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DH may have ADHD....This is DRAINING!!!!
DH and I have been married for alittle over 3 years, and we have had our share of good and bad times. However, I feel that my husband lacks motivation, and I pretty much have to do everything in order for things to get done. It is extremley draining. It has even affected his performance at his job...his manager told him that he will need to accept another position within the company that pays a lesser salary or he is out of a job....his manager is complaining that he is not completing his work in a timely manner.
Then if he looses that job I will be back filling out his applications and then coaching him through the interview process....it's draining!!!!!!! I spoke with his mother about the situation and she said that growing up as a child DH had to take ritalin (adhd) medication....and that she pretty much took care of everything for him. DH is currently not on any medications at this time, and it is very discouraging because I feel that our marriage is never going to grow...and that things will never get better because DH is stuck in the tweens!!! We have two children together...and I can't afford to take care of this family alone....and it just concerns me what our future holds. I made an appointment for him to see the doctor on monday...and im going to see how things go...this is just so discouraging!!! I'm filling out his job applications while he is downloading music to his mp3 player...I'm like DUDE where in the hell are your priorities????????
I'm at the point where im just TIRED...and ready to go on with my life with or without him....
Re: DH may have ADHD....This is DRAINING!!!!
I don't know if he actually has ADHD, of course ... but it seems to me that he's had a pretty sweet life so far. His mom did everything for him and now his wife does everything for him.
Why the heck should he have to lift a finger when the two of you are just going to do it for him? He knows that, if he just sits around and does nothing long enough, Mommy or Wifey will just get frustrated enough to do it herself. Sure, he'll piss you off, but hey ... he won't have to do it himself! And that's what counts to him, not having to do the work himself. It doesn't matter to him that you're upset - he got what HE wanted, so all is well.
Stop doing things for him. He'll either figure out how to take care of himself and his family (go on medication, straighten up at work, work harder to focus, whatever) or you'll eventually have enough and leave his lazy ass. Or you'll just keep doing what you're doing and have a stay-at-home husband who doesn't bring in income or take care of the house/kids, and you'll be struggling for money and you'll have no time to yourself because you'll be taking care of every single responsibility instead of dividing the workload evenly.
This past year, my H was diagnosed with ADHD. Some of what you wrote resonates with me. He would get overwhelmed with tasks, and when we were cleaning the house together, for example, for company, he would do a great job, but he would straighten and organize all of our stuff in the basement (which the guests weren't going to see). He'd get caught up in something like that and not be able to see the bigger picture.
My H has been on his own since he was 17 though, so his mother didn't do stuff for him, and I certainly never did. However, I did sometimes feel that he was acting like a teenager, as you said. So my first piece of advice would be to not do things for him.
In the last year, the sh*t hit the fan with us. I got so fed up. He saw where I was at and went to an individual counselor, who helped him to see things from my perspective (I don't know what they talked about but that was the result that I experienced).
He also went to an ADHD clinic, where that is all that they deal with. He was diagnosed and went on medication. He is like a new person. It has been an amazing transformation. One thing the doctor there said to him is that many adults with ADHD also have an accompanying mood disorder (which I had felt that he had as well). So he is being medicated for the ADHD and also for the mood disorder.
This has probably saved our marriage. I wish you luck.
If he actually has ADHD, there are things that can help him -- but he also has to be willing to work on himself, and you have to step back and let him suffer some consequences.
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/19/attention-disorders-can-take-a-toll-on-marriage/
http://www.adhdmarriage.com/
DD1, 1/5/2008 ~~~ DD2, 3/17/2010
One thing that might help you is to read up on adults with ADHD and being married to one. Edward Hallowel has written several books on ADD/ADHD and his wife recently wrote one titled Married to Distraction.
There was an article in the New York Times about a year ago (IIRC) that was about being married to someone with ADD which I could relate to. To be honest, my stance eventually was that I didn't care what he had and I didn't care, at some point, about reading any more about it. If he didn't get help, I was gone. Whether he had a "condition" or not, he had to DO something about it. And, eventually, he saw I was serious and he did.
The change since he's been on the medication is incredible. He is SO productive now (comparatively speaking). He has explained that before, he just felt so overwhelmed. He would have the best of intentions but at the end of the day he would see that he hadn't followed through on anything. I bet in Dallas there is a clinic devoted to ADHD for adults. Try to get him to go there.
I have EXTREME ADHD. Its considered a very severe case.
Even I think your H sounds like an immature "kid" using it as an excuse. Stop enabling him.
You'll be resuming the completion of his applications and coaching him for interviews? Sheesh.... also looks like he's got a history of this problem.
He should be doing that on his own; you shouldn't be policing him or being a mom.:(
Is it also possible that he may have some form of mental illness? He clearly needs some type of evaluation -- it is also possible that he may have a learning disability.
Wishing you luck - let us know what happens.
