Hello.  I wanted to let the people in the Northwest know about an ADHD relationship one day seminar being hosted by ADD Resources 4/13.  http://addresources.org/  Keynote speaker is the comedian from TotallyADD.com and the PBS shows ADD and Loving It, and ADD and Mastering It.  His wife will also be participating.  I'm hoping it will be a good introduction for my ADHD spouse on just how impacted our relationship is by his symptoms, and my reactions to them of course.

I've been Married almost 2 years now. but we've been living together for a year. I was in another country and I had to wait for a year to be with him. There were fights about small stuff when we were away from each other but nothing too big.

The real problem started after I came to the same country to start a new life. Lots of dreams and hopes, I was happy. Then gradually everything starts to change as I keep finding all the things that he hid from me before our marriage. I would like to mention here that it was an arranged marriage and all he told me about his past is that he was married before and it didn't last for long. I thought its no big deal atleast he's telling me the truth before the marriage, but I did hide it from my family as I knew they woudnt agree. Anyways the first thing that I found out was about his Fourth GF who was pretty important to him. I knew they were serious but all he told me that "she was crazy" thats why they broke up. But i found that she was pregnent and he wanted to get her an abortion thats why they broke up. It was a shock. And then I found that two of the girls that he introduced me as his "friends" were actually his gfs. And when I was waiting for my Parmanent residency in another country he was having Skype contact with her and ofcourse they took pictures and I found out the pictures. it was 3 weeks before our first anniversary. He hit me, I got out of the house in a minus temparature without any shoe or warm cloth. I was scared. I went to a neighbours house and from there my cousin picked me up. Then my uncle and aunt convinced me to come back to my husbands house. I was so mad that out of anger I contacted my EX(which was the dumbest thing to do). And unfortunately I didnt know that he had a key logger on my computer. So he got proof that I was cheating on him. He sent it to my sister and everyone in my family thought it was my mistake. and then I started to tell them all about what he did. We fought again and again.  I kept going to my aunt's house and coming back cause everytime I thought I could let this go, I have fault in this too. I thought to myself that I wanted a fresh start I should screw this up. Finally we sat down and talked. Since it would be his second divorce so neither him or his family wanted the divorce, and for me I didnt have anyother choice. I stayed because I didnt have any other place to go. because my Aunt told me strictly not to go to her house for this reason. Anyway, we were trying to work things out but then again one day during a fight he Hit me again. In his words"I can spank you, spanking is not illegal". So i called the police and they arrested him. Though they released him 4 hours later with a restraining order.

But then I felt bad for him, I didnt want his life to ruin cause of a criminal record. I started to contact with lawyers to know whats gonna happen, and how can I help him. 2 weeks after the arrest it was my birthday and I was with my cousins. I was really upset and thought may b he will somehow wish me or do something. but he didnt. The I got a call from his lawyer to go to the lawyers office to sign some paper so that he can come home. I did. at that point I wasnt mad at him anymore and nothing really mattered. All I wanted was him to be at home. He had to go to an aner management course, and oneday he came to me, hugged me and said "Im sorry that Ive put you through so much pain, from now on im gonna do everything i can to make it upto you". I felt great!! I felt so lucky, I thought he really does want me and love me. I forgot to mention that he used to flirt on facebook. So oneday I saw a message on his facebook that he was asking for naked pictures from a model who does nude photography. It was upsetting. I was angry and we had another fight. We came to the point where we dont trust each other anymore. He kept his keylogger on my computer(though he said he uninstalled it but i knew he didnt because i kept changing it and he kept repeating those words that i have on my pw), I kept checking his fb and found that he actually deletes his conversations. I found messages, but i just thought since he spends most of the time with me and we are doing good i should just let it go.

One day while doing laundry, I found a condom in his pocket, and I was shocked. Because we dont use it, because he is not comfortable with it, and im on pills. When I asked him, he said "a friend of mine said its a good flavor i thought i'd try". I asked "With whom?", he said ofcourse with you. then I said" Seriously? because these has been on the drawer of our bedside table for the last one year.". Then he changed the story to "Oh, I wanted to have sex with you in our new bmw, i didnt want to ruin the seats. " . I cried and screamed, cause his reasons are not belivable. But some how with his words he did manage me. I belived him again.But After that I notice something strange in him. That he keeps jugding me all the time. As if I am a horrible person. And the worst thing is he says that to his parents to make me look bad. 

