It's been a long time since I've been on this site.  On the whole, things have been going really well with my wife and I.  This morning I experienced something that I'd like advice on. 

My wife asked me a question this morning, which I answered.  She did not like my answer, and she responded in a louder, annoyed tone of voice with a "you're wrong" tone to it.  Verging on a reprimand.  Anyway, I said something like "You don't need to yell at me.  I don't deserve that tone of voice."  To which she SCREAMED at the top of her lungs "That wasn't yelling.  THIS IS YELLING.  Whenever you don't like what I say, you ....blah, blah, blah." 

Clearly, she was having a bad morning, but I so did not deserve that response.  I am sensitive to yelling, and she knows that.  When I said to her a few minutes later, "You know I don't like yelling.  And when I said I didn't deserve to be spoken to in that tone of voice, you responded by screaming at me.  I didn't deserve that.  If I tell you if feels like you are yelling at me, then you should honor that, not reply by yelling louder!"  To which she replied (loudly) "I was trying to SHOW you what yelling really is."  Sigh.

Clearly, what I initially said to her caused her to escalate.  So, my question is - what might I have said instead when it felt TO ME that she was "yelling" at me that might have allowed her to hear it without responding by yelling even louder?  Or do I just need to suck it up and not be so sensitive?

To start off with, I love someone who deserves someone functional and want to be that person.  He's fairly successful but I've never had a job for more than two months in my entire life.  I've got dyspraxia (sometimes known as NLD in America), ADHD, joint hypermobility and dyscalculia. When I first started work I often lasted just one day when I started a new job.  Over the years I've tried retail work, care work in an elderly people's home, food preparation, bar work, data entry, cleaning, administration and a voluntary graphic design job to see if I could do that.  I've tried unpaid work placements, courses and volunteering to see if it would be possible to get enough experience but it's always been the same, I'm told I haven't picked up the skills quickly enough and to a high enough standard. 

I'm now working in a clinic as a self employed massage therapist.  I don't seem to have any intolerance of work other people might find boring, I because so many simple skills are complicated to me they actually become quite interesting.  For instance (if you can believe this) I actually enjoy cleaning.  The problem is picking up skills doing tasks quickly and accurately enough, organisation and planning.  I was always told it was because it was because of 'motor sequencing' (getting physical actions in the right order) but suspected it was attention.  After years of nagging at doctors I found there were things I could do to help myself, thanks to this site so thank you! 

After a two year wait I've been prescribed ritalin and have a coach, the techniques and different brain chemistry seem to have been helpful so far.  In Britain this is all new but now it's been recognised by the National Health service which means now (as in Holland and Canada) people at the bottom of society can access medication and counselling.  If you've been told you're a helpless little thing but there, there, live on welfare forever it's great to find there's something you can do about it.  I always thought it's much better for something to be in your hands or even your fault than to be an innocent victim who can't do anything about it.   To a certain extent it was the view of some professionals I saw here, and it may be more humane to accept someone has limitations on one level but on another it's very inhumane because it limits the aspirations of that disabled person to improve. 

But how much expectation is realistic?  I avoided relationships for years so as to never subject anyone to my problems but met my now boyfriend a year ago.  He lives a long way away and we'd like to move things forward and spend more time together.  I'd love us to be together long term- for life but sometimes wonder if even now I'm being fair even being with him and giving him a hope of a future if it all falls through and I don't manage to keep a full time job.  We both hope, but will I succeed?  Only time will tell.  I could never just abandon him unless he wanted me to go but I don't want to lead him up the garden path.  I've been as honest as possible over my condition with him but he still probably doesn't really understand just how challenging I could be to live with.  I don't think that's possible till you experience it.  I was jittery and on my last hour of ritalin when I wrote the title to this, but the real question I have now is am I being fair?

I am new to this site, but what an eye opener it has been!

Non ADD wife married to an inattentive ADD husband, and we have kids.  Though, he has a very successful career and has had the same job (though several promotions) with the same employer since he graduated college (with straight As) 13 years ago.

