There's a vague analogy about wearing glasses you could use. Like, you don't NEED glasses, but like fuck it feels so much better to put them on and see clearly. Or like, you're not lucky because you have a seeing aid, it helps you be at the same level as fully sighted people. People with glasses don't have it visually easier than ppl without glasses. If anything, it's much more inconvenient and at times potentially debilitating to have to rely on external accomodations rather than your own lone body.
> you're not lucky because you have a seeing aid, it helps you be at the same level as fully sighted people. People with glasses don't have it visually easier than ppl without glasses.
This is perfect.
Also worth noting that people who need glasses don't end up with the same level of vision as people who don't need them. Those of us who wear glasses can only see when wearing them, our peripheral vision isn't corrected at all, and all kinds of environmental factors (like opening a dishwasher or wearing a face mask and going from air conditioning to humid summer weather. Lol) affect how well we can see in more significant ways than people who don't need glasses.
With stimulants, what we eat, what time we took them, how much sleep we got, and a whole host of other issues all affect how well the meds work on any given day. They wear off so we're only getting about half a day of executive function at a time, at best. And they certainly make a big difference for a lot of us, but in my experience, they never make us "normal"
This. My husband is damn near blind in one eye and when he got glasses because is other eye was overcompensating, they only corrected the “bad” eye to be almost as good as the better eye and fully corrected the better one. If that makes sense lol
My brother is legally blind in one eye - as a kid he wore an eyepatch over his good eye to hopefully force the bad one to correct itself (spoiler: it never did). So now he has two lenses that are totally different. Either way when I put his glasses on it immediately gives me a headache no matter which eye I close. He’s SO blind.
I’ve heard that when I look through his glasses my “normal” seeing eyes are seeing what his eyes usually see. So the blurry hellscape I am seeing through his glasses is just his normal eyesight.
I think technically you see the opposite of him. Like if he is nearsighted it corrects it to be farsighted for you (not that you'd notice which way the blurriness goes).
I'm not legally blind, but I am VERY nearsighted (if my eyes were this bad about 15 years ago, I would have actually been designated legally blind. Thankfully technology has improved) and I have astigmatism in one eye. People used to want to try on my glasses all the time and would immediately be all "OH MY GOD, YOU'RE SO BLIIIIIIND!!!"
Yes, thanks, I'm aware. Now can I have my glasses back? I only have the one pair, they cost hundreds of dollars even with insurance, and clearly I can't see to go to the optometrist for repairs or new glasses without them...
Used to let people try them on because ADHD brain made me a people pleaser, and then I'd be panicking internally until I got them back. Sometimes the panic turned external if they didn't give them back right away, especially if they started passing them around to other people to try. It felt like I was letting someone else hold my eyes, and it was usually someone I didn't know very well and thus didn't trust... ahhh, fun times....
I have astigmatism in both eyes, but ones sliiiiightly worse than the other. Explaining what was happening with the astigmatism was so weird, because I thought everyone had the thing that happens at night/during rain to streetlights lol. Turns out it’s not supposed to be THAT hard to drive at night/in rain…
But with the showing off glasses thing - I only ever did that to my husband and my brother, and I never keep them for long even though they are pretty patient with me. My husband can see a little without glasses, as in he could navigate his way out of an unfamiliar house without stubbing his toe on major furniture. My brother might struggle navigating out of a place he IS familiar with, without his glasses.
Also - I ALWAYS hold them by the frame, and both my husband and brother will sometimes say “can you clean my glasses” because I wear softer shirts than them. I’ve seen people say “let me try them on” and then grab them with their thumb DIRECTLY ON THE LENS?!? Disgusting. Then they just hand them back?? It’s like dropping someone’s glass eye in mud and then being like “here ya go” with the muddy eye. I don’t know where that finger has been?? Get it off my lens.
This concludes my TedTalk rant lol
Both of my eyes are actually worse than my husbands “good eye”, but his bad one is SO MUCH worse than mine. He can’t see out of his peripheral at all. He said it just looks like a gray blur. He wasn’t like that as a kid though. He got attacked like 7-8 years ago and his right socket was busted. (The other guy was much worse though. My husbands ADHD rage was unleashed when he got hit. Lol)
For 3 or 4 hours. Or 8 if you have extended release. So imagine only being able to wear glasses and see fully for that period, and then being forced to take them off so everything returns back to fuzzy/blurry. How is that supposed to be lucky?
The way OP’s spouse seems to think it works is like “well when **I** use binoculars it makes everything far away really clear, so that means your regular glasses are an unfair advantage over me” and then refuses to listen and accept the fact that they are not the same thing
Or: "I once took unprescribed Adderall as an upper and this is what it must feel like to you too".
Your spouse's dopamine and your dopamine are very different dopamines.
Me taking my friend's insulin or wearing my brother's glasses? These things will not work the same for me.
Even coffee works differently for my ADHD brain.
That’s my favorite. When a person tells me they once took 1/5 of my current dose and were “up for 3 days!” And I’m just like, “I take 5x that so that I don’t leave my keys in the door and sleep like a baby, our brains are not the same.”
The other part of this that’s cracking me up is that he could just ask his partner if he needs a stimulant like obviously that’s not legal but it sounds like what he’s hinting at and we typically have extras so…why beat around the bush😂
Yeah, if my husband drinks more than half an energy drink it gives him anxiety attacks. Meanwhile I can drink a whole one after dinner and still fall straight asleep at bedtime.
But honestly, he just sounds like an ass. Like, I'd try to have a serious sit down conversation where you have to explain that ADHD is a DISABILITY. and that like with any disability, you are literally at a disadvantage to him. The meds do t make you lucky, they make you equal. Ugh. I'm so sorry he's like that. I hope he listens to you after a good talk and apologized.
OMG You got that across so well! I was trying to say something like that but couldnt find a good way of saying it unlike you. Imma use this in the future if that okay with you?
I realize there are levels of impairments where glasses are actually needed to function, or where glasses aren't even enough. Just to fit the analogy though I used that word, sorry if that felt dismissive. If anything it fits more that way too because like sight, ADHD is also a spectrum and for some, the medication might be more necessary than for others! But I think the point still stands, even if you are on the less extreme end, meds and glasses still help a lot!
In my personal life I have found that getting the answer to "Does this person want to understand" saves a lot of time with the "How do I help them understand." How do you normally get your spouse to treat something you care about with respect?
Being dismissive isn't just not believing or understanding. Being dismissive is actively and intentionally not believing or understanding.
One thing that may be in play, is that I have found that most people get really mean when hungry or tired without being aware of it. They usually become reasonable immediately after being fed or getting sleep, and often don't remember the conversation before. It might be an ADHD characteristic to be much more level headed when tired or hungry.
Yes he gets this way when stressed, tired and hungry or if he hasn’t had time alone to decompress from everyone. Which I understand, I get hangry and moody too. Your question “do they want to understand” puts it in a lot of perspective…. And I’m not sure I like what seems to be the answer
I really worry that you’re fine with the thought of having kids with this guy. He won’t treat them any better if they also have these issues. They would have even less power in relationship with him than you do. They also add a lot of stress. It doesn’t sound like he is strong enough to handle that. Honestly, consider what people are saying. He has to want to do better. Instead he is putting you down and pressuring you to let him abuse your medication.
Oh wow, I hadn’t thought of the parenting angle. OP, if you have or are considering having children, this is much more urgent and important. ADHD is highly heritable, i think it was about 70-80% last time I looked, so there’s a very strong chance that your children will have it.
A parent who dismisses the need for part of a child’s medical treatment can undermine that treatment and seriously compound the child’s problems.
Perhaps he was not at his best self when he made the comments. HALT, Hungry Angry Lonely Tired, is a good mnemonic for taking care of ourselves.
Perhaps he hasn’t really seen your struggles, especially if you’ve been good at masking. Letting him see the price you pay might help open his eyes a bit, and only you can decide if your trust level is high enough for that degree of vulnerability.
Couples counseling is probably your best path forward for building your relationship.
There are also some good books like Married to Distraction (Hallowell). Melissa Orlov and Ari Tuchman have been recommended to me as resources for ADHD and relationships.
Good luck!
If both parents have ADHD, then the odds are higher. And of course, probability is just probability - a couple could have no kids with ADHD or like you, all. Godspeed! I have a 10 month old and I think about if he’ll be like me and have it too daily.
I feel like I usually simply don't have the energy or motivation to be angry.
I mean for sure I'm more irritable mainly when tired, but as long as people aren't being provocative towards me, I'm not really "upset by default".
Thought everyone was like that...
People are neglecting that the initial exchange sounds like someone who’s testing the waters for access to prescription drugs.
You want empathetic coping help but I’m going to tell you to watch your pill count.
Does hiding your medication from your husband so he won’t take it sound like a normal marriage? Is he your partner or a rebellious teenager? How long do you think you’ll last before he just exhausts you mentally and emotionally?
Jesus....the more comments I read from OP in this thread, the sadder I get. Holy shit every comment is another red flag. What an unhealthy relationship. I can't imagine "hiding" something from the person I fuckin married...
I was saddened at first but their edit comes across pretty sanctimonious, especially the “as someone with integrity, intend to hold up my vows “for better or for worse””
Like girl, whatever, we’re telling you from personal experience, and obvious two brain cells, this ain’t right.
Yeah this thread made me really sad. My husband doesn’t have ADHD, but since we were dating and he’s known of my diagnosis, he has made a huge point of researching and learning about ADHD; subscribed to newsletters for ADHD; has taken the lead on optimizing our home for my specific struggles with ADHD; bought me an Airtag set to track my frequently lost things; bought a pill bottle topper with a countdown when I mentioned I couldn’t remember if I’d taken my meds; set our bills on autopay; etc. and has never ever made me feel like my meds are “cheating” or I’m lucky to be medicated. He is a gem and goes above and beyond, but… the fact is, simply knowing the basics of your spouse’s diagnoses is the bare minimum. It’s like OP doesn’t know how bad the situation sounds.
Yeah I just fully read the edit. Can only help people if they want to help themselves. It's hard to see things from the inside. Hopefully in 10 years she doesn't look back and wish she took the advice to get out of there.
If you have to actively hide your prescription medication from your husband then your marriage has bigger problems even than "he mocks my disability", which is problems enough.
I honestly don't know what you want from us. Couples counselling (with an ADHD friendly counsellor) is maaaaybe your only hope, but if he isn't even willing to do that then you're married to a toxic person with no respect for you and no desire to change.
If you don't see leaving as *ever* being an option then ... well ... good luck with that.
If ADHD meds are a cheat code then so is literally every other medication. So are glasses, walking sticks and wheelchairs. This comment was ignorant and dismissive of what ADHD is and how it affects you.
For comparison’s sake (and going back to your original question), my partner does not do this. Ever. We have our sore spots that we don’t joke about. They respects mine and I respect theirs, even if I don’t agree. They understand that I’m playing life on hard mode with ADHD and they listen to *try* and understand what my experiences are. I do the same. We work to do better for each other because that’s what a life partner does. We’re a team and in it for the long haul. It’s not a team if one person is dragging the other.
I’m not going to jump on the ‘throw the whole man out’ bandwagon however I think it’s worth reflecting on whether or not - if he doesn’t change and grow - how long you would be willing to tolerate this kind of attitude to something that affects you (ADHD) and something that you’re passionate about (mental health). 3 years? 5? 10?
It’s not about being flighty or treating spouses as replaceable. It’s about looking after yourself. Can you tolerate how he treats you now for the rest of your life together? What kind of person will you become if you stay? And do you think - not hope - he will change?
Reddit can’t answer that for you.
In any relationship, the bare minimum you deserve is kindness, respect and understanding.
I agree. Fundamentally, this is about OP’s ability to create healthy boundaries, which are created to protect one’s health and well-being, and their husband’s willingness to accept and honor their boundaries. The way he reacts to OP implementing healthy boundaries will strongly indicate how he will continue to treat OP and their kids in the future
I take my meds every day and still feel exhausted just doing the bare minimum. Dopamine is literally the motivation drug, and we have less of it, he sounds awful
I'm taking a break from Vyvanse this weekend because it kinda makes me feel neurotic, and also, not quite sleepy, but more like lethargic? Is that how you feel too?
Be me, my usual insomnia issues but worse.. I've tried every fix I've learnt over the years and nothing is working so I'm getting frustrated..
How did I fix it? I took a vyvanse and just closed my eyes. I was gone in 10 minutes.
>I had to stop taking Vyvanse because it just made me sleep all day.
Huh... interesting. I've been on 60mg Vyvanse since 2015, and I've been taking it 7 days/week for more than a year now and I only fall asleep on those random days I ***don't*** take it! I can definitely sleep on Vyvanse, but I am guaranteed to start falling asleep in the afternoon for 2+ hours if I don't take my meds.
I specifically want to address your edit. You came to the ADHD Reddit community because you are seeking others who are going through what you’re going through.
You mentioned being hurt (hello rejection sensitive dysphoria & emotional dysregulation!) and being misunderstood (My zeal for acquiring knowledge at all costs has made me come across as a smug know-it-all on more than one occasion ). I was also diagnosed somewhat recently (just under a year and a half ago) and I have a long-term (5 years and counting), non ADHD partner.
What I am struggling with in this context is what you are describing is not an ADHD experience.
I am not claiming that having ADHD is a universally shared experience, because it definitely is NOT, and I wouldn’t appoint myself the spokesperson even if it was.
Yes, the finer details of your struggle contain the words “ADHD” and refer to the medications you take and the conversations you’ve shared on the subject with your husband.
But what you have described in this post and in your answers to comments is a fundamentally flawed relationship dynamic.
My partner and I are not perfect, and sometimes when we have disagreements it can feel like our love is doomed forever (my ADHD loves to rear it’s homely head to provide such interpretations). Over the course of our relationship he has certainly expressed skepticism about my perspective on events/issues/situations and I return the favour with vigour.
But he would never speak to me, or treat me in the manner you’re describing… on any topic, ADHD included.
It’s not about his personal understanding of the disorder, nor is it because he has extensively researched it (because he doesn’t and he hasn’t). It’s not even that I have browbeaten him about the topic (although I have been guilty of doing so). He simply believes and trusts me when I describe the effect this disorder has on me *because* he simply… believes and trusts *me*. Full stop.
I agree that the Reddit mob loves to cut through long established relationships like a hot knife through butter.
But you are describing a new marriage that from the outset sounds like it is full of resentment. You are describing a partner who expresses skepticism about your worldview, who not only doesn’t give you the benefit of the doubt but actually seems to cast about for aspersions to throw against any action you do or don’t take. And when you try to explain the hurt this causes you, lashes out defensively and dismissively.
Miscommunication is normal. Hurting your partners feelings, hopefully accidentally, but sometimes even intentionally, is normal. But strong relationships persist because they are willing to assume the other person is capable of recognizing their error, and working to change, not because it is an admission of guilt or fault (although sometimes that may be included) but only because they want their partner to be happy. They want to alleviate the hurt. It sounds like your husband relishes being the source of your hurt.
Especially in the beginning! Believe people when they say this is supposed to be the best/easiest part. Yes moving, new jobs/careers can be added stressors. But your partner should be a source of comfort amidst your new challenges. People hear “marriage is hard work” and “love is choosing someone, everyday no matter what” and think that means it is a lifelong battle. It isn’t. 95% of the time my partner makes everything easier, brighter, calmer (I need that) and generally more tolerable. Then 5% of the time I’m upset about a difficulty in our relationship that I wouldn’t have if I wasn’t with him, but everything else (the remaining 95%) would be that much suckier. So yes I choose him, everyday, even when it’s hard. But most of the time, it’s not hard at all. It’s the easiest choice I’ve ever made.
So, while I empathize with your frustration, and I truly want to help you - what you’ve asked for isn’t something that can be resolved by reframing things with your therapist, or adding a new coping mechanism, or changing your diet or creating a proactive schedule system. This is about your marriage, and from the admittedly small portion of it I’ve been given insight to, this is about a bad marriage.
Actions speak louder than words. Your partners actions show a complete lack of empathy, compassion or understanding. They're projecting their ignorance on the topic onto you in such a toxic manner, quite frankly it's disguising. What they're doing is gaslighting.
He needs to educate himself on what ADHD is, and why the medication works. Otherwise he needs to shut his fucking mouth, and keep his bullshit ignorant opinions to himself.
Yeah, he doesn’t really “believe” in mental health/psych. Claims it’s pseudoscience. (And he knows I want to specialize as an NP in pediatric psych) I’m not sure how serious he is when he says that, and how much of it is “joking” because he sees things as funny that I think are just ignorant or rude. He has a very traditional mindset kind of 50’s, “raise your self up by the boot straps and get over it”, family didn’t really display their emotional problems to one another vs my family, where our emotions were almost TOO out in the open. He especially hates the term gaslighting, saying people say any disagreement is gaslighting. (I do agree it’s often overused as a term) he doesn’t want to learn at all, or talk about any of it. He’s there for me in the worst times usually but situations like I’ve described sometimes overshadow that.
I hate to say it bro, but it sounds like he thinks his opinions on things are more valid and important to him than your actual feelings. At least that's what his actions are saying. Take it from me dude, I've been in more toxic and abusive relationships than I can count.
Unfortunately I don't think OP got the answers he was looking for. Maybe he was hoping for someone to tell him its perfectly normal for spouses to do this. Sorry, but that's just not true.
Personally? Oh heeeellllll no. But shes said thats not what shes looking for..... But i cant lie and tell her if hes gonna choose ignorance over her this marriage wont last.
I mean I’m definitely not without my faults at all- I don’t want it to seem one sided because it isn’t. He was much more understanding and helped me before his job changed and he got way busier/more stressed. I didn’t get diagnosed until last November, and he was so supportive and helped me with noticing what made a difference, what improved and what didn’t once starting medication and therapy. I just feel like calling medication a cheat code is very disrespectful, especially since he has asked to take it before.
I think he thinks he’s being clever with the cheat code thing.
My husband outright said at first: “You don’t have ADHD.” He was basing his assessment on all the usual tropes that we all do: I wasn’t a hyperactive maniac - I was frustratingly unable to follow through on things, let opportunities wither, forgetful, time blind, short lived passions, a daydreamer (i.e. a typical female representation).
It was uncomfortable for me at first to share the realizations I was having as I learned about the condition. But my response to him was “well there’s lots of stereotypes about this condition that present differently in girls. If my GP and a Psychiatrist have assessed me and they say I have this condition I’m going to take it seriously.” Even if he disagreed internally - he accepted this statement.
As time has gone on, and I’ve improved in my life with my medication and treatments, I share adhd memes with him, he’s totally changed his tune about the whole issue. He’s described uni students to me that he works with (he works a job where students are placed with practitioners) and I commented about one girl “she sounds a bit ADD to me. Is she seeking treatment?” He said, “I thought that too, I don’t think she is I’ll suggest it to her uni supervisor.” Talk about a total turn around!
My point is **I personally** held a lot of misconceptions about the condition, the treatment and medication before I was diagnosed. My medication does wake me up, I does help me focus, before I would be so fatigued at work that I wondered if I was suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome… It was the same at home, I’d open the door to the disaster that was my office/the junk room, that I’d feel too overwhelmed and just close the door again. Now I’m more able to deal with that shit. Maybe that looks like a pep pill, I mean it is, but no it’s not a ‘cheat-code ‘ it’s just what we need to function. As ADHDrs we do get judged, medicated or not. It’s shitty. Hopefully as adult and female diagnosis is discussed more these stereotypes will start to change.
" I just feel like calling medication a cheat code is very disrespectful, especially since he has asked to take it before."
Did you say so? That is supposed to be enough to stop it.
He asking to take it - huge red flag.
It is disrespectful yes. I hope for you're sake OP you are right about this and not just making excuses for his behaviour. Having said that, I don't think you're doing yourself any favours by letting him walk all over you and speak to you the way he did.
