Frustrated non-ADHD spouses will often say to me something such as "It's so obvious that my partner should do X. I don't understand why he/she won't!" While a solution to the problem at hand may seem obvious, it's often really not quite so straightforward and here's why:
It's no secret that people with ADHD and those without it have quite different brains. They approach things differently and perceive the world differently in part because the wiring in their brains encourages them to do so. For example, you likely have different abilities to attend to things (ADHD symptoms = distraction and hyperfocus). In addition, ADHD brains tend to receive information in a non-hierarchical fashion, vs. the almost automatically hierarchical way the non-ADHD brain usually works. These differences mean that you might view exactly the same event but interpret it in completely dissimilar ways. (Note, here, that I say "different" not "better" or "worse." Don't fall into the trap of assuming that hierarchical is better, for example. It's better in some situations and worse in others.)
But here's something you may not have thought about - how the effect of accumulated experience with ADHD affects your perception of the world around you and what you perceive your options to be. A person without ADHD typically "learns" that there is a pretty direct correlation between how much effort one expends and one's ability to succeed. Just try harder and you'll eventually prevail. This is not the experience that the ADHD partner has. An adult who has had untreated or undertreated ADHD often learns that there is very little correlation between effort and success. Many with ADHD learn, instead, that they can't predict when they will succeed - no matter the effort - and that they often fail (at least by the standards set up for them in the classroom, at home and with their spouse). Furthermore, when they are in a difficult marriage, they also "learn" that when they fail they may well be upbraided for it by a frustrated spouse who has lost much of his or her empathy for the difficulties that ADHD poses.
If you are a non-ADHD spouse, I want you to put yourself into this situation and think about how you might respond: Your marriage is crumbling, your spouse is frequently angry or frustrated. He or she is often sharp with you, and frequently critical. You have learned over the years that you can't predict whether or not you will be successful when you attempt to do something difficult, so you are wary of trying new things for fear of failure. Your partner has become more and more convinced that you are the heart of the marital problems you both face and that you must do three specific things to prove to her that you're interested in turning the marriage around.
Would you jump up and attempt the three items, knowing that you don't know if you'll succeed or fail, and if you fail you'll be faced with further disappointment or criticism and things will get worse? Or would you hold back and see if it might all pass?
You can use your imagination to put the shoe on the other foot if you are an ADHD spouse, imagining what it would be like to be used to always succeeding, and living with a spouse who often refuses to try your ideas.
This is all complicated by the fact that the method in which a non-ADHD partner might solve a problem, is often quite different from how an ADHD partner might find success. So the "obvious" solution offered by the non-ADHD partner is sometimes not quite on target, though that's not immediately clear.
So, next time the two of you are at this very common impasse, think about how past experience affects your opinions about what is "reasonable" and what is not. I think it will help you find more empathy and patience. Learning about ADHD as an adult means lots of work to change the path of your own "history" and future - from not knowing whether or not you'll be successful to putting good strategies in place so that you know that, more often than not, you WILL succeed. This takes time, hard work, and the patience of both spouses. It's hard to gain the confidence to try at the beginning of the process if you fear that you will only disappoint your spouse if you fail. So two things need to happen - the ADHD spouse has to be willing to try again, regardless of his or her fear of failure AND the non-ADHD partner needs to encourage the experiments it takes to find success. Unless both spouses are willing to support experimentation - and that means both successes AND failures - little progress will be made.
- MelissaOrlov's blog
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Comments
This helps me understand more...
Hi Melissa. I just read your new post with great interest. I'm the non ADD spouse trying to understand and figure out what my brain can't seem to do. By placing myself in my wife's shoes and looking back at me and how I must look like to her when I get frustrated, I can now begin to see more clearly that none of my frustrations will go away. Not until we work it out together. But then I have this question to raise. What if your newly diagnosed partner invalidates the diagnosis process and is now seeing her own counsellor who is apparently helping her treat some of the symptoms. She has made big changes in her lifestyle, but has not given any new meds a chance. Also, when I mentioned that I need to see full disclosure as to what she is doing about the diagnosis and for me to be involved all the way, she told us that these are private matters between her and her counsellor. For your concept to work Melissa, would it not be necessary for her to change her mind about that ? If I was suddenly diagnosed with something, I would make sure my partner knew all about it and participate. Unless I am allowed to work this out with her, how can we monitor or measure successes ? I love my wife and I am learning to not sweat the small stuff. I can take care of myself and her too, typical Fire Fighter huh! I do not give up. I do realize now how I have hurt our relationship and I wish I had been on this website earlier to learn, learn and learn some more. I hope! I pray! I am willing to try anything! I am ready to refocus, and let go of the anger that built up over the years. Thank you for your post, I needed to read that.
