Finding this site today has given me some relief. I am currently undiagnosed in the process of going to a new doctor this week to see what can be done. My brother and father both are diagnosed with ADD. My parents divorced when I was two and my mother always thought I was strong enough to take care of myself and put all of her time and effort into my brother. I experienced many symptoms of ADD as a child and teenager but it was always just brushed off as "being a teen" and so on. I never really developed coping mechanisms or just had the comfort of someone being there for me. I met my fiance' my senior year of college. We have been together for about 3.5 years now and it has been a roller coaster. I was really trying to work on myself around the time we met: building confidence, being self sufficient, trying to work on my issues (which at the time I hadn't suspected were those of ADD). 

Reading all of these posts I see word for word things I have been dealing with and things that I have been doing that I didn't understand that have steadily been tearing apart my relationship. My fiance' is a very intelligent, very logical, straight to the point person. I relate to everyone that I have seen on here that has trouble focusing and even answering a yes or no question. Sometimes even understanding what I am being asked even if it is something extremely simple. It is often that hours later I understand what was being asked and that I knew the answer and beat myself up for not being able to answer. I also have a problem where my mind starts racing and I can't get everything straight so I will impulsively lie so that I get an answer out. Even if right afterwards I realize what I have just said is completely false. It is not that I am intentionally trying to hide things or hurt him, but it comes off that way and builds anger and resentment. I also find that in a lot of situations I get extremely defensive, emotional, and it has become quite common for me to backtrack and say "oh, well that isn't what I meant". He says that often times he feels that he now has to walk on eggshells with me and hates bringing things up to me or having a conversation because I either break down, freak out or just completely shut down. 

He says it often times comes off as I don't care and that I am very irresponsible. It is very hard for me to complete normal, mundane tasks. Even things such as laundry, cleaning, or even running to the grocery store. Listening is also an issue for me. It isnt that I dont care, it is just so hard for me to stay focused a lot of the time. I really do love him, an interested in our lives, and want to move forward in a positive way. Keeping a job for me has been difficult, I haven't been able to keep one and be a reliable financial contributor. I get so lost and confused sometimes and the simplest things turn into the largest tasks to me. 

All of this has been causing me a lot of anger, depression, and anxiety. It always seems like it is something and whenever I take one step forward I take a hundred back. After three years of dealing with this my fiance is at the end of his patience. He is always trying to help and put things in front of me or ask me what he can do to help. and I in turn argue for no reason, become irritable, cause him stress, anger and resentment. It is really hard for me to have a conversation with him. I really do feel so much guilt for things I have done, pain I have caused, promises i have broken. I am so incredibly sorry and want to move forward. I just feel so hopeless and at a loss. I often times wish I could just take it all back and make it go away and magically fix myself. I wish I didnt dump everything on him. There are so many positive directions that this could go and I could turn it into. I just start thinking about it and get so overwhelmed that I cant figure out what to do. What the baby steps even are. 

Can someone tell me why some people just refer to their diagnosis as ADD while others refer to it as ADHD.  I've always thought that the hyperactivity is always a part of it even if it doesn't show physically.  One of the reasons ADHD has the symptoms that it does is because the brain is "hyper"...right?

I hate to post all the things that are going on around here because if I did everyone (and not just the AD/HD mates would be telling me that my husband is a rock star to still be on his feet).  It is true there has been a heck of a lot of crap....death, leaking water heater that caused a mold issue and required part of our wood floor to be removed, an acrimonious divorce in his family that seems to be pulling his parents into the drama who in turn are relying on him to support them, 10 days of company, and a heavy work schedule because this time of year is prime work time in his field.....all since the last week of January!??!   He definitely deserves some recovery time and I want to be sure he gets it but as we've been discussing how to help him get what he needs, I've come to realization that my impatience with it stems at least partly from the issue that is frequently needing *recovery time* from anything additional and out of the regular routine.  

I know it isn't fair to compare, but many of these things affect me more immediately and directly than they affect him and give me 1/2 a day or even a full day to recover and I am good, bring on our life. So I do tend to get impatient with his slow, plodding sense of recovery which looks a LOT like burying his head in computer games and checking out completely, when several things hit at once his attitude is a little like he is living for his cave times and I can start feeling very left out.  We seriously have a GOOD LIFE together and in general, so I don't get the escapism.  I just don't GET it, and I think that is a big part of the problem.

