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Reply To: I try setting boundaries and fail a lot

HomeForumsRelationshipsI try setting boundaries and fail a lotReply To: I try setting boundaries and fail a lot

#436232
butterfly
Participant

Thank you for kindly replying to my post guys, I really appreciate it. I have found your answers very useful to ask myself what I want to tolerate or not. I also appreciate that someone else with ADHD can share what it is like to live with that challenge everyday. I really empathize. I have a little brother 5 years younger than me with ADHD that I grew up with very close. He and my boyfriend never were treated with any pills nor therapy. It feels like going through it all over again. Maybe that’s why I choose him as my partner as it feels familiar.

I understand that he has some work to do on himself, and I am not going to criticize him further (even in my mind) because that does not help. I am angry and I communicated that to him. I think this is all a personal challenge that somehow I put myself into, like the next level of a video game I am playing, if that’s not too weirdly explained 😛


@anita
thank you for taking the time twice to answer. He actually came back to me and apologized for how he behaved and told me that he got increasingly irritated because I often say no to doing activities with him and that he does not take care of his need to move and do sports a lot. He said that he was very hesitant to go alone, because in his past, his exes would blame him for “abandoning” them. I asked him if I ever gave him that kind of vibe and he admitted that I didn’t and he has to overcome the guilt trauma. I told him that I do less and less activities with him because I’m tired of negative experience of us both fighting. This is a sad vicious cycle we got ourselves into.


@helcat
we both got noise cancelling headphones, but that won’t be enough. He is not able to control his impulsivity (proof of that is the entire past year) and talks very loudly 😛 Putting a wall between both our offices will increase the house’s resale value as it adds one more room. I think this is 100% win-win. But thank you so much for putting that into perspective. I had never even thought of that as him valuing communication over focusing on work. I am now more open to hearing from his perspective.


@roberta
it is my own house, I bought it a month before meeting him. I wanted to do a fixer-upper project 🙂 It is true, Tiger is totally him! I do also feel he lacks consideration sometimes, but more than often he cares very much, maybe too much. He works in customer service and maybe he is burnt out sometimes by the negativity…

I won’t tolerate interruptions like that for my new job which I am starting on Monday. We fought almost the last two whole weeks while I am on vacation between jobs, but I think I got through. I am not sure I know what is ODD but I feel like these times, we label so much over mental health and behaviour. Am I wrong for trying not to label my boyfriend? Because if I label him as ODD or such, I will get discouraged to fix issues as I will think this is not going to get better…

I now have to deal with the resentment of this whole two weeks fighting and not enjoying the atmosphere in the house. I don’t often have vacations and I am very mad at him for ruining it. But I am trying to accept the part I had in it.

This is not the first time indeed, that’s why I finally ask for help here.
I had two relatively peaceful relationships of 5 and 2 years but also two other very awful ones in the past, about 8 months each. I am just very tired trying to make it work with someone and is wondering if in the end, it’s just because relationships are not easy and need work. Isn’t it always a balance between good and bad times?

Thank you ladies. From the bottom of my heart. <3