Prioritizing
My reaction is that 1) your spouse may need time to rebuild the trust connections with you before giving you more information (she needs to do her work at her pace not be "solved" by another high achiever) and 2) she may need to hyperfocus on her work right now to get it done. Please remember we addies have 50 million things going on in our brains, and it takes enormous discipline to keep focused and working toward a goal.
his issues, my issues, our issues
My ADHD husband has seen a counselor regularly for fifteen years, since his diagnosis. I do not know what goes on in these sessions. I attend with him a couple of times a year, or on rare occasion when we are going through an especially difficult problem, and occasionally I have provided feedback to the counselor when they have implemented medication changes (because often my husband cannot perceive differences in their effects that others can), but otherwise those counseling sessions are *his*. They are his because he has problems and behaviors and issues that he needs to work on all by himself. We deal with *our* issues in a different paradigm.
Sure, the personal issues are related to the interpersonal problems. But it's not my job to monitor his personal progress. It's his responsibility to deal with them and then bring what he has learned through counseling to our efforts to improve our marital issues that relate to his ADHD.
I understand that you may *want* full disclosure and to be involved all the way, because knowing may make you feel better, but this it not something you are *entitled* to. And I know all too well that it's not always very comfortable to be out of the ADHDer-counselor loop. There were certainly times that my husband did not make as good progress with his issues as I thought was reasonable, and I would have liked to move things along through my involvement. It was often exhausting, frustrating, discouraging for me while his progress moved at a snail's pace. It's hard when you want to be in control and your partner's behaviors are constantly throwing wrenches in the works and you don't know what's going on with your spouse's treatment.
But I also feel that by handling it the way we did, my husband ended up "owning" his problems in a way that would not have happened if I'd been constantly sticking my oar in with his counseling. If I'd demanded the full disclosure and total involvement, it would only have perpetuated his dependence on me for responsibility and decision-making. Instead, it took us a long time, a lot of hard work and more than a few bad experiences, but we've reached a point where he has dealt successfully with the vast majority of his ADHD-related problems, and we've resolved most of our marital issues. We've had a happy marriage for the last several years and continue to get better.
I urge you to rethink your point of view on this question. Talking to a counselor of your own for some guidance could also be beneficial. Good luck!
"It matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be." Albus Dumbledore
You make a good point "arwen"
Thank you for a most valuable response "arwen". You make a lot of sense. I am at a crossroads of discouragement and complete exhaustion. I have a fantastic counsellor who takes no side but understands the issues, the problems I face. She knows me as I've disclosed to her everything about me and everything about how I have been seriously emotionally affected by my wife's "condition" that's affected my relationship with her negatively. I am going through counselling regularly and it has made a positive impact on me. But I must be perfectly honest, I will not spend the rest of my life waiting for improvements. That's why I asked about full disclosure so I know what is going on. I'll say this again, I've never been taken down to such a low in my entire life before, not even through the most horrible situations I've encountered in my job as an emergency worker. I despise the situation I am in right now. It is not a life! I don't want this! What a waste of a life! I am responsible and will have to make life changing decisions soon to save my mental health from complete destruction. I am NOT going to wait a full year of "separation" only to be told to supply her with a progress report about me before she makes a final decision to stay or go. Are you kidding me? It's gone full circle and I am the bad guy now because I've complained about the typical seven common flash points for spouses of ADDers. You can find those on line. So no, I will not be punished much longer. That's why I asked for full disclosure, because I need to start making plans for ME, for MY future very soon. If I am not "entitled" to full disclosure, then I am entitled to looking forth to an end to this emotional abuse and now punishment. I will see my counsellor together with my wife in two weeks. I pray and hope that there is a change in attitude at that session because that will be the session that will determine the rest of my future.
You may be pushing too hard
Renoir, you are a man of action. You go in, solve the problem and get out. ADD is not a problem that can be solved like that.
