Hi, I have two sons, one son and my husband have been diagnosed with ADHD (my husband later in life)…I found this forum by chance because I was googling what to do when you just have such lack of communication…it’s like we are both on cliff edges with a bridge between to help us and he just won’t get on it, or I have to continuously go over the bridge to him.
I can’t bring any of my feelings or thoughts up without him:
Listening but not contributing
Being sarcastic or demeaning
Twisting it or throwing it back in my face I.e “you say you feel unheard, well I can be that too, I feel unheard”
He is also using alcohol as a coping mechanism (at points), so have had the odd nasty name calling text come through.
He’s starting a new job tomorrow after 6 months of not working, he’s gone internal, I get that, it’s hard….but we have to discuss child school drop off as I also work 3 days. We have no village around us, we can’t find childcare, I want to talk about it as a team, but he just says ‘there’s no options’ even though I have suggested one that means the responsibility of school drop off falls mainly on me, but two of the ten would need to be his. He just won’t talk about it. He moans he has no clothes for his new job, but won’t buy them or let me help. He says he wants to get fit by biking (we only have one car), so I send links to waterproof items and bike lights, he hasn’t done anything about it, again, I ask if he would like me to help?
There is just so much more then this and it has been a decade and a half and I want to empathise and care and be mindful, but my bucket is empty and I feel like I am bursting with resentment, which is not healthy for me or us….but my feelings and thoughts have no place to go :(
Grateful for any thoughts, connections or advice….
Comments
Of course one becomes resentful
I’ve had my share of ADD dysfunction in a partner and in the end had to leave. But what you describe is much worse than what we had, particularly his sarcasm. Of course you will be resentful. Of course your bucket is empty.
There are excellent resources - Melissa’s courses, books, couples therapy - but as I see it they all need some outer circumstances to be helpful, namely
Non-ADHD partner is not yet at the end of their tether, but can allow for months or years for things to improve
In our case, none of these applied. No amount of treatment or therapy could save the marriage that had deteriorated during two decades of undiagnosed severe ADD.
In your situation, it would seem wise to seek help as fast as possible. The longer this goes on, the harder it will be to find a way back to a life of contentment, whether it’s together or apart.
All the best to you.
Thank you so much for taking
Thank you so much for taking the time to respond.
It can feel really isolating and alone can’t it and just having someone and somewhere to share with others who understand and have lived experience is so valuable.
I feel like I am at the end of my tether, it’s effecting how I regulate myself, I start talking to myself through situations, it effects sometimes how I react to my little family.
Something you said about no treatment or therapy, has struck a nerve with me….my husband takes CBD oil, but is fearful of medication and may have awareness of how he acts but likely internalises this as inner shame, so I have no idea when he feels remorseful, when I tried to bring up the nasty text he sent and said that was why I felt annoyed, he just didn’t acknowledge it.
Sorry, starting another thread :) Thanks you so much for reaching out to me with your thoughts.
You are not alone. There is a way to thrive together.
First of all, as a non adhd partner, i can sympathize to your situation and i have to give you an applause for trying to figure it out. Yes communication is a big key. To get to what you want... open communication with your partner where both of you could say what you want can be achieve. In my case, we had to rely on 2 simple and yet effective structured communication exercises to learn how to communicate effectively with each other. The communication exercises I am referring to is i fell statement, my version "I feel x, when you do y, because of z", follow with the validation communication exercise (let me see if i hear you correctly). when these two excerises are used together, they promote both to be better understood and heard. The process does requires time, but once you both learn it, it becomes automatic in every conversation. I would suggest you start the exercise with nothing to do with your marriage, something fun (for example, i feel happy when I watch late night tv, because it makes me feel relax)for at Least once a week for 6 weeks and then work in one thing about your marriage once every two weeks. The reason for doing that is to get the adhd partner to get comfortable with the exercise first and then slowly move into more serious topics. It's like learning a new skill, take karate as an example, you can't learn black belt moves if you don't learn the basics first. For us, just this exercise helped us improve our communication and allow both of us to trust each other again. Now, i can say what is on my mind clearly and he will understand it. If it is not clear, when he tries to validate if he understans what I am saying, i can re-explain without him getting upset.
I hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions. Good luck.
Take care of you
Hey Loopla. I'm sorry you're in this situation. One thing that helped me was putting my energy into issues that would affect me and the family and letting go what might not. For instance. he absolutely needs to participate in finding a solution for dropping off the kids. Not participating is just not being a parent or partner. At the very least, he needs to agree to your suggestion and then hold up his part in the 2/10 drop offs. Conversely, as far as work clothes and getting fit goes, that's his problem and my reco would be to let him deal with it. He probably won't manage it the way you would (e.g. he may wear something inappropriate or grab something awful at Walmart his first morning on the job and he may never see the cycling thing through in any way), but neither issue is something that should be on your plate. When he moans about it, just agree he needs clothes or that getting fit is a great idea and move on. Don't try to help or spend your mental or physical energy on it at all. I know you want him to be successful, but if he can't keep a job because he can't dress appropriately, you have a bigger problem in the marriage that you'll ultimately have to address because you simply can't adult for two forever.
I will say that much like Swedish, despite dropping what issues and responsibilities I could when it came to my spouse, I was still ultimately responsible for too much in the marriage and I had to leave. I believe that if ADHD is negatively impacting a marriage and the only one addressing the symptoms is the non-ADHD partner, it's not sustainable. Hopefully your husband is pursuing medication and therapy and working on his role in things, but if you're the only one trying to mitigate ADHD's impact on the marriage, the unending struggle will just burn you out more and more.