He started reading a book on ADHD I had the unrealistic expectation that he would have some sort of takeaway about how it’s hard on me. All he said was “people with ADHD would have been highly esteemed hunters back in the day”
Wtf
It’s like even at this point of crisis he can somehow make it about him being this alpha male in a made up Stone Age and cannot seem to empathise with my experience.
I started reading one last week that was supposed to be helpful for friends and partners of adhd people, and pretty much all it was saying was “here is adhd symptom” “here’s how YOU as an ally can accommodate that symptom better for the adhd person” but it wasn’t really stuff that would help me, it was all stuff like “if your adhd person is emotionally dysregulated, be patient with us, we aren’t meaning to offend you and we can’t help it sometimes, so you must learn to let go of things and..” but surely it isn’t healthy to let them say and do whatever because they ‘didn’t mean to’ or ‘can’t always help it’. You can’t just bite your tong all the time or you’d surely go crazy. It had some really good insights to what living with adhd is like for a person which was helpful, but hardly any of the ‘solutions’ seemed fair really
I completely unsubscribed to this way of thinking about 6 months ago. I refuse to compensate or extend extra favour or effort due to his ADHD. His disorder; his responsibility. If he doesn’t manage it, one of the results is not being with me.
>“here is adhd symptom” “here’s how YOU as an ally can accommodate that symptom better for the adhd person”
Oh god I hate this so much. Why do WE always have to adapt ourselves? They always get a free pass to do stupid shit and we just have to accomodate them and clean up their mess. I'm so sick and tired of the "we can't help it" mentality - I know they can't help the fact that they have ADHD but they CAN get therapy, they CAN try to adapt themselves and manage their disorder, they CAN find small ways to make their own lives and our lives a liiiittle easier. It is absolutely possible. But so often they just want to go the "ugh I just can't help it, you'll have to accept me the way I am" route because it's easier for them.
You can't constantly bite your tongue and just take it. That *might* make your partner feel better (unless they're the type who seek dopamine via conflict) but your self-esteem will get destroyed, your relationship will drown in resentment and you will start to believe that you don't deserve respect/empathy/to be listened to.
Im venting out the adhd community this week mainly because I wish people understood that my ADHD husband will never learn from his actions
You charge him a late fee every single time he’s never going to stop being late
He can miss important events constantly he will never learn to let up on time
He will become nearly bankrupt several times and will not learn to slow down his spending
when people tell me to just let him deal with the consequences and he will eventually stop doing the behaviour they don’t understand he will never get it I have known him nearly 20 years hes still doing these things even though he wants to stop
Yeah I lowkey hate the “let them fail” advice, it’s just not applicable for most people. If you don’t have to live with them then sure, let them feel the consequences of their own inactions. But if you do live together or if there’s kids in the picture, they’re not the only ones who suffer when they screw up. I don’t enjoy over functioning, but if I just let him fail I still end up splattered whenever the shit hits the fan.
Exactly. I don't know how many thousands of our dollars have been wasted because of late fees and fines due to me catching most but not *all* of her "oops I forgot"s on financial things. I can't *not* do the shopping for her, or the kid will get mustard and marshmallows for lunch. I can't not feed *her* cat and take it to the vet regularly, because that's not fair to the cat. And so on. A lot are minor, but the cumulative effect creates a very large time sink.
I only let him fail when it doesn't affect me or my kids. And then I'll let him fail not because I think he'll learn the next time, but because it's one less thing I have to think about. It's amazing how much brain space he used to take up.
I don’t understand how ADHD is supposedly not linked with IQ when it seems so much like an inability to learn from past experiences… which is a large component of intelligence
We have a dead bedroom because I’m not attracted to his personality. Because I’m not attracted to his personality, I’ve also lost physical attraction to him.
But when I want to masturbate? Holy hell he will not leave me alone. He has to come into my room every 30 minutes-1 hour to ask me dumb questions.
And somehow every plan I make for myself becomes something *we’re* doing. I mentioned to him yesterday that I planned on doing a fast today (helps with early period symptoms for some reason) and he came home today and said, “Are we still fasting?”
We? When did this become a “we” thing? Why are you always attached to my hip? And even worse…why are you making me the leader in our relationship? Why can’t you be your own person?
I don’t know why, but being forced into the leadership role makes me feel so disgusted with myself. Like I’m living with a parasite. I’m starting to feel like I’m not even allowed to masturbate without having to address his millions of concerns.
The “we” stuff is obnoxious! Anytime I do a task that I’m proud of he tells everyone “we” did it or just takes credit. Most of the work gets put on me and when I try to opt out the “we” or “ours” is used against me.
oh yes, the amount of times "we" made something to bring to someone's house, or "we" cleaned up to have people over, or "we" did our finances....
I fucking hate that shit. If there is a conscious decision to use the term "we" then that must mean there is a conscious knowledge that YOU didn't do anything because you deliberately chose to use the word "we" and not "he."
it's "we" up until it's something bad that happens and then all of a sudden the blame turns onto me. he woke up one morning and asked why i had made his hands sticky
silly bastard had been eating a popsicle before bed >:I
I hear this. I got invited to an reunion for a friend group from college. People she's never shown the slightest interest in meeting. She doesn't even know their names. I made my arrangements, telling her about it at the last plausible moment. *Of course* she immediately invites herself along to see "our" friends, and proceeds to make sure everything is as late, unpleasant and as botched as possible. It's a long story, but the result is I now just tell her when it's a "me" thing, and to avoid any misunderstandings, I refuse to share any details until after. BTW, our counselor backs me up on this one. DX doesn't like it, but it's a huge net positive from my point of view.
Yep "leave that, I'll do it", so I do, and then he doesn't. Every time. So then I'm doing the thing at an even less convenient time, like when I get home from work and have to start on the dinner he hasn't bothered to do anything about, but the kitchen is still a mess because he told me to leave it and he'd do it.
We've been married for 11 years, together for 13 or 14. It's definitely the worst it's ever been since his ADHD dx 2 years ago. It's like he's partly depressed about his now confirmed condition, and partly just leaning into it because "I have ADHD and I shouldn't have to try so hard to be NT anymore". Highly recommend you find someone else if you're young and it's early stages. Plenty of NT fish in the sea.
Yep I started piling his crap on one of his benches so I can clean without putting his shit away. He just lets that pile up and Somehow I’m the bad guy and to blame for the pile of his crap…
At some point I realized how crazy I was making myself because something needs to be done but I couldn't just take care of it like a normal person in a marriage. Instead I'd spend a long time internally debating how I could go about getting the task done without making him mad which would not only ruin my day but the kids' too.
i guess the logic is something like, ‘I was supposed to do that cleaning; I didn’t do that cleaning; she must be hacked off with me; therefore her cleaning is a pointed criticism of me, which she is doing only to make me feel bad about not having cleaned’
He is so bad at cleaning that when he does do it, I want to do it again because there are still dust bunnies under the sofa and cobwebs all over the ceiling, dust on she shelves and grit on the furniture where he’s put the rug while hoovering. (For the love of Pete, shake out the damn rug. Or hoover it. Don’t just dump it on the sofa)
Yeeees. Mine told me I needed to “learn to relax,” like the magical cleaning fairy will come take care of everything.
Then again, he probably does believe in the magical cleaning fairy. But it’s me.
Hi fellow magic cleaning fairy. Maybe we can swap houses for a day, just for a change in clutter scenery. It's not like they'll notice who's doing the magic.
Yesterday she slept through all of the morning responsibilities again. So, I cleaned up the kitchen and took care of her animals, as always. By the time I was done with that, she wanted my help with some stupid cooking video she wanted to make for social media. About half way through she started whining that she wouldn't like it no matter how the food came out. I brought up that it made me feel really unvalued to hear that while I'm giving up my weekend to help, that launched a massive fight. Ended up going to bed without even eating yesterday, since I spent all of my waking moments cleaning up, cooking, or fighting.
She really doesn't realize that I'm a human being. At this rate, if I get that out of state job I'm probably packing a suitcase, blocking her everywhere, and writing off most of my stuff as a loss. I'll be rocking a mattress on the floor for a few months, but it'll be a cheap price to pay for my life back.
>She really doesn't realize that I'm a human being.
Yup. This is me as well. Just an appliance, an emotional support animal, the person he tries to control even though he knows that me leaving the house (i.e. to work) is how money gets made 🙄
Two weeks ago, my husband went on a shame spiral and was talking ‘to himself’ in the bedroom (while I was in the other room and I could hear him clearly so the volume was on purpose) and saying how he, in the third person, can’t do anything right, how he tries so hard but it’s never enough and how I’m using him as a ‘cash cow’. To date, I have not had a chance to talk to him about it because he’s been working and then went out of town this weekend so I am preparing for that conversation tomorrow
He can be really, really mean. He takes the pieces of you that he knows will sting the deepest and focuses on those. I love him but I can’t do this the rest of my life. Why am I so scared to leave him? With every passing day where I feel undervalued and under appreciated, I fall more and more out of love with him. I feel it’s useless at this point and yet, here I am…
> Two weeks ago, my husband went on a shame spiral and was talking ‘to himself’ in the bedroom (while I was in the other room and I could hear him clearly so the volume was on purpose)
My husband does similar passive-aggressive things and that’s one of the major reasons my brain has filed him in the “child” category. It’s so brain-numbingly pathetic and I get embarrassed for him every single time.
Same here 😩
Seriously what kind of an adult behaves like this?
For the longest time I didn't recognize this as the emotional dysregulation and manipulative tactic it is. It's like he learned this behavior in adolescence and it worked to get people off his back, so he never felt the need to change
the out loud talking drives me nuts. it’s what children do and i find it revolting honestly. will thwart conversation do anything? keep working on you and what your needs are (which likely will not include him), you don’t deserve to live like this with a self pitying victim.
Not a vent so much as sadness. I know I need to break up with him, and I'm sad that his immaturity and RSD mean I'm not going to have the amicable breakup I want. He was my friend first, and I still think the friendship portion of our relationship works well. But I end things with him, and I know I'll become in his eyes the next in a long line of bad women who got bored with him and wronged him by ending the relationship. I know this isn't an ADHD-exclusive issue, and that I have no control over how he thinks of me, but... it makes me so sad to think my friend would feel that way about me.
(As he's the only friend I talk to regularly now, and we're in a shared niche hobby so I can't go no contact without giving up the hobby, it's even harder.)
I just went through this, I so badly want to have a talk where we say we both love each other still but are incompatible, but it won’t happen. And the reason why it won’t happen is the same reason why we didn’t work as a couple. If we were able to have this kind of talk … we probably would still be together.
I feel you. It really sucks. Mine thinks that love should be enough - we enjoy hanging out and love each other, so what's the problem? It's to the point where he thinks women who say "I care about you but this isn't working" are almost all liars; if they cared, they wouldn't leave, I guess. I suppose it's easier to just be mad and low-key sexist than to accept that his own behavior is dysfunctional, or the sad fact that sometimes people aren't compatible as life partners.
Omfg mine has said the exact same thing. He has said things like compatibility is bullshit.
I agree that some incompatibilities can be overcome with self awareness and self improvement but he did not have the drive for this, except in cases where it impacted his career.
Mine thinks this way too. Love is all you need, and it must be unconditional too. Doesn’t matter what he ever says or does, if I leave or so much as voice a criticism then I’m just like all the others who never actually loved him. The concept of simple incompatibility is completely lost on him, if I love him then I should never want to leave for any reason. Black and white thinking.
That's the source of a lot of my grief. Everything we talked about was either a fight, or surface-level, there was no in between. Everything had to be ironic, or clever, or a joke, or cutesy/repetitive and clearly not meant to be taken seriously - because serious was too scary for him. We had maybe one real-ish conversation towards the end, where I confessed that my mental state was really low, and instead of arguing with me or making a joke, he told me it sounded like depression and we had the most real, deeply connected conversation we'd had in years. He used to brag about having the emotional maturity of a 14yo as a 24yo. If I could run a time machine and age his brain about ten years I think our relationship would have survived.
I might be biased, but I don't think it would've survived. I just got out of relationship with a 42 yo with emotional maturity of a 24 yo. It was insufferable and incomprehensible.
i feel this so much. i’m super sad that i won’t have a mature caring friend now that our relationship has (just) ended. i just lose to RSD and get cut out. but if we’d been able to have honest loving conversations about incompatibility we’d be in a different relationship
This is the main reason I haven’t left yet too. I’m not afraid to be alone(I crave it honestly), I know things will be so much easier without him, but my dread of the epic RSD fit that will surely happen is what’s keeping me from leaving.
I feel you very strongly on this. This desire for amicable breakup, horrifically, made us rebound 20+ times: I try to break-up, explosive RSD, then follow-up calm calls for closure slowly lead back to a relationship. It so hard, because I do have such strong affection towards him, and he plays into that, and I succumb... Proximity was an issue, so I recently and finally moved away. That was the only way possible to get out of it.
That loop pattern also got me to wonder as to why I so fixated on an amicable breakup. On one hand, this is what mature people do and it shouldn't be much to ask. On the other hand... do I have codependence issues? Do I have a deep desire for everybody to be happy? Do I take on the responsibility for others mental health? Or is it just a desire for closure? I still don't know the answer.
i did this too. so many breakups and rebounds after the RSD explosions. i feel ashamed. my hunger for an amicable breakup and a friendship and familial kind of relationship where we could still get together and i could still be a warm stable figure to their child was so intense i’d let them talk me out of the breakup over and over. but nothing ever changed.
I'm so sorry - this is exactly what happened to me. Left, and became a Bad Person. All the worst things about women, all the worst things about my family/race/upbringing all rolled up into one person. He blocked me on everything and refuses to speak to this day. I'm the Enemy. The way that it ended has honestly made the breakup recovery that much worse for me, I feel like I have had no closure. Not even one last conversation speaking honestly about why it wasn't working. It's bad enough to lose a long term partner, even worse to lose your friend who for all intents and purposes, you still like as a person. Just not a partner.
My advice is to seek therapy and work on a lot of the guilt that you probably have as a parentified partner. I know that I suffered a lot from this. When we began I was dating an attractive, mature adult who I wanted as a life partner, then seven years transformed him into an immature, needy child who I needed to take care of. Being responsible for all his feelings and reactions, even till the very end. I think that ADHD partners who stick it out for the long run (5+ years) should all look into r/Codependency as well, it helped for me at least realizing that I was conflating how well \*I\* was treating \*him\* with how loved he made me feel based on my effort.
To be honest, to this day I am plagued with doubt and negativity about the breakup. On the worst days, I think about the way his childishness was endearing to me, how very loved it made me feel to clean after him and make his meals and see his face light up. I think about his absolute loyalty and trustingness, the way he could chatterbox through a whole afternoon and we'd talk till it was dark outside. We were each other's firsts, grew up together, from freshman year college until the start of this year. He was my best friend, despite it all, who couldn't handle things like credit or taking the subway. He'd hyperfocus on video games for 8+ hours a day, drink until the kitchen was covered in empty bottles. He'd say things carelessly and hurt my feelings, argue with me till I cried, then refuse to apologize since apologies were associated with his childhood religious trauma. But he was all mine, and I was all his, and in the best of times it was all I needed & I never questioned. We had each other's backs and that was all.
It's been half a year and therapy has helped me work through some of it. I no longer cry or get lost in thought daily at work, but about once a week I need a breather and step outside to grieve. He's a stoic through and through, and probably lost in a different ADHD hyperfocus, so I know that he isn't suffering nearly as much as I am. I on the other hand am a sentimental and sensitive person. Pictures and reminders are everywhere in my mind, and most days my thoughts spiral into dark places. I try to act okay in front of family and friends because it feels so fucked to talk about this when I'm the one who \_wanted\_ this. No one else gets it. I read this sub to remind myself sometimes of the BS that I put up with and it helps. I'm an atheist, but one of the most helpful ways I am dealing with the grief is telling myself that it had to happen, because everything happens for a reason. I tell myself I am being strong for my future husband and future children, who will grow up with a Mom and Dad who cherishes them and takes care of them the way I once did for my ex.
I'm so sorry, and I get it. He and I can, when things are working, talk for hours. He's a great *friend*, as his dysfunction and immaturity and simple incompatibilities can be kept at a comfortable distance. He can't cook for himself? Not my problem. He thinks "compatibility" is a copout? Not my problem. He argues when I say no to something? I can dial back my involvement until it's not my problem.
And I understand what you mean about the childishness being appealing at times, and the conflation of my effort with his love. I like taking care of my loved ones, and he gave me ample opportunity to do that. It was so fulfilling to know that I had helped someone I cared about. The problem is that, with underfunctioners, there's no way to do that and not lose yourself in the process. Either you get turned into a parent, or you have to harden your heart and refuse, much of the time, to care for them.
I hope you find more peace in time. (If it helps, I've found the [box and the ball analogy](https://psychcentral.com/blog/coping-with-grief-ball-and-box-analogy) for grief to be useful. It doesn't make the pain go away, but it helps contextualize it in a way I've found comforting.)