Has it "together" at work, but comes home and simply doesn't engage.  Not present.  Spends time while I am preparing dinner with his face in his iPhone, or at the laptop working.  Stares off during dinner with 4 kids at the table.  "dad.  dad.  dad." Nothing.  Well over half the time, I have to speak loudly and say "your children are speaking to you, please respond".  When I ask him to do something around the house, he responds that he just wants to relax because he works so hard, or that he doesn't want to, or asks why can't I do it.  Or he tells the me the teenagers should do it.  So, we all have chores and he really doesn't., and least nothing consistent or that is "his".  If he gets to something, its after I have heard 5 "in a minutes".  As soon as dinner is done when I cook, he dishes himself up, sits down and starts eating.  I am always the last to sit down because I am getting the little kids food and drink and whatnot situated.  If he knows I am exasperated, he WILL dish up the kids, but acts put out.  If I ask him to stop taking care of himself, and to please help, he will say "when I cook, I am always the last to sit down, so whats the difference".  The difference is, the only time that happens is when he dishes me up my food and requests me to sit down.

Been to marriage counseling twice.  It didn't stick.  Had no idea until I saw this site, that his ADD affected our marriage.  I just thought he was insensitive or bored with being married and having a family.  We seem to be the most uninteresting thing in his life, much of the time.  He is passive-aggressive, he "jokes" his insults and then tells me I am too sensitive when I state I am offended.

If he starts something, it isn't to completion, unless it is something he really wants to do.  If he has invited company over and we start to clean up, he will head to the garage to "rearrange it", which makes no sense because we won't BE in the garage.  Then, at times, all of a sudden he is up, cleaning, doing chore and after chore (many are not the ones that need to get done for the immediate need) and I am incredibly grateful and thank him (he needs constant back pats, like I read most ADDs need). But then NOTHING, no help around the house for 2 months because afte rall, he DID so much that one time.

I cook weeknights, I do dishes (or a teen does them).  He cooks weekends, I do dishes.  I wash ALL laundry, but everyone is responsible for folding their own and putting it away.  He just heaps his up, sometimes for 2 months before putting anything away.  He will do things like clean the shower twice a year, after me pushing for 6 months first (I physically cannot do it because of my back).  I deal with care maintenance, both his and mine.  I pay the bills.  Every big once in a while he will want to check the checking account online and will ask me for the password (which has been the same for 8 years), but then it is just to complain that we never have enough money.  Then he will spent 3 hours online "researching" a weekend get away for us, after just stating we are "broke".

His habits create physical dangers around the house.  He will snack on crackers and cheese (usually while I am watching a show, which he interrupts with LOUD scarfing of said snack) and leave the KNIFE on his nightstand, within total reach of the little kids.  If he takes a tool from the garage (which takes a long time to find, as nothing is ever put back in its place, so he is constantly searching), he leaves it right where he used it, in reach of children.  He "sheds" every item he brings into the house EVERY SINGLE NIGHT. Jacket here, scarf there, laptop bag over there, keys on counter, belt over a chair and shoes either right where he walks out of them (ALWAYS in the way) or on my side of the bed.  Both pregnancies I tripped over his shoes, once down the stairs.  8 years and still not a single effort to stop this.  His side of the bed is so piled with shoes and dirty laundry, that he has to get into bed through the foot of it.  Every single morning he is frantically searching for belt, wallet, keys.  

