Biggest strain in your marriage / relationship

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Untreated ADHD

+ a million. And then add in binge drinking, misuse of Adderall and failure to deal with baggage from his upbringing.

The upbringing stuff is hard.....no, difficult....no, impossible. The immense, consistent, blatant and constant and consistent lack of respect between his parents, their basically hating each other and living volatile, hate filled, antagonistic, spiteful, mean spirited, passive aggressive, truly miserable lives under the same roof - and this was at the beginning of their marriage, which was not long to begin with. Add a bunch of kids (because checking off boxes, in spite of severe incompetence and "we wouldn't want anyone thinking we were/are a lesbian, would we?"), and it is pure hate throughout the entire household. Of course it channeled down to and amongst and between the kids!

Great times when you throw in lack of empathy, emotion and communication. Sign me up! What I will never understand is DH's need to channel their miserable life, even though DH doesn't even like these people. I get it, it is all DH knows, but my God - learn from the misery. The family being drama prone and half having ADD/ASD makes it complicated, especially because they will not seek help.

* Not saying my family is perfect, but we at least deal with our shyt.

[Anonymous]

DH isn’t interested in anything other than home projects or working on his cars.

He groaned when I asked him to drive me to a surgical procedure. I opted to do it without anesthesia so I could drive myself. Last time I asked because I had no choice but to be completely under, he threw it back at me during an argument about him not being involved with the family. I’m amazed a spouse considers a ride to the hospital a favor!!! He works at home and for himself and has more time than anyone I know. He had no other place to be.

Didn’t ask how surgery went. Never asks how I am (doesn’t ask anyone how they are).

If I tell him how things went, he says I should have asked about his day before telling him about mine.

He clearly isn’t able to really love me or anyone so it’s kind of sad for all of us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Untreated ADHD

+ a million. And then add in binge drinking, misuse of Adderall and failure to deal with baggage from his upbringing.

The upbringing stuff is hard.....no, difficult....no, impossible. The immense, consistent, blatant and constant and consistent lack of respect between his parents, their basically hating each other and living volatile, hate filled, antagonistic, spiteful, mean spirited, passive aggressive, truly miserable lives under the same roof - and this was at the beginning of their marriage, which was not long to begin with. Add a bunch of kids (because checking off boxes, in spite of severe incompetence and "we wouldn't want anyone thinking we were/are a lesbian, would we?"), and it is pure hate throughout the entire household. Of course it channeled down to and amongst and between the kids!

Great times when you throw in lack of empathy, emotion and communication. Sign me up! What I will never understand is DH's need to channel their miserable life, even though DH doesn't even like these people. I get it, it is all DH knows, but my God - learn from the misery. The family being drama prone and half having ADD/ASD makes it complicated, especially because they will not seek help.

Good times. Those chronic add/asd loony bin days.

[Anonymous]

Money - We make a lot (both of us) but I want him to make more (we make about the same amount).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DH isn’t interested in anything other than home projects or working on his cars.

He groaned when I asked him to drive me to a surgical procedure. I opted to do it without anesthesia so I could drive myself. Last time I asked because I had no choice but to be completely under, he threw it back at me during an argument about him not being involved with the family. I’m amazed a spouse considers a ride to the hospital a favor!!! He works at home and for himself and has more time than anyone I know. He had no other place to be.

Didn’t ask how surgery went. Never asks how I am (doesn’t ask anyone how they are).

If I tell him how things went, he says I should have asked about his day before telling him about mine.

He clearly isn’t able to really love me or anyone so it’s kind of sad for all of us.

He’s cold. Yikes.

[Anonymous]

Unfair division of labor and mental load. We both work full time and I'm doing 80% of household chores and tasks. Talking about it and agreeing to a better set up never last more than a few months. Then I take over, get burned out and fall apart and he gets defensive that he "helps" Resentment builds and honestly I don't want to do this the rest of my life

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Politics. For a while I thought it would result in a divorce because he wasn’t just on a different page but liked to argue incessantly about it. It’s been pretty quiet but I have a feeling it will ramp up again soon.

Same. Don’t know why DH can’t just let us each have our own views and move on with life. Why argue about it? I can tell when he’s ramping up a “discussion” and become preemptively fatigued. I don’t think he realizes that these episodes are a significant withdrawal from our relationship goodwill. I try to tell him but he accused me of being sensitive. I literally dread them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DD with severe nonverbal autism. I thank God that he gave me her twin brother and DH to help me in our journey.

I'm sorry for your situation. Please don't assign a role to your other child as God's gift to help you deal with your other child. That sounds like a recipe for a super unhealthy family dynamic.

I understand your concern but it is unfounded, at least in our family.