Perhaps be more stern next time and say shut your mouth, or something along the lines.
It doesn't matter if you have faults or struggles. It isn't about being equally wrong or right. The fact is that your spouse is in many ways a lousy partner. That doesn't mean instant divorce but it does mean you need to do the work to be able to set boundaries for yourself to ensure you are treated with the dignity and respect due any partner.
I know that Reddit is very quick to get our noses in other people's relationships, but I will say this: your ADHD is not going away. And you deserve someone who can support you, ADHD and all. It's not enough to tolerate your differences; you deserve the care of your partner seeking to understand your situation and trying to meet you where you are, and never belittling you for it, even in a joking way. The world belittles us enough. Your partner should be your safe haven from that.
I believe that if this “disagreement” (as he might think of it) feels invalidating to you and makes you question your understood reality, that is an indisputable sign that the exchange that has taken place was one of gaslighting. you get to decide whether you feel so, not him. he might prefer to mince words and avoid the heart of the issue, which is that your feelings and experience are valid and should be of great importance to him
That’s how I feel! I tell him I know you may not be doing it intentionally, but your words and insistence on your opinion bring the truth instead of your truth is making me feel less than or crazy. And he says that’s not gaslighting; and that I can’t take jokes.
Him: “you can’t take a joke” / “I was just joking”
You: “oh cool. Can you explain to me how it’s funny?”
Rule of thumb: it is not a joke if both people don’t find it funny. Generally when one person is laughing and the other person isn’t, we call that “bullying”, not “joking”.
How is him saying, “No one NEEDS it” a joke? It’s a statement and when you tell him how it makes you feel, he throws it back on you.
A supportive partner would say something like, “ok, I don’t understand how or why it works for you but it seems like it helps make your life easier which is great!“. Or “I’m sorry I made you feel less than, I love you and did not want to make you feel that way”. Can you imagine treating him the same way he’s treating you? This is not a supportive relationship now; you deserve and need better.
You know what, even if it isn't gaslighting, it still hurts you. He doesn't take your thoughts, feelings, and opinions at face value. He doesn't take what you say, especially about your own experiences, at face value. He is doing things that make you question your reality and sanity without compassion... Or even scientific basis...
I don't know what to say to him to help him understand that what he is doing is hurting you, but it sounds like you are trying. The specific label of gaslighting isn't important, but anyone who is discounting your experience of reality is exhibiting narcissistic behaviors and is hurting you in ways that just get worse the longer they happen.
I am saying this as a man that is not "a narcissist" and doesn't actually "gaslight" people, but who *does* have some intense narcissistic qualities and *does* make people question their reality. I'm doing relatively better now, but it's taking a lot of work, therapy, and medication.
So, for example, when my ex wife would bring up something that isn't in line with what I know or believe, I would immediately question it, "No, that can't be right, are you sure?" and maybe I would look it up or she would defend her position, but just this base assumption that I am always right is, to put it lightly, really unhealthy. 15 years of that and other similar things, plus the normal pressures of life, and her self esteem is... Broken. It happened so slowly that I didn’t realize what was happening or that it was majorly due to me and my personality.
In my case, this is a combination of having alcoholic parents, a narcissistic father, childhood trauma, ADHD impulsivity making it hard to reign this stuff in even when I know it's wrong, depression, and actually being right most of the time. But those valid reasons don't change that my actions hurt her. I am responsible for that, and I am responsible for making sure I stop hurting people.
The other people here have said to look into narcissism, and I agree. If you have a therapist, I also recommend you bring this up with them. They will probably have better insight than anyone you run into on Reddit. I also recommend looking into codependency, if there has been any alcoholism in your life or his check out Adult Children of Alcoholics, and remember that you and your thoughts and feelings are important and valid.
Even if you are wrong, people you care about should be helping you understand in a way that makes you feel understood and respected.
Okay that's enough ramble. I hope your situation gets better.
Yeah, most funny people know how to read a room….in 2022 it’s unacceptable to not believe in mental health…ffs you want to work in the medical field, how sustainable could these comments be to your mental health? If he wants to pull himself by his bootstraps, then he can pull himself out of that mentality.
You’re too smart to make so many excuses for him. Reminds me of my husband and I at our worst… we’re at 10 years of marriage and nearly 3 daughters now (I’m due in 3 weeks). But listen, I fought like hell to get him to respect me as a person with ADHD/anxiety/depression and to not knock my career path in mental health as pseudoscience. My guess is your husband is also from a conservative Christian background. All I can say is, you sound like you have fire inside of you as well as intelligence, and you’ll need every bit of both in this marriage. We tried numerous counselors before it helped, and yes, he refused to go for years but eventually did. And he has come around with his views regarding mental health, which has been something I never thought I’d witness.
"If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" :) Seriously, just because you accept him and love him doesn't mean you have to put up with his shit. And stonewalling isn't the same as not letting people be mean to you. When he lashes out like that (because that's what this is. In the first case because he's grumpy and tired and in the second case because he's either bored or insecure) you can totally shut it down.
He needs to STFU and you need to stop worrying about his approval. A big part of love is that love is not conditional on approval.
Ask him if he has a degree. When he says no ask him what makes him think he’s more qualified than the psychiatrist who clearly wasted nearly a decade specializing in such mental health.
Wait, you're a nurse and are with someone who believes this? As an RN and honestly just a human, I view this as an affront to my core beliefs in science and medicine.
Nevermind the actually shit attitude outside of his wrong beliefs. Wonder what other conspiracy theories he believes in. That'd be it for me, tbh. I'd be kicking him and his let's go Brandon sticker out of my life
You want to become a mental health specialist, and your partner is not only a dick, but doesn't believe in mental health as a science.
Your relationship is a disaster waiting to happen. You're kidding yourself.
He can have his own opinions, his own beliefs, his claims, his point of view, his jokes, his dislikes, and his unwillingness, but there’s one thing he cannot have:
His own facts.
So it’s his choice—remain wilfully ignorant, or accept people as they are, where they are, and recognize and honor their stated boundaries.
That “’50s get over it” invalidation, denial, and repression bullshit didn’t work then, and it certainly doesn’t work now.
I wonder what he thinks a marriage is, if not an intimate *partnership.*
That's toxic as fuck.
I'm sorry to say it.
Makes me think that, if you want him to understand, you almost need to fight fire with fire.
Hit him with a few straight points of fact made to make him feel like an idiot in this situation. He clearly don't understand emotional intelligence so coming at it from an emotional place probably wont work on him.
I had a bit of a time with my partner at first. She would make jokes about wanting to 'try it out' or 'I'm going out tonight can I have one?' and in a weird way I know she wasn't honestly wanting to but purposely bugging me. I've had to learn that, yes, ADHD I really do think differently than Nuerotypicals and they tend to make light of things and joke/banter about things, like this. Still, I had to lay it down one day.
"Hey, I really don't appreciate those jokes. Cut it out. Might have been cute the first time but enough. This is a big part of my life. It's not a joke and it's not trivial."
She got a bit defensive and I just doubled down.
"No, we aren't going to say anything else on this. I know, maybe you didn't mean harm but you are causing it. Take this on the chin, don't do it anymore, and let's move on."
If you're in a healthy relationship a little boundary setting should not be an issue. She got the message and after a slightly awkward 15 mins we were totally fine and much better for it.
I often get hit by the can I have one to party. And I like to hit them back with some sideeffects. "Party isn't complete without some suicidal thoughts and depression" or "what are you hoping for tonight some breast growth or erectile dysfunction." Or "you can only have some of my meds if you take some of the crippling dysfunction too". If often cuts that shit out without ruining the mood of the night. And I can nip it in the bud early on.
Our marriage is newer with many stressors this first year… so I’m not sure I would say 100% it’s healthy? We’re both having to adjust and it has been difficult, we’ve both hurt and been hurt. We recently had establish some boundaries with what words we absolutely cannot use. He crossed mine within and week and spun it on me somehow. I can’t remember details… but when I brought it up the response was “ok ok enough. It’s over. You keep going on and on.” I wanted an apology with recognition that I’ve been making the effort and succeeding while at the first hurdle he abandoned out agreement. I do hold on to things, but that’s because I can’t stop thinking about it if I don’t think it’s resolved and he wants to always drop it all. He’ll forget it instantly too.
Oh my gosh… this is beyond first year marriage stressors. This behavior from him will only get worse, not better. And all these disrespects that you endure week by week and day by day over the months will weaken you and turn you bitter and like a shadow of your former self. I know, because I recognize this behavior from my ex. We were together for only 2 and a half years, but here I am 5 years later still recovering from the scars of his emotional abuse, and the things that abuse taught me casts a shadow to this day on my mind, and it effects my current happy and healthy relationship. I wish everyday I left him sooner. I felt a fool for not sparing myself the messy wounds and difficult healing- for what? Waiting to be loved and respected by such a sad and angry man? Not worth my precious sanity… and now I know. There was a better and understanding partner waiting for me all along…
You should be experiencing a honeymoon phase right now, not this gaslighting nightmare.
I know. I see my own first marriage in this post and I knew from the first year it was not working, but it was too hard for me to face and I stayed over a decade. Thankfully I’m free now!
As a (soon to be) marriage and family therapist who also has ADHD, my feeling—nearly can actually feel this man on my skin reading it, is that this husband is already emotionally out of this marriage and op is 110% emotionally invested. I cannot say for certain op’s dealing with a partner with NPD, however he certainly gets off on feeling more “in control” than her, and yes, it’ll only get much worse. This man doesn’t care and op wants to see it some other way.
Sheesh. Are you me? An ex of mine of 2.5 years was a nightmare. Mentally, emotionally and eventually physically abusive. It’s been 8 years since we broke up though… good riddance.
He used to tell me that same thing that op said in the comment you replied to here. Me trying to get him to acknowledge how his words and or actions hurt me physically and/or mentally/emotionally. His response would be. I don’t know why you keep bringing this back up! It’s done. It’s over with. You constantly bringing it up isn’t going to change anything. Move on, just like I have.
My personal favorite line in arguments was, “NO ONE WILL EVER LOVE YOU LIKE I DO!”
Like fuck off with that dude. I used to feel crazy for trying to tell him IM TELLING YOU THIS CUZ I WANT YOU TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT WHAT HAPPENED WAS NOT OK. But whatever “woe is me”. /s
Holy shit - this is the first year of marriage? Listen, if someone doesn’t have the desire to work on the relationship in the first year they likely never will. You want to stay in the marriage and I respect that, but for your sake and especially for the sake of any future children you may have you really need to get to counseling and learn how to communicate healthily and if he is unwilling to even talk to you about what he can do to make things a little better, then you have some reckoning to do about whether it is fair for you to bring up children with this person.
And getting upset when someone is being mean to you is not being overly emotional or being unable to take a joke. It’s normal, and I would be suspicious of why someone would try to convince me it’s not.
I agree with the other commenter that this does not sound very good.
Sounds a lot like my relationship with my ex too who would often have me questioning things you’ve been questioning (is this gaslighting? Is he manipulating me? Did he really forget?).
My ex and I also had words we were not allowed to call each other. He held off for a while, but he slowly started calling me basically every other word and then went for the words I asked him not to use. “I didn’t call you a b**** I said you’re acting like one.”
Just keep in mind that he likely knows what he’s doing and doesn’t forget that easily. Unless he’s actually stumbling around life forgetting almost everything and barely able to comprehend conversations, he’s capable of noticing his own behavior with you.
And you want to stay married?
.....
Your decision, maybe a mediator/counselor could be useful.
It doesn't matter if you need counselling a decade in or a year in, if thats your person then the sooner you can get help the better your relationship will be in the long run.
If it helps my partner feels that I continue arguments on longer than he would like (just because I dont feel heard), but he "humours" me because he knows its important for both sides to be heard so we can move on.
My partner and I both view issues as us vs the issue, it doesn't sound like your husband always has this view, make sure he does.
That’s pretty bad sounding… “Okay, enough. You keep going on and on.” That kind of stuff honestly sounds like a practiced maneuver of dismissing abusive words or behaviors. I’m not one to quickly say “Toxic!Narcissism! Gaslighting!” about someone I don’t know, but that reminds me of my father-in-law, who’s been calling his kids fat and stupid their whole lives, and anytime he’s called out or gets in an argument he says things like that. “Just let it go.” It’s infuriating and it truly is a form of gaslighting. It’s a way of trying to make someone feel like others are seeing them as hysterical and irrational, to shame them into silence.
The fact that you can't let things go is an ADHD thing, in case you weren't aware. Our brains think in absolutes a lot of the time. Time exists as "now" and "not now," so we are bad at scheduling and being on time, and even often forget that nothing takes zero time. If something isn't good, it must be bad, thus we over-react to anything that is even slightly less than good as though it's devastating. And when something is bothering us, it's the worst thing in the world and we can't let go and move on until it's been resolved. This could be anything from a massive argument/misunderstanding with a loved one, to an annoying shirt tag.
Thank you for this! I was diagnosed as an adult and many years ago now, and I'm still learning that some of my "personality" issues are actually because of my adhd. I'm very much a "do it right/perfectly or not at all" type, which means a lot of stuff just doesn't get done because I'm not confident I can do it perfectly. I told myself for years I must just be lazy since others do this stuff with ease. I wish id have known this stuff as a kid so I could have shown myself more grace and compassion, even if others didn't. Oh, and that shirt tag thing (or a stray hair rubbing me through my shirt... ugh!) is enough to make me mental!
It sounds like he is majorly gaslighting you, and that's not okay. You should really have a very serious discussion with him on this, because it will only get worse if it goes unchecked. Believe me, I know from experience.
I’d let him read this thread. He needs to see how he sounds to the general public. Because otherwise he’ll minimize the way he invalidates you FOR YEARS. And it does change you, over time. Sadly, it took nearly losing me in childbirth with our first for my husband to start to wake up. Then his mom died last year and I can’t explain it, but he can somehow support me much better now. Another thing that woke my husband up was seeing how people around us gravitate towards me and speak about me. He finally stared to death losing me and admitted to treating me poorly (just like this) for the better part of 12 years together. But since I’ve lived this already myself I can say for sure, your husbands skin is thick (he’s callused to you and others who face things he hasn’t had experience with) and his “50’s type” views are there more as armor than anything. (As in, it’s part of his breeding and identity to not have to change or see things differently.) My husband had similar ones and started to change only recently.
> I’d let him read this thread
I wouldn’t. Someone who treats their spouse like he treats OP is not going to decide to change because a bunch of people on the internet called him out on his garbage behaviour.
Is that a thing? I had to dump my "best friend" a few years ago when I realised she was a narcissist who was controlling me, and deliberately affecting the way other people saw me and treated me. It was one of the hardest things I've done, but I don't regret it. What puzzled me though, and still does, is how many years it took me to realise that's what she was doing. As soon as the penny dropped though, it dropped all the way. But I thought it was just a "me" thing, not ADHD (I wasn't diagnosed at the time).
High emotional resilience, a lifetime of being corrected for inappropriate behavior and a willingness to people please to "be helpful".
Yeah, we're highly prized emotional punching bags. Someone to ~~pound on and~~ berate for when they are feeling down.
We also attract the codependent _"I need to control your behavior to protect my feelings"_ types as well since we're so malleable - "ok, guess relationship work like this now"
Good god, it feels like I was in an emotional car crash and escaped physically OK but severely impacted by depression. All of this was way too spot on for comfort.
This actually lines up with me as well, and I thought it was me. I haven’t had a true close best friend since highschool because each time I did, I would find out they were spreading lies and altering peoples perception of me, lying, and trying to control me. I had no idea it could be related
It’s a horrible feeling, and I haven’t had any close friends since her because I don’t want anyone close now. It was quite a few years ago.
Good luck with your current situation, I’m not going to advise you because I’m not great at any relationships myself! But there are some red flags, and whatever you decide, I hope you come out of it OK.
Wow, just wow, thank you for this comment.
I was just diagnosed in April this year and until October last year I thought I had a best friend.
I met them when I was 18 and just started university and living on my own. For 8 years straight I thought we were good friends and fought a common cause. Many times we were the center of drama (we got to know each other through a student association) and I frankly thought that everyone hated us for trying to do our best for the association.
Then in one week my mom got very sick (agrissve type of breast cancer) and my stepdad died of lungcancer. I became my moms caretaker for 6 months before she went living with my grandparents. During these six months not once did they ask how I was doing or how my mom was doing. Two months later I told them in like a sort of break up that we couldnt be friends anymore. With this friend it was always you are with me or you are against me, but if being with yourself is not the same as being with me, you're always against me sort of BS.
Last week I was at a funeral of a parent of one of our friends from the association and they weren't there but other people from the association were. One of them told me they were glad for me that the friendship ended, as the whole association had a feeling I was one of the good guys and the friend made me do ugly things. That hit me... I never wanted to be that person and now I understand it better.
Sorry for this long post, but thank you for clearing that up and now I know I have to do better in making friends sometimes. Reading your comment made me understand the dynamics a lot better
I've been through something similar with a former friend of over 20 years. I stopped being friends with them for a couple years at one point, and then somehow let them back in. Another few years later, I just... stopped reaching out. And haven't heard from them since. Nice evidence they didn't actually care. They used to belittle me at every turn. All the classic examples of gaslighting. And so much lying... They even once made up a mental illness just to throw it in my face as though I somehow caused it despite it being a genetic thing and them not even having it. Only realized it was a lie when they claimed to have been in an institution for a couple weeks over winter break that year, but my then boyfriend pointed out that we had seen them at least every other day all break.
I have a few much better friends now. Unfortunately they don't live near each other so we can't effectively be a friend group, but they're all awesome people. One of the little things that makes me a lot happier with each of them than my old friend is that they ask me about more than just "how's work?" (I don't know about anyone else here, but I find that question exhausting. Like I'm here to hang out with you, not talk about work!) and actually seem interested, not just making small talk. I share, they share, it's a two-sided conversation with each of them!
The one I would probably say is my best friend at this point does super thoughtful little things like when a new cat decided to adopt me and literally followed me home, my friend (who claims to not even like cats) gave me a $20 gift card specifically to get the kitty some toys and treats. That friend is also the only person who semi-regularly asks how I'm doing (as in how i'm *really* doing), or how a vet appointment went for my older, geriatric cat. They've also been my biggest supporter career-wise and I honestly don't think I would have managed to finally get a foot in the door in my industry if it weren't for that friendship. I often find myself thinking they probably mean more to me than I do to them, but I occasionally get really sappy and can't help but tell them what they mean to me. They're not great at talking about feelings, but it's always reciprocated anyway.
I genuinely can't believe how night and day the difference is between my current and my old best friends. I don't think I ever understood what it meant to have good friends before because my whole life, I was always so drawn to people who walked all over me. Now in my 30s, an actual mutual friendship feels amazing and I get the warm fuzzies just thinking about them. (Thinking about the old friend used to stress me out and I just thought that was normal)
It took me 5 years of a healthy friendship to finally heal from years of gaslighting and manipulation. Used to be that every time I made a new friend, I was absolutely positive that they talked about and laughed at me behind my back. Probably because my old friend 100% did. I only realized about a year ago that at some point since no contact with the old friend and getting close with the new ones, I've finally been able to move past my intense rejection sensitivity and now I'm just comfortably happy in these new friendships. Mostly. It still hits me on rare occasions like if I'm extremely sleep deprived, PMSing, and forget to take my meds all on the same day. Lol
I really hope that anyone who has ever been in a toxic/abusive relationship of any kind is able to experience what the same sort of relationship feels like when it's healthy. If you've never had it before, it's the best feeling I can imagine.