Always late.  ALWAYS LATE.  He will tell me he will be home at X time, and text me 30 minutes to an hour after X time to tell me he is leaving.  Then, I usually receive another text 15 minutes later "ok, really leaving", and always blame it on others taking up his time and making it impossible for him to leave. One time he told me that no matter what, if a parent comes in to talk to him, even if he is walking out the door to come home, he will NOT turn them away and he will NOT let me know he will be late.  Its his job, and I simply have to accept it.  I usually try and meal plan, shopping once in the week and then having everything I need so he doesn't need to stop at the store, but lately we have been so busy with the kids schedules and a new diet (which, for the very first time since we have been together, he stuck with for 30 days) it hasn't been happening.  So, he will be an hour to an hour and a half late leaving, then go to the store to pick up what HE WANTED for dinner, then complain the moment he walks in the door that now he has to wait for dinner to be made (because he wants to eat as soon as he walks in the door).

Because of the general time frame he leaves work, I ask him to pick up the teenager from practice.  The very MOMENT he arrives, if he does not see my son, he will immediately text me a barrage of "I don't see him, he isn't out here, he is making me wait, I am leaving if I don't see him in 30 seconds", etc... while I am trying to prepare dinner so it is ready when they walk in the door.  I have tried to nip this in the bud, telling him I am busy preparing dinner and that he needs to work this out with our son, not complain to me the entire time he is waiting. He CANNOT stand to be "disrespected" by waiting for one of the kids, or myself, but yet he leaves us waiting 3-4 nights a week, without fail.

Double Standards.  I am his mother.  He plays the role of child.  Though he has pretty high expectations for the teenagers, he does not have them for himself.  He expects them to do exactly as they are instructed, many times on the whim when HE decides, while barking the order at them, but absolutely does not hold himself to the same standards.  For him, its only when HE feels like it, if at all.  The house just is expected to run itself, and if he feels the need, or I have nagged him enough, he will pitch in, complaining along the way.  He works, I stay home. I hear that often.  If he has an idea, he will say "we need to do X", but what that always means is ME.  He has been telling me for months that WE need to trim our large dog's toenails.  I cannot do it myself, but he won't help me.

When he borrows things from people, he doesn't return them until they are asking for them back.  He will hang onto things for a year or two, and they always come around, asking to have the items back.  Though, you best not EVER do that to him. If he loans you something, he will judge you for not returning it promptly.

I have gone the route of letting his laundry sit, get piled up.  We build a large custom home 6 years ago, and it is never clean.  I cannot keep up, and then I just gave up.  I only CLEAN if we are expecting company, and that company is planned well in advance.  Our bedroom should be a place of solace, relaxation and romance.  But no.  It is piled high with his mess.  Then, because I believe I am depressed, keeping even my side of the room tidy became daunting, then pointless.  It is dusty (we have a large dog that sleeps in it) and just a giant mess, at all times.  Our master bathroom is even worse, because we have a large open space that he piles his months+ worth of laundry I have washed.  His cleans his ears and leaves dirty Q tips ON MY SIDE OF THE COUNTER, in a passive aggressive way (like its my job to pick those nasty things up), trims his nails and leaves the trimmings. Shaves, leaves drippings.  All of his morning toiletries are left out all over the counter. He actually cleaned his toilet (I say his, because he has horrible aim) last week because I flat our refuse to do it, and reminded him that I refuse to touch it. It was the 2nd time he has cleaned a toilet since we built the house.  When we have company, I leave explicit instructions to our friends to NOT step foot in our room.  Ever. It is that gross. I keep the sheets clean, and thats about it.  It is pointless doing anything else, because 2 days later it looks messy.

So, like most of you, I have lowered my expectations to the point my house looks worse than it should.  Since he is in education and we have 4 kids, we really cannot afford a maid.  Or yard maintenance (we have 1/3 acre lot that looks like the eye sore of our nice neighborhood).

