Yesterday, as I posted elsewhere, my wife was diagnosed with ADD overlapping with Asperger's and OCD.

Today, my wife took the initiative to email her close blood relatives, her close friends and my close blood relatives about her diagnosis. She asked me for my opinion on her email before she sent it, so I suggested a few edits. I also said, "While I support you in this, I expect some of your relatives will probably react badly." My in-laws have scapegoated me for nigh on 20 years now, to the point where I decided to have little contact with them, so I'm well-experienced in how intrusive and abusive their behaviour can be.

Sadly, I wasn't wrong. I'm grateful that almost all my wife's relatives who received her email replied supportively - with surprise and questions, but supportively.

One of my sisters-in-law (a professional in her mid-40s), however, replied to everyone who received my wife's email (except my blood relatives) that my wife couldn't be suffering a mental disorder and that I had written the email and forced my wife to send it and that none of it was true. When my wife replied to correct her, SIL upped the ante and accused me of narcissism and of battering my wife.

That my SIL disapproves of me and my marriage and spreads vicious rumours about me came as no surprise to me after almost two decades of the stuff. What did surprise me was the strength and severity of her denial of my wife's diagnosis. I was expecting a similar reaction from their mother, a partly-treated bipolar disorder sufferer who at each birthday which ends in a 0 has gotten her son to write and read aloud to the assembled party guests a speech about what a perfect mother she is. MIL is on holiday right now and isn't expected to read her email until she returns in just over a week, so it could still happen. As is, SIL has threatened to delete the current round of emails from MIL's account before MIL returns.

I understand denial. I've been seeing enough of it in my in-laws for almost a couple of decades now: as long as they're burying me in hatred they don't have to stop and look at their own problems. I feel for SIL that she's too anxious to accept my wife's diagnosis just yet. I'm just not going to take any rubbish from her about it.

I emailed her and all those whom she emailed and said, calmly and politely, words to the effect of, "Allegations like these cause problems, not just for me, so if you ever want to hear my side of things just email me; and whether you approve or not, my wife and I will endure." I'm not expecting to hear anything from it except perhaps more vicious comments, which I will delete from my own account; nor do I expect any change in my in-laws' behaviour. I feel better, though, having stood up for myself to my wife's family yet again.

May you all have better luck. 

Hello all,

After a month of reading this forum, I'm delurking to introduce myself and to announce that my wife was diagnosed today with ADD overlapping with Aspergers and OCD.

We've been together almost 20 years, and last month I got to the point where just couldn't see how I could continue in our marriage. After years of my continually reminding my wife about what upset me in our marriage, she was still interrupting me, not keeping her agreements (with her latest boss as well as with me), not doing housework, procrastinating on other responsibilities, spending most of her downtime in bed reading or playing online games unless there was an opportunity to shop or socialise, monopolising almost every conversation, and putting my stuff away where I couldn't find it until several years had passed and I accidentally discovered her latest cache. On my birthday a couple of months ago, we were about to go out to dinner when she announced she didn't feel she had the time to celebrate my birthday; and when I became upset, she appeared genuinely puzzled as to why. Her spending and her inability to stay on top of paying bills got us deeply into debt and in trouble with the tax office. Eighteen months ago the tax office proved to me that my wife had been lying to me for years about taking care of our taxes, and threatened us with court action, so I took over our finances. I'm the chief cook and bottlewasher and I learned over the years that I can have as clean a house as I want, as long as I'm willing to do it all myself, not expect to rely on my wife for anything, and not have any time left over for anything else. If I was sick or facing a work deadline, the house quickly became a disaster area because no-one was filling in for me.

Yet whenever I confronted my wife, she told me how much she loved me, and we made plans for how we could improve matters. At my instigation, she began to see a psychologist six or seven years ago and was prescribed antidepressants, which she continues to take. Because an improved mood from antidepressants was about the only improvement, and because my wife would swear black and blue that she would do what she agreed yet still not do it, I suspected her of passive aggression.

When I got to despairing last month, I made one last-ditch attempt to find an explanation for my wife's behaviour by Googling a combination of her worst behaviours. Lo and behold, I discovered your website here.

I have to tell you, that was a lightbulb moment. Reading this forum is like reading my diary. Many of the accounts here could be taken blow-by-blow from my own marriage.

Excited to find an explanation which just clicked with everything I'd experienced, I shared the information with my wife. She too was struck by the similarities and excited to find an explanation which made sense of what we'd experienced in our marriage - not only her behaviours, but my responses as well.

