Forum topic: I am very sad

Sun Feb 7th, 2010 - 12:56pm by Pebi

Forum: 
Anger, Frustration & ADHD

I've been with my boyfriend who has ADD for almost 4 years. As of today however, I think that we are broken up. The beginning of our relationship was nice, but in the end I guess he just got bored with me. He spends most of his time playing computer games. When he comes home from work (around 4PM) he gets on his computer and doesn't get off until about 1 or 2 AM. Everynight, I go to bed alone. We rarely have deep conversations, we go out together maybe once or twice a month if I'm lucky, and we don't have sex.

I am very sad, depressed, and hurt because it's hard to come home to someone who doesn't seem to care if you're there or not. It's hard to watch someone spend countless hours on a computer game chatting away with the other players while they hardly speak 3 sentences to you all day. It's hard to do the majority of the house work, keep everything in order, make sure the bills are paid on time, and make sure there's food in the house while the other person seems oblivious to it all. It's hard when you have to sleep in the bed by yourself because your partner would rather hang out with his friends all night and ends up crashing at their place.

Today he said that he's just wasting my time because he doesn't want to change. He is afraid to get treatment because he doesn't want to turn into a different person. He likes who his is and he likes having ADD. He said the the problem is him and not me because he holds past resentments towards me because I tried to restrict how much he played his game and how often he stayed the night at his friend's house. He doesn't think that he can be the person that I want him to be because he doesn't have motivation, drive, or focus and probably never will. We can't go out on dates and he can't buy me gifts because he doesn't make a lot of money.

What he doesn't realize is that if he would gone to the dollar store and bought a $1 basket, $1 cheese and crackers, and a $1drink and taken me to the park for a picnic, I would have been the happiest girl in the world. He doesn't realize that if he would have just turned his head towards me when he spoke to me instead of facing the computer screen, I would have felt like he cared about what I had to say. He could have made me gifts for my birthday or christmas and I would have felt loved.

I have cried this entire weekend. I love him to death and would have done anything for him. Whenever he was sick, I was right there by his bedside taking care of him. When he was going to pastry school, I helped him pay for the class so that he wouldn't have to carry the financial load on his own. He dropped out after one semester and he only took one class. It was an online class and he ended up waiting until 10 days before the class ended to start doing his assignments. I don't know what to do. I'm a full-time college student, I have an internship, and I'm in a sorority so it's not like I don't have anything going on in my life. Even with keeping as busy as I do, I don't have any joy in my life, only loneliness and disappointment.

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

Submitted by peattatun on Sun Feb 7th, 2010 - 3:18pm

I can empathise with you totally.  I've been married for 21 yrs & although my husband is willing to get help now (we have been separated since Dec 1st) he is a great one for blaming me - ie I got annoyed when he gave me a very expensive bouquet of flowers when we didn't have the money and didn't understand if he had picked some flowers from our garden & made a lovely bow with a handwritten note I would have been more appreciative.  It is no fun at all - I've felt for ages like a single parent with 5 children - instead of being married with 4 !!!

I too love my husband very much - I would have been divorced long ago had I not - but I've been running on empty for so long I don't know what to do.  I also very very sad. 

we are at a stage at the moment where he's not speaking to me - I get very frustrated when one time he talks to me, then accuses me of being in a mood & then won't speak to me for days

 

 

Submitted by Echo on Sun Feb 7th, 2010 - 4:48pm

Hi Pebi, I haven't posted here very often (mostly because I have a new baby).  Your post reminded me of a period of time that my husband and I went though about 1 yr into our marriage.  We had just bought a new house and my husband got laid off.  He decided to start his own company and be self employed.  This was before he was diagnosed with ADD so we certainly didn't understand what some of the issues were at the time.  He went from being totally energetic and excited about being self employed to being withdrawn, anxious, and devoid of any energy.  I'd wake up in the middle of the night and he'd be in the office playing computer games.  His whole body was thrown off by his anxiety at night and that would lead to further problems during the day when he needed to be productive, but couldn't.  As you can imagine, the business didn't do that well.

This left me to provide financial support, complete 90% of the household tasks and somehow keep it together so that I could continue to provide him with some emotional support.  The biggest irritant was how he could goof off most of the time, but the minute I asked him to do something around the house like mow the lawn, his work would suddenly become priority 1.  It drove me nuts!

I don't know if we'd be married today if he hadn't made the effort to see a psychologist about his anxiety.  This led him to consider ADD and to his eventual diagnosis.   Soon after I came to the realization that we will always have to find ways to work on our relationship and that ADD would play a HUGE part of our lives.  

I feel for your situation where your ex knew he had ADD, but refused to try anything to help.  I think that many people with ADD feel that they will become different people if they take medication.  Perhaps they've come to rely on those ADD characteristics to help them get through life.   I think it would be tough to let go of all those dynamic characteristics that attract us to them in the first place.  For example, my husband relies on his creativity and ability to learn quickly to help him succeed in his business.  He needs these tools because he can't remember previous conversations and definitely can't remember any kind of procedure.  He needs to figure it all out again and again rather than relying on his memory of what worked and what didn't work the last time.  It must be nerve wracking!  My husband takes his medication *most* of the time and it hasn't affected who he is or his creativity.

Sorry for the disjointed post.  I guess the point I'm trying to make in my sleep deprived state is that both people have to make an effort and that I wouldn't be in my marriage now if my husband hadn't done some serious self examination.  It also doesn't end with diagnosis and medication.  I hope that you find the support you need here.

