Being single and those relationships were how you were in the past. You are you know, with all your knowledge of yourself and experience of life. Maybe there are future possibilities of how being single will be or how being in a different relationship will be?
I get it isn't easy thinking about all this and having a child. As decisions you make, to either stay together or separate, impact on them. And that's really hard.
I just wonder if there is some black and white thinking you are doing, which is limiting your thoughts about options you have?
Sure that's possible. But I also know that I am not in a position to walk away right now. When this issue first happened and my attachment was totally broken? Yeah, I could have then. If I could just have a weekend to deal with separating, moving stuff, that might work. But the way it is, it's not a quick thing, and could only be quick in a way that would not be fair to my child. Sure I could get a place and bring my son there but that would be even more change in a phase when my child is clearly sensitive to changes. If a change like that is going to happen then my spouse is the one that should leave. He has already told me in the past that he would not try to have 50/50 custody. He would move about 3 hours away. He'd probably see our child about once a month, if that much. So, I would not have any ongoing daily life support to pick up the slack during my trauma processing. Admittedly I don't have a ton of ongoing support as it is. But I also can't feel safe dipping into my non-maternal parts if I know all the parenting falls to me.
And who knows? Maybe he starts his own treatment and works through some things and can then see me more clearly. Maybe some of his poor functioning is actually from childhood trauma and neglect and reactions to those things. Maybe he can become more of a partner and realize how he's been acting himself. Who knows.
@JadeB. that is something a previous therapist said to me. She suggested Alanon. I actually tried to work the steps. Unfortunately supporting someone with ADHD isn't like addiction. Someone with ADHD doesn't learn from mistakes, and if they hit "rock bottom" and have severe, undermanaged ADHD with limited healthy coping skills, they won't "see the light" and seek treatment. They might want to but following through isn't guaranteed because ADHD impairs ability to make an appointment, to establish a new routine, to take meds consistently, to get meds when the bottle runs out, to remember what new behaviors they are trying to use, etc.
For someone like me who did not get learned helplessness about ADHD because I was programmed to achieve and had a bunch of people monitoring my symptoms and who never decided to just give up, sure I can self-motivate. I am terrified of the alternative, terrified of that black hole of hopelessness, so I push myself way more than basically anyone else I have ever met to the point of burnout, exhaustion and autoimmune conditions. Others push themselves only to their capacity and then stop and rest. I have only recently started to learn how to do that.
But someone who had severe adhd their whole life but was not diagnosed? So they just heard over and over they just need to "apply themselves" or "try harder" and lots of criticism? Who would do something and get an unexpected outcome, or sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't and they lacked the ability to figure out what was different between the two situations? They have a lot of barriers to deal with. It is a disability that is prone to moralizing, similar to how people judge alcoholics I guess. But it's still even less "moral" than that because an alcoholic can choose to pour out the drink in a moment of realization. A person with adhd may not have a moment of realization or if they do, it may disappear before they can act on it. (Kinda like me, I have moments of clarity where more cohesive action is possible but if I shift out of that personality organization before I can follow through then it's not accessible anymore, not in the same way at least.)
Having said that, it's still up to that person to try, if they have support then they have to face reality that they have a disability but are still responsible for managing it the best they can. But until treatment is optimized, they are acting with a disability. We don't say the wife of someone with MS who is in a wheelchair is enabling by getting things for them that are higher than their grabber tool can reach. But being with someone with severe ADHD is like that. I get caught up in not really knowing what my partner is capable of, so I react as if he is capable of things that he may not actually be able to do. Like, whenever we have company he becomes a different person, and I get in my feelings about that, feeling not good enough etc. But his brain is used to me, and not used to those other people. ADHD brains act different to something that is not novel, or especially interesting, and a person you live with for years can only be "interesting" in short bursts. It's possible that he just is not capable of treating me the way he did when I fell in love with him (which, based on how it feels to be around him when he is feeling like that towards anyone, would solve a lot of problems). And I do not want to accept that so I keep pushing. That is my own denial talking.
To approach it exactly like classic codependency is to be in denial about ADHD. Optimize treatment, develop strategies to counteract the symptoms, more severe cases it's more like being a caregiver than an enabler because the issue is one of capacity, although there can be correctible dysfunctional behaviors on top of that. My support group talks about needing power of attorney for their partners, and having to speak on behalf of the partner in medical situations because the partner will not report things accurately. I try to not get involved in that level - outside of his mental health treatment. When meds are not working or he is acting really different I tell the prescriber. I always include him in the info. People would consider that codependent but it's actually best practices for treating adhd to have "collateral contacts" because people with adhd can be low in self-awareness, not understand cause and effect of how med changes impact their behavior, can be optimally stimulated during the actual appt with the prescriber which results in not sharing important information that they might otherwise share. etc.
All of that said, I still need a line in the sand to know what point is too far to go, too much to hold, and I need to figure out how to make that line consistent across my self. It's very hard to have boundaries, when different parts of me want different things, and when I do not always know what parts are interacting with the world. That's what therapy is for... to have more internal understanding and cooperation so maybe one day I can have a family meeting with the people in my head and say look guys this is toxic, we tried everything, you over there are in charge of comforting this child part who is going to be devastated when we end things, you over there are in charge of parenting our actual child until we get through this... etc etc. I can see something like that maybe making a separation manageable... but I don't have a clear enough understanding of myself to do that yet.
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