Anonymous wrote:How does this guy manage to stay employed?

OP here. Well for starters he WFH and has for a decade.

Secondly, he just has everyone fooled. His work is annoying, but it's not difficult (in my opinion). There's zero physical labor to it. But yet every evening he's just spent and therefore doesn't help with the kids and wants to immediately do what he wants to do hobby wise.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ok, your husband was sounding like my STBX. After your latest post about his temper, being closed-off about sex, watching videos and just overall solitary personality...the two guys sound identical.

I'm going to warn you right now to be prepared for incredible aggression and even physical violence when he understands you're serious about leaving.

Take this very seriously.

He's not going to change or try to hear you. He's going to let you know you're not leaving without blood metaphorically and even physically being drawn. You're going to watch that apathetic, dismissive man channel a level of rage you had no idea was there. Be ready to record him and get a protective order.

I still don't know what is wrong with my ex, but there is something extremely wrong on the personal and mental level. Just get out.

OP here. This summer I discovered a bunch of degrading content about women, including some violent ones.

I was so disgusted and disappointed and angry. I confronted him about it and it was all brushed off.

I have tried to bury that but now that I thought of it again, it just makes me want to be done.

I'm so sorry for your terrible experience. I hope you're in a better situation now.

your husband sounds eerily like my ex. Things got really bad when I left. Just be ready. Mine became super cold and hostile, just pure hatred directed at me.

OP here. Ugh.. I'm so sorry. You didn't deserve any of that to happen to you. Our spouses and partners are supposed to have our backs at every turn, not be tearing us down.

If you don't mind me asking, what did this loser do once you broke free?

My husband definitely has ADHD and fits some of the points you mentioned.

1. - taking forever to do simple things - yes. He gets distracted by details and will take 30 minutes to choose a cheese from the grocery store.

2 - trying to solve problems that aren't immediately a concern - yes, he does this all the time, esp. if it involves fixing something broken.

3 - yes this 100% and it's so frustrating. A good example is when we were moving in a week and I needed help packing up the entire house - he will find little, non-necessary tasks to finish (like painting and sanding a closet door he meant to do for months and never got to) instead of doing things that are actually necessary

4&5 - no he's not really forgetful, but this fits with ADHD I think

6 - yes, takes forever to do simple tasks and puts them all off until the last minute

7 - yes helps others before us

8 - phone addiction - yes.

OK This is all indicative of ADHD I think, especially 1-6. 7&8, and to a degree the rest of your points, also point to ADHD but in a different way I think.

So, ADHD involves a lack of executive functioning - that's why he can't prioritize immediate issues, or figure out what needs to take priority, or make quick decisions. It's like too many unnecessary details flood his brain and he gets lost in them. My theory about the rest of your points, which is similar to my husband too, is that ADHD folks have a hard time with emotional dysregulation - in my husband's case he has a hard time being patient with the kids and easily gets stressed in situations like getting the kids out the door on time (struggling with time management is an ADHD symptom as well.) I find that when there's a situation that he knows will be difficult for him - like getting the kids out the door quickly, or getting the table set for dinner when it's ready but then kids don't want to come to the table - his tendency is to disengage (go into his phone, go into another room and do something random, etc.) because his brain effectively shuts down as it's too difficult for him to stay regulated in these situations. My guess is that some of your later points, about how he doesn't help out, is because he IS genuinely feeling overwhelmed and doesn't know how to overcome that - so he checks out, does hobbies, looks at his phone, ignores the kids.

I'm not trying to excuse his behavior at all, just trying to find a way to be helpful that isn't just "divorce him." I'd really start with treating his ADHD. Get him to a therapist who specializes in ADHD treatment and can perhaps get him medicated and help him put strategies in place to make him feel less overwhelmed. That's step 1. Also, and I know this is incredibly hard because you are completely doing more than your share, but lay off the nagging / reminding / scolding for a while because I'd be that this is contributing to the dynamic of him wanting to check out even more. If he doesn't want to work on himself in therapy, or try meds, then I'd start considering divorce or other options, because that shows that he doesn't even care enough to try. But I think a lot could be helped by really understanding the ADHD brain, and working together to actually come up with solutions. Good luck.

