I'm writing this as I sit alone in our apartment waiting for my husband to come home, or to even hear from him for that matter. I have known my husband for a little over 3 years, &  became aware of his adhd about a year ago. That's about the time I discovered this site & began printing out posts to share with him in hopes he would realize his adhd is real & have g very negative effects on our relationship & his life. I knew that he was diagnosed with adhd as a child & that he didn't have much guidance or support from his family growing up. His father was an addict, mother remarried to a man who wanted nothing to do with her kids to the point that they kicked him out with nowhere to go before he was even 18. When we met we were both working at a restaurant, life was fairly carefree & we were enamored with each other. We were always doing something fun & adventurous. He was so romantic & I felt we were invincible. It was that moment when you felt " this is it, he's the one". We moved in fairly quickly, & slowly as his responsibilities became more prominent in his life, his adhd & defensiveness did as well. I was always the one doing research, suggesting things I thought would help in managing the adhd but he never took them seriously. The frustration grew a lot in the past year & I became sick of the empty promise. How could this be the man I fell in love with? What happened to the carefree energetic & romantic man I was planning on spending forever with. I would say the symptoms began showing themselves as forgetfulness, defensiveness, empty promises, failure to follow through . His adhd seemed to be worse when around his family, sometimes I felt like he would act very ancy & overly excited, almost childish or immature when around them which made me feel embarrassed or confused. This wasn't a side I had known of my husband. He began to keep things from me,mainly financial problems that I had tried to ask about so I could help him get control of before we got married,but I think being on his own his whole life gave him the mindset that he didn't need anyone's help. I also think it gave him the mindset that he doesn't need to answer to anyone. Taking responsibility for his life, bills,debt,health...it became apparent that these things were never taught to him growing up so to him they were not prioritized. The unmanaged adhd led him to develop a habit of compulsively lying when confronted with any of these things that seemed too overwhelming to deal with, & what made it worse is that he didn't & still has not accepted his adhd as a real problem In his or our life. We began to fight more often, the more I pushed for him to take responsibility for these things the more defensive & withdrawn he became. We had developed what they refer to as the parent child dynamic, & I feel that is where we remain. Despite all this I held onto the hope be would change when we got married. I held onto the empty promises & allowed the lies  because it was easier then confronting  him for the truth. He has become an angry unpredictable person. He  goes from zero to 360 with no middle ground &  it always turns around to be my fault for making him angry. I provoke the anger he tells me by " questioning" him. Most of the time he has no excuse explanation other than " i forgot", " I don't know why I did it" ," I'm a fucked up person, why don't you just leave me". I am beginning to think he would rather end our marriage then be forced to deal with everything he has avoided with lies & defensiveness, or to admit the adhd is a factor & do something about it. I told him this week the next time he tells me to leave I am going to. We were married in August, I felt very confident we could make positive changes in our relationship & his issues. I started to try & take charge of our finances recently which was a mutual decision because he knows he has a hard time with it & things slowly went downhill. My trust In him had been slowly broken down over the past year, 2 weeks before the wedding I found $500 in unpaid parking tickets that he told me he paid, told his sister on the phone in front of me he couldn't pick her up because his registration was suspended, quickly telling me that was a lie to her,an excuse not to give her a rude but later found out it was true. The past month has been a snowball of depressing hurtful events. I found he had been confiscating his mail & throwing it out or hiding it from me so I wouldn't see the letters from all the traffic violations he had. Discovered about $2000 in unpaid fines from the numerous violations the past year that I was unaware of ,he skipped a court hearing last month & had another scheduled for this month. Was going to possibly lose his license. I was sickened that he kept this all from me & was so irresponsible as to let it even happen. Of course when confronted he was angry,mean & defensive. I was wrong for being sneaky & "  looking through his shit". Then last week I found out he didn't even get laid off of his last job, that he just went home sick & never came back. I found this by listening to a voicemail on his phone from his boss asking why he never came back. I work 2 jobs & 60-70 hours a week to support us. This last discovery made me sick. Of course again I am wrong & disrespected him by going through his phone. I am at the end of my rope. I am totally heart broken &  hopeless. I don't even feel like his wife, or that he considers my feelings at any time he acts or speaks. I don't know what to do :( is it too late?  I am 27, I want to move forward & start a family, move into a home. All were doing is moving backwards. We started therapy last week & our therapist gave us an assignment to spend the day doing things we used to love to do, & focus on us,remind each other why we fell in love. Last night he decided it was more important for him to go get drunk & not come home after I begged him not to do that. He has no car or way home today & I dint care to go get him at this point. He said he needed to relieve stress & he never gets to do anything he wants to do. As far as I'm concerned he chose a night of drinking over attempting any effort at fixing or working on our marriage. I'm embarrassed that this is where we're at & feel like I'm part of the problem for letting it get this way. I feel heart broken. If you read this whole thing, thank you. Any advice is more than welcome :(

