Is psychological abuse in the eye of the beholder?

OMG, Seesaw, you perfectly described my husband! The clutter, the things done in a "wrong" way, the changes in plans - these are all his triggers. And it gets much worse when he's tired, stressed or not slept enough. How do you work around it, so that you don't rearrange your whole life to fit into his requirements? or do you have to in order for it to work?

Sometimes what is important to pay attention to Zaza is where your own mind goes too. You have some ideas of what things mean to you, yet it's not what he is saying but how you take it.

Understand that when you sit and talk to him like you did, he may forget or only remember part of what you said. It's not your failing, it's often just something he forgot.

I remember when it was explained to me how much my daughter was able to remember. The specialist said to me, "you can tell her 10 things and she will only remember 3 or 4 and swear you never said the other things". I felt JUST AWFUL when I was told that because I used to argue with her about her not remembering. I supported her riding and competing with horses, and I began to notice she always remembered the courses of jumps. There were 8 jumps and she remembered them all and never went off course. So I asked her how she remembered and she said "Oh, it's easy I do it like this "1, 2,3, and 4,5,6, then 7,8 and done. She figured out how to remember/memorize in threes. I thought that was amazing that she figured out how to remember that way. Yet, the thing to remember is the challenge doesn't mean lack of intelligence, often the IQ is actually very high. Now, I pointed that out because in their minds they DO organize things a certain way so they can function. And, her not remembering the way I had expected did not have anything to do with her not respecting me or that I was doing something wrong or failing, instead I needed to understand HER and how she functions/her wiring.

I am not answering for seesaw, but what came to my mind is how my daughter keeps her own house. (she is an adult now and owns her own home) . My daughter keeps things simple, so she doesn't have clutter. So perhaps you may want to see how you can arrange your home to minimize the things that contribute to clutter. That can make it easier for you, and easier for him. Yes, it's often something that does upset them, clutter.

My husband is different, he tends TO clutter. So that challenges me because he is contantly cluttering.

This is all good because it will give you things to talk about with the therapist too. It will help when the therapist understands the overall challenge and can help you both work through this challenge while at the same time respecting how you are both being affected.

Try to keep in the back of your mind, what he wants is to be appreciated. It's what YOU want too. So what you both have to work on is finding a way where you both can feel appreciated despite whatever isn't perfect.

Haha, Zaza, I don't live with him so there's one answer! I mean, I don't want to say we treat it like a toddler having a tantrum, but we sort of do. If he's being angry or irritable for no good reason, we just ask, how can we help you?

The thing is, too, he is diagnosed and is aware of what triggers him. So knowing that, we just try to do our best to manage clutter and not reorganize things without letting him know. We aren't tiptoeing, we are just being considerate that this is his disability, we know what sets it off, so we try to be accommodating and we also expect him to let us know, calmly, when something is triggering him.

And while I don't have ADHD, I do have PTSD, and when I get tired and stressed out, I am much more easily triggered, so it's also about working to have awareness and saying "I'm really tired right now, so I can't deal with this." OR "I'm really tired right now, can you please do X to help me because this is giving me anxiety."

It's really about building a language together that you two can calmly express your needs and where you need support from each other, and acknowledge that you both have some distorted thinking going on and occasionally need support when that gets triggered.

I really feel like relationships can only work when both parties are open and comfortable to express themselves to each other, and also understand that when you express yourself openly, the other person is going to have a reaction, and let them have that initial reaction and give them time to process whatever you've told them. Especially if it's something difficult about how they've been behaving.

Does that help at all?

It's a big positive that he is willing to get therapy for this. The thing to keep in mind is that it's important he doesn't feel cornered when you both sit and talk about this with your therapist. Hopefully the therapist will make sure that doesn't happen, it's their job to give each of you space to talk.

It was brave of you to discuss with him, and you did it very gently, which is good.

My husband used to say he wanted me to do all the household work how he likes it. I would wash, fold, and put away HIS laundry, for example. Then he would say it wasn’t folded to perfection. What did I do? I told him he’s damn fortunate I do his laundry at all and if he wants it folded perfectly, he can redo it himself. He even said he was upset with me because I don’t put the silverware back in the drawer perfectly aligned. I will not change because of his neurosis. The silverware is clean and in the drawer.

When my kids were little, I made sure to not let them get neurotic. For example, I’d often cut their sandwiches different ways, so they didn’t get demanding that it would have to be cut only one certain way.

When he is being so ‘helpful’ about stopping you from eating desserts, tell him to do what he wants and let you be you. Maybe you won’t lose weight so quickly. It’s all at your own pace. He’ll just have to accept that and he is not really being helpful, he’s being your diet enforcer, and nobody appreciates that.

And sometimes something well intentioned like this can come back to bite you in a way you never imagined too.

However, that being said, sometimes it's not really nerosis, it's actually due to how a person is wired a certain way. There are people that never actually get a diagnosis and face many challenges because of their issue going unaddressed.

Zaza, how are things going?