Severe ADHD and lack of maturity in my husband means carrying the mental load and finances in my marriage can only sit with me.

I’m sorry, but I think he’s playing this a bit. Can’t do an online shop? Come on!
He has let you do all the “boring” bits as it’s easier on him. It’s weaponised incompetence.

I have dyslexia and do struggle with things like admin and budgeting. But I ask for help and work on a system that works for me . I couldn’t just opt out of being a parent/adult.

My ex was a very competent person but with no life experience . After having a baby, it drove me mad that this man could mange people, and large budgets but couldn’t remember to put the washing on. It drove me mad. We are now seperated and im
so much happier. The resentment was killing me. You’d be better off leaving him.

Whether he is unable or unwilling doesn't really matter, he isn't improving. If that doesn't work for you then staying because you will lose assets in a divorce won't make you financially better off in the long run. It just means if you separate later, there will be more savings, more house equity, pension etc to split.

Of course.
But ADHD is often misunderstood and people believe that the other person just has to try harder (that's what I thought about my first DH, because I didn't understand ND at that time) when in fact when severe it is an actual disability. A person is allowed to say they don't want to be a carer as well as a spouse for someone with any condition, but nobody would be calling the guy a man baby if his executive function issues were due to a brain injury, or cerebral palsy, although it would still be OP's right not to stay in the marriage if the effort was too high.

Even if that’s the case, he’s an inadequate partner & parent and it’s OK if OP has had enough.

This is classic ADHD, which is why it can be so debilitating. He does need to find coping mechanisms and medication that works for him, but people massively underestimate just how much ADHD can affect someone’s ability to function. It’s very easy to say ‘the problem is him’ when actually a huge part of what you’re seeing is the ADHD.

This is a great post for highlighting quite how debilitating ADHD can be in severe cases when unmedicated. But I don't get your use of the word excuses. Surely, if your child wasn't medicated they wouldn't be excuses but totally legitimate reasons as to why they couldn't function at the level that most people do - he would just be unable to do all or most of these tasks more or less absolutely? Or is the point just that the OP and her husband need to try to get a diagnosis and some meds?

you also have no idea how shit my husbands childhood was. It was abandonment dysfunction and chaos. So theres a whole load of nurture issues in there too

And this was also a surprise to you? It just popped out after your second child?

What are these incorrect assumptions?

I don’t understand this either @HoppingPavlova

So, you dated and didn’t see these issues. Did you live together at all before you got married? Then you got married and presumably lived together but didn’t see these issues. Then decided to have a child with him, and didn’t see these issues. Then you had another child with him and THEN noticed these issues? I’m calling bunk on that.

I do have a (adult) child that has had severe ADHD all throughout their life. In fact, a global KOL said they were one of the worse cases they had known of (yay….). They are definitely not uneducated though, we made sure of that but apart from that we didn’t/don’t make all these excuses and allowances you are sprouting. They are also medicated to shit, which has had to be altered and tweaked over the years. When the meds wear off, they are useless, would literally struggle to put a pair of socks on SO they do everything they need to (including their professional job) while medicated. This includes any necessary life admin, because they HAVE to, it’s not optional. They have two slots in the week they sit down and get through it, admittedly they may struggle outside of that routine, but they get everything needed done and if not and they needed to add a third slot routinely, then that’s what would happen. They also can’t drive ‘out of hours’ when medication has worn off (on medication they are a brilliant driver), so they organise themselves accordingly, and for lifts outside of this as they then also struggle with coordinating public transport when meds have worn off.

If a girlfriend turned around even after just 6 months, and said they didn’t notice any of this from the beginning, I’d laugh in their face as it’s obvious as dogs balls. If they turned around and said this after several years and a few kids, I’d truly wonder about their mental capacity, but obviously, they would be free to do whatever they wanted about it.

To be fair, i've heard many comments over the years, the one you said crops up a lot now, earlier examples where:

He's just naughty
Must be the parenting
He's nuts
Too much sugar
You need to control him
I wouldn't let my kid behave like that

I've got to the point these days where if you've got the balls to make the comment, you're obviously strong enough to hear me tell you to ef.off...

Seems a little unfair to call him a man baby when his difficulties are genuinely caused by a severe cognitive impairment. I agree that one ADHD husband is not like all of them (I have had two and they are very different, albeit with some crossovers) but ADHD is also a spectrum in terms of severity.
Your husband essentially has a disability and it's up to you if you want to continue facilitating your joint lives with all the adjustments you have to make, or if it's too much for you. He's unlikely to change massively. My XH is similar regarding admin and continues to screw things up work wise, financially and in relation to important life admin in his late 40s whereas my DH is much better and uses all kinds of systems to stay on top of things.

