Kick sense into Purplehorseshoe

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
81

You could almost hear the brakes screeching cartoon-style inside my head when I read this part.

This is pretty much my exwife, except she cheated instead drunken meltdowns.

You guys will have to decide if its going to be worth all the (shit-tons) extra work.

I think it’s possible to save this relationship.

It’s going to be hard, and it’s going to seem like it’s all on you at first, but it is within the realm of possible.

Right now, the biggest problem is YOU. Dude doesn’t pull his weight because YOU don’t communicate and he’s given up. Add in the anxiety and add or adhd, and it’s a real shit show for sure.

Don’t get me wrong, Dude has some culpability here to, but Purps, y’all sound almost exactly like me and the ex.

I would almost be willing to bet a month’s pay that if the two of you got yourselves to the marriage/relationship counselor and followed the advice and worked HARD at it, you would see real change and healing. But Purps, Dude ain’t gonna change until you do, cause he (mostly)gave up a long time ago. I promise, you figure out a way to quit the bottling and meltdowns and start being a little more communicative and pay a little more attention to knowing what makes Dude happy (sounds like he likes providing or doing stuff for you, probably wouldn’t mind a token in return here and there)

But, YOU have to take what you are going to see as the first steps because I’m almost certain Dude has been signalling for quite some time now, just not in a way you recognized.

82

guestchaz has pretty much nailed it here I think. Having gone through a divorce (relatively amicable at that) many years ago I had some of the same issues we’re discussing here. Having re-married over 10 years ago I believe I’m a better partner than I was and in large part to the combination of counseling and realizing that relationships are always a work in progress and communication is the primary focus. Case in point, I gave my boys (who are adults) " $75 Easter Eggs" via e-transfer without discussing it. I long had a habit of not discussing stuff I buy and it led to a lot of arguments not because we can’t afford it but because I kept it quiet (so as to avoid any contention; see where I’m going?) . I still have work to do, but I’m better than I was and that’s all you can hope for.

PHS, only you can decide if this relationship is worth the effort, and you have to have open and honest dialogue with your ex-partner (and a counsellor or a unbiased 3rd party would still be a good idea). It sounds like you want a change in your life but don’t do it to avoid a difficult path, do it because you really want to make a new start. A new place and new faces won’t change who you are, and you have to address that before you’ll experience real growth.

83

Ok, the more I hear, the more I think that maybe y’all have a chance, if you want it.

But, like guestchaz said, you will need professional help at this point to get there.
In my experience, whenever a relationship ends, both people did something wrong*. If you don’t fix what you are doing wrong, it will continue to be a problem in future relationships
You can fix that in this relationship, where it’s already manifested, or you can wait until you get into another relationship and fix it then. Or you can continue having problems in your relationships. Your choice. When I ended my first marriage, our therapist was still advocating that we fix the problems rather than find a new relationship. But I had fixed my problems, and the ex wasn’t willing to fix his, so, sayonara.

Please realize though, that ADHD doesn’t fix. I wasn’t aware that he was ADHD when I first started reading this thread, and that is going to change how to interpret some things. For that - consider someone who is able to walk, but has a hard time doing it. Would you think they didn’t love you if they didn’t dance with you without you asking them? When you ask a person with ADHD to stay on top of chores, you’re asking them to do something that is far harder for him than it is for you. That doesn’t mean you have to do the work, but what it does mean is that you shouldn’t assign some sort of “if he loves me, he would do it without help” value to it.

  • Note: sometimes what one person did wrong was “didn’t recognize that the other person was an abuser”, and what the other person did was “be an abuser”
84

A long time ago a wise lady told me that we train people how to treat us. If we quietly do all of the crap in the house what possible incentive do they have to step in and do some of it? Chances are they never even think about it. We have to take responsibility for setting boundaries and recognizing our own limits. If you’ve built up a resentment, then you have been irresponsible. Confrontation is very easy if you do it right away. The longer you wait, the worse it gets. And it is NEVER appropriate to do it when you’ve been drinking or drugging. (I mean it, never.)

This process will be easier with a giving partner, harder with a selfish partner, impossible with a narcissist. Recognize which you are with and act accordingly.

I honestly don’t think you should consider staying with this guy. GuestChaz has a point, but the fact is there has to be something worth saving. All of your second thoughts sound like “This really might be possible to get comfortable again” not “I might have a chance to keep the love of my life here.”

But you do have some work to do. You need to learn to recognize when something bothers you. You need to learn to share that information verbally, directly, and calmly, rather than with unintelligible pouts and glares. You need to stop thinking of relationships in terms of whether you can make them tolerable, and instead look for your best path to happiness. You need to GET, deep down, that happiness is indeed the goal. All that will almost certainly require professional help. Even if you CAN do it on your own, you can certainly get there faster with competent assistance.

Beware of forming the same sort of pattern with <friend> if you move to their city. Make sure that you don’t do more than you should for them, or accept more than you should from them. Give only what you can freely give. If you are expecting reciprocation, or even keeping score, then you are giving more than you want to, so quit it. Hold yourself responsible for the balance in your life.

I hope that’s helpful. Please ignore anything that isn’t.

85

Ayieee! Brain thinks faster than I can type!

