My husband and I had an agreement  - a last ditch hail mary to try and save our relationship.  You can read all that junk if you want to have the background:  http://www.adhdmarriage.com/content/trying-something-different-one-last-...

Basically, since we made the deal about him moving out  - so many things happened.  Friends of ours had a tragic fire and lost everything including their oldest son.  This is a family with a blind mother, and this son was her help and right hand man while the husband worked.  There are also 2 other special needs children who survived, but they literally had NOTHING left.  So the money we set aside for him to move out went to them (gladly so - I love them and dont begrudge it at all).  My husband even seemed to be working hard on things.  He started taking his meds which helped some with daily chores and how he treated me in general (much nicer and at least said things like "hi" etc when he got home).  He was doing good with his coaching for the first month, accomplishing goals etc.  The last feww weeks it seems that he is going back to the old habbits....just like the usual slide back to how things were before.  Only right now - he is still living in the house with me, and there isnt money for him to move out.  He has stopped actively working on the 3rd support of this which is counseling.  There are issues from the past that prevent him from being anything more than a roomate.

Ok - so thats the current status.

I know most of you are probably in similar situations as I am in.  With someone who you love dearly - and who you THOUGHT loved you too- but they seem to be on autopilot, only giving the minimal affection and attention to keep things floating, with the occasional week or two of altered behavior to correct things after a long talk etc.

When I was married to my late husband, we got pregnant but I lost the baby.  This was really traumatic for me and its always been a very emotional thing for me even to talk about.  I shared the experience with my husband several times as part of us getting to know one another etc.  This past weekend we went to see Maleficent and I happily brought up the subject of the names I had picked for my baby if she would have been a girl (one of them being Aurora from sleeping beauty).  He looked at me with a blank face.  He had no idea what I was talking about.  I had to prompt him SEVERAL times for him to finally remember.  It felt like a slap in the face - I mean, we have known eachother for 20 years and have been together romantically for 5.  You would think that your partner would remember such a key moment in your life right?  Am I wrong?  He cant name my favorite color, he cant remember where I am from, he literally would fail a test about me that even a casual friend could easily pass.  So, that hurt me immensely.  And while I usually try to blow that off as a symptom of ADHD - this was just too much.  This was the only child I ever had shot at having and I was so happy and excited about it.  And he didnt even remember.

To try and mitigate the damage and step back and talk about it in a way to express how it bothered me and to try and work on this from the perspective of the ADHD versus taking it personal - I brought it up last night.  I said I would like to talk to him, and I waited until the show we were watching was over.  I said that something happened when we went to the movies, and then I explained that it hurt me that he didnt remember that I had that experience.  He didnt even remember THAT!  I could tell!  Then suddenly he said he remembered and then said that he just wasnt able to remember the names etc.  And then... I asked him to tell me what he thought the conversation was  and it was not even REMOTELY the same thing.  He said I was talking about boy names,  and how I wasnt sure if it was a boy or girl etc.  COMPLETELY wrong.  So - here I was on the couch trying to make this not personal, and then he could not even remember THAT conversation.  I was just floored.  And something inside me snapped.  I realized it would never be better.  It was always going to be this way.  That I would always feel sidelined to the things he felt were important - like his games etc.  I mean, he can remember every detail of things he needs to do for his sport stuff and for his video game stuff, and he never forgets what he says and does with his friends.  And he is like clockwork with his mom and daughter. 
 

I read posts here from people who got out and their only regret was not doing it sooner.  I occasionally read about the successful ones, but they are so few and far between.  I just cant imagine it.  And while if I wanted to have a shallow relationship with someone who would never really KNOW me (because nothing about me is a big deal to them other than when they want some new toy) I could stay and live like this. 

The last time he kissed me was 12/9/2012 and it was because he was drunk.  It was the last time he ever kissed me with any passion.  Since the, the only physical contact I have had with him would be something he could do with his mom and daughter or his best friend. 

Anyone have any thoughts on this?  Please read the link above to get some history so that you nkow the lengths I have already gone through.  This has been a long fight and I think I might be ready to just walk away.

The first and last time I posted here was four years ago.  My ADHD-husband wasn't on medication at the time, but had finally agreed to go on Adderall.  That seems like an entire lifetime ago.

We've now been together for 16 years, and when I read my original post, I can't believe how little has changed in our relationship dynamic.  He wasn't diagnosed until about five years ago, refused to go on medication for a while, and once he did get on it, he then quit after about a year and a half.  During the time he was on it, he refused to get counseling, so while his behavior in every day life improved (as far as work and managing home tasks was concerned), his anger, frustration and lashing out in our arguments didn't.  We became better friends, but we never truly re-established a loving and mutually supportive relationship.

Then, he stopped taking Adderall for almost a year, and that was a very destructive time in our marriage.  I was anxious all the time, I couldn't talk to him at all, and I pulled away even more and became closed off in an effort to protect myself from his rollercoaster moods.  I begged him the entire year to get back on medication, but he refused and it would cause nasty fights.  He would take my requests as a "sign" that I don't like him and want him to change himself as a person.  To top it off, against my gut instinct, I got pregnant.  I wanted a baby though, so it was my choice, even though I had a feeling what would happen.  My pregnancy was utter chaos, as he was not equipped to handle preparing for a baby while not being on meds, and he definitely wasn't prepared to handle my needs.  I ended up taking off and spending a few days at my mom's when I was six months pregnant.  Not an easy or fun thing to do.

I returned home, but things still didn't improve, and our fights got more intense as I was pushed more and more.  He got back on medication finally, Vyvanse, and again, his daily life improved, but our relationship didn't.  As it got closer to my due date, I actually had to ask him not to start conflict with me so that I could be emotionally prepared for the labor.  And then my labor ended up being over 60 hours, and ended with a traumatic C-section.