He must be very handsome, an Adonis and great in bed - or else surely you’d be long gone!

The worst is when someone says 'ah we all have a little bit of adhd'. Honestly inside you want to scream but outwardly I just avert my gaze.

I think you're either someone who has first hand experience of it, in which case you understand it and you understand the challenges that person and those that care for them face or you are someone who has never been exposed to it so you genuinely don't know how to deal with it. The others like you say are just people that like to guess, comment, preach, judge...you name it, after seeing or reading about it on social media.

Good question. Presumably there was an element of choice in all this.

My question is whether he understands why he is so poor at these things and if he has any desire to improve and/or to nonetheless contribute?

Because with severe ADHD, yes, I can appreciate that the executive functioning is a chalelnge. exacerbated by a poor education. And yes, perhaps expecting him to step up to do the budget is pointless. BUT.... as the wife, mother and sister of males with ADHD, I think that like with any challenge in life there are people who struggle but want to do better and others who struggle and are simply entitled. The former you can work with, the latter you can't.

So yes, I don't believe you've answered re medication - it absolutely can help and if he's not tried it, why not?

Also, other things. DH struggles and the planning involved in a shopping list is beyond him. There is no doubt in my mind that if I was not here and he suddenly became a single dad the children would be fed.... but they would decide what to eat every day at 7pm, go to the local shop to buy the ingredients, then make the food. Every. Single. Day. BUT.... DH can use the ADHD hyper focus to good effect. For example, I can send him to the shop with a detaile dlist and he will come back with every single item. he doesn't get distracted and buy other things. he doesn't get distracted, miss something and then not go back for it. He just works his way down the list. Similarly, neither him nor DS have any ability ot plan for a birthday or gift in advance, but on the day, they will go into the shop, be decisive and focused, and return with appropriate (in budget) gifts.

DH is never going to have a high paying job. But he works hard, he's reliable and he's extremely well liked by his managers, team and the clients he works with. That's the charm and the willingness to work hard. Notwithstanding at a drinks event the other day a colleague of his and me sharing a rueful laugh over his faffing.

DS struggles at school, but he has the support of his teachers because they see that he tries and, like his father, he has the charm.

DH has never stepped up to do the thinking and planning for our children (liek many men, admittedly). But he's a great dad who is very present in their lives. He can and does spend hours with them and when they were little, he absolutely took on a lot of the burden of the day to day care. Yes, it was me thinking about it, but I could go off for hours and know they'd be entertained and happy with him.

My point is that ADHD is real and can be debilitating, but like any disability, the attitude and response of the person is more important that the disability.

This is why a lot of us do not disclose to people so we don't get put into a certain box so to speak. The only people I ever hear discussing 'their adhd' are the ones without a diagnosis and an addiction to tiktok.

My meds are fantastic and I now cannot imagine life without them.

This is a grey area, i've witnessed the up's and down's first hand of stimulant and non-stimulant medication and it's not pretty, it works for short periods of time, like to maintain concentration during working/school hours for example but the fallout when it wears off can be devastating, it will obviously be different depending on the individual but that's my experience, the stimulants are actually mostly Methylphenidate which to some is a party drug that makes you high, but it has the opposite affect on someone with ADHD and calms them down.

I think the good bits of neurodiverse people are often overshadowed by the not so good bits which is a shame as it probably means that no matter how hard they try, they will always be defined by the condition. Obviously those closest to them can identify the good stuff which offers some kind of balance.

I would just rip the plaster off OP. I was very successful and well off and in leaving my abusive marriage slid back almost to 0. 5 years on, and I’m nearly back where I was. Trust in yourself to rebuild.

It sounds like you took on a project, not an equal relationship, and now you’ve realised you can’t fix him.

You’re understandably fed up of being his mother, having to parent him constantly sounds exhausting. He’s a dependent, not a husband. Whether it’s his “fault” or ADHD or a learning disability or whatever is irrelevant. He’s not able to be part of a team in the marriage, he’s not able to support you. The whole point of marriage is that you both work hard to make each others lives easier and more enjoyable. He doesn’t do that for you.

It is going to be so hard for you to take the financial hit but it’s better to do that now than to be miserable for another decade or so. Get some legal advice.

A very hard one. Does he do other things like cook, clean, do you have kids together or do you want to? Is he caring toward you, supportive? If you don't have kids you may simply have outgrown him.