With my husband, the counselor expected me to wait a whole year to address the damage to the marriage and to me. We were living together, I was supporting him, he wasn't even trying to work. But I was expected to keep on like that for a full year before we could even do marriage counseling. Like you, I had my own conselor, who thought I should leave my husband because our values were incompatible (because he obviously did not value working or contributing to household chores).
Think of it like orthopedic surgery. You have an operation, then you have to heal, then you have to learn to bend the joint and walk again. (painful and scary) The meds (if she'll take them) are like the surgery, they make things better physically (in the brain), but it really doesn't cure the problem. The person is not ready to go out dancing.
It did eventually get better. It's not perfect, and if I could go back and talk to my 5-years-ago self, I'd tell her to run. But I'm here now, and he finally came down off his cloud and got a job.
I think expecting too much too soon can make it worse.
I find it very telling that
I find it very telling that you put quotations around "condition" ADHD is not a "condition" it is neurological disorder, it is a brain with different chemisty. You can see the difference on brain scans. Calling it a "condition" complete with quotations tells me that you do not yet understand what it means to be born with a brain that works differently from 90% of the population.
Play on words!
"Condition", "neurological disorder", same thing as I have heard counsellors use both terms. It's a play on words and personally, I don't like to word "disorder". By the way, yes I do understand what it means to be born with such a "brain disorder". I've had plenty of time to see, hear, learn about it. It was also explained to us by a well known Psychologist who is an expert in this field. Maybe Mrs Orlov can shed some light as to the proper name to use. What ever my wife has, what ever you or I call it, does not change the fact that she is a beautiful person with a serious problem. The other reply to my post makes a lot of sense and I will do my best to give it time. That's if my wife is willing to reconsider having me in her life. Thank you for your responses.
Therapy and privacy
Right on. My husband of FORTY YEARS was recently diagnosed and is in therapy. We have gone together so that the therapist, and also a physician who prescribed med, can see my husband through a different lens, so to speak. I would say to those non-ADD spouses who are frustrated with the lack of 'sharing' of any and all information that we, the non-ADDers, have to remember that those with ADD often feel criticized most by the people who love them best. Sadly, it's true: our body language and words, too, send messages we do not intend -- that say 'you are failing' or 'you cannot get it right', etc. And, all the while, the ADD spouse has a whirling going on in his or her head. In summary, putting ourselves in their shoes, being the one to suggest experimentation, and finally, being patient beyond belief are the strategies for change. I long ago accepted that IF I wanted my marriage to last, I need to be the lead person, the organizer of things, and often the one most compassionate about the other so that we BOTH can remember why we fell in love:) Good luck to those working on the same issues. Let's hope our spouses feel comfortable and skilled enough to tell us more and more; my husband is revealing a lot lately. It's extraordinary what therapy plus meds plus my behavior changes have resulted in. Take heart; you CAN teach an old dog new tricks:)
Finding an effective doctor
Hi Arwen, thank you for your posts. It seems like you/your husband found an effective doctor. May I asked how you found this person? Is there a directory of specialists or did you have a good list of interview questions that you wouldn't mind sharing, etc.? Thank you.
Onward!
Bitten Lip
"This is all complicated by the fact that the method in which a non-ADHD partner might solve a problem, is often quite different from how an ADHD partner might find success. So the 'obvious' solution offered by the non-ADHD partner is sometimes not quite on target, though that's not immediately clear."
Thanks, Melissa! I had copied your paragraph above the one copied here, ready to respond to the notion non-addies are always succeeding, and then you added something similar to my reaction. My husband told me recently that my lower lip was bruised, and I told him I had actually been biting my lip a lot lately as we work on building a calmer AS environment. Not only do I have to calm my ADHD tendencies to a neurotypical level, now they've got to go even calmer, but I guess it's a blessing that maybe attempting one will help me reach the closer other.
I really want people to understand the addie brain because so much time is wasted with cookie cutter, therapeutic approaches and other attempts to help from loved ones. We're all frustrated, I guess.
