If you have a mentally ill spouse

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m the ADHD poster and have been reflecting on the comments and realize I was projecting my situation onto many posters.

In my specific case, which is too complicated to summarise, I had to reject the help I was receiving in order to step up and take responsibility. My spouse only wanted to take things from me to make my life easier, but it just enables and stressed me out. Then he’d criticise me for clutter and other things. Nothing I did was good enough and the more i tries to explain myself, the more resentful he got. Like he just wanted me gone.

It actually made me worse mentally, but now that we are split and there are clear lanes for coparenting, I feel less stressed and overwhelmed and able to manage the increase in responsibilities.

I am not bitter, I don’t blame. This is just the reality I am dealing with. I have found help and support from other friends and professionals. But not from my ex-spouse or parents.

The bolded is obvious.

Other friends and professionals did not have to deal with your dysfunction 24/7. They did not have to hold you accountable for a partnership because they had no such partnership with you. They could pick your phone calls when they felt like it and ignore when they wanted to.

You are better off alone, true, but it has nothing to do with your DH and everything to do with the fact that you have are different. No one forced you to marry: you chose to. You chose to commit to a relationship with someone, and it makes sense that they were frustrated and perplexed that you were not keeping your end of the bargain.

There is nothing wrong with being different or odd or mentally ill. It's not your fault. However, it cannot be the fault of the person you promised certain responsibilities to.

You made a mistake marrying when a single life best suited you and your challenges. And I am sure your DH is happy he had a wonderful child with you, someone he loved. Glad you found your bearings and had a beautiful child in the course of it. Now it's time to wake up and take FULL responsibility instead of this half baked twisting you keep doing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can’t help someone who doesn’t want help or won’t help themselves.

Detach and move on.

It is legal to live with untreated mental illness. Detach and move on.

Yes if someone is struggling or too self centered to care about how they mistreat others or create constant chaos, AND will not make efforts to improve, everyone needs to exit the relationship.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do so many people have mental health problems these days? Was it always this prevalent?

I think it cuts both ways. Some of it was always there and just ignored or swept under the rug by the families. But some of is is a result of the way we live now with information and executive function overload pushing more people to the edge. Imagine someone prone to anxiety before internet. They'd hear a couple of scary local stories related to whatever their trigger is, but that would be it. Now they can easily find every tragic case within 1000 miles radius AND will conveniently be served more stories as they come up due to social media algorithms. Think about all the paperwork that floods your inbox requiring your immediate attention - just deciding whether it's truly important, some sort of a sales pitch or an outright scam is exhausting.

I work in risk management and one of the exercises we do to teach people about phishing is sending official looking emails asking to click on a link. Our most "successful" email was saying that if you don't immediately fill out this form, your paychecks will stop. We caught the CEO!!! It's a sad commentary on the current state of life that people truly believe it is a possibility.

To prior, prior poster,

My husbands grandmother thought the exteme cases of mental illness now are due to the fact that most people are not doing hard work outside. She said back in her day it was extremely rare for a man to get mental illness. She said young males and men were working from sun up to sun down on the farm out in the sunshine doing hard physical labor all day.

Women also worked hard back in the day. The grandmother said women would get post partum depression. Other forms of mental illness in would have been extremely rare in women.

Yes and no.
Many families had the Crazy Brother, who just stayed inside all the time out of the way.
For those who sent out the Crazy Brother, tragic no-common-sense accidents ensued: walking off the cliff, went in the bear cave, stuck their arm in the combine, forgot to plant or harvest the crops on time, got hit by a train, lost an eye gifting about.
They didn’t reproduce back then.

Today someone like that could make money doing a tech programming job in their basement, marry some hard up lady, and have kids. Go on to drive everyone crazy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m the ADHD poster and have been reflecting on the comments and realize I was projecting my situation onto many posters.

In my specific case, which is too complicated to summarise, I had to reject the help I was receiving in order to step up and take responsibility. My spouse only wanted to take things from me to make my life easier, but it just enables and stressed me out. Then he’d criticise me for clutter and other things. Nothing I did was good enough and the more i tries to explain myself, the more resentful he got. Like he just wanted me gone.

It actually made me worse mentally, but now that we are split and there are clear lanes for coparenting, I feel less stressed and overwhelmed and able to manage the increase in responsibilities.

I am not bitter, I don’t blame. This is just the reality I am dealing with. I have found help and support from other friends and professionals. But not from my ex-spouse or parents.