 Then one morning it was a silly fight, i said "when was the last time you did something nice for me". He said "If you dont realize what I do for you may b i shoud just stop doing what i do". I relied"I hate you", he said "I hate you too" and left for work. I was upset and a little bit guilty for saying "I hate you". When he came back everything was as if nothing happened. We were ok. The next morning We were watching something on his Macbook and at one point I said lets check your facebook. He had it open on another tab so he became so aggressive and took the laptop away from me. I said I was just kidding, he said well let me check yours, I said sure i will let you check mine if you let me check yours. He said no. the the whole day we didnt talk. I slept on the couch. He came to me to take me to bed but I said I dont feel like sleeping beside you when you are like this. He said"Im not gonna change, if you wanna stay, stay,if you dont then dont."Then I realized something is on his facebook that he didnt want me to see. Then I saw there was a girl, it was his friend's younger sister. I saw her profile and saw that she posted a picture with a flower saying best surprise ever. I recognized the handwriting. I dont know how he sent her his handwritten note with flower cause she lives in another city that takes 4 to 5 hours drive. 

I didnt say anything that day, It was a shock for me because I thought she was like a little sister to him, but if that so why would he hide that from me? Specially when he knows how I feel about birthdays and him not being romantic to me. He didnt even think about me once. Then the next day we went to a movie and after the movie he tried to make things okey, by saying sweet stuff, but I said "whats the point if you r not going to change". then a little bit later i was trying to be nice too. and then I looked at him in the eye and asked "who did you buy flowers for" . He didnt lie. I didnt expect him to. but at that time I was sooo blinded by my anger that i walked out of the restaurant and took the subway to get back home. On the way I expected him to call, but he didnt. I cried the whole night, I screamed, he just didnt care and stayed in another room. In the morning he started playing with words and making up excuses and trying to put the blame on me. He said "she was sad, it was her birthday, i was just being nice". I asked"why didnt you tell me". He said "Because I knew you would act this way." I asked "When did being nice to other meaningless people became more important to you that you dont even care about how I would fee?" and the arguments went on and on ,at one point i felt calm. Then again the condom thing and this flower thing starts to come to my mind and i just cant stop crying. I realized there may be lots of other things that he hides from me. I dont know if hez sexually involved with someone else or not. I just cant trust him anymore. So I said I want a divorce. Though his family is trying to manipulate my decisiion, but I just dont see any point. But I do hnk that may be somewhere it was my fault too, may b I was too suspicious, but then I think he has always been like that, he has always hid things from me. May be he was trying to avoid fights, but if I disagree to something shouldnt he be caring about my opinion? There is still a part of me that thinks may be we should try again, I accepted so many things these are just little things, may be we should go to counseling. But then I think whats the point, he isn't going to change, i know him. And Ive taken so much of his lies that I cannot take anymore. He is aggressive and inconsiderate about my feelings.

Oh man, I've only been married for 3 years, but I am ready to tackle two jobs and being a single mom just to get out of this relationship. He's not even that bad yet.....I'm just too independent and used to being single to deal with having to mother my husband. He has every single symptom of ADD. I don't really know the difference in ADD and ADHD, but he has no hyperactivity problems. He comes across as pretty darn lazy. Because of him, I'm the one with the hyperactivity, but I like to call it extreme multi-tasking;p

I have googled "husband is lazy", "husband doesn't listen to a thing I say", "husband doesn't hear me", "husband has a terrible memory", "husband is negative about everything", "husband is getting dumber", "husband is an idiot"...........just so I can commiserate a little. I've started internalizing the anger because I hate making him feel bad. I just walk away and roll my eyes, bitch to myself, or go write it down. I try not to talk about it with friends because I can come up with multiple complaints a day. I have become very passive around my husband because almost every thing he says or does grates my nerves. Instead of getting better, he is getting worse. He knows that I have stepped out of the marriage, so he is (finally) trying harder, but he is still messing up simple tasks or doing stupid, sometimes dangerous things....daily.

