Recent forum posts (all topics)

  • Feeling shell shocked by: Anne 15 years 3 months ago

    I may be married longer than anyone on this forum - 45 yrs. I stuck it out the first half because my husband, Mike, convinced me I was "damaged" and just couldn't handle life. So, for yrs. I sought help. It didn't occur to me that my condition was due to abuse. I'm sure that was because my dad was abusive, as well.

    Early on, we had a son. He's 44 now and we haven't heard from him in yrs. Our grandchildren don't know us. My son had a crying and depressed mother and a rejecting and abusive father.

    When our son was grown, we bought a business and and it wasn't until then that I began to notice Mike's irrational behavior, poor judgement, and immaturity. Later, I was sure he must have a brain disorder and insisted on his being evaluated. He was diagnosed with ADD and severe anxiety.

    From the beginning, the business was my responsibility as he resented working. So, with mortgages, cars, and rental property, I felt there was too much at stake to walk out and lose it. Finally, with his lying, womanizing, stealing, and verbal abuse together with overwork and burnout, I was put in the hospital with depression. That was a good thing, as it opened my eyes. Funny, how much it took for me to "catch on". 

    Two things caused me to detach from him emotionally, his betraying me to our employees and his turn to homosexuality. I filed for divorce but dropped it when I saw how little I would walk away with at 60 yrs. old. One of his attorney friends met with mine so I'm sure there was a pay off. So, for financial reasons, I'm still with Mike - which is how he wants it.

    He's had a male friend for about 18 yrs. now and our relationship became platonic then. We are retired now, share the house and have no financial worries. I have several friends, take trips (not with him),  have many interests, am in good health and am active in my church. 

    If I had to describe my life with Mike, I would have to say it's been a nightmare. There have been no happy memories. I thought surely in retirement things would get better.

    But now, he plays mindgames. He will hide items of mine; wallet, glasses, dog comb, etc. and even help me look for them. Then, after days, wks. or months, they show up - right where I had looked many times before. 

    He also messes with my headlights. Especially, if he knows I'm going off at night, he will turn the automatic setting to off. Cars often blink at me to indicate my lights are off.  Then, I'll find my contact lens in a sack stuffed in a bookshelf or Xmas cards to me hidden unopened.

    I could go on and on but here is my question:  I feel emotionally spent and dazed. My mind doesn't seem to be clear. I feel overwhelmed. What do you do when your poor mind just needs to rest and will I ever stop feeling shell shocked? Annie

     

  • Seventeen Years Now by: Alison_M 15 years 3 months ago

    Dr. Ratey diagnosed my husband 17 years ago, back before many people even knew what ADHD was.  17 years later, we have bought, renovated and sold, four homes, and therefore have moved that many times. My husband left 2 lucrative jobs, opened and closed 2 of his own businesses, and has worked at a commission based job for about 2 years now (translation: no salary). Financially we are a mess.  Currently I work about 50 hours a week to keep up with bills and keep food on the table. I'm tired all the time and my relationship with my children feels not as close as it once was.  I came on this site several months ago looking for an answer, to find out what couples faced with the challenges of ADHD do to make a marriage work. I see many of you with just recent diagnoses..in the past several years, and you are all asking the same question I am after almost twenty.  This past Spring I asked my husband to get some help, to learn more about his ADHD, I encouraged him to check out this website, get on-line, read some books, find a coach, go to counseling. I asked him to find out what he could to better balance his life. I don't need to get into the day to day specifics of what it's like to live with an ADHD spouse/partner...you all know. My trash piles up for 2 to 3 months before he makes it to the dump, my house is full of unfinished projects, he's late for everything, and I remain last on his endless and ever-changing To Do list. (He never gets to me). His only solution since the early 90's has been to take a pill.  Over the summer we fought a lot. He couldn't understand why I was so angry, but my argument was the same from our conversation in the Spring...I needed him to get help. His solution was to re-do the dining room. In September when the kids went back to school, things hadn't changed between us. When he again wanted to know why I was so upset, I went over the same conversation ... the possible coaching, counseling, ANYTHING he could do to manage his own life better. This time he decided to build a shed. The last few weeks I've been talking about divorce.  I'm so sad about it, but like that wife in Driven to Distraction...I don't care. I want a life too. This past week he finally confronted things and understood that I was serious about divorce.  He said that he was going to work on getting his life together.  I felt a glimmer of hope, until I realized his idea of "working on getting his life together" was to change jobs.  I'm at a point where I am not even angry anymore. I'm very sad for this man. He is a kind and gentle soul, he is extremely intelligent, and he's a great dad, but he seems not to be able to function.  I've put myself into counseling to help me through this. And I've come to the conclusion that ADHD-ers have similar qualities to addicts, in that if they don't want to get the help they need, there is nothing you can really do for them.  I've carried him and covered for him all these years, like an enabler, but now my focus is on myself and my two children, one of whom has ADHD too.  I also know there are varying degrees of ADHD and that he is probably at the very high impairment end.  I don't think many people out there are aware just how devastating ADHD can be to a person and those around them.  I think a lot of people are under the impression that it's just a little focusing problem.  Personally, I don't even think Dr. Phil got the seriousness of it right.  Although I feel like I'm on a path to divorce, I'm still open to any suggestions. Is there anyone whose spouse also had a diagosis many years ago?  Is there a way to cope? Did I miss something? And if not, how do you deal with letting go of someone you know is going to have great difficulty fending for himself?

