I love my girlfriend, I want to spend the rest of my life with her. The problem is, she resents me, and gets angry with me often. My only real issue with her, is her feelings towards me. She says she wants to spend her life with me too.
To be clear, I make mistakes, and fuck up, I forget to do things she’s asked sometimes, or forget to do things around the house. One example is about three times a year I’ll forget to put the bins out on bin night, and she get’s extremely angry when I do. Another example is, at night when I come to bed, maybe 5 times a year I’ll forget to lock the back door, and when she finds it unlocked in the morning she gets very upset. Sometimes I’ll forget to do something specific that she asked me to do.
So yeah, I’m far from perfect, I’m forgetful and easily distracted. I’m almost certain I have ADHD. I try my best, and implement tools to try to stay on track and remember to do what I need to do, but I slip up. I don’t want to go on medication.
She’s really upset at me because yesterday I accidentally bumped our oven, didn’t realise, and didn’t correct it. I also had unlocked the door to her office (external to the house) to move something in there, but failed to shut the door and lock it when I left.
I think it’s pretty fair to get upset about this sort of thing, but she never forgives me. All of these mistakes just continue to build and build in her mind until she resents me. And when I make a small mistake, she’s not just mad about that, she’s mad about all the mistakes I’ve ever made over the years.
When we fight, she’s very angry, and I’m *usually* very calm and try to stay logical, but that upsets her. She doesn’t want to hear me apologise, and she hates it when I tell her I’m trying, or that I’ll try harder. She also hates it when I defend myself if I think she’s being unfair. I’m not sure what she wants from me during these fights anymore, I can’t apologise, or say I’ll try to improve, but she also gets mad when I don’t say anything, I’m just not sure what to say or do anymore.
So we just had a big fight, and I told her that it feels like she hates me sometimes, and asked her why she stays with me. I told her the only issue I have with her is how she feels towards me. She says she wants to go to therapy, which I’m willing to do, but it’s not going to stop me from making mistakes like the ones I’ve talked about. I can’t lie to her or to myself, I know I will continue to slip up.
She has mental health issues and struggles with certain aspects of life. She experienced a fair amount of childhood trauma. Working is really hard for her, but she does it as much as she can anyway and I’m always proud of her for that. She struggles with going to the supermarket, and with making phone calls, so I do that sort of thing for her. I drive her to work a few times a week. I try to help her with little things like that when she’s struggling. I also own most of our house, we’re paying it off together but I put forward the majority of the deposit. I think all of these things make it hard for her to leave me, and while she says I’m her favourite person, and she doesn’t want to leave, I wonder if she would have left a long time ago if she was more independent. She says she wouldn’t have.
I feel like I might be poorly representing her, but she really is a special and awesome person who can be very caring, and we have fun together. I love her, and she loves me too. But it’s almost like black and white, it doesn’t take much for her to flip when I make a mistake.
I’m about to leave for a long business trip, and if we were ever going to break up, this would be the perfect time. She would have more than a month with me gone, to figure out what she wants to do, where she wants to go etc. I don’t want to leave her, and I feel like if I did it would be more for her than for me, which is super weird. I just don’t see this getting any better, and she isn’t happy with me.
Should I wait until I get back home and try out therapy, or should we end it before I leave?
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**tl;dr**: I love my partner, and although she loves me too, frequently gets mad at me for making mistakes, no matter how hard I try.
Sorry, I can’t seem to add a flair.
Edit: I can’t believe this blew up. I’m thankful that most people didn’t say the usual “dump her” bullshit. I’m grateful for those that are focusing on how my mistakes make her feel. To those of you who feel like she is crazy or the bad guy here then I have misrepresented the situation. We both struggle with things. She is an amazing person, and I don’t want to lose her, but I want her to be happy. We’re getting therapy.
44 comments
You do sound like you have ADHD and the issue with relationships, especially when not medicated, it turns into a parenting dynamic when it feels like she has to remind you to do things and “reprimand” you for the mistakes you do. Since there’s no real change, each new thing just keeps frustrating her further and building up the resentment.
