New Forum...and Please Verify Your Sign Up

We're glad you joined our blog and it sounds as if divorce was the right way for you to go at this point - you have been miserable for many, many years.

It is important for people reading this blog to understand that we are not advocating that people stay married, no matter what.  Rather, we are advocating that people find happiness.  The awareness that ADD can affect your marriage is quite new, and we hope to be able to give people the tools they need to determine whether or not they can find happiness with their spouse.

From what you've posted in various places on the blog it seems that you realize that you should have done a better job setting boundaries in your relationship much earlier on.  No one should sacrifice their own long-term happiness and get stomped on by an unthinking spouse.  Notice I say "long-term" here.  I also think that marriage does suggest that you will try long enough to feel good that you've approached solving your issues from a number of different ways before you give up.  You've actually tried for so long that you don't feel good about your effort - it was too long!

It is not surprising that you feel as if you are on vacation - you've had a pretty rough time of it.  But as a doctor you will also probably recognize that even though you are no longer with your spouse you have some very real anger issues that you need to work on in order to move your life forward in an emotionally healthy way.  Your ongoing relationship with your daughter is a good opportunity to learn from your mistakes in the past.  Consider ways that you can set reasonable, and loving, boundaries for her behavior, without lashing out at her and hurting her in your anger.  (It's hard for me to imagine that the conversation in which you told her you didn't want her around the house because you don't like her wasn't hurtful...perhaps next time there is a way to say that you would like to be with her and repair your relationship, but that you have certain rules that she needs to learn to live by when she is with you?)

Finally, I would be wary of "normal" vs. ADD classifications.  What is "normal"?  How about people, like me, who become clinically depressed for a while because they are struggling very hard emotionally, but then overcome their depression?  Are we normal?  What about people who are so angry they lash out at their own chlidren?  Are they normal?  What about people who do unbelievably heroic acts at the spur of the moment - are they normal?  How about a person with ADD who has it completly under control?  Is that person normal?  My point is that life - and people - have a way of changing in unexpected ways.  Trying to classify yourself as normal and the rest of your family as not normal makes it seem as if you feel you are better than they are.  You aren't better, only different.