My partner was diagnosed with ADD and began medication a little over a year ago.  Since then he has gone through some remarkable changes and shown a real dedication to growing with this deeper awareness of who he is and how it has impacted his life up to this point.  Needless to say, our marriage has also improved with this new direction.

I have often turned to this forum as a reader (and related published material) for guidance and am finding myself at a loss with my current situation.  Any thoughts or help would be much appreciated.  While I may sound calm in writing; I am hurt and feel despair over the future of our marriage.

My partner shows affection to and will drop anything to spend time with our children.  I have asked him many many times over the past few months to see if he can make some time in his busy schedule to spend some time with me, our marriage is struggling and any time would really help.  I have also let him know I am feeling irrelevant and ignored.

It hurts that he makes so much of an effort to see and spend time with the kids, and yet, does not ask me about my day, spend time with me. For example; he will take them out for 'dates' and is disappointed when I ask to come because I miss spending time as a family.  Or just go into another room to do something on his own as soon as they are asleep, not even saying goodnight or talking to me. The things that make him too busy to spend time with me are quickly dropped to spend time with the kids.  Has anyone else struggled with this and their kids/spouse?  I love that he loves the kids (even if sometimes it seems like a selfish love), but am at a loss as to why he can't invest some time in me.  I have spoken with him so many times about this and just don't understand.  It is turning into an unhealthy obsession of his and isn't making any sense to me.  Any advice?

For the first time in a long time, this is feeling like 'old' behavior and I am experiencing that same old feeling of resentment and anger that just builds and builds.

Does anyone have any good advice on what to do once you realize you've reached the end of the line in your marriage?

It has been a long time coming but finally, I think it's time to just cut my losses and accept that our marriage has failed and there's nothing more I can do about it. And now I have no idea what to do with this new situation.

We've tried. Both in our own ways, I suppose. For years. And years. And years. In the end, never really getting anywhere. No progress or any real change for the better. Just worse and worse in slight increments over a looooong time.

I take full responsibility for all the wrong reactions, anger, venting, nagging, stonewalling, exasperation etc etc etc. I am fully aware that I am just as responsible for how things are and for many, many years I made efforts to change my behaviour. I wish I still had the strength to do so, but I realize that I don't. I am utterly exhausted and unable to put in the effort or keep my anger from poisoning my words.

I admit that I started withdrawing and "letting things go" in small steps several years ago. That's absolutely on me. I wish I hadn't, but at times it's the only thing I knew how to do to keep from imploding. I retreated into a "I don't care - let it all go to hell then - not my responsibility" attitude about more and more things, because I felt that nothing I or we tried made any difference anyway - so why bother.

Nothing that was said, done or agreed upon made any lasting difference at all. Nagging had no effect. Not nagging had no effect. I'm not sure at which point he checked out on us - or if he was ever really connected in the first place. But in the end, I feel I've turned into air. Like I don't exist and nothing I do or say even registers.

I used to feel cheated and let down. Now I'm just too tired to even be angry or sad. I'm just absolutely numb. Totally numb.

Unfortunately, my spouse is unable to take any long lasting responsibility for the ADHD or anything concerning me or our marriage, and has never done anything to get any other help other than meds for the ADHD. For him, the meds, I believe, make coping with life internally a bit easier, but they really have no effect that is outwardly apparent. Actually getting things done or taking responsibility for things gets no better. In the past, after I totally blow a casket, behaviour changes on my spouse's part come into play for anything from a few hours to a few weeks. Then it's always been comfortably back to the status quo. Sort of like a sigh of relief like "There, now I did it. Now you can't be mad at me anymore and we can get back to normal again". After the umpteenth time, I just quit caring one way or the other to cope with the never ending disappointment.

I wish I could once again pick myself up and keep on going. I wish I could tell myself "it will get better", but doing so, honestly, feels insane. And I'm past the point of being a nice person when I am with my spouse. At this point, I am unable to control my feelings and even when I try my utmost to be nice, the anger seeps through and I hate that I can't stop it.

The really tragic part is that I'm sure there would have been an abundance of things that would have made things better, but neither of us is or has been able to do them. My spouse mostly because it would require some effort and a commitment - me mostly because I'm no longer able to keep myself strong on my own while waiting for that commitment to magically appear from somewhere.

But what do I do now? Where do I get the energy to carry out everything that a divorce entails?

There are many issues with my marriage, and most of the severe ones are due to my ADHD. Given this reality the focus is on mitigating my symptoms, and any mental foray into MY complaints seems to be dangerous. It can so easily in discussion go the way of deflecting her concerns or just sound hypocritical. Nevertheless, in the past I cannot remember having any complaints. I simply hid from reality and had neither positive nor negative things to say about the relationship. I'm sure now that this ambivalence is gone.

I'm just starting down this road and it is frustrating. With this new job I am waiting for insurance to kick in to continue experimenting with medication and therapy. I think we need to get into couples therapy to really move forward, but all of that is on hold for the next week or two. So I post here and read books. I was reading a chapter in Melissa's book last night that talked about ways in which each partner might feel unloved. It got me thinking about the relationship and what I wanted from it. I'm the only one who can change me, and changing myself will go an insanely far way towards changing the health of our relationship. Thinking about my concerns as an adult partner(attempting, anyway) would be one of the symptoms of growth. As such I cannot ignore how disconnected I feel. Touch must be my cardinal love language because the lack of it is really getting to me. I understand that the lack of intimacy is largely due to distrust and my appearance of not caring about her, but whatever the cause I'm actually having a real problem with it. I'm not just putting it away and going back to ignorant bliss.

My wife doesn't like to be touched. All day long she is with our three children and much of the day they are climbing on her in one form or another. I'm constantly wanting to cuddle or get close, and she has said that all she wants when they go to sleep is to have her own space. I can get that and hope it will improve with mending our relationship, but she has never been a touchy person. I get the sense that she tolerates me. We will by lying in bed with tablets or laptops after the kids go to sleep, and I will invariably want to wrap my legs up in hers, or attempt some variant of spooning. She plays along with this but doesn't seem to get much of anything out of it. For me these things are like a dripping faucet in the middle of the desert. Once a month we'll have sex (vs 2-3 times a week in better years) and for her it is scratching an itch. All she wants to do is "get there" and all I want to do is prolong the experience. Yeah I'm a guy and I will drop everything at any moment to get laid. This would probably be the case even if we were having daily sex marathons, but these few times are now all about grabbing up any sense of connection possible before another long stint of feeling alone.

I find myself lying awake in the dark thinking about how disconnected I feel from her, and actually hurting emotionally from that. I haven't done this since the depths of depression in 2006-2007 when the nihilism was unavoidable and the pain of feeling nothing was ever-present. Thinking of doing nothing but a half an hour of making out makes me swoon with longing. We haven't kissed with tongue in at least two years, and that time two years ago was an isolated incident in a height of passion.

We aren't cold to one another. Our daily interactions are not hostile or without affection. We'll grope each other jokingly and play around, but in terms of real intimacy where you feel close enough to be one person and feel that vulnerability? No. I hope I can get my shit figured out so she can get to a place where rebuilding that intimacy is possible. I'm not complaining in any way, but I felt the need to express this pain I'm feeling.

Are there any mothers out there who understand her feeling of wanting to be left alone after a day of children constantly in your personal space? If so, did it carry over into intimacy with your partner?

My husband just got diagnosed with ADHD and when the doctor called him to tell him the news, he also recommended marriage counseling for us because he noticed stressed between us, but my husband says ADHD is not the reason why we got marriage counseling recommended... We have been arguing too much even before this news but to me this condition is the reason?