Forum topic: Successful, Motivated ADHD Husband, but Feel Alone

I don't know how old your kids are, but it sounds as if the two of you are in your "mid-marriage blues" period. This is when the kids are young enough to still take lots of attention, careers are in full swing, and both partners are somewhat bored. This translates into "the spouse seems irritating" (goes both ways); "I'm tired of having to accomodate my spouse" (goes both ways); and "boy, the grass sure does seem greener on the other side" (again, for both spouses).

What to do?

First, this is a pretty common stage but it gives you an opportunity to both take stock. Marriage counselling isn't going to work if one partner is doing it to satisfy the request of the other partner, rather than because he (in this case) thinks it's a legitimate option for starting to resolve differences. What you end up with is a situation like what you describe. Changes stick for a couple of weeks, then disappear as the less interested party loses motivation and interest.

What seems to be confusing you is that your husband is successful. Successful in business does not, however, translate to successful in relationships, and you shouldn't confuse the two. It simply means that he has something outside the home that gives him positive feedback (a good thing) and feeds his ego (sometimes a good thing, sometimes not). My husband was like this, too. He was very, very successful outside the home (still is) but the downside was that his success made him doubt my comments about how our marriage wasn't so successful. It gave him the ability to suggest that our lack of success was "my fault" rather than "his fault" or (better yet) "our fault jointly".

Don't fall into this trap. Your husband (at least as you describe him) has a drinking problem that needs to be addressed (it is easy for ADHD people to become addicted, as they have less impulse control than others - also, alcohol, drugs and ultra stimulation can be forms of self-medication for their brains). He also sounds, again as you describe him, pretty self-centered. In addition, it sounds as if he just plain isn't paying attention to you - possibly because when he does it's one of the least fulfilling parts of his day.  This sounds harsh, but think about it. When he is at work he is a boy wonder, gets lots of great feedback, and is king of the roost. When he is at home and focused on you, he gets "push back" - he is told that he isn't doing things right, feels like he's a bad father, and has to do a lot of boring stuff that you (presumably) put on lists for him. If you were him, where would you rather expend your energy?

So, time for some soul searching for you. If he were paying attention to you, would you be happy? Do you like/love who he is inside? Do you fantacize about family times together? Is he a good person? Can he make you laugh (or did he use to?) When I ask you these questions, what I'm really asking is - do you want this relationship to succeed? Is HE the guy whom you want to be your best friend, or are you looking for just anyone? If it's him, then it's time for you to get inside his head a bit. At some point (soon) he'll probably need some addiction treatment, but before you two go to this very difficult place, you need to be on better terms and I think to do that, you need to understand him better. Start learning more about him - from his perspective, not yours. Look for things that you find surprising.  Try to understand whether my hunch is right - that you are hard to be around right now. Ask him how he feels about your relationship - what he wants from it. FInd out what goals you still share. Then, share your own dreams and goals...and start brainstorming together about how to reach them.

Remember when you were dating? The two of you were a team. Think about how you might create that teamwork again. Use his "me, me, me" as a starting point - a place to jump off so you can turn it into "us, us,us". Find out how the two of you can fit together in a way that interests not only you, but him. Most successful men understand that with success comes hard work. And most will admit that, while it's not always fun, sharing household and family responsibilities is "fair", so you should be able to get around your household issues.

But I think you have a harder task ahead of you... What I'm guessing the two of you have really run amok with is that your husband perceives you as being unecessarily demanding, while you see yourself as just the opposite - having become perhaps so flexible that you resent that he doesn't see how much you "give" just to accomodate him. Your needs (friendship, to be paid attention to, to have a partner, to be in control of your environment) are not being met, and your resentment about this has grown to a point that he is rebelling against you. My husband's version of this, when he finally was able to verbalize it was "I'm never good enough for you, so why should I even try???" Your husband is avoiding you by spending non-working hours in his office and escaping into the world where he is loved (work) and where alcohol dulls his bad feelings. I know he runs his own business, but I know enough big senior execs and business owners to know that they can make time for family most of the time when it is a priority, even though sometimes work really does call.  That means that right now, it isn't a priority, and the two of you owe it to yourselves to understand why.

This all sounds rather harsh, and I apologize for that. Aside from those suggestions, here are a couple other things you might try:

• excercise on the days when he is expected home. The chemicals released into your body will help you stay calm even after the whirlwind hits and, over time, you'll get other added benefits
• start creating dates together so that some of that energy can be focused back on you. Tell him explicitly that this is why you are doing this, and set some ground rules - conversations about "serious" topics can only happen for X% of the date and the rest has to be fun (this should put him at ease). Take turns deciding what your date will be (so one or the other of you doesn't feel as if they are getting dragged to stuff they don't like).  Choose some dates that are completely new and unexpected - focused entirely on exploration or fun (you need to start having fun times together again if you are going to be friends, rather than fighters)
• start thinking of things about him that you love so you can focus on the positive as well as the negative
• take some time in the morning or evening to snuggle together. Again, talk with him about this. Tell him you miss him, and that snuggling for ten minutes a day or taking a walk and holding hands will be reassuring and just plain nice. My husband and I spent a period where we vowed to wake up 10 minutes early to just snuggle and think of one really nice thing to say to each other (minimum) to start our day off in a connected way. It really does work to make your day go better, even if it may sound silly.

Forgive me if I have misinterpretted what you wrote - I have relatively little to go on when people write in, but I often guess correctly when "reading between the lines".  Best of luck with this, and keep us posted (bad pun!)

Melissa Orlov