I read it but am lost and need help
Hi my name is jim and i am lost my wife has ADHD so does 2 of my three kids. even though i have a ton of issues with my son this is about my wife. She tells me she is so overwhelmed and feels trapped. and that may be true in fact i believe it is. I am in the navy i am gone a lot i don't do bills because it is hard to pay on deployment and track them. and she says she doe not trust me with them anyway. i am not romantic enough and i don't meet her needs. to best explain my issue here is an email from her to me (Just how I see things from where I am and how close I am to losing my mind. That's why I think it would be better if we just meet our own needs, and that way, no one is to blame if they don't get met. I can get my need for touching met by getting manicures and pedicures and massages. I can meet my need for romance with books and daydreaming and movies. I can meet my own need to have meaningful conversations so that people will know who I am, with friends.
If we haven't figured this out by now, I don't think I'm capable of making it happen. We'll just do the best we can for as long as we are here. I'm tired, and I'm at the end of my rope, and I'm tired of not being what people need, and tired of depending on other people to meet my needs. I just want to be me. I feel trapped by responsibilities and my to do list and I'm not having fun, anymore. I'm worn down, and I'm tired of fighting to make things better. So, no more will I ask you to read anything or look at anything, I'm done with that. I just have to make it through every day that comes at me, without losing my mind) I do everything i can for her i run to the store for her whenever she needs it. i get off work i cook. i clean are room put away laundry she has me and her mom there to take care of the daily rutines at home. she takes the kids to the doctor and pays the bills on her day off. i can't figuire how someone who has a loving husband that has been there through all of her problems of depression, ADHD, and other things can be looked on as not meeting her needs. no i do not hold hands i am not big on touching. I do not buy many gifts just because. i do things for her like make heer bedroom a place to hide. And now she does not want anything to do with me i am last on her list all she does is dive into her work how do i get us back on track. i am not respected from her or feel i hold anything worth while for her. I need help some please give me an idea.
Different languages
Jim,
Have you ever read "The 5 Love Languages" by Dr. Gary Chapman? It describes five "languages" in which people express and receive love, and if two people don't speak the same language, they won't ever feel loved by each other, no matter how hard they're both trying to show it. The five languages are: Physical Touch, Words of Affirmation, Gifts, Acts of Service, and Quality Time. It seems like men tend to have Physical touch as their primary language, but it sounds like yours is Acts of Service--you're taking care of the house and chores, but you're not touching her. What if Physical Touch was her primary language? If you never touch her, she won't feel loved. What if it's Words of Affirmation? If you never tell her you love her, that she's doing a great job managing without you so much, she may well feel like an unloved failure (and being ADHD tends to make you feel like a failure in a lot of things, anyway). What if it's Quality Time? No matter how much you take care of the chores, she won't understand it as love if you don't sit down and just talk with her. It seems like Quality Time is the primary love language for many women, since women more than men process things by talking about them. Not feeling like your life partner wants to talk with you (when that's the thing you're craving most) can be debilitating.
What did you do when you were dating? If she's spent years doing a job that most ADD women find nearly impossible, and hasn't felt loved or valued for it (no matter how much you've shown her--in your language--that you love her), it's not a total surprise that she's giving up.
Just sharing some things that have been a tremendous help in my ADD marriage to my non-ADD husband.
Sure have
Thanks for the reply. i have read the 5 love languages. And i have tried to ably them on top of all the other things i do. i do touch i am sure not as much as she would like but i try. i give her all the things i can and it is not enough for her. She always wants more. The simple fact is often she will not accept respoceability for her part in this relationship. i have to be the one to apoligize and make changes. i can't keep up with it all. when we talk it is turned into who is right and wrong and i make it a point not to point blame just express how i feel about how we are doing. i take blame for my mistakes and i try not to turn it on her. i hold her i am there for her when she is crying and frustrated i listen to her feelings about how bad work goes. i had a bad week a couple of weeks ago and wanted to tell her about it but all she talked about was how bad it was for her at work and home. i do not talk about work much but i really needed to talk to her. i was at the point of crying and i don't do that. but that was where the stress level had got. i give her just about anything she wants or needs and if i am failing in some area i try to fix it. ADHD or not i do not undertand why my feelings or needs are not important to her. And to answere the question what we did while dating i did not touch much there either. the book has helped and i will continue to work on it. but when is it my turn to feel loved and appreciated. even if what i do is not her love lanuage don't demoralize my efforts as no big help. if nothing else i protect her so she can deal with the things i can not help her with and give her the freedom to reach her goals in life and in the family i don't ask anything from her but her best that day it may only getting up and watching Tv. but i do not force her or try to do something beyond her ability on any given day. i want her to be happy but is there a point to where nothing i do will ever meet the scene in her head that she thinks is the perfect marrige or close to it.
