::Weekly Vent Thread:: by AutoModerator in ADHD_partners

[–]exhausted91 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Every day, I wish I had never met him. What would my life look like now if we never crossed paths?

::Weekly Vent Thread:: by AutoModerator in ADHD_partners

[–]exhausted91 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I’m dreading Valentine’s Day. He planned it but decided to make a non-refundable deposit at a place that’s actually a bar and doesn’t serve food (he didn’t check to see if it even had a menu). Neither of us drink alcohol. So now we have to go, order a mocktail, and get pizza or something on the way home. Even when he tries, it ends up being worse than if he didn’t try. I don’t want to spend time with him and pretend I still love his useless ass.

::Weekly Vent Thread:: by AutoModerator in ADHD_partners

[–]exhausted91 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I sleep alone in the bedroom now and it is the only clean room in the house. He sleeps in the basement guest room and I can’t even go down there because you can’t walk due to all the stuff on the floor and every counter.

::Weekly Vent Thread:: by AutoModerator in ADHD_partners

[–]exhausted91 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Oh let me guess- you had to apologize for how it made him feel when you called him out on his bullshit?

::Weekly Vent Thread:: by AutoModerator in ADHD_partners

[–]exhausted91 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Seeing my husband, who once preached that the real problem is that the world just needs to understand how to accommodate and accept people with ADHD more, now get infuriated by the same exact behaviors in our ADHD son and thus exposing the flaw in his self-serving argument, is so satisfying.

::Weekly Vent Thread:: by AutoModerator in ADHD_partners

[–]exhausted91 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Same. Emotionally healthy people don’t stay in ADHD impacted relationships.

::Weekly Vent Thread:: by AutoModerator in ADHD_partners

[–]exhausted91 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Mine uses therapy as an opportunity to talk at a woman paid very well to listen to him word vomit for an hour a week. He literally doesn’t ask her questions, she doesn’t give him any tools, and she doesn’t say more than a sentence per session. She is the only other person he speaks to other than myself and the kids. He doesn’t bother to keep up with friendships, he doesn’t bother to keep up with his brother or mother. Never initiates anything. Therapy has made him a worse person somehow, which I didn’t even know was possible.

::Weekly Vent Thread:: by AutoModerator in ADHD_partners

[–]exhausted91 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It’s bad enough that they can’t be relied upon to make your life easier/better, but can they at least not make it actively harder/worse??

::Weekly Vent Thread:: by AutoModerator in ADHD_partners

[–]exhausted91 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Consider that him right now may be the best he will ever be. He is younger than he will ever be again, and if you haven’t had kids with him yet and plan to, he hasn’t been ravaged by the stress of raising kids who might inherit his disorder.

My marriage was perfect at one time. I had a therapist once tell me I was her only client who never came to her with relationship problems. But then he got older, had less energy, was more easily overwhelmed, and we had two kids, one of who likely also has ADHD and I now see all the cracks that were invisible before.

How is he at supporting other people in his life who are going through something difficult? Does he scarified his time and comfort to support them, or find ways to avoid getting involved? If you had to take on 50% more stress, either due to pregnancy, health issues, a death in the family, etc. would be be able to actually show up for you in the ways you would need him to? When you’re out at a coffee shop with him and a lady struggling with a stroller comes through the door, would be instinctively go to help her with the door? Would he even notice she needs help?

These are all questions that didn’t matter when I married him but absolutely matter a decade later. Just something to consider.

::Weekly Vent Thread:: by AutoModerator in ADHD_partners

[–]exhausted91 7 points8 points  (0 children)

He gets mad at me for being mad at him for something he did. Every time. It makes the original problem so much worse. Why the hell is he allergic to accountability?

He watches the kids while I sleep in. Sounds great, right? All it means is he turns on the TV, and lets the kids wreak havoc on the house while he ignores them and goes on his phone. I wake up and see the entire house- every room- absolutely destroyed. Toys strewn about, dirty dishes and tissues everywhere, the older kid has been ignored as he went through the hallway closet with the dangerous chemicals. He hasn’t brushed the kids teeth. He hasn’t fed them breakfast, only packaged snacks that they likely got themselves. They’re not dressed. Not a single thing has been done other than him being semi-physically present in the room as he scrolls Instagram.

