My DH and I haven’t been getting on for a while. I was pregnant with our second DC, 18 months ago and he walked out on me after saying he had a break down. I felt totally abandoned and never expected that from him. He later found out through counselling that he has ADHD, so came back to live with us and it’s been total rollercoaster ever since.
We have had months of him unable to sleep staying up till 2am using porn and meanwhile he showing me no affection. We don’t have sex and he tells me this is because I am always nagging at him and having ago at him, so why would he want to have sex with me. We barely even speak most evenings as he comes in from work and straight away goes onto his laptop and sits there until 1-3am most nights. I’m told he has now mostly stopped his porn usage… He also has a problem with alcohol although he says he isn’t an alcoholic, its just a “problem due to ADHD impulsivity”. Many a time he has been drunk in the afternoon lying on the floor in the living room and my toddler has been asking why daddy is asleep. After months of this he did give up the alcohol and apart from a few mishaps, has managed to mostly not drink and things have been better and I appreciate this has been very hard for him.
Then he was given prescription stimulants from his psychiatrist for the ADHD and he immediately abused them and went manic. I had to call the psychiatrist and he was given one last chance on a slower release version to stay on stimulants and he abused these again. Each time he went a bit crazy, talking about number sequences and the illuminati etc. A few times he has been driving with the kids in the car not paying attention to the road as he is so distracted by these paranoid thoughts. He wouldn’t let me contact the doctor again so the doctor had never seen him on the correct dose but has agreed to keep fulfilling the prescription as he ‘tricked’ him in to thinking he didn’t abuse them the second time. He now wants me to keep an eye on the tablets to make sure he doesn’t take too many, but if I ask him about it he gets angry with me for ‘checking up on him’ even though he did ask me to make sure he didn’t take too many, and I’m terrified of the long term effects for him if he does, and the short term impact to our family.
He works for himself in a business run with a partner who he doesn’t get on with. Every day he tells me he hates it and spends his time wandering around coffee shops, trying to get the motivation to work or to avoid his partner. He is very sad and miserable and down and expresses this to me all the time.
If I tell my DH that I am unhappy with his behaviour he tells me that I am blaming him for my unhappiness and tells me that I am depressed etc and that his actions have nothing to do with me and I need to be responsible for my own happiness.
He tells me I am not allowed an opinion on what happens with his business, even though I am trying to reassure him it’s fine for him to walk away from it to preserve his own sanity if he feels he has to and can’t cope anymore. Instead he tells me that he wants to carry on with it for 5-10 years as he’s decided he will sell it and become a millionaire and never work again. We don’t even know if his business partner will sell his half and what the impact will be to the value of my DH’s half if that’s the case… and the market isn’t likely to continue at the current rate. He says its none of my business what he does with the business – but I see it as being so because its impacting the whole family. I also help him with the business and have shares in it and its our only source of income. I never signed up for my life being on hold for 10 years on the ‘wing and a prayer’ that someone might buy this company he has created. I want to live in the now and plan what we want as our futures together. He says that he has his own identity and I shouldn’t expect any say on the business and its just because I don’t like being a SAHM and that I should just get a job then instead of giving him my opinions on his company. But when I talk about working says he wont be flexible with his hours at all and that ‘no one else has to be’ and we will just get a nanny instead, so I feel like I cant work because it is just me that has to think about the children and the fact that they will not see either of us at all in the week if we are both working full time with no flexibility to allow drop offs/pickups etc. Or it will just fall to me to once again be the only flexible one.
It all came to a head this week as he got drunk on Wednesday and couldn’t look after the kids as scheduled and then he came back the next day moaning how sick he was (as he isn’t allowed to drink on the medication either) and decided he was going shopping for the day and then to take a nap. Not once did he ask if I needed help with anything, shopping or at home. And he knew I was getting very stressed about having his whole family round for xmas as he has contributed not much at all to the pre-xmas prep refusing to take any time off work to help with any of it, and spending all evenings just sat on his computer. He said him taking the day to sleep and shop didn’t impact me as I’m a SAHM. And its my job to look after the kids even if he dosses off work. I feel its not very kind and loving and that I never get a break and can never just have a nap if I feel like it. I feel taken advantage of and not appreciated.
Anyway we haven’t been able to get back from this. We have argued all week about it and I am so upset he got so drunk again because it brings back those memories of him passed out on the floor. I know a lot of this is to do with he ADHD but he never just says sorry. He gets angry with me instead. He says I am affecting his self esteem by being upset with he porn, alcohol, drug overdosing etc, and nagging him all the time. But I feel like he’s starting to make me doubt myself completely now and I cant even work out if I’m actually the unreasonable one now.
This is very long but I’ve really missed out so much stuff… He just speaks to me like he doesn’t really like me to be honest. There’s so much anger there. And I said I don’t want to spend xmas with him and his family anymore, so will see the kids in the morning, leave him to it and return in the evening. He’s now yelling at me about this saying I am ruining Christmas for our children. But he hasn’t cared about the impact of anything he has done so far on the children, and I think it would be better for them to have a lovely family Christmas with their grandparents without us being angry with each other all day.
He is telling me he is never good enough for me and that I am always unfair and not understanding about his ADHD and his problems. But I just want a partner – one who is equal responsibility for chores, and planning holidays, childcare and making sure we have enough money etc. I want someone who speaks to me in the evenings and isn’t always on his computer, or drunk or high or looking at porn. He says I never let go of the past and he’s right, I do struggle and hold grudges, but its because it often doesn’t stay in the past, it happens over and over again.
I think my marriage is over… but before I declare it so, am I being unreasonable here? I feel like I’ve not got a clue anymore.
Thanks for reading if you got this far.