Re: Sure have
I didn't mean to demoralize your efforts, and I sincerely apologize if it came across that way. If my husband didn't do so much to help out at home, I would have sunk under the waves a long time ago. (I feel guilty that he has to do so much, actually, but we're working on balancing it out more, one task at a time.)
Have you tried counselling? The fact that she wrote that email saying she's giving up on trying to make things better doesn't actually mean she's given up--she's still trying to make you understand how she feels. She probably is tired of trying to figure herself and her marriage out on her own, though. (Not to imply that you haven't been involved in trying to fix problems, but sometimes you can't hear anyone's voice but your own until an outside authority steps in.)
Also, (since it really was so helpful to us, I'll push it again) has she read the book? ADDers can't focus on what they don't find interesting, but everyone is interested in themselves, and so reading it together and discussing it might help you understand each other more.
As for her not listening to you when you wanted to talk about work, I'm so sorry. I love my husband and want to know what's going on in his life, but I totally space out when he starts talking about people I've never met and problems I don't understand. I feel terrible for doing this. I will try to sit up straight, look at him while he's talking, picture what he's talking about, and I cannot focus. I'll suddenly realize he's been talking for 10 minutes and I've not heard a single word.
Have she tried medication? I don't think you can get out of clinical depression without it, and it does wonders to clear the brain fog of ADD, so you can focus on what matters, not just what interests you at the moment. Medication alone doesn't fix the problem, but it enables you to access your willpower, so you can get past that wall and actually do what you need to do. Therapy shows you how ADD has affected you, and points out which habits you need to learn to function more normally, and then helps you learn them.
I hope things turn around for you.
My daughter does this too
She talks endlessly about her friends. I tell her I can't keep them straight without a scorecard. I think ADHDers live so much in their own head that they don't understand when other people aren't interested. My main auditory memory of her is "no, listen, listen" while she cut off my comment or attempt to redirect her to tell me, again, that no Joe, was the one dating Sally, but he used to be with Jane (like I cared). She was in her 20s then, not 5, but she has untreated ADHD.
She has many friends and she is incredibly loyal to them. One friend she lived with for a long time didn't like me, so I wasn't allowed to know where she lived (so the friend wouldn't see me and do me harm). I would never have lived with, or even been friends with, anyone who would have harmed her.
My husband is not allowed to talk about his clients because of HIPPA, I wish he could talk to me more about his work.
I know that feeling well!
At the moment, I actually have a wordpad file to make little notes about the places my fiancee makes deliveries to (he delivers beer to bars and clubs). They're all familiar to him, but he makes around 17 deliveries a day and I only hear about the ones that have a story attached like a funny manager or the delivery point being blocked. He forgets that I don't even know where most of these bars are, let alone what the delivery situation is like!
What I find more frustrating is his tendency to tell a story about two or more people. "So I'm talking to Tom, Dick and Harry and Harry says "Blah blah" to Tom, so Dick says "blah" and he replies with "Blah" so he pretends to (do something) and he says "blah" so he does this and -" Wait, who said what? Luckily all I need to do is say "Who said what? Can you use names please honey?" before he retells the story using names.
I think it's a combination of living in their own head, missing certain cues and not being able to filter out the irrelevant information. We're currently trying to work out a signal so that I can let him know when a story or ancedote is starting to drag out and remind him to stick to the point. Otherwise he end up talking about something completely different that has no relevance to the original conversation.
