I really wish some of those with ADD could help me to maybe understand this communication issue.  My husband always hated it when I would talk about how I felt.  He would always say, "I don't want to argue".  Even when our older son would express his feeling, sometimes crying, sometimes sobbing, due to his ADD/depression my husband would sit there stone faced and say not one word.  Once when our teenage daughter was going through the 'rude' stage, my husband actually didn't say a word to her for a month.  My husband once told me about a couple he knew who would 'talk it out' when they were having marriage problems.  My husband responded with, "I could never do that".  Well, now my ex has been gone for 4 years but still will not have any type of emotional conversation with our son or really ask him about his job, etc.  I will email my husband once in awhile and tell him about our son when our son is so upset, threatening suicide, crying, depressed etc, etc, and I ask him to please be more involved and that i cannot continue to deal with this alone.  After almost 4 years my husband will only answer back with 3 to 5 words but he never gets more involved or says much else in the email.  If it was a case of him just blowing us off after he finally left his marriage and is now living the single life in a way I could understand it but this is how he was when he lived in the house for years.  Please tell me what is going on possibly in his brain to behave like this.  It is the most frustrating and painful thing.  What do you think he is feeling? Both his kids have just about written him off. 

My husband and I have struggled financially for several years. He has gone from job to job. My mother came to live with us as support and it's good for me because she keeps me sane and she is a kind helpful person. My husband has taken advantage if her by getting her to put a car in her name and then it got repossessed. Put electricity in her name and he got behind so they came after her and she paid and even got tires for car and never paid. She cooks cleans and helps and I know normally mother in laws can be a nightmare but she is not. Still he throws it in my face that he's not happy because we should be alone. Truth is I don't want to live alone with him and we can't afford it. He is deceitful with his money and somehow thinks because he works and due to health issues I can't then he does whatever. He lies makes excuses and is cruel, I bite my tongue do I don't say something I regret. He is selfish  but yet truly thinks he always puts others first. He is spoiled and can't handle the simplest  thing. He can't get unemployment if he ever lost another job because he was deceitful and collected it when he was working and now he owes the state. He gets angry and I am very strong and I will look at him and say you don't scare me. I know that's wrong but he pushes. The worst thing of all for me is that I have long suffered with an addiction to opiates. I have struggled and relapsed twice during our marriage. I know now that stress and trying to be strong is a huge trigger for me. The last time I take full responsibility for except I can't get past the part my husband played in it. He had surgery and I have the common sense to know he would need pain meds. That's okay I don't need to know anything else out if sight out of mind. So I'm sitting there one night and he looks at me and asks what this med was that they gave him and that it made him feel weird and I said I can't believe you just said that.  Combine the thought that I know he had something and I can't take him anymore and there I . Luckily my mom realized and called me on it and I came clean and caught myself before I fell really hard. Thank God. My mom was angry because he acting like it was funny and he told her yeah she took my meds it's like she sniffs out the stuff. He then said like he was so smart that he put them in a Tylenol bottle. My mom was horrified and is not happy over his childish behavior. So now my husband is a trigger and how do I deal with that. He then was supposed to go to work but of course he was wrong and he had to miss two weeks of work and it's everyone else's fault. I'm angry because I had to borrow from my uncle to pay a bill and I get a call that he bought a truck. Are you serious! I couldn't believe he had no thought for anyone but himself. I had it and made him leave for a few days. I am going to go to counseling and let him come home. He won't leave me alone and I told him that we are in trouble but it's like he is desperate and thinks I'm mean and I should let go and I just don't want him to touch me. He tries to make me look irrational and mean. I'm sorry this was so long. I just need someone to tell me that it's okay to walk away.

I'm getting much better at initiating conversations where I feel something needs to be addressed.  This is due to a number of reasons:

1.  I feel calmer and clearer mentally, and can sustain a conversation with a little emotional weight to it better than before.  My diet, vitamins/supplements, and medication all help with that.

2.  Due to the success above, I feel confident that I either won't fly off the handle or will be able to re-route myself and apologize if I snap a bit.