Thanks.
I can see how the more simple and very structured nature of your new setup is easier for an ADHD or ASD person.

You can be your best self during your 50%, and decompress and do your own thing when not with the kids or family house and obligations. The other parent can continue run the kids schedules and appointments. You just get the task list and times.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do so many people have mental health problems these days? Was it always this prevalent?

I think it cuts both ways. Some of it was always there and just ignored or swept under the rug by the families. But some of is is a result of the way we live now with information and executive function overload pushing more people to the edge. Imagine someone prone to anxiety before internet. They'd hear a couple of scary local stories related to whatever their trigger is, but that would be it. Now they can easily find every tragic case within 1000 miles radius AND will conveniently be served more stories as they come up due to social media algorithms. Think about all the paperwork that floods your inbox requiring your immediate attention - just deciding whether it's truly important, some sort of a sales pitch or an outright scam is exhausting.

I work in risk management and one of the exercises we do to teach people about phishing is sending official looking emails asking to click on a link. Our most "successful" email was saying that if you don't immediately fill out this form, your paychecks will stop. We caught the CEO!!! It's a sad commentary on the current state of life that people truly believe it is a possibility.

To prior, prior poster,

My husbands grandmother thought the exteme cases of mental illness now are due to the fact that most people are not doing hard work outside. She said back in her day it was extremely rare for a man to get mental illness. She said young males and men were working from sun up to sun down on the farm out in the sunshine doing hard physical labor all day.

Women also worked hard back in the day. The grandmother said women would get post partum depression. Other forms of mental illness in would have been extremely rare in women.

Yes and no.
Many families had the Crazy Brother, who just stayed inside all the time out of the way.
For those who sent out the Crazy Brother, tragic no-common-sense accidents ensued: walking off the cliff, went in the bear cave, stuck their arm in the combine, forgot to plant or harvest the crops on time, got hit by a train, lost an eye gifting about.
They didn’t reproduce back then.

Today someone like that could make money doing a tech programming job in their basement, marry some hard up lady, and have kids. Go on to drive everyone crazy.

+1.

And in those days, people married family friends, so everyone knew who the people struggling were. It was harder to mask.

These days, one can clean up very well, show up for dates on the weekend, do their very best for a year to get someone to fall in love with them and then fall apart later.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m the ADHD poster and have been reflecting on the comments and realize I was projecting my situation onto many posters.

In my specific case, which is too complicated to summarise, I had to reject the help I was receiving in order to step up and take responsibility. My spouse only wanted to take things from me to make my life easier, but it just enables and stressed me out. Then he’d criticise me for clutter and other things. Nothing I did was good enough and the more i tries to explain myself, the more resentful he got. Like he just wanted me gone.

It actually made me worse mentally, but now that we are split and there are clear lanes for coparenting, I feel less stressed and overwhelmed and able to manage the increase in responsibilities.

I am not bitter, I don’t blame. This is just the reality I am dealing with. I have found help and support from other friends and professionals. But not from my ex-spouse or parents.

The bolded is obvious.

Other friends and professionals did not have to deal with your dysfunction 24/7. They did not have to hold you accountable for a partnership because they had no such partnership with you. They could pick your phone calls when they felt like it and ignore when they wanted to.

You are better off alone, true, but it has nothing to do with your DH and everything to do with the fact that you have are different. No one forced you to marry: you chose to. You chose to commit to a relationship with someone, and it makes sense that they were frustrated and perplexed that you were not keeping your end of the bargain.

There is nothing wrong with being different or odd or mentally ill. It's not your fault. However, it cannot be the fault of the person you promised certain responsibilities to.

You made a mistake marrying when a single life best suited you and your challenges. And I am sure your DH is happy he had a wonderful child with you, someone he loved. Glad you found your bearings and had a beautiful child in the course of it. Now it's time to wake up and take FULL responsibility instead of this half baked twisting you keep doing.

You are right, but just drop it.

All three of them are better off now, she knows her limits.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do so many people have mental health problems these days? Was it always this prevalent?

I think it cuts both ways. Some of it was always there and just ignored or swept under the rug by the families. But some of is is a result of the way we live now with information and executive function overload pushing more people to the edge. Imagine someone prone to anxiety before internet. They'd hear a couple of scary local stories related to whatever their trigger is, but that would be it. Now they can easily find every tragic case within 1000 miles radius AND will conveniently be served more stories as they come up due to social media algorithms. Think about all the paperwork that floods your inbox requiring your immediate attention - just deciding whether it's truly important, some sort of a sales pitch or an outright scam is exhausting.

