I've hesitated from writing my success with managing my ADHD because I could tell that there was something that I was missing and I was right....and today i finally figured out what it was.

Quick synopsis:  My mother, who had been suffering from Alzheimer disease for almost 10 years recently passed away at age 89.  For her sake I was very relieved as the person that I knew had been gone for years.  The last real conversation I had  with her ( as it was )  was over 5 years ago so all the grieving that I needed to do was done long ago.  What came from her passing and the experience that I had with my entire family being together in one room again was short of a miracle for me in that I had one last chance to see my family together (my sisters) to relive the events of our lives growing up together. This time however......the stories all seemed different than I remembered them on my end even though the memories of my sisters accounts departed in many different directions.  I realized that many of the facts in these accounts appeared like they were coming from the wrong family or at least....not the one I grew up in?????  But then it hit me.......I had taken off the rose colored glasses year ago and was now seeing everything for the first time without them even though for my sisters.....theirs were still on and fully intact.  Wow....what an eye opener.

This lead me to a hunch that possibly the same thing might happen if I back tracked one more time with my new perspective and took one more look at the same ground I had covered countless times before to see I could find anything new......my hunch told me that this was likely to happen.

And sure enough....it did!!

Without going over all the bloody details....I arrived at this site thinking that I might find some more clues to my life and my own struggle with having ADHD.  As I've stated in several posts that I was on a mission to discover something setting my eye on the areas of my marriage that needed work specific to my past mistakes by listening to the wives of husbands who have ADHD.  Without realizing it exactly.......I was checking myself or rather....checking off the check list of mistakes I've made to make sure that I was still on target.  What I discovered was not what I thought but exactly what I needed t find

The analogy:  When I was in my twenties I decided to take up sky diving.  I had always wanted to try it at least once up to the point of free falling solo from as high as I could get.......which I did.......but that's besides the point.  The point....being one aspect of sky diving that most people might not consider, that being.........While on the way climbing up to altitude while sitting in a small plane, the experience is one most people could imagine but especially nervous/excited for the first time and nothing really interesting to report in just that.  When it gets really interesting is when the door inside the plane swings open and there you are.....looking down with nothing in between you and the opening but air.  Every molecule of every fiber in your being is screaming at you that...."this is a really bad idea."  But yet you know from all the rationalizing and training and observation that the chances are slim that you will actually die....even though, there is that chance.  And against your survival instincts screaming at you not to put your legs out that door......you do it anyway and jump.  You take the leap of faith against all odds that you may die if you do.  That's where I am right now....standing in the door looking down at the ground even though I didn't realize this until today.

All my past experience with having ADHD going back to earliest memories.....the trials and failures.....the things other people have said.....my own assumptions and rationalizations......the delusions and denial......they all have taught me at least one thing and that is........ you are apt to wrong even if you think you are right.  This much I do know for sure.  but because I am so sure of this one thing.......ths thing in itself is the the thing that is screaming at me "not to jump!".

For all good reasons....I have double checked my parachute and everything else that I needed to......gone back over and over it to make sure that I haven't forgotten anything and it would appear that I haven't......so where's the problem,  what have I missed????

What I have missed was my wife's bravery.  She was brave enough to be with me even though she knew about my ADHD and any other weakness that I might have and still she chose to be with me.  She stepped up to the door and took the plunge saying....I'll see you at the bottom....I love you....and yippeee...off she went.  She took the leap of faith and now here I am being held back by my past which is screaming at me not to jump again....remember last time....and the time before that....and the time before that?????  You know what happened then......don't do it!!!

But.....as I was when I jumped out of the plane......I knew there was no guarantee that I wouldn't' die and yet I did it anyway.  I've never been afraid of dying or much else for that matter.  I've prided myself of that in so many cases....but the fear of the past happening again despite everything that I have done to make sure it doesn't is still there keeping me from following my wife down the same path together as I said I would.  It's this fear that was the one I haven' been able to find until now and I'll be God Damned if I let this one be the reason for my marriage to fail this time. 

There is a chance that my marriage will not survive.....I have faced this fear and have overcome it long before I met my present wife as well as being upfront with her from the very beginning.  Her choice to be with me and the bravery she has shown me in the face of this deserves nothing but the same from me from my end and all I need to do now is to step through the door and let go.  I just had to see it to know what it was that was holding me back and after all my searching....it's not nearly as bad as I thought it might be.

Mark Twain wrote:  "I'm an old man, and have had many troubles in my life.....many of which never happened."   I GET IT!!

This sight has been an invaluable resource in helping make this discovery. 

IT'S A GOOD DAY TO DIE!    Thank You

JJ

Long story short:  I have been with an undiagnosed ADHD boyfriend for three years.  I found this forum when one day I googled “chronic irresponsibility.”  I have done everything for my boyfriend. I have taken care of him like a mother does a child and have experienced many of the same experiences and frustrations I have read about on these forums.  When I first met my BF I thought he was kind, gentle and sweet, but now I can see he’s quite the opposite:  chronically irresponsible, creating new problems for himself at every turn, all with a touch of explosive anger—the type that gets him fired from every job he’s ever had due to interpersonal issues (this is not an exaggeration).