When we met, he showed me a man that was excited about life and me. Now I think it may have been hyper-focusing. He would come over to my house from work and focus all of his attention on me. Once we were done talking about me, he would excitedly tell me about the career he was working towards. I married him too quickly. Years of dating people that didn't work for me made me kind of desperate. He was like a breath of fresh air and he was moving away soon. After we married, he failed out of school....a very difficult school, and he was forced into another school that he didn't want. I became pregnant. A few months after that, we were shipped overseas. I was unable to work overseas, so I took on all the household responsibilities. I handled all the bills and online bank accounts because he showed no interest in them. I didn't mind because I have always worked hard and I felt that I needed to do something. To this day, he never looks at his paycheck and doesn't know the usernames and passwords for the bank accounts, even though they have been given to him frequently. He was never home because he was training for war. When he was home, he couldn't remember to soak a dirty dish or put dirty clothes in the hamper. Little things that made my job easier. It was a constant argument. He never thanked me for getting up with him to cook breakfast, cook lunch on his break, or cook dinner. If I really slaved over a meal and asked how it tastes, he'd say "it's okay".....and then got upset at me that I got upset. He said, "okay means it's good where I'm from". I wasn't buying it even then. NOW, he thanks me profusely for any meal I make, and even the ones he helps with or order. Over-compensating........

Our biggest problem was how much importance he put on sex. He bugged me endlessly about it. We could do it 2x a day and he'd still beg me for it. He begged me through my 2 months of bedrest and my 6 months of recuperating from a very difficult birth. When he finally went to war, I was glad. No more pressure for sex like it was the most important thing in the world. When he came home, I put a stop to the endless begging for sex because he immediately started back that old routine. I haven't slept with him since October, and don't think I ever want to again. I told him he could go outside the marriage for it, but that I was never going to have sex again if I didn't want to. Who wants to have sex with someone that only lasts a minute anyway? Who wants to have sex with someone they have to treat like a child?

I kept thinking the problem was how much he hated his job and hated being overseas, but now that we're back in America, he's not a whole lot better. Now his forgetfulness and inability to think about consequences have put the baby in danger a few times. I never trusted him with the baby anyway. Since we moved here, we acquired a dog that showed signs of food aggression towards the baby. We didn't want to give the dog up right away, so we agreed to monitor them and ALWAYS keep the dogs outside when preparing their food. Right after that conversation, I walked in on him preparing wet dog food with both dogs and the baby under his feet. When I confronted him, he blamed it on the dogs. He said they WERE outside. Um, obviously they are not now and it is the HUMAN'S fault if they managed to sneak in with the human. I had to yell at him to get him to separate them, but he was fuming. A week or two later......several days after he made me a wooden DVD shelf, I found a plugged in handsaw on the ground in the garage. I confronted him about that, but he didn't do anything immediately. 30 minutes later it is still on the ground but unplugged. I had to make him put it in a safer place. After that, I told him that he is not allowed to buy the gun he's been wanting so badly. I told him he wasn't responsible enough. He agreed. We have a toddler, for pete's sake!

Each time we moved, he took no responsibility in the house. I had to leave him in charge when the movers packed up my house. Some of my things weren't packed and I lived in a tiny apartment.  Once overseas, I unloaded all of the many boxes and put them in their place. I did that twice overseas and once again when we moved back. I left him his room this time. His room stayed destroyed for over a month. He can't sit down in front of the tv without falling asleep. So, no grown-up time after the baby goes to bed. He's borderline narcoleptic. In fact, I make him go to bed when he starts falling asleep. Usually, he denies falling asleep, which really irritates me. I worry when I'm at work that he'll fall asleep and the baby will hurt himself. He doesn't take care of himself at all. He eats too much and of the wrong things. He's had the same disposable contacts for two years and NEVER takes them out. He receives letters that he never opens. I opened one once, found it was insurance, and told him to take care of it. He told me he didn't even know what it was and never looked at it again. He wants the military to pay for his old college bills, per his contract, but won't get the paperwork together to send it to the right place. Blames that on his mom.....apparently it's her job. I had to ask him many times to make his last car payment because I took it off automatic payment. He finally called the bank to get the balance, then didn't pay it. I had to make him call them back, and he managed to only pay half of it somehow. Blamed it on the bank. Before I leave, I am going to cancel our shared credit card.