My previous post was supposed to say

(…probably wouldn’t mind a token in return here and there) and doing things that way, you will see him working harder at being more reciprocating your ways…

And then the concluding statement

86

Ok, now that I’m done posting a correction,

TrueCelt makes a point that the marriage counselor made to me and my ex on our very first “intake” session with her.
A lot of the most recent posts are exactly what you would hear from a counselor. The difference is that a counselor is going to be there and will have more information from you and will have more questions to elicit information and will definitely do a much better job at helping you identify areas in need of attention, setting goals, help with figuring out how to achieve or cope with not achieving, recommending other professional help such as a physician or other mental health professional if they feel it is warranted etc.

My marriage counselor turned into mine and Scoot’s family counselor to help is work through this change in our family when things didn’t work out.

87

Well, I thought it was quite profound! I’m looking for a really big pillow to embroider it on. :slight_smile:

88

Say, PHS, why’n’tcha tell us the story about the Cup o’ Bacon?

89

rude noise

Purple, baby, the reason why he doesn’t want to buy a house now is because you guys have decided to break up, and you are talking about leaving the area.

He’s had a recent discovery that HOUSEWORK is a constant thing, and there are parts of it that are disgusting. Furthermore, if he paid somebody to do said housework, he’d be be out of some serious bucks.

Don’t feel responsible for “ruining” his investment plans! He simply had a huge dose of reality!
~VOW

90

Seconded.

91

Sorry I fell off for a while. Caught some respiratory crud (no doubt due to lack of sleep & eats, from stress) so to catch up …

We broke up. Spent a couple days ignoring/avoiding each other, then coldly communicating as roommates. In the meantime, I was absorbing what I learned about ADD and yes, what everyone said here. Searching my soul, all that crap.

Also in the meantime, he started doing All The Things. (Partially out of spite, partially to see “how bad can it really be?”) Turns out, yes he is capable of it … and yes, it is tiring and time consuming.

Roommates in general communicate very clearly, and have low to no expectations of each other. Suddenly, the pressure was off both of us.

All my anger and resentment evaporated. They’re just … gone. (Nobody has seen hide nor hair of Drunk Bitch Me since then, and good riddance.) I get it now, or at least I think I do. We tentatively started reaching for each other again, found that each of us missed the good stuff about our relationship. Missed each other.

So, yeah. :slight_smile: We’re back together, considering ourselves bf/gf again. I want to do stuff for him now, because I can see all the little ways he does stuff for me. I hadn’t noticed a lot of them, and then when he threw that in my face while we were arguing, it was a whole list of things I just never noticed, or took for granted. I was kinda shocked at my own blindness.

We both took each other for granted.

Now, we’re probably over-communicating a bit here & there, but there have been moments where he’ll say something like, “Just to be clear, X not Y” like it’s super obvious, and it wasn’t to me, and I tell him how glad I am that he came out and stated it.

Ah, yes. The Cup O’ Bacon. He had a work “thing” one morning, with a food buffet that included maple-syrup glazed bacon. Way more food was set out than they could possibly eat, so … he helped himself. Awkwardly carried it around for the rest of the event, just so he could surprise me at noon with a fuckin’ coffee cup stuffed full of sweet glazed bacon. Just because he knew how delighted I’d be.

92

I’m not sure over-communicating (TMI however… :slight_smile: ) is a thing and I’m glad you’ve decided that the relationship is worth pursuing. That’s the thing about them, relationships are hard effing work and no one tells you that. As long as you’re talking, there’s always hope. Best of Luck and I mean that in the most positive sense!
Mmm, Cup ‘o’ Bacon! That is awesome!

93

Glad to hear y’all worked things out. Good luck to you both!

94

One of the few really wise things I’ve ever heard my mother say is “I realize this may be something that doesn’t need saying, but I’d rather say it and hear it wasn’t needed than not say it and turns out I should have”. We abbreviate it as “better to say than not”.

Better to say than not, and may you two communicate better both with each other and with other people in your lives from this day on. Go and not-communicate no more :wink:

95

This is great news!

Relationships involve negotiation, people who find such things uncomfortable have real challenges facing arising issues. Plus it’s incredibly hard for us all not to fall back into bad habits. You might consider a preset, ‘Let’s revisit this discussion!’, date 4-6 wks away. Start with ‘Now be honest, how am I doing?’, and always begin with only recognizing the positives! What didn’t I see that you contributed? What did you feel I failed to acknowledge?, can follow.

If it’s getting contentious, leave it, for now, and finish off by showering yourselves with praise for progress, and reinforcing how you’re each committed to making it work. You kinda have to set the table for success. You can prompt positive forward movement with regular inventories, to keep things from ‘building up’, to a breaking point.

Progress, no matter how glacial in pace, is really everything. Knowing the other is invested and trying seems one of the keys to success.

Wishing you Good Luck!

(I think y’all are doing great!)

96

Awww, thanks, y’all.

Someone upthread mentioned having someone to take care of ME in return, and I will say, it was nice being able to lean on him this past weekend while I was hacking and zonked on cough syrup. He steps up when called upon.

Anyway, thanks for the support and advice, Dopers. You came through once again.

97

I’m so glad it worked out. Do keep the ADD in mind and read about it. Being in a relationship with someone who has ADD/ADHD is different than being with someone who doesn’t. Mostly it’s communication issues, but there can be other things. Keep it foremost in your mind. It’s very easy for us non-ADD people to forget to blame it instead of the person. You know he’s a kind person with good intentions, so when he does something “stupid”, try to be calm and remember it’s quite possibly related to the ADD. Then talk about it when you’re less likely to get angry. :slight_smile: