Historically any time my husband and I go out of town is is nothing but a fight fest.

The sad part is the reason we had a good trip is I resolved to not say a word unless it became a life threatening event.

The road rage, yelling at other cars, slipping off the road and driving so fast it's terrifying.

It's odd to me that he thinks all is well.

He's happiest when there is basically zero interaction and he can do exactly what he wants.

Definitely isn't the partnership that most folks consider to be a given in marriage.

I live with my undiagnosed ADD partner and have been feeling really frustrated and resentful.  We have been together for 7+ years and only in year 5 did I finally realize what the problem is when a friend a mine was telling my about his ADD wife.  I started to read more about it and am 100% sure she is ADD even though she's never been diagnosed.  I wondered if there are degrees of ADD?  Does it really matter since any diagnosis of ADD is considered severe enough to be an issue?  I've told her she's ADD.  She doesn't get mad.  Rather, she thinks I have a habit of labeling people with letters (I called her friend OCD once).

Most of my frustration and stress is due to the fact that we have been together a long time and she wants to get married but does not want to confront her ADD.  What compounds the situation is that of course all her friends and family are pressuring her and asking lots of questions.  Most of them, if not all, have no clue about her ADD and how impactful it is to our relationship.  From the their perspective, I'm a non-committal guy who has issues getting married.  She is extremely charming and attractive so they cannot understand my hesitation to get married.  From my perspective, I'm the most patient guy in the world who has been carrying load the in the relationship for years now.  I am willing to get married provided she acknowledges her problem, is serious about dealing with it, and shows some progress.

Sometimes I loose perspective on what is "normal" and just have bad her situation may be.  I feel like she is the most unorganized person in the world.  Physically and mentally disorganized.  She has the classic ADD symptoms of impulsiveness, which means there is no structure, routine, or planning in our lives.  Anytime I try to instill some routine, she will deny it.  Everything is in the moment and I am expected to accommodate every impulse.  She only ever acts on something when is urgent and I feel like we just go from putting out one fire to the next.  Everything is last minute and to make matters worse is that she doesn't drive.  So, I feel like my job is to bail her out of situations that could have been avoided.

She hasn't worked for almost four years.  While she was a student for a year and a half (graduated with honors--hyper focused!), she's been unemployed for a year and a half now.  I'm convinced I do most of the work around the house even though she's not even working.  During our seven years together, she's maybe done the laundry once.  Our apartment is in a constant of disorder.  I can't remember ever seeing her putting clean dishes away (as a small example) or helping to keep the fridge in order.  She says her contributions to the relationship are keeping it fun, exciting, and social.

What amazing is this knack she has for making total disorder out of order.  I spend so much time picking up after her just to make the situation minimally acceptable.  She was recently gone for two weeks and the place was in good order.  As soon as she got back, instant disorder.  Stuff everywhere.  Stuff just piles up everywhere.  Sometimes I take it upon myself to organize her stuff but that makes here extremely mad.  Often it's just garbage that been accumulating in places.  If it's not urgent, which organizing is never technically urgent, she just puts it off.  Any housework, chores, etc. will always be put off unless there's an urgent reason.  She hoards and constantly brings stuff into the apartment.  I get so frustrated and try to cope by counting everything and shaking my head.  I've done internet searches to find out what a normal amount of stuff is.  Just one small example, I counted twelve bottles of deodorant just in the cabinet (there's even more stashed away under the sink).  She has countless bottles of perfumes, lotions, shampoos, etc.  I didn't even mention all the purses, shoes, jackets, jeans.  She's holding on to clothes that are twenty years old.  I try to compensate by getting rid of as much of my stuff as possible, but I can only do so much.  The stuff just keeps coming in.  She brings food in the house and never consumes it, but never wants to get rid of it either.

So, on top of the disorganization and impulsiveness, she hasn't been working and lies about it to all her friends and family.  So, from the outside, people only see a very attractive, employed individual and most certainly must have her shit together.  They never see what I put up with.  By the way, I think the lying is fucked up, but she feels justified because she says isn't anyone's business whether she's employed or not.  Looking for her ADD really comes out with the tediousness of looking and applying for jobs.  Despite graduating with honors, she hates writing cover levers and fixing her resume and writing simple e-mails.  I have to hold her hand throug the entire process.  And sometimes she tells me I don't do enough to get her a job.  I do so much just so she can focus on her job only.

One more thing... we hardly ever go on vacation even though we both like to travel.  Why?  She is really incapable of planning anything--such as a vacation--and I'm tired of having to deal with the details.  One of her ways of manipulating the situation is by telling my that planning a vacation is my job.  A man is supposed to "take charge".  I hear that over-and-over.  Take charge!  Be a man!  Take care of your women!  In her world, everything is a man's job.  Crazy!  I am hardly a guy who expects her woman to cook and clean.  I'm just looking for someone to meet me half way!

So, why our we still together?  Good question.  While there's definitely resentment, she is very charming and we do get along well.  She would be a great mother and we could have a very great life together.  I keep telling myself she just needs to a few things:  1.  get a job  2.  learn to drive 3.  work on staying organized and 4. help me with doing laundry and keeping the house clean .  The first two items are black and white.  The third and fourth items are subjective but I just want to see effort and some progress.