Everyday is a battle of inconsistency. I have all of the responsibilities and I'm working part time too. I am trying to find a good paying full time job so that I can afford to leave. I'm nice enough to want to help him pay down debt first, but I may have to do that from a different house. We already have separate bedrooms. He's gained weight and snores loudly all night. Has been for almost a year now. We have separate bathrooms because he spends too much time on the toilet and severely dirties the toilet without cleaning it up. I asked him how he does it, and he tells me it is because he leans forward. Um, well stop leaning forward or at least clean the dang thing. I don't want to take his child from him, but I need to get away from him. He'd never be able to handle that responsibility too....he'd end up leaving him with his family. I sure hope he doesn't become vindictive when I finally leave. I don't even want a divorce because I never want to get married again.

I've given up on him as a partner. He can't listen to me or remember anything I say. He repeats, "huh, what did you say?" many times a day....sometimes before I even get the sentence out and often will answer me inappropriately because he doesn't pay attention to detail. And because of this, he gets a special joy out of pointing out any time I don't remember something. Although, I'm pretty sure he doesn't tell me half the things he remembers telling me. Yesterday, I sat a half full coffee mug in the sink. He pointed it out to me that I didn't rinse it. I barely get mad anymore though, and I am trying so hard not to point out anything to him. He can't stand any way that I try to handle things. If I don't fuss at him, I don't care. If I fuss at him, I don't appreciate the good things that he does. He tried making me feel bad because he managed to get our son up (after I was already up and in the shower), get him dressed and fed. I said, "Congratulations, I do that every single day". Sorry, but I don't need constant affirmation. I just get things done. He washes one dish and points it out to me. Wow, congrats again, I wash loads of them every single day. Lately, he's been acting really childish. It's only making things worse. It honestly feels like he is getting dumber. No matter how many times I tell him that as soon as he gets our son up and dressed, he needs to feed him, he STILL gets him up, doesn't dress him, and waits til he's screaming to feed him. It's exhausting!

He does try, and I want to believe it is a brain problem and not laziness or being stupid. He normally doesn't do any household work, but has been trying because he knows I am at my wit's end. He won't feed the dogs unless he sees I'm about to do it. He won't pick up poo unless he sees me doing it. Same thing with the trash and recycling. Thank goodness he remembers to put it on the curb on Fridays. He remembers because he sees all the other trash cans out when he leaves for work. (Hmmm, I bet they didn't get done last Friday because he was off work) He won't do the dishes unless they start to get bad. Sometimes they do now that I'm working. The other day he loaded the dishwasher, but forgot to turn it on and left some in the sink. I finally started crying about it, so he asked me to let him do it. I told him no because he doesn't get them clean. He got mad, but the next morning he missed a corner of the griddle. When I noticed it, he tells me it's old grease. I said, "no, you just didn't clean it properly". He was trying to blame his forgetting a corner of the dish on ME. Just OWN your mistakes and apologize...I do!! He rarely cooks because he can't get that right either. He set the timer on our cinnamon rolls for an hour.....they take 10-15 minutes. Of course, the bottoms were burnt. Didn't matter to him because he ate cereal while they were cooking. I'm just tired of it all. It is a constant battle just trying to have a normal home life with him in it. Thank goodness he has a job that he can't quit. He's had about 13 jobs before this one. Before this one, he was only 22. I should've heeded the signs when we were dating. He fell asleep on the way to a club. It was a 20 min drive. His mom nicknamed him "bum". Hindsight sure is 20/20.

The last thing is the anger and negativity. He seems to have a good heart, but sometimes he tries to get over on people. I can't stand negativity and I definitely don't want to get over on someone. Sometimes he just wakes up in a bad mood and it ruins the whole day. Right now he is gone for 3 days and I'm so happy about it. I wish he'd leave more. I try to point out the positives in things, but he looks for the negative. It's exhausting. He's still mad that he grew up poor, unable to afford expensive clothes. He's mad that he was an overweight kid. He managed to shed all of the weight, but is slowly gaining it back through lack of discipline. I grew up with two divorced alcoholics that fought over me even though they didn't even want me, but I'm not mad about it............I learned from it. I pity them, not me.