  • What are the odds? by: BreadBaker 15 years 3 months ago

    Once they're diagnosed, how often do ADDers "figure it out" or "man up" ("woman up"?) and take responsibility for themselves and the damage their condition has done? How often are they really aware of what they've done, apologize, and make amends? Or is it usually hopeless--do you really just have to give up and walk away?

    So much damage has been done to my life by my husband's condition, that I don't know where to begin, and even now that he's gone I'm still dealing with major repercussions. I don't think he *meant* for any of this to happen, but it happened (or is happening) all the same.

  • Partner diagnosed at 28yo... by: Vanessa 15 years 3 months ago

    Well,  I cant beleive i am actuall contributing to these forums, finally the day came(yesterday) that my partner (who I diagnosed with adhd) and i went to the psychaiartrist and after an hour and a half of conversations with him, he said...."now ADHD is very very hard to diagnose, but i must say...in this situation, you are the exception to the rule".....

    The releif that i felt was overwhelming and today we start a new day, as medication was given at the end of our session. I am looking forward to the change in my partner not only for me, but also for him, going 28years without diagnosis has created alot of problems as i am sure most of you can relate to. He is doing his 2nd last year of Mechanical Engineering at University and has been struggling to no end, with that comes anger, frustration and a heavy pot addiction and I have been bearing the brunt of it.

     

    Fingers crossed for our road to normality/a new beginning (whatever that is??)

  • ADD Husband left, despite my best attempts by: Dazed and confused 15 years 3 months ago

    My husband, 33, has just been diagnosed with a pretty severe case of ADD and probably some other issues (through SPECT analysis).  We have been struggling for 2 years, I finally had to have him leave the house Friday because he was accusing me of being an insensitive person and treating him badly and insulting my "character."   I told him that we have a lot of stress but neither one of us is a bad person.  You know where this is going.  I refuse to let him end this relationship because he overthinks.  Not until he's under some good medicine and therapy.  Anyway, he has had an appointment with an ADD "coach" for the last two weeks.  He is just beginning what seems to be an "ok" program (went to some dr in VA who "used" to be with Amen and we are here in Florida!).  He talked to the ADD coach only the 2nd time today.  I asked him to update me tonight and let me know how he was feeling, if it was the same way.  Because I'm not taking him back, ever, if he doesn't change his mind.  I can handle all ADD issues (I've read all the books by this point, thanks to the suggestions of this forum for a long time).  I can't handle my husband insulting myself as a person.  Anyway, he said to give him a couple of weeks.  We've never been apart for longer than two days without losing it.  Of course he has no job and I am stuck with everything financially, including raising the 2 children I have.  Etc.  You know the drill.  So, I'm busy, anyway, but this doesn't seem fair.  I can't wait two weeks, I'll go crazy.  I need someone to talk with about this because I begged him to let us get in front of someone who knows how to deal with ADD in a marriage, especially a case that was neglected for years and years.  He has a coach whom he talks with over the phone.  That's it.  Then he tells me to wait a couple of weeks.  This just isn't fair and my life is left hanging.  I will give him the space he needs (which again neglects me...) but I need some help.  I need someone to talk with about this because I can't do this alone and with parents/friends because they don't know ADD.  I need to talk with a professional who can help me get through this.  So, I did some research here and I'm going to have to find someone who SPECIALIZES in ADD here (largest city in Florida, you'd think I could find someone).  We went to 3 marriage counselors/pyschologists, though, so far, and they've been HORRIBLE.  Didn't address the ADD at all.  They didn't get it.

    I can't be with someone who is blaming me for his unhappiness...but is it ever going to be possible to convince him of otherwise or am I just wasting my time?  I am not an abusive person and everything I've read says the meds aren't everything...he will have to take responsibility and stop blaming me for all.  I fell madly in love with this man and had no idea he had all this, it was hidden for two years and just is finally coming out, after forever of him not dealing with it.