Have him tested for learning disabilities, also --- it's very possible that a learning disability could have gone undetected or unnoticed when he was in grammar and high schools.
This is another possibility: could he be a secret addict of some type? He might have an addiction that he might be hiding; addicts can be very good at hiding what their addiction is.
Then again, neither ADHD, a learning disability, addiction or mental illness may apply -- as a pp pointed out, could be he is lazy and entitled.
IF that's the case, you need to rethink him. Who needs a life where you'll be at wit's end with him?
Also: Counseling for you. Stop enabling him and stop being a mom to him.
I keep coming back to this because it was such a recent thing in our marriage. You MUST stop enabling him. I never did that and I still resented him. If I had been doing stuff for him I can't imagine how angry and frustrated I would feel.
I would not even make any of the initial appointments for him with the counselor or the clinic. I did ask a therapist friend of mine in another state for a referral to a good counselor, but I just gave my H the information. HE had to do it. HE eventually asked her for a referral to an ADD doctor. I had nothing to do with it. And you know what? It took him longer than I thought it should take, but he did it all by himself.
My mantra to him has been "I married a man, YOU take care of it. If I wanted to adopt a teenage boy, there are plenty of them that need homes."
You can bet that this has gone on with him since they were dating.
Indeed: let him get up off his arse and let HIM get cracking --- and I'd tell him to get moving and get cracking and that the continuance of the marriage is contingent upon his getting moving and cracking.
ADD doctor? I will bet you that the pharmcos are in the back pockets of these "physicians." disgusting.
Yes, there are doctors and therapists that specialize in this type of disorder. Why did you put "physicians" in quotes?
You've got that right. OP, your husband is lazy. And his mother and you both enable him.
This poster has been posting for YEARS about her d-bag DH.
Because there is a bounty attached to meds -- I put physician in quotes because at that point they are not servants of the ill; they are businessmen and nothing more. What happened to "drug of choice"???
Pharmcoes are big money and they'll stop at nothing to make sure people buy their goods.
Mind you there are still decent physicians that still put the patient first, not their wallets (or second homes or yachts or trips to Gstaad, etc)
OP, I just wanted to point out that while it's possible your husband has ADHD, you also have to prepare yourself for the possibility that he does not. I'm glad things worked out for KelikeaH, but there is no guarantee that you will have the same outcome. There are some things going on in your relationship (like your husband's failure to set and stick to boundaries with his mom) that can't be blamed on ADHD. And even if he is diagnosed with it, he is going to have to do some work on his own to manage it- you can't continue to do everything for him.
The last time you posted, you said things were going so well that you decided to have another baby. What happened?
Oh, I recognize her. She's an absolute trainwreck.
My brother has severe ADHD and wasn't diagnoses until his early 30's, and yet he still managed to become a highly successful business owner.
Your husband is an ass, and you are a co-dependent enabler, like a PP said, are you going to do your childrens homework too?
My XH has ADD. He DID lose his job, and I DID go back to filling out job apps / "helping" him revise his resume. He was on medicine, though.
I divorced him.
But seriously, what you are saying resonates with me. There's a fine line between what ADD causes him to do/not do and what laziness/selfishness causes him to do/not do.
Good luck. It's not easy figuring it all out.
Why in the HELL are you the one filling out his job applications? He is an adult right? Then he can fill out his own applications and if he can't do his job up to snuff, then he can deal with the consequences.
Basically he moved from one house where everything was done for him to another with a wife who took over for Mom.
Mags, she doesn't need to have a third child with him--he IS the third child!
I don't think this is an ADHD issue. He's a douche. I don't think ADHD has much to do with a lack of motivation. When you have a wife and 4 kids he really should've taken initiative to get help with his ADHD if that was the issue. Having to take a lower position is a pretty drastic move and I highly doubt it came to that without any warning about his performance.
I have ADD and I do struggle with it. I have trouble with reading comprehension with long stories, but I can do fine filling out a job application. Organization is a struggle for me and sometimes I can be pretty forgetful if something distracts me during a task. I'm usually trying to do a lot of things at once which can lead me to forget to finish stuff. I've been on Ritalin and Adderall and they have helped.
You just described my DH to a T. We're both ADHD (he was diagnosed as a child, me as an adult) and let me tell you, it has been a struggle, especially when I say "leave the damn basement alone and clean the kitchen, since we are having a dinner party".
OP, the biggest thing I've learned is to not say "we're doing this now" but rather breaking down time for your DH the same way you would for a child "Honey, as soon as this episode of Family Guy is over, we're going to go out and do yardwork". A lot of adults with ADHD have issues leaving something half done, or switching gears when they're involved with something.
Also, if I have to be somewhere by 4PM, and it's a 30 minute drive, I tell DH that we need to leave by 2:30. That normally ensures that we're in the car by 3:15.