Submitted by MelissaOrlov on Wed Feb 10th, 2010 - 8:39am

I think it's pretty common that people are afraid to change. Whether or not it's working for him, your boyfriend has figured out a system that "seems okay" to him (play computer games, not complete what he's doing). So far he hasn't fallen on his face, though it's likely that if he continues along this path he may. My husband, before he tried medication, used almost the same words "There's nothing wrong with me - I like myself!" and "I don't want to be a different person." He has discovered that the only "differences" created by the medication is that we don't fight anymore (he has impulse control); though he's always done well at work he does even better now (he doesn't antagonize coworkers); he is able to get off the computer when he wants to, which means that he comes to bed and we get to be together (disengages better); it is easier for him to start a task (engages more easily) and he has more focus. In spite of all of these big changes, he will also tell you that he can't even feel the medication working. He is still himself. One of the sad things about ADHD relationships, though, is that no single partner can make all of the changes needed on their own. If your boyfriend is unwilling to make the effort he needs to make to improve his life, then there is NOTHING you will be able to do to fully improve your lot as a couple. You've been feeling excluded and unappreciated for too long now, and continuing in this particular struggle doesn't seem to be in your best interests. That is so SAD, though. You have an ability to create joy in your life again. Think about what you want to do with your life, and who you want to be, then go out and BE that way! Think back to times when you were happy and figure out what you were doing right...and do it again! (And that doesn't mean trying to go back to when you were first dating this current partner - that relationship has changed). Also, joy has a way of finding us if we are open to letting it do so. There has been research done on optimism that suggests that one of the reason things often go well for optimists is that they are "open" to opportunities that come their way, whereas people who are currently depressed are "closed". See if you can open yourself up to new opportunities. College is a great place to do this as there is lots going on. (Okay, and as a mom of a woman in college I can't resist also adding please don't drink yourself into oblivion at those parties - you can only be really "open" when you are sober. "Drunk open" is just a sham.) Best of luck to you - keep us posted!

Submitted by lonelylondon on Fri Feb 12th, 2010 - 10:49am

I understand your dilema.. my wife has ADHD is medicated but still goes down a "rabbit hole" with her lap top every night. Last night it was until 2am. Then she will complain that she is exhausted the next day. Her specialist told her to put the lap top down 2 hrs before bed but she has not heeded that. She is wonderfully warm, intelligent, holds two jobs, but overextends herself continually. At times I feel like a cardboard cutout would give me as much contact and intimacy. It's very lonely being with someone who can't "be" with you. We almost never go places together but she will go out with her friends at the drop of a hat. Nagging doesn't work, therapy doesn't appear to work so I an continuing to develop my own life but I am scared that this will take me farther away from her and exascerbate the situation.

Submitted by peattatun on Fri Feb 12th, 2010 - 3:59pm

I suppose us non partners could go on all day & night about the problems - I was reading the posts from 'virtual slapper' some of them are extremely true. (A very silent killer of marriages)  Because of my husbands other illnesses it may be unlikely for him to go on meds.  I often have days where I desperately want to help, but feel I will continue to 'nag' and although we've been seperated now for 2 & 1/2 months I want him to read books / articles &  I want to do stuff to get on the road to coping with this 'yesterday'.  I feel that the longer we're apart the easier it is for me to have the less stress at home etc, then I get to wondering if I will ever have the patience to work at this for how ever many more years it will take - over the 21 we've already done ?

Submitted by tarjavj on Sat Feb 13th, 2010 - 7:43am

I have often come to this forum to get support and strength to go furhter. My ADHD marriage of 15 years will end soon. Divorce papers are going to be signed in few months. I have been so desperate, so tired, so angry with my soon ex-husband and yet still I feel very very sad that he never wanted to find out what was the core of our problems. I am not saying that I did not contribute, but at a certain time you start to fight back. He blames it all on me, if I had given more attention to him, this would not have happend.

He rather wants to end it all, start a new life with a new woman. She is his colleague, also divorced with 2 daughers (we have 2 daugherts as well). Can somebody tell me, why I still love him? Why is this so difficult, even though I was really in the end with him during our last years together? I cannot stop crying, I cry everywhere, home, work, supermarket...Yet I know that living with him was impossible. I gained lots of weight, had high blood preassure and had constant stress.

I had this dream of him taking his condition in control and being the man that I needed him to be. That will never happen, but I still miss the nice guy I met 16 years ago.

Submitted by Jeannie on Sat Feb 13th, 2010 - 1:13pm

Tarjavj,  I'm so sorry you have to go through that.  I, too, cried constantly for a long time.  Just walked around with tears flowing out of my eyes.  I would sit in church and cry.  Time does heal.  I don't know...I try to identify those feelings, too.  Maybe because we worked so hard and suffered so much and for so long, only to have them reject us for another woman.  Dr. Phil said not to put so much into a relationship that you become emotionally bankrupt.  I think many of us did that.  It takes time to fill up that void.  You will heal.   On the other hand, he will probably go forth and make the same mistakes with another woman (and make her miserable, too).  I will always love the person I thought my husband was.  But that person doesn't exist for me anymore.  On the other hand, I don't have to live in his crazy world anymore.  Oh...and even men (and women) without ADHD sometimes decide the grass is greener on the other side after many years of marriage.  It will get better.  Divorce Care says it takes about five years to recover from a divorce, although men will bounce back better than women.