I persuaded her to ask her doctor to refer her for assessment. Today was the assessment, and as I said earlier, the psychiatrist diagnosed my wife with ADD, Aspergers and OCD. He is prescribing her Ritalin. According to him, here in Australia we don't have the pharmacopia to treat ADD which is available in the US, and there's some red tape to go through, but my wife is expecting to start on Ritalin in a couple of weeks. She will also go back to her psychologist, who shares the psychiatrist's practice, for non-pharmaceutical therapy.

I have to thank everyone who contributes to this website for helping me make the discovery which brought me back from despair. Once I began to understand that my wife's neurotransmitters could explain so many of her behaviours which frustrated me, I began to see that it wasn't her intention, that it was a disease for which she never asked. As a result, a couple of times over the past month my wife has acknowledged that I've become more tolerant and understanding with her. A couple of weeks ago we sat down together and made a schedule of household chores which we divided up together, so she would have more structure to support her; and strike me down if things didn't suddenly begin to run more smoothly. The fact that she'll begin treatment soon gives us both renewed hope. Thankyou for that.

I'm still somewhat in shock over the reality of the diagnosis. Over this past month, I've been able to tell myself that maybe I'm mistaken, that maybe my perceptions were grossly faulty, that perhaps my wife doesn't have a(nother) lifelong disease (along with diabetes, PCOS, depression, etc), that perhaps this is something which could be resolved simply with some left-field adjustment I'd never heard of. Well, today does away with all that. It's a fact now, and now I have to look at what I want to do now that I know my wife's condition. Give me a couple of days and I expect I'll be back in the swing of things.

Peace to you all.   

Like many couples in this forum, my bf and I struggle with trust issues sometimes. I will try to give a little background first before I ask my main question.

We were friends for years before we started dating. We've been dating for three years. His communication style tends to be passive-aggressive/avoidant, and then he stonewalls. He used to not tell me things that he thought would upset me if he still wanted to do them anyway. The worst one was when he planned a month-long cross-country road trip with his sister last year (he is unemployed), and didn't tell me until two days before he left. Seriously. Then he came back in September and things have been generally a lot better than they had been before. We have been communicating better with each other, he is trying to be more conscientious, etc.

I am under a lot of stress right now because my grandfather is dying and I recently started a new job. My bf has been unemployed/underemployed for almost a year since he graduated from law school and still lives with his parents and two of his three adult siblings. My bf usually tells me what he is up to. Today he didn't tell me he was going to visit an old female friend to help her with bankruptcy paperwork. He keeps me updated on the goings-on in his male friends lives, but not the lives of his female friends. He doesn't see this person often and apparently just wanted to help. I was really uncomfortable the one time I met her because I felt like they were flirting. I tend to be the jealous type, and I know that about myself, so I haven't given it much thought. A few hours went by tonight and I asked what he was up to, and he said he was "talking" to this person about the paperwork. I had to ask if he was actually at her house. I totally lost it, which I rarely do. I told him I wanted to break up, which I don't really, but I felt pushed over the edge. My over-reaction was partially because of family-related stress that I have right now, and also because my bf drops everything to "help" other people when I need him to be there for me. I had mentioned today that I was going to introduce a friend of mine to a guy friend of mine who my bf had accused me of going on "dates" with two years ago. (We were just co-workers and my bf thought he was interested in me.) In case this would bother him, I brought up the plans to him, but they ended up being canceled anyway. I was trying to be upfront. I thought that of all days, my bf went to visit this person today as a way of getting back at me (cynical of me to think, I know). 

Anyway, my bf said that I am paranoid and that if I trusted him, I wouldn't need to know what his plans are before they happen. He said he doesn't tell me everything he does, and that he trusts me so he wouldn't care if I hung out with someone or even spent the night at their house. I think that matters even if you trust your significant other. What gets me is, we are in a serious relationship and my bf is not trying to imply that we aren't by saying he doesn't care who I hang out with. He acts morally superior because he told me about tonight at all, when I don't understand why he wasn't upfront with it. He said it was last minute. Even if it was, why did I have to ask multiple times? Why does he keep his phone face-down and computer password protected? I don't snoop, and deep down I don't think he is cheating. Why does he act shady then? I know he hates conflict and thinks I might overreact if I questioned something, but wouldn't it be easier to just explain it to me and avoid the whole problem? Is it unrealistic of him to expect me to trust him when he communicates so poorly? I'm not justifying my over-reaction, but he completely invalidates my trust issues. He yelled at me and hung up on me, and is stonewalling. Is this all my fault, or is this a defense mechanism on his part?

