I don't know how to answer WHAT I WANT.
How about:
- a husband who understands and acknowledges he broke his marriage vows;
- a husband who understands his own flaws and limitations, their source, and their effects on his life and yours;
- a husband who earnestly desires to work within his own flaws and limitations to achieve an environment of safe recovery, growth, and healing;
- a husband who will listen to understand, rather than love-bombing and asking "why isn't THIS good enough for you?";
- a husband who will try to improve himself for the sake of being better, then offering that better self to you in good faith, rather than characterizing your interactions as a transaction under which he puts in X effort and gets Y result, including sexual intimacy, in return;
- a competent man who will take ownership and leadership of these painful tasks leaving you with enough space to safely do the work you need to do.
Sound like a good start?
Present him with the list, say "This is what I want," and then let him put in the work. With ADHD it's going to take an enormous amount of time and effort that is entirely unfamiliar to him, so you decide if a continued relationship with him is worth the time and effort it's going to take him, if he even starts those wheels rolling at all.
he had ADHD, low executive functioning, and low emotional intelligence
Am I romanticizing our relationship out of fear? Am I gaslighting myself? Is he manipulating me?
How much were you aware of his conditions before getting into the marriage? If you were, you already know he's a "bad bet" and rolled the dice, anyway. This isn't an accusation or conviction, it should just inform you that there's a lot less "sunk cost" into the relationship than it feels like.
If you were NOT aware, then you're not gaslighting yourself at all. You're just adjusting to a situation which is chaotic, unpredictable, and unfamiliar, with perhaps some guilt that you got into it and don't want to break it out of hand, particularly because you feel love for him still. Remember that he's the one who broke it, and the emotion of love should inform your decisions, not drive them. He's the one who killed your obligations, and they are well and truly gone. It is entirely up to you to decide whether or not to continue forward with him or without him, and whichever decision you make will be the morally correct one.
Am I just obsessed about these indiscretions and about to throw away an otherwise very good relationship
Two things.
1) You're not "obsessed" about these "indiscretions." You are attempting to process the trauma of adultery. Your brain is going to try to shy away from processing that this has happened to you, while at the same time, contradictorily (Yes I'm making that word up XD), your brain knows that you need to integrate all of this into your internal story. This isn't obsession. This is a the perfectly normal, natural, and truly painful way that we all integrate trauma. The main thing to focus on when you are processing and integrating is that the events aren't happening to you right now. The texts they exchanged aren't particularly substantive, they're the mutterings of a limerance-laden fantasy. Take small bites, give every emotion its time on the stage, and understand you're in it for the long haul. All this pain is going to change you, yes, and there's nothing you can do about it. Accept this (no need to approve of it, it's crappy and will remain crappy for all time), and be fair to yourself as you grow into a new and different person.
2) What relationship? Good, bad, or otherwise, that relationship is dead and gone, and he killed it. People want to "get back to where we were before" and pine for the innocence and untrammeled terrain. You never will. Grieve what you have lost, for it is well and truly lost and will never return. We say "reconciliation" but what we are really doing is building a new relationship altogether. It will never be the same as the old, dead relationship, because it cannot be. But what you can do is build in authenticity, effort, new knowledge, and compassion. Primarily for yourself. And if he cannot or will not build in these things along side you, then you may take or leave his presence in your life as you see fit.
These are the sorts of things that worked for me in the aftermath. As with all things SI, take what is valuable for you and leave the rest. All the best in your journey.
- Mindjob