Never Better.

I knew my husband had a disability when I married him, I just did not know how severe it was. Until tonight.

He blew up our electric stove. The how of it is not as important as the fact that he made a stupid choice that 99.9% of people, who aren't electricians, would make. So we are stoveless for now.

For a long time we both thought that my husband had Asperger's Syndrome. The LCSW he saw three times this past fall said she didn't think so, although she thought he was on the autism spectrum for sure. How the hell would she know that from three visits? I've known him eight years and I'm still trying to figure it out. I called her after he got in trouble at work, she called back and said she'd requested some testing from our insurance, and she'd get back to me. That's been two months, now. Do I care enough to call her? Or did she mail it to us and he hid it, as he does much of the mail.

My husband...is not right. I can't explain it. As I said, I'm still trying to figure it out. I remember a made-for-TV-movie that was on in the late 90s. It was based on a true-story about a family who had adopted a Native American boy who had Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. The adoptive parents loved the boy and did everything they could for him to be a productive member of society and a good person.

Finally, one night, when the boy was about fifteen, they went out to dinner and left him home alone to do his homework. They came home to water tumbling down the stairs from the upstairs bathroom. The downstairs was quickly filling with water as well.

When they asked their son what had happened? He explained that he couldn't get the water to turn off, so he had closed the door so "there wouldn't be any consequences."

He had no concept of what a consequence was and could not take responsibility for his actions. It was the last straw for the parents. They found a different living situation for the boy, I think it was a group home, I don't remember. No matter what they did, was kinds of therapists, training, psychotherapy, discussions they did with the child, he was not capable of being responsible.

And that resonates for me now. No matter how many ties I give my husband a direction, he does not remember it. No matter how many times I tell him--10, 20, 100 times. He cannot make the change or follow the direction. He is not capable.

It does not make him a bad person. It just makes him a very, very difficult person to live with. I can't do this anymore. I feel like I'm decompensating very badly, and that's perhaps why I sleep about 12-18 hours a day.

I have no money.
I have no friends or family who would take me in. And my cats.
I'm trapped.

When I had the money, I didn't go, because we suddenly had health insurance for the first time in 6 years, and I was going to get him some help with a psychologist. And it didn't really work out. Things didn't get addressed, didn't get better, nothing changed. Except the money was gone.

I feel like to save myself, I've got to leave. I don't want a divorce, but neither can I live with him. It's just too exhausting. I feel like I have a toddler who needs constant supervising. If I had a dog or a cat who behaved this way, I'd be finding them a new place to live.

Lord help me.