Does anyone else have a husband who gets obsessed with things?

[6timesthemess]

My dh and I have been together 17 years, we have 6 children including some with adhd/autism.

I would say we have had a good relationship , I love my dh and he loves me

But..

He gets utterly obsessed with things, projects or ideas and tbh it’s wearing me down as time goes on.

It’s got worse as he’s got older (he is 35 now and was 16 when we met). Because he has more time/money to dedicate to the projects.

I am feeling very very down and Tbh dh is the last person I want to talk to about this. Life st the moment is difficult with the kids and dh is all over a new thing (which isnt even a terrible idea it’s just the obsessive nature of it).

I don’t even know what I’m asking just feel like I need someone - anyone! To talk to!

I think you're asking "should I consider how I approach getting an ASD diagnosis and subsequent ASD relationship management advice for my husband"?

Yes and DH is on the waiting list to be assessed for Asd (our youngest child has asd).

Do you talk to him about how it affects you when he obsesses? My DH is often more able to modify his behaviour to be less obsessive if he knows how it is affecting me and the family, but he needs it spelled out and what I would like instead. This is sometimes frustrating in itself as you wish they would just get it, but I have come to recognise that this is one of the things he is not so good at and if I say nothing then nothing changes.

Does it just mean he spends all his time on the obsession, and neglects you and the family? Or does it affect you in some other way?

I think 6 kids and some with autism is very challenging...so he needs another focus at times.

He's just 35 and may be seeing life slipping by if he doesn't do something for himself.

You probably need to find your thing and leave him to his. If his projects impact his other responsibilities..then that's another issue.

Is your H also on the spectrum?

TBH it was only when we started looking into DS1 having an ASD diagnosis that it dawned on XH that he might also have Aspergers.

And yes, the total obsession with a new hobby, having to research it to death, buy all the associated bits for it, talk about it ad nauseum and do it every weekend, until the obsession wore off and he moved onto the next thing. It was exhausting and frustrating.

Current DP can also get carried away with things, but he notices and puts a stop to it, eg if he finds a particular game is taking his attention he will delete it from his phone. We can all get a bit addicted to things which bring us joy, but I guess the question is, what happens when you talk about it?

Single - yes I mean he spends all his time on it . He runs his own business because he was never able to fit into a routine of working for someone else and new obsessions do Impact that as it takes time away from his ability to work at that.

I used to work in the business with him but one of our children needs a lot of extra care and it became impossible to find her childcare that was suitable so that ended that! We now homeschool and I look after her 24/7.

Obsessions can range from new business ideas to phone games to more personal things.

DH doesn’t see them as obsessions at all. He gets annoyed if you mention it and just doesn’t see the problem. If we try and have a conversation about him helping or being involved it somehow gets brought round in a circle to how great the new thing is!

I feel like I’m moaning about nothing because other than that he is great but it’s affecting me a stupid amount lately much more than it used to.

If it means he's not pulling his weight as a parent, then of course it's getting to you. It becomes like having another kid to look after.

Yep, he's been diagnosed with BPD and is waiting for an appt for a possible autism diagnosis. I love him but it's hard work tbh when he's frantically googling something for bloody hours on end and will talk about whatever topic it is constantly.

Pick - yes at this point he does virtually nothing as a parent, no housework, did nothing for Christmas. He spends 100% of his time on his project.

Yes yes yes. Karate, sailing, American cars, presently learning to fly he's a fucking idiot, I switch off and ignore

100% understand what your saying. My stbxh was so obsessive he was also self obsessed and didn't really participate family life. Of course people get obsessed with things, but his dominated his life as well as the families. There is a lot more to the story than just his obsessions as their was domestic abuse involves, so glad im well shot. But regarding the obsessive behaviour it range from:
control
People, total obsession with with them then potentially ditching them
Money
religion/faith
books
diets,
the children
obsessive thoughts and feelings about his interaction with others (normally negative interaction)
The list continues.

6timesthemess
If he does nothing around the house etc hes actually very selfish regardless of why hes being obsessive. Im not saying this is the case for you but just be aware that it could be part of a much bigger problem. I would have hole hardheartedly said i loved my husband and he was wonderful. The reality after he had upped and left me was that he had been manipulating me and his behaviour amounted to abuse. I think when someone is obsessive it can really change the power balance in a relationship and this in itself is worrying. (im not saying this is the case for you im just saying be careful)

He needs contributing to family life built into his routine. Hfa is no barrier to being part of a family, but it needs to be structured, this is your work time, this is your hobby time, this is your family time when you do this and this. Is the home schooling working for you? Are there absolutely no education settings suitable for her? My ds1 is now very settled in his sn school but at one point I never thought he'd be happy anywhere!

Unfortunately you’ve enabled this wholly unsatisfactory set up and after 17 years it will be difficult to shift.

You need to give him an ultimatum that he pulls his weight 50:50 - forget ‘help’ you’re both equal partners.

His obsessions must not impact on his carrying out of household chores or the business.

Both dh and I have aspergers and we both do the whole “obsessed” with things stuff- for me it’s true crime - I find whole court transcripts online and read them back to front for days (2000 odd pages) and even memorise them I get so obsessed with them. I’ve always done this since I was a young teen - I’m 38 now.