After Christmas, I removed all of the decorations (we have a ton, he loves Christmas time and how the house looks when I decorate).  His chore was to remove the Christmas Lights on the exterior of the house and the tree, and then remove the tree. It was a 14+ foot tree.  Also, after I had boxed up all of the decor and put it in the garage, he was supposed to put it in the attic.  He had one of those urges to clean the garage one weekend, and now it looks like he never did a thing, because all of the Christmas stuff is piled up (I can never park in the garage, as we have a boat he refuses to sell that we have NEVER ONCE USED in 8.5 years on one side, and clutter on the other).  So, this 14 foot tree wound up in our living room for 2 weeks and he never took off the lights, or removed the tree.  I ended up taking manual shears and cutting it down, branch by branch until I had what looked like a forest in my living room. I heaped branch by branch over the deck railing, down to the yard.  Then I realized, after 2 hours and a naked trunk, that it was too heavy for me to get out of the stand.  Husband came home, said "good work", but left the trunk still in the stand.  My ex husband ended up being the one to dispose of it when he stopped over to pick up the kids 2 days later.  This was the 2nd year in a row that I cut down a Christmas tree in my house.  Last wekend, he sent my son out to clean up the branches and put them in the yard debris.  The trunk is still laying in our back yard.

ETA: How I ended up finding this site last night.  It had been a long, long time since I had addressed my feelings to him, and they were starting to build up.  I let him know I was feeling distant and disconnected and uncomfortable with the increasing amount of "jabs" being thrown my way, and how short he has been with the kids.  I also once again addressed his obsession with his iPhone in the evenings, which starts the moment he walks in the door, and throughout dinner.  The night before, he spent the entire dinner texting. At the table.  He apologized for his actions, and gave me a bullet list of the things weighing on his mind. Said things would improve.  They used to improve for a couple of months. Then a month, then for a week. Now?  It won't even make it home.  Last night was a replica of the night before.  It was like I never said a word, and like he never told me he was sorry.  Three of the four kids have the stomach flu.  I haven't slept much in 3 days, and have been tending to their every need and washing a LOT of laundry.  Two nights of this, he did NOTHING to help me.  Text, emailed and then went and watched TV.  Last night, while I was trying to stay up and help one of the puking kids AND because I needed to head to the high school to pick up my teenage son when he came back from an out of town sporting event, exasperation got me googling.  And here I am.  I spent 2 hours devouring this site and just WOW.  We belong here.

When it comes to the teens, he is VERY black and white.  He believes in educating their brains, but has no concept of their emotional needs, and how that is just as an important part of their education.  He used to play a more supportive role, backing me up as their parent, but then he took over once they hit middle school (as they were students of the school he was a principal at, at the time).  Middle school was pretty ok, even though we had some emotional turmoil with my daughter when she was about 12.  We made it through.  He developed a much closer relationship with my older son (my ex husband travels and is not around much).  But man, does he harp on them something fierce about their grades.  I tend to take the approach of addressing the bad grades, setting up the expectations and coming up with a plan of action, and then regrouping to check on progress.  My husband prefers to harp on them almost daily, makes snide comments and "jokes" about their failures (his expectations are Straight As, because he has never in his life had a B).  For my son's entire freshman year, my husband called him "C Boy" (he got mostly Cs that year).  I took him out of multiple sports and let him focus on ONE sport, so he had more time to concentrate on grade improvement.  Now? He has all Bs and one A.  My husband still wants to gripe to him about how they could be better.  How he will never make it in a 4 yr university with his grades.  I am very happy with his progress, and the fact he is a good, good kid with a strong moral compass.  

My teenage daughter is finding her freshman year a huge struggle, much like her brother did last year. It is a huge transition, and she does NOT do well with transition.  We are going through a ton of issues with her right now, and it has been hard.  Both of the kids pretty much avoid my husband right now because he rarely has anything positive to say, and he is always cracking "jokes", but really they are insults. If any of us get upset, he tells us to lighten up because he was just joking.  Anyway, I now have my daughter in therapy because she has some real issues stemming from her father being pretty vacant in her life. She is a daddy's girl and she feels abandoned by him.  It is hard, and I am doing my best to get her the help she needs.  All my husband wants to do is complain about her grades. THERE IS MORE TO BEING A TEENAGER THAN A REPORT CARD. I am hypersensitive about this because of how I was raised. Only child to a work-a-holic and alcoholic father who only showed interest in harping me about my grades and how I could better at sports.  It is so frustrating to see my husband doing this to my kids. Our daughter together is in first grade and is the smartest in her class, and in the 97th % on nationwide standardized testing.  Let me tell you how "funny" I find it when he always jokes about how it is because its "his kid, and his blood".  Because, clearly, since I did not finish college and MY kids are "average".  (insert large eye roll)