3.  My husband is a better listener than I thought ;).  I believe that me taking care of my issues makes it easier for him to listen to me.

When I started looking at this site after reading the book and seeing our frustrating relationship story being told over and over by strangers, I went through several emotions including relief that I was not  alone, anger that this could be done to me, anger that this is what my relationship had become, fear that it would not even be better and hopelessness that I could never see a change in our relationship, the man I loved and father of my children.  Over and over I read about the heartbreak on each side of the line be it, those who dealt with ADD internally (those with)or those who dealt with ADD externally (those in a partnership or marriage with someone who suffered from it). I nodded my head and sobbed at the unfairness of it all..... Surely there had to be a silver lining? Surely at some point everything will get better? I saw that several people asked the same questions, and the consensus seemed to be: yes it gets better and easier but those people are living their lives and don't need the support like they once did. I read every single forum topic and felt like I knew each of the frequent posters....they supported me without ever knowing who I was, but most of all they showed me that I wasn't crazy.  I wanted to come back and update my story....just in case I can help anyone else. Maybe not. I too disappeared when I was putting out fires and making it work, and hadn't posted much to begin with. Maybe I'll try to be more active even.

This was 8 months ago now.. My therapist recommended a book after hearing my story and down the rabbit hole we went, thank God. 8 months later, it's amazingly better. Different life better. Is it perfect or even what I want ideally- no. I feel like we dance the cha - cha everyday making sure we champion each of our needs and our needs as a family. He got control of the anger, which was HUGE! He couldn't do it until we found an amazing therapist and got him on the correct dosing of meds and both of those took time. I am a business woman and at that point I approached it like a project (right or wrong but that's what got me through) what sort of investment was I willing to continue to make or increase and what did I want to see in return. I could not change him into the man I wanted, that was up to him. What I could do is figure out what my bottom lines are and be willing to walk and figure out what I could do to help us achieve the outcomes. I communicated this to him, clearly, over (once even in his therapists office with her present) and over until I am sure he understood, then we took it one day at a time. Everyday it seemed to get a little better and suddenly sometimes out of the blue a stressful situation would happen and it seemed to come crashing down. We would address it and rebuild it together.

For example - I had to realize he will never be good with money, so I took it all over and make sure he had a budget. If he wants to fund a project he works with me to find the money in the budget and it is transferred to him. He gets his monthly walking money and it's transferred to him. Is it a pain, sometimes, but he doesn't have to fear that he'll screw it up and neither do I. He is still in control of his money though. I don't ask him to pay bills. I set up the budget in a spreadsheet on the laptop and have our finances figured out for the next 18 months, with rainy day and vacation money. He visually sees where it goes when I have to say no and he can see what overspending costs the whole family. Is this what I envisioned - no. Does it work for us? Hell yes! My objective was I didn't want to worry about money and I empowered myself to make sure I didn't have to, while still giving him freedoms. (On a side note - he still burns through the money and doesn't finish projects but he only has himself to blame and he sees that it's happening now and is more aware). As a bonus I also budgeted chores that we have a hard time completing to be hired out. He wants more spending money he can compete the chores we are paying for and we will have more money available for him to spend. The chores get done and I don't have to worry about it. Since it is planned out in advance most of our bills come out automatically so I don't have to think about it, other than logging our purchases. I realize this will not work for everyone. In some ways I'm very lucky but I have to work on it every day. 

That has been one of the hardest things I've realized- making sure we are on the same page is an every day occurrence. Our biggest set backs happen when we can't  or won't utilize one of our strategies. It's still heartbreaking but, I'm happy, our daughters are happy and so is he. He and I both have strengths and we both have weaknesses. Just like any married couple and we just need to continue to figure out how to capitalize on them. We still have a very very long road. I still sob at night sometimes and he still goes off into lala land when he's overwhelmed, but he's getting treatment and we are a family again, and I think the great times are now tilting the scales over the bad. I have sincere hope and expectations that it will continue. Neither of us are victims anymore. :-) I can't wait to see what happens after we have been addressing it for a year. I'm 100% positive we will both backslide but I think we can work through it.