Anonymous wrote:OP: Mine is the same but kids are 12 and 15. I tried everything and nothing worked. I'm thinking about asking him to leave. He tends to get fired so I should probably do this while he's still employed so I don't have to pay him to be a shitty parent.

OP here. So sorry you're in a similar situation. It's so tough and isolating. Somehow they make YOU feel like you're wrong for everything you're doing.

Thankfully your kids are older than mine and I imagine logistics a bit easier to handle (hopefully).

Sending you strength and love!

Anonymous wrote:I do not think it is useful to get someone like this a formal diagnosis because it will then be used an excuse for all the myriad behaviors that are driving you nuts, and you will no longer be able to advocate for him to try harder.

Even if it's ASD or ADHD or both, he also just doesn't care about a lot of this stuff and thus is never going to help with it.

My DH's ADHD diagnosis was a net negative for me because he only takes meds when it benefits him and the meds don't make him suddenly interested in our kid or me. And then he calls all his behaviors that both exacerbate the ADHD and drive me nuts "coping behaviors" and claims I can't say anything about them. Like he's always, always on his phone playing a game or scrolling twitter or something, but now he'll explain he has to do it because "it's the only ay to calm my brain" or "I just need a brain break." Nevermind that the phone addiction is only making his ADHD worse and has not actual benefit for his diagnosis.

He will do things that are unequivocally inappropriate or wrong (like recently yelling at our kid's coach in their favorite activity for no good reason) but if I try to talk to him about it, he will simply claim ADHD and that's the end of the conversation to him. I will explain that having ADHD doesn't make it okay to be a jerk, but he says that's my subjective interpretation of his behavior, and he knows that it was just a misunderstanding of his neurodivergence.

The diagnosis doesn't help if they are not actually motivated to do better. It just becomes another crutch.

OP here. You bring up a valid point. Even if he were to get tested, which I high significant doubts over, I think he'd pull the same shit as your husband - use it as an excuse instead of a way to actually do some introspection.

So sorry you're also dealing with a man child.

I only skimmed all the replies so forgive me if someone raised this. Is it possible to talk to your in laws? Are they reasonable?

One idea is to go to your in laws and ask for financial help for the family. No need to mention marriage problems and divorce. Just say that you are feeling overwhelmed with the debt and that you want to go back to work. Would they help pitch in for a nanny? You need to use their financial resources to get yourself some time to get a job. Even if you need to spend most of your income paying for the nanny, it is still worth it.

Once you have a job and a nanny, see where things are. Plan your independence and exit if you need to. Meanwhile you might have come to accept that he has no interest in spending time with the family and that is ok. If you can keep finances separate, your own career, and just ignore him and just pretend the family is you and the kids and he just does whatever he wants, maybe that is acceptable for you vs losing half custody. You can decide that later. You need time and space to decide your move.

Anonymous wrote:This is sidebar but people who stay up all night often have mental disturbances. Bipolar people do it.

It's not normal to have staying up all night going on regularly.

Sleep deprivation makes people grumpy.

I also want to say that if you ask your husband to separate and he moves out, I think he might interpret that as getting kicked out and that he's free to date. So be crystal clear about what the separation means to both of you. Maybe even write it out together so there's no room for misinterpretation.

OP here. Many, many times he will stay awake late into the night, either listening to audiobooks, scrolling online, or being in the basement with his tech stuff.

Never thought about bipolar, but I'll look into it. It's just he sets his sights on a task and he just can't let it go until it's completed. And when he doesn't get to finish (because, well, pesky family), he gets very irritated.

Yesterday evening I kept telling him to get off of the laptop and come over to the living room to join the rest of us. Crickets, crickets. Eventually he did but I could tell it was painful for him to have stepped away from what he was doing. He looked uncomfortable.

It's frustrating and sad to me..

Anonymous wrote:Ok, your husband was sounding like my STBX. After your latest post about his temper, being closed-off about sex, watching videos and just overall solitary personality...the two guys sound identical.

I'm going to warn you right now to be prepared for incredible aggression and even physical violence when he understands you're serious about leaving.

