My ADHD husband frequently refuses to give a clear answers.  A much too common example is when someone invites our family to do something, he will totally not respond or say he has to ask me, then he completely forgets about it.  I feel like it makes us look incredibly rude.  He's the social one so people frequently text or ask him rather than me, and I might not hear a thing about it until a day or two before when they've had to contact him AGAIN about whether we're coming, at which point I may have actually made other plans, and then he decides he wants to go, and I'm irritated at having to cancel MY plans AND having something entirely different sprung on me.  I laughingly (cringingly) tell people all the time that they have to group text us so I know what's going on, but nobody does.

Our oldest son (18) is taking a gap year before college.  He works full time with his dad and doesn't have his own vehicle yet, so we let him borrow ours.  But if he tries to make plans with his friends - if he needs to use the vehicle or change hours at work - my husband won't give him a clear answer even if the plans are time sensitive.  His girlfriend will say, "Just ask him if that's a yes or no."  My son has started recording the nonsensical answers his dad gives him... even when clearly asking whether it's yes or no.  He's a respectful kid and a hard worker, but he is quickly reaching my level of bonkers with this because it is a constant thing he now encounters at work and at home.  

I don't know what to do.  I can't say anything that makes a lasting impression because my husband will always get defensive and say "I just forgot!"  My son doesn't want to keep bringing up a request because he recognizes the vehicle and time off is a privilege.  He's fine with the answer being NO, he just wants to be able to let other people know so they aren't left hanging.  I don't know how to rectify this.  I've been dealing with these kinds of frustrations for a long time.  My teenage kids are just now starting to share in the experience.  How do we deal with this without me nagging or the kids feeling like they're being disrespectful by having to ask time and again to get a clear answer?

My partner and I have been together for a few years now, and the beginning of the relationship was amazing. They were attentive, funny, charming, and really seemed to care about me and value me in ways I felt and understood. It all started to fall apart and got even worse when we moved in together. I feel like I got tricked into being stuck taking care of an adult child who wont take any accountability for their actions or inactions. They promise and never follow through, they've accidentally started fires by leaving things on in the kitchen, broken my items by being careless, forgotten our child, left their car on for hours, failed to pay bills, damaged my car in an accident, and so much more. On top of this, they just expect that I can be fine listening to them vent about anything they want. Or talk about anything they want. Yet when I try to talk they just interrupt me and go on about whatever they want to talk about. At this point I'll just stare at them and listen, or just pretend to listen. They don't respect me enough to actually listen or care about my feelings it feels like. Though they expect me to coddle them when they're upset, they expect me to pay for their things in emergencies ($700+ for car tires, $500 for glasses as they insisted on the bells and whistles, $700+ on car insurance because they didn't want to do monthly payments and are "not able" to manage their money), be okay when they lie or break commitments, and so much. They're a funny a person, they're nice, and they're not physically abusive like people I've dated in the past, but the emotional and financial stuff is just getting to me.

At the end of the day they just seem to expect I'll be all better, no matter what they put me through. Be it hiding in the bathroom watching porn and lying about it, but then spending hours on video games and their phone just to fall asleep moments after crawling into bed after saying we'd have time together. Or all the other things I've mentioned, I just don't know what to do anymore. We have a child together, and I don't want to go through a divorce, but I don't even feel like I want to exist anymore because every day requires suffering, false promises, and "changes" that maybe last a day or two at best. I know they're not like this to personally hurt me, but they refuse to understand how hurtful their behavior is. Even though I tell them. Nicely, not nicely, it doesn't matter. I'm not listened to until I get to the point where I have a meltdown because it's all too much and I don't know what to do. I want to run away from my life, and never have to exist as myself in any capacity because I can't do it anymore.I have to stay alive because of the child and our pets, but I really don't want to

We had the hyperfocus thing in the beginning and she had so many wonderful qualities I asked her to marry me. Shortly, into the marriage (we only courted for about6 months and were engaged for 6 more) conflict began popping up. The pattern began in a 3 week or so cycle, Week one would be good, week two I would notice forgetfulness, mistake making, physical illness sx, and provoking behavior. Week three would be started by some conflict: her reacting to my reacting. She would always escalate the conflict and then withdraw into the bedroom for days each time. She would then emerge and want to (or actually did) forget the whole thing. Never trying to repair the damage and being unable to reflect without complete defensiveness. I would push the issue because I needed to 1. learn from it and 2 resolve the hard feelings associated with it. Rarely was this satisfactorily accomplished. She cannot seem to reflect on her own behavior and so we have a constant stress level in our relationship. And many, many issues just keep causing the same conflict. We have learned over time with this "GroundHog Day" that she has a raging case of ADHD. Getting her to own this diagnosis, take her medication, and try to do something other than starting and escalating conflict when the cycle happens has met with failure time and again. We have taken the course, she has done coaching and when my wife is focused in on her sx things will be better for a time. But eventually she stops the medicine and things slide right back. This has happened numerous times. She seems to try so hard which had inspired me to stick it out with her over the years. But in March we were getting over another argument and I made her promise she would take the lead on practicing therapeutic communication exercises. She didn't do so of course (makes her feel silly)so I did. After about 3 days of taking this lead I walked in to ask if if she was ready. She rolled her eyes and in that moment everything changed for me. A light went on and I realized this will never get better between us. Her trying knows many bounds and things have been cold since. If July she finally confronted me and I told her divorce was likely the best option. I don't feel ithere is hope of improvement and that I wouldn't trust her even if there were. Why should I keep subjecting myself to this mountain of dysfunctional behaviors? What is our duty to ourselves? When is enough enough?

