I am in the process of leaving a 20 year marriage to a man with substance abuse and ADHD.   He only decided to seek help after I left.. despite years of me knowing something was terribly wrong.  While he is improving I no longer want to stay in the marriage.  This has been more of a parent child relationship and I believe he needs to learn how to be on his own and take care himself through the help of his therapist.  Im finding a common thread from reading through this forum that ADHD'ers tend to be self centered and narcisstic.  Living with him made me physically ill because of the stress level of having to keep up with his lifestyle and needs.  He was a compulsive shopper and always had to have the biggest and best of everything.   So that lead to longer than normal work days for me so we would be financially secure enough to continue to support these shopping binges.  I paid for improvements to the house and for helpers to keep it up.  Its frustrating when I read how the non ADHD spouse should handle the ADHD spouse by hiring out help for things around the house.   Shouldnt part of their treatment be to take responsibility for their actions?  Why should the non ADHD spouse continue to suffer the wrath of mood swings, selective memory and when intoxicated.. abusive behaviour?  Sorry if I sound selfish.. but Im turning 45 tomorrow and have a chance at a normal life and hopefully a normal relationship someday.   I hope my spouse can make those changes so that someday he can be a partner that can contribute instead of sucking the life out of you.  Dont get me wrong.. there are times when he's been a great guy and stepped up to the plate.. but usually when it benefitted him the most for doing it.. always strings attached.. I wish him well and I wish him the best but I dont think that non ADHD spouses should have to continue to compromise their well being (physically and mentally) and cowtow to the ADHD spouse..  they should be made to step up to the plate and be accountable for their actions. 

I am so sad, frustrated, unsure right now. My husband of 1 year (together for 2 before that) and I have recently decided to separate....sort of. I know, truly I know, that I need to RUN and not look back. I have heard all of this advice from those who have lived it. I have ignored the red flags, and chose to marry this man after discovering (through this website) that undiagnosed ADHD is what has been affecting our relationship all along (and his two previous marriages I might add). Before making the final decision on marriage, I felt informed on what I was getting into and that it would be a lifelong struggle. I am a patient person. I am a "fixer" who feels like someone needed to give this loving man a chance at a good, happy relationship. I loved him enough to be that person. So, I jumped in....well, after calling off the marriage twice ;) Now, a year into it, things have been up and down, up and down, and for once I would like a stable relationship. Yet, I don't seem to be able to let go.

Things have been pretty good recently. We have started counseling with a great therapist (she's also ADHD, so I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing). Yet stupid little things set him off to such a degree that he can go from the most loving, awesome man to a cruel, spiteful person without an ounce of love in a matter of moments. He threatens divorce whenever we get into a big argument, it is ALWAYS my fault (I'm such a nag), talking things through just makes it elevate. The children (we have 5 still living with us) have gone through this roller coaster with us, and I feel horrible that we are putting them through this.

My problem is, I don't want to give up. I don't want to feel like a failure yet again. This is my second marriage. My first dragged on for 12 years, and I am almost positive that he was also ADHD. I just had NO clue. Apparently I am a glutton for punishment, and only fall for men with this condition. maybe it's because the courtship hyperfocus just blinded the heck out of me in both instances. I worry, at this point, if there are any good men out there left without ADHD. I've never known anything different. Yet, I feel I deserve more.

I know all this, and yet we both keep coming back to each other. It's like a horrible addiction that neither one of us can get out of. We go from, "Yes, we are divorcing" to "I can't live without you" within a day or two. It's driving me nuts. I just need some help and support to give me the backbone to just leave, and not look back.

I thought maybe we'd had a breakthrough tonight. My under-treated ADHD husband really seemed open to talking to me about our marital troubles. He was teary eyed and said how he was sad about our relationship and how he thought maybe I'd be better off if he were hit by a car (I energetically told him that would make me very unhappy). When I asked him some more questions about what he was sad about in particular he said it was because we weren't having sex. I asked him if he was sad because of the actual lack of sex or because of what it meant more broadly about how we felt about each other. He said both. I told him that it also made me sad, but we could have sex anytime he wanted but that he can't expect me to really enjoy it when I have so much anger and resentment built up. He said that there was no point in having sex then, because he needed me to enjoy it so he can enjoy it.

I started to feel really angry inside. Here I had been feeling all forgiving and loving toward him because he seemed genuinely upset about the state of our floundering relationship. But when I dug into it he really was just annoyed that I wasn't able to have wild, passionate sex with him. And that just made me feel angry that he is only worried about our marriage because of the physical aspects. I felt like a fool for assuming that he has been crying and upset because he was coming to the realization (he's started reading Melissa's book --after much pleading on my part) that his refusal to effectively address his ADHD symptoms was driving us into complete dysfunction. I am so angry from 5 years of acting like his servant and managing almost every aspect of our lives (I know that I'm at fault for not setting appropriate boundaries), but I thought that I was getting through to him at last.