You didn't
I am sorry if I made it sound like you were demoralizing my efforts I was speaking about my wife. Just like yesterday her medication had been at rite aid so long they called and said if we do not pick it up they were going to put it away. And then have to go through the whole process of getting it again. So off I went to get it for her even though I had to prepare to leave for 2 weeks. I let her know it was picked up she did not even notice what I said she was on her phone doing something else. Then when I get to a point I cannot keep it in any longer I tell her how it makes me feel and she says it is not special or any real help by me doing those things. Even though she knows how it gets when she does not have her meds. As for her reading the book she is the one who told me to read it after she had finished it. the thing is she is good for about a week to 2 weeks in trying to do those things then she falls right back into the old ways. And if I say something to let her know I am not seeing her try. Even though she thinks she is. I don't talk a lot unless I got my facts. That is just how I am. She moves something and says she didn't someone else moved it, and then when you show her that she did she will still deny it. Why is that? Well I have my ideas based off her own words she thinks if she does stuff like that she is crazy. I don't feel that is true but don't blame everyone else when it was not their fault. She will say she told me something and I know for a fact she didn't then I get blamed for not doing what she said. These things I struggle to understand but I accept them. And most of it is not a marriage ender. But I am in the military and my stress level goes through the roof. Then to go home and her be mad at me for something I did not do or if I did not on purpose gets old. She is on medication and we went to regular marriage counseling she stopped because the therapist did not agree with her especially after she (my wife) named off everything she had to do but left me out or until the very end of her priorities. And she cut my wife off and said there was a big part of the problem. My wife went back to ADHD being a part of it and the therapist said even with that being a part of our life she still had to make me a top priority. And I agree with that. We are a part of each other and it does not matter what the love language is we have to love each other for who we are and how we are. Does that say we don't try to follow the book? No not at all change in a relationship is a must and we both should work at meeting each other’s needs through their love language but until that day comes accept that person and love them for who they are and how they are. My wife is an icredible person and i love her but i am tired of being only important when she needs something from me. or when i act the way she wants me to act. I know she does not mean she is done trying with us or even the with trying to deal with ADHD but to hear those words is like hearing we are over because once she gives up i know i can not continue to carry her forever and that is not something i ever want to happen.
Thanks again for the information i really appreciate it all.
Jim
I don't know!
In Driven to Distraction, Dr. Hallowell mentions that teens often answer the very same question, but directed by their parents about schoolwork, with an angry, "I don't know!!!". Only when backed into a corner do they utter this absurd truth. They don't know. Consider how frustrating that is. It is no less frustrating for adults, though we've learned never to utter such a childish statement. We fill in the void of ignorance with some explanation/excuse/justification, or with silence. One good that comes of an ADHD diagnosis is that we finally have an answer to the question, "Why?".
- SheThinks...
Just willing to try
I have been dating my fiance for a year and a half now and we were engaged 8 months ago. I guess when I met him I knew there were some things about him that were questionable but I figured they were just things from being single for so long. Before we started dating he had not been a serious relationship for 11 years and has a 14 year old daughter.
I moved in with him after dating for 6 months because he is such a great, nice, hardworking person and everything looked perfect on paper. Looking back now there were red flags flying all over the place being late, his responsibilities which are limited to him working and working on his race car, completely depending on his ex to tell him everything about his daughter, his dependency on his parents (and they love that (controlling), just not showing up (cause something else came up - and not calling - didn't know he had to)! At first I just thought he was relationship handicap and that it was fixable. So fast forward to today and I have lived the past 8 months with a man that now "hyper-focus" has stopped is not a reliable partner at all. I go to college part time, work full time and have a son that is involved in sports.
So instead of trying to help me with anything it's whenever I am not home that is his time! He has never cooked dinner, cleaned the house twice now, comes home later than what he was supposed (and there is always a reason - like someone stopped by and he couldn't just leave, or he lost track of time, or he needed to finish this) but never bothers to call and say he will be late. So not only have I done everything all day long I also get to sit down and eat dinner with my son without him time and time again. Then when he gets home he wants to kiss and make up cause he doesn't get it. He forgets to pay bills, I have to tell him weekly what is due and that isn't even a gaurantee that it will get paid on time, I just come to take over just making sure the bills are getting paid except for a couple and they are always late and then he blames it on the computer cause he waited til the day before it was due or the day of. Cause it's always someone elses fault.
In addition to all this I believe he has a drinking problem. He drinks every day! Sometimes its only 1 or 2 but other times he drinks til be blacks out and then he tells me it doesn't take much for that to happen cause he was exhausted and that is why it effected him that way. Recently I found a whole bottle of vodka empty, he isn't supposed to drink in front of my son so he was hiding it in slushies! He got drunk last week when he was supposed to be someplace else, and when I got mad it wasn't his fault his friends kept handing him beers. Have I mentioned he is a grown man! (or physically appears to be).