Therapy might actually be a good idea, individually and together. It’ll be helpful to process that resentment and coming up with a future plan on how to handle these emotions and breaking away from the parenting dynamic.
You’re not maliciously forgetting these things, so I think breaking up with her would be a mistake. You both need to work on your issues, your r/adhd and her anger management. I hope you can work it out instead of walking away from each other and not actually growing as a couple.
Both my husband and I are forgetful about just the kinds of things you mention: the locked door, putting the trash bin out. I’m not going to condescend to you by offering a magic solution, but I will say we are both fanatic daily list-makers, and that has helped enormously in helping us make sure that our easily-distracted brains manage to remember stuff. And this shared trait helps us easily understand and forgive each other for what are, ultimately, really tiny errors that don’t matter too much.
I feel sorry that your good will is being met with such anger. You aren’t doing anything “bad” on purpose, and I wish your girlfriend understood that. As it is, it might be best to let go. There are people out there who will understand that your occasional minor forgetfulness is neither deliberate nor consequential. Best wishes to you.
Remembering to do things and failing will be a big problem in other relationships, too. So, not dealing with it in this relationship isn’t going to fix your problem. You need to see and psychiatrist to get checked for adhd, then probably try meds and short-term cognitive therapy to develop coping skills.
It doesn’t sound like this resentment will ever go away, since you’re doing everything you’re willing to do to manage your ADHD and it’s not enough to keep her from feeling forced into a parenting role. You can go to individual and couple’s therapy all you want, but it can’t address this issue. Therapy is for communication problems and mental health struggles, not for training yourself to accept that your partner can’t/won’t do what you need from them.
You finished saying you don’t want to leave her so don’t. Try the counselling and If they are any good they’ll get her into one on one for her anger issues too.
Okay so you sound like me and my partner. I’m autistic and have PTSD and he has ADHD.
My love language is acts of service, so things like washing up, taking the bins out etc are all signs that he loves me, and when he forgets it feels like he’s saying he doesn’t love me enough to remember. Obviously, this is untrue and quite a leap! But with trauma from childhood it can feel like the beginnings of abandonment and it’s a case of attack first before you get hurt.
The door thing is probably a safety thing where as women, we’re told a lot to keep ourselves safe and are often blamed if we get attacked or in bad situations so if you leave the outdoor door open and you get robbed – the police and insurance would blame you and you wouldn’t get anything back. So it’s more likely to be a panic thing.
The thing my partner and I have been working on is trying to tell each other what we need. If he’s having a bad executive function day and can’t do the bins then he has to tell me and I’ll do it. If he needs support with organising his day, then that’s what I do. If I need support in phone calls (I’m deaf) he will do it and I will give him all the information that he needs.
I think it’s worth a proper sit down and conversation about how you see your future and how you both want to live. I’m sure she doesn’t want to yell at you, so maybe she needs to be responsible for the door in the evenings and anything she wants doing on the daily and you’re responsible for things you are able to do? Is she able to explore why she gets so angry and if she’s able to walk away and calm down and talk constructively? Are you both willing to grow and learn and develop with this relationship or is this it?
Good luck to you both and I hope that whatever the outcome that you both live happy and fulfilled lives ☺️
I don’t see your issue here- you say you don’t want out of the relationship, and she says the same. There is an issue and she is willing to go to therapy to work on it. So… that’s what you do? Unless this is really just you looking for an out… then you go to therapy and work on it
Get an ADHD coach and/or go on non stimulant meds. The book series “delivered from distraction” is great too. You say you don’t want to go on meds but you should seriously consider whether you’d prefer to be with her and on meds or without both.
I get upset when my partner doesn’t lock the door too, because I’m afraid of someone coming in and hurting us. I think you really need to try to remember to lock doors back up. Maybe putting a bright sticky note on each door that says “lock up” on it? Idk, but I would try proactive strategies like this instead of just telling your gf that you’re trying in a vague sense.
What does bumping the oven mean?
Everything you’re doing is minimizing how often you mess up. If we got her side of things, I doubt it’s a handful of times a year. You’re likely forgetting on a weekly maybe even daily basis SOMETHING even if it isn’t the same thing. It gets old. Instead of running away, do the hard work. Be better.