    I know it all sounds so familiar, but I just wondered if I am holding out hope for nothing.  And, don't you think we should be doing something instead of just "waiting" two weeks for my husband to decide how he feels about one coaching/ADD session?

    I am so at a loss.

    I have been reading these posts for months and they have helped me tremendously.  I feel all of your pain.  Just wondering what your thoughts are on this post.

    Drowning, 7 blocks from the ocean.

  • No idea by: Dreamer 15 years 3 months ago

    I have no idea what to do.  The more I am looking at this site, the more that I feel that this is what is going on in my life.  I have been with my husband for almost 16 years, and I the last 6 have been incredibly rough.   Two months ago, I left, and took the kids with me.  We had been trying to go to marriage counseling, and I found the more that we talked, the worse I felt, the more disappointed, more hurt.  I feel like I have bent over backwards to try and make the marriage work, and that I have been the only one trying.  I feel like he doesn’t get it, and that he is just someone else for me to look after.   

     

    Nothing has changed with him since I have left.  He is still carrying on as though I was there, and the sad thing is that things aren’t any different for me either.  I felt like a single parent then, and now I truly am one.  He drives me crazy because he doesn’t seem to listen even now.  I said that I would be home, or we made arrangements to drop off the girls, and he shows up early, or without notice, and I find myself getting very tense when he is around.  Another concern is that he went ahead and had a vasectomy despite my qualms about possibly wanting more children.  We had discussed it, and when I talke to him later, and ask that we wait some more, he decided that he didn't want more children and so proceeded with the procedure anyway, not thinking about my feelings or even discussing it.

     

    As other things begin to settle into a normal routine, I find that I am missing him.  I miss him as a friend; a person to hang out with, and as a lover, but that there is too much other stuff between us.  He is a huge link to my past, and the father of my girls, and I don’t want to totally cut him out, but I feel too raw still.

     

    The complication comes in that he has not received a diagnosis.  It was suggested, briefly just before our last session with the marriage counselor that he may be ADD, and he has taken off with that idea.  He has researched, and I have done some looking, but he is still waiting on paper work to get to see a psychiatrist to get evaluated. 

     

    As I continue to rediscover who I am, I keep wondering if there is something else that I should be doing for him, but then I get upset at myself because I know that I have become an enabler, and I need to stop this for my own sake.  Like others that I have read on this site, my heart is hidden, hardened, as a way to protect myself.  I am tired of being let down, frustrated, but I also don’t want to be alone.  We said our marriage vows, and I feel like he is letting his go, and that I have been living in what I thought was what I wanted.  It seems as though I was more concerned about not succumbing to the statistic, 50% of marriages fail, and so I stayed and tried, but I am so tired of carrying it alone.  

     

    I am just afraid that if I let him back in, even if/when he does eventually get a diagnosis, that I will get hurt again, and I don’t know if I can bear that.  I just don’t know what to do or think anymore.

  • Find a virtual-slapper to wake up your husband and The Reason by: Dan 15 years 3 months ago

    Hello Everyone:

    I'm a man in my early 40's, married 12 years, have two wonderful young boys (elementary school age) with my wife.  After last several years of anger, frustration of why we're both not happy, our marriage counseler finally got around to asking me something:  Dan, do you think you have ADD?  So after the usual procrastination a couple more months, I finally saw a psychologist.  I also have just been diagnosed in the last couple weeks that that I have ADHD and I'm now taking Strattera, so far just 1 week... but it's about 1 month too late, as my wife and I are now separated and planning to divorce.  Divorce is the consequence of ADHD in a marriage left undetected for years.

    It's unfortunate the many of the posts on this Website forum say that the husbands either don't accept they have ADD/ADHD or know they have it yet still don't want to get theropy or take medications.   Frankly, these married men simply need to be slapped upside their heads by another married man that also has ADHD and does accept and has seen it's affects.   Divorce is awful for two people that loved each other, got married and had wonderful children, but broke apart over the years because of an sneaky marriage disease like ADHD.