I’ve decided I don’t want to be in the relationship anymore, mostly because I feel powerless to help him. Every time I help solve one problem, he creates a new one.  We live our lives moving from crisis to crisis.  He has a ton of debt. He closed all his bank accounts so creditors cannot garnish his wages. He now needs me to pay all his bills through my checking account.  I’ve had it.  I choose not to live my life this way. I am choosing a life of fulfillment, not one of constant chaos and aggression.  I don’t even like his personality anymore, especially as it is much different from the personality I thought I was getting at the beginning of the relationship.  There is no hope in restoring our relationship. I am already sold on the concept of moving on.

Here’s my problem.  I don’t know how to communicate in a compassionate and mature way that the relationship is over. Every time I’ve tried to create boundaries in our relationship, I've said so in a very direct way, which usually resulted in him exploding at me. I don’t know how to communicate boundaries other than saying them matter-of-factly. Last time I tried communicating with him he said “I don’t need to know your boundaries,” so maybe he’s just not willing hearing them.

Breaking up with him will have really bad consequences for him and really positive consequences for me. He really does depend on me for all his needs and I am his only friend.  I worry that after our breakup he will eventually drift into homelessness.  I wish I could help, but I cannot.  It hurts to help.  He really is someone who “bites the hand who feeds him.” He yells at me.  Maybe there’s verbal and emotional abuse.  I am shy and amiable. He is aggressive and angry.  There’s no way it’s going to work in the long term. This is why I can no longer provide him assistance. But how to tell him when he may end up homeless as a result of the breakup?  

I forgot this board was here and when I searched my own name I saw how much I used to post!  I am 43 and have been married for 19 years to an ADHD husband.  Our 15 year old son is fine, our 12 year old son has Asperger's, sensory issues and anxiety.  Hubby has had two jobs in the past three years--fired from both.  He has been unemployed since January with nothing on the horizon.  I am not even really sure what happened with this job because the story he told me doesn't make a lot of sense.  He has lied to me for the entire 19 years of our marriage about big things, small things, inconsequential things, important things.  The last time he lied was when I found out he has another bank account, one I did not know about, that had several thousand dollars in it even after he had been fired.  I have no idea where the money came from or what he does with it--it went from $3500 in December to $1200 in February and I have no idea where it all went.  He will not tell me.  Won't tell me where it came from, won't tell me what he spent it on.  Throughout our marriage, every time he lied I used to wonder what it was going to feel like when I had had enough and now I know.  that lie was it for me.  we will not be splitting up, we can't afford it.  but I no longer trust a single word he says and what's worse, I no longer even care.  he told me the other day about some friend of mine who had hit on him several years ago and not only do I not believe it actually happened, I honestly don't even care.  it's clear he is going to do whatever he pleases regardless of the consequences to me or our family.  I'm not being very clear--what happens if I no longer care what he does, if he actually finishes anything, if he lies, whatever.  He's a nice person, we don't fight on a day to day basis.  He has an okay relationship with our kids, but I run the show.  All of it--finances, medical decisions, appointments, managing the house.  Half of what goes on around here he doesn't notice or even know goes on.  He doesn't ask about the kids appointments (the older one just had a cardiology issue--he didn't ask about the appointments).  I cannot count on him for anything of any consequence.  He will call me and say I'm on the way home (from somewhere like 30 minutes away) and not walk in the house until 2 hours later.  No idea where he was in the interim and he doesn't say.  Whatever.  

How do others deal with that feeling of being completely wrung out and spent ALL the time.  I have no energy for anything extra at all.  I have gained 15 pounds in the past year--I used to swim and walk and jog--no energy any more.  he has always been this bad, it's just the longer it goes on and the older the kids get and the more I see that I have grown and changed over the past 19 years and he has not, the less patience I have for it all.  he has no direction, no goals, his unemployment runs out in June and he has no idea if he can get an extension, what he will do to make up that money, nothing.  I am the only adult in our family and like I said, it's been this way for a long time, this is not new.  he has not changed his behavior, I have changed the way I see things and what I want.  my plan is to suck it up for the next five years and when our youngest son goes to college to be done.  I am so tired of taking care of another adult who is supposed to be my equal partner but because of the ADHD he is just not capable.  He is medicated and when I ask him how he thinks he is doing or how he thinks we are doing, he says fine.  I'm not surprised-what's not to love about a life where you get to behave any way you want and someone else does all the hard stuff.  I would love to not have to be so vigilant all the time, to only have to think about myself and know that someone else is making sure all the boring hard grown up stuff like bills and appointments and disciplining and schlepping kids and making meals just magically gets done.

how do other non-ADHD spouses manage to keep doing what needs to be done with so little help and in fact having to work around someone who often makes things a WAY bigger project than they need to be???

thanks--

dana

I was on a break at work and got on Facebook and saw that my husband was on there as well. After a little bit of chit chat I asked him if there was anything we needed for dinner that I needed to pick up at the store on the way home. He said "Let me go check". He then logged OFF of Facebook and has been logged off for 15 minutes now. Ummm....helloooooo??? Really? You lost focus on that task in 2 seconds??