It sounds to me like her anger is a problem, but that some of your mistakes are incredibly dangerous and you need to manage your ADHD better. Your defeatism about how therapy couldn’t possibly help you manage your issues isn’t great either. Well, of course it won’t if you’re dead set on it failing.
You can of course break up at any time for any reason. If you want out, you might as well. Don’t do it “for her,” that’s patronizing. Do it because you want to start over without the fighting dynamic you two have.
If you both want to be in a relationship with each other i would try and fix your problems or go to therapy. I think if you both want to be together then you should work things out and stay together. I’m hoping for the best for the both of you 🙂
With the oven thing, did you accidentally turn the oven on and forget about it? Because if you’re about to burn the house down, she’s justified in getting angry and staying angry, quite frankly. Between that and leaving the house open? Your “mistakes” are dangerous.
These are not solutions to the larger issue of resentment, but they may help with some of the day-to-day issues and lower the stress level for both of you. Regarding doors, look into getting self-closing hinges for the doors and get locks that can be opened from inside while remaining locked on the exterior. Do you have a smartphone? Great, you can set reminders for specific days and times to help you remember to put out the bins or make sure doors are locked. The key with phone reminders is to do the action right away, don’t dismiss the notification and say you’ll do it later.
It sounds like you both want to make this work, so finding a way to go to therapy is important. I understand it feels like every mistake has the weight of all of the previous mistakes on it, and it doesn’t feel fair. That’s valid, but it’s also valid for her to be frustrated and resentful of the same kind of problems over and over with no change, especially dangerous ones like the oven or leaving her office unlocked.
She needs to learn not to take it out on you like this (I say, as someone who can also get snippy when I’m feeling overloaded and is working on that), but you also need to show you’re actively trying. If you tell her over and over, “I’ll try really had to do better” but the same stuff keeps happening, what does that promise mean? Are you trying? How are you trying? Are you putting in clear effort, or is it just empty words because you can fall back on “I’ll just make another mistake eventually anyway and then she’ll be mad again so what’s the point.”
The same goes for her, you both have things to work on. But, she’s in therapy and also willing to do couples therapy, and you’re saying you’re thinking of bailing because you can’t change yourself and your behaviors. You don’t want medication, you can’t afford therapy, and your current setup still results in leaving doors unlocked and open.
If you think about it honestly, is it a few times a year that these kinds of slip ups happen, or is she having to spend a lot of the day checking to make sure you took care of a lot of smaller things, too? (My partner used to leave the kitchen cabinets and drawers open, and I’d always close them later. When I brought it up, they were like “What? I don’t do that!” until I stopped fixing it for them and took them back to the kitchen when they were done to show them how half of the doors were open. All of that little stuff adds up and makes it feel like you have to take care of everything.)
Working on this together means you both have to put in the work. She needs to manage the frustration levels and work on the anger, and to let you show you’re working on it. But then, you also need to show you’re working on it. Honestly, if my partner was constantly doing stuff like that and kept telling me they were trying, but it kept happening, I’d be getting more and more frustrated, too. An apology without a plan to do better doesn’t mean a lot in these cases.
Is it possible you’ve both gotten into a pattern and there’s too much built up frustration and resentment? Sure. But is it possible to work on it if you both want to improve the relationship together and for both of you to put in the work? Also yes. It sounds like you both want to, but it means you both have to do the work. And that means the answer can’t be that she has to change her behavior, but it’s useless to work on yours.
You should get keypad locks that automatically lock when you close them, like hotel doors. That way you can’t leave the door unlocked or lock yourself out
I think with childhood trauma, especially if shes seen parents who resent each other, it becomes easy to fall into a freefall of resentment over everything. I felt this way in my last relationship and recognise now where it came from and that I should’ve tried to work on it & communicate better, but there were too many other problems anyway so it didn’t work. But if you really want it to work then theres still things to try.