The sex in our relationship has become non existant because I am not connected to him anymore. He is like a child when it comes to sex. He wants it all the time, it's never enough and if he doesn't get it he begs, and tells me its the ony way he can sleep and keeps pushing and pushing. I could literally have sex with him 3 - 4 times a week and it's like on a schedule. If I didn't do it yesterday he has to have ti today. It's like a 14 year ood. I have come to feel like an object to satisfy his needs only.
It's always about him - in everything he does - his race car (his hobby) which is hyper-focuses on constantly to the point that it is the number one priority and the family has become secondary, he told me in the beginning he wants a family - now he wants a family "sometimes" - he is truly draining!
I am to the point of leaving him and moving out, he says he wants to try but I keep telling him that unless he gets treatment - meds and/or counseling, (cause if I didn't mention it he is 100% untreated except for his self medicating with alcohol) that just saying okay I will keep trying will not work. He says I have a bad attitude now cause I am simply fed up and not willing to try if he is not willing to get the help needed! I guess in my opinion the defination of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result and I have been doing that now for about 1 1/2 years. I have asked him to go to counseling and asked him to go be evaluated (and I am 150% sure he is a text book case of ADHD) and his response is if he gets to start having sex again, whatever it takes. To me that is not truly wanting a life change!
I see people on here that have lived with this far longer than I have and I respect their efforts but figured everyone might be able to offer some insight on how to deal with this situation.
hold your ground
Your partner is not facing the reality of his ADHD, nor his addiction to alcohol. Your position should be that being a good partner isn't negotiable, nor can it be "bought" with sex. He can start to address his issues - see a doctor, consider treatments, start to make changes and as he does this you can decide how/when you feel close enough to him to want to have sex again.
ADHD isn't an excuse for poor behavior and not helping out, it is only a reason. Now that he knows the reason the ball is in his court to figure out how to address it and start to move his life forward again. Since you are not yet married to him, you have an opportunity to see how well he does or doesn't do with this and make your decisions about your relationship carefully.
Make sure you don't get pregnant in the meantime and be wary of joining your finances until you figure this out.
Communication
I am new to this site. I have been reading all the comments and feel maybe this isn't a site that is helpful to those of who have
ADD. There seems to be a lot of very negative comments about spouses who have add. I have been married for 25 years with and I KNOW that all of our problems are NOT just because I have ADD. I work pretty hard to stay focused I started taking meds 2 years ago, and although it has helped I do have ADD. I do realize there have been many challenges over the years, but just because my spouse doesn't have add he still leaves the toilet seat up and the cap off of the toothpaste. Some of the better aspects of having ADD is that I am always ready for an adventure, when things are rough I am easily distracted and can be a distraction. We laugh a lot. I am flexible and can change plans very quickly. There are so many complaints that seem so minor in the scheme of life. We have discussed what is really important and the reasons it is really important then I work really hard to do what we have agreed. I have also noticed the way I process or hear things that is sometimes (a lot of time) is very different than what he is saying or what he means, so we do a lot of clarifying and exampling. Also his common sense isn't always my common sense so what makes perfect sense to him makes doesn't even enter my mind.
So I guess what I am saying is being with someone who has ADD isn't as bad being with someone who is a drug addict or active alcoholic. Marriage is work whether or not you are married to person with ADD, and communication clarification can go a long way. Personally I am usually on time but I also know that time is a huge issue and I always plan to be an hour early and then sometimes sit in the car with a book that I keep in my purse. In our house 5p is always 4p.
Lori, I congratulate you
on understanding your ADD (positives and negatives) and taking steps to minimize the negatives. I am sorry that you do not feel this is an ADD-friendly place. I am the nonADD spouse of a husband with inattentive ADD, he has been diagnosed for close to 3 years now, and we are in a similar place as you since my husband is actively working on his ADD with meds and coaching, I have worked through the anger that had built up from not understanding what was wrong, and our lives together are definitely getting better and better.
Sometimes he says he has a hard time reading here because of the pain, but he does come and read or discusses with me a posting I found particularly appropriate to our situation because seeing or hearing something from a third party seems to allow him to internalize the pain the nonADD spouse feels in a way that he can feel it unemotionally. I mean in a way that doesn't feel like he is being blamed since he KNOWS he is not responsible for the pain that spouse feels, yet he can think about his behavior and then say to me, "Do you ever feel that way?" When we are talking about our own issues together, it is much harder for him to not feel defensive, yet when we can discuss it over a board posting, it is more a discussion and not littered with emotional land mines.