It all started when I got laid off from my job.  My boyfriend (ADHD) and I were having trouble paying the rent on our place (since he doesn't work) and we had to move out.  Not having anywhere to go, his father, who owns an apartment building, said we could live in an illegal basement apartment (exposed furnaces/water heaters, generally unpleasant) in the building.  I would pay $150 to cover the utilities and his son would need to engage in a work exchange helping him out with maintenance etc.  We've been here for about a year (I've since gotten only a part-time job) until last week when his father basically said he wants us out, citing his son's lack of motivation helping him in exchange for the place we're in and basic 'cleanliness' issues.  This is the kicker though, for the past year I've basically been living in a teenager's bedroom/storage place full of an IMMENSE amount my boyfriend's belongings (which is probably a fire hazard) scattered about in no particular organization.  He doesn't clean (I do all the cleaning) and because of the way a lot of it is arranged, I can't get to some of it to dust and I'm not going to kill myself trying).  I'd started being a little lax about organizing my very few belongings (the rest is in storage at my mom's because it doesn't fit with all his stuff here) because I felt there was no point and would be a waste of energy considering the mess of his I was already living in.  But, the issue with 'cleanliness' his dad cited to us, every single thing he listed that bothered him, was something of mine.  I was shocked!  My clothes hanging on a clothes rack, my laundry basket in the bathroom, 3 cardboard boxes I had stacked next to a corner full of empty electronics boxes (about 12) of my boyfriends and the way some countertop items were organized in the kitchen.  I am absolutely irate about this!  At the time I was so shocked that I didn't say anything.  Now, I'm trying to get a full time job, find us a place to live, and find my boyfriend a job while he sits in the living room amongst his clutter and listens to records all day.  ALL DAY.  The only time he lifts a finger is to start packing and organizing MY BELONGINGS.  He hasn't touched a single thing of his or looked for a job.  Now, on top of everything else, my mom is in the hospital and they don't want to let her go back home.  They are trying to put her in a nursing home.  I'm trying to handle this everyday now.  I really think I am going to explode under all this stress.  Also, yesterday, I had an important phone interview for a job that also included a webinar that I needed to use the computer for (just a half hour) and my boyfriend threw a tantrum about not being able to use the internet while I was on the phone doing the interview (it was really embarrassing).  This is after I already ran it by him and told him that for that half-hour I would need to be on the computer.  He is actively working against me at this point.  The problem is that on most days I now spend all my time working, figuring out my mom's situation, looking for another job, looking for a place to live, and looking for a job for my boyfriend that all the little free time I get MUST be spent relaxing so I don't completely LOSE IT.  But, whenever my boyfriend sees me relaxing, he takes that as a cue to start asking me about my stuff and how he should pack it etc. and if I get upset he uses the fact that he's "helping me pack" against me and saying that I'm ungrateful.  I just want to RELAX.  I don't want to spend every single second of my conscious awareness dealing with something.  Not to mention that IF he gets a job and we got a place, it would literally take me 3 hours tops to pack and load my stuff into my car.  I have that few belongings here.  He gets upset and throws his 'helping me' in my face if I tell him that his time would be better spent dealing with HIS possessions and most importantly LOOKING FOR A JOB.  Because we can't move until he does.  I really feel like I'm on the verge of a nervous breakdown.  I really do.  I had been suppressing my emotions about living in his cluttered mess this whole year because I was simply grateful to have a place, but then to have his father basically ignore his son's mess to focus on my few things being sort of un-organized as a reason he wants us out??  I can't handle the emotions I'm feeling right now.  I really can't.  Also, now during the time that we're still here I feel like I have to obsessively keep my stuff organized and put away while my boyfriend gets to just toss his stuff around like he usually does.  The double standard is slowly killing me.

Here is the situation - got a big family Halloween party on Saturday.  Looks like it will be cold and rainy so all guests will be in our house - which  is not huge. 

Still have cooking to do, party set-up, last minute cleaning.....

My daughter is making a pinata for the party.  Today my ADHD husband was driving down the road - saw some  fluffy milkweed and thought - hey, that will make a great covering for the pinata.  In comes all the wet wild weeds, out comes an old screen door, laid out in the bathroom, where my spouse spreads out all the fluffy stuff to air dry, then he covered it with newspaper, then he taped down the newspaper, all amidst my trying to do party prep.  Arrrgggghhhh.  It still will need to be glued to the pinata.  Messy enough without the flying fluffy weeds.  

Positive ADHD - very creative.  I see the glee in his eyes.  the creative juices flowing.

Negative - Poor timing for the messy art project.  In the middle of my trying to get ready for a party.   And it is plugging up the use of the only downstairs bathroom. . . . . . . and taking lots of time in which I could enjoy his help in the party prep.

Hyper focus on what he is doing.  Oblivious to me and my frustration . . . . . . Puh - lease. . . . . . . . this is the type of thing I deal with a whole lot.  

Any previous attempts I tried in curbing this sort of thing evolved into a big disagreement.  

I do not have ADHD but my spouse and son both do. My husband recently lost his long time job and has these has these swings of being extremely high energy (wound up, acting childlike..making jokes all the time, singing or playing his guitar while I try to talk to him) OR he is low low..falling asleep in his chair, eyes droopy, etc.

He has anxiety and sometimes takes Clonopin (not sure if that is spelled right) and used to take xanax but i asked that he only take it at night since he becomes zombie-like from it. He also sometimes takes Adderral but not consistently. I am not sure if he could have something else going on mentally because the swings are so pronounced. He also is going through Low T therapy and has been craving sugar in huge amounts.Has anyone else experienced this? Any ideas? It has become extremely hard on our marriage because I get so annoyed and snappy when he is in either state - so I am basically irritated most of the time. I feel like a terrible partner but he is driving me crazy.