Getting an ADHD diagnosis, imo, is *super important.* Especially because I reckon that your partner believes the mistakes you are making are due to not caring enough about her, that your thoughtlessness makes her day to day life harder, perhaps she feels she puts a lot of time and energy into making life better for the both of you and cant imagine another reason than your mistakes are due to selfishness or carelessness, combined with trauma reactions and history with close relationships. She likely had a parent that treated her this way, as I did, and found myself reacting exactly in the same way as an adult.
If you can get diagnosed and both come to an understanding of how your brain works and that you’re genuinely trying your best, it may make her realise. Couples therapy also is necessary I think, but without a diagnosis *and* a therapist who understnds ADHD, you may be left with advice from a therapist that just doesn’t work in your case. Advice that works for NTs often *does not work* for neurodivergent people.
Her anger and resentment likely also comes from a place of feeling overwhelmed or tired. I had undiagnosed ADHD and endometriosis, life was (and is) *hard*. Hard to just keep myself alive and coping with chores, tidying, working. I never realised my mood swings and tiredness were caused by chronic disease and ADHD, and blamed my partner for much of my anger because I didn’t know the cause. Perhaps she is in the same kind of struggle. When normal things are so hard to keep on top of, having someone in your life that you perceive is making this even harder can cause resentment, whether its justified or not. Maybe she too has undiagnosed ADHD because we tend to attract each other without realising it.
Either way, you two need a better understanding of yourselves if the other is to be able to understand also. I never thought I’d get so impatient and nasty with my ex, but when you’re constantly fatigued or ill, have mental health issues, brain issues and so on, when things go wrong it’s hard to be patient without learning through therapy or diagnosis. I’m sure part of her knows it’s not right for her to get that angry but it sounds like both of you need therapy to get to the bottom of all of it.
This reminds me so much of my husband. I didn’t even realize it until my sister pointed out that he seems like he has ADHD, and it all makes so much sense now
I think you need to sit down with your partner and lay these feelings out before you leave and give her that time to consider if you both should separate when you get back or if you guys would like to try couples (and individual) therapy.
I think you should 100% get a real, factual diagnosis for ADHD before you start saying all your issues are related to that. And I say that as someone with that diagnosis (who chooses to not take meds). You are not required to take medication and quite frankly, it’s not cool to blame these things on a diagnosis you do not have. It kind of gives the rest of us a bad name.
I have been your girlfriend and while I believe you are probably not doing any of those things on purpose, they’re pretty horrible when you pile them all together over years and never fix any of the forgetfulness. It is *hell* on a partner for them to realize that they have to be on high alert **all the time** for danger or break-ins or quick fixes or forgotten chores or whatever, simply because you are not. That’s not fair and I’ll tell you right now, that is not related to ADHD. That’s you not incorporating coping mechanisms for your forgetfulness.
There’s a lot of fixing that needs to happen here and I have to be frank, at least from where I sit, most of that work needs to happen on your end.
I think a lot of folks who struggle with ADHD find that the magic bullet is to stop trying to solve the problem by yanking the “try harder” lever and start trying to solve it by making it *require less trying*.
For example, the door(s). There are a lot of types of door that lock *automatically* whenever closed; get one. Boom, no more forgetting to lock the door, ever.
Go to therapy, if you want to stay togehter, why give up.
I think couples therapy is an absolutely wonderful idea.
How things are now, it can’t continue. I think try out therapy and if it doesn’t work out, break up.
Do you forget things at work or with friends or just when it pertains to her? Women notice these things and get extremely frustrated when it seems like their partner can manage everything except what’s important to them.
It sounds like there is a lot both of you can be doing better, which is the case in nearly all relationships. It sounds like you both feel like you do a lot for each other, and it goes unnoticed by the other. Easy and common problem to fix. Couples therapy for sure!
That being said, Google, “mental load” and you may learn why your logical approach is not as logical as you may think. Especially with stuff like the doors being left unlocked multiple times, even after she tells you. At some point, it’s about way more than just forgetting a chore (we all do that). It’s about not caring about your girlfriend’s very real and valid safety concern. It’s about how, on top of feeling hurt that she tells you over and over that something big is bothering her with no changes, she now has to worry about her safety in her own home. Not sure what you mean by bumping the oven, but an oven is most definitely not the household appliance you want to take chances with.