I work in risk management and one of the exercises we do to teach people about phishing is sending official looking emails asking to click on a link. Our most "successful" email was saying that if you don't immediately fill out this form, your paychecks will stop. We caught the CEO!!! It's a sad commentary on the current state of life that people truly believe it is a possibility.

To prior, prior poster,

My husbands grandmother thought the exteme cases of mental illness now are due to the fact that most people are not doing hard work outside. She said back in her day it was extremely rare for a man to get mental illness. She said young males and men were working from sun up to sun down on the farm out in the sunshine doing hard physical labor all day.

Women also worked hard back in the day. The grandmother said women would get post partum depression. Other forms of mental illness in would have been extremely rare in women.

Yes and no.
Many families had the Crazy Brother, who just stayed inside all the time out of the way.
For those who sent out the Crazy Brother, tragic no-common-sense accidents ensued: walking off the cliff, went in the bear cave, stuck their arm in the combine, forgot to plant or harvest the crops on time, got hit by a train, lost an eye gifting about.
They didn’t reproduce back then.

Today someone like that could make money doing a tech programming job in their basement, marry some hard up lady, and have kids. Go on to drive everyone crazy.

There's something really cruel about your message. People who are mentally ill deserve to have lives and loving relationships too. In fact there is plenty of research documenting that mental illness doesn't need to interfere with the parent's ability to be a loving and caring parent.

[Anonymous]

People deserve respect and human dignity.
And that’s a two way street.
Either party should leave if they are not getting their basic needs, respect and human dignity from their life partner.

No one should accommodate unhealthy dysfunction. That is insanity.

Too many of these unhealthy/dysfunctional partner with a healthy/functional partner create a 2-way abuse cycle that the children repeat later as well.

Not everyone is marriage or parent material. And that is fine. And better that way.

#BreakTheCycle

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do so many people have mental health problems these days? Was it always this prevalent?

I think it cuts both ways. Some of it was always there and just ignored or swept under the rug by the families. But some of is is a result of the way we live now with information and executive function overload pushing more people to the edge. Imagine someone prone to anxiety before internet. They'd hear a couple of scary local stories related to whatever their trigger is, but that would be it. Now they can easily find every tragic case within 1000 miles radius AND will conveniently be served more stories as they come up due to social media algorithms. Think about all the paperwork that floods your inbox requiring your immediate attention - just deciding whether it's truly important, some sort of a sales pitch or an outright scam is exhausting.

I work in risk management and one of the exercises we do to teach people about phishing is sending official looking emails asking to click on a link. Our most "successful" email was saying that if you don't immediately fill out this form, your paychecks will stop. We caught the CEO!!! It's a sad commentary on the current state of life that people truly believe it is a possibility.

To prior, prior poster,

My husbands grandmother thought the exteme cases of mental illness now are due to the fact that most people are not doing hard work outside. She said back in her day it was extremely rare for a man to get mental illness. She said young males and men were working from sun up to sun down on the farm out in the sunshine doing hard physical labor all day.

Women also worked hard back in the day. The grandmother said women would get post partum depression. Other forms of mental illness in would have been extremely rare in women.

Yes and no.
Many families had the Crazy Brother, who just stayed inside all the time out of the way.
For those who sent out the Crazy Brother, tragic no-common-sense accidents ensued: walking off the cliff, went in the bear cave, stuck their arm in the combine, forgot to plant or harvest the crops on time, got hit by a train, lost an eye gifting about.
They didn’t reproduce back then.

Today someone like that could make money doing a tech programming job in their basement, marry some hard up lady, and have kids. Go on to drive everyone crazy.

There's something really cruel about your message. People who are mentally ill deserve to have lives and loving relationships too. In fact there is plenty of research documenting that mental illness doesn't need to interfere with the parent's ability to be a loving and caring parent.

DP.

You can have lives and loving relationships outside of marriage. I have friends that I am very close to. My family provides love as well.


.

[Anonymous]

There’s something to be said for not living with someone inflicted or masking. Separate rooms or apartments may be the answer- at the adult stage.

