I feel as if I have lived in my husband's warped reality for so long, that I can't even imagine another world out there.  Since my son was born nearly 3 years ago, it has become painfully obvious just how much of my attention and energy my husband was demanding of me.  I could no longer live my life as a zombie, waiting for yet another one of his needs demanding attention - such as finding his phone for the 16th time that day or identifying the butter for him.  I could no longer live having him interrupt me in anything and everything I did, because there was a baby who really needed me.

It became worse over those years.  My husband could never be bothered getting out of bed on the weekends to care for the baby while I did much needed organization and cleaning.  He wouldn't bathe our son for the first two years of his life because, my husband claimed he "didn't know how".  My husband "doesn't know how" to do most things that don't involve a computer - either working or playing at one.  He "doesn't know how" to go to bed at a reasonable hour in order to get up in the mornings. He "doesn't know how" to cook anything except hot dogs and steak.  For everything he takes on that is out of his comfort zone - which is every task inclusive of walking from room-to-room - he asks me a million questions.  He couldn't be sure if, when filling the baby's sippy cup, if there was too much milk or not enough or whether it should be warmed, and if so how much.  We're talking about a cup that cannot hold more than 4 ounces at a time.  He "doesn't know how" to put things away in our home because he can't remember where anything goes.  For this reason, he cannot pick up our son's toys (no idea where they go in our son's room), cannot put laundry away (no idea where it goes), cannot put pots away - provided he ever washes them, etc.  This is actually a vast improvement over when I first met him when he "didn't know how" to distinguish a washing machine from a dryer and "didn't know how" to turn the finally identified washing machine on.

But that wasn't all that served to solidify my feelings of abandonment.  I could not count on his parents for help when they were here. My mother-in-law "doesn't know how" to sort flatware and "doesn't know how" to change a diaper and "doesn't know how" to make a bottle of formula, despite the instructions for measurement being on the can.  She was unable to make toast in my toaster oven, because she could not figure it out. My father-in-law "doesn't know how" to do most of anything that involves going outside his own comfort zone, so he "doesn't know how" to mop a floor or "doesn't know how" to dust a surface. They can't work the straps on any baby item. They can't change my son's clothing. My mother-in-law, at least, would adjust her thought processes down to a baby's or toddler's method of play. My father-in-law "doesn't know how" to do anything with a baby or toddler except demand that he watch cartoons with him.

They're not much worse than my own mother, who is unable to find my home at all.  I am from New York City and moved to a suburb north of it. My mother, who has lived in New York City for all of her life, is unable to comprehend the area in which I live. She also "can't" locate Grand Central Terminal - despite working two blocks from it for nearly 20 years - which is where she would have to go to get a train to my town.  For my mother to come here, I have to travel to Manhattan to show her how to do it.  We're talking about finding a famous landmark and boarding a train within it.

My closest friend in this neighborhood once watched my son while I decorated for Christmas - another thing I must do alone because my husband "doesn't know how" to erect a Christmas tree.  My friend had only to play with my then 8 month old son at the time and feed him lunch.  She "didn't know how" to feed him. She had to ask me every 30 seconds if each baby spoonful of mashed plums was "too much" or "too little".  She had to ask me what to do if my son got the plums on his lips, chin or cheeks and ask me if the way she was wiping his face was the "right" way.

It seems as no surprise that I might be an ADHD/ADD magnet, since those people must find others to take care of them, and think very little of living their lives in this kind of intellectual dependence.  However, all of this has changed my perception of reality to that of a very distorted view of others.  I find myself not being able to reach out for help, such as hiring a babysitter. In my area, babysitters and nannies are 15-20 dollars per hour. All I can imagine in hiring one is dealing with someone who will ask me if they should play with my son's trains this way or that way and where are my drinking glasses again and if this water is too cold for my son, or how about now, is this water too cold?  I imagine having stand over this person, talking them through every diaper change and having to find every toy for them when it's right in their plain view. All of that spent over hours of my not doing what I needed to do and then handing her 60 dollars for the pleasure. I won't leave my son in a daycare, even if I could find one right now.  I can only imagine caretakers like my in-laws who never notice when my son wanders off or touches something dangerous. I know only my experiences when I'm at their home and I must protect my son every step of the way while they're supposedly watching him.