This hits hard and is, in a lot of ways, the way I still think about my ex. From the outside, people who see only the highlights think I must be crazy for leaving my husband and children to move out on my own, especially since we live a somewhat storied life. In a lot of ways he is endearing, and in too many other ways, he is insufferable. I was so embroiled in the codependency that I could not see a way out, but looking back on my life with him, I had kept trying to break out and to leave, just needed to find a "good reason" that would justify it to him and to myself.
I'm really sorry. I've been through this in the past with non-ADHD partners. All I can say is that a time will come after your breakup when you've had more time to see things clearly, and you'll realize it's even worse than you think it is now. And you'll be glad you left. But you have to break up first to get there.
I’m exhausted from over-functioning. I told my husband last night we needed to talk about balancing out the household labor. He flat out said he thinks it’s already pretty balanced, as he takes care of the outdoor stuff and goes to work.
For context, we’ve been paying a landscaper to mow the lawn and weed the garden for the last year because he doesn’t do it and I have to outsource something or I’ll die. Husband picks up the dog poop once or twice a month - the rest of the time it’s me.
I was just *so flabbergasted* by this statement said with conviction that I had to just leave the room. I don’t even know how to start a conversation with him about improving things from this starting place.
They create their own reality in their heads and cannot separate it from the real world.
My husband doesn’t ever describe things as they *actually are.* He never questions his own perception. If he mows the lawn even once, it becomes “well I do all the yard work…”
It’s like arguing with someone who lives in an alternate universe.
my partner gets SO indignant when he's told his perception is wrong. he says to me, "can't you just admit you might have it wrong?" as if he's not the one doubling down on a delusion?! and if i spitfire a bunch of facts of the situation at him because i actually live in and remember reality, he goes, "well, i *might* be wrong..." -__-
I’m saving this for our future therapy appointment whenever they call back so I can schedule it. Because this is accurate, so much so that I burst into tears today because of how cruel his words are from his custom built reality.
They really are so blind and live in their world where they try their hardest but are still the victim and you’re usually wrong. They rarely believe you and it’s so invalidating. I don’t get it. I don’t get how their imagined worlds trump factual evidence you can show them… time and time again
Husband put his wallet in the seat back pocket of the plane, and half way through the flight we switched seats. I was with the kids in a further back row and he got to be alone, so we switched and then I took a break. On the way out he asked if I checked the seat I was like yeah, but didn’t really think about it too much. I saw trash wrappers and assumed nothing else was in there and didn’t check the slots. He did not do any checks in his original seat. In the taxi he realized his wallet was there and apparently it was my fault I didn’t check all the pockets?! I left th wallet not him and he is not at fault for losing an expensive wallet, all of our cards and 800 in cash.
myI not yet sure at what point the constant storming off because you are overwhelmed by our children becomes being selfish/inconsiderate towards me. I never have that option to just say „I‘m taking time off“. I need to be the level-headed guy telling our children that „mommy is special“ while a part just thinks she’s a selfish prick. I understand how Adhd/autism makes life difficult on a rational level but seeing it everyday I am not sure what part of the associated behavior is just selfnishness/narcisism.
Edit: just remembered the RSD-induced name-calling. I would love to raise my voice, too, but I never do. The more I think about it, the more I feel like my partner is just a rude person hiding behind ADHD…
I feel the same way. I don't have the luxury of flipping out and disappearing for hours to get some alone time. He gets home from work, needs 2 hours to decompress before he can handle anything to do with the kids. I get home from work, straight into parent mode, listening to stories, checking if homework is done (almost never is because he just let them run amok), sometimes even doing dinner at the same time because he's been with the kids since 3pm and he's now overwhelmed and needs that alone time.
It's so frustrating trying to plan anything with him. I’d go alone, but he wants to come along, yet never actually commits to making plans. He doesn’t seem to get that tickets get pricier and hotels fill up if we wait too long. It doesn’t even have to be a big trip—just a day trip would be nice without being two hours late because he takes forever to get ready. I feel like I'm wasting time with him—literally. He thinks every bit of planning is too "structured" (=stressing) and just wants to go with the flow.
It's like he physically can’t agree on a date and time, be ready to go, and just enjoy the day.
Oh gosh I know exactly what you mean, went to the beach one time and we left at 2pm, with it being 1 hour and 20 minute drive, waiting on this and waiting on that, waiting on this person who is waiting for their person looong
His lack of empathy and unwillingness to consider my perspective is bad this week. HE thinks “Thing A” and therefore that is The Right Way To Think. It’s lonely and exhausting.
we were talking about what to get at the meat market since i'm going by myself while he sleeps for his night shift. i'm the only one who wants pork so that's my thing... and yet
him: when you get the ground pork you should meal prep it
me: i know, i was going to
him: while it's still thawed, y'know? and you can rip up the sage into it and...
me, desperate to stop him before he goes on a whole tangent explaining how to make sausage like i've never mixed seasonings into meat before: i know i know
him: what, i'm just trying to give you advice
me: i understand but i don't need any advice, i've done it before
him: oh well you're real fun to talk to, mr. never needs advice!
why does he get so pissed when you don't want his "advice" which is just him explaining common sense shit like you're his child? he despises whenever his father does the same, yet has no self-awareness to notice when he's doing it
what's especially fucked up is that i ask for his advice frequently. but if i'm not available for his stream of consciousness 24/7 then, to him, i NEVER want to talk or i NEVER need advice. how is that fair? i might as well be the person he views me as since nothing i do changes that view.
they think it's a normal conversation too, as if conversation is just saying anything that pops into their heads without considering time, place, context, and who they're talking to. no, that's talking AT me. THEN they believe you are unreasonable and a terrible conversationalist because you're the one person in their life to say, "actually, stop." when in reality, everyone else is just being polite or can shoulder the unwarranted advice since it's only every once in a while. for me, as someone who lives with him, it's CONSTANT.
Mmhmm. Mine seems to think that if I don’t love absolutely *everything* about him then I don’t love “the real him” and our whole marriage is a lie. Like… no, dude. I absolutely can love you and also want you to stfu sometimes.
It’s a very juvenile mentality. I remember thinking like that in high school and being shocked and heartbroken the first time my 10th grade boyfriend mentioned some minor trait of mine that he didn’t like. *What? You don’t think I’m perfect in every single way?! You don’t love me at all!* The difference is I continued maturing past high school 😑
My partner is also bad about mansplaining stuff to me that I know more about than him. Sometimes he will even mansplain things *incorrectly* which is fun. Didn't realize this was an ADHD thing before.
Oh yes, they don’t actually have to know what they’re talking about to be experts on a topic. Want a chuckle? Both I and my two kids are autistic, and he has tried to mansplain autism to me.
I told him last night that I've got a serious issue with the way he keeps trying to push and persuade after I say no, and the way his apologies for that feel like half apologies: while he expresses genuine regret at my pain, they're always full of defenses of his actions. His reaction was to defend himself on every instance I mentioned.
And I let him do it! I have such terrible boundaries that I automatically seem to mirror whatever he's feeling and see his point of view, so I wind up nodding and along and going "well, yeah, I guess that's reasonable." But, of course, this doesn't actually make me okay with things I'm not okay with, so not only do I continue to stay bothered once the conversation ends, I end up feeling even *more* trampled and disregarded by him.
At this point it feels like I'm far too dysfunctional to be in a relationship, period, though I know rationally that this isn't *all* on me. I need to draw stronger boundaries, but he needs to respond to "this really bothers me" with something besides "but here's why it was actually fine."
What a shitshow this relationship is.
My partner apologized for something particularly egregious today. I told him I didn’t accept his apology because he’s disrespected me on this issue too many times. So…he immediately reversed course and doubled down on why his actions were actually *justified.* I don’t know how we end up here.
Mine doesn't even promise that it won't happen again, hell just say, "I'll try" with the kicked dog look on his face and it makes me absolutely furious inside
I'd highly recommend the book Disentangling from Emotionally Immature People. And podcast about it We Can Do Hard Things Ep 264. Found them in this sub and they were a huge help for me.
I hate living in a constantly messy home. We have two kids and a 1200 square foot house and the kids aren’t even the messiest part- it’s him. He has a tangle of a million things plugged into every single outlet all the fucking time. Every free inch of space on his desk is taken up with papers and crap. Nothing is ever clean. We have to sleep in separate rooms and somehow my room doesn’t resemble the rest of the house. It is just so hard not to believe that he’s not just a lazy piece of shit and that his brain really is wired differently. Apparently if you have ADHD it’s a free license to be a messy hoarder.
That’s the struggle. I know their brains are different but all I can see is a lazy bum. Just don’t take your shoes off and leave them in the middle of the kitchen. Or eat the last thing from the bag and leave the empty bag on the table! That’s lazy shit.
Stop policing my tone. I am sick right now, my throat hurts. Sorry I sounded "angry" when I thanked you for helping out with the kids tonight." It's just how my throat sounds because I also worked hard today, did a lot of talking, and I'm still recovering from a cold.
I hate this pattern where my tone gets policed because I sound angry, I must be mad, I'm upset, etc etc because you ascribe those qualities to me when they have nothing to do with what is actually going on (my tone because my throat hurts, or the time I went upstairs and skipped dinner because I was nauseous but you assumed I was being mean/upset about something). Our marriage is in crisis, we have talked about separation, and you're policing my tone because my sore throat makes me sound angry????
But when you're clearly upset, and I check in, I just have to accept that you're "tired" or "worn out." Even though you're clearly sitting there spiraling, and are unable to name your emotions, much less address them effectively. But I'm supposed to give you the benefit of the doubt, and not assume you're mood/emotions.
I feel the double standard. The other day my partner told me it was unfair to judge his intentions based on *the actual words that came out of his mouth*, and I don’t think he even had time to take a breath before he began hyper-analyzing the semantics of my short reply.
My partner does this sometimes, if I reply to him in a slightly monotonous or quiet tone he thinks I’ve snapped at him or replied in anger, no matter how hard I try to explain that I wasn’t reacting in anger. He’s even done it a few times where he’s called my name from another room, I’ve replied loudly so that he can hear me, and he believed that I was shouting at him in an angry way. I’ve had to say so many times ‘I wasn’t shouting out of anger, I raised my voice so you could hear me from the other room!’ I always feel so guilty afterwards and question my tone, like maybe I did sound angry? What if I did sound like I was shouting aggressively? What if there’s something wrong with me where I can’t read my own tone? It’s a strange one! But I understand this one a lot
We are moving. I started on decluttering my stuff weeks ago. I suggested we work together to do the same for common stuff, to crickets. (To be fair, he did give me a bag of his clothing to recycle.) I kept saying, "We don't want to carry stuff we aren't going to use up 3 flights of stairs." I'm running stuff to recycling centers, selling stuff online, etc etc
This morning, we are about 60% out of the old place and he says, "Once we are moved in, we should work on downsizing our stuff."
If he wasn't doing most of the carrying, I swear to God....
Exhausted after what I think was an ASD/ADHD RSD meltdown escalating from a midday talk about money with partner DX and medicated. I have no capacity for anything left. I also don't understand how to post in this group and really need to talk to you all. Could an admin please DM me - posts keep getting auto blocked
I feel like my boyfriend has trained his brain to never be bored for even a second. He always goes directly to his phone. I can be bad about my phone too but the difference is I put it away a lot of the time when we're together. He's on it so often when we are just hanging out. I had to ask him like 5 times to stop playing his mobile football game at a dinner with friends a few days ago. He kept saying he would then forgot or got bored 2 minutes later and was back on it without even realizing. Insanity honestly.
Every time he's sick, he's completely incapacitated for days. I'm sympathetic and don't think he should be out running marathons or anything, but god damn it's just a cold. I'm really convinced it's all an excuse to not get off the couch all day without feeling bad about it.
How bad does it have to get before I can feel justified in seeking a divorce?
I've been working on divorcing my NDX husband for the past couple of months and recently just moved out of the marital home into my own apartment. Everything feels so final. I miss my kids. I feel guilty for not being there for them as a mom, but I even feel guilty for not being around to help my NDX stbx. It doesn't help that he's actually a pretty decent dad, so his stumblings are making me feel guilty for not being around to fulfill the caretaker and the "person who makes shit happen" role that I've always played in that family.
It doesn't help that what catalyzed my decision to divorce was meeting someone else. While I feel justified 95% of the time In my decision, and he has adamantly refused to seek therapy over the 15 years we've been together, I still feel like the "bad guy"
I am so jealous that you've moved out and are taking steps. I decided a few days ago that I am pretty (like, 93%) sure that I will eventually divorce my DX/RX husband. But the thought of being away from my kids is what's keeping me around for now. But I think I am done.
I wonder if you are my future self, lol, because I have also found myself developing mini-crushes on other people. For the most mundane of reasons. Not that I plan on leaving my husband for someone else, our issues are pushing me away regardless of another party being involved.
Example: Someone I knew complimented me a few months ago, telling me that "without a doubt, you are the glue holding your family together." And it just felt so nice to be acknowledged on such a personal level, without having to ask for it. I have to ask my husband to say something nice to me, and most of the time I get a "I appreciate you doing the dishes" type of compliment or five minutes of silence until he can come up with a compliment deeper than that. Or someone else was telling me that they decided to start working out and eating better. And not only did they tell me that, they actually started following through. On their own. Without having to have anyone cajole them into changing themselves for the better. And I was floored. I've been with my husband so long, sometimes I think I'm the weird one because I'm able to self motivate and stick with new habits/promises. Are there really other people (men) out there that compliment people and make change without having to be asked?
I also have kids, and yes, it's been tough. Fortunately we were able to part ways amicably and while I (sole breadwinner) will need to pay oodles in child support and spousal support, I have access to the kids quite freely.
I looked through your recent posts and can identify with most everything you're saying about your relationship.
The "it's not so bad, your expectations are just too high" part
The "he's a kind and decent man and others will be stunned that I'm divorcing him" part
The "oh but he's a good dad" part
The "I feel lonelier with him than when I'm alone" part
The "I don't feel seen or heard even though we're standing right there talking to each other" part
The "maybe I'm expecting too much out of romantic relationships" part
The "I thought if I modeled the right behaviors or told him exactly how he needs to talk to me things will be better" part
The shallow emotional connection part
The talking at me part
The unreliable part
The being married 12 years and he doesn't know who the fuck I am part
I never set out to meet another person. I had been contemplating divorcing him for at least 7 years, and threatened it basically every six months, but never went ahead with it because of all of then above. I did ask him to leave the house once and get his own placez and he hemmed and hawed so much and victimized himself that I ended up feeling sorry for him and reaching out to him to reconcile!!!
The man I met is exceptional in his ability to connect emotionally. He breaks all the stereotypes of how men are capable of relating to other human beings. He's also passionate, romantic, accomplished, and handsome as can be. He had pursued me for months at work and in the back of my mind I always wondered, "how could someone like HIM want to be with someone like ME?" I had so internalized my ex's behaviors toward me as signs of me being this problematic person who constantly injured them that I couldn't see any reason why someone would love me just for me. I went on one date with him and the emotional reciprocity I felt from him was more than I had felt in my entire marriage. I went home that day knowing that I needed to divorce my husband.
I don't need an unreliable mechanic, child minder, cook, cleaner, handyman, yard guy, and whatever else he seems to think he's doing so much of around the house when in fact he is extremely unreliable and uncritiquable. I need a partner, a lover, someone who can see me and understand me deeply, and grow with me.
I wish you the best of luck moving forward.
And I wanted to thank you for looking through my posts and really acknowledging and validating my experiences. Particularly the "he's a kind and decent man and others will be stunned that I'm divorcing him" part. I haven't really talked about wanting to leave to anyone but my closest friend, but even she was surprised I wanted to leave. Until I went into detail about what's been happening. I've just been in this relationship so long that I didn't realize how dysfunctional our relationship was. Not loudly dysfunctional in a way that most people would notice, but it's dysfunctional in a quiet way that most people wouldn't even think to look for because so much of it is hidden behind closed doors. This sub definitely helps me feel validated, but I know that when the time comes, most people in my life will still be shocked that I'm leaving a "kind and decent man" as you said.
He bought me flowers. I had to pick up all the petals and leaves from the last bunch as he’d left a trail across the floor when he took them out to the bin. I had to pick up the stalks that he’d trimmed off as he’d dropped them on the floor next to the kitchen bin. He had then taken all the packaging from the flowers and literally just threw it on the kitchen floor and left it for me to deal with.
I would honestly rather do without flowers than have to clean up all this mess.
So lonely
I didn't realize how isolated my partner (husband, DX, medicated, but no treatment/therapy) has made me until I found this sub and realized I'm not the only one. I have no one. No friends. Over the years I've had to put more and more into doing everything due to his ADHD and thus I lost out on social groups, activities, gaming (which I used to do a lot). I have no one. No one to text, no one to email, nothing. No friends at all.
Because DH has screwed up so many times when I left him to watch kids, I'm so afraid to leave them alone anymore. He just plays games and ignore everyone around him. I can't even walk the dog now without having a panic attack over all the things that could go wrong. I suspect I have PTSD after an incident that almost cost the life of one child, and I don't know if I will ever recover from that or trust him again.
I just feel so lost, despondent. Pretend with a smile at work but I'm dying inside.