I recently found the book and started reading it.  It was like looking at my life.  I was afraid to make suggestions to my ADD husband based on what I was reading because he is so often like a rebellious teenager whenever I make suggestions to him.  I was so surprised when he replied, "I can tell you really love me.  You know me so well and are always trying to help me."  It was so sweet, it almost brought tears to my eyes.  

I have always been so anti-medication for most functioning people, I was never supportive of him taking Adderall.  I also had no idea that he really did have adult ADD.  I didn't know much about it.  I thought he can focus just fine.  I've seen him sit for hours computer programming.  Now, I understand the hyperfocus aspect of ADD.  Since he started Adderall in September, it has allowed our marriage to finally get better.  

My husband has twice had an affair because he was so desperate from an escape from my nagging and the responsibility of making money, taking care of the house, and kids.  When his income from his internet business started tapering off, I begged him to go find a job.  He told me I needed to get a job since I had a M.S. degree and a substantial student loan debt.  I was homeschooling my kids, paying the bills, taking the kids to all the classes, keeping all the schedules, doing all the grocery shopping and housework, etc.  He told me he had a job since he was the one who created the website generating any income at all for us.  However, I was handling all the product orders and emails.  He was obsessed with a new website he was building.  He worked on it for over a year and never made any profit.  It was a never ending escape for him and he could say he was working.  He was also going out to nightclubs and bars 3-5 nights per week because he breakdances as a hobby.

Last summer, he said he wasn't in love with me anymore and wanted a divorce.  I came up with a schedule for sharing the house and stayed with some friends on my nights away.  I found 3 part-time jobs and put my kids in school.  I was so angry and so were the kids.  My kids saw him put me through a lot.  My two oldest daughters (10 & 13) are his step kids.  My 13 year old still has a chip on her shoulder towards him.  I knew he was having an affair, but he wouldn't admit it.  Yet, he started spying on me.  He would GPS my iPhone and use the computer cameras in the house to listen in on my conversations.  He admitted later that he was worried that I would have ammunition against him in court and figured he better get some against me.  One time, he set up my iPhone using iMessage to have all my texts go to his phone.  After I found out, I got rid of my iPhone.  All the manipulation and lying made me think he had developed NPD (I've read it sometimes shows up later in life).

I tried everything.  I tried talking to him, begging, wrote him letters, bringing up things we learned at Retrouvaille (a save-your-marriage program we went to in 2011).  Every time I tried to have a conversation with him to work on our issues, he would end up getting overwhelmed with the conversation.  Usually, he ended up saying something he knew would really piss me off just to get me to stop talking to him.  It seemed we could never get anywhere.  Finally, I started ignoring him.  Then, he wanted my attention.  He especially wanted me to have sex with him, but I turned him down for the most part.  He would say things like, "why can't we just hang out and not talk about our issues."  I would tell him I don't want to hang out with him because I was angry.  He would tell me during the day that he didn't love me, didn't find me attractive anymore, or didn't like my personality.  Then, he would wrap his body around me at night.  One time, I was crying and he patted me on the back and said, "Why are you doing this to yourself?"  He refused to take any responsibility for being the cause of my sadness.  He told me he thought we should just stay together, but be able to do whatever we wanted without telling the other person.  I told him no way.  

I think the low point was the day he decided that the internet business money was all his and he turned off my access to it.  He told me he would pay the bills now and handle the business. I knew he wasn't organized enough to pay bills on time.  I was so angry so I went to bed early.  He came in the bedroom and asked if I wanted to watch a movie with him.  I lost it!  I started screaming to get away from me.  Then, I really freaked out.  I took pictures of us off the wall and tore them up.  I tore up our marriage license and threw it in his face. I tried to rip up our wedding album, but he took it from me and hid it.  I have never acted like this in my life.  I think he was really scared.  The look on his face was one of fear.  I have always held it together pretty well until that night.  

In September, I told him I had the money together for a down payment on an apartment and was moving out.  I had spent all summer crying and had finally come to accept that we were done.  I was planning to get a 2 bedroom for me and 4 kids to save money and use the living room as a bedroom.  I planned to just have beds on the floors for the time being.  I knew it would be a struggle being on my own and couldn't afford much.  That day, he did a 180.  He asked me not to move out.  He admitted the affair and told me he doesn't even get why he was doing it because he didn't love her.  I found out that his best friend had given him an Adderall.  There was an amazing difference in his ability to even hold a conversation.  He actually talked to me without getting overwhelmed.  I was so scared it wasn't going to stick. 

Ever since that day, our marriage has greatly improved.  We are getting along better than we ever have.