But, nope. It seems like all that can upset him is the fact that he isn't getting the sex he wants.

I don't mean to discount his needs and the way that he prefers to give and receive love. But really, our sex life is at the bottom of the things that are driving me out of the marriage. I'm sorry, but I don't think it is possible for any woman to have uninhibited, passionate sex without feeling safe, respected, and valued by her partner. The female sexual response just doesn't work that way. Believe me, I wish I were more like a man in that way.

So, not wanting to just silently be angry, I told him what I was feeling. I told him that I was frustrated that his main concern for our marriage was that he wasn't getting the pleasure he felt he deserved in bed. Well, as you might expect, it didn't go over well with him. He said that my problem was that I discounted his needs (a valid point, I told him). Anyway, long story short,  we escalated the conversation to full scale efforts to hurt each other. And I think we both succeeded.

I'm no saint. In fact I feel like the world's biggest jerk most of the time. I hate who I've become. But I'm not going to pretend to have awesome sex in order to placate my husband who doesn't seem interested in even starting to pitch in like an adult in our marriage. I'm not trying to withhold sex in an attempt to manipulate him. I'm just not going to have sex with someone when I am furious and resentful at them. But why does THAT become the core of our problems?

Seeking any insight or advice. I'm tough enough to handle the truth if you think I'm being irrational or unfair.

Hi everyone,

Just joined the site this morning after a particularly grating interaction with my husband.  He was playing with a cat toy (like a tennis ball, but smaller) and started throwing it at me.  I was reading the news at the time, so of course I didn't catch it.  It hit my shin, which really hurt!  (I admit that I can be a wimp, but I think most would agree that a tennis ball to the shin is unpleasant.)  I told him that it hurt and tossed it off of me.  He picked the ball up and threw it at me again, saying that he was just trying to teach me to catch.  Again, it hurt, and I became visibly angry.  I asked him to stop throwing the ball at me.  He replied that he was tossing it at me, not throwing it.  To demonstrate his point, he then threw the ball across the room at the wall; it made a loud bang and ricocheted around.  Note that anything I said indicating that I would like him to stop was countered with some way to blame or dismiss me. 

He has a habit of picking on me and others in his family.  When we first got together I thought he was just playful- I've begun to feel more like he's a bully.  He says he's just playing around, but it often escalates to a point where the target has to pitch a fit to get him to stop.  He does this to his nieces and nephews & his brother, too.  He has a tendency to grab me roughly- when we first got up this morning he reached over and grabbed my leg close to my knee which was also quite painful.  Again, I might just be a wuss, but he's bigger than me.  Regardless, shouldn't he stop when I indicate that his actions are painful?  It seems like when I (or anyone else) indicates that what he's doing is bothersome, he just escalates.  It seems really gleeful, like he gets a kick out of getting a rise out of people.  He also grabs my breasts (or other locations) at random times; if our marriage were more amicable I wouldn't be so bothered by this.  I feel constantly disrespected, though, so it really bothers me when he just grabs my chest out of nowhere.  It's not done in a nice way, either- it's like he's a freaking ninja.  Please don't say that I should be flattered.  This is my body- I have a right to my space and respect. 

I know this was really just a little interaction, but I'm at my wits' end.  Is this something that others with ADHD partners have experienced?  What can I do?  We've gone to counseling but had little time for it in the past two to three months (we're both graduate students, which is a topic for another forum entirely).  He said then that he's just trying to get attention, so the counselor and I asked him to talk to me about it rather than picking on me to get a reaction.  For a while he did that, but he's back to his old ways.  I'm trying to be understanding, but I can't help feeling like he's a jerk for being this way- it's one thing to have a lot of energy, but to actually get a kick out of hitting me with things?  Seriously, what the hell?

It's not just physical, he often teases me and gives me a hard time.  Sometimes it's just playful, but often he picks on me for things we've have arguments about or things that I'm sensitive about.  I feel like certain things should be off limits; sometimes the comments really hurt.  I'll admit that I'm a pretty sensitive person; I don't think that relationships should be adversarial.  Shouldn't we be nice to one another?  Is my idea of marriage just unrealistic?  We both come from rough homes, so we don't really know what to reasonably expect from a healthy relationship.  Again, we're trying counseling, but our schedules are restrictive.  I'm looking to hear whether this is something I can attribute to the ADHD (or some other issue) or if this is a red flag.  How much "picking" can a relationship contain before it becomes unhealthy?  Am I being too sensitive or demanding?

I understand that a person with ADHD (he's diagnosed- takes Adderall during the week but not on weekends or on breaks.  Part of the issue is that his resting heart rate is really fast, even w/out the amphetamine.  Side topic: has anyone dealt with this?  Any advice?  Maybe beta blockers?) deserves understanding and a bit of slack.  My issue is that I'm not sure whether this is the ADHD or just him being a jerk.  I've been dealing with this with no one to really talk to for a while, so I've got a lot of pent up resentment.  My apologies if I sound unnecessarily snarky or harsh.  Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

J