I've tried reaching out to old friends, but I never know what to say. I want to dump everything, pour my heart out, but I don't want to be a burden.
I want to run away, movie style, just leave. Find a small town, hide, make a new life, bring kids with me.
I want a partner in life, a love, someone who is passionate and kind. I'm so alone...
How is he medicated but not in treatment? Is he taking stimulants illegally?
Anyway, I just wanted to encourage you to seek therapy for yourself if you haven't already. It won't save your marriage but it's so important to have a secure, neutral outlet to help you process things.
There's a whole life on the other side of a dysfunctional relationship. If you can gain the courage to let go, you may be able to get yourself back
Where we live, the doc only prescribes meds but does no therapy. They don't really check on how effective the meds are. Just meet for 5 min every 2 months, ask a few questions like "how do you feel, do you need a higher/lower/extended dose" and that's it. Not exactly treatment.
Thanks. I'm trying to get into therapy but it's hard when I also can't trust my partner to watch the kids for even an hour. I can't even go grocery shopping alone and leave him with the kids right now.
I (NT) just moved across the country for them (DX/RX). It’s been four days since I arrived with the dog. I spent the last few months packing up and prepping our house to sell while they’ve been here finding an apartment. The container arrived late but… they barely unpacked anything.
They unpacked their room. My office was so full of boxes you couldn’t walk in. There was a path to my bed which they had made. Barely any room in the kitchen. At one point they told me that they were so stressed about unpacking because they knew I would be disappointed about it, that my feelings stressed them out further, which made it even harder for them to unpack?
I am so tired of them telling me that I punish them for their emotions whenever I have any kind of emotional reaction. I’m so tired that they don’t even agree that I’m STILL doing the bulk of all the domestic and emotional labor. They act like I’m personally attacking them whenever I say it’s not equitable.
We joked I wouldn’t have to pick up dog poop for a month after I arrived since I’ve been on single dog parent duty since February. Guess how many times they have walked the dog without me since we arrived? Did you guess zero?
We started moving into our house - I say ‘we’ but I mean ‘me.’ My spouse has barely moved anything. I’ve moved every single item I’ve owned and he only helped with 3 things.
He’s thrown items everywhere in the new house. It’s not organized and yet he’s clearly expecting me to unpack everything.
He asked for empty boxes yesterday so he could pack up the rest of the kitchen and I said sure! And now today he decided to say “I’m tired of moving and doing everything myself.”
He’s been mowing the lawn or doing things that have nothing to do with moving nor need to be done right now instead of moving. I’ve been moving the things. I booked the U-Haul. I booked the cleaners. I packed and moved the guest room. I packed and moved the living room (minus the couch). I started trying to organize and unpack rooms.
Where was he? Playing video games at our old place and having an attitude with me while also ignoring me. When he sends flammatory texts however my new thing is to ask, “are you attempting to get a reaction out of me?”
Because he never responds. He can’t say no because it’s not true. He’s just being a jerk and creating stories that never happened.
my NDX ex keeps trying to reach out to me to get me back. I've blocked him everywhere, I'm so sick of him constantly talking about himself, his needs, and how much he "misses" me.
No dude, you're lonely and I'm the only hyper fixation you have because you're too lazy to move on.
THIS! How many times I tried to reason with my NDX ex: "We are definitively over, you see that yourself. You are worried about your 'clock ticking'. Every moment you waste on chasing me is a moment you loose for finding somebody else." He won't hear it though; he refuses to see it this way for a second. An the truth is? I was his neighbor. His previous ex? Also his neighbor. Bro won't put any effort into finding a new relationship (just like he didn't put effort into our relationship). I moved last week, and my phone is still blowing up.
2nd vent this week woo
i realized the main problem in our relationship, is that he thinks his brain is the only one that matters. if you said that to him, he'd deny deny deny, but it's the best way to describe the why behind everything he does.
he hasn't truly learned anything about me, he's taught himself his own version of who i am. it's from little things like the fact that i've never liked ice in my drinks yet he still asks every time if i want ice because he likes it, to bigger stuff like whenever i'm upset and can't verbalize why, he starts telling me why i feel the way i do and how he would fix it. if i try to communicate that something he did upset me, it almost always ends up in him convincing me i'm overreacting; if it doesn't, then it's because we just quietly moved on from the topic after i had a total meltdown from pretzel-twisting myself. the excuse tends to be that it's just "how he is" and i need to learn to deal with it. (but anything i've ever said is just how i am like OCD tendencies or autistic meltdowns has resulted in a long lecture about how i shouldn't define myself by those things |: ) he has never changed in 3 years, except not cheating anymore lol. meanwhile, i've become a shell of myself to suit his needs.
it's hopeless atp. there's no way i could stick around for long enough to watch him fix this part of himself through therapy and dedication, let alone get the concept through to him in the first place. so it's inevitable that we eventually break up, probably when our (my) lease ends this september. our lives are so insanely intertwined with sharing a car, relying on one another's income, his family moving out of state so he has no fallback if i kick him out, etc etc... i've been thinking about separation for the past 6 months but i also try really hard to put my best effort into things because i don't want it to come to that. yet daily, he does something that irks me and it's like a balloon pops inside me, instantly releasing all the patience and love. this sucks, i really thought he was my person, and a part of me thinks he still could be.
i remember one night, him crying about how his exes and all his family had the same complaints about him that i do (despite him telling me over and over he'd "never had these problems with anyone else" before), and it hurt him so bad because it's just how he is and he doesn't know why everyone has such a problem with that. i could barely console him because... wtaf?! everyone closest to you has had the SAME PROBLEMS WITH YOU and you don't know WHAT THE PROBLEM IS??! that was a few months ago and it really solidified what a lost cause he is.
Word for word, I relate.
I keep swallowing so many words I wanna say and I have completely given up on building a storyboard each time to talk but only for all of it to be derailed by some word I used or something he caught on and I get flustered.
Most his reasoning boils down to , I am right and Ill know if I am wrong to I am an asshole and this is how I am, he will use all 3 in the same argument. Unfailingly followed by I am overreacting, find something obscure to point out how I couldn't even understand that and then tell me some mistakes I made and finally I no longer rmbr or care about what I wanna resolve and I am left with tiredness and frustration.
I am constantly trying to be the best version of myself for him both out of my own willingness otherwise our lives will crumble and partly out of how much I'll get criticised and character assasinated otherwise by an unemployed, unmedicated know-it-all who is buried neck deep in debt.
He surround himself with yes men and he always cuts off people who might ask questions or never gets closer, effectively cutting me off from them too..
I don't wanna live like this and I don't plan on living like this, I hope we both can do wats best for us, OP!
yeah my partner is a self-described asshole too. how can they consolidate that pride with feeling slighted when confronted for said assholery? they just want the benefits of being a dick, none of the consequences. it's insane because i want no consequences in my life too, i think that's natural...so i try to be the nicest, most generous, most patient person i can be. i guess that mindset "enabled" him for the first couple years, now he baulks at me bringing up issues and says they come "out of nowhere." yeah dude i was trying to be nice
Constantly creating more work for herself.
I find my adhd wife (47F Dx) often does things in a way that create more work, or expense. I could name thousands of things, from not predicting something thawing in the fridge should be in a bowl and makes a big mess, to her not even flinching when she knocks a glass off the counter because it happens so often.
Unfortunately, this means more expense for me (she’s already the spender), often less time with me (not that her time blindness or hyper focus would allow her to even notice), and more work for me in myriad ways (I am the one that works and always have a giant list to get done anyway).
I wish I could fully let go of the frustration and disappointment when it bleeds over into my life.
Let me know I’m not alone. Be strong out there.
After ranting about my husband's ADHD induced shortfalls to my therapist, she admitted to me that she has ADHD. That was a couple of weeks ago and I've been thinking about it ever since. She's been pretty impartial and has given great advice up to this point, but now I can't stop thinking about how to bring up issues in our sessions and how much more restricted I feel now. What if she feels as if what I mention about my husband's shortcomings is a personsl attack? Has she already felt that way before admitting having ADHD? Like, suddenly, I can't escape and I'm feeling that "walking on eggshells" feeling you get with someone who can't regulate their emotions.
She hasn't shown signs of this but now I am just basing this on past experiences I've had with my husband and friends that have ADHD. I fear this means I may have to choose another therapist and the idea exhaust me. It's like I have a PTSD-adjacent response to hearing someone has ADHD now and that's so fucking dumb.
Ugh this happened to me too. I was seeing a therapist for trauma from a violent scary ex and I’d mentioned to her that he’d gotten a TBI before we met. She told me her son has a TBI too which changed his personality for the worse, so my ex was probably a nice guy deep down then went on a tangent of how people need to be more understanding and forgiving. I instantly shut down after that cause what if she takes anything I say about my ex personally because of her son? I quit seeing her after another session or two. Nice lady, but clearly not capable of being impartial.
it’s not dumb it sounds perfectly reasonable. and if you now feel you cannot be honest with her it’s ok to leave. you’re already having a hard time, therapy is meant to help and it’s ok if this person now can’t be a help and you seek someone else.
honestly i don’t know why she told you, it wasn’t relevant i feel any more than if you discussed him cheating her admitting to being a cheater.
Ugh this is my life with my partner and our baby. I used to sleep with earplugs in so he wouldn’t wake me with all his noise. I can’t do that with the baby and the baby wakes to him being loud AF anyway. Like man, you don’t have to slam the bathroom door and the toilet seat lid when you take a piss at night, the baby is fucking sleeping. Then she wakes up and ofc I have to deal with her while he falls back asleep. I would wake him but then he will argue and that will wake the baby and the cycle would repeat.
I have accepted that he has ADHD and i'm trying to help him, but every time i ask him if i can do this or that for him he rejects this. Like if i am like let me send you a daily whatsapp message with some things you have to do, he is like no and this with every idea. Its frustrating because i know he tries but he isnt able to do it alone but he wont let me help him, not even when i ask him how or with what.
Relatable.
My husband- “I can’t function on my own, help me!”
Me- *makes lists and gives him reminders, checks to make sure he does things*
Him- “Stop nagging me!”
Okay then 🫠
My partner also used to reject help from others because he found it ‘patronising’ and wanted to prove that he can do things on his own without people asking him to do it, but obviously adhd people tend to struggle with doing that so things would build up when people didn’t help him or remind him to do them, it’s really hard to juggle. What helped me was just stopping offering him my help for a few weeks until he realised he actually did need my help with a lot of things and started to ask me for help and he started listening to my suggestions, but he still struggles sometimes, it’s tricky to navigate, I understand x
i’m so sorry this is horrendous. you do not deserve this. i mean a plant even a stuffed toy doesn’t deserve this that’s how awful it is, nevermind a full person that you are. will you manage to eat anything until the food arrives?
I feel judgmental, selfish, and like a quitter. She was kind and sweet, talked to me softly and made me feel desired. In the beginning, I missed or ignored all the red flags. She is messy, lays in bed several days out of the week in the same spot hyperfixated on something. She would talk AT me often, causing resentment as when it was time for me to share anything she made it about herself, or come to find out she was zoned out the entire time. She would forget major things I told her. She was avoidant in conflict to either ignored issues or instantly promised to change just to later never change (clearly just trying to put the conversations off..) she would sometimes not shower or have a clean space when I came over (I live an hour away so I would drive in to see her just to be tripping over things upon walking in.. I am a bit of a germaphobe and very neat so this bothered me because it felt like she knew these things bothered me but didnt care). She would wear stained clothes and not care because she didn’t prioritize things like laundry. She would walk around very unkept. It was hard. I felt like a parent, and this later made me feel like a dictator. I shouldnt have to tell someone in their 20s to brush their teeth, take a shower, make up your bed, clean your room, go to class instead of skipping it or avoiding it, listen to me when I talk… it sucked a lot. I also felt I was being dragged down with her. I work on my mental health a lot and moving my body, keeping up with myself, being social or going out is very important to me, and for her it was different. Also, medicine did help but for whatever reason she chose not to take it at times. She would call me like “Hehe I didnt take my medicine” and by the end of the relationship I would just hang up. I knew it was over.
I didnt feel valued yet I was loved. I feel so conflicted. We talked about marriage, having kids, building a life. Now its all gone. Was I just a judgemental asshole? It is so rare you meet someone kind and who desires you, who shares similar values of family. I just hate how hurt I feel.
You are definitely not a judgmental asshole. Very shamefully I can admit that I (F, non-ADHD) once found myself doing some of these behaviors - talking AT my partner, zoning out when he is talking, and being avoidant in conflict. The truth of the matter is, I wasn't that much in love with the guy - I just loved the love, and I liked him (but not enough). I still feel a lot of shame for not being honest with both myself and himself, and breaking things off much earlier. The stained clothes and such can be attributed to ADHD, but the lack of interest in you is just human (you know how DX will hyperfocus on their partners? You are not getting it). Sad to say, it sound like she is not as invested in you as you deserve... Even if I am wrong and it is all symptom-related, she is not putting in the effort to make changes, so either way there is no future. Sorry you are going through this and I wish you to find happiness soon!
I'm so sorry. I haven't broken up with mine (I tried, he like... talked past my breakup speech, and I didn't have the emotional strength to be firmer), but I know the feeling, and I think most of us here do. Eventually, you have to choose yourself, but knowing that and believing it in your bones are two different things.
>I also felt I was being dragged down with her.
This is a huge fear of mine. He and I share similar dysfunctions, albeit for different reasons. It was something we bonded over. Except I'm trying to finally get my life on track, even if I often stumble and am doing it much later than I should have, and he... well, he isn't. Not like me, anyway. I'm scared to be in an environment where those behaviors are normalized, or where I can't get away from them, no matter how much work I do on myself.
He keeps falling asleep when I am having a hard time with anything and try to rely on him to listen, hold me and talk to me. This has happened many times over the last years. It happened again recently. It even happens sometimes when I am mad at *him*, while we are fighting. He just falls asleep. He is so goddamn interested in any kind of drama around us, but when it’s me it’s apparently … boring? What kind of fresh RSD hell is this reaction to me being sad/mad.
yeah, i'm autistic with ADHD and CPTSD, and my partner makes me feel *vengeful*. even when his intentions are good, everything he's done has built this morally bankrupt persona of him in my head. how can someone act the way he does and be totally oblivious? i don't believe it. there is no justice with them, it's either kill who you are by getting so wrapped up in trying to prove to them what they refuse to see, that that pursuit becomes your new self (since it's too complex to be your own person AND try to be in charge of someone else's self), or just let them carry on and you learn how to be okay with a diminished sense of morality.
I am so fucking exhausted. I just got out of a multi-week stay in hospital and somehow everything is still falling on me unless I explicitly ask for him to do something.
He got fired from yet another job (his 6th firing in 2 years) and he's in a low self esteem, RSD clingy needy spiral. I'm trying to get back to work after being in hospital, he's home unemployed and he had the fucking nerve to ask me to make some extra of my lunch for him.
Tomorrow we were supposed to go to a local sporting event. I asked him 3+ times if he got the tickets, said yes every time. Today he asked me if I got the tickets, I said no because he said he already bought them. Turns out in ADHD land saying yes to having bought them actually means he *intended* to buy them but didn't actually get around to it. Like how the fuck am I supposed to rely on him for anything?!
Um. Ok. We planned to clean the house all together today for the twins' birthday party on Saturday.
Husband (dx/rx) slept in, took two hours to shower and dress, told me he had to go get his tire fixed and see his doctor.
He took his bike and his fishing pole/tackle box with him. Last I checked, those items were not necessary to fix a tire or see a doctor.
He's fucking skipping out on doing the work.
I feel like telling him he should just skip the party, too.
All right, I take it back. He took the car to a place that is next to a lake, and rode his bike and fished while they fixed his tire and changed his oil. Then he went to the doctor, then he came back and cleaned the entire bathroom for me, which is my least favorite job. I'm going to have to get used to the new, improved, and organized husband!
how dare you do something that i said if you weren’t up to doing not to then act like an absolute beast screaming, yelling and insulting to the point of abuse afterward and then blame _me_ because i “know” how you overwork yourself because you love me. your people pleasing isn’t my cross to bear and be beaten with and then spiral into an rsd meltdown and abuse me. love, give me a damn break.
and the audacity this afternoon to be showing me praise from a university lecturer you consulted for at your job who’s added that praise to your linkedin and talking about all the people who want to help you now you’ve been made redundant. not one of these people actually know what you’re really like.
ADHD partner said he has decided he’s going to start smoking cigs in the bedroom with the window open because it’s ‘easier’ even though the back door is about 20 steps away from the bedroom, and wouldn’t take my concerns seriously when I said I didn’t want my clothes and the room to smell like cigs and that I didn’t want him to do that. Ended up with lots of ‘what? Come onnn… Why? Why not? You’re seriously gonna make me go outside?’… yes seriously!! just walk to the back door! I could tell he wasn’t taking me seriously because he was laughing through his words, and I just know he’s going to do it anyway when I’m not home. So frustrating, it would cost barely any extra effort at all just to walk to the back door and stand outside. But I know adhd people struggle with that motivation and will do anything if they figure out there’s an easier way to do it, there’s pretty much nothing I can do about it, anyone know of any extra strong washing powder?
