Tired of being the grownup

[Anonymous]

So many people here don't understand ADHD. I may be the poster you referenced from the other thread whose DH was diagnosed with ADHD after our DS was diagnosed. I totally feel for you, I do. I've BTDT. Do you attend coaching with your DH? If not, you should. She needs to hear your feedback in order to better tailor his coaching. Are you in couple's counseling? If not, you need to be. If your DH is like mine, he had no idea the impact his ADHD was having on our relationship despite the fact that I was clear and calm when I spoke to him about it outside of counseling. Hearing it from a counselor made a difference as did the counselor discussing the higher rates of relationship failure among people with ADHD.

Even with counseling, a coach and medication, life with my DH wasn't easy. It gets worse when he's in a depression - does your DH suffer from that? Before you say no, please know that depression (like ADHD) has a huge range of symptoms and it doesn't always display as 'being down' or 'sad'. With my DH, it shows up more as moodiness and being emotionally distant.

DH and I have gotten close to divorce. But, I am committed to our marriage and him as long as he maintains good effort. There are times he falls short and I have to expect that. It's how he handles falling short that makes the difference. Obviously, this isn't how I imagined our relationship but the 'overall package' is acceptable to me. DH has a lot of great qualities and brings a lot to our relationship that's important to me.

I don't know you or your DH or whether your relationship should continue or not. That's something you need to work in counseling. But, you should know that ADHD is highly heritable. Even if you divorce your DH, it more likely than not that your DC has ADHD and you're going to need to learn ways to help your DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So many people here don't understand ADHD. I may be the poster you referenced from the other thread whose DH was diagnosed with ADHD after our DS was diagnosed. I totally feel for you, I do. I've BTDT. Do you attend coaching with your DH? If not, you should. She needs to hear your feedback in order to better tailor his coaching. Are you in couple's counseling? If not, you need to be. If your DH is like mine, he had no idea the impact his ADHD was having on our relationship despite the fact that I was clear and calm when I spoke to him about it outside of counseling. Hearing it from a counselor made a difference as did the counselor discussing the higher rates of relationship failure among people with ADHD.

Even with counseling, a coach and medication, life with my DH wasn't easy. It gets worse when he's in a depression - does your DH suffer from that? Before you say no, please know that depression (like ADHD) has a huge range of symptoms and it doesn't always display as 'being down' or 'sad'. With my DH, it shows up more as moodiness and being emotionally distant.

DH and I have gotten close to divorce. But, I am committed to our marriage and him as long as he maintains good effort. There are times he falls short and I have to expect that. It's how he handles falling short that makes the difference. Obviously, this isn't how I imagined our relationship but the 'overall package' is acceptable to me. DH has a lot of great qualities and brings a lot to our relationship that's important to me.

I don't know you or your DH or whether your relationship should continue or not. That's something you need to work in counseling. But, you should know that ADHD is highly heritable. Even if you divorce your DH, it more likely than not that your DC has ADHD and you're going to need to learn ways to help your DC.

Whether ADHD or another illness or addiction, an adult is responsible for seeking treatment for the sake of the family, especially with children involved. If they won't, then no one should have to live with their chaos and abuse.

PP, its great your DH makes effort, but that's not OP's reality. And your fatalistic views about the kid inheriting are just not helpful. It's not clear that in OPs case it's due to illness or he's just a narcissistic ass, I lean toward the latter.

[Anonymous]

OP, I married a man who was diagnosed with ADHD as a child, and I can understand some of the challenges. I'm sorry you're having to deal with all of this. It's definitely a struggle at times. And prior to marriage (and still at times) he seemed to hyperfocus on us, so it was hard to really find any red flags. I am lucky, though, that he is very aware of his ADHD. He doesn't take any meds for it anymore, but it does effect us, and keeping jobs more than a few years has always been a struggle for him. He's lucky in that he's very nice, kind, and really really smart, and that's what's gotten us by.

In our relationship, I actually work way more hours than he does. He's often in charge of taking and picking up DC from school and making some quick meals. He manages most of our money and renters (we own some properties), and tries to manage our house, and he does have a job (he works from home, but his job does require frequent traveling). He doesn't do these things perfectly, but he's figuring it out slowly, and that's okay.

I've learned to let some things go. When I cook, I try to make healthful meals, and I push him to do the same about 50% of the time, but I try not to get too upset if the foods are frozen or if there's occasional take out.

Sometimes, when I'm really frustrated with him, he's really good at reminding me that what i'm frustrated at is really the ADHD, not at him, and we both seem to take a step back and try to reorganize our thought process.

He is the fun loving parent, but b/c he spends more time with our toddler at home, he's had to deal with the "chips falling where they may" so to speak when he doesn't keep a schedule for feeding/sleeping. We definitely are terrible at getting our kid to nap, and our meals aren't at exact times, but our toddler has adjusted fine with our schedules and she now just tells us when she's hungry.

Also, and this is something he clued me in on, he does so much better when I compliment/thank him for something he does. It makes him remember to do it the same way the next time. Like," Oh, Honey, you did SUCH a great job making that casserole/cleaning up the living room/teaching DC to ride the bike." Sometimes it feels fake, and I would never expect him to compliment me on such things (I was not raised like that), but he does do it. So, I guess positive reinforcement is helpful, and he reacts similarly when his work bosses give him that type of reinforcement.

All that being said, we are currently trying for number 2. I am anxious about having a baby b/c I won't have as much time to make sure their are choking hazards laying around/all the grapes are cut/etc for this next one, but I hope it works out.

Good luck to you!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP, I've done that. We've had friends show up to a messy house and no food when he invited them to a cookout without doing any planning or prep. I left beforehand and he shrugged and told them he couldn't do it when they arrived and sent them home. They probably blamed me. I had to cancel travel to visit people because he didn't follow through on his share of the prep for a trip and I literally didn't have enough time to complete laundry, get dog to sitter etc. He wasn't embarassed or even vaguely motivated by those situations. Our toddler has had multiple meals per day of milk and nothing else when he'd promised it was his turn to meal plan and shop. I stopped doing laundry and he wore dirty clothes and tshirts to a business casual office until I realized our dual income was at stake. He's willing to make our life as bleak, lonely, and disorganized as possible before exerting any effort of his own. He is perfectly competent at work and was very successful in areas of personal interest/ambition before we met (elite postcollegiate athlete, multiple grad degrees).

He makes me feel like neither I nor my daughter are worth the kind of effort he exerted for his own personal gain.

Ya know, you could've put this in your first post as well -- it seems he just wants to be taken care of so he can "study" or the such.

I know I'd probably start edging away from a couple that invites me/DW/maybe DCs to a cookout and there's not even food there. Not sure who I'd blame, probably whoever I liked less. If my/my DW's interactions with you/your DH consist on you yelling at him to be a human being, it'd probably go thusly:

1) wow, that OP is a bitch, yelling at her husband all the time!
2) we see something real obvious that OP's husband should have done
3) wow, how does OP do it, living with such a useless lump?

Or it could go like this (not necessarily in your case, OP
1) wow, that OP is a bitch, yelling at her husband all the time!
2) we see OP's husband trying to take care of things, and OP yelling at her husband about step 5 of a 10-step process when he's diligently doing step 3 or is taking care of the kids while OP's yakking it up with other people
3) wow, that OP is *really* a bitch.

Yes because OP's issues are all about how you would react.