Take this very seriously.

He's not going to change or try to hear you. He's going to let you know you're not leaving without blood metaphorically and even physically being drawn. You're going to watch that apathetic, dismissive man channel a level of rage you had no idea was there. Be ready to record him and get a protective order.

I still don't know what is wrong with my ex, but there is something extremely wrong on the personal and mental level. Just get out.

Chiming in here as a NP because this is way too familiar. Things can and will get worse. Mine left me but was still aggressive and triggered by his own decision.

Start using a VPN and a private browser right away for everything. Change your passwords for everything and switch to two-factor authentication.

Check recording consent laws in your state. If it’s one-party, I would not record but I would expect that every conversation I have is being illegally recorded and that he’s trying to bait me into violence to make the recording admissible as evidence.

Move anything you can to writing. Document everything in a locked note on your phone. If you can’t easily pull hard copies of files to copy without him noticing, take photos and put them in a hidden album.

Move important documents and valuables to a friend’s house before you take any legal action- once temporary orders are in place, you can’t do that. If you have an old laptop, put that at your friend’s too to avoid him accessing anything of yours that might have a saved password stored.

If your kids are old enough to make phone calls or run to a neighbor’s, you need a safety plan. I worried that I was over the top getting friends and neighbors involved until all hell broke loose and I needed the support I’d put in place.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ok, your husband was sounding like my STBX. After your latest post about his temper, being closed-off about sex, watching videos and just overall solitary personality...the two guys sound identical.

I'm going to warn you right now to be prepared for incredible aggression and even physical violence when he understands you're serious about leaving.

Take this very seriously.

He's not going to change or try to hear you. He's going to let you know you're not leaving without blood metaphorically and even physically being drawn. You're going to watch that apathetic, dismissive man channel a level of rage you had no idea was there. Be ready to record him and get a protective order.

I still don't know what is wrong with my ex, but there is something extremely wrong on the personal and mental level. Just get out.

OP here. This summer I discovered a bunch of degrading content about women, including some violent ones.

I was so disgusted and disappointed and angry. I confronted him about it and it was all brushed off.

I have tried to bury that but now that I thought of it again, it just makes me want to be done.

I'm so sorry for your terrible experience. I hope you're in a better situation now.

your husband sounds eerily like my ex. Things got really bad when I left. Just be ready. Mine became super cold and hostile, just pure hatred directed at me.

I'm the PP who posted upthread that OP's husband sounds just like mine. I see there are three of us here. I bet there are many more reading along who just don't feel like posting. Men like this is not rare. Narcissistic men with sociopathic personalities abound. The steps they follow are identical. They trap a woman through various devices. They give her the slow boil treatment by ramping up their awful behavior over the years, starting with neglect, gaslighting, and stonewalling. They become outright demonic when she tries to leave. I'm glad you got away.

Raising my hand as another one here. Mine shocked me by leaving me. And then went from unmanaged AuDHD territory to legitimately scaring, threatening, and maybe psychotic? It was especially shocking because he made the choice to leave and still punished me for it.

Although mine was diagnosed with ADHD, sleep apnea, and later autism, I think that there are probably issues with differential diagoses between these kinds of things annd sleep problems and narcissism or sociopathy. What looks like AuDHd to a clinician during a few half days of tests can look much more like covert narcissism or sociopathy in the context of someone’s long term behavior.

“Super cold and hostile”, as pP said, describes my STbX perfectly during the divorce process. The thousand yard stare of hatred that my sTBX does while clenching his jaw so hard his veins pop out convinced me that is not “just adhd”. It’s terrifying.

If I could do things over post-diagnosis, I would not commingle a single cent, I would get every single password and document locked down, and I would start talking to attorneys.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ok, your husband was sounding like my STBX. After your latest post about his temper, being closed-off about sex, watching videos and just overall solitary personality...the two guys sound identical.

I'm going to warn you right now to be prepared for incredible aggression and even physical violence when he understands you're serious about leaving.

Take this very seriously.