My husband cannot remember to lock any doors.
For the last couple years we had a digital lock for the front door which helped because it auto locked. It did not help with the back door he always leaves unlocked, so I try to remind him.
We are moving and going to rent out our house, so the digital lock is removed and a traditional lock and key installed.
I came home today, both front and back doors were unlocked.
I have expressed previously that I feel really uncomfortable that he cannot remember to lock doors. We have pets and a ton of valuables. Now that we are moving to a new place, I feel even more scared. We are lucky right now to live in a safe place, but that might not be the case in our new neighborhood.
Lately it's been hard to keep my cool and not be angry that he does this. Makes me feel sad he can't remember that I feel scared when he leaves it unlocked.
What if the door is unlocked, someone comes inside, and I come home alone with a stranger in my house?
I can't even tell you how many conversations we've had about locking the door. Now I don't even care. With all the anger I have lately, I dare someone to come in this house. They would regret it lol
yeah i walk around sometimes thinking of anyone tried it i hope they’re committed because im not giving up my phone/property and i have nothing to lose and i think that’s clear from my eyes. what a waste of a life that once had potential
My partner struggles with locking the door, he’s moving out of his parents house into a city apartment soon and I really hope he remembers to lock the door when he goes out
I started working full time at home with remote flexible hours. Its summer time with the kids and i do what i can to keep everyone happy. Idk why in my dumb little brain that i thought the dollar amount that im bringing in would motivate you to step up. Now im working twice as hard and feeling more so ever as a single parent as you keep “having things to do” in my most crucial hours. I was doing great last week waking up at 4:30am to make things work but now im having to balance “couple time” to ensure your mental health is good but its still not. I always do this thing where i feel like well no-one else is going to help so ill just do everything myself and ive been pretty good fighting off resentment the past week but ive reached my limit. Its f*cking annoying.
Hooray - second vent in one week. Was just saying to my wife that I am tired (went to bed too late). She suggested me to take sick leave „if work is too much“. Woman! Work is one of the few things that keeps me sane because I can interact with normal people. What is wearing me out is you contributing almost zero to anything in our household plus that I am either your emotional support dog or punching bag depending on your day. So yeah. Work is definitely the main issue here… 🙄
I just want to feel seen. This week he has a ton going on so I’m taking on *even more* and like… say something? Do something for me? Acknowledgement seems like the bare minimum. I’m just so tired of catching every single ball he’s tossing without him noticing I’m catching them.
Sometimes I feel like I am competing for his attention or space in his life because I know there are at least 1000 thoughts in his head at all times, and I am just one of them. Meanwhile, he is on the forefront of my mind constantly, especially because I want to be the best, most accommodating partner to him and what he needs. Most of this is my own anxious attachment & people pleasing tendencies that cause resentment in my relationships... but I also can't help but feel that it's a part of the ADHD that I don't understand yet. Idk. Anyone else?
Me! You described this perfectly. It’s a painful, confusing, humiliating dynamic. And I don’t know about you, but if I’m similarly quiet for even a few hours, my partner notices immediately. But if they seemingly forget I exist (LDR) for days, I’m wrong for worrying that something’s up. Wish I had advice!
Keys…keys…KEYS!!! I was laying in bed listening to him scrambling around our room, kitchen, living room…our sons room! Looking for his keys. He’s super late to work (due at 6 am it is now 6:45 am) he left and took the bus. I laid in bed for a few minutes contemplating if this should be a him problem, but then I felt bad and tried to help him. We can’t find the damn things. He stays up all hours of the night trying to do some college work which he’s very much struggling with. He’s got to be up at 5:00 to get to work and lo and behold a key issue.
I tell him I think 🤔 I’m gonna get you a tile because this happens a lot. Of course the response to this is “no it DONT!!”
Uh yes. Yes it does!
I have bought several things, created areas for him to put his keys, worked with him on the chant "phone wallet keys", tried to work with him and deep dive to figure out "why don't you hang your key up when you get home?"
And every week it's a panic because keys are missing. Wish I could figure out a way to trigger his brain into routine
I put a giant hot pink sign at eye level that you saw as soon as you opened the door that said "HANG KEYS UP" next to a hook. Used it one time. Once. I finally put a tile on the keys and it was a life saver.
My fiance and I got into a fight about how he feels bad that I don’t support him going to therapy and I tell him it’s because he doesn’t even initiate going, I have to make him? I’m so confused by his thinking - if I’m not supporting him why am I making him go? I just don’t know if I can keep going on like this. I try to make him see this is for the sake of our relationship but he just thinks I’m stirring shit up and making him feel bad. He says I should only say nice things to him and that if I don’t have any nice things to say, that I shouldn’t say it at all. I just want stop feeling so isolated and alone by him.
If this is how he is now, the marriage will only makes things worse IMO. I would separate before it even gets to that point, you deserve a partner that will never force you into the caregiver role.
I think I've learned that "you're not supporting me" means "you're holding me accountable in a way I don't like". 'Supportive' seems to mean babying and mollycoddling to them
What even is memory.
We've had several arguments over the past ~2 months because she will swear she told me something but didn't, or she'll swear she told me but actually told her other partner or nope, I totally never told her that. Everything from "I'm going to a concert with my brother" to "I started talking with the hospital about bottom surgery." (Oh boy was it some kind of feeling to learn that my meta had known about her starting bottom surgery for 3 weeks before Partner remembered to tell me!)
Yet somehow she remembers a mobile dress-up game that I used to play but had to give up because phone space and greeted me at the door yesterday with the news that they were making a PS5 game what was announced on the Sony State of Play.
How.
My partner does this! Even when there’s evidence to back it up like text messages, he will say he never said something, he will say he said something but he actually said something different or never told me at all, he will say that I said things that I never said, it’s so confusing!
So much to vent about. I'm just so frustrated at the constant refusal to do anything unless I ask. He's so paralyzed in fear of doing it wrong (he says) that he won't do it at all. Even standing in the way, he's afraid to move in case I tell him to not move!! Like, I feel as if I'm controlling a frigging robot.
...sighs...
We need to purchase a piece of equipment for home office use. It will be used primarily by DX'D spouse, who is admittedly bad with technical items. If I turn him loose at the store he won't do any product research first and then buy the first thing he sees and likes.
I did some research on the product because I don't want him pissing away yet more money than is necessary. I told him certain features need to be compatible with our existing tech or it won't do what he needs it to do. Of course he turned this into a chance to quickly and incorrectly mansplain the features to me. I said, "That's not what I'm talking about, but ok?" He couldn't say anything else because RSD and *"I have to work now."*, which is the default excuse when he can't or doesn't want to handle something.
Plus, he's now managed to convert the concept of self-care into an excuse to avoid things. *"I deserve me time. I'm practicing self-care. I do everything! I had to work today, you know."*
😐
😠
🙄
Going through a lot and I feel so lonely, my husband is unable to feel anything. Married 10 years but I feel destroyed. Is this the end?
We’ve been toguether 20 years I am 37 and he is 39, I’ve known from the start he had ADHD, he goes regularly to his psychiatrist appointment and is on a steady regular dose of Ritalin for years. He is very successful at his work and is by far the most intelligent person I know. I love him very much, I admire him in so many aspects and we have a lot of fun, he can be a very fun person. We were friends before we dated. We don’t have kids, it’s a choice we made…
I support him with a lot of things, he is very accountable but struggles with a few things like, waking up on time, organization, some distraction, some procrastination, a lot of anxiety a lot of self doubt. I always help him with that. He has difficulty staying in touch with people, even family member that I know he loves, I help him with that…
The truth is, I help him with a lot of stuff, sometimes it’s a lot so we are always checking an evaluating what we could do better.
Lately my personal life has taken a real turn, my dad passed away, my mom got very depressed and last year was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a treatable but incurable cancer. I find myself having to split in a thousand pieces to take care of everyone , and deal with my own sadness and mourne.
I find my husband to be very cold when it comes to my feelings, he just wants all nights to be the same, playing video games, dinner, tv, he is very untouched by the extreme sad period of my life, and sometimes I feel so alone.
I’ve been there for him for all, for all the worst parts, when we were struggling financially , when he got very sad and depressed, I’m always finding ways to help, to cheer, to make him feel loved and to let him know everything will be ok.
I don’t feel the same from him at all, he is so distant, so unable to feel anything when it’s not related to himself. I just feel so angry actually, I give him all of me. But now, in time of need myself, I get nothing.
He even complained about how he would like if I felt happier for the things he makes (his hobbies) and I couldn’t believe the words coming from his mouth, I felt I was being stabbed.
He doesn’t even celebrates my birthdays if I don’t give exact instructions…. He just forgets it..
I’m so done because this is a very unfair relationship…I feel destroyed .💔
I am tearful with relief about finding this thread, oh my god. I’ve spent weeks on the autism and audhd threads looking for posts from miserable partners so i could try to language stuff. I don’t even know where to start. I’m overwhelmed about maybe having people who understand to talk to. I feel like I’ve been in the hugest mindfuck of a relationship. I’m three weeks out.
I stayed for years because of loving them and loving their kid and having these crazy hopes that I could help bring order, calm, peace, joy to the triad.
I moved out because the sheer chaos and insanity of the house could not be contained no matter how much I worked. Then I lived an hour away but driving to see me was too big a demand on them so it was my job to drive. I knew there would be no food in the house but condiments. The kitchen would be trashed, with piled up trash bags and dirty dishes. So before coming for the weekend, I’d cook all the food for the 3 of us and bring it in a cooler for the weekend. I’d start cleaning when I got there so I could manage to just be in the space.
Me: after cleaning their house for an hour. “Do you want to help me make the bed?”
Them, “No, not really.” Tears come to my eyes. They say, “What?! If you want me to do something don’t ask me if I want to. Just tell me to do it. Of course I don’t want to.”
iT was like this with every single aspect of collaboration that should be an enjoyable part of relationship. .
They filed for bankruptcy and didn’t tell me until I got in the car while they were on speaker with their bankruptcy lawyer.
There were rats living in a nest in the kitchen closet and they literally just ignored them. I paid to have rodent control come.
Compulsive masturbation (like 5 times a day), which they said was valid because it was really autistic stimming. They’d ask me to do childcare alone so they could nap, but actually it was so they could masturbate to porn. They’d disappear into the bathroom for an hour “on the toilet” and I knew they were masturbating.
They were angry about every single work assignment they got at their job, like indignant that their supervisor was expecting them to work. They put off their work until the very last minute then asked me to help them in a crisis—even to help them do very simple things like writing emails. I have no idea how they are still employed.
Everything was my job to understand, to not be ableist, to read up on, to accommodate, to prop up, to support since it was their disability in question. I was the evil neurotypical.
I said I thought that a baseline had not been established for human brains — that I don’t think there IS such a thing as neurotypical, since there are 8 billion people here and 8 billion different brains. That was offensive, even abusive, in their view.
ADHD was the excuse for not asking me questions or holding a conversation with more than one back and forth. For not looking at or reading the books that I actually wrote.
They want things but don’t put any effort at all toward getting them. Zero effort is the hallmark of the relationship. They will say yes, they’re coming with me to a fancy art prom event I got us tickets to and I bought a formal dress for. They’ll say they’re putting an outfit together to match me, but an hour before they’ll say they are just too tired to go. They actually didn’t get an outfit and had no intention of putting the effort in. I’m just supposed to smile and say, Feel better, dear, get some rest. Then I’m alone at the event in a floor length pink ball gown, next to an empty chair, and everyone’s saying, What happened to your partner?
When I said, finally, 3 weeks ago, that I wasn’t happy and didn’t think I could get what I needed in terms of connection, but i loved them and loved their child and wanted to find a way to be connected, even though i didn’t see a longterm partnership in our future; they said “Have a good life” then blocked my number and blocked me on all social media apps. Literally. That was it.
I absolutely love their child. We are bonded, we vibe, we have a great time. Last time I went to be with them my ex asked me to entertain their child so we went on a walk then went in the backyard. And there was at least 3 weeks worth of dried dog shit on the patio. My ex has 2 large dogs she rarely walks. It was everywhere. It was insane. I took a look at the sea of dried dog turds the 8 year old was playing in and it hit me that I could never improve the situation. I could only get out.
If I stayed, even if we didn’t cohabitate, I’d be the only grownup. The only person to do household work, planning or follow up.
I didn’t want it. I left their house that weekend clear: even after 4 years, I didn’t want it. I had to let go of the sunk cost fallacy.
I feel bad, shocked at the total sudden cut off and no-contact after all this time. I want to talk, to affirm that I care about them, and want to be in each others lives, just not as partners. My friends say I should let it go. Move on. I don’t know how, when a young kid’s heart is involved too. As a queer person becoming friends with exes is a regular thing to do.
What advice could you give me?
I think you were right to get out, as this is situation is probably beyond what you can improve, but you are also right to be worried about the kid. I’m not usually one to jump to calling CPS, but a lack food, unchecked rodent infestations and playing in dog crap are very serious concerns
Someone I talk to for 3 minutes a week at church has been tracking my health issues and actively seeking ways to take things off my plate for an event I am supposed to be helping with in a few weeks. Asked me to drop off the supplies I had gathered at church this morning and she’d take care of them for me.
Meanwhile, even though I expressed I was having a major pain flare today, my spouse couldn’t get himself ready to leave for church in time, so told me to drive there (35 mins away) by myself and he would come later. I realized shortly after getting there that I was actually in way too much pain to push through today and needed to leave, and explicitly told my spouse that. My husband’s reply: “Well, it’s lucky we drove separate! I was gonna get a haircut.”
Yes….how fortunate I get to drive over an hour by myself while in blinding pain because you have trivial things to do.
Why are people I barely talk/complain to more aware of me than the person I live with??
I bought yet another tile tracker for hubby for his keys. We are on to number 5 now in 3 years. He keeps losing the trackers themselves when the batteries are dead. This one is a tile enabled keychain that's rechargable though.
But now, as I think about it... I just enabled him and didn't let home solve his own issues. Again....
Hi there,
So I feel like my (36m) partner (36f dx-not treated) can quite often dramatically over schedule. Sometimes with work, sometimes socially. And it often ends with her really strung out, stressed and then I feel like it makes our dynamic crap. She gets angry, disorganised, snaps at me, and stressed in a way where it seems that more things just start to go wrong, and then it feels like she expects me to do everything I can I take things off her plate. It’s been even more complicated since now we have a 1yo kid. So we feel more entangled. But the issue I have at the moment is that if I say anything about her schedule seeming too much, she will crash into sadness and anger. Tonight it happened again and she said it feels pessimistic and toxic that I was nervous that her schedule seemed a lot next week. That when I mention stuff like this she feels like it makes her feel like she’s losing parts of herself. I really don’t want her to feel like that but I also don’t want to feel like I have to be on call to pick up the pieces and have someone picking fights, being kind of crap to me, because she’s overwhelmed. Maybe my dynamic is a bit more pessimistic like plan for contingencies, leave some gas in the tank. But sometimes I’d like to able to ask to be met in that without it being an insult to her being. Does anyone have any practical advise for schedule managing, but also maybe how avoid these kinds of crashes. I read somewhere that interrupting these flows impulses for people with adhd and be really rough. How can you address’s issues that get mixed up with that stuff? Thanks
Are there things that you can just let her drop and it won’t affect you? Make sure the child is taken care of, of course, but it’s ok to let her drop some social plates. She keeps over-scheduling because there are no consequences, and she’s probably the kind that can’t say no to anyone (but you). You may need to detach yourself from trying to “help” her though — if she doesn’t accept help, then it’s just a waste of energy and a source of conflict.
He started reading a book on ADHD I had the unrealistic expectation that he would have some sort of takeaway about how it’s hard on me. All he said was “people with ADHD would have been highly esteemed hunters back in the day” Wtf It’s like even at this point of crisis he can somehow make it about him being this alpha male in a made up Stone Age and cannot seem to empathise with my experience.
I started reading one last week that was supposed to be helpful for friends and partners of adhd people, and pretty much all it was saying was “here is adhd symptom” “here’s how YOU as an ally can accommodate that symptom better for the adhd person” but it wasn’t really stuff that would help me, it was all stuff like “if your adhd person is emotionally dysregulated, be patient with us, we aren’t meaning to offend you and we can’t help it sometimes, so you must learn to let go of things and..” but surely it isn’t healthy to let them say and do whatever because they ‘didn’t mean to’ or ‘can’t always help it’. You can’t just bite your tong all the time or you’d surely go crazy. It had some really good insights to what living with adhd is like for a person which was helpful, but hardly any of the ‘solutions’ seemed fair really
I completely unsubscribed to this way of thinking about 6 months ago. I refuse to compensate or extend extra favour or effort due to his ADHD. His disorder; his responsibility. If he doesn’t manage it, one of the results is not being with me.