Also, I have let my friendships go, because I have spent so many years in "fix my marriage" mode.  My needs have been going unmet for so long, that I just have ZERO motivation.  I don't WANT a messy house, I don't WANT to spend the day in my PJs doing chores, I don't WANT to feel so alone, I don't WANT my kids seeing how one sided marriage is.  I have tried it all, like most of you.

I need IMMEDIATE suggestions.  Sure, I could just go out with a friend and reconnect, but since he has a demanding work schedule, I have to pencil it in, and then HOPE he comes home in time to tend to the kids.  I KNOW he will spend the time I am gone stuck with his face in his phone or laptop, like every single night.  I know I need to give up that "control" aspect, but I don't want my kids being left to their vices while he ignores them.

I read a post about Finding Myself Again, and getting back to ME. Like most of you, I have completely lost who I am because I am married to another child.  My question is HOW do I approach this with him?  Do I just buy the book and give it to him?  I have bought a slew of marriage books, that still sit under a pile of dust, unread.  We have done worksheets, work books. Nothing sticks.  Actually, its a negative trigger if I present him with ANY marriage "fix it" material.

He knows he has ADD, and he may go get help. But I am tired of pushing him to MAKE A CHANGE. I cannot MAKE him make an appt.  I need something that works for me NOW, that can get me on a path to rediscovering what I used to like about myself. I used to be fun, engaging, outgoing, strong and independent.  Now I am just BORED, sad, frustrated and pissed off. I am no company to be around.

So maybe I have made excuses and maybe I have enable him and tried to save my marriage,but what can I say now I have given it 2 years and one month and it was a total waste of my effort/time.Who knows what to expect when you now meet someone and that moment presents itself and BOOM!!!!! YOU ARE IN LOVE.Head over heels in love.Some may think as they read my threads"ah,here she goes again".but I think that I reached the breaking point in my marriage.I tried to end it with him for the longest now I can remember, and now our time has come to an end.I wrote a blog on "my birthday"in 2011 on how he ruined my birthday.That same thing has come back to hunt me down.Turns out my husband is quit the cheater and manipulator,besides being a total wreck.I put up with all his abuse verbally and mentally and that physically put me down many times where I could not think straight,or work right and more.I know for a fact that I was the one holding us from falling apart.Whatever he did that was out of the ordinary I accepted,whatever he told me that was out of context I let it be.I just should not have let him cross certain lines over and over again.As time moved along he became too comfortable with his wrong doings and I stayed and just watched it happened that he just continued and continued.

Today now presently we are no longer together since last week I caught him in a cheating act and confronted him about it and ever since then he went in to hiding.The same girl he was with on the night of my birthday he tried to link up back with her and she came to me and told me everything.Shame has driven him in to hiding from me.I stopped and think to myself what a loser,I am the only fool to put up with all this non-sense and yet he betrayed me like this.I am not at all shock,I expected this,I don't think he expected it.I told him to bring my belongings I have over at his place and he would not bring them.I know that this his way of not letting go at the time but this time it just would not work.He is not taking this seriously,he can't even face me and talk about it.I really don't give a sh-t he if does not want to talk about it because really,there is nothing left to say besides goodbye.

I know that for the longest time I have been saying soo much and not doing anything to change this situation that I am in.Now I am making change and moving forward whatever he would try he no longer have me where he always wanted me,I have had it with all the games and foolish behaviors,ADHD or not,this is not the way a relationship should be.After looking back at all the situations and problems he gave me,he is not worthy of me.

lovehurts.