Plus when we have company and other issues, I really try hard to do as much to minimize the load on him.  Part of the company was his parents....he has to be loaded there, but it was a nice visit.  After that we had my brother's 3 kids for a week because we get them every year when the parents go on vacation.......We love them and having them, & I definitely took a huge lead there though he was naturally pretty involved with them too.

The problem is he gets all needy for his man cave time, and after what seems (to me) to be endless patience, I break and get snippy over something stupid.....tonight it was feeling "disrespected" by him not discussing a fairly small business decision w/o me....... simply because I start feeling a bit disconnected.  We are generally very connected, but at times like this our time together he seems to want to spend snuggling on the couch watching TV, which I think I have been clear about my opinion about that..... only good in SMALL doses. 

But I do it & even enjoy it for an hour or so, but it seems he can do it ENDLESSLY.  One night this weekend we had the whole evening together at home and honestly I thought it was time for some intimate connection, but I didn't want to pressure him and just see what happened naturally.  We had a nice evening together, but I finally broke when he started the 4th show in row of some new series he'd rented.

I MEAN WHO THINKS HIS WIFE WANTS TO WATCH 4 EPISODES of some new show that she doesn't really care about to start with and is only watching for you?!!?  I lost my temper with him.  He lost his back and we eventually both apologized, but it doesn't help reconnect when it seems like he has nothing to offer cause it is all given to ppl and things outside of us.  Sometimes that has to happen...water heaters break, family members cause stress, ppl visit, work sometimes sucks, how does he learn to plug himself back in without it coming to a fight first?

If you have dealt with this issue and have suggestions for us, I'd appreciate them.  He needs better coping habits in general I think......not just cause he is overwhelmed right now because anyone would be.  It is just that we can't control how obnoxious family members might be choosing to be, and if said behavior affects his parents negatively, I understand why he wants to help because if it was my family, I would want to help.  But part of my helping would be a 'come to Jesus' talk with the offender, which is NOT how it works in his family.  So basically they stress me out and I can't really offer what I consider to the be solution without them looking at me with the "we don't do that look/tone/etc"  So they stress me out just in general cause I am not big on whining endlessly while doing nothing about the problem.  This is what they do, and then he puts it entirely out of his mind......umm ok if that is how you roll, but don't expect me to handle it that way.

Needless to say, we've been extra busy, and the life we've set up for ourselves starts out fairly busy to start with; so crazy-busy can be hit with very little extra added.  PLEASE understand that I sympathize, and I understand that even without ADD, the majority of ppl may well need more recovery time than me.  I don't expect him to be the same, but I'd like a plan so that he isn't recovering SO REGULARLY. 

My idea is to slow things down & just accept less extra, but he keeps agreeing to everything....now in addition to an extra probably 10 hours he added to his schedule this Saturday, his parents are begging for another visit b4 the end of the month (WE WERE JUST THERE! but the drama is too much and they want help putting their house on the market) and they are 4 hours away, and he feels that he, at least, should go because they really do need him.  I am not sure.

Extra work we have little choice as far as doing because that is what you do in this season if you want to keep your job.  Our volunteer work is very very busy this time of year also.  It is just like a Perfect Storm of chaos, which while worse than normal, still are the kinds of things that come up and make him feel overwhelmed.

How do you deal with your overwhelm so that you stay plugged in and connected with your mate, especially romantically, when life happens??

There is always so much when it comes to finances. We have both improved dramatically in the realm of finances since we started dating. That said, I wasn't that great to begin with and DHs version of controlling his finances was not to have any. The only bills he had when I met him was his car insurance and phone. He lived in the barracks and bought his car outright. He spent every dime he had every paycheck but took the attitude that it didn't matter because he didn't have any bills (or thoughts about the future.)

I was in financial distress for other reasons, mainly having student loans for 5 years of school with no degree in a field you have to have a degree to get hired into.

Since then we have paid off almost all the debt I came into the relationship with, invested in many of the creature comforts we lacked at the time (like couches and furniture.) And even put on a decent wedding last year. However, we still lack a savings because I have been hyper focused on paying off the debt so that if I get out of the  military, I can get by on very little. (He is now out of the service and using his GI Bill towards school.) 

So now, we are looking at buying a house, because its cheaper than renting and we intend on staying in the area for ten years or so. Thanks to the VA loans we don't need a down payment. And after taxes this year we have been able to start saving around 500$ a month. (Granted the one month since we have received them it hasn't stuck because we have to pay registration and renewal fees for both cars during my birthday month.)