Once our son was born, things improved a little.  He was still impatient and got easily flustered during the long nights with a newborn, but he was loving and attentive.  That didn't last long.  He went on a business trip when the baby was 5 weeks old, and while I know that he missed us greatly, I was hurt that as the week went on, he didn't call or check in as much.  He was out at party events drinking and seemed to forget about me.  I was still recovering from surgery, and was emotional and sleep-deprived, and when he got home I told him my feelings were hurt.  I wasn't angry and I didn't want anything other than a hug and some understanding.  He lost his cool immediately (my guess is because he felt guilty) and got angry with me, and it started a days-long fight.  Ever since then, things have been steadily down-hill.

We realized after some hideous outbursts that Vyvanse was causing him to go into fits of rage, so he switched back to Adderall about two months ago, but the damage is done.  He crossed lines he'd never crossed before with name-calling and blaming and storming around the house.  He doesn't understand that my trust has been broken and that it would take time to heal, and that our intimacy goes hand-in-hand with that.  Instead, he is bitter and resentful that I don't trust him or feel closer to him, and lashes out instead of trying to understand my feelings.  During the time he was on Vyvanse, he also saw a therapist a couple of times, but the problem was that she didn't specialize in ADHD.  So enabled him to feel entitled to his emotions, and supported his statements that it was because of our relationship that he never "felt like a real person" (as opposed to the fact that he had a late ADHD diagnosis).  Having that kind of reinforcement made the anger 10x worse, and helped him push all personal responsibility on to me and our marriage.  Anytime he feels lonely or hurt or angry, or upset for any reason really, he finds a way to lash out at me.  And it doesn't matter what I say or how I say it, or if I try not to say anything at all.  I'm damned if I do and I'm damned if I don't.

Basically for the past three months, any time we talk about our relationship, it ends in destruction.  He loses his temper almost immediately, and starts throwing me and our marriage under the bus.  Last week I had to leave for 5 days with my son because the tensions were too high.  I decided at that time that if my husband didn't want to seek help to better express his anger and frustration, that I was going to leave.  I don't want my son growing up with that as an example of a marital relationship, and I just don't have the emotional capacity anymore to untangle this mess.  And of course, my husband doesn't want to seek help because he claims it's compromising himself, and he just wants to be who he is.  He doesn't see that this pattern will repeat itself whether he's with me or not, because it's not about our relationship...it's about the host of things going on in his head and his inability to articulate what he wants and needs in a productive way.

This week, we've been in a holding pattern.  I've essentially made up my mind and there's little that can be done to change it.  We have a counseling appointment on Thursday where we're going to talk about some of these things, and I'm nervous about how it will go.  The last couple's appt I went to was with his therapist 3 months ago.  And we spent almost the whole time talking about how I need to respect the fact that my driving makes him anxious, and basically no time talking about how his anger and rage are deal-breakers for me.  He keeps oscillating between loving me and not wanting to lose me, and hating me and wanting this relationship to be over.  He's so confused, and I don't think the reality of the situation has hit him at all.  I'm just trying my best to keep the peace until Thursday when we can talk more freely in the presence of a third party.

I have a few ideas for what I will do after separation.  It's just so frustrating and such a shame.  But in the end, I realized that you can't help someone know themselves better.  He has to see it, and want it.  I know how he feels about me on the inside, and I know how he feels about our son.  I have a feeling it will hit him like a ton of bricks when we're not there anymore.

If you made it this far, sorry this turned out so long.  I'm just looking for support and needed a place to tell my story to people who might understand it.  Thanks for reading.

My husband is VERY resistant to doing anything about his ADHD to the point that I just don't bring it up, but he's into health and vitamins. Is there a vitamin or supplement that can help? 

I found a site that is helpful to me to figure out why I let this happen to our marriage and what my part in it is.  This is what happened to me and may be happening to you if you try too hard at a difficult relationship. 

"Your instincts will be dulled and confused if you suppress your needs, expectations, wishes, feelings, and opinions, and you put those of others before your own in an attempt to gain validation, approval, attention, love etc. Your instincts will most definitely be off if you do all of the former as a means of avoiding disappointment, criticism, conflict, rejection and even abandonment. You won't know which way is up. If you've had various experiences and at the time, you've looked around for an explanation that would help you 'make sense' of what happened, and that reasoning pretty much boiled down to taking ownership of other people's feelings and behaviour and basically telling you that you weren't "good enough" or "loveable enough", your instincts are skewed because by accepting that version of events to be true and then adjusting your subsequent thinking and behaviour to 'fit in' and to also protect you from further pain, you've suppressed your true self as well as the truth."

In the process, I became less of a person, dull and serious.  Trying to get our basic needs met...safety, sleep, financial security, family needs, property....before I can ENJOY friendship, intimacy, self-esteem, confidence, respect, creativity, I have become someone I don't like much anymore.  Dh and I both don't like ourselves or each other any more.  

I had been living in a fantasy relationship that didn't exist.  It existed in my hopes and in my imagination but it was not REALLY happening in real life.  Dh did not change into the person I was hoping he was inside his walls.  I thought I could help him grow and love and be successful and especially I thought he would love me for my sacrifices and compromising I was willing to do.  It turns out after 40 years of marriage that he hates me for witnessing (and now I think he even blames me) his failures.  I blame me too for letting myself witness his failures and now I count it as my failure.

I permitted myself to be confused and try HARDER.  This does not work.  It is not up to me the change him.  I thought enabling him to be successful and prop up his ego would be good.  It worked for a while but 20 years ago he just stopped trying all together. He is who he is.  He wants to be let alone and do what he wants, when he wants and with whom he wants.  That is not a partnership but that is who he is.  Now I am accepting that and I get to work on myself.