Can someone explain the mentality of never being proactive or organized to me?
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Anonymous
Wake up. The topic has moved way beyond what you are saying. Which isn’t much at all. Yes, you can’t control a mental disorders individual. We all know that. You eventually give up on them if they won’t get professional help and do the work. For the last 20 pages we’ve been discussing the handful of bad options one has when married with kids to a dysfunctional spouse. |
Anonymous
Lol She’s still on step 1 of 10 processing the actual life long problem here. I know divorced women still trying to keep their dysfunctional Ex away from harassing the adult kids’ young families with bizarreness all the time. One divorced ASD father and professor, only 60 yo, assumed he would just move in with his son once he was married. Why? Just because. He was living with his elderly mom and having her nurse do all his meals and laundry every day, then had no plan once she died. |
Anonymous
I’m intrigued by the mom who said she literally had to become suicidal before her DH stepped up. I never got to that point but my DH was at his most useful when the baby was a newborn and I clearly could not handle it on my own. The problem is he then continually pushed the limit of how much less he could do and how much more I could do. And once out of the newborn phase it turned out I could do a lot. So he just did less and less. The only times I was able to hold the line were when something just snapped in me and I was so utterly desperate that he knew he had to do it. But that didn’t happen often. Maybe if I got desperate more often the balance wouldn’t have gotten so off. (This is why the “be stoic” advice is bullsh*t.) |
Anonymous
Good luck with that PP. Pay attention. That’s all been tried and failed, x100. Spent $4k on a neuropysch, $3.5k on my own individual therapy, and $4k on his targeted therapy with an ASD psychologist on the west coast. She proposed truly little baby steps for him to do on a monthly basis. He refused. 6 mos later, before he quit therapy for eating everyone’s time, she recommended him to do a 12 month DBT therapy session and anger mgmt classes. She even found an Arlington based doctor who would take an adult with his profile. He refused. No change. No result. No systems. |
Anonymous
We're not gaslighting her or blaming her. He's awful, but he's not here asking for advice and he hasn't responded to anything she's tried, so all that's left is for her to do something else (accept him as-is or leave). There is no choice for him to fix himself, at least today there isn't when he's not willing. You said it yourself when you said of course he's not somewhere right now trying to address his executive function issues. |
Anonymous
The bolded is what those of us who aren’t wasting time “validating” OP are trying to get her to understand. She can only control what she does. She has no control over what he does. Any suggestions as to what he *should* do are pointless because he is not the person on this thread asking for advice. |
Anonymous
Kudos to him! Living his best life! He does exactly what he wants when he wants and how he wants. Doesn’t even notice life passing him by or his house on fire or kids failing out. |
Anonymous
This doesn’t sound like you were trying to work within the constraints of who he is an individual. This sounds like you were spent a lot of money having him go to therapy in an effort to get him to change who he is as an individual. Do you really not understand the difference? |
Anonymous
Your friend does indeed have a lifelong problem, and rational people can see from the details in the bolded paragraph that this is a problem she is actively choosing to have. |
Anonymous
I finally don’t believe it. I get sick and run down a lot, and episodes of depression, yet my asd/adhd spouse never steps up and in fact blames me for being sick. He will NEVER admit his role in my fatigue. He has major maladaptive blockers on. He also used to always threaten divorce when he turned simple questions or suggestions into arguments. So I went and got divorce information (courts don’t care about dangerous, ill fathers) and a consulting visit letter bill accidentally came to the house. It was the one time a year he opened the mail and flipped out. Crying, yelling, how could you do this the children, etc. I reminded him he had threatened divorce 25 times the last few months (I recorded it down in a paper logbook so I could see the abuse patterns), so I took his advice and looked into it. Then I walked off. |
Anonymous
Maybe it coincided with the kids being graduated and out of the house. I could see these profiles doing nothing for 18-22 years and then assuming they have their focused maid and vacation planner all to themselves and do a small amount of “I’m better!” |
Anonymous
Everyone understands the difference. Some people with issues address them, others don’t. That was his chance. At age 40. This was his chance to, with baby steps, improve himself. He had his diagnoses, he had a well-known published doctor, they had a slow ramp plan of new habits to do (greet your kids in the AM/ don’t ignore them, read your emails once a week on Thursdays, plan 1 date a month yourself w childcare). He failed. Now he is on the sidelines of the family, and barely has a relationship with me or the kids. He likes it that way. He goofs around with them when convenient, might tag along to a weekend game. He ignores the sitter, like he has for 10+ years. I have the documentation to serve him any time I wish (temp custody, temp child support, Maryland backdated separation agreement - we have separate BRs). I have my support groups, friend groups and close family all of whom are aware of his Dx and symptoms and the situation. I work full time in a senior position. He is out of my will, he is not PoA of me or anything with the kids or anyone’s health decisions. The lawyer has his Dx write up and the subsequent psychologist treatment recommendations he failed to do. As you can tell, I have fully detached from expecting him to change or improve. And I have fully accepted how he is. In fact I praise him for all his hard office work and whatever income it manages to produce for the family. I call him my arm candy if he comes to a function with me. I still wipe up all his weekend crumbs and coffee cups littered around the house. Wet towels on the hardwood. Vehicles with no oil change in years. I expect nothing of him nor from him. He can barely follow directions. So now he only gets “fun directions,” like buy me some perfume at duty free next week! But never something to do with food or the kids or repairs or school or planning something. Never again. |
Anonymous
No, the adult kids have the problems. They need to set strong boundaries with their mentally disordered father. C’est la vie! |
Anonymous
(that’s because his big issue was he had no virtues. ASD may have been a misdiagnosis - sounds like a personality disorder.) |
Anonymous
How many more times does it have to be pointed out to you that “working within the constraints of him as an individual” is just another way of you saying she needs to suck it up? The point here is to raise OP’s consciousness that he is a useless jerk and she deserves to be angry. You are advocating that she not only shoulder all the household work but also blame herself and let him off the hook. That’s because (and you refuse to say this clearly but it does slip out) you DO believe it is her fault - you think she’s the nagging wife and if she only “accepted” him he would step up and do his duties. No way, f that. |