I have adhd and I know you mentioned that there are several barriers to getting medicated, but please try to at least get evaluated. Or get a therapist that specializes in it. Even if it’s not adhd, therapy or a coach will change your life for the better no matter what happens to your relationship. Nowadays, I cannot believe how forgetful and disorganized I used to be. So I sympathize with you both. Treatment solved problems I never knew I had and yes, my relationship is so much better.
I kind of disagree with most people here. A lot of them are putting the blame on you and not on her. Both my ex partners had ADHD (and I do, too, though mine presents differently than theirs). They always forgot things like locking doors, turning off the oven, etc. I had trouble remembering things like feeding the cats dinner at the same time every night. In the first relationship, we would get really angry and ruin the whole mood over something as simple as locking the door. It lead to resentment and a doomed relationship. In the second relationship, I learned how to better manage my anger and how to be a more supportive partner. So, every night before bed, I went through the house and locked everything myself. My ex would feed the cats for me every morning and night. Once we learned each other and our weaknesses, we helped each other, rather than getting angry. I think there’s a much healthier way to cope with these things, and I know firsthand that getting angry isn’t okay. She should read the book “The Book of Moods”. It helped me a lot. As for you, everyone benefits from therapy, so why not. As for breaking up, do it if you want to and if you feel the relationship is spiraling into something toxic. But maybe give therapy a chance first, if you’d truly like to fix things. Don’t drag things out if you’ve made your decision.
You sound like a shitty partner and I think you’d be doing her a favor by breaking up with her. Just saying you might have ADHD and are trying to manage it isn’t enough. She’s not your fucking mother or your manager. Why the fuck are you not closing and locking doors as a full grown adult?! I’d be pissed at you too. You suck!
Breaking up with someone while you’re away for a month is a recipe for coming back to an empty house.
It sounds like you mean well, so I want to be gentle as I say… she’s probably upset because “I’ll try better next time” is meaningless when you keep making the same mistakes over and over.
“I’ll try” is not a concrete plan of action which will resolve the issues. She doesn’t want to hear you say “I’m sorry” or “I’ll try” because after saying those things before, you have not successfully changed your behavior and stopped forgetting the dozens of things that she’s upset about (and it is dozens – you mentioned multiple things that you think you only do several times a year – it’s probably more than that, and there’s also a cumulative effect of “forgetting a dozen things four-ish times a year means you’re forgetting something that she’s said are important to her 48 times a year, which is basically forgetting something weekly”).
And that’s also part of why she “flips” so easily. Because from her POV, you are constantly forgetting something, and you can’t seem to stop, and you make well intentioned but empty promises about how it won’t happen again, and then it does. It’s exhausting. (She also likely “flips” easily because of her own mental health struggles as well).
And this is a case where prioritizing your own mental health is necessary. Please take the time and money and energy to address your “likely ADHD” and get proper support for it. You feel like you can’t because you two “need” to spend money on her mental health. **You deserve to have your mental and emotional well-being cared about.** You deserve to take care of yourself. And if you can’t justify it for yourself, look at it this way – your LACK of properly managing your ADHD is causing your partner distress. Taking care of yourself would lessen the stress on her.
Lastly, couples counseling would be good. A therapist can help you two to navigate having these difficult conversations, figuring out how to communicate without the flipping out and the spatting, etc. It’s a good tool if you’re both willing to use it.
I think a good thing is to make a checklist of things that you have to do and put it on the fridge so you know that you have to do these things (i.e., lock the door every night) or even if she does them with you a few times to get in the routine. I have also done something where I do specific tasks that I can actually remember doing where my partner does other tasks.
I think she needs to work on radical acceptance and understanding ADHD. The best thing you can do is just laugh off the mistakes.
I have a weird question, but are you having enough sex? I find that you more irritated with your partner when you haven’t had sex in a while.
I just came here to say I am the one in the relationship constantly breaking or forgetting things. He definitely gets annoyed with me, but has never yelled or raised his voice.