I used to think he needed reminders, but now I am learning that reminding doesn't do him any good. This is who I married, and there is not going to be any change. I'm just waiting until I'm able to leave comfortably. Now if I can just manage to make it that long without packing up all of my things and the baby and moving back to the east coast. I'm doing my best to just keep handling all the responsibilities and letting it roll off my back when he messes things up. I still hate dealing with the guilt of having a husband that loves me, but who I want nothing to do with. I truly wish he would hyper-focus on some other girl and move on. Maybe she'll be able to handle it better than I can. But he is totally focused on keeping me, without being able to focus on the things that would help him accomplish that. I am done with relationships after this. I could write pages and pages of some of the insane things he's done, said, or started to do. I want out before I can write more.

I don't even know where to start!  Should I share what my problems are?  Do I share my history with my husband?  How can I help our relationship?  What do I need to know?  What do I need to learn?

I'll start with a little history.  I've been married to my husband for six years now.  We've been together for almost nine.  I suspected ADHD a little while dating.  He couldn't take medication due to his job as a commercial diver.  They wouldn't let him due to liability and not having tested effects on the body while under pressure.  But with his job, he was gone.  A lot!  When he would come home, he just created so much chaos.  I assumed he was just on "vacation mode" as I called it because he worked REALLY hard while he was gone.  Twelve hour days, seven days a week, weeks and months at a time.  So I felt bad if I tried to get him to calm down or not go crazy with the money that he had worked so hard to earn.  His company went out of business and we moved to be closer to family while he went to school.  He is so intelligent and has a high IQ score, but is not passing his classes!  With little money, he has had almost a complete personality change too.  He is angry, mean and completely lacks empathy.  He is controlling and manipulative.  Hearing all that, he sounds awful, but I think either due to ADHD or a completely horrible, nasty, abusive childhood, he is almost completely unaware of his impact on me and our two daughters.  He truly is not the conniving type.  He lives in his own world in his head where every one is always happy and he is always shocked, even as he is being a complete jerk to know that he is upsetting someone.  His solution to all of our problems is to try and make more money again.  He doesn't realize that there were problems even when we had money!  It was better because he was gone all the time so there was less of a chance for the arguing.

He started on medication, but can't remember to take it regularly.  I can tell by 9 AM that morning if he hasn't taken it yet.  He will literally chase the kids, bite playfully, growl and do back flips off the couch.  It's like having an overgrown ten year old son that I did not conceive, yet I can't send him to his room for being out of control because he isn't a kid!  He is supposed to be my husband.  We've been in counseling for about six months but the councilor also has ADHD and is a little chaotic with scheduling and the like but has very empathetic to him and has been really good at mediating arguments and telling him to stop some of the behaviors learned from his abusive father.  But there have been no goals, and where there has been progress, it is so little, it is some times hard to see.  I saw a phrase, "compassion fatigue."  It so describes where I am at!  I am so tired of taking care of him in a mothering way.  I want to be a wife!  Not just a mom!  He has gotten himself into so many scrapes, running out of gas, wrecking cars, (two in the last year!!!) he got himself put in the hospital two weeks ago and literally almost could have died from the bends.  He almost drowned himself about six months ago.  And rather than feeling sad, I just got so angry this last time.  How dare he be so careless with his own life when he has two little girls to think of!  He get's frustrated with me for being exhausted, for being sad that he forgot another holiday, that he did nothing for yet another birthday and tells me I am just an unhappy person and that he can never please me.  I don't think I am a mean person that just completley lacks empathy for him.  I am just getting tired of my "love tank" being drained, sucked dry and NEVER getting even a trickle back from him.

I guess you could say that this is just the tip of the ice burg.  But I am exhausted, depressed and lonely.  I love my husband.  He is a hard worker and does try.  He has no evil intentions and he is always trying to do the right thing.  He's not trying to be a total jerk...  I just don't know what to do.  Where to go.  How to steer our life and our marriage out of chaos and into security, regularity and have some relaxation in my relationship.  Ah, to be relaxed in my own home.  That would be nice.  I am open to whatever at this point!