We talked about her about being a stay-home mom, but I've made it very clear what I expect.  She says should would rather work, but getting is a job seems very difficult (and I often wonder how her ADD might be impacting her job search!).  I keep telling her that I cannot be the "breadwinner" and stay-home dad while she doesn't work.  That would be stressful and very unhealthy!  I know she thinks about leaving me, but deep down I think she knows she can't possibly live by herself and find someone like me who will compensate for her ADD.  She has always had people to lean on and the thought of having to be by herself must be frightful.

So, on days like this, I feel like my only solution is to move out.  It's so difficult though and comes with so many emotions and guilt.  She's 38 any want to have a baby.  So do I... but at what cost??

I went to a therapist, as I needed strategies to cope with my husband.  I couldn't figure out what was going on and I needed objective help.  I showed her a couple of pages from my journal and she INSTANTLY said, "He has ADHD."  Because of what my therapist said, I figured out that my teenage daughter has ADHD and my sister-in-law figured out that her daughter has ADHD (neither of us told our husbands how we 'discovered' this).  Their diagnoses were confirmed by professionals and they're on meds.  I'm still figuring out how to tell my husband that I believe he has ADHD, as he will blow and point every single finger of blame back on me.  I'm in the process of trying to find a psychiatrist that he might trust.

My husband is financially successful and from that perspective, ADHD has not impacted our lives.  Many of the stories I read about ADHD focus on how bills aren't getting paid, things are falling apart, etc.  But that's not my issue.  The huge problem I have with him is that he has a massively huge ego.  He must constantly have the attention on himself (which is the real "attention" problem in AttentionDHD, for me).  He consistently lies/embellishes to make himself look as good as possible.  I constantly find myself in shock as to how needy he is for more attention from a variety of people, because his neediness is so extreme.  He must always be the center of attention - even stealing it away from his kids - and he must always be the charmer (he believes he makes people feel good about themselves; the reality is that he's doing it for himself).  He seems to do things not for the pleasure he takes in the activity but so he can talk about it with people around him.  He's received many rare bottles of scotch from clients because they all know that he collects them.  I suppose he's fun to be around but I hate living with him (I am thankful that he's a workaholic and wish he traveled more for business).

I can't stand to be with my husband because he takes up all the air in the room and there's not enough left over for me to breathe.

I have a huge issue with people who lie.  In my opinion it sends negative, almost evil, energy into the world.

I know I am depressed.  I read that depression is anger turned inward and yes, I am furious that I married this man.  I don't remember falling in love with him and I'm shocked that I married him.  I'm a very strong woman who comes from a family of strong women - how did I do this to myself?  That being said, I do not want to leave the marriage because we have three kids and I want them to have stability through their teenage years.  My husband and I don't fight - we are very civil to each other.  My kids are really terrific and I don't want to screw them up.

Before I continue trying to fix anything, I WANT TO UNDERSTAND WHAT THE PROBLEM IS.

THIS IS MY QUESTION:  it seems to me his massive ego goes beyond just coping with ADHD as a child (I do know that the four kids in his family all had learning issues, but his mom had them tutored and they all seemed to overcome it).  His one brother has anger management issues (worse than my husband's).  But my husband is the only with with the MASSIVE EGO.  Again, it's so big that it seems to go beyond ADHD.  From other people's experiences, is this ADHD?  Or is there something else going on as well?  My initial search in trying to figure him out was "narcissism" but that seemed a little over the top because he's not evil or a sociopath.  I would appreciate anyone else's personal stories, as I think that understanding what's going on will help me move forward.  Is this really just ADHD?

I guess what I did was sacrifice myself.  I thought it was noble and needed.  I thought a person who cared made some sacrifices for those they loved. I thought that a family (or anything worth building) sometimes took some sacrificing to happen.  I still believe that. I learned about sacrifice from church, as a woman, as a worker, in literature, from models of happy families around me. I lived by the thought that I gave for the good of the bigger picture.  It was all supposed to be worth it in the end. But DH said to me after my 35 years of being a woman and a wife, "What did you ever to for me?" And I am learning how little he thinks of me.  I made many choices "for" his benefit because I was brought up in a time when the husband was the financial "bread winner" and he was to be "honored" and I believe I even said the word "obey" in my vows so long ago. I have more education than DH but I believed in supporting his career instead of mine when we were young so I could take care of the home and children. Today, I feel like a Viet Nam vet. I have scars from the time served (I was drafted by pregnancy) and I did not realize no one was appreciating it. My marriage was like a 35 year battle rather than blissful union of working together for common causes.  I was blaming myself for not being stronger.  I had been knocking myself on the head for being "codependent" in the last few years (how could I be so needy? I had been thinking.)  We didn't know any better.  I was taught to be loving and caring and supportive (good home makers, sexy wives, loving mothers). We were not taught about ADD or getting our needs met or equality or leadership. Getting MY needs met, with my background, seemed selfish to me.  But I know now that to be sane and happy and not confused and resentful, a person must listen to their own feelings and figure out what their own needs are. And feed themselves what they need to be happy and creative and functioning. How do we tell ourselves the story of what happened in our marriages with a positive ending? As humaneye said in his post, "I didn't really have a Dad, so I became my own." I am trying to re-write my "story" in my head in a positive light and I will be the one who can appreciate what I have done and accomplished over the last 35 years. I need to feel partnered and safe. I don't have someone who cares so I am becoming my own.