I won't hire a housekeeper, because despite experiences to the contrary in the past, I can only imagine one who will ask me if the wood cleaner can be used on glass and vice-versa and ask me to identify which one is the mop again.  Or one who is unable to place my flatware back in its container because they can't sort it.  Or, perhaps, like my husband does, they will need to ask me if they should move all of the chairs from the dining room floor at the same time while they mop and, if so, have me examine which spot to which they temporarily moved them.

This is what someone else's ADHD has done to me.  I have battled two viruses in the past month - this being the season for it and all.  Both times were severe enough to keep me bedridden for 4 days and 2 days, respectively.  Chaos reigned in the house because I was not there to direct the simplest of tasks.  I wanted to die - for emotional reasons, not a physical illness metaphor. I wanted to die because I envision that this is the rest of my life.  I fear that the whole world is loaded with people who cannot figure out how to walk somewhere or fill a glass of water, never mind ever be there when I need them. I am tormented by feelings of wanting to die, because if I did die, who would ever be there for my son. It seems that in a world of 6 billion people, there is no one but me who is able to do it.  That makes no logical sense, of course, but it is the way I see the world now.

When I leave my husband, I will not ever become involved with anyone ever again. I can only picture now that all men are like this, demanding an intellectual subsidy that is beyond reason; unable to even wake themselves up in the morning without repeated aid.  I don't want friends, because I can only picture that they are all need and no support.  I don't want family members near me, because I cannot spend much more energy directing them how to use a toaster oven.

I just don't know how I'm going to be able to survive the years of my son's reasonable dependence without sinking into an abyss of despair from which I may never emerge.

I don't know why I even wrote this.  I guess because I have nowhere else to turn for listening except the people on this board who are among the few hundred individuals on the whole planet who are able to use a toaster oven with ease, but who find themselves also having to carry their portion of the incompetent people out there.

Thanks for reading.

When my husband and I first met, we were both rowing down the stream in our own tiny rowboats.  We fell in love and he jumped in my rowboat so that we could row together.   Sometimes we disagreed on the direction we were going or exactly how to row, but overall we were happy. Then we found a bigger boat, but it needed a little work.  So he jumped in the new boat and started working on it while I towed him.  Eventually, I left my small boat and joined him in his bigger boat.  And away we went!

Sometimes he would paddle faster than I paddled.  Sometimes I paddled faster than he.  Sometimes he would just stop paddling, and I would paddle alone for a while.  Then I would yell at him, and he would start paddling again.   There were many times when he would put his paddle in the water and just hold it there as if to deliberately slow us down.  Then he started falling in the water, and I would pull him back in the boat.

One day, he stopped paddling altogether.  I kept paddling for both of us for a long time, but I was getting tired.  Finally, I told him he either had to help or get his own boat.  So he shopped for another boat, but couldn’t find one that worked for him.  Then we saw a nice, shiny powerboat, but it needed a bit of work.  So again I towed him while he worked on his powerboat.  I would even help him work on it.  In the meantime, our old rowboat was springing leaks. We got the powerboat running just before the rowboat sank.  We both jumped in the powerboat and took off.  I was thrilled because I was exhausted from paddling for both of us for so long.

He was proud to be the captain of his own powerboat, but he would not watch where he was going. He would run into rocks, and we would have to repair the boat. Then one day I got sick.  He became even more reckless and hit many rocks.  He tried to patch the boat on his own, but the boat kept leaking.  I was too sick to notice or to help.

He was very proud of his new boat, and he became self-centered and egotistical and oblivious to the people around him.  His boat was the biggest and fastest.  If others were in his way, he would just run over them.  But sometimes he would stop to help a stranded boater (especially a female). And people saw his good deed and his powerboat and thought he was great, good, and powerful (except those who he ran over). And the females wanted to ride in his powerboat.  He was pleased that he was so desirable.  But he still kept falling in the water, and I kept pulling him out.  Until one day, I was too weak from my sickness to pull him out.

