I can't believe what he told me

[Aeon]

Okay, call me stupid, I can take it.
I thought that maybe (the brain being plastic and all) that unPD might be able to lighten up on some of hid more abusive behaviours. No surprise that I've been trying for 10 years with a string of lies and promises in my wake. I confront him again and I try to be very direct about the problem and he tells me that essentially as long as I am not doing what he wants then he can take whatever measures he sees fit to change that.
I'm a bit floored by that. How is it possible that anyone thinks that is okay?

Have any of the rest of you come across this?

I feel like asking this question means I am still in the fog. 

[Prototypian]

That sounds like a behavior that is in the PD realm and could fit those who are narcissists.   I'm not a counselor.   I believe that anyone in a married or committed relationship should have the usual give and take for spouses.   But there is a huge gap between "I wish you would pick up your dirty underwear" and "I want to control what you think and do".   I have a friend who collected her husband's dirty socks in a bag for two weeks after asking him not to leave them on the floor until he had no more socks then the finally had the disucssiob between the two of them that was needed.   Her behavior was a bit manipulative but not controlling and part of a marriage still based on respect.

It sounds like you are in a situation where your partner wants you to actually do whatever he wants and think the way he wants you to think and that's not right.   The manipulation should not be part of your relationship from a love and respect perspective and if he truly sees the behavior as justified then yes, it meets the definition of PD behavior where the empathy and recognition of other southside of "self" does not exist for those people.

You should not have to be treated that way at all.

[Poison Ivy]

When I was married, my husband said a few things that were so honest but so painful that I could hardly believe that he had said them.

Examples:

H had been diagnosed with ADHD, and he told me that because of the ADHD, when I asked him to do something, his brain told him to not do the thing or to do the opposite of the thing. This is actually a somewhat accurate description of how the ADHD brain works, and I think his therapist had explained this to him.

H gradually withdrew from providing emotional and logistical (e.g., with housework) support for me and our children. This was probably my biggest complaint during our marriage. During one discussion on the topic, he acknowledged that I was correct and then said, "I can barely take care of myself." 

[Aeon]

Thanks  Ivy and Jsinjin.
He says that he's an avoidant but most of the signs haven't pointed to that and I confess to being so terrified to accept that he will not change that I have been quite foggy perhaps even delusional on occasion. I truly can't understand why anyone would want to be like that, but it's harder to put one's head in the sand when facing a statement like that.
He's spent the last 10 years making it fairly clear that it's his way or the highway but thrown in a bunch of nonsense along with it to confuse the reality and I guess I wanted to believe the better story.   

[notrightinthehead]

I like your profile picture.

I think that one of the reasons why most of us stay so long - we focus on the partner, their traits, thoughts, habits, expectations, behaviours, short comings, not on us. Once we accept what is and start to look at our feelings and responses we take back control.

[IRedW77]

Aeon:

I think it boils down to recognizing that he's different than most everyone else, whatever his actual diagnosis is.

The instinct is that we can do the normal things that we do with everyone else and expect normal behavior and thoughts in return. It's really, really hard to reconcile the fact that you aren't going to get "normal" behavior from a PD. It doesn't matter how normal you act or how not normal you behave to accommodate them.

You just aren't going to get what you need no matter what you do.

Poison Ivy:

because of the ADHD, when I asked him to do something, his brain told him to not do the thing or to do the opposite of the thing. This is actually a somewhat accurate description of how the ADHD brain works, and I think his therapist had explained this to him.

said, "I can barely take care of myself."

I don't want hijack a thread or to stir anything up, but that does not sound to me like an accurate description of how the ADHD brain works at all.

ADHD is not a personality disorder it's an executive function disorder. It makes it difficult to start and complete tasks, organize, use short term memory, manage the flow of time, manage emotions, control impulses etc. It's usually involves alternation between distraction and hyper-focus.

Saying that his brain tells him to do the opposite of what he's supposed to just sets off a red flag for me. I feel like something else was going on there.

I can maybe imagine someone saying they feel like their brain is telling them not to do something, but that's not a very good description either.

Him saying that he can't even take care of himself makes sense. Every task is more complicated and requires more energy if you have ADHD.

It's easy to just forget something someone has asked you to do. It's also easy to be focused on something else and miss when someone is talking to you. You may not even hear them, or you may think you caught what they said when you didn't. They also may think you're listening when you're not.

I think a good analogy might be to imagine that everything around you has it's own gravity and is pulling on you all the time. The closer you get to anything, the stronger the pull and the harder it is to break away.