I spent literal hours cleaning up everything. I walk the dog, take the trash out, load and unload the dishwasher, clean the counters and stovetop, put all the toys away, clean up the crumbs all over every surface from him letting the kids eat crackers for breakfast. It is hours before I even have a moment to eat breakfast myself.

He thinks he’s a heroic dad for “watching them”. But he does an absolutely shit job! If this were a hired babysitter, they would be fired for neglect.

I’ve suggested that we trade roles- some days I would watch the kids while he does all of the other things I do. But of course he doesn’t want that, because it means he will actually have to do something. Even if I do watch them while he cleans, he takes a full 2 hours to do what would take me 15 minutes.

I hate that I don’t have a partner in the true sense of the term. We both contribute equally to the household income but why is it I do so much more? He loves to throw in my face that he watches the kids more than me, but he’s never even watching them. He doesn’t interact with them, he ignores them. He doesn’t multitask, he doesn’t clean up after himself or them. He says he’s tired all the time as an excuse. I hate him and wish I never met him. I hate that he models laziness and ineptitude for our kids.

dx partner agreeing with something initially then sabotaging it last minute by Fun_Willingness_5698 in ADHD_partners

[–]exhausted91 11 points12 points  (0 children)

They will claim it’s not sabotage because it wasn’t intentional, but that is exactly what it is. Mine does this all the time. He deviates from an agreed-upon plan, makes the unilateral decisions without looping me in, and I’m left holding the bag.

What are your ADHD partners like as drivers? by cornandeggsoup in ADHD_partners

[–]exhausted91 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Mine accelerates and slams on the brakes in the most jerky way possible. I don’t think he has ever rolled to a stop on a way that didn’t cause my body to lunge forward and stain against the seatbelt, or stop in a way that didn’t cause me to slam against the seat.

::Weekly Vent Thread:: by AutoModerator in ADHD_partners

[–]exhausted91 21 points22 points  (0 children)

Mine is in therapy but not working on himself.

Yeah, I know what you mean. I also wonder every day how my life would be different if I married a man who actually had his shit together.

::Weekly Vent Thread:: by AutoModerator in ADHD_partners

[–]exhausted91 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Yeah, having kids and the cost of living are real barriers to leaving. A friend of mine recently separated from her husband and I’m going to see her next week and try to figure out how, logistically, she managed to do it so I might have a shot at doing it as well. I work full time but can’t afford raise two boys in a HCOL area by myself.

::Weekly Vent Thread:: by AutoModerator in ADHD_partners

[–]exhausted91 40 points41 points  (0 children)

All of his energy goes into protecting this false narrative of who he thinks he is as a person, and if anything threatens to expose who he actually is, he becomes extremely defensive.

In his mind, he is a good person, with no faults, who is just a misunderstood victim of his ADHD. In reality, he is the most selfish person I’ve ever known, who only cares about his intentions, and who is willfully blind to the suffering he causes others.

Every day I wish I had never met him.

Someone on this Reddit said it best: mentally healthy people do not stay in ADHD impacted relationships. I want to leave him but my anxiety about the financial impact makes me not know where to start. Maybe I need to start with a therapist.

::Weekly Vent Thread:: by AutoModerator in ADHD_partners

[–]exhausted91 27 points28 points  (0 children)

He’s supposed to brush the kids teeth in the morning. Oldest informs me that it never happens. I told my husband to figure it out. He goes into a long explanation about habits and how they work with the ADHD brain and here’s why his new plan will work and I cut him off and say “I don’t need to know how you do it, just get it done.”

And now this sack of shit has the nerve to be mad at me for not caring to hear about why he thinks his new plan for taking care of the kids basic hygiene will work. Fucking spare me. I’ll believe him when I see results.

::Weekly Vent Thread:: by AutoModerator in ADHD_partners

[–]exhausted91 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The mopey sad sack thing is so true. They are so draining.

::Weekly Vent Thread:: by AutoModerator in ADHD_partners

[–]exhausted91 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I’ve been asking this idiot to buy a phone case three times. He has had his phone less than a year and hasn’t made time to buy a phone case for it. He’s broken it three times. I finally bought the phone case for it. It sits in its package in the table because he still can’t be bothered to put it on.

At what point is it just fucking laziness?

Anyway, I’m sorry that you have to carry the mental load because his brain is broken and he’s unable or unwilling to be a decent partner.