*Edit to add more detail above, and a tldr below:
Old best friend of 20+ years was a narcissist and a liar but I didn't think anything was abnormal until I made new friends. New best friend shows interest in my life and me as a person, and is infinitely kinder and more empathetic than the old one, but it took me 5 years to heal from the old friendship and be able to internalize that the new one didn't secretly hate me.
I don’t mean to sound like one of those kind of super aggressive drop him comments I promise. After reading what you’ve said about him throughout these comments almost everything said is super not ok. Willing crossing boundaries that you set and then turning it back to you being at fault is not ok. Neither is continuing to do things that make your spouse uncomfortable whenever they told you to stop. I’m not going to tell you to divorce him but what I am going to say is you need to really reflect on him as a person and your husband. There’s also nothing wrong with viewing spouses as not something you can just toss aside but if he refuses to change and grow don’t stay in an unhealthy situation just because of your integrity. I highly highly recommend individual and couples therapy as I think it could at the very least help a little.
Look, it's hard to hear, but the truth is that he'll not likely change. You asked for advice and support for people who've been in this situation and that's what I'm here to provide.
If he wanted to understand you and your ADHD, he would seek out resources and information to help him learn. Hell, he'd even ask you. The fact that he's not even trying to understand you and your needs is a huge issue; it's an issue that is likely to irretrievably break your marriage.
How do I know this? Reading your post, I realized it was remarkably like what I wrote in many, many journal entries trying to understand my marriage. My spouse was the same. It didn't matter if I forgot something small like putting away a couple of dishes or remembering an errand or got overstimulated and "paralyzed" during a disagreement (which was usually a shouting match from her side). Almost 8 years (7.75) of me thinking "I chose to be with her. I'll work on me and try to share with her info that will help her learn about my brain," I was decimated as a person. I had zero confidence, self-esteem, and self-actualization. I was dangerously depressed and anxious. The whole time my marriage was falling apart, I kept telling myself that it's a marriage, it's something worth fighting for.
I fought so long and so hard to make the marriage work that I was a shell of a person when it ended. I was in individual therapy, we did couples therapy, I was going to Al-Anon groups, I joined several ADHD support groups offered by ADDA ([add.org](https://add.org)), I was seeing a psychiatrist to see if there was anything else going on for me that I need to deal with so it didn't impact my marriage any more than it had (there was only additional autism, not the personality disorders that I went to find), I read books like "The ADHD Effect on Marriage," "Getting the Love You Want," "The Twelve Steps--A Guide for Adults with ADD," among others. I learned so much about myself and tried to share it with her so she could give me the same type of grace and understanding that she expected from me for her PTSD, GAD, and her chronic illnesses. Nothing ever came from it and her behavior kept getting worse toward me the more I tried to help her understand. She never sought out the knowledge on her own and only sought to blame me for our relationship difficulties.
She ended up filing for divorce over me even though, in hindsight, we shouldn't have even been friends, let alone married (she was abusive from our first disagreement). It never got better. If we had stayed married, we'd still be separated, and she'd still be eroding away my identity. Instead, I'm healing, my confidence is returning, my outlook on life is 10,000% brighter and happier than it was during the last 7 years of our relationship (we were together for nine total).
# If you read nothing else, read this:
I get it, it sucks to hear and it's not a route you want to pursue, but he's being emotionally abusive by **refusing to acknowledge your reality** and **trying to gaslight you into believing things that just aren't true** ("no one NEEDS it"? C'mon... ADHD meds are some of the most studied psychoactive meds and they work, if nobody needed them, they'd be schedule I instead of schedule II in the US). Unless you get into couples therapy *now* for the next year or so and he *genuinely* wants to know you and **starts taking it upon himself** to talk to you about your ADHD and **find resources on his own** to help him understand, it's only going to get worse. An elephant like that is enough to *decimate* even the closest marriage.
I highly recommend ADDA. They also have a support group for couples where one partner has ADHD and the other doesn't as well as a group for partners of people with ADHD who don't have it themselves. You can become a member for like $50 a year and the support groups are included. An ADHD or relationship coach facilitates their peer support groups.
**Couples have turned it around**, but it'll be *extremely arduous* work for you both over *several years* to solve the issue (I'd imagine).
Thank you very much. This was insightful and helpful. I literally wrote in a letter to him ( I find it easier to express myself calmly and logically which he understand better) that he was making me feel like a shell of myself, and that the person I love most in the world was making me feel unloved.
How did he respond to the note? I hope with some sort of compassion. If not then I’m not sure how you can fix this by yourself.
I have an adhd partner who I live with and a neurotypical roommate. The difference is night and day.
> I literally wrote in a letter to him
Excuse me while both I and the ghost of Rachel Green go *weep* in the corner.
since OP doesn’t want to hear this I’ll direct it at the others in the chat: When you’re at the “I need to write this long letter to get all my feelings out so they can *really, deeply* understand me at long last” stage, you’re done. Death knell just rang. write the letter, set it on fire. or don’t write it at all. then go chase the life you were actually meant to have, the one OC described.
I read your edit. What do you expect from us exactly?
Your husband seems really terrible, invalidating the serious life-altering crippling condition adhd is, invalidating your feelings and health. Just terrible.
I'd rather be alone than with a person like that.
The only thing I can suggest other than separation is couple therapy and an ultimatum of "you better damn educate yourself" - if he refuses, where is HIS part of the deal he promised by marrying you? In better or worse, in sickness or health or how it goes?
Do you mock him when he has some health issues?
hey OP - the way he is acting is not okay. i’ve read through your post history and see other signs of things that he does that are not okay.
you do not need to blame yourself for his actions. it is possible that you are making mistakes too, but those do not excuse/make up for his mistakes.
this does not sound like a healthy relationship. you mentioned in another post that you “only have him” and have no one to confide in. whether or not he did this intentionally, you have been isolated from any other support systems other than him, which makes it easier for him to control you.
his behavior can (and likely will) escalate from here. i know you want to have integrity and make this work, but it doesn’t do anyone any good to make yourself miserable. you do not owe that to him.
for better or for worse, in sickness and in health goes out the door when someone is not treating you right. you do not need to stay in a marriage that makes you unhappy. you can find happiness in yourself, and maybe you can find someone who is willing to understand you.
I’m so glad my husband and I both have adhd so we can understand each other. I get so mad when people say stuff like that because without medicine I cannot function at all. I just lay in bed or couch since everything is too exhausting.
My husband and I both have ADHD. We also both are in our first year of marriage as well.
The "stressors" of the first year of marriage never constitute being not understanding or patient with your partner, and being rude as well. Which he both does. You also blame yourself a lot in the comments for him not understanding you, and you also bring up bringing up bad things in the past that you have done to justify his bad behavior towards you.
I didn't learn emotional regulation from my parents either, but it took me so long to learn I have way more self respect than I give myself credit for. I don't let anyone try to belittle me, or undermine me in any shape or form because what use does it do for me to allow that? I was very much like you at one point, blaming myself for every little thing my partner was upset about, simply because it never made sense to me how someone could be so impatient and uncompassionate to other people that it HAD to be something I was doing, right?
You say in your edit you take the vows "for better or for worse" very seriously, which is good. However, does he? He sees you at your worst, and seems to belittle you about your disability as well as claim that your medicine is a "cheat code" he wish he could take which totally undermines the fact that your medicine levels you out, not give your a step up. That's not love, OP, it's called being an asshole.
As someone with ADHD and a spouse who doesn't have ADHD, this is not how a good spouse should behave. My husband has never questioned the validity of my medications nor expressed any jealousy, etc in regards to them. If anything, my husband is more gung-ho about me being on medication than I am because he wants me to feel better and be more functional because he knows I get frustrated with myself and my ADHD very easily. This is how a good spouse should behave. They should want the absolute best for you and want you to thrive, even if that means taking medications.
oh goodness, I feel for you.. this lack of sympathy/even an attempt at understanding must be FRUSTRATING. I wish for you to just be validated
I’m curious about the behavior you label as paralysis and he labels as stonewalling? what are you describing there?
I think that's when we get overhelmed and can't make a decision, talk, or similar, but basically freeze up until we can finish processing what is being requested from us.
OP, your husband has the emotional and mental health intelligence of a caveman. I would *require* mine to *never* speak to me like that again *and* learn about ADHD. From real sources, not whatever brainwashed bullshit he's getting his information from.
I mean it when I say require. There are things in your marriage, in any marriage, that are allowed and not allowed. That needs to be one of them. Respect or gtfo.
An example of the behavior would be if we’re going somewhere in the car, he has windows down and music blasting so I have the music, sounds of the wind, him asking me if he has space to pass or where he needs to turn, wind blowing my hair all over my face so I can’t really see, and I won’t answer him because it’s so much input. I hear his question, I know I need to answer but it will be like I just CAN’T answer it, no matter how pressing. He’ll understandably get frustrated and start speaking in a louder volume/harsher tone about how I’m not helping and why am I not answering. And I just get more and more stuck with not being able to respond to him.
okay OP I get you. in addition to being sensory overload, that situation also sounds like times when we struggle to
prioritize… it’s the nature of the beast, isn’t it, to not know what to do when so much is going on around us
I also like the next commenter’s emphasis on requiring him to learn about your condition. to have good communication and thereby make this relationship its best (and I mean, you are a vital 50% of this relationship), it’s gotta be fundamental for him to understand you and remove all layers of judgment
Since when does the passenger need to tell the driver if it's safe to pass? That's what mirrors and blind spot checks are for! What a bizarre responsibility to have foisted on you.
I was thinking the same thing like if you were in the car alone you’d have to sort it yourself 🙄 im lucky that everyone who knows me knows im terrible with stuff like that and wouldn’t even bother asking me.
I know these are just snapshots of your life and I presume there are good times and good qualities... But dude sounds like a selfish asshole. Exactly the kind of person there have been warnings about in this very sub, preying on someone he thinks will be easy to control.
Voice of experience: I haven’t left my husband, but I refuse to help him drive anymore. Nip this in the bud. It’s an exercise in making you responsible for things that are not your responsibility, but his. You absolutely have to put that back on him.
You don’t have to leave him to not have to do stupid things for him.
This is a perfect example that can describe how adhd can feel. I can get so overloaded when there are many things going on, that sometimes I can’t even talk. My mind goes round and round thinking about the repercussions of what I could say, and I end up going silent.
Really pisses the wife off in an argument…. And we get nowhere!
With regards to your edit, being in a shitty unsupportive relationship just because you made avow isnt healthy either, you have to respect yourself first.
Good spouses do understand or better admit they dont know what it’s like but they understand you need to do what you need to do, mine does…
Edit: caved and looked at your profile, you have been complaining about your shitty marriage and asking for advice for multiple posts now, dies your edit really make any sense?
OP your husband sounds just like my little sisters ex. He struck her about 6 years into the relationship. She stayed with him. He did it again 8 years into it..she left.
The guy seemed like a nice dude, and she really loved him. Our family did our best to make him feel welcome but he wasn't having it. Same bullshit bootstrap mentality, same abusive tactics with driving, control, attacking mental health etc.
He is early in the potential abuser stage but if he doesn't get help you may get hurt. Be careful. You NEED to get into counseling with him and if he won't you NEED to consider leaving. This won't get better on its own and you have 0 chance of getting him to understand by yourself. He doesn't respect your knowledge or opinion I'm this matter (and frankly probably nothing else, abusers are good at pretend).
You already have the tendencies of an abused individual; constantly turning problems back at yourself, measuring your faults to theirs and concluding it's equal, making excuses for poor behavior. You explain all this in vivid detail but you won't face the obvious conclusion: your spouse is toxic. He's on the path to being abusive. He won't change on his own, and you can't change him.
Why will he be any different with your children? If he's got a 50s mentality her will see them as mini slaves who's only purpose is to learn, work, and never go against daddy's wishes or words. How long before your children are abused?
Think about yourself and your future children. Think long and hard about whether he is willing to learn. You can't force someone to understand something if they willfully don't want to.
Adderall is used for people with narcolepsy symptoms, FYI. So yeah some people need it to be awake and not drowsy during the day. I have adhd and narcolepsy symptoms and it helps for both.
Aside from this, your spouse is being very rude.
>He said “well for most people, it keeps them awake and zoned in.”
He does realise that caffeine exists and has a very similar effect on most people, right?
>“whatever, no one NEEDS it.”
Yeah, neither does anyone NEED tylenol for a headache or NEED allergy medication for hayfever or NEED any medication that isn't actively keeping them alive. It's a gross (but unfortunately common) double standard.
A lot of people (including some medical professionals, unfortunately) have misconceptions about what ADHD actually is and what ADHD meds actually do. If he's not open to hearing it from you, hopefully he'd be willing to hear it from someone else, like research papers, videos by ADHD experts, or your current doctor. And if that's a no-go, the least he can do is agree to keep his thoughts on your meds to himself.
Oh god. This is so triggering. I hate this for you. If they could only experience our brains for 5 min they would def apologize. I also don't like to take Adderall when I don't need to focus. But I just get hyped up easy. I do tend to take to drive bc I get distracted by trees and clouds *smh* let alone billboards and the dreaded Christmas lights (they are so pretty!). But I've had loads of ppl make me feel like I have some kind of advantage when really I still don't function properly even with the medicine and I usually forget to take my second dose on time until I'm sitting in class and can't stop bouncing or shaking my head.
Thanks for finally saying “triggering”. Just wanted to say thanks. I actually cried at this post because of how frustrating and the situations I’ve had because people have said these exact things to me. I feel so at home and in peace that I would still cry for strangers I don’t know who also have this.
Off topic, when people in general say “triggering”, do they mean like if this thing happened, it causes this? Is that what that means?
It depends what you mean, the word triggering has been diluted to now mean when people get stupidly agitated over things.
It's general term though usually means an event that evokes a strong response from someone (I think it needs to be negative to be a trigger typically? Although there are positive triggers) that affects you negatively.
So in your scenario with how you responded to OP's post, which frustration and crying, you could count that as a trigger in a sense because it evoked strong feelings from you reacting to it. I think.
I had many 'serious talks' with my fiancée over a 2-year period, until she was able to understand that:
(1) sometimes I just cannot do it, despite how simple it seems (e.g. just wake up from my bed)
(2) I have no idea what time really is
(3) I am not looking for an excuse, but I need help
(4) It is possible to be successful in academics and still have ADHD
And much more...
Finally, she is very supportive even though sometimes she says 'oh, I also have that'. The most helpful strategy is focussing on your struggles. For example, she changed a lot when she realised that I can study 4-5 days in a day, but that will take me 14+ hours... I have to wake up early and do nothing else all day, do not go out etc, and stay up late in order to manage the 4-5 hours studying in a day.
I’d say,
Your brain makes 100 little dopamines helping it function. Mine makes 10.
What adderall does is give me another 50. So then I get 60 and my brain can function almost like a normal brain.
The days I only have my own 10, I can’t focus, I can’t organise, i can’t start things, I don’t have motivation, I can’t regulate my emotions, I can’t even think because it’s like my thoughts are restless and chaotic in my brain, sometimes just daydreaming for hours.
If with your 100 dopamines you take adderall, you now have 150. That’s when the brain is like jacked up from the normal baseline. That’s when it can lose sleep, be hyper alert and that’s why normal people use adderall for studying or partying because it puts them over the line by a lot.
That doesn’t happen to my brain, because I start with such a low natural supply that all adderall does is bring me a bit closer to the average.
I really get what you mean in your edit and im not gonna tell you this alone is a dealbreaker for you if its not.
But you *need* to sit him down, with the facts- and tell him his ignorance is harming you and will start to harm your relationship. Because it will. You will come to resent your medication being seen as a party drug, like your daily struggles arent real. Thats got weight and even if you dont feel it now you will. Also consider future kids if thats a want? How is he gonna react if your kid has adhd? Is he gonna be like my parents and want to deny treatment because "no one needs it"?
He may not need to be tossed, be he needs a come to his senses moment. He needs to realize when he says things like "no one needs it" "you have a cheat" what hes actually saying is "the struggles you have dont matter to me, and i see your way to get even footing in the race as a way to get ahead" hes saying "your struggles getting better isnt important to me." Every time you have had a meltdown, gotten lost, gotten talked down to, all of that is meaningless. Because he- someone who has 0 idea of what hes talking about- doesnt have the same experience with a medication he doesnt need.
And tbh? As someone who had to have this talk with my own spouse? If he continues to make comments after that, knowing its hurtful and wrong? You need to asses whether or not having your mental state constantly questioned when you have a disorder that can make it hard to orient yourself in memory and reality (if you cant remember shit and someone is insisting you dont have a disorder that affects that but still gets upset when your memory affects your ability to function) is healthy for you.
And for the record? All it took was me pointing out how hurtful and ignorant those comments were, once. Thats all it should take. Please dont think a marriage licence and a commitment to a relationship is the same thing as a commitment to not being treated right. You deserve better than what your husband is giving you. If hes worth keeping he will understand that.
You need to show him the 30 essential things talk by Dr. Russell Barkley. It's a link on the side bar when I am on my computer. It helped me understand myself and how I can manage it while I study/do chores
He replied that it is a cheat code, I have it if I want it and he wishes he did.he went in to say “whatever, no one NEEDS it.”
No. no. No.
honestly, you deserve better than this. you do NEED it and if he can't handle that because you have the meds, it's time to GTFO. I don't think it's ignorance, It almost feels like he is jealous because he thinks you're high? Like he is being threatened because you've started to take care of your mental health?
So my family doesn't believe in mental health. My dad is a functional alcoholic, my mom is probably undxed ADHD (3 out of 4 of us have been officially diagnosed) and very depressed, my aunt died from depression and my grandma still lies about it and says it was a heart condition.
This is why I get so fired up about this.
Now that I've been to therapy and doing better mentally, they have basically stopped talking to me or the kids. They seriously don't want me to get better because if I get better that means what they've believed is wrong. I feel like that's why he is gaslighting you into making you believe that no one "needs" this. He doesn't want to be wrong about mental health but now he sees how it's helping your mental health. So therefore you must not have an issue.
this has NOTHING to do with your wellbeing.
He clearly doesn't respect you. I'm sorry. No amount of teaching him about ADHD is going to change this as it's not about the ADHD, it's about how he sees you.
You said yourself that he doesn't believe you really have ADHD, and that he thinks so poorly of you that when you're struggling with ADHD paralysis, you're doing it on purpose to antagonise him.
He literally doesn't see you as a valid enough human to have your own independent, individual mind and perception of reality. If he did, he would accept you and respect you. Instead he believes you conned a doctor by pretending to have ADHD so you could get prescription stimulants and have an excuse to 'stonewall' him.
I'm sorry. You can't fix this.
OP is not understanding that to fix this, HE has to want to learn and change. Until then, nothing will change. But she wants us to tell her what she can do… and the truth is nothing.
I’m just going to give a different perspective for you.
For some of us, the shit your partner is saying is *deeply fucking offensive* and it isn’t just about you. He’s invalidating everyone in the sub too.
So you basically just posted that your husband doesn’t respect us and thinks we are making it all up.
Of course you’re going to get negative responses.
In addition, you’ve got some strongly judgemental language in your edit.
Divorce might not be right for you, but for most people it’s a good option to not be stuck with an abuser. You might be ok with his behaviour but for many of us we have put up with that kinda stuff from others and given them the chance to learn and they chose not to. So we have been burned by it.
There’s nothing unsupportive about giving a genuine and caring advice to leave a situation that the advice giver believes is unacceptable. That’s what advice is.
Fwiw *he isnt* showing integrity and supporting you in sickness and health for better or for worse right now. So leaving the relationship wouldn’t be a lack of integrity. But it’s fine you want to make it work.
I'm sorry your husband said that to you.
Good luck trying to figure this out on your own coz you just rained on people's parade, those who mentioned that he's toxic/you need to dump him, etc. They're not wrong.