You constantly have to fight all these pulls and all this gravity, but you also need it. The only way you can get anything done is to get trapped in the gravity of something. If you can get yourself sucked into the gravity of one thing, then everything else lets go and you forget that it's even there.

When someone neurotypical needs to turn off a light switch they can just get up off the couch, walk straight across the room, and turn it off.

With ADHD you need to chart a path through the room that doesn't involve getting too close to anything else that might pull you in. Before you can even get off the couch you need to try to plan this path in your head.

As you plan it becomes difficult to organize and keep track of this path. You chart the first three steps, but by the time you get to the fifth step you've forgotten the first and may have start over.

Once you finally have that path in your mind you still have to overcome the gravity of the couch. You have to spin that planned path in your head over and over and over until the spin generates enough inertia for you to break free of the gravity of the couch.

While this process is playing out in your head time is passing. You have to focus so hard on the planning and the plan that you can't track the passage of time.

Once you do actually break away from the couch you have to maintain focus on the path and the goal. It's easy to lose the path and forget where you're going. You may take three steps and forget why you got up. Then you have to freeze and rattle your brain until the goal pops back out.

Once you get up you can also see into the kitchen. Everything in the kitchen begins to exert a pull that you also now have to contend with.

If you get drawn into anything else along the way you may forget where you were going. You can't organize or prioritize, so that thing becomes impossibly important.

This is the only thing I can think of that resembles "your brain tells you not to do something or do the opposite." It's telling you that something else is more important than what you were asked to do.

If you make it to the light switch without being drawn into anything else you may accidentally end up on auto pilot by the time you get there. You may flip the wrong switch if you flip the that switch more often.

That's just one simple task. As tasks become more complex they get exponentially harder.

He also likely developed a lifetime of compensatory and avoidant behaviors because of this.

My T's much simpler example is a regular straw and a twisty straw. Neurotypical brain has a regular straw. It just sucks on the straw and liquid comes straight up. ADHD brain has a twisty straw. The liquid still comes up, but it has to travel further, it spins around, and the straw has to be sucked on harder to get less liquid.

None of this excuses anything your H did or failed to do, it's just maybe a more accurate representation of what he was dealing with as far as ADHD. I can't speak to anything as far as PD issues.

ADHD is a stigmatized and often misunderstood disability, but I'm sorry if my post was too long or unwanted.

[Poison Ivy]

Here's a bit more context for both statements.

My ex-husband's therapist did tell him the thing about why he responded to my requests, but the description might have been more relevant to a person with ODD (oppositional defiance disorder), which my ex might also have.

"I can barely take care of myself" was true but also not true, given that after my husband withdrew from being a father and a spouse, he spent almost 10 years being his parents' full-time caregiver.

[ICantThinkOfAName]

Poison Ivy yes he is right.  As long as you don't do what he says, he can take whatever measures he wants to make you do that.  HOWEVER, it's up to you to respond to those measures.  It took me a very very very long time to understand that they can do whatever they want, it doesn't mean that I have to listen or tolerate it.  Also that being said, it's super easy to get sucked into the manipulation, I get it.  My own mother used it on me.  She would say stuff like, I had to do xyz!  How else was I going to get you to listen?  The problem was, it did get me to listen and it messed with my head.  Like yeah she's right.  It wasn't until I actually answered the question for her, "you could have just talked to me", that I started to get it. 

In a nutshell, you can't change him.  As you know after living with it for 10 years.  Now when mine gets all nasty, I just shut down, and walk away or give him a completely blank stare. 

If only there was some magic wand we could wave to make them have a little introspection...

[IRedW77]

"I can barely take care of myself" was true but also not true, given that after my husband withdrew from being a father and a spouse, he spent almost 10 years being his parents' full-time caregiver.

I can't speak to ODD, but based on the name it makes more sense. That's also something I can easily imagine developing in tandem with ADHD.

Like if you're pushed to hard as a child it's probably actually easier to be oppositional and/or defiant than just do what's asked.

Pushing back against something could definitely provide that extra bit of motivation where motivation is lacking. The results of opposition are much more unpredictable and exciting.

Defiance just means not doing what you're asked. You usually don't need any motivation to not do something.

It's all about either doing the easiest thing, or the most exciting/interesting thing because the rewards of those boost motivation for the task.

As far as gradually retreating, that was a red flag as well, but I felt like I was already saying too much.

If he went off a medication I can imagine that happening suddenly, but not gradually.

Honestly household contributions should probably look more like a wave than a gradual drop off.

Your support would slowly lower because habits are incredibly hard to sustain. Once he forgot to empty the dishwasher two days in a row, he might entirely forget he's supposed to do it. Then something else would be forgotten etc.

You'd probably get frustrated and remind him and he'd pick things back up again and provide more support.

If he had undiagnosed or untreated ADHD in the beginning he probably wasn't giving a typical amount of support to begin with.

Unfortunately ADHD is heritable, so that's something to watch for. Good support early makes a difference.

[Aeon]

I think that one of the reasons why most of us stay so long - we focus on the partner, their traits, thoughts, habits, expectations, behaviours, short comings, not on us. Once we accept what is and start to look at our feelings and responses we take back control.
Thank you for this, NotRight.
I start to see that I've spent so much time trying to fix things that I have not done much else.
Too much self-generated fear of the possible answers like IRED said: You just aren't going to get what you need no matter what you do.

[IRedW77]

I'm really sorry if I was too blunt with that.

I'm angry at my own PD and every other PD in the world right now. I'm dazzled by the light on the other side of the FOG and I want everyone else in the world that's being hurt to see it for themselves ASAP. 

I'll never have a normal mom and I'll never be able to talk rationally with her about any of the awful things she did to me. I have to grieve that and my whole childhood and I'll never get any closure other than what I make for myself.

I spent my whole childhood trying to fix her and take care of her, and she didn't take care of me the way I needed her to. She's not capable of doing that, and it isn't even necessarily her fault either.

It's not necessarily his fault either. The only definite blame is that they won't fix anything.

I still have to take care of her to some extent if I want any kind of relationship with her.

It's really hard to see that someone so important to you isn't capable of being like almost everyone else in your life. It's not fair that anyone takes so much more than they give.

Whatever you decide to do is not wrong.

Whatever you've done in the past is not wrong.

You did the best you could with what you had and you couldn't have done any better than you did. Neither could anyone else.

He's probably gotten his needs met in an unhealthy way all his life. He's good at that, and he's good at disguising that he's doing that.

AND it probably drives you nuts in part because if he'd just acted like most everyone else does he could have gotten so much more out of all the energy you were willing to pour into him, and so could you.

You're much stronger than you realize—you've been carrying the weight of two people's needs all alone all this time.

You can do anything.

[Poison Ivy]

I should amend my remarks again. I believed what my husband told me and eventually, these statements helped me put the focus back where it needed to be, on me making the changes that were within my control and no longer expecting my husband to change.

What was initially hard to process was that he was so honest and open about things that put him in a terrible light. Man in his late 50s who always wants to do things himself and expresses significant displeasure at ever being criticized regarding his contributions to the family says to his wife: "I can barely take care of myself." Wow.

But by a few weeks later, when I was in situations in which I might feel annoyed because I was engaged in activities that I thought should be my husband's responsibility or at least shared, I started to be able to feel better by reminding myself, "He is not going to do things. I am in this marriage by myself, and I can rely only on myself."

[Hepatica]

When it comes down to it the major problem, the one that ends up pushing us to the decision to break up with someone or go NC with a family member, comes down to us realizing and than accepting that they really don't care how we feel, no matter what excuses they give us. (A fifty year old man not knowing how to take care for himself is an excuse. Being cruel bc someone says they have ADHD is an excuse.) Bottom line is they merely lack the essential compassion and empathy for a real relationship with anybody. Years ago when I was going out with this man I really loved, I discovered that he kept pictures of his ex under our bed and I found them. I cried and cried and he showed me zero compassion and refused to get rid of them. He just got mad at me for finding them - which was an accident on my part when I was cleaning. I'm so glad it didn't work out with him.

The change can really only happen with us, because we cannot change them. Do we want to spend another minute with a person who does not treat us with compassion, respect and care? Do we want another minute of our lives spent highly agitated and unhappy?

It means going through the process of ending things and I know that is so hard. But making that decision, that really bad a$$ decision to love ourselves is the best choice we can ever make. Basically turn that love back on to ourselves. There lies the power.

[Aeon]

I'm really sorry if I was too blunt with that.

I'm angry at my own PD and every other PD in the world right now. I'm dazzled by the light on the other side of the FOG and I want everyone else in the world that's being hurt to see it for themselves ASAP. 

I'll never have a normal mom and I'll never be able to talk rationally with her about any of the awful things she did to me. I have to grieve that and my whole childhood and I'll never get any closure other than what I make for myself.

I must say that I love blunt, do not worry in the least about it. Having to live with 2 PD's makes direct communication so precious. I think you are exactly right about there will be no change despite the PD wanting always to have me believe that he will change tomorrow if I just have faith in him.
I think I know what you're talking about with the anger and having that kind of childhood where you can't talk to your parent in real way.
My mom was a PD, too, and part of my anger and fear stem from my not wanting my adult life to be a repeat of my childhood.
I have loathed and feared that so much. I did not try to fix her like you did but I live with her and the H currently in the same house. It brings up bad memories along with just the general PD abuses.

I cannot tell you how much I would never want another child to live with that.
You and Notright did really help and I can only hope that I  don't fall down the "ignore reality" rabbit hole again.

[ShyTurtle]

I was listening to an audio book called "Walking on Eggshells" the other day, and at one point the author made a statement that it is not your responsibility to fix the pd person. It really isn't, and you shouldn't tax yourself by taking that task on.  She went on to state that it's ultimately up to you which behaviors you will and will not accept, and if you need to move on from the relationship.  I see myself in you a little bit. Maybe look into the possibility that you have been a bit codependent in the relationship. Ultimately, you need to take care of you above all else.

[IRedW77]

I think you are exactly right about there will be no change despite the PD wanting always to have me believe that he will change tomorrow if I just have faith in him.

My mom was a PD, too, and part of my anger and fear stem from my not wanting my adult life to be a repeat of my childhood.
I have loathed and feared that so much. I did not try to fix her like you did but I live with her and the H currently in the same house. It brings up bad memories along with just the general PD abuses.

I cannot tell you how much I would never want another child to live with that.
You and Notright did really help and I can only hope that I  don't fall down the "ignore reality" rabbit hole again.

I think it maybe depends some on the type of PD you are dealing with, but maybe it doesn't. It seems like npd's are just as good at lying to themselves as everyone else.

It's hard to say. They're more likely to drop the mask if it suits their needs. Is that them changing the truth for everyone (themselves included) when it works, or are they scheming and aware all the time?

My BPD mom believes everything she says. If she wanted me to believe that she was going to change something it would be because SHE wanted to believe she could change something.

Watching her with our PD in chief is fascinating. She's hyper aware of all of his PD behavior and that it is NPD, yet she has no self awareness.

I think they all definitely believe that WHATEVER they're doing is perfectly reasonable and justified. They have that in common.

What your H said about him being able to do whatever he wants to get what he needs from you is perfectly justified to him. Just because it's objectively (crazy, abusive, f***ed up, I can't even find the right word) doesn't mean it isn't true. He's perfectly fine and incapable of seeing anything wrong with it—otherwise he'd hide it.

Important notes for what you said:

Your mom IS a PD, it's not just that she was.

I'm terrified of being anything like my mom. Everything I hate about myself comes from her.

You won't let another child live like that. Maybe don't have a child with your H for starters it sounds like. But, you've awakened. You can heal the damage in yourself that you inherited so that you don't pass it down. Someone has to break that generational cycle. It's a very raw deal, but it may have to be you.

I don't know your whole story, but I think you deserve much more credit than you give yourself.

There's a HUGE difference between "ignore  reality" and defending yourself. Rabbits go into their holes to defend themselves from predators. It's smart to defend yourself. It's not cowardly. Digging a hole may not be the best way to keep safe, but the alternative is getting eaten alive.

Also, you need to reconceptualize the entire metaphor anyway. You haven't been intentionally hiding the truth from yourself.

If you can't see in a FOG you don't blame your eyes for the weather around you.

[ShyTurtle]

I try to be very direct about the problem and he tells me that essentially as long as I am not doing what he wants then he can take whatever measures he sees fit to change that.

You have described my updex here. As far as I can tell, my ex has a hot blend of npd, bpd, and ocd going on. You could say that researching pds became a hobby of mine because of him. He spoke like this at times, and later got better at concealing this thought process from me. And sure, as long as I did whatever he wanted, there would be little conflict. I tested it out once and found that if I was a blank, non-opinionated sex robot maid doll, there was peace...but that is no way to live! It's abusive and soul-crushing. Eventually I had to walk away from his promises to become "a better man" etc, etc.

I hope you find peace.

[1footouttadefog]

I am ADD, it males ot harder to be concientious but I am still in control.

I have tools and stategies to make easier but I can mamage to take care of things that matter to me and those I care about.