He's not going to change or try to hear you. He's going to let you know you're not leaving without blood metaphorically and even physically being drawn. You're going to watch that apathetic, dismissive man channel a level of rage you had no idea was there. Be ready to record him and get a protective order.

I still don't know what is wrong with my ex, but there is something extremely wrong on the personal and mental level. Just get out.

OP here. This summer I discovered a bunch of degrading content about women, including some violent ones.

I was so disgusted and disappointed and angry. I confronted him about it and it was all brushed off.

I have tried to bury that but now that I thought of it again, it just makes me want to be done.

I'm so sorry for your terrible experience. I hope you're in a better situation now.

your husband sounds eerily like my ex. Things got really bad when I left. Just be ready. Mine became super cold and hostile, just pure hatred directed at me.

I'm the PP who posted upthread that OP's husband sounds just like mine. I see there are three of us here. I bet there are many more reading along who just don't feel like posting. Men like this is not rare. Narcissistic men with sociopathic personalities abound. The steps they follow are identical. They trap a woman through various devices. They give her the slow boil treatment by ramping up their awful behavior over the years, starting with neglect, gaslighting, and stonewalling. They become outright demonic when she tries to leave. I'm glad you got away.

How does this guy manage to stay employed?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ok, your husband was sounding like my STBX. After your latest post about his temper, being closed-off about sex, watching videos and just overall solitary personality...the two guys sound identical.

I'm going to warn you right now to be prepared for incredible aggression and even physical violence when he understands you're serious about leaving.

Take this very seriously.

He's not going to change or try to hear you. He's going to let you know you're not leaving without blood metaphorically and even physically being drawn. You're going to watch that apathetic, dismissive man channel a level of rage you had no idea was there. Be ready to record him and get a protective order.

I still don't know what is wrong with my ex, but there is something extremely wrong on the personal and mental level. Just get out.

OP here. This summer I discovered a bunch of degrading content about women, including some violent ones.

I was so disgusted and disappointed and angry. I confronted him about it and it was all brushed off.

I have tried to bury that but now that I thought of it again, it just makes me want to be done.

I'm so sorry for your terrible experience. I hope you're in a better situation now.

your husband sounds eerily like my ex. Things got really bad when I left. Just be ready. Mine became super cold and hostile, just pure hatred directed at me.

OP: Mine is the same but kids are 12 and 15. I tried everything and nothing worked. I'm thinking about asking him to leave. He tends to get fired so I should probably do this while he's still employed so I don't have to pay him to be a shitty parent.

I do not think it is useful to get someone like this a formal diagnosis because it will then be used an excuse for all the myriad behaviors that are driving you nuts, and you will no longer be able to advocate for him to try harder.

Even if it's ASD or ADHD or both, he also just doesn't care about a lot of this stuff and thus is never going to help with it.

My DH's ADHD diagnosis was a net negative for me because he only takes meds when it benefits him and the meds don't make him suddenly interested in our kid or me. And then he calls all his behaviors that both exacerbate the ADHD and drive me nuts "coping behaviors" and claims I can't say anything about them. Like he's always, always on his phone playing a game or scrolling twitter or something, but now he'll explain he has to do it because "it's the only ay to calm my brain" or "I just need a brain break." Nevermind that the phone addiction is only making his ADHD worse and has not actual benefit for his diagnosis.

He will do things that are unequivocally inappropriate or wrong (like recently yelling at our kid's coach in their favorite activity for no good reason) but if I try to talk to him about it, he will simply claim ADHD and that's the end of the conversation to him. I will explain that having ADHD doesn't make it okay to be a jerk, but he says that's my subjective interpretation of his behavior, and he knows that it was just a misunderstanding of his neurodivergence.

The diagnosis doesn't help if they are not actually motivated to do better. It just becomes another crutch.

This is sidebar but people who stay up all night often have mental disturbances. Bipolar people do it.

It's not normal to have staying up all night going on regularly.

Sleep deprivation makes people grumpy.

I also want to say that if you ask your husband to separate and he moves out, I think he might interpret that as getting kicked out and that he's free to date. So be crystal clear about what the separation means to both of you. Maybe even write it out together so there's no room for misinterpretation.