I’m not saying we have to put up with all of our partners’ faults, but there is a better way to go about it. If you’re both willing to try therapy it’s worth a shot, otherwise I recommend finding someone who wants to work with you and not against you
I don’t know what to say about all this, but I do want to point out that you aren’t being genuine with the whole ramble at the beginning about “I know I fuck up and am not perfect” because you specifically say “about 3 times a year” and are putting her in a bad light. I’m not saying she’s a good person, but pretending you’re admitting your wrongs and saying your girlfriend is right but purposefully phrasing it like that is… weird. Someone smarter than me take this and make it make more sense.
Read this sentence you wrote out loud 1,000 times:
*My only real issue with her, is her feelings towards me.*
Can I tell you a little bit about me? I am a 45 white female for background.
It wasn’t too many months ago, with a lot of therapy and other healthier life style changes/choices, that I realized how afraid of my anger I was. Growing up anger lead to violence. I learned through therapy that people get angry with the safest person they have in their lives. I realized that when I get angry at my husband of 19 years that all the other anger I feel about whatever else was seeping out. To be clear, I would be angry about something legit and he would get 100 percent of my anger (which I honestly felt was about whatever made me angry at him) when he only deserved 20 percent. I was hard to figure out as a couple because neither of us were lying to each other.
Even if this is the case, you need to put yourself first. If you are unhappy and don’t see that changing, you need to bail.
I’m not saying this even applies to what you have going on, but it took me 45 years to figure it out, maybe i can save you guys some time? Best to you.
Maybe use a chart …like a chore chart for you, since you forget?
If not for her, for you, mate.
I mean, the locking of the backdoor part, that part just a no-no. Where I live, it’s become pretty dangerous to forget to lock the door.
It’s up to you if you want to keep being with her. If both of you think that you truly want to be together, you should at least attempt couples counseling.
Let me ask something: have you ever thought about the amount of effort she has to spend fixing your forgetfulness? I have ADHD as well and I am the queen of putting something down and just… forgetting about it… so I get it, I really do. But now that means your wife has to not only fix your mistakes, but check to see if you made them. I’m presuming your wife is a human person and also has things she has to keep up with? Well, because of your forgetfulness she has to keep up with all of those things *and also you.* Imagine for a moment how *frustrating* that must be. I’m assuming things so bare with me, but one of the things you mention having trouble with is locking the door. So your wife comes home from the grocery store (or wherever else), unloads her stuff, and now has to check every door in the house to make sure you didn’t accidentally leave it open that day. That’s a whole other thing!
I’m not saying her resentment is right, but can you imagine having to do that about a thousand little things for *years*? It sounds like she recognizes the resentment is unhealthy and wants to go to therapy to fix it. You also want to fix it. Therapy sounds like a good start! Both of you have things you need to work on.
I know because I put my partner through it. The effort he expended to remember to check behind to me to make sure I hadn’t forgotten something was enormous and exhausting. When I saw what I was putting him through, I sought therapy to develop better coping mechanisms and routines. And I’ve locked every single door every single night before I go to sleep for the past year 🙂 You *can* forget important things less, and she *can* let go of the resentment, you guys just have to agree to give it all you’ve got.
If you think you have ADHD, then perhaps you should see a doctor to see if you really do have it. It is at least an explanation for her as to why you can’t keep up with these small things that may be simple for her to remember but not for you.
If you really do have ADHD, it will justify all of these mistakes and maybe make her kinder and more considerate of your situation.
By all means, go to therapy with her if you want to make it work. Clearly she also wants to make it work. Most people would just break up without suggesting therapy. But also definitely look into the ADHD to see if you really have it so you can also help yourself.
You can’t simply resign to “oh I know I’m gonna make these mistakes again and again.” Do something about it.
You sound like an idiot and I’ll bet 2Pence that you never forget anything that’s important to you.
It’s just sad. At first I wanted to say “break up with her because you don’t deserve her” because I genuinely didn’t have a whole lot of sympathy for you because you do not believe you can change things even before trying therapy.
I hate the idea of emotions having to be broken into logical fragments. There are feelings and emotions that don’t have words or definitions. And it’s not because we are crazy or irrational, but because we haven’t got there yet.