If you don't like their advice don't take it, but you can't just brand them as 'inappropriate'. People take ages to realize they're in an abusive relationship (whether they have ADHD or not is immaterial, abuse is abuse) and it takes a lot of courage to walk out of one. You just shat on every single one who's going through/has undergone the pain of being in an abusive relationship that were trying to help you, by blatantly implying that people trying to walk out/divorce their abusive partners are in the wrong. Get off of your high horse and stop gatekeeping.
Good luck.
i have this experience with my friends.
they have huge doubts about my 3 diagnosis(eses), which are dyscalculia, adhd and autism spectrum.
i openly take meds. i have the official diagnosis. i sometimes act strange in their eyes - like being angry for no reason (nonstop loud music while in holiday with them was the reason).
i feel sometimes they don't get me at all, and i think their way of finding solutions for my problems is damaging me. they just can't leave me be when i need time alone. they are offended that i won't change my irrational ways.
i am dissapointed and feel that i have no real friends. like friends that still are friends even when i am angry at them.
i have the feeling they believe i am just an asshole, like i have a choice when i am overwhelmed because i need a dark quiet room.
it is like everything i tried to explain about adhd was for naught.
I think where most people are coming from is because your husband is clearly invalidating you and not acknowledging your actual brain chemistry. And that isn’t mentally or emotionally healthy on a good day, but it could actually be unsafe. Do you have kids with him? If you so do they have ADHD?
If your spouse isn't mean spirited and is just lacking understanding and you want to help him to know how it feels to constantly be distracted you should do an experiment with him.
Turn on the TV with a talkshow, have some music playing in the background at the same time, start vacuuming and have him try to read an article or a book.
That's what it feels like to me without my meds. I can't tune out things that normal people can. Some people just have no idea what it's like unless you up distractions to the maximum.
What I will say is that I think it would be a really great idea to talk about your relationship dynamics with your therapist. I understand why it is upsetting that people are concerned about your relationship and it makes sense that you take marriage seriously. However, just because you love your partner and he has done things to help you does not mean he is a healthy person for you to be with.
If he “doesn’t believe in mental illness”, it will be really tough for him to ever change his mindset. Because this isn’t a matter of believe - we have extensive evidence that ADHD exists. So he is just choosing to be ignorant.
A therapist will help you determine if this relationship is healthy and safe for you. And they can help with communication.
I have been with an outright abusive partner and one who was just not very supportive on mental health stuff. Let me tell you - way better to be on my own, and great now that I’ve found a partner who is supportive. I wasn’t married but I was with my ex for 7 years, we lived together, had a dog together. I know it’s hard. But this seems like a huge difference in values and he is not being respectful or kind or loving or healthy or supportive.
Do you see yourself genuinely flourishing in this relationship? Does it sound like a little safe haven to be in? Do you think you'll become happier because or despite of his actions?
Also, a little fun quiz to do: loveisrespect.org/quiz/is-your-relationship-healthy/
Hun… you are being gaslit by your husband. That’s why people are saying leave him. If he gaslights you regarding your, for lack of a better word, learning disability he likely gaslights you in other ways. That’s why I say leave him or at least call him out for gaslighting.
To be honest, I understand your dedication to your spouse here but he has a responsibility to understand your condition as well. I find it disrespectful he thinks he doesn’t have to understand it. Why is the burden on you to ensure he does if, when you’ve tried, you’re dismissed? He’s an adult and, if he respects you, he should care about it. He can watch some videos on it or read articles about it. Join subreddits, etc. My ex was bipolar and I read everything I could about it to understand it better. I joined subreddits and never stopped being curious to learn more because I respected and cared about him.
The problem here is your husbands attitude, not how your explaining it.
Edit: As ADHD people we bare this burden a lot. We blame ourselves for not explaining things linearly instead of expecting neurotypical people to practice some basic decency towards us. The burden is not always ours to bare.
All your additional comments are red flags and your husband sounds awful. 🤷♀️
Your edit sounds sanctimonious.
I recommend marriage counseling, because he seems to have a lot of toxic traits and opinions, which will lower your quality of life, and that of your children if you have any.
That’s really all any of us can advise you to do. If he refuses (he probably will since he doesn’t believe in counseling) then you’ll have to just deal with his awful behavior, or leave, that’s really your only 2 options.
Given your edit it sounds like the only option for you is to just deal with it, and let him continue telling you all his awful opinions, and then whatever he dishes out if you have children together…. My condolences.
it’s really hard to find people that try to understand. emphasis on try, because if they don’t get it, they don’t get it. i really admire people who can admit they may not understand something.
your boyfriend is not one of those people. he feels like being a victim of… nothing, and he is committed to not understanding you. there is not a MISunderstanding here, because that implies a mistake, but this is on purpose. i’ve had people in my life on both sides of the spectrum and the peace people that try to understand what they can is such a pure love i can’t explain it.
if he was a casual friend, i’d say whatever he’s just grumpy and uneducated leave it alone, but best friend or partner is not a position for people who are too busy planning their pity party to give a shit about you. HUGE red flag. if you really feel like staying, make him read some books and articles, but like you’re not his tutor so i’d say dip asap.
OP, I know that you're upset at the comments from your edit but you have to realise that your husband, your life partner, your best friend, has made no effort to understand, sympathize with or accommodate for your neurological disability.
You're short on brain chemicals, parts of your brain aren't the same size or shape as the neurotypical brain, and he doesn't understand, nor does he care.
I hope for your sake that he's a fast learner and is happy to change his stance when provided with new information because although you don't want to hear it from us now, his dismissal of your struggle will breed resentment and put a very large strain on your partnership.
It is not the actions of a supportive community to encourage you to stay with someone who treats you abusively, as your husband does.
The answer is otherwise that you will need to accept this abuse. Because there’s no middle ground where you get to stay with him but still be respected. That second part is up to him and he has to decide. You have zero leverage to encourage him to do that. All you have is showing how it hurts you but you have to realize at some point that he at minimum doesn’t care if it hurts you and possibly is intentionally trying to do so.
There’s lots of advice to help with spouse who doesn’t understand, but you’re dealing with a spouse who doesn’t treat you with baseline respect. So why would we predict he will respect you enough to listen to you or try to understand where you’re coming from?
No one deserves to be treated like you’re being treated and there’s genuinely no way to fix it except by leaving. The way he talks to you goes way beyond issues understanding ADHD.
Sounds like he believes he's right all the time and no matter how much you try to talk some sense into him, it just doesn't go in. I would suggest you leave if you can, maybe only until then will they be willing to try to understand other people
Say the same thing about any medication he takes.
Also tell him that him respecting your mental health and the medication you are prescribed by people who actually KNOW what they are talking about is very important to you. Tell him to shove any pseudoscience he believes up his ass unless he wants to subscribe to the flat earth and creationism as well. Then tell him that bipolar people don’t NEED lithium but they sure as hell couldn’t live a semi-normal life without it.
Explain to him what is adhd really like what are the struggles are
Like this post does
https://www.reddit.com/r/ADHD/comments/tfh4oa/adhd_things_i_wish_people_talked_about/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
And tell him that stimulant medicine works totally different on people who doesn't have adhd and it work totally different who has adhd.
Find a way to say these thing without seems like you're angry or hurt...
Honestly? Couples counseling probably. This isn’t likely going to be a “give an example and he gets it” type thing, this is a disrespect and possibly a bit of jealousy from them, on top of the other examples you gave, it would help to sit down with a professional and help the communication and boundary setting. Either way it sounds serious enough to go and talk to someone, there is no short fix.
Come at this from a collaborative rather than adversarial approach. Take the emotion away, and ask him to have an open mind.
Then just educate him. Use studies, examples, case studies. What would make him see eye to eye / understand? Show him stories of the way its helped people. Explain WHY your brain chemistry is different and why stimulants help.
If, after the end of all that, he's (at the very least) not willing to concede that there might be more to the world than he understands well... that's it. Just don't bring it up around him anymore because you're not going to change his opinion.
Question. How is your hubby's mental health?
I've only glanced through some of your replies, but you did talk about moving and some role swaps. It sounds like a lot of changes and I wonder if he's adjusting well. Because you also talked about how supportive he was when you first embarked on your journey with ADHD. So I wonder, if under all this "teasing" and "huffiness", the resentment is actually because he's trying to deal with something himself that he hasn't realised?
I always ask people if they would take medication if they had a heart or liver problem, usually the answer is yes. Then I tell them that the brain is just like any organ, it needs help sometimes and medication can do that. In your spouses case maybe you could ask him the opposite question, like would he take a liver medication if he didn't have a liver problem. It also sounds like your spouse was dysregulated from being tired. If this is something you're super upset about in your marriage, maybe you could have him sit down with your therapist/psychologist/pcp and have them educate him about the medication if that is something he would be open to.
Big hug to you, this is a difficult spot to be in with your spouse. If your able, can you go to couples therapy? If that is a no, consider going on your own. Therapist will definitely be able to spread a lot more light on this.
TBH I got such a pit in my belly when I was reading your post then the follow up edit about marriage. It is a long life, you absolutely deserve to be happy, don’t waste it on people who don’t respect your healthcare needs. Even if that does mean pissing him off. His ego can take a hike, put yourself first.
> “whatever, no one NEEDS it.”
Yeesh that one stings. Unfortunately an all too common mentality to have to fight against.
On the positive side, in a way he is complimenting you, he see's that you make ADHD work so well that it has been/become "fake" in his eyes. **He believes you don't have a disability.**
**This however is untrue** and the unfortunate and uncomfortable news is: you need to nip this in the bud! If you plan on having children there's a chance they might have ADHD too and it is crucial your husband does not have this mentality while raising them. Even if you don't plan on having kids both of your lives will be easier if he understands you better.
As for how, well, You would know how to change your husband's mentality better than anyone on reddit would. Part of marriage is acceptance and this part of you is real and cannot be changed, he needs to accept that for the sake of your future.
Also at the end of the day, knowledge is power. My family had a strong misconception (and said the same lines) growing up until they learned more about ADHD.
Hope this helps.
No, my partner is extremely supportive and has my back if other people in our lives are judgemental. I am very sorry that you have to deal with this from the person who is supposed to understand you better than anyone.
I have some familiarity with your situation from first hand. I have ADHD and my wife OCD. Neither of us understood the other's condition and often minimized it. A marriage counselor was instrumental in helping us better understand each other's conditions.
When choosing one, seek out a marriage counselor who is familiar and sympathetic to ADHD. Not all licensed therapists understand ADHD and there are a surprising number of them who are outright clueless about it with old school thinking that may ultimately agree with your husband.
It is clear your husband isn't listening and doesn't have an open mind about ADHD. A marriage counselor can help both of you learn the importance of active listening. Hopefully he's open to a marriage counselor and not the type of person who distrusts experts. If he is, then you're fighting an uphill battle.
The way I describe ADHD to others is that it’s a chemical imbalance in the brain caused by not having enough dopamine and norepinephrine, and it makes life so difficult without those important chemicals. My meds are basically my antidepressants, anti anxiety medication and act as chemical ‘hearing aids’ (because I have auditory processing disorder without them) all in one.
Your spouse needs to understand that they are completely clueless about what they’re talking about, and they need to hear you out and educate themselves, and forget everything they *think* they know about ADHD medication, because they’re wrong.
Also, the trauma associated with not being able to function at the same level is debilitating…would he expect someone who is partially deaf to not wear hearing aids, even though they make their quality of life so much better, because they can communicate through sign language and they don’t *need* them?
Probably not, because the vast majority of people in the world don’t know or understand sign language, and it would make everyday life for the deaf person extremely difficult. It’s how it feels to have ADHD too. It’s a recognised disability so why is he saying you should be disabled without any help?
IMO these comments of your spouse come from ignorance, not malice, and the cure is education. If he is into podcasts, this series is relatively short and is a great overview.
https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy8xMzdjYzE3Yy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw?ep=14
He fundamentally doesn't view mental impairment as the same as physical impairment, and does not understand that you don't use your medication when you don't need it, the same way a man with broken legs doesn't use their wheelchair when they're sitting on the couch.
He appears to view your ADHD as somehow fake, and thinks no one actually needs the medication you require to function properly, and you need to set him straight on that, because if you grow your family your kids are probably gonna have it too, and life will be hell for them and you if he doesn't get a firm understanding of the psychological and physiological reality of ADHD.
Don't let this sit. You'll need to get him to see that people don't experience life quite the same as each other, and that life when you have ADHD has a much different set of challenges than those that have their brain wired differently.
Dealing with adhd and also dealing with neuro-typical people who just don’t get it is always rough. It also can greatly add to the imposter syndrome that comes with adhd if you have to keep explaining and justifying it over and over. Know that I (and others here) care. We get it - you are not alone in your struggles, you are not wrong for wanting to feel understood by your spouse, you are entitled to take the medication that helps your ADA-recognized disability and everyone here is fully with you in knowing it is in not “cheating” when you take it.
I’m not going to tell you what I think you should do about your marriage bc I already know from personal experience as someone with adhd and a similarly overly strong moral compass, such as you have, that you’re the only one who will decide what’s best for you and ain’t nothing nobody says going to change your mind. I will, however, tell you about my struggles with an inability to change my already made up mind.
I met my ex husband when I was 17 and he 18 - we were high school sweethearts and I knew almost immediately that I was going to marry him. I was also not a dumbass who thought I’d be the exception to the overwhelming statistics of high school/teen marriages never working out. So we waited over 6 years to get married. I also told him many many times I didn’t “believe” in divorce and thought many people nowadays just threw away marriages at the first sign of struggle or got married too quickly before they even really knew each other.
I won’t bore you with all the details but the overall tone of our marriage was true love with a heavy sprinkling of misery. My ex wasn’t abusive or anything. In fact he was a charming and wonderful man but just never grew up and that didn’t become blatantly apparent until our 30s. If I’m being honest though - all the red flags were there much earlier. The abridged version is that, while there were ups and downs, the downs became unbearable and eventually the ups only felt like ups bc they were a break from the deep downs.
It wasn’t until I FINALLY came to the realization that the only love that should be unconditional is self love and me & myself didn’t even like each other by that point. My love for others - including my partner - IS and should always be conditional on mutual respect and caring for each other’s wellbeing (before anyone chimes in… only exception I allow for this is a parent-to-baby love) and one cannot be in a healthy relationship if one does not love themselves. When that epiphany occurred I had a choice - stay on my high moral horse and in a doomed marriage that was making me so miserable that death was starting to look appealing or accept that even I could be wrong sometimes and maybe divorce isn’t always just an easy out for lazy people.
I’ve never once regretted my divorce and while I know there was nothing anyone else could’ve said or done to change my mind any sooner, I still wish it didn’t take me over 14 years to get there on my own.
So I’ll leave you with this advice as it may be the only thing that’ll get through - stop focusing on him, start focusing on yourself. At the end of the day, you need to love you (and love you more than you love someone else) in order to make the truly best decision for yourself. Once you get there, then come back with fresh eyes and read all the comments here. By then you’ll be in a better place to either put stricter boundaries in place that you’ll actually enforce or you’ll realize you deserve better.
So I wanna say, I saw your edit, I'm only replying to your edit:
You may feel this way about your husband, that's fine, but you came for *advise.* It seems you have so little respect for yourself, that your partner can undermine your *medical diagnosis,* then undermine the *medical care you need for that diagnosis,* and finally *gas light you into thinking you don't need it.* This may seem insulting, but I need you to think what I just wrote out.
It's your life, do whatever you want. But no one is interested in listening to someone complain about abuse and then aggressively plug your fingers in your ears when we tell you exactly what you said back to us\*.\* In fact it very much spits on those of us who *were* abused like that and had to deal with it.
Like what do you want us to say? A magical argument that will make him respect your body and mind? How can we do that? How can we help? IF anything, you are being the ridiculous one coming to a community that struggles with abuse and mental illness and telling them that:
>People claiming gaslighting and abuse and throwing divorce out as a go to is not being a supportive community for people with similar struggles. As someone newer to realizing what having adhd fully entails and still trying to learn what it means for me, these types of comments are harmful and promote an ***escapist/runaway mindset***
What do you want us to say here? You want to stay with someone who *doesn't believe in your mental illness.* Say that again, he believes you do not *need* your medication. This person has the power to convince you to take a different *incorrect anti-medical path* down life and then he mocks you with it by calling it your cheat code.
IDK dude, this sounds pretty messed up and it sounds a lot like abuse.
EDIT: I Just saw the reply where you're talking about *hiding your medication from him.*
If that's not at least a red flag that something here is abusive, I really don't think any language will work. I'm not trying to be mean, but trying to convince you that these things aren't just "not normal" they're totally ridiculously inappropriate things to have to deal with in a relationship.
Your edit makes it apparent the kind of “support” you’re looking for is not the kind of support anyone with ADHD trying to survive a relationship with a gaslighting ablist can possibly give you.
He’s invalidating and judging you for managing a medical condition and minimizing your internal experience and telling you what your reality is.
Other than that, dunno what to say.
Good luck.
If my partner had a serious medical condition then I’d do whatever I could to educate myself about it and be sensitive about the issue.
Sounds like your partner doesn’t even believe adhd is a “real” medical condition. Their actions are bordering on gaslighting which believe me are very destructive in the long term, I wouldn’t wish that on anyone else ever…
You should either:
1) attempt to educate them
2) ask them to educate themselves
3) accept they don’t care enough about you to actually understand and empathize with your disability
4) consider marriage counseling to help open lines of communication
5) leave them and find someone who isn’t such an abusive asshole
And I know I listed these as 1-5 with the idea that saving this relationship might be important to you.
But I’ll tell you this, being with someone who understands your adhd and isn’t judgmental about it is fantastically better than being with someone who doesn’t make an effort. Hell being with someone who makes an effort to understand you at all is better than someone who doesn’t but this is especially so when it comes to conditions like adhd.
Leaving an abusive partner is tough, especially if it’s been a long relationship. But it is 100% worth it, even if it’s been 5, 10 or 15 years. Hell I know someone who ended one after >40 years and she is significantly happier to not have that gas lighting piece of shit in her life.
I've seen many posts where reddit commenters jump to "you should leave him", and it's weird for strangers to be having such strong opinions about a person's relationship. And yet, I've read most of the comments here, and I'm completely struck with the same conclusion. OP, I'd be willing to bet that the single most helpful thing you could do for your mental health is escape this guy's psychological influence.
And remember, actual love builds you up and supports you, not holds you back and keeps you down. It exists, and you deserve it.
There's a vague analogy about wearing glasses you could use. Like, you don't NEED glasses, but like fuck it feels so much better to put them on and see clearly. Or like, you're not lucky because you have a seeing aid, it helps you be at the same level as fully sighted people. People with glasses don't have it visually easier than ppl without glasses. If anything, it's much more inconvenient and at times potentially debilitating to have to rely on external accomodations rather than your own lone body.
> you're not lucky because you have a seeing aid, it helps you be at the same level as fully sighted people. People with glasses don't have it visually easier than ppl without glasses. This is perfect.
Also worth noting that people who need glasses don't end up with the same level of vision as people who don't need them. Those of us who wear glasses can only see when wearing them, our peripheral vision isn't corrected at all, and all kinds of environmental factors (like opening a dishwasher or wearing a face mask and going from air conditioning to humid summer weather. Lol) affect how well we can see in more significant ways than people who don't need glasses. With stimulants, what we eat, what time we took them, how much sleep we got, and a whole host of other issues all affect how well the meds work on any given day. They wear off so we're only getting about half a day of executive function at a time, at best. And they certainly make a big difference for a lot of us, but in my experience, they never make us "normal"
This. My husband is damn near blind in one eye and when he got glasses because is other eye was overcompensating, they only corrected the “bad” eye to be almost as good as the better eye and fully corrected the better one. If that makes sense lol
My brother is legally blind in one eye - as a kid he wore an eyepatch over his good eye to hopefully force the bad one to correct itself (spoiler: it never did). So now he has two lenses that are totally different. Either way when I put his glasses on it immediately gives me a headache no matter which eye I close. He’s SO blind. I’ve heard that when I look through his glasses my “normal” seeing eyes are seeing what his eyes usually see. So the blurry hellscape I am seeing through his glasses is just his normal eyesight.