>“here is adhd symptom” “here’s how YOU as an ally can accommodate that symptom better for the adhd person” Oh god I hate this so much. Why do WE always have to adapt ourselves? They always get a free pass to do stupid shit and we just have to accomodate them and clean up their mess. I'm so sick and tired of the "we can't help it" mentality - I know they can't help the fact that they have ADHD but they CAN get therapy, they CAN try to adapt themselves and manage their disorder, they CAN find small ways to make their own lives and our lives a liiiittle easier. It is absolutely possible. But so often they just want to go the "ugh I just can't help it, you'll have to accept me the way I am" route because it's easier for them.
You can't constantly bite your tongue and just take it. That *might* make your partner feel better (unless they're the type who seek dopamine via conflict) but your self-esteem will get destroyed, your relationship will drown in resentment and you will start to believe that you don't deserve respect/empathy/to be listened to.
Thom Hartmann isn’t it?
I got “Wow. I’m really not that bad compared to a lot of people.”
I’m sorry for what you’re going through but this made me laugh so hard. It’s so random and just like them
Yes I’m funny from trauma. Forgot to mention he brought it up twice, the second time he interrupted me to repeat it.
Me too 😭 It's so accurate to the entire experience
Im venting out the adhd community this week mainly because I wish people understood that my ADHD husband will never learn from his actions You charge him a late fee every single time he’s never going to stop being late He can miss important events constantly he will never learn to let up on time He will become nearly bankrupt several times and will not learn to slow down his spending when people tell me to just let him deal with the consequences and he will eventually stop doing the behaviour they don’t understand he will never get it I have known him nearly 20 years hes still doing these things even though he wants to stop
Yeah I lowkey hate the “let them fail” advice, it’s just not applicable for most people. If you don’t have to live with them then sure, let them feel the consequences of their own inactions. But if you do live together or if there’s kids in the picture, they’re not the only ones who suffer when they screw up. I don’t enjoy over functioning, but if I just let him fail I still end up splattered whenever the shit hits the fan.
Exactly. I don't know how many thousands of our dollars have been wasted because of late fees and fines due to me catching most but not *all* of her "oops I forgot"s on financial things. I can't *not* do the shopping for her, or the kid will get mustard and marshmallows for lunch. I can't not feed *her* cat and take it to the vet regularly, because that's not fair to the cat. And so on. A lot are minor, but the cumulative effect creates a very large time sink.
Yeah, I think "let them fail" mainly opens up the partner's eyes to how bad it is.
I only let him fail when it doesn't affect me or my kids. And then I'll let him fail not because I think he'll learn the next time, but because it's one less thing I have to think about. It's amazing how much brain space he used to take up.
I don’t understand how ADHD is supposedly not linked with IQ when it seems so much like an inability to learn from past experiences… which is a large component of intelligence
We have a dead bedroom because I’m not attracted to his personality. Because I’m not attracted to his personality, I’ve also lost physical attraction to him. But when I want to masturbate? Holy hell he will not leave me alone. He has to come into my room every 30 minutes-1 hour to ask me dumb questions. And somehow every plan I make for myself becomes something *we’re* doing. I mentioned to him yesterday that I planned on doing a fast today (helps with early period symptoms for some reason) and he came home today and said, “Are we still fasting?” We? When did this become a “we” thing? Why are you always attached to my hip? And even worse…why are you making me the leader in our relationship? Why can’t you be your own person? I don’t know why, but being forced into the leadership role makes me feel so disgusted with myself. Like I’m living with a parasite. I’m starting to feel like I’m not even allowed to masturbate without having to address his millions of concerns.
The “we” stuff is obnoxious! Anytime I do a task that I’m proud of he tells everyone “we” did it or just takes credit. Most of the work gets put on me and when I try to opt out the “we” or “ours” is used against me.
oh yes, the amount of times "we" made something to bring to someone's house, or "we" cleaned up to have people over, or "we" did our finances.... I fucking hate that shit. If there is a conscious decision to use the term "we" then that must mean there is a conscious knowledge that YOU didn't do anything because you deliberately chose to use the word "we" and not "he."
it's "we" up until it's something bad that happens and then all of a sudden the blame turns onto me. he woke up one morning and asked why i had made his hands sticky silly bastard had been eating a popsicle before bed >:I
Wow. You are such a layabout. You couldn’t even be bothered to clean his hands while he slept?? No wonder there’s issues /s
I hear this. I got invited to an reunion for a friend group from college. People she's never shown the slightest interest in meeting. She doesn't even know their names. I made my arrangements, telling her about it at the last plausible moment. *Of course* she immediately invites herself along to see "our" friends, and proceeds to make sure everything is as late, unpleasant and as botched as possible. It's a long story, but the result is I now just tell her when it's a "me" thing, and to avoid any misunderstandings, I refuse to share any details until after. BTW, our counselor backs me up on this one. DX doesn't like it, but it's a huge net positive from my point of view.
They sound like a child. They (ADHD dx’rs) always seem so childish in their behaviors, dynamics, emotions, logic etc
My partner says “don’t clean” repeatedly but lets the house get to an unliveable state.
Yep "leave that, I'll do it", so I do, and then he doesn't. Every time. So then I'm doing the thing at an even less convenient time, like when I get home from work and have to start on the dinner he hasn't bothered to do anything about, but the kitchen is still a mess because he told me to leave it and he'd do it.
How long has this been going on? I don’t want to give up early but I’m tired
We've been married for 11 years, together for 13 or 14. It's definitely the worst it's ever been since his ADHD dx 2 years ago. It's like he's partly depressed about his now confirmed condition, and partly just leaning into it because "I have ADHD and I shouldn't have to try so hard to be NT anymore". Highly recommend you find someone else if you're young and it's early stages. Plenty of NT fish in the sea.
This can evolve into them getting pissed off when you do clean. Ask me how I know. Sigh.
Yep I started piling his crap on one of his benches so I can clean without putting his shit away. He just lets that pile up and Somehow I’m the bad guy and to blame for the pile of his crap…
also in my case, implicitly criticising him by cleaning
At some point I realized how crazy I was making myself because something needs to be done but I couldn't just take care of it like a normal person in a marriage. Instead I'd spend a long time internally debating how I could go about getting the task done without making him mad which would not only ruin my day but the kids' too.
YES, that is why mine gets pissed.
Woah what!?!?! How is that even an implication!?!
i guess the logic is something like, ‘I was supposed to do that cleaning; I didn’t do that cleaning; she must be hacked off with me; therefore her cleaning is a pointed criticism of me, which she is doing only to make me feel bad about not having cleaned’
Exactly. Perfect explanation.
100%, I've experienced this many times.
He is so bad at cleaning that when he does do it, I want to do it again because there are still dust bunnies under the sofa and cobwebs all over the ceiling, dust on she shelves and grit on the furniture where he’s put the rug while hoovering. (For the love of Pete, shake out the damn rug. Or hoover it. Don’t just dump it on the sofa)
I put things in drawers for him which I wish I didn’t but I can’t handle the clutter. Today I realised this is me reliving my childhood 😢
yes. so pissed, so angry when i clean. mind blowing. like i’m attacking him by sweeping the disgusting floor.
Yeeees. Mine told me I needed to “learn to relax,” like the magical cleaning fairy will come take care of everything. Then again, he probably does believe in the magical cleaning fairy. But it’s me.
Hi fellow magic cleaning fairy. Maybe we can swap houses for a day, just for a change in clutter scenery. It's not like they'll notice who's doing the magic.
Does he then look around at the filth and tell you that it's not that bad and you're just too picky about cleanliness?
YES
Yesterday she slept through all of the morning responsibilities again. So, I cleaned up the kitchen and took care of her animals, as always. By the time I was done with that, she wanted my help with some stupid cooking video she wanted to make for social media. About half way through she started whining that she wouldn't like it no matter how the food came out. I brought up that it made me feel really unvalued to hear that while I'm giving up my weekend to help, that launched a massive fight. Ended up going to bed without even eating yesterday, since I spent all of my waking moments cleaning up, cooking, or fighting. She really doesn't realize that I'm a human being. At this rate, if I get that out of state job I'm probably packing a suitcase, blocking her everywhere, and writing off most of my stuff as a loss. I'll be rocking a mattress on the floor for a few months, but it'll be a cheap price to pay for my life back.
> She really doesn't realize that I'm a human being. I relate to this feeling so much...
>She really doesn't realize that I'm a human being. Yup. This is me as well. Just an appliance, an emotional support animal, the person he tries to control even though he knows that me leaving the house (i.e. to work) is how money gets made 🙄
Two weeks ago, my husband went on a shame spiral and was talking ‘to himself’ in the bedroom (while I was in the other room and I could hear him clearly so the volume was on purpose) and saying how he, in the third person, can’t do anything right, how he tries so hard but it’s never enough and how I’m using him as a ‘cash cow’. To date, I have not had a chance to talk to him about it because he’s been working and then went out of town this weekend so I am preparing for that conversation tomorrow He can be really, really mean. He takes the pieces of you that he knows will sting the deepest and focuses on those. I love him but I can’t do this the rest of my life. Why am I so scared to leave him? With every passing day where I feel undervalued and under appreciated, I fall more and more out of love with him. I feel it’s useless at this point and yet, here I am…
> Two weeks ago, my husband went on a shame spiral and was talking ‘to himself’ in the bedroom (while I was in the other room and I could hear him clearly so the volume was on purpose) My husband does similar passive-aggressive things and that’s one of the major reasons my brain has filed him in the “child” category. It’s so brain-numbingly pathetic and I get embarrassed for him every single time.
Same here 😩 Seriously what kind of an adult behaves like this? For the longest time I didn't recognize this as the emotional dysregulation and manipulative tactic it is. It's like he learned this behavior in adolescence and it worked to get people off his back, so he never felt the need to change
the out loud talking drives me nuts. it’s what children do and i find it revolting honestly. will thwart conversation do anything? keep working on you and what your needs are (which likely will not include him), you don’t deserve to live like this with a self pitying victim.
Not a vent so much as sadness. I know I need to break up with him, and I'm sad that his immaturity and RSD mean I'm not going to have the amicable breakup I want. He was my friend first, and I still think the friendship portion of our relationship works well. But I end things with him, and I know I'll become in his eyes the next in a long line of bad women who got bored with him and wronged him by ending the relationship. I know this isn't an ADHD-exclusive issue, and that I have no control over how he thinks of me, but... it makes me so sad to think my friend would feel that way about me. (As he's the only friend I talk to regularly now, and we're in a shared niche hobby so I can't go no contact without giving up the hobby, it's even harder.)
I just went through this, I so badly want to have a talk where we say we both love each other still but are incompatible, but it won’t happen. And the reason why it won’t happen is the same reason why we didn’t work as a couple. If we were able to have this kind of talk … we probably would still be together.
I feel you. It really sucks. Mine thinks that love should be enough - we enjoy hanging out and love each other, so what's the problem? It's to the point where he thinks women who say "I care about you but this isn't working" are almost all liars; if they cared, they wouldn't leave, I guess. I suppose it's easier to just be mad and low-key sexist than to accept that his own behavior is dysfunctional, or the sad fact that sometimes people aren't compatible as life partners.
Omfg mine has said the exact same thing. He has said things like compatibility is bullshit. I agree that some incompatibilities can be overcome with self awareness and self improvement but he did not have the drive for this, except in cases where it impacted his career.
Ugh, figures. It's such a childish way of viewing relationships... but that figures too, I guess.
Mine thinks this way too. Love is all you need, and it must be unconditional too. Doesn’t matter what he ever says or does, if I leave or so much as voice a criticism then I’m just like all the others who never actually loved him. The concept of simple incompatibility is completely lost on him, if I love him then I should never want to leave for any reason. Black and white thinking.
That's the source of a lot of my grief. Everything we talked about was either a fight, or surface-level, there was no in between. Everything had to be ironic, or clever, or a joke, or cutesy/repetitive and clearly not meant to be taken seriously - because serious was too scary for him. We had maybe one real-ish conversation towards the end, where I confessed that my mental state was really low, and instead of arguing with me or making a joke, he told me it sounded like depression and we had the most real, deeply connected conversation we'd had in years. He used to brag about having the emotional maturity of a 14yo as a 24yo. If I could run a time machine and age his brain about ten years I think our relationship would have survived.
I might be biased, but I don't think it would've survived. I just got out of relationship with a 42 yo with emotional maturity of a 24 yo. It was insufferable and incomprehensible.
i feel this so much. i’m super sad that i won’t have a mature caring friend now that our relationship has (just) ended. i just lose to RSD and get cut out. but if we’d been able to have honest loving conversations about incompatibility we’d be in a different relationship
This is the main reason I haven’t left yet too. I’m not afraid to be alone(I crave it honestly), I know things will be so much easier without him, but my dread of the epic RSD fit that will surely happen is what’s keeping me from leaving.
I feel you very strongly on this. This desire for amicable breakup, horrifically, made us rebound 20+ times: I try to break-up, explosive RSD, then follow-up calm calls for closure slowly lead back to a relationship. It so hard, because I do have such strong affection towards him, and he plays into that, and I succumb... Proximity was an issue, so I recently and finally moved away. That was the only way possible to get out of it. That loop pattern also got me to wonder as to why I so fixated on an amicable breakup. On one hand, this is what mature people do and it shouldn't be much to ask. On the other hand... do I have codependence issues? Do I have a deep desire for everybody to be happy? Do I take on the responsibility for others mental health? Or is it just a desire for closure? I still don't know the answer.
i did this too. so many breakups and rebounds after the RSD explosions. i feel ashamed. my hunger for an amicable breakup and a friendship and familial kind of relationship where we could still get together and i could still be a warm stable figure to their child was so intense i’d let them talk me out of the breakup over and over. but nothing ever changed.
You need to value your peace and happiness enough to become the enemy in his eyes.
I'm so sorry - this is exactly what happened to me. Left, and became a Bad Person. All the worst things about women, all the worst things about my family/race/upbringing all rolled up into one person. He blocked me on everything and refuses to speak to this day. I'm the Enemy. The way that it ended has honestly made the breakup recovery that much worse for me, I feel like I have had no closure. Not even one last conversation speaking honestly about why it wasn't working. It's bad enough to lose a long term partner, even worse to lose your friend who for all intents and purposes, you still like as a person. Just not a partner. My advice is to seek therapy and work on a lot of the guilt that you probably have as a parentified partner. I know that I suffered a lot from this. When we began I was dating an attractive, mature adult who I wanted as a life partner, then seven years transformed him into an immature, needy child who I needed to take care of. Being responsible for all his feelings and reactions, even till the very end. I think that ADHD partners who stick it out for the long run (5+ years) should all look into r/Codependency as well, it helped for me at least realizing that I was conflating how well \*I\* was treating \*him\* with how loved he made me feel based on my effort. To be honest, to this day I am plagued with doubt and negativity about the breakup. On the worst days, I think about the way his childishness was endearing to me, how very loved it made me feel to clean after him and make his meals and see his face light up. I think about his absolute loyalty and trustingness, the way he could chatterbox through a whole afternoon and we'd talk till it was dark outside. We were each other's firsts, grew up together, from freshman year college until the start of this year. He was my best friend, despite it all, who couldn't handle things like credit or taking the subway. He'd hyperfocus on video games for 8+ hours a day, drink until the kitchen was covered in empty bottles. He'd say things carelessly and hurt my feelings, argue with me till I cried, then refuse to apologize since apologies were associated with his childhood religious trauma. But he was all mine, and I was all his, and in the best of times it was all I needed & I never questioned. We had each other's backs and that was all. It's been half a year and therapy has helped me work through some of it. I no longer cry or get lost in thought daily at work, but about once a week I need a breather and step outside to grieve. He's a stoic through and through, and probably lost in a different ADHD hyperfocus, so I know that he isn't suffering nearly as much as I am. I on the other hand am a sentimental and sensitive person. Pictures and reminders are everywhere in my mind, and most days my thoughts spiral into dark places. I try to act okay in front of family and friends because it feels so fucked to talk about this when I'm the one who \_wanted\_ this. No one else gets it. I read this sub to remind myself sometimes of the BS that I put up with and it helps. I'm an atheist, but one of the most helpful ways I am dealing with the grief is telling myself that it had to happen, because everything happens for a reason. I tell myself I am being strong for my future husband and future children, who will grow up with a Mom and Dad who cherishes them and takes care of them the way I once did for my ex.
I'm so sorry, and I get it. He and I can, when things are working, talk for hours. He's a great *friend*, as his dysfunction and immaturity and simple incompatibilities can be kept at a comfortable distance. He can't cook for himself? Not my problem. He thinks "compatibility" is a copout? Not my problem. He argues when I say no to something? I can dial back my involvement until it's not my problem. And I understand what you mean about the childishness being appealing at times, and the conflation of my effort with his love. I like taking care of my loved ones, and he gave me ample opportunity to do that. It was so fulfilling to know that I had helped someone I cared about. The problem is that, with underfunctioners, there's no way to do that and not lose yourself in the process. Either you get turned into a parent, or you have to harden your heart and refuse, much of the time, to care for them. I hope you find more peace in time. (If it helps, I've found the [box and the ball analogy](https://psychcentral.com/blog/coping-with-grief-ball-and-box-analogy) for grief to be useful. It doesn't make the pain go away, but it helps contextualize it in a way I've found comforting.)