He tried to pull himself out of the water, but he got distracted by the mermaids in the water.  One time when he was under water, he noticed there was a big chest of gold at the bottom, but it was guarded by the Old Man of the Sea, who was very old and very ill.   I threw him a life saver which kept him afloat but he kept going under the water.  By now, our powerboat had so many holes in it that it started sinking.  I grabbed the other life saver and jumped in the water after him.  When he would go under the water, I kept trying to pull him back up to his life saver.  It was then that I noticed that he had a huge anchor attached to him.  That was why he kept falling in the water.  Eventually, he started pushing me away when I would try to pull him up because he wanted chase the mermaids and wanted the gold all to himself.  I found myself drowning from trying to save him…and he didn’t want to be saved.  I surfaced, grabbed my life saver, and drifted away from him, crying all of the way.

Eventually the Old Man died and my husband got his gold.  But he is still under water.  He throws the gold in the air to attract the mermaids.  But he now thinks he controls everyone because he has the gold and was a captain of a powerboat. Sometimes he throws the gold up to the surface to attract some friends.  But the mermaids and friends must do what he wants them to do, or he pushes them away for new mermaids and new friends who are attracted to the gold and his stories of the powerboat.

I drifted for a while on my life saver.  Then, I found a raft that had the helping hand of God on it.  I am sad to have lost the love (or the illusion of love) of my husband.  I am sad that I can no longer give my love to my husband and I can no longer pull him out of the water because of the anchor attached to him.  But I have a raft and paddles and I know I can go on.  If the man I married ever needs help with his anchor, I would be more than happy to help him.  But I won’t let him pull me under the water again.

                                                                               ----Jeannie

Has anyone else lost the esteem of those around them for standing by their loved one with ADHD through the years?  I'm finally divorcing my husband after a rocky 10-year relationship and it's cost me more than I want to admit.  I've read a lot of the posts on here but haven't seen people discuss much about how others in their life have viewed the relationship so I'd like to share my story and would love to know if others have gone through something similar - and if so, how did you deal with it? 

Ten years ago, a senior in college, I fell in love with a foreigner who'd come to the US to study seven years prior. He was out of status at that point but was getting by as a salesman at a friend's shop.  When we met, it was fireworks, true love at first sight for both of us. Chemistry, emotional connection, shared values, everything.  We were madly in love.
Then there were things he was hiding that started coming to light. The terrible temper (aimed at others at first, but eventually me too), the impulsivity, the social faux-pas, constantly getting in fights with friends/coworkers/family/me, never showing up to court for a dozen speeding tickets, losing job after job after job, the passive-aggressive behaviors that protected him from failure by setting the bar very low, fighting like a six-year-old, failure to pull his weight in handling responsibilities, mental/emotional/financial dependence, addictions (marijuana, porn)... and on and on... It was so exhausting trying to solve all the problems that kept "coming up" somehow.

All this emerged over about five years. That was when I learned what ADHD was and it all fit together, especially in light of his typical behaviors in childhood.  Unfortunately, where he grew up, people didn't know what the problem was so he was teased, picked on, called crazy - which made him extremely defensive. So while he admitted an ADHD diagnosis sounded probable, he'd swing back and forth between wanting treatment and denying anything was wrong because of the stigma.  I didn't want to turn my back on him thinking if he got treated things could be okay - but we couldn't afford to treat him unless he was working, and he couldn't get stable work unless he had his legal status sorted out...

So finally we hit a brick wall after exhausting all the cut-rate counsellors and self-help books. We couldn't be sure if our problems were because of ADHD, the pressures of his legal status, or just who he was, so we took a risk and married discreetly to get him his green card and try these solutions.  Unfortunately, the government tried to deport him. I had to go to court for two years to keep him here. During that period I found out he had been seeing another woman behind my back for three years, and in the two weeks immediately after our marriage when we were apart (because we were moving and I went ahead of him) he looked the Other Woman up and had two weeks of marathon sex with her before coming to join me. 

I have strong principles, and they were really at war here.  I don't believe in changing people but he asked me to support him as he tried to change for me. I also don't believe in walking away from someone in a time of crisis; too bad his crisis lasted for 10 years. But I carried him over the finish line because I love him and realize there is something he can't control without meds he hasn't been able to get yet, and his legal status limited his options to deal with the situation in any other way.But I've  had it now - he's still not being honest or open enough and now seems oddly under-committed after everything I've done for him (this being a guy who proposed marriage after 3 months of dating).