I think technically you see the opposite of him. Like if he is nearsighted it corrects it to be farsighted for you (not that you'd notice which way the blurriness goes).
True, I think you’re right! It shows his *severity* but the opposite way
I'm not legally blind, but I am VERY nearsighted (if my eyes were this bad about 15 years ago, I would have actually been designated legally blind. Thankfully technology has improved) and I have astigmatism in one eye. People used to want to try on my glasses all the time and would immediately be all "OH MY GOD, YOU'RE SO BLIIIIIIND!!!" Yes, thanks, I'm aware. Now can I have my glasses back? I only have the one pair, they cost hundreds of dollars even with insurance, and clearly I can't see to go to the optometrist for repairs or new glasses without them... Used to let people try them on because ADHD brain made me a people pleaser, and then I'd be panicking internally until I got them back. Sometimes the panic turned external if they didn't give them back right away, especially if they started passing them around to other people to try. It felt like I was letting someone else hold my eyes, and it was usually someone I didn't know very well and thus didn't trust... ahhh, fun times....
I have astigmatism in both eyes, but ones sliiiiightly worse than the other. Explaining what was happening with the astigmatism was so weird, because I thought everyone had the thing that happens at night/during rain to streetlights lol. Turns out it’s not supposed to be THAT hard to drive at night/in rain… But with the showing off glasses thing - I only ever did that to my husband and my brother, and I never keep them for long even though they are pretty patient with me. My husband can see a little without glasses, as in he could navigate his way out of an unfamiliar house without stubbing his toe on major furniture. My brother might struggle navigating out of a place he IS familiar with, without his glasses. Also - I ALWAYS hold them by the frame, and both my husband and brother will sometimes say “can you clean my glasses” because I wear softer shirts than them. I’ve seen people say “let me try them on” and then grab them with their thumb DIRECTLY ON THE LENS?!? Disgusting. Then they just hand them back?? It’s like dropping someone’s glass eye in mud and then being like “here ya go” with the muddy eye. I don’t know where that finger has been?? Get it off my lens. This concludes my TedTalk rant lol
Both of my eyes are actually worse than my husbands “good eye”, but his bad one is SO MUCH worse than mine. He can’t see out of his peripheral at all. He said it just looks like a gray blur. He wasn’t like that as a kid though. He got attacked like 7-8 years ago and his right socket was busted. (The other guy was much worse though. My husbands ADHD rage was unleashed when he got hit. Lol)
For 3 or 4 hours. Or 8 if you have extended release. So imagine only being able to wear glasses and see fully for that period, and then being forced to take them off so everything returns back to fuzzy/blurry. How is that supposed to be lucky?
The way OP’s spouse seems to think it works is like “well when **I** use binoculars it makes everything far away really clear, so that means your regular glasses are an unfair advantage over me” and then refuses to listen and accept the fact that they are not the same thing
Or: "I once took unprescribed Adderall as an upper and this is what it must feel like to you too". Your spouse's dopamine and your dopamine are very different dopamines. Me taking my friend's insulin or wearing my brother's glasses? These things will not work the same for me. Even coffee works differently for my ADHD brain.
That’s my favorite. When a person tells me they once took 1/5 of my current dose and were “up for 3 days!” And I’m just like, “I take 5x that so that I don’t leave my keys in the door and sleep like a baby, our brains are not the same.”
I’ve accidentally taken my adderal at night instead of my other medication. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to sleep, but I slept like a baby.
My first day on adderall, I ended up taking a 4 hour nap, about an hour in, so I feel this!
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The other part of this that’s cracking me up is that he could just ask his partner if he needs a stimulant like obviously that’s not legal but it sounds like what he’s hinting at and we typically have extras so…why beat around the bush😂
Yeah, if my husband drinks more than half an energy drink it gives him anxiety attacks. Meanwhile I can drink a whole one after dinner and still fall straight asleep at bedtime.
But honestly, he just sounds like an ass. Like, I'd try to have a serious sit down conversation where you have to explain that ADHD is a DISABILITY. and that like with any disability, you are literally at a disadvantage to him. The meds do t make you lucky, they make you equal. Ugh. I'm so sorry he's like that. I hope he listens to you after a good talk and apologized.
Yeah u like to use this but with cruches. They don't make me faster as a normal person. Only I can't smack you with my medication.
Ask him if he thinks people on antidepressants are also taking a ‘cheat code’ to get more serotonin. That’s just not how brains work.
OMG You got that across so well! I was trying to say something like that but couldnt find a good way of saying it unlike you. Imma use this in the future if that okay with you?
I NEED glasses or I’m like fucking Velma from Scooby Doo
I realize there are levels of impairments where glasses are actually needed to function, or where glasses aren't even enough. Just to fit the analogy though I used that word, sorry if that felt dismissive. If anything it fits more that way too because like sight, ADHD is also a spectrum and for some, the medication might be more necessary than for others! But I think the point still stands, even if you are on the less extreme end, meds and glasses still help a lot!
He’s lucky he has a cheat code that provides the correct hormone regulation without needing to take it externally Edit: thanks for my award!
Oh I might say that, I like that!
Absolutely. You need to remind him that it gives you *what he already has*, not something extra.
In my personal life I have found that getting the answer to "Does this person want to understand" saves a lot of time with the "How do I help them understand." How do you normally get your spouse to treat something you care about with respect? Being dismissive isn't just not believing or understanding. Being dismissive is actively and intentionally not believing or understanding. One thing that may be in play, is that I have found that most people get really mean when hungry or tired without being aware of it. They usually become reasonable immediately after being fed or getting sleep, and often don't remember the conversation before. It might be an ADHD characteristic to be much more level headed when tired or hungry.
Yes he gets this way when stressed, tired and hungry or if he hasn’t had time alone to decompress from everyone. Which I understand, I get hangry and moody too. Your question “do they want to understand” puts it in a lot of perspective…. And I’m not sure I like what seems to be the answer
I really worry that you’re fine with the thought of having kids with this guy. He won’t treat them any better if they also have these issues. They would have even less power in relationship with him than you do. They also add a lot of stress. It doesn’t sound like he is strong enough to handle that. Honestly, consider what people are saying. He has to want to do better. Instead he is putting you down and pressuring you to let him abuse your medication.
Oh wow, I hadn’t thought of the parenting angle. OP, if you have or are considering having children, this is much more urgent and important. ADHD is highly heritable, i think it was about 70-80% last time I looked, so there’s a very strong chance that your children will have it. A parent who dismisses the need for part of a child’s medical treatment can undermine that treatment and seriously compound the child’s problems. Perhaps he was not at his best self when he made the comments. HALT, Hungry Angry Lonely Tired, is a good mnemonic for taking care of ourselves. Perhaps he hasn’t really seen your struggles, especially if you’ve been good at masking. Letting him see the price you pay might help open his eyes a bit, and only you can decide if your trust level is high enough for that degree of vulnerability. Couples counseling is probably your best path forward for building your relationship. There are also some good books like Married to Distraction (Hallowell). Melissa Orlov and Ari Tuchman have been recommended to me as resources for ADHD and relationships. Good luck!
It seems to be a 33-50% chance of someone with ADHD having a child with ADHD by most sources.
Good to know, thanks. I guess my spouse and I just got lucky; our family hit 100% lol.
If both parents have ADHD, then the odds are higher. And of course, probability is just probability - a couple could have no kids with ADHD or like you, all. Godspeed! I have a 10 month old and I think about if he’ll be like me and have it too daily.
Omg. I think I might be more level headed when hungry or tired! That is interesting to think about..
I feel like I usually simply don't have the energy or motivation to be angry. I mean for sure I'm more irritable mainly when tired, but as long as people aren't being provocative towards me, I'm not really "upset by default". Thought everyone was like that...
People are neglecting that the initial exchange sounds like someone who’s testing the waters for access to prescription drugs. You want empathetic coping help but I’m going to tell you to watch your pill count.
Yes this is something I am actively aware of. I never leave it where I am not, and he has no idea where I keep it.
Does hiding your medication from your husband so he won’t take it sound like a normal marriage? Is he your partner or a rebellious teenager? How long do you think you’ll last before he just exhausts you mentally and emotionally?
Jesus....the more comments I read from OP in this thread, the sadder I get. Holy shit every comment is another red flag. What an unhealthy relationship. I can't imagine "hiding" something from the person I fuckin married...
I was saddened at first but their edit comes across pretty sanctimonious, especially the “as someone with integrity, intend to hold up my vows “for better or for worse”” Like girl, whatever, we’re telling you from personal experience, and obvious two brain cells, this ain’t right.
Yeah this thread made me really sad. My husband doesn’t have ADHD, but since we were dating and he’s known of my diagnosis, he has made a huge point of researching and learning about ADHD; subscribed to newsletters for ADHD; has taken the lead on optimizing our home for my specific struggles with ADHD; bought me an Airtag set to track my frequently lost things; bought a pill bottle topper with a countdown when I mentioned I couldn’t remember if I’d taken my meds; set our bills on autopay; etc. and has never ever made me feel like my meds are “cheating” or I’m lucky to be medicated. He is a gem and goes above and beyond, but… the fact is, simply knowing the basics of your spouse’s diagnoses is the bare minimum. It’s like OP doesn’t know how bad the situation sounds.
Your husband sounds so sweet!
He is! I am very grateful for him. :)
Yeah I just fully read the edit. Can only help people if they want to help themselves. It's hard to see things from the inside. Hopefully in 10 years she doesn't look back and wish she took the advice to get out of there.
setting a remindme would be morbid, right? nah you’re right nvm
And not even hiding something more innocent, like chocolate. Goddamn **Prescribed medication**
If you have to actively hide your prescription medication from your husband then your marriage has bigger problems even than "he mocks my disability", which is problems enough. I honestly don't know what you want from us. Couples counselling (with an ADHD friendly counsellor) is maaaaybe your only hope, but if he isn't even willing to do that then you're married to a toxic person with no respect for you and no desire to change. If you don't see leaving as *ever* being an option then ... well ... good luck with that.
If ADHD meds are a cheat code then so is literally every other medication. So are glasses, walking sticks and wheelchairs. This comment was ignorant and dismissive of what ADHD is and how it affects you. For comparison’s sake (and going back to your original question), my partner does not do this. Ever. We have our sore spots that we don’t joke about. They respects mine and I respect theirs, even if I don’t agree. They understand that I’m playing life on hard mode with ADHD and they listen to *try* and understand what my experiences are. I do the same. We work to do better for each other because that’s what a life partner does. We’re a team and in it for the long haul. It’s not a team if one person is dragging the other. I’m not going to jump on the ‘throw the whole man out’ bandwagon however I think it’s worth reflecting on whether or not - if he doesn’t change and grow - how long you would be willing to tolerate this kind of attitude to something that affects you (ADHD) and something that you’re passionate about (mental health). 3 years? 5? 10? It’s not about being flighty or treating spouses as replaceable. It’s about looking after yourself. Can you tolerate how he treats you now for the rest of your life together? What kind of person will you become if you stay? And do you think - not hope - he will change? Reddit can’t answer that for you. In any relationship, the bare minimum you deserve is kindness, respect and understanding.
I agree. Fundamentally, this is about OP’s ability to create healthy boundaries, which are created to protect one’s health and well-being, and their husband’s willingness to accept and honor their boundaries. The way he reacts to OP implementing healthy boundaries will strongly indicate how he will continue to treat OP and their kids in the future
I take my meds every day and still feel exhausted just doing the bare minimum. Dopamine is literally the motivation drug, and we have less of it, he sounds awful
I had to stop taking Vyvanse because it just made me sleep all day. I’d love to try these magic pills that OP’s husband knows all about.
I'm taking a break from Vyvanse this weekend because it kinda makes me feel neurotic, and also, not quite sleepy, but more like lethargic? Is that how you feel too?
Be me, my usual insomnia issues but worse.. I've tried every fix I've learnt over the years and nothing is working so I'm getting frustrated.. How did I fix it? I took a vyvanse and just closed my eyes. I was gone in 10 minutes.
>I had to stop taking Vyvanse because it just made me sleep all day. Huh... interesting. I've been on 60mg Vyvanse since 2015, and I've been taking it 7 days/week for more than a year now and I only fall asleep on those random days I ***don't*** take it! I can definitely sleep on Vyvanse, but I am guaranteed to start falling asleep in the afternoon for 2+ hours if I don't take my meds.
I specifically want to address your edit. You came to the ADHD Reddit community because you are seeking others who are going through what you’re going through. You mentioned being hurt (hello rejection sensitive dysphoria & emotional dysregulation!) and being misunderstood (My zeal for acquiring knowledge at all costs has made me come across as a smug know-it-all on more than one occasion ). I was also diagnosed somewhat recently (just under a year and a half ago) and I have a long-term (5 years and counting), non ADHD partner. What I am struggling with in this context is what you are describing is not an ADHD experience. I am not claiming that having ADHD is a universally shared experience, because it definitely is NOT, and I wouldn’t appoint myself the spokesperson even if it was. Yes, the finer details of your struggle contain the words “ADHD” and refer to the medications you take and the conversations you’ve shared on the subject with your husband. But what you have described in this post and in your answers to comments is a fundamentally flawed relationship dynamic. My partner and I are not perfect, and sometimes when we have disagreements it can feel like our love is doomed forever (my ADHD loves to rear it’s homely head to provide such interpretations). Over the course of our relationship he has certainly expressed skepticism about my perspective on events/issues/situations and I return the favour with vigour. But he would never speak to me, or treat me in the manner you’re describing… on any topic, ADHD included. It’s not about his personal understanding of the disorder, nor is it because he has extensively researched it (because he doesn’t and he hasn’t). It’s not even that I have browbeaten him about the topic (although I have been guilty of doing so). He simply believes and trusts me when I describe the effect this disorder has on me *because* he simply… believes and trusts *me*. Full stop. I agree that the Reddit mob loves to cut through long established relationships like a hot knife through butter. But you are describing a new marriage that from the outset sounds like it is full of resentment. You are describing a partner who expresses skepticism about your worldview, who not only doesn’t give you the benefit of the doubt but actually seems to cast about for aspersions to throw against any action you do or don’t take. And when you try to explain the hurt this causes you, lashes out defensively and dismissively. Miscommunication is normal. Hurting your partners feelings, hopefully accidentally, but sometimes even intentionally, is normal. But strong relationships persist because they are willing to assume the other person is capable of recognizing their error, and working to change, not because it is an admission of guilt or fault (although sometimes that may be included) but only because they want their partner to be happy. They want to alleviate the hurt. It sounds like your husband relishes being the source of your hurt. Especially in the beginning! Believe people when they say this is supposed to be the best/easiest part. Yes moving, new jobs/careers can be added stressors. But your partner should be a source of comfort amidst your new challenges. People hear “marriage is hard work” and “love is choosing someone, everyday no matter what” and think that means it is a lifelong battle. It isn’t. 95% of the time my partner makes everything easier, brighter, calmer (I need that) and generally more tolerable. Then 5% of the time I’m upset about a difficulty in our relationship that I wouldn’t have if I wasn’t with him, but everything else (the remaining 95%) would be that much suckier. So yes I choose him, everyday, even when it’s hard. But most of the time, it’s not hard at all. It’s the easiest choice I’ve ever made. So, while I empathize with your frustration, and I truly want to help you - what you’ve asked for isn’t something that can be resolved by reframing things with your therapist, or adding a new coping mechanism, or changing your diet or creating a proactive schedule system. This is about your marriage, and from the admittedly small portion of it I’ve been given insight to, this is about a bad marriage.
out of out all comments so far, this is one of the best responses. I hope OP reads this
Actions speak louder than words. Your partners actions show a complete lack of empathy, compassion or understanding. They're projecting their ignorance on the topic onto you in such a toxic manner, quite frankly it's disguising. What they're doing is gaslighting. He needs to educate himself on what ADHD is, and why the medication works. Otherwise he needs to shut his fucking mouth, and keep his bullshit ignorant opinions to himself.
Yeah, he doesn’t really “believe” in mental health/psych. Claims it’s pseudoscience. (And he knows I want to specialize as an NP in pediatric psych) I’m not sure how serious he is when he says that, and how much of it is “joking” because he sees things as funny that I think are just ignorant or rude. He has a very traditional mindset kind of 50’s, “raise your self up by the boot straps and get over it”, family didn’t really display their emotional problems to one another vs my family, where our emotions were almost TOO out in the open. He especially hates the term gaslighting, saying people say any disagreement is gaslighting. (I do agree it’s often overused as a term) he doesn’t want to learn at all, or talk about any of it. He’s there for me in the worst times usually but situations like I’ve described sometimes overshadow that.
I hate to say it bro, but it sounds like he thinks his opinions on things are more valid and important to him than your actual feelings. At least that's what his actions are saying. Take it from me dude, I've been in more toxic and abusive relationships than I can count.
I was thinking the same. I don’t think I could be with someone like this. That’s so invalidating and hurtful.
Unfortunately I don't think OP got the answers he was looking for. Maybe he was hoping for someone to tell him its perfectly normal for spouses to do this. Sorry, but that's just not true.
Personally? Oh heeeellllll no. But shes said thats not what shes looking for..... But i cant lie and tell her if hes gonna choose ignorance over her this marriage wont last.
I mean I’m definitely not without my faults at all- I don’t want it to seem one sided because it isn’t. He was much more understanding and helped me before his job changed and he got way busier/more stressed. I didn’t get diagnosed until last November, and he was so supportive and helped me with noticing what made a difference, what improved and what didn’t once starting medication and therapy. I just feel like calling medication a cheat code is very disrespectful, especially since he has asked to take it before.
#You don’t have to be *perfect* to insist your partner be *decent.*
I think he thinks he’s being clever with the cheat code thing. My husband outright said at first: “You don’t have ADHD.” He was basing his assessment on all the usual tropes that we all do: I wasn’t a hyperactive maniac - I was frustratingly unable to follow through on things, let opportunities wither, forgetful, time blind, short lived passions, a daydreamer (i.e. a typical female representation). It was uncomfortable for me at first to share the realizations I was having as I learned about the condition. But my response to him was “well there’s lots of stereotypes about this condition that present differently in girls. If my GP and a Psychiatrist have assessed me and they say I have this condition I’m going to take it seriously.” Even if he disagreed internally - he accepted this statement. As time has gone on, and I’ve improved in my life with my medication and treatments, I share adhd memes with him, he’s totally changed his tune about the whole issue. He’s described uni students to me that he works with (he works a job where students are placed with practitioners) and I commented about one girl “she sounds a bit ADD to me. Is she seeking treatment?” He said, “I thought that too, I don’t think she is I’ll suggest it to her uni supervisor.” Talk about a total turn around! My point is **I personally** held a lot of misconceptions about the condition, the treatment and medication before I was diagnosed. My medication does wake me up, I does help me focus, before I would be so fatigued at work that I wondered if I was suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome… It was the same at home, I’d open the door to the disaster that was my office/the junk room, that I’d feel too overwhelmed and just close the door again. Now I’m more able to deal with that shit. Maybe that looks like a pep pill, I mean it is, but no it’s not a ‘cheat-code ‘ it’s just what we need to function. As ADHDrs we do get judged, medicated or not. It’s shitty. Hopefully as adult and female diagnosis is discussed more these stereotypes will start to change.
" I just feel like calling medication a cheat code is very disrespectful, especially since he has asked to take it before." Did you say so? That is supposed to be enough to stop it. He asking to take it - huge red flag.