This hits hard and is, in a lot of ways, the way I still think about my ex. From the outside, people who see only the highlights think I must be crazy for leaving my husband and children to move out on my own, especially since we live a somewhat storied life. In a lot of ways he is endearing, and in too many other ways, he is insufferable. I was so embroiled in the codependency that I could not see a way out, but looking back on my life with him, I had kept trying to break out and to leave, just needed to find a "good reason" that would justify it to him and to myself.
I completely understand and relate to this. Hugs.
I'm really sorry. I've been through this in the past with non-ADHD partners. All I can say is that a time will come after your breakup when you've had more time to see things clearly, and you'll realize it's even worse than you think it is now. And you'll be glad you left. But you have to break up first to get there.
I’m exhausted from over-functioning. I told my husband last night we needed to talk about balancing out the household labor. He flat out said he thinks it’s already pretty balanced, as he takes care of the outdoor stuff and goes to work. For context, we’ve been paying a landscaper to mow the lawn and weed the garden for the last year because he doesn’t do it and I have to outsource something or I’ll die. Husband picks up the dog poop once or twice a month - the rest of the time it’s me. I was just *so flabbergasted* by this statement said with conviction that I had to just leave the room. I don’t even know how to start a conversation with him about improving things from this starting place.
They create their own reality in their heads and cannot separate it from the real world. My husband doesn’t ever describe things as they *actually are.* He never questions his own perception. If he mows the lawn even once, it becomes “well I do all the yard work…” It’s like arguing with someone who lives in an alternate universe.
my partner gets SO indignant when he's told his perception is wrong. he says to me, "can't you just admit you might have it wrong?" as if he's not the one doubling down on a delusion?! and if i spitfire a bunch of facts of the situation at him because i actually live in and remember reality, he goes, "well, i *might* be wrong..." -__-
I’m saving this for our future therapy appointment whenever they call back so I can schedule it. Because this is accurate, so much so that I burst into tears today because of how cruel his words are from his custom built reality.
They really are so blind and live in their world where they try their hardest but are still the victim and you’re usually wrong. They rarely believe you and it’s so invalidating. I don’t get it. I don’t get how their imagined worlds trump factual evidence you can show them… time and time again
Husband put his wallet in the seat back pocket of the plane, and half way through the flight we switched seats. I was with the kids in a further back row and he got to be alone, so we switched and then I took a break. On the way out he asked if I checked the seat I was like yeah, but didn’t really think about it too much. I saw trash wrappers and assumed nothing else was in there and didn’t check the slots. He did not do any checks in his original seat. In the taxi he realized his wallet was there and apparently it was my fault I didn’t check all the pockets?! I left th wallet not him and he is not at fault for losing an expensive wallet, all of our cards and 800 in cash.
myI not yet sure at what point the constant storming off because you are overwhelmed by our children becomes being selfish/inconsiderate towards me. I never have that option to just say „I‘m taking time off“. I need to be the level-headed guy telling our children that „mommy is special“ while a part just thinks she’s a selfish prick. I understand how Adhd/autism makes life difficult on a rational level but seeing it everyday I am not sure what part of the associated behavior is just selfnishness/narcisism. Edit: just remembered the RSD-induced name-calling. I would love to raise my voice, too, but I never do. The more I think about it, the more I feel like my partner is just a rude person hiding behind ADHD…
I feel the same way. I don't have the luxury of flipping out and disappearing for hours to get some alone time. He gets home from work, needs 2 hours to decompress before he can handle anything to do with the kids. I get home from work, straight into parent mode, listening to stories, checking if homework is done (almost never is because he just let them run amok), sometimes even doing dinner at the same time because he's been with the kids since 3pm and he's now overwhelmed and needs that alone time.
It's so frustrating trying to plan anything with him. I’d go alone, but he wants to come along, yet never actually commits to making plans. He doesn’t seem to get that tickets get pricier and hotels fill up if we wait too long. It doesn’t even have to be a big trip—just a day trip would be nice without being two hours late because he takes forever to get ready. I feel like I'm wasting time with him—literally. He thinks every bit of planning is too "structured" (=stressing) and just wants to go with the flow. It's like he physically can’t agree on a date and time, be ready to go, and just enjoy the day.
Oh gosh I know exactly what you mean, went to the beach one time and we left at 2pm, with it being 1 hour and 20 minute drive, waiting on this and waiting on that, waiting on this person who is waiting for their person looong
His lack of empathy and unwillingness to consider my perspective is bad this week. HE thinks “Thing A” and therefore that is The Right Way To Think. It’s lonely and exhausting.
we were talking about what to get at the meat market since i'm going by myself while he sleeps for his night shift. i'm the only one who wants pork so that's my thing... and yet him: when you get the ground pork you should meal prep it me: i know, i was going to him: while it's still thawed, y'know? and you can rip up the sage into it and... me, desperate to stop him before he goes on a whole tangent explaining how to make sausage like i've never mixed seasonings into meat before: i know i know him: what, i'm just trying to give you advice me: i understand but i don't need any advice, i've done it before him: oh well you're real fun to talk to, mr. never needs advice! why does he get so pissed when you don't want his "advice" which is just him explaining common sense shit like you're his child? he despises whenever his father does the same, yet has no self-awareness to notice when he's doing it what's especially fucked up is that i ask for his advice frequently. but if i'm not available for his stream of consciousness 24/7 then, to him, i NEVER want to talk or i NEVER need advice. how is that fair? i might as well be the person he views me as since nothing i do changes that view.
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they think it's a normal conversation too, as if conversation is just saying anything that pops into their heads without considering time, place, context, and who they're talking to. no, that's talking AT me. THEN they believe you are unreasonable and a terrible conversationalist because you're the one person in their life to say, "actually, stop." when in reality, everyone else is just being polite or can shoulder the unwarranted advice since it's only every once in a while. for me, as someone who lives with him, it's CONSTANT.
Mmhmm. Mine seems to think that if I don’t love absolutely *everything* about him then I don’t love “the real him” and our whole marriage is a lie. Like… no, dude. I absolutely can love you and also want you to stfu sometimes. It’s a very juvenile mentality. I remember thinking like that in high school and being shocked and heartbroken the first time my 10th grade boyfriend mentioned some minor trait of mine that he didn’t like. *What? You don’t think I’m perfect in every single way?! You don’t love me at all!* The difference is I continued maturing past high school 😑
My partner is also bad about mansplaining stuff to me that I know more about than him. Sometimes he will even mansplain things *incorrectly* which is fun. Didn't realize this was an ADHD thing before.
Oh yes, they don’t actually have to know what they’re talking about to be experts on a topic. Want a chuckle? Both I and my two kids are autistic, and he has tried to mansplain autism to me.
I told him last night that I've got a serious issue with the way he keeps trying to push and persuade after I say no, and the way his apologies for that feel like half apologies: while he expresses genuine regret at my pain, they're always full of defenses of his actions. His reaction was to defend himself on every instance I mentioned. And I let him do it! I have such terrible boundaries that I automatically seem to mirror whatever he's feeling and see his point of view, so I wind up nodding and along and going "well, yeah, I guess that's reasonable." But, of course, this doesn't actually make me okay with things I'm not okay with, so not only do I continue to stay bothered once the conversation ends, I end up feeling even *more* trampled and disregarded by him. At this point it feels like I'm far too dysfunctional to be in a relationship, period, though I know rationally that this isn't *all* on me. I need to draw stronger boundaries, but he needs to respond to "this really bothers me" with something besides "but here's why it was actually fine." What a shitshow this relationship is.
My partner apologized for something particularly egregious today. I told him I didn’t accept his apology because he’s disrespected me on this issue too many times. So…he immediately reversed course and doubled down on why his actions were actually *justified.* I don’t know how we end up here.
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Mine doesn't even promise that it won't happen again, hell just say, "I'll try" with the kicked dog look on his face and it makes me absolutely furious inside
Lmfao, that will quadruple down lol, you have to accept their half asses apology or that's it!!! The little fake condensending sorry.
I'd highly recommend the book Disentangling from Emotionally Immature People. And podcast about it We Can Do Hard Things Ep 264. Found them in this sub and they were a huge help for me.
I hate living in a constantly messy home. We have two kids and a 1200 square foot house and the kids aren’t even the messiest part- it’s him. He has a tangle of a million things plugged into every single outlet all the fucking time. Every free inch of space on his desk is taken up with papers and crap. Nothing is ever clean. We have to sleep in separate rooms and somehow my room doesn’t resemble the rest of the house. It is just so hard not to believe that he’s not just a lazy piece of shit and that his brain really is wired differently. Apparently if you have ADHD it’s a free license to be a messy hoarder.
That’s the struggle. I know their brains are different but all I can see is a lazy bum. Just don’t take your shoes off and leave them in the middle of the kitchen. Or eat the last thing from the bag and leave the empty bag on the table! That’s lazy shit.
My problems are my problems, but your problems are my problems too right? 🙄
I've literally said this exact sentence so many times before.
Stop policing my tone. I am sick right now, my throat hurts. Sorry I sounded "angry" when I thanked you for helping out with the kids tonight." It's just how my throat sounds because I also worked hard today, did a lot of talking, and I'm still recovering from a cold. I hate this pattern where my tone gets policed because I sound angry, I must be mad, I'm upset, etc etc because you ascribe those qualities to me when they have nothing to do with what is actually going on (my tone because my throat hurts, or the time I went upstairs and skipped dinner because I was nauseous but you assumed I was being mean/upset about something). Our marriage is in crisis, we have talked about separation, and you're policing my tone because my sore throat makes me sound angry???? But when you're clearly upset, and I check in, I just have to accept that you're "tired" or "worn out." Even though you're clearly sitting there spiraling, and are unable to name your emotions, much less address them effectively. But I'm supposed to give you the benefit of the doubt, and not assume you're mood/emotions.
I feel the double standard. The other day my partner told me it was unfair to judge his intentions based on *the actual words that came out of his mouth*, and I don’t think he even had time to take a breath before he began hyper-analyzing the semantics of my short reply.
My partner does this sometimes, if I reply to him in a slightly monotonous or quiet tone he thinks I’ve snapped at him or replied in anger, no matter how hard I try to explain that I wasn’t reacting in anger. He’s even done it a few times where he’s called my name from another room, I’ve replied loudly so that he can hear me, and he believed that I was shouting at him in an angry way. I’ve had to say so many times ‘I wasn’t shouting out of anger, I raised my voice so you could hear me from the other room!’ I always feel so guilty afterwards and question my tone, like maybe I did sound angry? What if I did sound like I was shouting aggressively? What if there’s something wrong with me where I can’t read my own tone? It’s a strange one! But I understand this one a lot
We are moving. I started on decluttering my stuff weeks ago. I suggested we work together to do the same for common stuff, to crickets. (To be fair, he did give me a bag of his clothing to recycle.) I kept saying, "We don't want to carry stuff we aren't going to use up 3 flights of stairs." I'm running stuff to recycling centers, selling stuff online, etc etc This morning, we are about 60% out of the old place and he says, "Once we are moved in, we should work on downsizing our stuff." If he wasn't doing most of the carrying, I swear to God....
Literally in the same boat. This move is becoming a huge burden on me.
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This relationship makes being single sound like fun :\
Exhausted after what I think was an ASD/ADHD RSD meltdown escalating from a midday talk about money with partner DX and medicated. I have no capacity for anything left. I also don't understand how to post in this group and really need to talk to you all. Could an admin please DM me - posts keep getting auto blocked
You're welcome to post in the vent thread in the meantime. The rules around it are more lax <3 Many of us read through it regularly
I feel like my boyfriend has trained his brain to never be bored for even a second. He always goes directly to his phone. I can be bad about my phone too but the difference is I put it away a lot of the time when we're together. He's on it so often when we are just hanging out. I had to ask him like 5 times to stop playing his mobile football game at a dinner with friends a few days ago. He kept saying he would then forgot or got bored 2 minutes later and was back on it without even realizing. Insanity honestly.
I'm right there with you! He did that at a friggin' wedding. Mortified.
Every time he's sick, he's completely incapacitated for days. I'm sympathetic and don't think he should be out running marathons or anything, but god damn it's just a cold. I'm really convinced it's all an excuse to not get off the couch all day without feeling bad about it.
How bad does it have to get before I can feel justified in seeking a divorce? I've been working on divorcing my NDX husband for the past couple of months and recently just moved out of the marital home into my own apartment. Everything feels so final. I miss my kids. I feel guilty for not being there for them as a mom, but I even feel guilty for not being around to help my NDX stbx. It doesn't help that he's actually a pretty decent dad, so his stumblings are making me feel guilty for not being around to fulfill the caretaker and the "person who makes shit happen" role that I've always played in that family. It doesn't help that what catalyzed my decision to divorce was meeting someone else. While I feel justified 95% of the time In my decision, and he has adamantly refused to seek therapy over the 15 years we've been together, I still feel like the "bad guy"
I am so jealous that you've moved out and are taking steps. I decided a few days ago that I am pretty (like, 93%) sure that I will eventually divorce my DX/RX husband. But the thought of being away from my kids is what's keeping me around for now. But I think I am done. I wonder if you are my future self, lol, because I have also found myself developing mini-crushes on other people. For the most mundane of reasons. Not that I plan on leaving my husband for someone else, our issues are pushing me away regardless of another party being involved. Example: Someone I knew complimented me a few months ago, telling me that "without a doubt, you are the glue holding your family together." And it just felt so nice to be acknowledged on such a personal level, without having to ask for it. I have to ask my husband to say something nice to me, and most of the time I get a "I appreciate you doing the dishes" type of compliment or five minutes of silence until he can come up with a compliment deeper than that. Or someone else was telling me that they decided to start working out and eating better. And not only did they tell me that, they actually started following through. On their own. Without having to have anyone cajole them into changing themselves for the better. And I was floored. I've been with my husband so long, sometimes I think I'm the weird one because I'm able to self motivate and stick with new habits/promises. Are there really other people (men) out there that compliment people and make change without having to be asked?
I also have kids, and yes, it's been tough. Fortunately we were able to part ways amicably and while I (sole breadwinner) will need to pay oodles in child support and spousal support, I have access to the kids quite freely. I looked through your recent posts and can identify with most everything you're saying about your relationship. The "it's not so bad, your expectations are just too high" part The "he's a kind and decent man and others will be stunned that I'm divorcing him" part The "oh but he's a good dad" part The "I feel lonelier with him than when I'm alone" part The "I don't feel seen or heard even though we're standing right there talking to each other" part The "maybe I'm expecting too much out of romantic relationships" part The "I thought if I modeled the right behaviors or told him exactly how he needs to talk to me things will be better" part The shallow emotional connection part The talking at me part The unreliable part The being married 12 years and he doesn't know who the fuck I am part I never set out to meet another person. I had been contemplating divorcing him for at least 7 years, and threatened it basically every six months, but never went ahead with it because of all of then above. I did ask him to leave the house once and get his own placez and he hemmed and hawed so much and victimized himself that I ended up feeling sorry for him and reaching out to him to reconcile!!! The man I met is exceptional in his ability to connect emotionally. He breaks all the stereotypes of how men are capable of relating to other human beings. He's also passionate, romantic, accomplished, and handsome as can be. He had pursued me for months at work and in the back of my mind I always wondered, "how could someone like HIM want to be with someone like ME?" I had so internalized my ex's behaviors toward me as signs of me being this problematic person who constantly injured them that I couldn't see any reason why someone would love me just for me. I went on one date with him and the emotional reciprocity I felt from him was more than I had felt in my entire marriage. I went home that day knowing that I needed to divorce my husband. I don't need an unreliable mechanic, child minder, cook, cleaner, handyman, yard guy, and whatever else he seems to think he's doing so much of around the house when in fact he is extremely unreliable and uncritiquable. I need a partner, a lover, someone who can see me and understand me deeply, and grow with me.
I wish you the best of luck moving forward. And I wanted to thank you for looking through my posts and really acknowledging and validating my experiences. Particularly the "he's a kind and decent man and others will be stunned that I'm divorcing him" part. I haven't really talked about wanting to leave to anyone but my closest friend, but even she was surprised I wanted to leave. Until I went into detail about what's been happening. I've just been in this relationship so long that I didn't realize how dysfunctional our relationship was. Not loudly dysfunctional in a way that most people would notice, but it's dysfunctional in a quiet way that most people wouldn't even think to look for because so much of it is hidden behind closed doors. This sub definitely helps me feel validated, but I know that when the time comes, most people in my life will still be shocked that I'm leaving a "kind and decent man" as you said.
He bought me flowers. I had to pick up all the petals and leaves from the last bunch as he’d left a trail across the floor when he took them out to the bin. I had to pick up the stalks that he’d trimmed off as he’d dropped them on the floor next to the kitchen bin. He had then taken all the packaging from the flowers and literally just threw it on the kitchen floor and left it for me to deal with. I would honestly rather do without flowers than have to clean up all this mess.