This relationship not only broke my heart, it destroyed who I was. My faith, my principles and values, my optimism... my self-discipline... my self-esteem... my financial, emotional and mental security... and especially my reputation. I used to be known as the level-headed, strong, smart, compassionate one who was bound to achieve great heights, and now because stress from this situation has boiled over into every other aspect of my life, people think I'm unstable, neurotic and weak.  My family, friends and colleagues have seen me power through to fix this situation but they just think he's a loser, a jerk, mentally retarded, lazy, and anything else you want to label someone with ADHD as being.  So I am by extension an idiot, naive, blind, etc etc. Everything but strong, loving, caring, patient, tolerant, understanding.  Two counselors have confirmed the ADHD diagnosis so it's not in my head. The guy does have a good heart but his life is total chaos and he has some really terrible coping mechanisms and terrible impulsivity. But he's aching to be a good person; he prays regularly, cries with frustration when he talks about trying to achieve his goals... it's heartbreaking.  Why he had to bite the hand that feeds him is what I don't understand. 

So I'm starting over now. I have to lose everything I worked for, and face everything else I lost along the way. I feel like my entire life needs to be rebuilt from scratch, starting with my own mental/emotional well-being, my character and my reputation.  I'll get there eventually.  I'm so relieved to find this site. I'm glad I'm not nuts and I'm not alone. 

Has anyone else lost the esteem of those around them for standing by their loved one with ADHD through the years?

I've written before, frustrated, venting, but all of that was before 18 Dec when I found out he may have fathered another child when I was 8 months pregnant. He was freaking out before the baby came, scared out of his mind, not working and maybe even a little manic/hypomanic. The last year of craziness makes a lot of sense to me now that i know he knew about this and hid it from me from Feb 09 to Dec 09, all while becoming a first time dad. (and btw - he's a great, great dad to our daughter). However, he also had an emotional affair in the first year of our marriage when he was hypersexual and thinking that because I wasn't, I didn't desire him or love him enough. We've been together six years, married four. Had some counseling after the EA, but since he was not yet diagnosed, things only "seemed" to get better.

This latest affair was the straw on the camel's back for me, a back loaded with painful burdens of disorganization, chaos, lack of income, blaming everyone else for his failures including a failed business, his drinking and driving, compulsive spending, all while I was supporting him financially and emotionally. The news came just as I was growing comfortable with the idea of supporting him through some treatment and recovery, adapting my lifestyle to accomodate his ADHD needs and changing my expectations. When the news of the affair came, I calmly made him move out so I could have some time to think and get control of my anger and resentment. I also needed to see him take steps to make his and our life better, including counseling, handling his own money, getting to work on time by himself, and working a job even when it isn't always fun.

He is so remorseful, and so in love with me and our daughter. He is trying as hard as anyone could to make everything right. My biggest concern is that he's obviously pretty overwhelmed, and continues to lose important things, admits to not yet being able to handle money or scheduling very well, and as of yet, has not had a single appointment with a psychiatrist or psychologist. He wants to badly, I can see it, but he forgets or is apprehensive, or both. He went through exhaustive testing and came through severely ADHD, possibly BiPolar I (although I think II is more likely if BiPolar disorder is an issue). They provided him his results, accompanied by a list of doctors at the clinic for him to see...which he promptly lost. I find myself, as the caring friend first, ultimatum-producing-betrayed-spouse-and-mom second, reminding him that he isn't going to be able to fix this on his own, and that treatment has to be a priority. He "gets it" but doesn't seem to be getting it done. He's also supposed to arrange couples counseling and let me know when we can start. It's been two months since I found out about the affair. It may seem like I expect a lot from an untreated ADHDer, but I really thought he'd be on medication and in treatment by now, which might help him organize and accomplish some other things.

I'm scared for him. And for us. I'm left wondering if I'll ever get over the resentment, if anything will ever really change, or if I will be angry, frustrated and afraid for most of my marriage should I choose to stay. How much are we really supposed to deal with? How much do we help? If I didn't have a daughter with him, I think I would leave him, even loving him still, just from the exhaustion of it all. I'm finally able to put him in the "sink or swim" situation, living on his own, and it's freed me up to see that, while I'm nowhere near perfect, my life (and daughters) is calmer without his chaos. But I don't want to be with anyone else either. I feel like I get to choose between a rock and hard place, sadness with him, or sadness alone?

Any encouragement? Help? Advice?