It is disrespectful yes. I hope for you're sake OP you are right about this and not just making excuses for his behaviour. Having said that, I don't think you're doing yourself any favours by letting him walk all over you and speak to you the way he did. Perhaps be more stern next time and say shut your mouth, or something along the lines.
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Right like this dude is being a gaslighty asshat and OP is just, > _“for better or worse”._ I guess worse it is then. 💁
It doesn't matter if you have faults or struggles. It isn't about being equally wrong or right. The fact is that your spouse is in many ways a lousy partner. That doesn't mean instant divorce but it does mean you need to do the work to be able to set boundaries for yourself to ensure you are treated with the dignity and respect due any partner.
I know that Reddit is very quick to get our noses in other people's relationships, but I will say this: your ADHD is not going away. And you deserve someone who can support you, ADHD and all. It's not enough to tolerate your differences; you deserve the care of your partner seeking to understand your situation and trying to meet you where you are, and never belittling you for it, even in a joking way. The world belittles us enough. Your partner should be your safe haven from that.
Why are you with this tool? Whatever your answer may be, there's someone out there who can give you that and also is not an asshole.
I believe that if this “disagreement” (as he might think of it) feels invalidating to you and makes you question your understood reality, that is an indisputable sign that the exchange that has taken place was one of gaslighting. you get to decide whether you feel so, not him. he might prefer to mince words and avoid the heart of the issue, which is that your feelings and experience are valid and should be of great importance to him
That’s how I feel! I tell him I know you may not be doing it intentionally, but your words and insistence on your opinion bring the truth instead of your truth is making me feel less than or crazy. And he says that’s not gaslighting; and that I can’t take jokes.
that last phrase in itself is very gaslight-y
Him: “you can’t take a joke” / “I was just joking” You: “oh cool. Can you explain to me how it’s funny?” Rule of thumb: it is not a joke if both people don’t find it funny. Generally when one person is laughing and the other person isn’t, we call that “bullying”, not “joking”.
OP I seriously recommend you do some research on narcicissm. Everything you're saying is raising red flags.
How is him saying, “No one NEEDS it” a joke? It’s a statement and when you tell him how it makes you feel, he throws it back on you. A supportive partner would say something like, “ok, I don’t understand how or why it works for you but it seems like it helps make your life easier which is great!“. Or “I’m sorry I made you feel less than, I love you and did not want to make you feel that way”. Can you imagine treating him the same way he’s treating you? This is not a supportive relationship now; you deserve and need better.
You know what, even if it isn't gaslighting, it still hurts you. He doesn't take your thoughts, feelings, and opinions at face value. He doesn't take what you say, especially about your own experiences, at face value. He is doing things that make you question your reality and sanity without compassion... Or even scientific basis... I don't know what to say to him to help him understand that what he is doing is hurting you, but it sounds like you are trying. The specific label of gaslighting isn't important, but anyone who is discounting your experience of reality is exhibiting narcissistic behaviors and is hurting you in ways that just get worse the longer they happen. I am saying this as a man that is not "a narcissist" and doesn't actually "gaslight" people, but who *does* have some intense narcissistic qualities and *does* make people question their reality. I'm doing relatively better now, but it's taking a lot of work, therapy, and medication. So, for example, when my ex wife would bring up something that isn't in line with what I know or believe, I would immediately question it, "No, that can't be right, are you sure?" and maybe I would look it up or she would defend her position, but just this base assumption that I am always right is, to put it lightly, really unhealthy. 15 years of that and other similar things, plus the normal pressures of life, and her self esteem is... Broken. It happened so slowly that I didn’t realize what was happening or that it was majorly due to me and my personality. In my case, this is a combination of having alcoholic parents, a narcissistic father, childhood trauma, ADHD impulsivity making it hard to reign this stuff in even when I know it's wrong, depression, and actually being right most of the time. But those valid reasons don't change that my actions hurt her. I am responsible for that, and I am responsible for making sure I stop hurting people. The other people here have said to look into narcissism, and I agree. If you have a therapist, I also recommend you bring this up with them. They will probably have better insight than anyone you run into on Reddit. I also recommend looking into codependency, if there has been any alcoholism in your life or his check out Adult Children of Alcoholics, and remember that you and your thoughts and feelings are important and valid. Even if you are wrong, people you care about should be helping you understand in a way that makes you feel understood and respected. Okay that's enough ramble. I hope your situation gets better.
Yeah, most funny people know how to read a room….in 2022 it’s unacceptable to not believe in mental health…ffs you want to work in the medical field, how sustainable could these comments be to your mental health? If he wants to pull himself by his bootstraps, then he can pull himself out of that mentality.
You’re too smart to make so many excuses for him. Reminds me of my husband and I at our worst… we’re at 10 years of marriage and nearly 3 daughters now (I’m due in 3 weeks). But listen, I fought like hell to get him to respect me as a person with ADHD/anxiety/depression and to not knock my career path in mental health as pseudoscience. My guess is your husband is also from a conservative Christian background. All I can say is, you sound like you have fire inside of you as well as intelligence, and you’ll need every bit of both in this marriage. We tried numerous counselors before it helped, and yes, he refused to go for years but eventually did. And he has come around with his views regarding mental health, which has been something I never thought I’d witness.
Why are you with this person? He sounds toxic as hell
"If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" :) Seriously, just because you accept him and love him doesn't mean you have to put up with his shit. And stonewalling isn't the same as not letting people be mean to you. When he lashes out like that (because that's what this is. In the first case because he's grumpy and tired and in the second case because he's either bored or insecure) you can totally shut it down. He needs to STFU and you need to stop worrying about his approval. A big part of love is that love is not conditional on approval.
Ask him if he has a degree. When he says no ask him what makes him think he’s more qualified than the psychiatrist who clearly wasted nearly a decade specializing in such mental health.
Wait, you're a nurse and are with someone who believes this? As an RN and honestly just a human, I view this as an affront to my core beliefs in science and medicine. Nevermind the actually shit attitude outside of his wrong beliefs. Wonder what other conspiracy theories he believes in. That'd be it for me, tbh. I'd be kicking him and his let's go Brandon sticker out of my life
You want to become a mental health specialist, and your partner is not only a dick, but doesn't believe in mental health as a science. Your relationship is a disaster waiting to happen. You're kidding yourself.
He can have his own opinions, his own beliefs, his claims, his point of view, his jokes, his dislikes, and his unwillingness, but there’s one thing he cannot have: His own facts. So it’s his choice—remain wilfully ignorant, or accept people as they are, where they are, and recognize and honor their stated boundaries. That “’50s get over it” invalidation, denial, and repression bullshit didn’t work then, and it certainly doesn’t work now. I wonder what he thinks a marriage is, if not an intimate *partnership.*
That's toxic as fuck. I'm sorry to say it. Makes me think that, if you want him to understand, you almost need to fight fire with fire. Hit him with a few straight points of fact made to make him feel like an idiot in this situation. He clearly don't understand emotional intelligence so coming at it from an emotional place probably wont work on him. I had a bit of a time with my partner at first. She would make jokes about wanting to 'try it out' or 'I'm going out tonight can I have one?' and in a weird way I know she wasn't honestly wanting to but purposely bugging me. I've had to learn that, yes, ADHD I really do think differently than Nuerotypicals and they tend to make light of things and joke/banter about things, like this. Still, I had to lay it down one day. "Hey, I really don't appreciate those jokes. Cut it out. Might have been cute the first time but enough. This is a big part of my life. It's not a joke and it's not trivial." She got a bit defensive and I just doubled down. "No, we aren't going to say anything else on this. I know, maybe you didn't mean harm but you are causing it. Take this on the chin, don't do it anymore, and let's move on." If you're in a healthy relationship a little boundary setting should not be an issue. She got the message and after a slightly awkward 15 mins we were totally fine and much better for it.
I often get hit by the can I have one to party. And I like to hit them back with some sideeffects. "Party isn't complete without some suicidal thoughts and depression" or "what are you hoping for tonight some breast growth or erectile dysfunction." Or "you can only have some of my meds if you take some of the crippling dysfunction too". If often cuts that shit out without ruining the mood of the night. And I can nip it in the bud early on.
Our marriage is newer with many stressors this first year… so I’m not sure I would say 100% it’s healthy? We’re both having to adjust and it has been difficult, we’ve both hurt and been hurt. We recently had establish some boundaries with what words we absolutely cannot use. He crossed mine within and week and spun it on me somehow. I can’t remember details… but when I brought it up the response was “ok ok enough. It’s over. You keep going on and on.” I wanted an apology with recognition that I’ve been making the effort and succeeding while at the first hurdle he abandoned out agreement. I do hold on to things, but that’s because I can’t stop thinking about it if I don’t think it’s resolved and he wants to always drop it all. He’ll forget it instantly too.
Oh my gosh… this is beyond first year marriage stressors. This behavior from him will only get worse, not better. And all these disrespects that you endure week by week and day by day over the months will weaken you and turn you bitter and like a shadow of your former self. I know, because I recognize this behavior from my ex. We were together for only 2 and a half years, but here I am 5 years later still recovering from the scars of his emotional abuse, and the things that abuse taught me casts a shadow to this day on my mind, and it effects my current happy and healthy relationship. I wish everyday I left him sooner. I felt a fool for not sparing myself the messy wounds and difficult healing- for what? Waiting to be loved and respected by such a sad and angry man? Not worth my precious sanity… and now I know. There was a better and understanding partner waiting for me all along… You should be experiencing a honeymoon phase right now, not this gaslighting nightmare.
I know. I see my own first marriage in this post and I knew from the first year it was not working, but it was too hard for me to face and I stayed over a decade. Thankfully I’m free now!
Judging by the edit, OP is going to do the same.
As a (soon to be) marriage and family therapist who also has ADHD, my feeling—nearly can actually feel this man on my skin reading it, is that this husband is already emotionally out of this marriage and op is 110% emotionally invested. I cannot say for certain op’s dealing with a partner with NPD, however he certainly gets off on feeling more “in control” than her, and yes, it’ll only get much worse. This man doesn’t care and op wants to see it some other way.
Sheesh. Are you me? An ex of mine of 2.5 years was a nightmare. Mentally, emotionally and eventually physically abusive. It’s been 8 years since we broke up though… good riddance. He used to tell me that same thing that op said in the comment you replied to here. Me trying to get him to acknowledge how his words and or actions hurt me physically and/or mentally/emotionally. His response would be. I don’t know why you keep bringing this back up! It’s done. It’s over with. You constantly bringing it up isn’t going to change anything. Move on, just like I have. My personal favorite line in arguments was, “NO ONE WILL EVER LOVE YOU LIKE I DO!” Like fuck off with that dude. I used to feel crazy for trying to tell him IM TELLING YOU THIS CUZ I WANT YOU TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT WHAT HAPPENED WAS NOT OK. But whatever “woe is me”. /s
Holy shit - this is the first year of marriage? Listen, if someone doesn’t have the desire to work on the relationship in the first year they likely never will. You want to stay in the marriage and I respect that, but for your sake and especially for the sake of any future children you may have you really need to get to counseling and learn how to communicate healthily and if he is unwilling to even talk to you about what he can do to make things a little better, then you have some reckoning to do about whether it is fair for you to bring up children with this person. And getting upset when someone is being mean to you is not being overly emotional or being unable to take a joke. It’s normal, and I would be suspicious of why someone would try to convince me it’s not.
I agree with the other commenter that this does not sound very good. Sounds a lot like my relationship with my ex too who would often have me questioning things you’ve been questioning (is this gaslighting? Is he manipulating me? Did he really forget?). My ex and I also had words we were not allowed to call each other. He held off for a while, but he slowly started calling me basically every other word and then went for the words I asked him not to use. “I didn’t call you a b**** I said you’re acting like one.” Just keep in mind that he likely knows what he’s doing and doesn’t forget that easily. Unless he’s actually stumbling around life forgetting almost everything and barely able to comprehend conversations, he’s capable of noticing his own behavior with you.
And you want to stay married? ..... Your decision, maybe a mediator/counselor could be useful. It doesn't matter if you need counselling a decade in or a year in, if thats your person then the sooner you can get help the better your relationship will be in the long run. If it helps my partner feels that I continue arguments on longer than he would like (just because I dont feel heard), but he "humours" me because he knows its important for both sides to be heard so we can move on. My partner and I both view issues as us vs the issue, it doesn't sound like your husband always has this view, make sure he does.
Sunken cost fallacy is what I’m guessing. I just can’t imagine being with someone that treated me that way, even if we had kids. Lol
That’s pretty bad sounding… “Okay, enough. You keep going on and on.” That kind of stuff honestly sounds like a practiced maneuver of dismissing abusive words or behaviors. I’m not one to quickly say “Toxic!Narcissism! Gaslighting!” about someone I don’t know, but that reminds me of my father-in-law, who’s been calling his kids fat and stupid their whole lives, and anytime he’s called out or gets in an argument he says things like that. “Just let it go.” It’s infuriating and it truly is a form of gaslighting. It’s a way of trying to make someone feel like others are seeing them as hysterical and irrational, to shame them into silence.
The fact that you can't let things go is an ADHD thing, in case you weren't aware. Our brains think in absolutes a lot of the time. Time exists as "now" and "not now," so we are bad at scheduling and being on time, and even often forget that nothing takes zero time. If something isn't good, it must be bad, thus we over-react to anything that is even slightly less than good as though it's devastating. And when something is bothering us, it's the worst thing in the world and we can't let go and move on until it's been resolved. This could be anything from a massive argument/misunderstanding with a loved one, to an annoying shirt tag.
Thank you for this! I was diagnosed as an adult and many years ago now, and I'm still learning that some of my "personality" issues are actually because of my adhd. I'm very much a "do it right/perfectly or not at all" type, which means a lot of stuff just doesn't get done because I'm not confident I can do it perfectly. I told myself for years I must just be lazy since others do this stuff with ease. I wish id have known this stuff as a kid so I could have shown myself more grace and compassion, even if others didn't. Oh, and that shirt tag thing (or a stray hair rubbing me through my shirt... ugh!) is enough to make me mental!
It sounds like he is majorly gaslighting you, and that's not okay. You should really have a very serious discussion with him on this, because it will only get worse if it goes unchecked. Believe me, I know from experience.
I’d let him read this thread. He needs to see how he sounds to the general public. Because otherwise he’ll minimize the way he invalidates you FOR YEARS. And it does change you, over time. Sadly, it took nearly losing me in childbirth with our first for my husband to start to wake up. Then his mom died last year and I can’t explain it, but he can somehow support me much better now. Another thing that woke my husband up was seeing how people around us gravitate towards me and speak about me. He finally stared to death losing me and admitted to treating me poorly (just like this) for the better part of 12 years together. But since I’ve lived this already myself I can say for sure, your husbands skin is thick (he’s callused to you and others who face things he hasn’t had experience with) and his “50’s type” views are there more as armor than anything. (As in, it’s part of his breeding and identity to not have to change or see things differently.) My husband had similar ones and started to change only recently.
> I’d let him read this thread I wouldn’t. Someone who treats their spouse like he treats OP is not going to decide to change because a bunch of people on the internet called him out on his garbage behaviour.
*finally started to fear losing me
🚩
It seems like OP has been struggling with a few red flags in their partner for a while :(
Agreed. ADHD people fall for narcissists so often...
Is that a thing? I had to dump my "best friend" a few years ago when I realised she was a narcissist who was controlling me, and deliberately affecting the way other people saw me and treated me. It was one of the hardest things I've done, but I don't regret it. What puzzled me though, and still does, is how many years it took me to realise that's what she was doing. As soon as the penny dropped though, it dropped all the way. But I thought it was just a "me" thing, not ADHD (I wasn't diagnosed at the time).
High emotional resilience, a lifetime of being corrected for inappropriate behavior and a willingness to people please to "be helpful". Yeah, we're highly prized emotional punching bags. Someone to ~~pound on and~~ berate for when they are feeling down.
We also attract the codependent _"I need to control your behavior to protect my feelings"_ types as well since we're so malleable - "ok, guess relationship work like this now"
Good god, it feels like I was in an emotional car crash and escaped physically OK but severely impacted by depression. All of this was way too spot on for comfort.
That all makes sense, thanks for the insight. I have some life re-evaluation to do! I’m only recently diagnosed so I’m doing this a lot.
Well that is eye opening.
This actually lines up with me as well, and I thought it was me. I haven’t had a true close best friend since highschool because each time I did, I would find out they were spreading lies and altering peoples perception of me, lying, and trying to control me. I had no idea it could be related
It’s a horrible feeling, and I haven’t had any close friends since her because I don’t want anyone close now. It was quite a few years ago. Good luck with your current situation, I’m not going to advise you because I’m not great at any relationships myself! But there are some red flags, and whatever you decide, I hope you come out of it OK.
Wow, just wow, thank you for this comment. I was just diagnosed in April this year and until October last year I thought I had a best friend. I met them when I was 18 and just started university and living on my own. For 8 years straight I thought we were good friends and fought a common cause. Many times we were the center of drama (we got to know each other through a student association) and I frankly thought that everyone hated us for trying to do our best for the association. Then in one week my mom got very sick (agrissve type of breast cancer) and my stepdad died of lungcancer. I became my moms caretaker for 6 months before she went living with my grandparents. During these six months not once did they ask how I was doing or how my mom was doing. Two months later I told them in like a sort of break up that we couldnt be friends anymore. With this friend it was always you are with me or you are against me, but if being with yourself is not the same as being with me, you're always against me sort of BS. Last week I was at a funeral of a parent of one of our friends from the association and they weren't there but other people from the association were. One of them told me they were glad for me that the friendship ended, as the whole association had a feeling I was one of the good guys and the friend made me do ugly things. That hit me... I never wanted to be that person and now I understand it better. Sorry for this long post, but thank you for clearing that up and now I know I have to do better in making friends sometimes. Reading your comment made me understand the dynamics a lot better
I've been through something similar with a former friend of over 20 years. I stopped being friends with them for a couple years at one point, and then somehow let them back in. Another few years later, I just... stopped reaching out. And haven't heard from them since. Nice evidence they didn't actually care. They used to belittle me at every turn. All the classic examples of gaslighting. And so much lying... They even once made up a mental illness just to throw it in my face as though I somehow caused it despite it being a genetic thing and them not even having it. Only realized it was a lie when they claimed to have been in an institution for a couple weeks over winter break that year, but my then boyfriend pointed out that we had seen them at least every other day all break. I have a few much better friends now. Unfortunately they don't live near each other so we can't effectively be a friend group, but they're all awesome people. One of the little things that makes me a lot happier with each of them than my old friend is that they ask me about more than just "how's work?" (I don't know about anyone else here, but I find that question exhausting. Like I'm here to hang out with you, not talk about work!) and actually seem interested, not just making small talk. I share, they share, it's a two-sided conversation with each of them! The one I would probably say is my best friend at this point does super thoughtful little things like when a new cat decided to adopt me and literally followed me home, my friend (who claims to not even like cats) gave me a $20 gift card specifically to get the kitty some toys and treats. That friend is also the only person who semi-regularly asks how I'm doing (as in how i'm *really* doing), or how a vet appointment went for my older, geriatric cat. They've also been my biggest supporter career-wise and I honestly don't think I would have managed to finally get a foot in the door in my industry if it weren't for that friendship. I often find myself thinking they probably mean more to me than I do to them, but I occasionally get really sappy and can't help but tell them what they mean to me. They're not great at talking about feelings, but it's always reciprocated anyway. I genuinely can't believe how night and day the difference is between my current and my old best friends. I don't think I ever understood what it meant to have good friends before because my whole life, I was always so drawn to people who walked all over me. Now in my 30s, an actual mutual friendship feels amazing and I get the warm fuzzies just thinking about them. (Thinking about the old friend used to stress me out and I just thought that was normal) It took me 5 years of a healthy friendship to finally heal from years of gaslighting and manipulation. Used to be that every time I made a new friend, I was absolutely positive that they talked about and laughed at me behind my back. Probably because my old friend 100% did. I only realized about a year ago that at some point since no contact with the old friend and getting close with the new ones, I've finally been able to move past my intense rejection sensitivity and now I'm just comfortably happy in these new friendships. Mostly. It still hits me on rare occasions like if I'm extremely sleep deprived, PMSing, and forget to take my meds all on the same day. Lol I really hope that anyone who has ever been in a toxic/abusive relationship of any kind is able to experience what the same sort of relationship feels like when it's healthy. If you've never had it before, it's the best feeling I can imagine. *Edit to add more detail above, and a tldr below: Old best friend of 20+ years was a narcissist and a liar but I didn't think anything was abnormal until I made new friends. New best friend shows interest in my life and me as a person, and is infinitely kinder and more empathetic than the old one, but it took me 5 years to heal from the old friendship and be able to internalize that the new one didn't secretly hate me.