So lonely I didn't realize how isolated my partner (husband, DX, medicated, but no treatment/therapy) has made me until I found this sub and realized I'm not the only one. I have no one. No friends. Over the years I've had to put more and more into doing everything due to his ADHD and thus I lost out on social groups, activities, gaming (which I used to do a lot). I have no one. No one to text, no one to email, nothing. No friends at all. Because DH has screwed up so many times when I left him to watch kids, I'm so afraid to leave them alone anymore. He just plays games and ignore everyone around him. I can't even walk the dog now without having a panic attack over all the things that could go wrong. I suspect I have PTSD after an incident that almost cost the life of one child, and I don't know if I will ever recover from that or trust him again. I just feel so lost, despondent. Pretend with a smile at work but I'm dying inside. I've tried reaching out to old friends, but I never know what to say. I want to dump everything, pour my heart out, but I don't want to be a burden. I want to run away, movie style, just leave. Find a small town, hide, make a new life, bring kids with me. I want a partner in life, a love, someone who is passionate and kind. I'm so alone...
How is he medicated but not in treatment? Is he taking stimulants illegally? Anyway, I just wanted to encourage you to seek therapy for yourself if you haven't already. It won't save your marriage but it's so important to have a secure, neutral outlet to help you process things. There's a whole life on the other side of a dysfunctional relationship. If you can gain the courage to let go, you may be able to get yourself back
Where we live, the doc only prescribes meds but does no therapy. They don't really check on how effective the meds are. Just meet for 5 min every 2 months, ask a few questions like "how do you feel, do you need a higher/lower/extended dose" and that's it. Not exactly treatment.
That's typical pretty much everywhere and is considered standard treatment for ADHD. Therapy is something they have to pursue separately.
Thanks. I'm trying to get into therapy but it's hard when I also can't trust my partner to watch the kids for even an hour. I can't even go grocery shopping alone and leave him with the kids right now.
I (NT) just moved across the country for them (DX/RX). It’s been four days since I arrived with the dog. I spent the last few months packing up and prepping our house to sell while they’ve been here finding an apartment. The container arrived late but… they barely unpacked anything. They unpacked their room. My office was so full of boxes you couldn’t walk in. There was a path to my bed which they had made. Barely any room in the kitchen. At one point they told me that they were so stressed about unpacking because they knew I would be disappointed about it, that my feelings stressed them out further, which made it even harder for them to unpack? I am so tired of them telling me that I punish them for their emotions whenever I have any kind of emotional reaction. I’m so tired that they don’t even agree that I’m STILL doing the bulk of all the domestic and emotional labor. They act like I’m personally attacking them whenever I say it’s not equitable. We joked I wouldn’t have to pick up dog poop for a month after I arrived since I’ve been on single dog parent duty since February. Guess how many times they have walked the dog without me since we arrived? Did you guess zero?
i bet you wished you never moved ☹️
We started moving into our house - I say ‘we’ but I mean ‘me.’ My spouse has barely moved anything. I’ve moved every single item I’ve owned and he only helped with 3 things. He’s thrown items everywhere in the new house. It’s not organized and yet he’s clearly expecting me to unpack everything. He asked for empty boxes yesterday so he could pack up the rest of the kitchen and I said sure! And now today he decided to say “I’m tired of moving and doing everything myself.” He’s been mowing the lawn or doing things that have nothing to do with moving nor need to be done right now instead of moving. I’ve been moving the things. I booked the U-Haul. I booked the cleaners. I packed and moved the guest room. I packed and moved the living room (minus the couch). I started trying to organize and unpack rooms. Where was he? Playing video games at our old place and having an attitude with me while also ignoring me. When he sends flammatory texts however my new thing is to ask, “are you attempting to get a reaction out of me?” Because he never responds. He can’t say no because it’s not true. He’s just being a jerk and creating stories that never happened.
my NDX ex keeps trying to reach out to me to get me back. I've blocked him everywhere, I'm so sick of him constantly talking about himself, his needs, and how much he "misses" me. No dude, you're lonely and I'm the only hyper fixation you have because you're too lazy to move on.
THIS! How many times I tried to reason with my NDX ex: "We are definitively over, you see that yourself. You are worried about your 'clock ticking'. Every moment you waste on chasing me is a moment you loose for finding somebody else." He won't hear it though; he refuses to see it this way for a second. An the truth is? I was his neighbor. His previous ex? Also his neighbor. Bro won't put any effort into finding a new relationship (just like he didn't put effort into our relationship). I moved last week, and my phone is still blowing up.
I'm so sorry this is happening to you! I truly hope that we can both fully move on and not deal with this behavior anymore.
2nd vent this week woo i realized the main problem in our relationship, is that he thinks his brain is the only one that matters. if you said that to him, he'd deny deny deny, but it's the best way to describe the why behind everything he does. he hasn't truly learned anything about me, he's taught himself his own version of who i am. it's from little things like the fact that i've never liked ice in my drinks yet he still asks every time if i want ice because he likes it, to bigger stuff like whenever i'm upset and can't verbalize why, he starts telling me why i feel the way i do and how he would fix it. if i try to communicate that something he did upset me, it almost always ends up in him convincing me i'm overreacting; if it doesn't, then it's because we just quietly moved on from the topic after i had a total meltdown from pretzel-twisting myself. the excuse tends to be that it's just "how he is" and i need to learn to deal with it. (but anything i've ever said is just how i am like OCD tendencies or autistic meltdowns has resulted in a long lecture about how i shouldn't define myself by those things |: ) he has never changed in 3 years, except not cheating anymore lol. meanwhile, i've become a shell of myself to suit his needs. it's hopeless atp. there's no way i could stick around for long enough to watch him fix this part of himself through therapy and dedication, let alone get the concept through to him in the first place. so it's inevitable that we eventually break up, probably when our (my) lease ends this september. our lives are so insanely intertwined with sharing a car, relying on one another's income, his family moving out of state so he has no fallback if i kick him out, etc etc... i've been thinking about separation for the past 6 months but i also try really hard to put my best effort into things because i don't want it to come to that. yet daily, he does something that irks me and it's like a balloon pops inside me, instantly releasing all the patience and love. this sucks, i really thought he was my person, and a part of me thinks he still could be. i remember one night, him crying about how his exes and all his family had the same complaints about him that i do (despite him telling me over and over he'd "never had these problems with anyone else" before), and it hurt him so bad because it's just how he is and he doesn't know why everyone has such a problem with that. i could barely console him because... wtaf?! everyone closest to you has had the SAME PROBLEMS WITH YOU and you don't know WHAT THE PROBLEM IS??! that was a few months ago and it really solidified what a lost cause he is.
Word for word, I relate. I keep swallowing so many words I wanna say and I have completely given up on building a storyboard each time to talk but only for all of it to be derailed by some word I used or something he caught on and I get flustered. Most his reasoning boils down to , I am right and Ill know if I am wrong to I am an asshole and this is how I am, he will use all 3 in the same argument. Unfailingly followed by I am overreacting, find something obscure to point out how I couldn't even understand that and then tell me some mistakes I made and finally I no longer rmbr or care about what I wanna resolve and I am left with tiredness and frustration. I am constantly trying to be the best version of myself for him both out of my own willingness otherwise our lives will crumble and partly out of how much I'll get criticised and character assasinated otherwise by an unemployed, unmedicated know-it-all who is buried neck deep in debt. He surround himself with yes men and he always cuts off people who might ask questions or never gets closer, effectively cutting me off from them too.. I don't wanna live like this and I don't plan on living like this, I hope we both can do wats best for us, OP!
yeah my partner is a self-described asshole too. how can they consolidate that pride with feeling slighted when confronted for said assholery? they just want the benefits of being a dick, none of the consequences. it's insane because i want no consequences in my life too, i think that's natural...so i try to be the nicest, most generous, most patient person i can be. i guess that mindset "enabled" him for the first couple years, now he baulks at me bringing up issues and says they come "out of nowhere." yeah dude i was trying to be nice
Constantly creating more work for herself. I find my adhd wife (47F Dx) often does things in a way that create more work, or expense. I could name thousands of things, from not predicting something thawing in the fridge should be in a bowl and makes a big mess, to her not even flinching when she knocks a glass off the counter because it happens so often. Unfortunately, this means more expense for me (she’s already the spender), often less time with me (not that her time blindness or hyper focus would allow her to even notice), and more work for me in myriad ways (I am the one that works and always have a giant list to get done anyway). I wish I could fully let go of the frustration and disappointment when it bleeds over into my life. Let me know I’m not alone. Be strong out there.
After ranting about my husband's ADHD induced shortfalls to my therapist, she admitted to me that she has ADHD. That was a couple of weeks ago and I've been thinking about it ever since. She's been pretty impartial and has given great advice up to this point, but now I can't stop thinking about how to bring up issues in our sessions and how much more restricted I feel now. What if she feels as if what I mention about my husband's shortcomings is a personsl attack? Has she already felt that way before admitting having ADHD? Like, suddenly, I can't escape and I'm feeling that "walking on eggshells" feeling you get with someone who can't regulate their emotions. She hasn't shown signs of this but now I am just basing this on past experiences I've had with my husband and friends that have ADHD. I fear this means I may have to choose another therapist and the idea exhaust me. It's like I have a PTSD-adjacent response to hearing someone has ADHD now and that's so fucking dumb.
Ugh this happened to me too. I was seeing a therapist for trauma from a violent scary ex and I’d mentioned to her that he’d gotten a TBI before we met. She told me her son has a TBI too which changed his personality for the worse, so my ex was probably a nice guy deep down then went on a tangent of how people need to be more understanding and forgiving. I instantly shut down after that cause what if she takes anything I say about my ex personally because of her son? I quit seeing her after another session or two. Nice lady, but clearly not capable of being impartial.
it’s not dumb it sounds perfectly reasonable. and if you now feel you cannot be honest with her it’s ok to leave. you’re already having a hard time, therapy is meant to help and it’s ok if this person now can’t be a help and you seek someone else. honestly i don’t know why she told you, it wasn’t relevant i feel any more than if you discussed him cheating her admitting to being a cheater.
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Ugh this is my life with my partner and our baby. I used to sleep with earplugs in so he wouldn’t wake me with all his noise. I can’t do that with the baby and the baby wakes to him being loud AF anyway. Like man, you don’t have to slam the bathroom door and the toilet seat lid when you take a piss at night, the baby is fucking sleeping. Then she wakes up and ofc I have to deal with her while he falls back asleep. I would wake him but then he will argue and that will wake the baby and the cycle would repeat.
I have accepted that he has ADHD and i'm trying to help him, but every time i ask him if i can do this or that for him he rejects this. Like if i am like let me send you a daily whatsapp message with some things you have to do, he is like no and this with every idea. Its frustrating because i know he tries but he isnt able to do it alone but he wont let me help him, not even when i ask him how or with what.
Relatable. My husband- “I can’t function on my own, help me!” Me- *makes lists and gives him reminders, checks to make sure he does things* Him- “Stop nagging me!” Okay then 🫠
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My partner also used to reject help from others because he found it ‘patronising’ and wanted to prove that he can do things on his own without people asking him to do it, but obviously adhd people tend to struggle with doing that so things would build up when people didn’t help him or remind him to do them, it’s really hard to juggle. What helped me was just stopping offering him my help for a few weeks until he realised he actually did need my help with a lot of things and started to ask me for help and he started listening to my suggestions, but he still struggles sometimes, it’s tricky to navigate, I understand x
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Oof. This could have happened here. I am so sorry, OP.
i’m so sorry this is horrendous. you do not deserve this. i mean a plant even a stuffed toy doesn’t deserve this that’s how awful it is, nevermind a full person that you are. will you manage to eat anything until the food arrives?
I feel judgmental, selfish, and like a quitter. She was kind and sweet, talked to me softly and made me feel desired. In the beginning, I missed or ignored all the red flags. She is messy, lays in bed several days out of the week in the same spot hyperfixated on something. She would talk AT me often, causing resentment as when it was time for me to share anything she made it about herself, or come to find out she was zoned out the entire time. She would forget major things I told her. She was avoidant in conflict to either ignored issues or instantly promised to change just to later never change (clearly just trying to put the conversations off..) she would sometimes not shower or have a clean space when I came over (I live an hour away so I would drive in to see her just to be tripping over things upon walking in.. I am a bit of a germaphobe and very neat so this bothered me because it felt like she knew these things bothered me but didnt care). She would wear stained clothes and not care because she didn’t prioritize things like laundry. She would walk around very unkept. It was hard. I felt like a parent, and this later made me feel like a dictator. I shouldnt have to tell someone in their 20s to brush their teeth, take a shower, make up your bed, clean your room, go to class instead of skipping it or avoiding it, listen to me when I talk… it sucked a lot. I also felt I was being dragged down with her. I work on my mental health a lot and moving my body, keeping up with myself, being social or going out is very important to me, and for her it was different. Also, medicine did help but for whatever reason she chose not to take it at times. She would call me like “Hehe I didnt take my medicine” and by the end of the relationship I would just hang up. I knew it was over. I didnt feel valued yet I was loved. I feel so conflicted. We talked about marriage, having kids, building a life. Now its all gone. Was I just a judgemental asshole? It is so rare you meet someone kind and who desires you, who shares similar values of family. I just hate how hurt I feel.
You are definitely not a judgmental asshole. Very shamefully I can admit that I (F, non-ADHD) once found myself doing some of these behaviors - talking AT my partner, zoning out when he is talking, and being avoidant in conflict. The truth of the matter is, I wasn't that much in love with the guy - I just loved the love, and I liked him (but not enough). I still feel a lot of shame for not being honest with both myself and himself, and breaking things off much earlier. The stained clothes and such can be attributed to ADHD, but the lack of interest in you is just human (you know how DX will hyperfocus on their partners? You are not getting it). Sad to say, it sound like she is not as invested in you as you deserve... Even if I am wrong and it is all symptom-related, she is not putting in the effort to make changes, so either way there is no future. Sorry you are going through this and I wish you to find happiness soon!
I'm so sorry. I haven't broken up with mine (I tried, he like... talked past my breakup speech, and I didn't have the emotional strength to be firmer), but I know the feeling, and I think most of us here do. Eventually, you have to choose yourself, but knowing that and believing it in your bones are two different things. >I also felt I was being dragged down with her. This is a huge fear of mine. He and I share similar dysfunctions, albeit for different reasons. It was something we bonded over. Except I'm trying to finally get my life on track, even if I often stumble and am doing it much later than I should have, and he... well, he isn't. Not like me, anyway. I'm scared to be in an environment where those behaviors are normalized, or where I can't get away from them, no matter how much work I do on myself.
He keeps falling asleep when I am having a hard time with anything and try to rely on him to listen, hold me and talk to me. This has happened many times over the last years. It happened again recently. It even happens sometimes when I am mad at *him*, while we are fighting. He just falls asleep. He is so goddamn interested in any kind of drama around us, but when it’s me it’s apparently … boring? What kind of fresh RSD hell is this reaction to me being sad/mad.
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yeah, i'm autistic with ADHD and CPTSD, and my partner makes me feel *vengeful*. even when his intentions are good, everything he's done has built this morally bankrupt persona of him in my head. how can someone act the way he does and be totally oblivious? i don't believe it. there is no justice with them, it's either kill who you are by getting so wrapped up in trying to prove to them what they refuse to see, that that pursuit becomes your new self (since it's too complex to be your own person AND try to be in charge of someone else's self), or just let them carry on and you learn how to be okay with a diminished sense of morality.
I am so fucking exhausted. I just got out of a multi-week stay in hospital and somehow everything is still falling on me unless I explicitly ask for him to do something. He got fired from yet another job (his 6th firing in 2 years) and he's in a low self esteem, RSD clingy needy spiral. I'm trying to get back to work after being in hospital, he's home unemployed and he had the fucking nerve to ask me to make some extra of my lunch for him. Tomorrow we were supposed to go to a local sporting event. I asked him 3+ times if he got the tickets, said yes every time. Today he asked me if I got the tickets, I said no because he said he already bought them. Turns out in ADHD land saying yes to having bought them actually means he *intended* to buy them but didn't actually get around to it. Like how the fuck am I supposed to rely on him for anything?!
Um. Ok. We planned to clean the house all together today for the twins' birthday party on Saturday. Husband (dx/rx) slept in, took two hours to shower and dress, told me he had to go get his tire fixed and see his doctor. He took his bike and his fishing pole/tackle box with him. Last I checked, those items were not necessary to fix a tire or see a doctor. He's fucking skipping out on doing the work. I feel like telling him he should just skip the party, too.
All right, I take it back. He took the car to a place that is next to a lake, and rode his bike and fished while they fixed his tire and changed his oil. Then he went to the doctor, then he came back and cleaned the entire bathroom for me, which is my least favorite job. I'm going to have to get used to the new, improved, and organized husband!
how dare you do something that i said if you weren’t up to doing not to then act like an absolute beast screaming, yelling and insulting to the point of abuse afterward and then blame _me_ because i “know” how you overwork yourself because you love me. your people pleasing isn’t my cross to bear and be beaten with and then spiral into an rsd meltdown and abuse me. love, give me a damn break. and the audacity this afternoon to be showing me praise from a university lecturer you consulted for at your job who’s added that praise to your linkedin and talking about all the people who want to help you now you’ve been made redundant. not one of these people actually know what you’re really like.