Anyway, where we are right now isn't bad. We have enough for all our bills. We have decided to keep our finances mostly separate because he has had gambling problems in the past and we both agreed that would be best. But I am begining to feel extremely frustrated with his inability to manage the few small bills he is in charge of with his monthly GI Bill stipend. We recently hit the last straw in my mind and he is now making a mad effort to curb my wrath, I guess. But the thing is I feel like he is treating my comments like an attack and that he is very dismissive. There are only a handful of topics that he reacts to this way, finances when there's something wrong, taxes always, and his due dates for homework. Usually he is very receptive... though naturally forgetful. 

I guess my biggest dilemma right now with it is that I told him last time that a bill didn't get paid on time that he only had one more chance before I took over his finances. Well, this would presumably be his last chance. But I also feel like he is genuinely scared and I can see him putting in the effort to improve right now. Having a two year old where you are constantly thinking about follow through and the impact your promised actions vs your actual actions have make me hesitant to not follow through with taking over his finances. But you know... he's not a two year old. And I feel like if he can show me that he has finally gotten all his accounts on mint.com and written down his due dates, and just sat down and spelled out on paper what his actual budget is each month...

I don't know. I want him to be able to take care of things but the problem that came up was the only account in both our names, our best buy card that we got for him to build up his credit, and its worked. But he had a small balance on it and thought it was zero like two months ago and didn't pay it... well, since I was checking credit and all the rest because we are buying a house... I saw it and just said to him in passing that there was a balance on it and he should take care of that. Well two weeks later I checked again and now it was at 50$. So, I brought it up to him more firmly saying that it was in both our names and either he needed to pay it or let me know if he didnt have enough so I could. Well he said he had checked it. So I didn't think about it for a little bit until last night. I asked him if he had taken care of it and he spouted some nonsense so I asked him to bring the computer over so we could log in and look at it. The balance was at 87$. I looked at it and the previous statements and it was literally all late fees from the past few months. I felt sick to my stomach because I have worked so hard to pull my credit back up from where it was and all I could think about was how now I was going to have this late mark on my credit again. Then I felt incredibly angry that I couldn't depend on him to manage this simple thing.

The conversation went worse than nowhere. Everything I said was combated rather than acknowledged. He got defensive about every damn thing. And wanted to explain it all away. Like 'oh well.. this bill is weird and the late fees and..." But it was all nonsense. The bill is due on the 5th every month. Its the easiest bill in the world. If its not paid on the 5th you get a late fee. No confusion. If he had written the due dates down like I had asked... If he had just done any of the checking I had asked.

So... you know its a small bill. Its taken care of. Its easy to recover from. But the problem is deeper than the debt in this case. I need to be able to be more involved in his finances but I still don't want to take them over. And anymore its not even an "I shouldn't have to" problem as much as I worry about if something happened to me and he was in charge of taking care of our daughter and himself. He needs to be capable enough to handle the family finances. 
 

I get that there is a learning curve with finances. And this is true even without the challenges of ADHD. Im feeling very hurt right now and I just want to be able to trust him and rely on him to hold up his porton of our responsibilities. I want to feel like the lives we want are a possibility and that I am not doomed to a life in the military because my husband can't get/hold a job or manage his finances. And you know the worst part is his response when we talk because he gets so defeatist. He says, "I will just quit school and get a job." But that doesn't solve the problem. The problem isn't a lack of money its the management of it. And in my eyes anyway, he needs to finish school to open up the jobs that will work with his skills. Without school I don't know that he will ever do more than fast food or unskilled labor type jobs. This is why we are making the sacrifices we are right now. Why I am ok in a job that doesn't satisfy me. Because we are accomplishing our goals as a family. 

I guess I mainly wanted to vent. But I am curious about those of you that have had success, and can maintain some positivity, what sort of time frames you think are appropriate for situations like these. How long do I give him to resolve the main issues before completely taking over his finances? I seriously don't want any of the negative "just leave him. Itll never work, never change, never satisfy" comments though. I know things will always be difficult but even in the time I have been with him we have both grown so much and he has become infinitely more responsible and capable and controlled in the last four years from where we met. I have faith that we can find a balance and that he can learn what is necessary to adapt and manage his finances satisfactorilly.