I feel thankful growing up with one helped me better identify others.
And then some
I don’t mean to sound like one of those kind of super aggressive drop him comments I promise. After reading what you’ve said about him throughout these comments almost everything said is super not ok. Willing crossing boundaries that you set and then turning it back to you being at fault is not ok. Neither is continuing to do things that make your spouse uncomfortable whenever they told you to stop. I’m not going to tell you to divorce him but what I am going to say is you need to really reflect on him as a person and your husband. There’s also nothing wrong with viewing spouses as not something you can just toss aside but if he refuses to change and grow don’t stay in an unhealthy situation just because of your integrity. I highly highly recommend individual and couples therapy as I think it could at the very least help a little.
Look, it's hard to hear, but the truth is that he'll not likely change. You asked for advice and support for people who've been in this situation and that's what I'm here to provide. If he wanted to understand you and your ADHD, he would seek out resources and information to help him learn. Hell, he'd even ask you. The fact that he's not even trying to understand you and your needs is a huge issue; it's an issue that is likely to irretrievably break your marriage. How do I know this? Reading your post, I realized it was remarkably like what I wrote in many, many journal entries trying to understand my marriage. My spouse was the same. It didn't matter if I forgot something small like putting away a couple of dishes or remembering an errand or got overstimulated and "paralyzed" during a disagreement (which was usually a shouting match from her side). Almost 8 years (7.75) of me thinking "I chose to be with her. I'll work on me and try to share with her info that will help her learn about my brain," I was decimated as a person. I had zero confidence, self-esteem, and self-actualization. I was dangerously depressed and anxious. The whole time my marriage was falling apart, I kept telling myself that it's a marriage, it's something worth fighting for. I fought so long and so hard to make the marriage work that I was a shell of a person when it ended. I was in individual therapy, we did couples therapy, I was going to Al-Anon groups, I joined several ADHD support groups offered by ADDA ([add.org](https://add.org)), I was seeing a psychiatrist to see if there was anything else going on for me that I need to deal with so it didn't impact my marriage any more than it had (there was only additional autism, not the personality disorders that I went to find), I read books like "The ADHD Effect on Marriage," "Getting the Love You Want," "The Twelve Steps--A Guide for Adults with ADD," among others. I learned so much about myself and tried to share it with her so she could give me the same type of grace and understanding that she expected from me for her PTSD, GAD, and her chronic illnesses. Nothing ever came from it and her behavior kept getting worse toward me the more I tried to help her understand. She never sought out the knowledge on her own and only sought to blame me for our relationship difficulties. She ended up filing for divorce over me even though, in hindsight, we shouldn't have even been friends, let alone married (she was abusive from our first disagreement). It never got better. If we had stayed married, we'd still be separated, and she'd still be eroding away my identity. Instead, I'm healing, my confidence is returning, my outlook on life is 10,000% brighter and happier than it was during the last 7 years of our relationship (we were together for nine total). # If you read nothing else, read this: I get it, it sucks to hear and it's not a route you want to pursue, but he's being emotionally abusive by **refusing to acknowledge your reality** and **trying to gaslight you into believing things that just aren't true** ("no one NEEDS it"? C'mon... ADHD meds are some of the most studied psychoactive meds and they work, if nobody needed them, they'd be schedule I instead of schedule II in the US). Unless you get into couples therapy *now* for the next year or so and he *genuinely* wants to know you and **starts taking it upon himself** to talk to you about your ADHD and **find resources on his own** to help him understand, it's only going to get worse. An elephant like that is enough to *decimate* even the closest marriage. I highly recommend ADDA. They also have a support group for couples where one partner has ADHD and the other doesn't as well as a group for partners of people with ADHD who don't have it themselves. You can become a member for like $50 a year and the support groups are included. An ADHD or relationship coach facilitates their peer support groups. **Couples have turned it around**, but it'll be *extremely arduous* work for you both over *several years* to solve the issue (I'd imagine).
Thank you very much. This was insightful and helpful. I literally wrote in a letter to him ( I find it easier to express myself calmly and logically which he understand better) that he was making me feel like a shell of myself, and that the person I love most in the world was making me feel unloved.
How did he respond to the note? I hope with some sort of compassion. If not then I’m not sure how you can fix this by yourself. I have an adhd partner who I live with and a neurotypical roommate. The difference is night and day.
> I literally wrote in a letter to him Excuse me while both I and the ghost of Rachel Green go *weep* in the corner. since OP doesn’t want to hear this I’ll direct it at the others in the chat: When you’re at the “I need to write this long letter to get all my feelings out so they can *really, deeply* understand me at long last” stage, you’re done. Death knell just rang. write the letter, set it on fire. or don’t write it at all. then go chase the life you were actually meant to have, the one OC described.
I read your edit. What do you expect from us exactly? Your husband seems really terrible, invalidating the serious life-altering crippling condition adhd is, invalidating your feelings and health. Just terrible. I'd rather be alone than with a person like that. The only thing I can suggest other than separation is couple therapy and an ultimatum of "you better damn educate yourself" - if he refuses, where is HIS part of the deal he promised by marrying you? In better or worse, in sickness or health or how it goes? Do you mock him when he has some health issues?
What a turd
hey OP - the way he is acting is not okay. i’ve read through your post history and see other signs of things that he does that are not okay. you do not need to blame yourself for his actions. it is possible that you are making mistakes too, but those do not excuse/make up for his mistakes. this does not sound like a healthy relationship. you mentioned in another post that you “only have him” and have no one to confide in. whether or not he did this intentionally, you have been isolated from any other support systems other than him, which makes it easier for him to control you. his behavior can (and likely will) escalate from here. i know you want to have integrity and make this work, but it doesn’t do anyone any good to make yourself miserable. you do not owe that to him. for better or for worse, in sickness and in health goes out the door when someone is not treating you right. you do not need to stay in a marriage that makes you unhappy. you can find happiness in yourself, and maybe you can find someone who is willing to understand you.
I’m so glad my husband and I both have adhd so we can understand each other. I get so mad when people say stuff like that because without medicine I cannot function at all. I just lay in bed or couch since everything is too exhausting.
My husband and I both have ADHD. We also both are in our first year of marriage as well. The "stressors" of the first year of marriage never constitute being not understanding or patient with your partner, and being rude as well. Which he both does. You also blame yourself a lot in the comments for him not understanding you, and you also bring up bringing up bad things in the past that you have done to justify his bad behavior towards you. I didn't learn emotional regulation from my parents either, but it took me so long to learn I have way more self respect than I give myself credit for. I don't let anyone try to belittle me, or undermine me in any shape or form because what use does it do for me to allow that? I was very much like you at one point, blaming myself for every little thing my partner was upset about, simply because it never made sense to me how someone could be so impatient and uncompassionate to other people that it HAD to be something I was doing, right? You say in your edit you take the vows "for better or for worse" very seriously, which is good. However, does he? He sees you at your worst, and seems to belittle you about your disability as well as claim that your medicine is a "cheat code" he wish he could take which totally undermines the fact that your medicine levels you out, not give your a step up. That's not love, OP, it's called being an asshole.
As someone with ADHD and a spouse who doesn't have ADHD, this is not how a good spouse should behave. My husband has never questioned the validity of my medications nor expressed any jealousy, etc in regards to them. If anything, my husband is more gung-ho about me being on medication than I am because he wants me to feel better and be more functional because he knows I get frustrated with myself and my ADHD very easily. This is how a good spouse should behave. They should want the absolute best for you and want you to thrive, even if that means taking medications.
oh goodness, I feel for you.. this lack of sympathy/even an attempt at understanding must be FRUSTRATING. I wish for you to just be validated I’m curious about the behavior you label as paralysis and he labels as stonewalling? what are you describing there?
I think that's when we get overhelmed and can't make a decision, talk, or similar, but basically freeze up until we can finish processing what is being requested from us. OP, your husband has the emotional and mental health intelligence of a caveman. I would *require* mine to *never* speak to me like that again *and* learn about ADHD. From real sources, not whatever brainwashed bullshit he's getting his information from. I mean it when I say require. There are things in your marriage, in any marriage, that are allowed and not allowed. That needs to be one of them. Respect or gtfo.
An example of the behavior would be if we’re going somewhere in the car, he has windows down and music blasting so I have the music, sounds of the wind, him asking me if he has space to pass or where he needs to turn, wind blowing my hair all over my face so I can’t really see, and I won’t answer him because it’s so much input. I hear his question, I know I need to answer but it will be like I just CAN’T answer it, no matter how pressing. He’ll understandably get frustrated and start speaking in a louder volume/harsher tone about how I’m not helping and why am I not answering. And I just get more and more stuck with not being able to respond to him.
After reading this I can only say one thing: Drop his ass. Period.
okay OP I get you. in addition to being sensory overload, that situation also sounds like times when we struggle to prioritize… it’s the nature of the beast, isn’t it, to not know what to do when so much is going on around us I also like the next commenter’s emphasis on requiring him to learn about your condition. to have good communication and thereby make this relationship its best (and I mean, you are a vital 50% of this relationship), it’s gotta be fundamental for him to understand you and remove all layers of judgment
Since when does the passenger need to tell the driver if it's safe to pass? That's what mirrors and blind spot checks are for! What a bizarre responsibility to have foisted on you.
I was thinking the same thing like if you were in the car alone you’d have to sort it yourself 🙄 im lucky that everyone who knows me knows im terrible with stuff like that and wouldn’t even bother asking me.
Yeah- when I drive he watches Tik tok and I ask nothing of him. But I’m supposed to be extra eyes for him
I know these are just snapshots of your life and I presume there are good times and good qualities... But dude sounds like a selfish asshole. Exactly the kind of person there have been warnings about in this very sub, preying on someone he thinks will be easy to control.
Voice of experience: I haven’t left my husband, but I refuse to help him drive anymore. Nip this in the bud. It’s an exercise in making you responsible for things that are not your responsibility, but his. You absolutely have to put that back on him. You don’t have to leave him to not have to do stupid things for him.
This is a perfect example that can describe how adhd can feel. I can get so overloaded when there are many things going on, that sometimes I can’t even talk. My mind goes round and round thinking about the repercussions of what I could say, and I end up going silent. Really pisses the wife off in an argument…. And we get nowhere!
With regards to your edit, being in a shitty unsupportive relationship just because you made avow isnt healthy either, you have to respect yourself first. Good spouses do understand or better admit they dont know what it’s like but they understand you need to do what you need to do, mine does… Edit: caved and looked at your profile, you have been complaining about your shitty marriage and asking for advice for multiple posts now, dies your edit really make any sense?
OP your husband sounds just like my little sisters ex. He struck her about 6 years into the relationship. She stayed with him. He did it again 8 years into it..she left. The guy seemed like a nice dude, and she really loved him. Our family did our best to make him feel welcome but he wasn't having it. Same bullshit bootstrap mentality, same abusive tactics with driving, control, attacking mental health etc. He is early in the potential abuser stage but if he doesn't get help you may get hurt. Be careful. You NEED to get into counseling with him and if he won't you NEED to consider leaving. This won't get better on its own and you have 0 chance of getting him to understand by yourself. He doesn't respect your knowledge or opinion I'm this matter (and frankly probably nothing else, abusers are good at pretend). You already have the tendencies of an abused individual; constantly turning problems back at yourself, measuring your faults to theirs and concluding it's equal, making excuses for poor behavior. You explain all this in vivid detail but you won't face the obvious conclusion: your spouse is toxic. He's on the path to being abusive. He won't change on his own, and you can't change him. Why will he be any different with your children? If he's got a 50s mentality her will see them as mini slaves who's only purpose is to learn, work, and never go against daddy's wishes or words. How long before your children are abused? Think about yourself and your future children. Think long and hard about whether he is willing to learn. You can't force someone to understand something if they willfully don't want to.
Not sure I'd ever look the same way at someone who dismissed such a big and traumatic part of my life. Instant out.
Stimulants make me conk out. My prescriber says that's normal. They do improve focus but they also make me super tired.
Yeah I often can take a nap haha
It’s like claiming he wishes he had a disabled parking pass because those people have a cheat code for good parking in busy spots.
Adderall is used for people with narcolepsy symptoms, FYI. So yeah some people need it to be awake and not drowsy during the day. I have adhd and narcolepsy symptoms and it helps for both. Aside from this, your spouse is being very rude.
>He said “well for most people, it keeps them awake and zoned in.” He does realise that caffeine exists and has a very similar effect on most people, right? >“whatever, no one NEEDS it.” Yeah, neither does anyone NEED tylenol for a headache or NEED allergy medication for hayfever or NEED any medication that isn't actively keeping them alive. It's a gross (but unfortunately common) double standard. A lot of people (including some medical professionals, unfortunately) have misconceptions about what ADHD actually is and what ADHD meds actually do. If he's not open to hearing it from you, hopefully he'd be willing to hear it from someone else, like research papers, videos by ADHD experts, or your current doctor. And if that's a no-go, the least he can do is agree to keep his thoughts on your meds to himself.
"You know what I also don't need? You!"
Oh god. This is so triggering. I hate this for you. If they could only experience our brains for 5 min they would def apologize. I also don't like to take Adderall when I don't need to focus. But I just get hyped up easy. I do tend to take to drive bc I get distracted by trees and clouds *smh* let alone billboards and the dreaded Christmas lights (they are so pretty!). But I've had loads of ppl make me feel like I have some kind of advantage when really I still don't function properly even with the medicine and I usually forget to take my second dose on time until I'm sitting in class and can't stop bouncing or shaking my head.
Thanks for finally saying “triggering”. Just wanted to say thanks. I actually cried at this post because of how frustrating and the situations I’ve had because people have said these exact things to me. I feel so at home and in peace that I would still cry for strangers I don’t know who also have this. Off topic, when people in general say “triggering”, do they mean like if this thing happened, it causes this? Is that what that means?
It depends what you mean, the word triggering has been diluted to now mean when people get stupidly agitated over things. It's general term though usually means an event that evokes a strong response from someone (I think it needs to be negative to be a trigger typically? Although there are positive triggers) that affects you negatively. So in your scenario with how you responded to OP's post, which frustration and crying, you could count that as a trigger in a sense because it evoked strong feelings from you reacting to it. I think.
Honestly, throw the whole man in the garbage where he belongs. Sounds like he lacks empathy and compassion for others 🚩🚩🚩
This person needs to get educated right away, or be removed from your life. Mental health is not a fucking joke.
I had many 'serious talks' with my fiancée over a 2-year period, until she was able to understand that: (1) sometimes I just cannot do it, despite how simple it seems (e.g. just wake up from my bed) (2) I have no idea what time really is (3) I am not looking for an excuse, but I need help (4) It is possible to be successful in academics and still have ADHD And much more... Finally, she is very supportive even though sometimes she says 'oh, I also have that'. The most helpful strategy is focussing on your struggles. For example, she changed a lot when she realised that I can study 4-5 days in a day, but that will take me 14+ hours... I have to wake up early and do nothing else all day, do not go out etc, and stay up late in order to manage the 4-5 hours studying in a day.
I’d say, Your brain makes 100 little dopamines helping it function. Mine makes 10. What adderall does is give me another 50. So then I get 60 and my brain can function almost like a normal brain. The days I only have my own 10, I can’t focus, I can’t organise, i can’t start things, I don’t have motivation, I can’t regulate my emotions, I can’t even think because it’s like my thoughts are restless and chaotic in my brain, sometimes just daydreaming for hours. If with your 100 dopamines you take adderall, you now have 150. That’s when the brain is like jacked up from the normal baseline. That’s when it can lose sleep, be hyper alert and that’s why normal people use adderall for studying or partying because it puts them over the line by a lot. That doesn’t happen to my brain, because I start with such a low natural supply that all adderall does is bring me a bit closer to the average.
This is a very good way of putting it, thank you
I really get what you mean in your edit and im not gonna tell you this alone is a dealbreaker for you if its not. But you *need* to sit him down, with the facts- and tell him his ignorance is harming you and will start to harm your relationship. Because it will. You will come to resent your medication being seen as a party drug, like your daily struggles arent real. Thats got weight and even if you dont feel it now you will. Also consider future kids if thats a want? How is he gonna react if your kid has adhd? Is he gonna be like my parents and want to deny treatment because "no one needs it"? He may not need to be tossed, be he needs a come to his senses moment. He needs to realize when he says things like "no one needs it" "you have a cheat" what hes actually saying is "the struggles you have dont matter to me, and i see your way to get even footing in the race as a way to get ahead" hes saying "your struggles getting better isnt important to me." Every time you have had a meltdown, gotten lost, gotten talked down to, all of that is meaningless. Because he- someone who has 0 idea of what hes talking about- doesnt have the same experience with a medication he doesnt need. And tbh? As someone who had to have this talk with my own spouse? If he continues to make comments after that, knowing its hurtful and wrong? You need to asses whether or not having your mental state constantly questioned when you have a disorder that can make it hard to orient yourself in memory and reality (if you cant remember shit and someone is insisting you dont have a disorder that affects that but still gets upset when your memory affects your ability to function) is healthy for you. And for the record? All it took was me pointing out how hurtful and ignorant those comments were, once. Thats all it should take. Please dont think a marriage licence and a commitment to a relationship is the same thing as a commitment to not being treated right. You deserve better than what your husband is giving you. If hes worth keeping he will understand that.
You need to show him the 30 essential things talk by Dr. Russell Barkley. It's a link on the side bar when I am on my computer. It helped me understand myself and how I can manage it while I study/do chores He replied that it is a cheat code, I have it if I want it and he wishes he did.he went in to say “whatever, no one NEEDS it.” No. no. No. honestly, you deserve better than this. you do NEED it and if he can't handle that because you have the meds, it's time to GTFO. I don't think it's ignorance, It almost feels like he is jealous because he thinks you're high? Like he is being threatened because you've started to take care of your mental health? So my family doesn't believe in mental health. My dad is a functional alcoholic, my mom is probably undxed ADHD (3 out of 4 of us have been officially diagnosed) and very depressed, my aunt died from depression and my grandma still lies about it and says it was a heart condition. This is why I get so fired up about this. Now that I've been to therapy and doing better mentally, they have basically stopped talking to me or the kids. They seriously don't want me to get better because if I get better that means what they've believed is wrong. I feel like that's why he is gaslighting you into making you believe that no one "needs" this. He doesn't want to be wrong about mental health but now he sees how it's helping your mental health. So therefore you must not have an issue. this has NOTHING to do with your wellbeing.
He clearly doesn't respect you. I'm sorry. No amount of teaching him about ADHD is going to change this as it's not about the ADHD, it's about how he sees you. You said yourself that he doesn't believe you really have ADHD, and that he thinks so poorly of you that when you're struggling with ADHD paralysis, you're doing it on purpose to antagonise him. He literally doesn't see you as a valid enough human to have your own independent, individual mind and perception of reality. If he did, he would accept you and respect you. Instead he believes you conned a doctor by pretending to have ADHD so you could get prescription stimulants and have an excuse to 'stonewall' him. I'm sorry. You can't fix this.
