“Oh I get it now, those funny things on the helmets are to protect the skiers…”
“What? What are you talking about?”
My husband, son and I just left the rec center where we were playing bingo. I’m driving, it’s freezing and my body is wracked with shivers as we make our way towards home.
And although I am not surprised that my husband just started talking about something in the middle of the sentence that was clearly playing out in his brain the whole time, I am no less annoyed.
“Husband, really? What are you talking about? – Forget it. I don’t care”
“No, you know, those Olympic skiers, they are wearing these new funny helmets with this thing that comes down and rest on their chest. Maybe it’s to keep them from snapping their neck or breaking their collar bones.”
“Great, thanks.”
Being married to real life ADD is amusing from the outside. But frustrating from the inside.
I can’t tell you how many times I hear how awesome and nice and funny my husband is. Mr ADD is always the life of the party, Smiling Jack, everyone’s friend. Of course you would be everyone’s friend too if you had endless time to have a conversation because you had no concept of time and your brain was a blank slate as far as future obligations went.
If I had a dime for every time my husband lost his phone, wallet, battery charger for his phone, headset, notepad, tennis racket I would be a millionaire, and he would be cured. Because then we could afford the very expensive meds we already know help.
Instead I remind myself that living with a person/man/child with severe ADD is living with a person with mental illness, and when you live with a person with mental illness you should have compassion. And dreaming of lightning striking him while he is playing tennis in the middle of a rainstorm when he was supposed to be home 3 hours before and I have been calling every five minutes is not being compassionate. But there is that chance that if he got struck by lightning he might get cured, so I might even go so far as to call it supportive!
I have yet to figure out the precise equation of added minutes and screeching harpy voice to ensure that my husband makes it out the door on time.
And I have yet to be vindicated by a family member or friend saying “You have every right to be pissed at him all the time for falling asleep before your son when he was supposed to be watching him.”
or “I totally understand why you want to kill him when you come home after grocery shopping all day to find that he never fed your child lunch”
But then he laughs, and everyone says he’s so funny and so nice and so cute, and “Your husband is sooooo handsome”
And who looks like the evil dragon lady with the anger issues?
Jen Kehl 
I feel your pain. I am the shrew, making sure our lives function smoothly, while my husband is the fun, happy go-lucky guy. It makes me want to smack him sometimes…a lot of the time, actually.
Jen, this is my life, everyday but with my almost 8 year old. He is the most charming boy that you will ever meet and spend 10 minutes with. After that 10 minutes is when this really start to fray around the edges. When he starts stumbling over his words because he wants to say too many at once. When he raises his voice volume extremely to compensate for noise in the room. When he gets within an inch of someones face to tell them something because he wants to make sure they hear him!
There I am, being start at like I am Mommy Dearest yelling about wire hangers and I remind him and correct his behavior. It never ends. I am right there with you! *raises her coffee cup*
I feel you. My husband doesn’t have ADD…he has “Baby of the Family” Syndrome. He was always so damn used to older siblings and parents doing every little thing for him that he forgets, sometimes, that he is now a husband & father of 4, and ergo has to be THE ADULT every once in a while. And I don’t even expect him to do it all the time, but once every month or so, I would like to have some “ME time”…and I would love to JUST ONCE come home from one of those “ME times” to find that he’s actually fed the kids, made sure they showered, and has put them to bed. Alas, no. I come home to find every light and electronic device in the house on, remnants of kid-made PB&Js all over the island counter, and kids bouncing off the walls in their respective rooms, covered in grime and the aforementioned PB&J…and it’s after midnight and my husband is snoring in our room, where he’s been hiding for the previous 3 hours.
Yeah. So…you most certainly have every right to be pissed, and I totally understand.
Sooooo…. I’m totally guilty of starting sentences in the middle. And of trailing off the in the middle. Does that make me ADD? I think it just makes me mysterious. 😉
LOL Deb. You are mysteriously undiagnosed.
your blog looks different – I love it! And of course you have a right to be irritated/annoyed/pissed! Compassion happens, but so does pissed. Both are good and a part of it. Plus, you’re an adorable pirate. so there’s that. 🙂
Ohhhhhhhhhhhh, Jen, I get you, how I get you. I love this post from the bottom of my heart. Yesterday we were walking out the door to go somewhere, I don’t know, and this was the conversation (if you can call it that):
Dude: Am I driving?
Sarah: I thought so. But I…
Dude (interrupts): I was just thinking…
Dude (interrupts himself): Look at that squirrel!
Sarah: So do you want me to drive?
Dude: Huh?
Listen, if you ever need a place to vent just shoot me an email, and I will validate you. I will validate you all over town. Yes, he’s funny and charming and everyone loves him, including you…but he’s a challenge to live with. Not that you’d choose someone else.
Not yet Sarah, not yet. But there may come a day where I may just let him “forget” where he’s supposed to be forever 🙂
You should come to our house, The House of ADD. It’s all kinds of random, because 3 out of 4 inhabitants currently have some form of it. 🙂
I know Sarah, I totally thought of you when I wrote this post. I feel for the 1 out of 4 there, sometimes….
Oh My Good GRIEF! Yep. Yep. Not to the bizarre behaviour, but to acting out just for me (or AT me) it sometimes seems. Not so much now (we got the good meds) but to rant about it and have everyone else take HIS SIDE.
Ohhhh I feel ya BIG on this. So sorry it’s hard. And yes, so tough when you *know* it’s also not an issue of ‘blame’ because the ADD (or Depression, in my case with husby) is its own thing. And it takes over and ravages.
OMG, you had me at the title! So funny, so true and so awful at the same time. MY HUSBAND DOES THE SAME THING!! Drives me nuts. And SO with you. Half the time I’m like, “Do I really even care what he’s talking about?” He also loses everything and, for some reason, I am supposed to be the keeper of his things!
I do that sometimes. I’ll have a entire inner dialogue and just forget that Matt isn’t privy to my thoughts. He’ll say, huh, where did that come from?
I FEEL YOU!! I am not sure if my husband is ADD or what but I want to set him on fire when he asks me a question, and then, in the middle of me answering it, he says something totally unrelated and stupid and acts like he’s trying to be helpful (usually he’s asking about a bill or whether I called somebody or whatever). When I say that he interrupted me, he’ll respond with “I heard you.” UM DUDE, I wasn’t DONE so how the heck could you have heard me? ARGH. This post is awesome, Jen.
Well,like Kristi it also made me wonder about mine. What is it about men that makes them laugh everything off so easily. Maybe it’s lack of the guilt bone. And I LOVED your “thanks!” reaction to the ski helmet story. I’m going to start using this for mid-sentence conversations too. And and I LOVE the new design. Love the lighter colours and their feel.
Oh, your beautiful, refreshing honesty. You somehow let us all have a glimpse into your world- I can imagine that the complexities of living with the charming life of the party who also can drive you crazy are difficult to put into words.
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