her husband doesn't want her to take on too much or feel overworked. Huh. Would not even occur to me to mention that at home. My promotion was to Assistant Principal. It's a big deal. I have many new additional responsibilities that were assigned to me in addition to my full time teaching. I never even occurred to me to tell hubby what else I will be doing. He didn't ask either, but it's clearly listed in my new contract, so I know, I just don't know why he would even be interested or care what I do. And that's why I think I am the problem--I think I am no longer suited to being with another person.
thoughts?