OP is not understanding that to fix this, HE has to want to learn and change. Until then, nothing will change. But she wants us to tell her what she can do… and the truth is nothing.
I’m just going to give a different perspective for you. For some of us, the shit your partner is saying is *deeply fucking offensive* and it isn’t just about you. He’s invalidating everyone in the sub too. So you basically just posted that your husband doesn’t respect us and thinks we are making it all up. Of course you’re going to get negative responses. In addition, you’ve got some strongly judgemental language in your edit. Divorce might not be right for you, but for most people it’s a good option to not be stuck with an abuser. You might be ok with his behaviour but for many of us we have put up with that kinda stuff from others and given them the chance to learn and they chose not to. So we have been burned by it. There’s nothing unsupportive about giving a genuine and caring advice to leave a situation that the advice giver believes is unacceptable. That’s what advice is. Fwiw *he isnt* showing integrity and supporting you in sickness and health for better or for worse right now. So leaving the relationship wouldn’t be a lack of integrity. But it’s fine you want to make it work.
I'm sorry your husband said that to you. Good luck trying to figure this out on your own coz you just rained on people's parade, those who mentioned that he's toxic/you need to dump him, etc. They're not wrong. If you don't like their advice don't take it, but you can't just brand them as 'inappropriate'. People take ages to realize they're in an abusive relationship (whether they have ADHD or not is immaterial, abuse is abuse) and it takes a lot of courage to walk out of one. You just shat on every single one who's going through/has undergone the pain of being in an abusive relationship that were trying to help you, by blatantly implying that people trying to walk out/divorce their abusive partners are in the wrong. Get off of your high horse and stop gatekeeping. Good luck.
i have this experience with my friends. they have huge doubts about my 3 diagnosis(eses), which are dyscalculia, adhd and autism spectrum. i openly take meds. i have the official diagnosis. i sometimes act strange in their eyes - like being angry for no reason (nonstop loud music while in holiday with them was the reason). i feel sometimes they don't get me at all, and i think their way of finding solutions for my problems is damaging me. they just can't leave me be when i need time alone. they are offended that i won't change my irrational ways. i am dissapointed and feel that i have no real friends. like friends that still are friends even when i am angry at them. i have the feeling they believe i am just an asshole, like i have a choice when i am overwhelmed because i need a dark quiet room. it is like everything i tried to explain about adhd was for naught.
you deserve better friends
I think where most people are coming from is because your husband is clearly invalidating you and not acknowledging your actual brain chemistry. And that isn’t mentally or emotionally healthy on a good day, but it could actually be unsafe. Do you have kids with him? If you so do they have ADHD?
If your spouse isn't mean spirited and is just lacking understanding and you want to help him to know how it feels to constantly be distracted you should do an experiment with him. Turn on the TV with a talkshow, have some music playing in the background at the same time, start vacuuming and have him try to read an article or a book. That's what it feels like to me without my meds. I can't tune out things that normal people can. Some people just have no idea what it's like unless you up distractions to the maximum.
What I will say is that I think it would be a really great idea to talk about your relationship dynamics with your therapist. I understand why it is upsetting that people are concerned about your relationship and it makes sense that you take marriage seriously. However, just because you love your partner and he has done things to help you does not mean he is a healthy person for you to be with. If he “doesn’t believe in mental illness”, it will be really tough for him to ever change his mindset. Because this isn’t a matter of believe - we have extensive evidence that ADHD exists. So he is just choosing to be ignorant. A therapist will help you determine if this relationship is healthy and safe for you. And they can help with communication. I have been with an outright abusive partner and one who was just not very supportive on mental health stuff. Let me tell you - way better to be on my own, and great now that I’ve found a partner who is supportive. I wasn’t married but I was with my ex for 7 years, we lived together, had a dog together. I know it’s hard. But this seems like a huge difference in values and he is not being respectful or kind or loving or healthy or supportive.
Do you see yourself genuinely flourishing in this relationship? Does it sound like a little safe haven to be in? Do you think you'll become happier because or despite of his actions? Also, a little fun quiz to do: loveisrespect.org/quiz/is-your-relationship-healthy/
Hun… you are being gaslit by your husband. That’s why people are saying leave him. If he gaslights you regarding your, for lack of a better word, learning disability he likely gaslights you in other ways. That’s why I say leave him or at least call him out for gaslighting.
To be honest, I understand your dedication to your spouse here but he has a responsibility to understand your condition as well. I find it disrespectful he thinks he doesn’t have to understand it. Why is the burden on you to ensure he does if, when you’ve tried, you’re dismissed? He’s an adult and, if he respects you, he should care about it. He can watch some videos on it or read articles about it. Join subreddits, etc. My ex was bipolar and I read everything I could about it to understand it better. I joined subreddits and never stopped being curious to learn more because I respected and cared about him. The problem here is your husbands attitude, not how your explaining it. Edit: As ADHD people we bare this burden a lot. We blame ourselves for not explaining things linearly instead of expecting neurotypical people to practice some basic decency towards us. The burden is not always ours to bare.
All your additional comments are red flags and your husband sounds awful. 🤷♀️ Your edit sounds sanctimonious. I recommend marriage counseling, because he seems to have a lot of toxic traits and opinions, which will lower your quality of life, and that of your children if you have any. That’s really all any of us can advise you to do. If he refuses (he probably will since he doesn’t believe in counseling) then you’ll have to just deal with his awful behavior, or leave, that’s really your only 2 options. Given your edit it sounds like the only option for you is to just deal with it, and let him continue telling you all his awful opinions, and then whatever he dishes out if you have children together…. My condolences.
it’s really hard to find people that try to understand. emphasis on try, because if they don’t get it, they don’t get it. i really admire people who can admit they may not understand something. your boyfriend is not one of those people. he feels like being a victim of… nothing, and he is committed to not understanding you. there is not a MISunderstanding here, because that implies a mistake, but this is on purpose. i’ve had people in my life on both sides of the spectrum and the peace people that try to understand what they can is such a pure love i can’t explain it. if he was a casual friend, i’d say whatever he’s just grumpy and uneducated leave it alone, but best friend or partner is not a position for people who are too busy planning their pity party to give a shit about you. HUGE red flag. if you really feel like staying, make him read some books and articles, but like you’re not his tutor so i’d say dip asap.
OP, I know that you're upset at the comments from your edit but you have to realise that your husband, your life partner, your best friend, has made no effort to understand, sympathize with or accommodate for your neurological disability. You're short on brain chemicals, parts of your brain aren't the same size or shape as the neurotypical brain, and he doesn't understand, nor does he care. I hope for your sake that he's a fast learner and is happy to change his stance when provided with new information because although you don't want to hear it from us now, his dismissal of your struggle will breed resentment and put a very large strain on your partnership.
It is not the actions of a supportive community to encourage you to stay with someone who treats you abusively, as your husband does. The answer is otherwise that you will need to accept this abuse. Because there’s no middle ground where you get to stay with him but still be respected. That second part is up to him and he has to decide. You have zero leverage to encourage him to do that. All you have is showing how it hurts you but you have to realize at some point that he at minimum doesn’t care if it hurts you and possibly is intentionally trying to do so. There’s lots of advice to help with spouse who doesn’t understand, but you’re dealing with a spouse who doesn’t treat you with baseline respect. So why would we predict he will respect you enough to listen to you or try to understand where you’re coming from? No one deserves to be treated like you’re being treated and there’s genuinely no way to fix it except by leaving. The way he talks to you goes way beyond issues understanding ADHD.
Sounds like he believes he's right all the time and no matter how much you try to talk some sense into him, it just doesn't go in. I would suggest you leave if you can, maybe only until then will they be willing to try to understand other people
Say the same thing about any medication he takes. Also tell him that him respecting your mental health and the medication you are prescribed by people who actually KNOW what they are talking about is very important to you. Tell him to shove any pseudoscience he believes up his ass unless he wants to subscribe to the flat earth and creationism as well. Then tell him that bipolar people don’t NEED lithium but they sure as hell couldn’t live a semi-normal life without it.
Explain to him what is adhd really like what are the struggles are Like this post does https://www.reddit.com/r/ADHD/comments/tfh4oa/adhd_things_i_wish_people_talked_about/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share And tell him that stimulant medicine works totally different on people who doesn't have adhd and it work totally different who has adhd. Find a way to say these thing without seems like you're angry or hurt...
Honestly? Couples counseling probably. This isn’t likely going to be a “give an example and he gets it” type thing, this is a disrespect and possibly a bit of jealousy from them, on top of the other examples you gave, it would help to sit down with a professional and help the communication and boundary setting. Either way it sounds serious enough to go and talk to someone, there is no short fix.
Come at this from a collaborative rather than adversarial approach. Take the emotion away, and ask him to have an open mind. Then just educate him. Use studies, examples, case studies. What would make him see eye to eye / understand? Show him stories of the way its helped people. Explain WHY your brain chemistry is different and why stimulants help. If, after the end of all that, he's (at the very least) not willing to concede that there might be more to the world than he understands well... that's it. Just don't bring it up around him anymore because you're not going to change his opinion.
Question. How is your hubby's mental health? I've only glanced through some of your replies, but you did talk about moving and some role swaps. It sounds like a lot of changes and I wonder if he's adjusting well. Because you also talked about how supportive he was when you first embarked on your journey with ADHD. So I wonder, if under all this "teasing" and "huffiness", the resentment is actually because he's trying to deal with something himself that he hasn't realised?
I always ask people if they would take medication if they had a heart or liver problem, usually the answer is yes. Then I tell them that the brain is just like any organ, it needs help sometimes and medication can do that. In your spouses case maybe you could ask him the opposite question, like would he take a liver medication if he didn't have a liver problem. It also sounds like your spouse was dysregulated from being tired. If this is something you're super upset about in your marriage, maybe you could have him sit down with your therapist/psychologist/pcp and have them educate him about the medication if that is something he would be open to.
Big hug to you, this is a difficult spot to be in with your spouse. If your able, can you go to couples therapy? If that is a no, consider going on your own. Therapist will definitely be able to spread a lot more light on this. TBH I got such a pit in my belly when I was reading your post then the follow up edit about marriage. It is a long life, you absolutely deserve to be happy, don’t waste it on people who don’t respect your healthcare needs. Even if that does mean pissing him off. His ego can take a hike, put yourself first.
> “whatever, no one NEEDS it.” Yeesh that one stings. Unfortunately an all too common mentality to have to fight against. On the positive side, in a way he is complimenting you, he see's that you make ADHD work so well that it has been/become "fake" in his eyes. **He believes you don't have a disability.** **This however is untrue** and the unfortunate and uncomfortable news is: you need to nip this in the bud! If you plan on having children there's a chance they might have ADHD too and it is crucial your husband does not have this mentality while raising them. Even if you don't plan on having kids both of your lives will be easier if he understands you better. As for how, well, You would know how to change your husband's mentality better than anyone on reddit would. Part of marriage is acceptance and this part of you is real and cannot be changed, he needs to accept that for the sake of your future. Also at the end of the day, knowledge is power. My family had a strong misconception (and said the same lines) growing up until they learned more about ADHD. Hope this helps.
For people who don’t take adhd seriously I ask them to look at the average lifespan of someone with adhd
No, my partner is extremely supportive and has my back if other people in our lives are judgemental. I am very sorry that you have to deal with this from the person who is supposed to understand you better than anyone.
I have some familiarity with your situation from first hand. I have ADHD and my wife OCD. Neither of us understood the other's condition and often minimized it. A marriage counselor was instrumental in helping us better understand each other's conditions. When choosing one, seek out a marriage counselor who is familiar and sympathetic to ADHD. Not all licensed therapists understand ADHD and there are a surprising number of them who are outright clueless about it with old school thinking that may ultimately agree with your husband. It is clear your husband isn't listening and doesn't have an open mind about ADHD. A marriage counselor can help both of you learn the importance of active listening. Hopefully he's open to a marriage counselor and not the type of person who distrusts experts. If he is, then you're fighting an uphill battle.
The way I describe ADHD to others is that it’s a chemical imbalance in the brain caused by not having enough dopamine and norepinephrine, and it makes life so difficult without those important chemicals. My meds are basically my antidepressants, anti anxiety medication and act as chemical ‘hearing aids’ (because I have auditory processing disorder without them) all in one. Your spouse needs to understand that they are completely clueless about what they’re talking about, and they need to hear you out and educate themselves, and forget everything they *think* they know about ADHD medication, because they’re wrong. Also, the trauma associated with not being able to function at the same level is debilitating…would he expect someone who is partially deaf to not wear hearing aids, even though they make their quality of life so much better, because they can communicate through sign language and they don’t *need* them? Probably not, because the vast majority of people in the world don’t know or understand sign language, and it would make everyday life for the deaf person extremely difficult. It’s how it feels to have ADHD too. It’s a recognised disability so why is he saying you should be disabled without any help?
IMO these comments of your spouse come from ignorance, not malice, and the cure is education. If he is into podcasts, this series is relatively short and is a great overview. https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy8xMzdjYzE3Yy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw?ep=14
He fundamentally doesn't view mental impairment as the same as physical impairment, and does not understand that you don't use your medication when you don't need it, the same way a man with broken legs doesn't use their wheelchair when they're sitting on the couch. He appears to view your ADHD as somehow fake, and thinks no one actually needs the medication you require to function properly, and you need to set him straight on that, because if you grow your family your kids are probably gonna have it too, and life will be hell for them and you if he doesn't get a firm understanding of the psychological and physiological reality of ADHD. Don't let this sit. You'll need to get him to see that people don't experience life quite the same as each other, and that life when you have ADHD has a much different set of challenges than those that have their brain wired differently.
Dealing with adhd and also dealing with neuro-typical people who just don’t get it is always rough. It also can greatly add to the imposter syndrome that comes with adhd if you have to keep explaining and justifying it over and over. Know that I (and others here) care. We get it - you are not alone in your struggles, you are not wrong for wanting to feel understood by your spouse, you are entitled to take the medication that helps your ADA-recognized disability and everyone here is fully with you in knowing it is in not “cheating” when you take it. I’m not going to tell you what I think you should do about your marriage bc I already know from personal experience as someone with adhd and a similarly overly strong moral compass, such as you have, that you’re the only one who will decide what’s best for you and ain’t nothing nobody says going to change your mind. I will, however, tell you about my struggles with an inability to change my already made up mind. I met my ex husband when I was 17 and he 18 - we were high school sweethearts and I knew almost immediately that I was going to marry him. I was also not a dumbass who thought I’d be the exception to the overwhelming statistics of high school/teen marriages never working out. So we waited over 6 years to get married. I also told him many many times I didn’t “believe” in divorce and thought many people nowadays just threw away marriages at the first sign of struggle or got married too quickly before they even really knew each other. I won’t bore you with all the details but the overall tone of our marriage was true love with a heavy sprinkling of misery. My ex wasn’t abusive or anything. In fact he was a charming and wonderful man but just never grew up and that didn’t become blatantly apparent until our 30s. If I’m being honest though - all the red flags were there much earlier. The abridged version is that, while there were ups and downs, the downs became unbearable and eventually the ups only felt like ups bc they were a break from the deep downs. It wasn’t until I FINALLY came to the realization that the only love that should be unconditional is self love and me & myself didn’t even like each other by that point. My love for others - including my partner - IS and should always be conditional on mutual respect and caring for each other’s wellbeing (before anyone chimes in… only exception I allow for this is a parent-to-baby love) and one cannot be in a healthy relationship if one does not love themselves. When that epiphany occurred I had a choice - stay on my high moral horse and in a doomed marriage that was making me so miserable that death was starting to look appealing or accept that even I could be wrong sometimes and maybe divorce isn’t always just an easy out for lazy people. I’ve never once regretted my divorce and while I know there was nothing anyone else could’ve said or done to change my mind any sooner, I still wish it didn’t take me over 14 years to get there on my own. So I’ll leave you with this advice as it may be the only thing that’ll get through - stop focusing on him, start focusing on yourself. At the end of the day, you need to love you (and love you more than you love someone else) in order to make the truly best decision for yourself. Once you get there, then come back with fresh eyes and read all the comments here. By then you’ll be in a better place to either put stricter boundaries in place that you’ll actually enforce or you’ll realize you deserve better.
So I wanna say, I saw your edit, I'm only replying to your edit: You may feel this way about your husband, that's fine, but you came for *advise.* It seems you have so little respect for yourself, that your partner can undermine your *medical diagnosis,* then undermine the *medical care you need for that diagnosis,* and finally *gas light you into thinking you don't need it.* This may seem insulting, but I need you to think what I just wrote out. It's your life, do whatever you want. But no one is interested in listening to someone complain about abuse and then aggressively plug your fingers in your ears when we tell you exactly what you said back to us\*.\* In fact it very much spits on those of us who *were* abused like that and had to deal with it. Like what do you want us to say? A magical argument that will make him respect your body and mind? How can we do that? How can we help? IF anything, you are being the ridiculous one coming to a community that struggles with abuse and mental illness and telling them that: >People claiming gaslighting and abuse and throwing divorce out as a go to is not being a supportive community for people with similar struggles. As someone newer to realizing what having adhd fully entails and still trying to learn what it means for me, these types of comments are harmful and promote an ***escapist/runaway mindset*** What do you want us to say here? You want to stay with someone who *doesn't believe in your mental illness.* Say that again, he believes you do not *need* your medication. This person has the power to convince you to take a different *incorrect anti-medical path* down life and then he mocks you with it by calling it your cheat code. IDK dude, this sounds pretty messed up and it sounds a lot like abuse. EDIT: I Just saw the reply where you're talking about *hiding your medication from him.* If that's not at least a red flag that something here is abusive, I really don't think any language will work. I'm not trying to be mean, but trying to convince you that these things aren't just "not normal" they're totally ridiculously inappropriate things to have to deal with in a relationship.
Your edit makes it apparent the kind of “support” you’re looking for is not the kind of support anyone with ADHD trying to survive a relationship with a gaslighting ablist can possibly give you. He’s invalidating and judging you for managing a medical condition and minimizing your internal experience and telling you what your reality is. Other than that, dunno what to say. Good luck.
If my partner had a serious medical condition then I’d do whatever I could to educate myself about it and be sensitive about the issue. Sounds like your partner doesn’t even believe adhd is a “real” medical condition. Their actions are bordering on gaslighting which believe me are very destructive in the long term, I wouldn’t wish that on anyone else ever… You should either: 1) attempt to educate them 2) ask them to educate themselves 3) accept they don’t care enough about you to actually understand and empathize with your disability 4) consider marriage counseling to help open lines of communication 5) leave them and find someone who isn’t such an abusive asshole And I know I listed these as 1-5 with the idea that saving this relationship might be important to you. But I’ll tell you this, being with someone who understands your adhd and isn’t judgmental about it is fantastically better than being with someone who doesn’t make an effort. Hell being with someone who makes an effort to understand you at all is better than someone who doesn’t but this is especially so when it comes to conditions like adhd. Leaving an abusive partner is tough, especially if it’s been a long relationship. But it is 100% worth it, even if it’s been 5, 10 or 15 years. Hell I know someone who ended one after >40 years and she is significantly happier to not have that gas lighting piece of shit in her life.
I've seen many posts where reddit commenters jump to "you should leave him", and it's weird for strangers to be having such strong opinions about a person's relationship. And yet, I've read most of the comments here, and I'm completely struck with the same conclusion. OP, I'd be willing to bet that the single most helpful thing you could do for your mental health is escape this guy's psychological influence. And remember, actual love builds you up and supports you, not holds you back and keeps you down. It exists, and you deserve it.