[Anonymous]

I don't understand this "masking" that people keep referencing. Everyone Masks in order to compromise and get along with others. It's a necessary trait to function in a relationship. Most people mask to manage their desires and emotions regularly. It's only a problem when your desires are inhibited so much that you can't function with your own agency as well and have to live around things that cause large amounts of trauma or un-comfortability. But regular light masking to be pleasant and get along is part of any relationship and society.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m the ADHD poster and have been reflecting on the comments and realize I was projecting my situation onto many posters.

In my specific case, which is too complicated to summarise, I had to reject the help I was receiving in order to step up and take responsibility. My spouse only wanted to take things from me to make my life easier, but it just enables and stressed me out. Then he’d criticise me for clutter and other things. Nothing I did was good enough and the more i tries to explain myself, the more resentful he got. Like he just wanted me gone.

It actually made me worse mentally, but now that we are split and there are clear lanes for coparenting, I feel less stressed and overwhelmed and able to manage the increase in responsibilities.

I am not bitter, I don’t blame. This is just the reality I am dealing with. I have found help and support from other friends and professionals. But not from my ex-spouse or parents.

The bolded is obvious.

Other friends and professionals did not have to deal with your dysfunction 24/7. They did not have to hold you accountable for a partnership because they had no such partnership with you. They could pick your phone calls when they felt like it and ignore when they wanted to.

You are better off alone, true, but it has nothing to do with your DH and everything to do with the fact that you have are different. No one forced you to marry: you chose to. You chose to commit to a relationship with someone, and it makes sense that they were frustrated and perplexed that you were not keeping your end of the bargain.

There is nothing wrong with being different or odd or mentally ill. It's not your fault. However, it cannot be the fault of the person you promised certain responsibilities to.

You made a mistake marrying when a single life best suited you and your challenges. And I am sure your DH is happy he had a wonderful child with you, someone he loved. Glad you found your bearings and had a beautiful child in the course of it. Now it's time to wake up and take FULL responsibility instead of this half baked twisting you keep doing.

That’s unnecessarily harsh, and you know it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand this "masking" that people keep referencing. Everyone Masks in order to compromise and get along with others. It's a necessary trait to function in a relationship. Most people mask to manage their desires and emotions regularly. It's only a problem when your desires are inhibited so much that you can't function with your own agency as well and have to live around things that cause large amounts of trauma or un-comfortability. But regular light masking to be pleasant and get along is part of any relationship and society.

Google it yourself.

People with mild mental disorders mask but it consumes all their energy and share of mind during the school or work day. Must keep it together outside of the home.

Unlike NT people who come home and do a second shift with the home, kids or friends, the AS or adhd person will come home and crash. They drop the mask, and need to be left alone for hours or they will lash out, stonewall, or discombobulate. Their family gets leftovers, or worse, complete emotional dysregulation or a zombie, or both.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand this "masking" that people keep referencing. Everyone Masks in order to compromise and get along with others. It's a necessary trait to function in a relationship. Most people mask to manage their desires and emotions regularly. It's only a problem when your desires are inhibited so much that you can't function with your own agency as well and have to live around things that cause large amounts of trauma or un-comfortability. But regular light masking to be pleasant and get along is part of any relationship and society.

Why mask and be polite at work but not at home with your loved ones?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m the ADHD poster and have been reflecting on the comments and realize I was projecting my situation onto many posters.

In my specific case, which is too complicated to summarise, I had to reject the help I was receiving in order to step up and take responsibility. My spouse only wanted to take things from me to make my life easier, but it just enables and stressed me out. Then he’d criticise me for clutter and other things. Nothing I did was good enough and the more i tries to explain myself, the more resentful he got. Like he just wanted me gone.

It actually made me worse mentally, but now that we are split and there are clear lanes for coparenting, I feel less stressed and overwhelmed and able to manage the increase in responsibilities.

I am not bitter, I don’t blame. This is just the reality I am dealing with. I have found help and support from other friends and professionals. But not from my ex-spouse or parents.

Thanks.
I can see how the more simple and very structured nature of your new setup is easier for an ADHD or ASD person.

You can be your best self during your 50%, and decompress and do your own thing when not with the kids or family house and obligations. The other parent can continue run the kids schedules and appointments. You just get the task list and times.

I’m the one managing the appointments and schedules! I always have been.

It’s more the dynamic with exDH that’s toxic and we need the clear boundaries to operate peacefully.