SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Outside the box idea.

Why not try both of your doing dishes together while some soft music plays in background. You could talk or just chill. The go to bed together.

My mental health has been atrocious, and when that happens, the condition of the house also gets atrocious

I read this as you saying that your feelings drive your actions, and you need to change your feelings in order to change your actions. I think this is doomed to failure. You have it exactly backwards.

Here are three principles to consider:

1. We control our feelings poorly if at all.

2. We 100% control our actions.

3. Actions influence feelings.

I can ask you right now to feel happy, and good luck with that.

I can ask you to scratch your nose, and your nose gets scratched immediately.

You need to develop the discipline to get off your ass and do what needs doing no matter how you feel. Is it hard? Of course it is, and huge numbers of humanity fail at it, leaving them in a doom loop and keeping therapists well funded. But if you can tighten up your suspenders and just say "fuck it, I’m going to clean the house, even though I mentally feel like shit" when you were done, you are going to feel a lot better because you will have accomplished something positive. Your actions will have influenced your feelings.

You want to feel better? Do what needs doing.

If you do it for a while, then you’ll learn that your actions do get rewarded, and it gets easier. A whole lot easier than trying to get your husband to feel sorry for you.

A good source of distilled thought on this is the book Constructive Living by David Reynolds. You can just Google on it and get a lot of summaries. From one of them:

On the inside there are uncontrollable feelings and sometimes controllable thoughts. On the outside is the external world: neither controllable nor just in any obvious way. The only area of control, then, is the area of behavior—disciplined behavior. It can be dependable even though feelings fluctuate and the external world sends reality careening to our senses.

Doing well—paying strict attention to what reality brings for us to do—provides the only stability.

Furthermore, it is reassuring that, like feelings, the results of my behavior lie outside the sphere of responsibility

[This message edited by HouseOfPlane at 3:39 PM, Saturday, August 1st]

The following are observations.

Your problems are yours to fix. Your husband's problems are his.

You're dodging a number of important questions.

You're complaining that you have too much work to do to clean enough to satisfy your H. You have no solution, even though we have given you a number of them, including:

let the house go;
tell your H to help;
hire help;
dump the animals....

Hell, use your income to pay for help. Just write the check.

You say you try to control your environment. That is a strategy that is bound to fail.

You say you're ADHD, possibly AuDHD. You won't get yourself evaluated. You won't tell your H to live with you as you are or spend the money (i.e. set a boundary). I get that, especially after you betrayed him. You still are required to set your boundaries - if you don't, you continue to fuck yourself over.

Again, I know it's difficult to set boundaries. Work on doing so - which will protect both your daughter and your H, too - in therapy.

I can understand that your FOO fucked you over. You still have to set boundaries for yourself - which will protect both your daughter and your H, too - so work on doing so in therapy.

You can't control your H or your daughter. You are almost definitely able to control or learn to control yourself.

BF Skinner? I've deleted my comments here so as to avoid a debate about Skinner, but I think you might read him more critically. Hmmm...another need for boundaries, IMO.

I know you're fighting many demons. The way out, I think, might be lack of boundaries.

Experiment. Start with one boundary and the intention to develop more. Look for internal resistances to setting the boundary. Look at the external resistances. See if you - perhaps with your IC's help - can find ways to turn the resistance around to acceptances, perhaps. Find out what you like and don't like about the boundaries. Adjust as appropriate to make a boundary work for you. Then add to boundaries.

You certainly have no trouble tell us to fuck off. Maybe the boundaries you do exercise don't serve you well. I sure think they don't.

You need to develop the discipline to get off your ass and do what needs doing no matter how you feel.

Wow! Thanks, I'm cured

Might I suggest watching "The Thanks I'm Cured Button" by Viva La Dirt League on YT?

[This message edited by GotTheMorbs at 10:04 PM, Saturday, August 1st]

I went and booked the ADHD eval. I don't gaf how H feels about how much it costs. So there.

Wow! Thanks, I'm cured

Harsh words, I know, but those are the words I used on myself to get myself out of my own spiral.

Your best path out is to do what needs doing, let actions drive feelings.

Best of luck, Morbs

It sure seems like you are on a good path, Morbs, even if there is friction. I notice you AREN'T catastrophizing this current situation, and neither is he. At least not on the scale as before. That's an improvement.

However on a different note: oftentimes I want to give you what I consider helpful and encouraging perspective, Morbs, and sometimes I do, but other times I remember when you said you were going to get this whole forum shut down and I get angered. I guess I haven't let that one go yet. Have you acknowledged and apologized for that and I just missed it?

And excellent work on booking the eval. Way to be decisive in the best way. It would be helpful perhaps to have at the ready a few items to tell him regarding how to offset the cost: like you will be making coffee at home instead of buying it at work, or something like that. A way to show him you acknowledge the cost.