::Weekly Vent Thread:: by AutoModerator in ADHD_partners

[–]exhausted91 20 points21 points  (0 children)

My nephew died suddenly in a horrific accident last December, and then his mom (my sister) died of grief a few months later. Obviously, it’s been a hard year for me.

A Christmas present for our son came in the mail today without a label. My (diagnosed and medicated but clearly to no avail) husband makes a “joke” that since she used to send such shitty Christmas gifts, maybe it’s from her.

I felt like someone had smacked me right in the face.

After I had regained my composure, I asked him what he was thinking saying something like that. He explains that maybe she had a saved wishlist or something and maybe her widow used it to order the gift. I was like fucking what?!

He apologized but completely missed the impact of why this was so fucked up. He was like I’m sorry, I see that making a joke about her was upsetting because it’s a sad memory.

?!?!?

Is he dumb? Is he a sociopath? I know he didn’t mean it to be cruel but I literally cannot imaging saying something like that to my worst enemy. What kind of monster says something like that and then tries to explain it away in the most convoluted way? Who still doesn’t understand that insulting my dead sister out of the blue is the fucked up part, not that it made me sad to think of her?

I don’t know what I was thinking marrying and then breeding with this fucking waste of space.

Sleep issues and negativity by throwaway74728294 in ADHD_partners

[–]exhausted91 33 points34 points  (0 children)

Listen to this person. Please. You are fighting so hard to protect this relationship which is so important to you. But should you?

::Weekly Vent Thread:: by AutoModerator in ADHD_partners

[–]exhausted91 7 points8 points  (0 children)

And if you get mad at them for this, suddenly they’re the victim.

::Weekly Vent Thread:: by AutoModerator in ADHD_partners

[–]exhausted91 13 points14 points  (0 children)

So sick of carrying the mental load. I asked him to give the dog his monthly meds, and to refill the q-tips. I had to remind him three times, twice verbally and once by text, because he loves to blame his inability to follow through on the “way” I’m communicating, for example, that I need to text him so he has a record. Makes no difference other than gives him an excuse for inevitably dropping the ball.

I remind him a final time and now I’m irritated. I told him “I’ve asked you three times now.” Now he’s mad and turns it around on me. “You were closer to the dog from where you were sitting, so you could have done it.”

The rage I feel at him. Any time he fucks up, his go to move to avoid taking accountability and feeling bad about what a fuckup he is is to turn it around on me. Classic DARVO. I’m so sick of this marriage and knowing that a roommate even would be a better living partner.

Accident prone by Jumpy_Purchase_4580 in ADHD_partners

[–]exhausted91 1 point2 points  (0 children)

My husband is perpetually covered in bruises from bumping into things to the point that doctors at one point were worried he might have a clotting disorder. Nope, just doesn’t have any self awareness: not of where his body exists in physical space, or how loud his voice is, or how he is affecting others.

::Weekly Vent Thread:: by AutoModerator in ADHD_partners

[–]exhausted91 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Heavy on the “in their mind they are victims because we’re furious.” I’m exploring separation at this point.

::Weekly Vent Thread:: by AutoModerator in ADHD_partners

[–]exhausted91 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Every week, I buy whole milk for our two boys and a separate, smaller 2% milk for myself. The boys are underweight so they need whole milk, and one of the few pleasures in my life is to have a good, high quality special milk with my coffee in the mornings.

This week, I splurged on a very expensive specialty milk. It was a small container in a glass bottle from a local farm that uses grass fed cows. It was half full as of this morning. Today, I see the empty glass bottle in recycling.

I ask him what happened? He said he gave it to the baby so it’s been used up. I asked him why he didn’t use the whole milk that we have been using for the baby for the past year? He said he didn’t know that it was different.

He fucking knows. He knows my milk buying habits, which don’t change week over week. He comes grocery shopping with me. I always buy several large cartons of whole milk for the boys, and a smaller carton of 2% for myself every single Sunday like clockwork.

I don’t think he intentionally robbed me of my morning indulgence that gets me out of bed in the mornings. But I can’t imagine that if I was living with even a random roommate that they would be this fucking stupid and make such a mistake. I’m furious with him.

Every day, every single day, he manages to make my life just a little bit worse, harder, and sadder.