It’s never about just the trash or unlocked doors. Resentment isn’t because of four times a year forgetting the trash. I saw in replies you stated she is has stated before she felt like your mom. That is the issue. That is what therapy can help resolve. It’s not about you doing everything right suddenly. It’s about understanding why those things are big factors in your relationship.
I am going to put out hypotheticals. Not saying this is the case for you, but I want to share it to maybe help you understand where the deeper level of hurt can come from.
1. Some places will not people leave trash outside. The means there can be odors but also bugs. Some people are extremely adverse to bugs.
2. Some places charge extra fees for late trash or extra trash. This can mean sacrificing on smaller things in the budget. “No coffee for a day/week to help pay the fee so I can still save this much cash.”
3. Mental health is a factor you mentioned. Coming home the trash having to be there is draining with just the thought, but even if you don’t get it, I know she and you probably talked about those things.
4. But the biggest cause of resentment in my experience, even if nothing from 1-3 applies, the fact you didn’t have to do that brain work and have that foresight can be so hurtful in itself. When things go wrong, when you make a mess, when she fails, it’s her to solve everything.
But what I will end it on is you saying her therapy isn’t helping. She’s alive. It’s working. Haha. Like it’s really sad that people feel like they can deem the success mark of other people’s therapy. I could honestly see her telling you that once or twice, and you thinking it’s 100% factual when sometimes we have bad weeks. If she is still going, it has purpose.
If you think you have ADHD, then you should obviously have that figured out. Of course she doesn’t want you to just apologize to her…. She wants to see effort on your part. You say that she’s trying her best when it comes to work, and handling her trauma, right? So if she’s willing to put the work into something like that… why won’t you make effort into sorting yourself out, as well? She flat out told you that she wants to go to a therapist to work on things together… she’s trying to find a solution here – what are you doing besides saying “sorry” ad infinitum and coming up with excuses every few months? Do you honestly believe that the problems you have in this relationship wouldn’t just follow you to another one?
Others have said plenty, so I’ll just mention that the type of mistakes you make are things that could really affect someone with trauma in their past. You leave the door unlocked sometimes? In my neighborhood, that’s no big deal, but other places I’ve lived, I absolutely RELIED ON THAT LOCK to keep me safe. When I was still dealing with a lot of trauma and living in a dangerous place, I would have lost my shit at you, even if it wasn’t super often.
And you absolutely don’t have to be on medication to manage your adhd (at your level). But you DO have to manage it. “Oops I sometimes forget to keep my girlfriend safe sorry I have adhd” does not work. “Oops I know that I can’t always remember to do the things necessary for our life, but I also don’t set reminders and have no plan of action besides shrugging” also doesn’t work. I’m being a bit hard on you here, but that’s essentially what’s happening. You DO need to manage your mental health/adhd to ensure that you don’t forget things so often. I know it doesn’t SEEM often, but as someone else pointed out, forgetting 12 things 4 times each is basically once a week. That’s not gonna work. I do applaud you for asking for advice and wish you both the best.
Bro your mistakes put her in actual physical danger and you refuse to do anything about it.
As someone with adhd seeing you say “oops I’m sorry I’ll try to do better but not really because that is just who I am” is honestly unacceptable.
I have adhd and I take very low level medication for it and have put A LOT of work to work on myself. I have a todo list everyday I have to check off with common things that I need to check for security. For issues I know I have I create workarounds…
Ex: you forget to lock the door- get doors that auto lock.
You forget to close a door, get a device that makes a noise or alerts you if a door is open.
Truly you need to improve yourself, so if you want to break up do it, but also realize if you ever want to have a relationship work or just be a person who doesn’t endanger yourself and everyone/anyone who lives with you, work on yourself.
Is it a gas oven that you bumped? I’d flip too, you could have caused a very serious accident. Your whole.post is basically “welp, I make mistakes and I will forever!” Regularly forgetting to close (??) And lock doors is not just some simple mistake, these are mistakes that could have very serious consequences and it seems like you’ve just accepted it. Those are life skills, you need to go to therapy or something to figure it out. Your girlfriend wants to go to therapy, so go. And take more responsibility for your bumbling.