All progress for us has stopped. I am trying so hard to accept that, as the spouse of an ADDer, I do not matter. All is about him, his meds, his needs, how I speak to him so as not to damage his self-esteem, etc. No one takes care of me. No one cares if I have to climb in and out of my car from the passenger's side because we can't afford to fix my car, and never will.

He went back to work when he got treatment and I'm grateful for that. But he can't understand that, since it hurts me to walk, I don't want to do all the housework, I don't really want to take care of all the family needs.

How does treatment address doing household tasks or being willing to share the tv? How can a pill make him remember that he's turned the burner on to melt stuck-on grease and he needs to turn it off before it burns? How can medication help him remember where he left MY GPS?

Our marriage counselors didn't think this kind of issue was worth addressing, so they "fired" us. How can we make progress in these areas? Or is that just too much to expect? Should I just keep doing everything and expecting nothing?

that most of this is miscommunication. I have this boyfriend that I put on a pedestal, or so I do in my eyes. I'm scared he's forgotten me up there. I've been uncontrollable, and in fits of terror and paranoia, I've said things I don't mean. And I've gotten him to the point where he is angry and I don't think he likes me anymore. And I want to say that I promise, how you see me, maybe alot of it is this ADD, but I promise some of it is miscommunication.

I put him on a pedestal, and I look up to him hoping he looks down at me and gifts away to me a genuine smile, the one I used to see beaming with care for me, uncontrollable, too long ago to count; now the best I receive is a controlled, forced half-smile, awkward and falliable in quickness. And I smile hard up at him anyway, genuine and hopeful, until time and dry reactions plummet me into despair, and my smile droops quivering while my eyes melt pleading for the love to come back, albeit already grieving the loss that snuck away crumb by crumb, time upon time ago, as his disbelief in me as a kind-hearted person inflates.

His eyes, that now, if I catch them for a bit when he, with exhausted annoyance, grinds out a comment or two, eminate a sour passivity, however bland, burdened, emptied of passion, dried of care, obsolete of a promise he dismissed as fiction. And in turn, my reactions turn more and more towards stark fright, pushing him away too afraid to hurt over again.

I brought this on myself without conscious awareness. His reactions are mine to blame. Now it feels like I'm in a cave collapsed rock trap, coercing through cracks in the blocked path, love that he can't see anymore and words that he doesn't hear anymore. And aren't believed anymore; he's sorting through me, am I a myth landslide or a trusted prediction of improvement.

I dance around at the bottom of his pedestal, trying to show him my ability to progress, just as readily as to fall out under, out of touch, at a glimpse of him giving up.

Well, I miss you. I miss you so much. I'm in pain missing you. I'm in so much pain missing you. Why did God put us together only for us to fall apart? That doesn't make sense. does it 

I miss you. I want to hold you. I want to see you smile. I want to make you smile. I want to wipe away the things that I did to hurt you. I want to shut off my anxiety and depression and ADD forever for you. I miss you. Ok? I miss you. And it hUrts.

Why would God put us together only for us to fall apart? I know you might despise me now, but I still miss you anyway. I cling to the times I see in my head with you smiling so bright your eyes squeeze and your nose wrinkles at the top and you’re proud and certain of me and you’re happy I see your efforts.

I’m limp now. I want to make you happy but my mind keeps catching on the fact that I may never be good enough for you to marry. I’m scared. I know I should let you go for your own good of not being hurt anymore, but every time I do, I look in the mirror and can’t see me without you. All I can see are swollen puddles of grief spilling out of my eyes lost in a dream of the times we were laughing and looking at each other before this wreck without wondering. And without fearing. When you could look at me and be so happy and content.

I miss you. I pray that you'll stop being angry at me one day. I miss you. You know how you say I'm an emotional wreck? Well all that intensity I have for bad emotions, I have even more intensity for missing you. My stomach's a black hole pit and my heart's ripped drowning into the bottom of it's infinity. Feels like the pain of drowning without ever getting to the point of passing out, over and over, consistently again. I can't catch a breath long enough to figure out how to become complacent, still, and able to do anything without being reminded of you. And looking at the picture of you on my table smiling, and feeling my body numb falling apart, emptying on the floor raggedy because the missings too deep to explore or resolve that I may not be able to see your smile everyday in my life.

Do you understand? Will you ever hear me? I know sometimes it's irrational to hear me, but maybe you can just hear me now? please?

I love you without any condition of if you love me back.

I guess that's all I came to say.

I would like to vote for more careful commenting, for example, not haphazardly stating a forum member's possible medical detail, which may in fact be false. I move fast, and I know I've made mistakes in my wording, but I do try to identify when I'm quoting someone (by using quotation marks) and when I'm writing my opinion or perception.

There are some definitely more learned individuals on this forum than I, and it's a challenge for some of us, like me, to express ourselves as effectively and to follow every post in order to prevent erroneous information being passed along. I suggest we limit our comments to include only our own experiences and/or documented studies or at least state when we can't back up a comment.

I need help figuring out how to stay positive and not remark on the negative all the time.

A common example has to do with grocery shopping - about the only chore she still does routinely (often with reminding from me, but still . . . )  Anyway, I make the shopping list, and she often doesn't get what is on the list - or gets way too much of something (e.g. strawberries which we can't possibly eat ibefore they start going bad) or not enough of something (e.g. one bunch of broccoli which won't even last one day).  I have asked her several times to buy what's on the list.  I usually put quantities as well as items.  And I have asked her NOT to get something if it's not on the list.  When I say something to her, like - honey, I didn't put strawberries on the list, she'll say - I thought you said we were out of them.  This no matter how many times I say to her - if it's not on the list, please don't get it.  (Which she always acts as if she is hearing it for the first time.)

So my question is, what do I do/say in these situations?  Do I just thank her for going to the store, and then ask her to go again the next day, or go myself the next day, to get what's needed?  Is there some way I might get her to do a better job sticking to what's on the list?  Nothing I have tried so far seems to work, including being very specific re: brand, size, quantity, etc.

Or when she does the laundry and everything comes out wrinkled because she forgets there are clothes in the dryer, doesn't hear the timer, hears the timer but ignores it, or whatever, do I just thank her for doing the laundry and then iron everything, when if I had done the laundry I wouldn't have had to iron a single item?  My solution has been to take on doing the laundry myself, but when my schedule doesn't allow me to do it and she offers to do it for me, I usually say no, rather than ending up with all wrinkled clothes.  Once she even promised me she would take the clothes right out of the dryer and when she didn't and I said somethng about the wrinkled clothes, she said there is something wrong with the washer/dryer, so I have not "let" her do my laundry since then.

Or when she tells me she will do something and then does it halfway - like clean up the kitchen after I have cooked a meal (and believe me, there's not much to clean up because I clean up after myself as I go), so that I have to go behind her, do I just say thank you and be glad she did even some of the cleanup, and then just finish cleaning myself, or do I mention that she didn't wipe the stove, put all the dishes into the dishwasher, left some things on the table, etc?