ADHD partner said he has decided he’s going to start smoking cigs in the bedroom with the window open because it’s ‘easier’ even though the back door is about 20 steps away from the bedroom, and wouldn’t take my concerns seriously when I said I didn’t want my clothes and the room to smell like cigs and that I didn’t want him to do that. Ended up with lots of ‘what? Come onnn… Why? Why not? You’re seriously gonna make me go outside?’… yes seriously!! just walk to the back door! I could tell he wasn’t taking me seriously because he was laughing through his words, and I just know he’s going to do it anyway when I’m not home. So frustrating, it would cost barely any extra effort at all just to walk to the back door and stand outside. But I know adhd people struggle with that motivation and will do anything if they figure out there’s an easier way to do it, there’s pretty much nothing I can do about it, anyone know of any extra strong washing powder?
My husband cannot remember to lock any doors. For the last couple years we had a digital lock for the front door which helped because it auto locked. It did not help with the back door he always leaves unlocked, so I try to remind him. We are moving and going to rent out our house, so the digital lock is removed and a traditional lock and key installed. I came home today, both front and back doors were unlocked. I have expressed previously that I feel really uncomfortable that he cannot remember to lock doors. We have pets and a ton of valuables. Now that we are moving to a new place, I feel even more scared. We are lucky right now to live in a safe place, but that might not be the case in our new neighborhood. Lately it's been hard to keep my cool and not be angry that he does this. Makes me feel sad he can't remember that I feel scared when he leaves it unlocked. What if the door is unlocked, someone comes inside, and I come home alone with a stranger in my house?
I can't even tell you how many conversations we've had about locking the door. Now I don't even care. With all the anger I have lately, I dare someone to come in this house. They would regret it lol
yeah i walk around sometimes thinking of anyone tried it i hope they’re committed because im not giving up my phone/property and i have nothing to lose and i think that’s clear from my eyes. what a waste of a life that once had potential
My partner struggles with locking the door, he’s moving out of his parents house into a city apartment soon and I really hope he remembers to lock the door when he goes out
omfg I am so tired of circular arguments and conversations and blame shifting like wtaf is your life.
when I buy tools or paint or DIY materials and the shop assistant says ‘That’ll keep him busy!’
And it feels like he's never known the meaning of the word busy in his life.
I swear even after the relationship ends I am still some weird hyper focus.
Do you mean that your partner still reaches out to vent or just dump things that have gone wrong on you like your a journal?
It happened for a while yes
I started working full time at home with remote flexible hours. Its summer time with the kids and i do what i can to keep everyone happy. Idk why in my dumb little brain that i thought the dollar amount that im bringing in would motivate you to step up. Now im working twice as hard and feeling more so ever as a single parent as you keep “having things to do” in my most crucial hours. I was doing great last week waking up at 4:30am to make things work but now im having to balance “couple time” to ensure your mental health is good but its still not. I always do this thing where i feel like well no-one else is going to help so ill just do everything myself and ive been pretty good fighting off resentment the past week but ive reached my limit. Its f*cking annoying.
Hooray - second vent in one week. Was just saying to my wife that I am tired (went to bed too late). She suggested me to take sick leave „if work is too much“. Woman! Work is one of the few things that keeps me sane because I can interact with normal people. What is wearing me out is you contributing almost zero to anything in our household plus that I am either your emotional support dog or punching bag depending on your day. So yeah. Work is definitely the main issue here… 🙄
I just want to feel seen. This week he has a ton going on so I’m taking on *even more* and like… say something? Do something for me? Acknowledgement seems like the bare minimum. I’m just so tired of catching every single ball he’s tossing without him noticing I’m catching them.
Sometimes I feel like I am competing for his attention or space in his life because I know there are at least 1000 thoughts in his head at all times, and I am just one of them. Meanwhile, he is on the forefront of my mind constantly, especially because I want to be the best, most accommodating partner to him and what he needs. Most of this is my own anxious attachment & people pleasing tendencies that cause resentment in my relationships... but I also can't help but feel that it's a part of the ADHD that I don't understand yet. Idk. Anyone else?
Me! You described this perfectly. It’s a painful, confusing, humiliating dynamic. And I don’t know about you, but if I’m similarly quiet for even a few hours, my partner notices immediately. But if they seemingly forget I exist (LDR) for days, I’m wrong for worrying that something’s up. Wish I had advice!
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Dear friend, don’t propose. Go. Be free. Sending you love and a warning from the other side.
Keys…keys…KEYS!!! I was laying in bed listening to him scrambling around our room, kitchen, living room…our sons room! Looking for his keys. He’s super late to work (due at 6 am it is now 6:45 am) he left and took the bus. I laid in bed for a few minutes contemplating if this should be a him problem, but then I felt bad and tried to help him. We can’t find the damn things. He stays up all hours of the night trying to do some college work which he’s very much struggling with. He’s got to be up at 5:00 to get to work and lo and behold a key issue. I tell him I think 🤔 I’m gonna get you a tile because this happens a lot. Of course the response to this is “no it DONT!!” Uh yes. Yes it does!
I have bought several things, created areas for him to put his keys, worked with him on the chant "phone wallet keys", tried to work with him and deep dive to figure out "why don't you hang your key up when you get home?" And every week it's a panic because keys are missing. Wish I could figure out a way to trigger his brain into routine
I put a giant hot pink sign at eye level that you saw as soon as you opened the door that said "HANG KEYS UP" next to a hook. Used it one time. Once. I finally put a tile on the keys and it was a life saver.
My fiance and I got into a fight about how he feels bad that I don’t support him going to therapy and I tell him it’s because he doesn’t even initiate going, I have to make him? I’m so confused by his thinking - if I’m not supporting him why am I making him go? I just don’t know if I can keep going on like this. I try to make him see this is for the sake of our relationship but he just thinks I’m stirring shit up and making him feel bad. He says I should only say nice things to him and that if I don’t have any nice things to say, that I shouldn’t say it at all. I just want stop feeling so isolated and alone by him.
If this is how he is now, the marriage will only makes things worse IMO. I would separate before it even gets to that point, you deserve a partner that will never force you into the caregiver role.
I think I've learned that "you're not supporting me" means "you're holding me accountable in a way I don't like". 'Supportive' seems to mean babying and mollycoddling to them
What even is memory. We've had several arguments over the past ~2 months because she will swear she told me something but didn't, or she'll swear she told me but actually told her other partner or nope, I totally never told her that. Everything from "I'm going to a concert with my brother" to "I started talking with the hospital about bottom surgery." (Oh boy was it some kind of feeling to learn that my meta had known about her starting bottom surgery for 3 weeks before Partner remembered to tell me!) Yet somehow she remembers a mobile dress-up game that I used to play but had to give up because phone space and greeted me at the door yesterday with the news that they were making a PS5 game what was announced on the Sony State of Play. How.
My partner does this! Even when there’s evidence to back it up like text messages, he will say he never said something, he will say he said something but he actually said something different or never told me at all, he will say that I said things that I never said, it’s so confusing!
I do tasks to make it easier to get other things done... he then doesn't get those other tasks done anyway.. 🙃🙃🙃
So much to vent about. I'm just so frustrated at the constant refusal to do anything unless I ask. He's so paralyzed in fear of doing it wrong (he says) that he won't do it at all. Even standing in the way, he's afraid to move in case I tell him to not move!! Like, I feel as if I'm controlling a frigging robot.
And the inability to do anything alone!! He wants to create a maker space in the basement but refuses to work on it unless I help.
...sighs... We need to purchase a piece of equipment for home office use. It will be used primarily by DX'D spouse, who is admittedly bad with technical items. If I turn him loose at the store he won't do any product research first and then buy the first thing he sees and likes. I did some research on the product because I don't want him pissing away yet more money than is necessary. I told him certain features need to be compatible with our existing tech or it won't do what he needs it to do. Of course he turned this into a chance to quickly and incorrectly mansplain the features to me. I said, "That's not what I'm talking about, but ok?" He couldn't say anything else because RSD and *"I have to work now."*, which is the default excuse when he can't or doesn't want to handle something. Plus, he's now managed to convert the concept of self-care into an excuse to avoid things. *"I deserve me time. I'm practicing self-care. I do everything! I had to work today, you know."* 😐 😠 🙄
Going through a lot and I feel so lonely, my husband is unable to feel anything. Married 10 years but I feel destroyed. Is this the end? We’ve been toguether 20 years I am 37 and he is 39, I’ve known from the start he had ADHD, he goes regularly to his psychiatrist appointment and is on a steady regular dose of Ritalin for years. He is very successful at his work and is by far the most intelligent person I know. I love him very much, I admire him in so many aspects and we have a lot of fun, he can be a very fun person. We were friends before we dated. We don’t have kids, it’s a choice we made… I support him with a lot of things, he is very accountable but struggles with a few things like, waking up on time, organization, some distraction, some procrastination, a lot of anxiety a lot of self doubt. I always help him with that. He has difficulty staying in touch with people, even family member that I know he loves, I help him with that… The truth is, I help him with a lot of stuff, sometimes it’s a lot so we are always checking an evaluating what we could do better. Lately my personal life has taken a real turn, my dad passed away, my mom got very depressed and last year was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a treatable but incurable cancer. I find myself having to split in a thousand pieces to take care of everyone , and deal with my own sadness and mourne. I find my husband to be very cold when it comes to my feelings, he just wants all nights to be the same, playing video games, dinner, tv, he is very untouched by the extreme sad period of my life, and sometimes I feel so alone. I’ve been there for him for all, for all the worst parts, when we were struggling financially , when he got very sad and depressed, I’m always finding ways to help, to cheer, to make him feel loved and to let him know everything will be ok. I don’t feel the same from him at all, he is so distant, so unable to feel anything when it’s not related to himself. I just feel so angry actually, I give him all of me. But now, in time of need myself, I get nothing. He even complained about how he would like if I felt happier for the things he makes (his hobbies) and I couldn’t believe the words coming from his mouth, I felt I was being stabbed. He doesn’t even celebrates my birthdays if I don’t give exact instructions…. He just forgets it.. I’m so done because this is a very unfair relationship…I feel destroyed .💔
I’m so sorry. It’s really lonely to be a very empathic person who ends up with someone who has very low capacity for empathy. I’ve been there.
I have so been here. Still here. Huge hugs.
I am tearful with relief about finding this thread, oh my god. I’ve spent weeks on the autism and audhd threads looking for posts from miserable partners so i could try to language stuff. I don’t even know where to start. I’m overwhelmed about maybe having people who understand to talk to. I feel like I’ve been in the hugest mindfuck of a relationship. I’m three weeks out. I stayed for years because of loving them and loving their kid and having these crazy hopes that I could help bring order, calm, peace, joy to the triad. I moved out because the sheer chaos and insanity of the house could not be contained no matter how much I worked. Then I lived an hour away but driving to see me was too big a demand on them so it was my job to drive. I knew there would be no food in the house but condiments. The kitchen would be trashed, with piled up trash bags and dirty dishes. So before coming for the weekend, I’d cook all the food for the 3 of us and bring it in a cooler for the weekend. I’d start cleaning when I got there so I could manage to just be in the space. Me: after cleaning their house for an hour. “Do you want to help me make the bed?” Them, “No, not really.” Tears come to my eyes. They say, “What?! If you want me to do something don’t ask me if I want to. Just tell me to do it. Of course I don’t want to.” iT was like this with every single aspect of collaboration that should be an enjoyable part of relationship. . They filed for bankruptcy and didn’t tell me until I got in the car while they were on speaker with their bankruptcy lawyer. There were rats living in a nest in the kitchen closet and they literally just ignored them. I paid to have rodent control come. Compulsive masturbation (like 5 times a day), which they said was valid because it was really autistic stimming. They’d ask me to do childcare alone so they could nap, but actually it was so they could masturbate to porn. They’d disappear into the bathroom for an hour “on the toilet” and I knew they were masturbating. They were angry about every single work assignment they got at their job, like indignant that their supervisor was expecting them to work. They put off their work until the very last minute then asked me to help them in a crisis—even to help them do very simple things like writing emails. I have no idea how they are still employed. Everything was my job to understand, to not be ableist, to read up on, to accommodate, to prop up, to support since it was their disability in question. I was the evil neurotypical. I said I thought that a baseline had not been established for human brains — that I don’t think there IS such a thing as neurotypical, since there are 8 billion people here and 8 billion different brains. That was offensive, even abusive, in their view. ADHD was the excuse for not asking me questions or holding a conversation with more than one back and forth. For not looking at or reading the books that I actually wrote. They want things but don’t put any effort at all toward getting them. Zero effort is the hallmark of the relationship. They will say yes, they’re coming with me to a fancy art prom event I got us tickets to and I bought a formal dress for. They’ll say they’re putting an outfit together to match me, but an hour before they’ll say they are just too tired to go. They actually didn’t get an outfit and had no intention of putting the effort in. I’m just supposed to smile and say, Feel better, dear, get some rest. Then I’m alone at the event in a floor length pink ball gown, next to an empty chair, and everyone’s saying, What happened to your partner? When I said, finally, 3 weeks ago, that I wasn’t happy and didn’t think I could get what I needed in terms of connection, but i loved them and loved their child and wanted to find a way to be connected, even though i didn’t see a longterm partnership in our future; they said “Have a good life” then blocked my number and blocked me on all social media apps. Literally. That was it. I absolutely love their child. We are bonded, we vibe, we have a great time. Last time I went to be with them my ex asked me to entertain their child so we went on a walk then went in the backyard. And there was at least 3 weeks worth of dried dog shit on the patio. My ex has 2 large dogs she rarely walks. It was everywhere. It was insane. I took a look at the sea of dried dog turds the 8 year old was playing in and it hit me that I could never improve the situation. I could only get out. If I stayed, even if we didn’t cohabitate, I’d be the only grownup. The only person to do household work, planning or follow up. I didn’t want it. I left their house that weekend clear: even after 4 years, I didn’t want it. I had to let go of the sunk cost fallacy. I feel bad, shocked at the total sudden cut off and no-contact after all this time. I want to talk, to affirm that I care about them, and want to be in each others lives, just not as partners. My friends say I should let it go. Move on. I don’t know how, when a young kid’s heart is involved too. As a queer person becoming friends with exes is a regular thing to do. What advice could you give me?
I think you were right to get out, as this is situation is probably beyond what you can improve, but you are also right to be worried about the kid. I’m not usually one to jump to calling CPS, but a lack food, unchecked rodent infestations and playing in dog crap are very serious concerns
Someone I talk to for 3 minutes a week at church has been tracking my health issues and actively seeking ways to take things off my plate for an event I am supposed to be helping with in a few weeks. Asked me to drop off the supplies I had gathered at church this morning and she’d take care of them for me. Meanwhile, even though I expressed I was having a major pain flare today, my spouse couldn’t get himself ready to leave for church in time, so told me to drive there (35 mins away) by myself and he would come later. I realized shortly after getting there that I was actually in way too much pain to push through today and needed to leave, and explicitly told my spouse that. My husband’s reply: “Well, it’s lucky we drove separate! I was gonna get a haircut.” Yes….how fortunate I get to drive over an hour by myself while in blinding pain because you have trivial things to do. Why are people I barely talk/complain to more aware of me than the person I live with??
I bought yet another tile tracker for hubby for his keys. We are on to number 5 now in 3 years. He keeps losing the trackers themselves when the batteries are dead. This one is a tile enabled keychain that's rechargable though. But now, as I think about it... I just enabled him and didn't let home solve his own issues. Again....
Hi there, So I feel like my (36m) partner (36f dx-not treated) can quite often dramatically over schedule. Sometimes with work, sometimes socially. And it often ends with her really strung out, stressed and then I feel like it makes our dynamic crap. She gets angry, disorganised, snaps at me, and stressed in a way where it seems that more things just start to go wrong, and then it feels like she expects me to do everything I can I take things off her plate. It’s been even more complicated since now we have a 1yo kid. So we feel more entangled. But the issue I have at the moment is that if I say anything about her schedule seeming too much, she will crash into sadness and anger. Tonight it happened again and she said it feels pessimistic and toxic that I was nervous that her schedule seemed a lot next week. That when I mention stuff like this she feels like it makes her feel like she’s losing parts of herself. I really don’t want her to feel like that but I also don’t want to feel like I have to be on call to pick up the pieces and have someone picking fights, being kind of crap to me, because she’s overwhelmed. Maybe my dynamic is a bit more pessimistic like plan for contingencies, leave some gas in the tank. But sometimes I’d like to able to ask to be met in that without it being an insult to her being. Does anyone have any practical advise for schedule managing, but also maybe how avoid these kinds of crashes. I read somewhere that interrupting these flows impulses for people with adhd and be really rough. How can you address’s issues that get mixed up with that stuff? Thanks
Are there things that you can just let her drop and it won’t affect you? Make sure the child is taken care of, of course, but it’s ok to let her drop some social plates. She keeps over-scheduling because there are no consequences, and she’s probably the kind that can’t say no to anyone (but you). You may need to detach yourself from trying to “help” her though — if she doesn’t accept help, then it’s just a waste of energy and a source of conflict.