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Hi, I have high functioning ASD (I just got myself diagnosed a few years ago) and my wife has self-diagnosed ADD (but officially undiagnosed).  We just got married a few years ago.

We couldn’t be more opposite in nearly everything. Personality. Interests. Hobbies. Lifestyle. Parenting. Finances. Time. Sleep. Expectations. Organisation. Food. It seems like our brains are wired so differently and our preferences are so different that we clash on the tiniest things, we get so frustrated at each other, and then our ways of dealing with conflict are so different that we get even more hurt & offended whenever we try to talk about the problems. At first she would yell at me loudly and storm off like a child, and I would retreat in shock or try to calmly listen & understand. 

Eventually I got frustrated at her constantly ignoring me & never listening, so I started to stand up for myself more. Then we started to have giant shouting matches, and it seemed like i couldn’t say one thing different to her opinion/way of doing things without it leading to a giant argument. A lot of our dates were ruined by the same old arguments over and over. Often it was over miscommunications and trivial issues. I’ve never liked conflict & grew up in a peaceful home, and the only other time I experienced this kind of toxic arguing was once with an ADHD friend. But I found myself more and more drawn into this unhealthy pattern, and I think I contributed because I never knew how to handle intense conflict before in my life, so as I learnt how to stand up for myself, I sometimes didn’t know how to express my anger appropriately. Often I was ashamed of how we argued. But she would tell me that everything is fine, it wasn’t arguing, it just felt normal to her.  

She also would never express empathy if I was trying to communicate that she had hurt me. Instead she’d always find a way to twist it around to be all about her, and say I’m jusging and accusing her - all the while being very free to make everything my fault and never admit any responsibility for any problems. But she would DEMAND that I say sorry for things! No apologies, no admitting when she’s wrong, though she is slowly improving in this. She started saying sorry this year. And for the first time in our whole marriage she was the first one to say sorry a few weeks ago!

Thankfully we’re getting somewhat better at stopping arguments now and we switch to talk about something positive instead. But it seems like we can just never see eye to eye. Differences get avoided if i do things her way. But it’s slowly killing me having my needs and wants constantly ignored over time. I’ve stopped doing all the hobbies i love. I feel emotionally numbed and can’t really feel anything, except sometimes a terrible, sick in the stomach feeling. I have been very careful to keep issues private and not publicly say anything bad about her, the only chance I’ve had to unburden and get help was to share in private with a few close trusted friends. But she was super offended by that and she thinks I was spreading lies about her to everyone. I found out she was paranoid, secretly checking all my emails and messages and everything. Now I feel trapped, unable to get help for either of us. She forces me to be fake to my friends and family and pretend everything is okay. But she feels free to frequently say all kinds of bad things about my parents behind their back, even though they’ve been incredibly generous to her too.

I still keep trying to be kind and gracious to her. I thought maybe she needs a good role model to learn how to say sorry and understand, empathise and encourage others. She has experienced too much rejection & conflict in life. So I resolved a few times to just hold my perspective inside and try to affirm her. But it seems like unless I make a lot of noise than nothing changes. I tried encouraging her to Get her ADD diagnosed (she first told me about it) but she said it doesn’t affect her much and she wishes she’d never mentioned it to me.

I also try to help her understand the perspective of others when she concludes that they are judging or attacking her just based on some unrelated neutral statement. It’s like anything which ‘can’ be interpreted negatively, even in the slightest way, is taken automatically as a huge offence. It doesn’t matter if someone explains that they didn’t mean it that way. Sometimes SHE tries to explain to ME what I really meant or what I really said or what my real motives are. And claims that I think I’m always right because I know what I said and she misheard/misunderstood it.

I really feel confused. She is normally a very kind, respectful, peaceful, social person in public and with other people. And I know she has good character traits like being gracious, quick to forgive, loyal, generous, hard working. I don’t know if this is RSD / extreme sensitivity to rejection. Is it emotional abuse? Am I being manipulated? Or is it just a symptom of ADD and she just isn’t able to understand empathy and other people’s perspectives? Maybe it’s all a reaction to her perception that I’ve broken her trust. She had told me that she is incapable of feeling empathy or even learning it. How is that possible? Even with my autistic struggles with emotions, I can still feel very strong empathy at times and my close friends consider me to be a very supportive person.

Now I know that autism can often cause problems in marriage too. So to be fair, I don’t always get humour (but i can still crack a hilarious joke sometimes), I’m slow to learn social norms (but have many strong friendships), and I struggle with multitasking (but I’m still organised enough to keep a full time career). I have poor fashion sense and I have a few weird quirks. I can be indecisive and forgetful. But I am aware of my issues and actively trying to improve them. And I’m open to receive feedback and advice about these things so I can improve myself.

Please help me understand what’s going on! And how to improve things. The one thing she’s said she’s open to is seeing a marriage counsellor together.