Frantic, childish behavior post verbal eruption?

[Mndisfam]

First post here! Learning a lot, but they’re some things I don’t understand.

Married 31 years, husband diagnosed with borderline and possible ADHD 7 years ago. He does nothing about his diagnosis, and is in obvious denial about the situation - which makes my life very difficult and fraught.

The last 2 weeks I felt he was ‘cycling up’ for an eruption and it came this week. It was typical - projection, blaming, yelling, etc. Its was a standard outburst.

Since then, he has a frantic, childish and almost manic aspect to his behavior that I can’t process. One of his issues is he is notorious for refusing to help out in any way. Since his outburst, he attempted a few things on his own, but they’re not sensible, needed or correct. For instance, we’re doing spring clean up. He decided out of the blue to prune a tree that 1) doesn’t need it 2) has now been damaged bcs it’s the wrong time to prune and 3) he knows we have an arborist that is coming in 2 weeks for a tree inspection. Never have we ever discussed pruning that tree.

He sighs a lot, really loudly, whenever he sees me. Attention seeking? He repeatedly offers help to me for things I don’t need at all - when I say it’s not needed he pouts and points out how helpful he wants to be, but I won’t let him. Of course, this is all in front of our adult daughter home from college, so is this all just to make me look bad?

Aside from using all my energy to ignore him and stay away...any advice? TBH, I have always found his post episode behavior to be as difficult as his eruptions...and the post goes on forever. It doesn’t help that he has started drinking again, heavily, which always leads to disaster.

Aside from ignoring him, which is hard when we’re stuck together, any tips or insight? thanks!

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[Naughty Nibbler]

Hi Mndisfam:
Sorry you are having a tough time with your partner.

I read an article awhile ago that stated people with unmanaged ADHD are apt to evolve to BPD behaviors. 

Here is something to try:
Make a list of your own things to do.  Have some way to signify % done & when complete (a hand drawn spreadsheet format or a more formal one).  Then, give your husband the opportunity to add some things he would like to see done. Just be very casual about it & give him the opportunity to discuss one of the activities, claim part of an activity, add his own, etc. 

Don't nag him & don't try to force him or invalidate him in any way.  Just be pleasant & give him the opportunity to add some things to the list, take on some activities on the list & to have a common list or his own list.  This strategy may help or the first attempt might fail, but it can't hurt to try.

Sometimes, when a person has an opportunity to do something without pressure or criticism, they may jump in and participate.

The spontaneous tree-trimming episode sounds like a passive aggressive act. You might want to check out info. on "Validation/Don't Invalidate".  You will find a link from the "Tools" menu, within the large green band towards the top of the page.

Validation can be tricky to use in every situation. Sometimes it's best to just remain silent.  It's good to validate feelings, but you never want to validate what's invalid. What can be more important is to NOT invalidate by word, expression, body language or action.

Is there some way he managed to gain control of his drinking in the past?  Any healthy activities that have helped?  It's easier to stop doing something unhealthy, if you have healthy alternatives to turn to. 

[Mndisfam]

Thanks for your advice. It’s a tough time in our family now, really focusing all my effort on keeping it together!