    ADHD is such a very powerful, sneaky, and vicious "disease" I call it.  It's a marriage disease, that the man having it, if he doesn't want to finally accept it and then fix it with theropy and/or meds, he is guaranteed doomed to never keep a spouse and a happy marriage.  I literally wish now I had some volunteer slapper to tell me our marriage problems was, while not 100%, is "something wrong within me, it's not her".  Now, the slapper I have, the shock in my life, is going thru a divorce.   Nobody with ADHD realizes what really matters in life, until they don't have it anymore.  Again, this is very powerful, sneaky, and vicious "disease" usually within men who are smart and strong willed and confident.  That is why we think, "hey... it can't be me."  or "this is who I am, I'm king of my world" Oh My God, how wrong we with ADHD are, somebody please slap those foolish, unwitting men with ADHD before they do more damage to their marriage and themselves (slap, figuratively of course).  They need a shock wakeup call, like separation/divorce which I'm living now.

    Men with ADHD married their wives because they love them, their wives loved them.  They are each others oxygen... without a loving companion, men with ADHD cannot grow/live or be happy, but eventually sufficate if he doesn't acknowledge and fix his ADHD.   I believe the true charactor of a man... any married man with ADD/ADHD....  is shown when he doesn't fight his spouse, but he fights his ADD/ADHD.  It's not courageous to fight a loving, generous women, it's very courageous to fight a powerful, sneaky, and vicious ADHD within one's self.  Like myself, perhaps some men need to be figuratively slapped upside the head before they finally get it.

    What's a quick example of how a man with ADHD effects a loving women in a marriage?  I cry everytime I see this music video, call "The Reason".   The couple love each other.  There is mutual love, therefore the girl in the video, put's her life on the line for her man.  My wife put her entire being into our marriage and I was the one taking love for granted and running her over.   I ran over my wife, though not knowingly because I let ADHD distract and fool me and I let ADHD put me first.  The question is will married men with ADHD realize and finally see what they are actually doing, what they are risking to lose?    This video has a happy ending... but someday, men with ADHD left untreated... the girl will NOT get up.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q30-2QpZVc

  • online video 9/23 9/24/09 by: brendab 15 years 3 months ago

    this link is to an hour long online video about ADD featuring experts like Lynn Weiss, Thom Hartmann and Ed Hallowell.  It is very good, but goes offline 9/25/09. 

    https://globalnews.ca/loving/2009300/story.html

    Brenda

  • documentary about ADD available until September 25 for online watching by: still trying 15 years 3 months ago

    I only read the transcript but will watch this tonight -- it's a documentary that aired on Canadian television last Friday about ADD, and might be a good starting point for a discussion with your partner or family or whoever!

    https://globalnews.ca/loving/2009300/story.html

  • New to ADHD, new to life by: Sunny 15 years 3 months ago

    Basically I am in need of some basic information as well as some advice from people with experiance in dealing with a spouse who has ADD. Any advice or tips you can give me will be greatly aprechiated.

    Me and my fiance are both 21 years of age. We became an item when we were 16. We met online, and we are from two different countries. He lived in America and I lived in Norway. We got engaged about 6 months ago. I moved to America from Norway summer of 2008 and started college. We have been living together since then. My fiance was talking about getting a job and eventually starting college while I was studying, but it did not happen. I could no longer study in America because of how expencive it is. I told him that I was going back to Norway to study, because there college is free and we can only focus on our rent. My fiance agreed to come and live with me in Norway and get married there. Our current situation is that we are waiting for my passport to be sent back to me ( USCIS has it, a non relevent story) so that we can travel over to Norway.

    His mentallity throughout our relationship has been that he is not good enough for me, that I should not be with him, that he is dragging me down with him, that he can't get anything right, that he is a bum, etc.

    His progress in life has been minimal, but I know how hard it is for him and I don't expect massive changes in a week or even a year. He has had progress however, but he usually doesn't keep his successes in mind for very long and he needs to be reminded, but when I do he'll find a way to turn it around and make it something negative about himself. I have had a lot of time to talk to his mother, who can see a drastic change in him. She says that from what he was like before me and him were an item to what he is like now, he has changed dramatically. I have learned so many things from her, but I still need more information about ADD.

    I want to be as prepared as I can possibly be, and I want to be there for him as much as a possibly can. He is going to need me now more than ever, because he will be in a new country with a clean slate. I allready had a taste of reality when I left Norway and came to America, and it was hard for me. This trip over to Norway will be his taste of reality and I know that it is going to be that much harder for him.

    What I am hoping to achieve is for him to find a job, to make a friend or two and to get in better shape, all od which are things that he talks about wanting to do in life, I would like to see them completed.

    He is so extremely intelligent and so loving and caring. He knows that he has ADD and he battles with it every single day. If I could see him happy it would mean everything in the world to me.

    Please let me know if you have come out of an experiance with knowledge you think would be benificial to me. If you have basic information about ADD that you would like to share that is great too.

    I'm a sponge, I will absorb all the knowledge you are willing to give me :)

    Thank you.

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