But - we both know we have to be parents first. We have two dc, one has severe autism. We might sit on our phones a bit if dc is busy playing on their tablets but we certainly wouldn’t ignore housework / children / home stuff because of aspergers obsessional stuff.

I think all you can do is try and set some ground rules - I tend to like to have routines and times for doing things but I know not everyone is like that.

I have aspergers and do the obsession thing but i do self police and actively make sure im not neglecting family housework etc - possibly a gender expression difference? Just my observation but many men are just a bit selfish in the home, whether its not doing housework or prioritising drinking with the lads or football hobbies etc.

However, if i was neglecting family the best thing that could help me would be my partner telling me and spelling it out to me literally like "i feel neglected and as though our family is suffering due to your latest obsession, can we come up with a solution?" And i would say "sorry, of course, what is it specifically you would like me to do?" And you would need to give me specifics like 'i need you to leave wednesdays-mobdays free to help me and do activities with the kids' or 'the washing and hoovering needs doing as a priority' so i would know i had to achieve these tasks before i could allow myself to get lost in obsession.

I cant do vague or ambiguous, i will make a guess at whats required which would likely leave you still unsatisfied ime! But, give me a proper list of requirements and i will do whats on it. If he chooses not to, he's just being a selfish twat.

When did his obsessive nature come to light?

Because 17 years in and 6 kids later... it's something that likely would have been seen a lot earlier.

You've got an awful lot on your plate with 6 kids and homeschooling. Do you ever get a break for just you ?
It sounds depressing...maybe he's looking for an escape from it all.

He has always been obsessive about things but it used to be the case that he would be snapped out of it by something important coming along and so it wasn’t an issue to often . Now I swear the house could burn down around him and he wouldn’t even look up.

I have a husband who has a wife who gets obsessed with things.

I have ADHD and can hyperfocus to Olympic Gold Standard.

One of the strategies he uses was discovered by our son. If you put a hand on me (like the back of my hand if not currently in action, my back, or my shoulder) before trying to verbally get my attention, and keep it there both when you finally get my attention and while you are speaking to me, it helps me come back off the Hyperfocus dragon I'm merrily riding. Temporarily anyway.

The other way is also perfectly reasonable when I don't respond the the above. Pointing out that it is unfair and unloving when I make zero effort to rein in the hyperfocus dragon and zone out of the family to indulge my gallop.

I do not have amazing control over it. Yes. Especially if they don't catch me at it in the early stages of a new gallop off with the fairies. Most of the time I don't even know I'm doing it until it's too late and I'm in too deep. It helps me a lot if my family intervene at the early stage when I have a better chance off hauling myself back out of it. Waiting until it is well underway puts both them and me at a disadvantage when it comes to forcing a dismount.

But I've discovered I have way, way more control than I used to have when I didn't know I had ADHD and wasn't actively trying to control it. Every time I have valiantly tried to pull myself out of it I have got better at it and more successful in doing it quicker, and less grumpily. It has been hard work, especially since I love being hyperfocused on something. But as much as I throughly enjoy being in that state my life, and the lives of my family members, have been so, so much better since I started working on developing brakes.

I'd rather my husband got cross with me than suffer in silence and develop issues of his own as a consequence. I love him and don't want to make him unhappy, or worse. I wouldn't want him to get to a point where it became unbearable and he started to see our relationship as lost, or untenable either. So I have been, and would be again, willing to engage with whatever professional help was available to give me an edge in keeping the ADHD under tighter control so I don't negatively impact the people I love most.

I have a condition. I do not have a "get out of jail free" card that gives me carte blanche to discount everybody else's feelings, needs and desires. They are real live humans too, not bit players providing a foil for me in a screenplay of my life, featuring me +ADHD as the lone protagonist.

I may have a thing that makes life much harder than it otherwise would be. But it doesn't come with a responsibility placed on everybody to sacrifice the things that matter to them, or their mental/emotional wellbeing, in the name of me being a factory second so my feelings/issues are the only priority anybody close to me is allowed to have.

Does he have a diagnosis where hyperfocus or obsessive tendencies are often a symptom ? Would he be willing to be assessed ?

Just seen SandyY2K 's post.

She makes a very good point. Certainly from talking to people with similar issues to myself the more overwhelming life is, the greater the retreat into hyperfocus/latest obsession.

We homeschooled our son from 8 to uni., so I'm not philosophically against it. But it was HARD. And bloody relentless. The stress of "I must not fuck this up, everything DS needs depends on it, and therefore me" was difficult to manage.

All in all HSing probably contributed to an uptick in my sysmtoms that DS then got little respite from, cos he didn't get the large daily break from it that school would have provided. On paper it worked out well for him. But if I had my time again I am not entirely certain I would choose it. It solved the issues we sought to solve. But threw up a lot of problems for all of us in its own right, in part because I had (then undiagnosed) ADHD.

It might be worth a second look at that specific point and any other "extra pressure" aspects of your family set up to see what could be adjusted to minimise tendencies to escape to the relatively calm of one's own head.

There's potential for him to make improvements in terms of being present. But a realistic chance of success most likely depends on there being a ready prepared, solid foundation that won't give way during the new habit building process.

Yeah, adhd & hyper focus here too.

Definitely getting worse as I get older as I can manage distraction better.

Adhd has new NICE guidelines for treatment. Often co-morbid with ASD...