What we all have to understand it that the situation with an ADD mate isn't always on the upswing. For us we had a rough year where we didn't know why he was being so unreliable about keeping his word, distractable with regard to attention to me, & irritable when he was reminding of things. I was very frustrated and angry that my awesome loving husband seemed to prefer video games to being with me (probably partly because I was so angry and frustrated with him, but it was becoming a catch-22), and then after we got the diagnosis and the REAL work began we had at least 6 of the most frustrated months of my life. We had a diagnosis and a gameplan, and yet he couldn't/wouldn't ENGAGE. He just sat at idle and hoped his meds would take care of everything.
Now that we are both actively working on the problems we bring to the table, and you are right in that most all problems have both of you contributing to them somehow, things are once again very good. I found this site during our stressful 6 months, and I have done some venting here because it is better than venting at him, and I NEEDED to vent somewhere. I was angry and I was hurt and I felt like he didn't care enough to follow through on his diagnosis. He was mourning needing meds and once he took meds he was mourning all the unfinished tasks littering his life. It takes time. And the help and suggestions I read here from others who had come out on the other side of where I was were/are invaluable to me as are the stories of ppl who were where I was. It means a lot to have your feelings validated and ALSO get suggestions for improvement in the same place!! And reading the stories of the ppl who have it much worse than I ever did enables me to both appreciate what I have in my husband and to sympathize/empathize with them in their difficult decisions and choices they are facing. Maybe that enables them to feel heard and validated and maybe walk away with one suggestion they haven't tried yet, or just to feel like they have tried it all and it is safe to walk away for the safety of their family.
A lot of the ppl here are just getting diagnosed or just suspecting the diagnosis. They are deep in the pain and anger stage, and some of them have mates who have done HEINOUS things. Their anger is not without cause, and the only way to save their relationships and families is to work through it. Personally I feel this site is great for all of us. It is my belief if you read here some more, and try to put yourself back into the place where you were trying to figure out how to make a marriage work complicated by ADD & your husband's issues too, you will be a big help to those just going through that situation today.
We need more ADD voices. Ppl who are articulate and who have been there and who can help explain to a mate in pain what their spouse might be thinking/feeling that ISN"T the lack of caring that it looks like to the nonADD spouse in that moment. I sincerely hope you stick around!!
I want to thank you for your
I want to thank you for your response. I read the response and continued to read what people were writing, and although I do realize that living with me can be challenging, I found that there are things that I do that can be really frustrating and I was just unaware of. Therefore I will continue to read and learn and in some cases even defend or try to help others understand how my different mind works. There are solutions to almost all problems. There are things that would make my husband so upset and I truly didn't get it and felt that he was being oversensitive. When he would say if the tables were turned you would be angry too. Fact is i know i wouldn't, partly because i probably wouldn't even notice. The problem and advantage of ADD is sometimes you really are on your own little island. We joke that if i angry it is very short lived because after a minute or so i have moved on, its hard to dwell on anything when your brain is always moving forward (or in circles). Thanks for the eye opener.
I second what Aspen said
I also think it is great when persons with ADHD, such as Miss Behaving, "put me in my place" by sharing in a way that enables me to understand what my ADHD spouse might be experiencing and also how what I do contributes to/exacerbates what she is feeling. So yes, please stay, and share.
Aspen, who suggests what postings to discuss?
Hi Aspen,
I see what you mean about how discussing someone else's post might be easier/less emotional. What I'd like to know is: does your spouse read something and then ask "Do you ever feel this way?" Or do you read something that expresses what you experience and then ask your spouse to read it?
Each of us do it at times,
but mostly it is me mentioning a situation to him. He reads around here with some regularity--I mean like once a month or so, or if we are having a issue that we can't seem to get a handle on. He knows the situations of some of the regulars around here. He knows the situations of any of the postings that really upset me or strike a cord with me around here because I talk to him about them.
Often before I reply to a post made by an ADD person, I will run the general situation by him and read him my post or just ask him to do it. So sometimes it is him saying, "I read this at the ADHD site, and it really got me thinking about this issue" But a lot of times it is me saying, "I am baffled by this posting/attitude & I'd like to see if you can help me formulate my answer" and sometimes from that will come a "Yep I have it happen the way they are saying, and I see what is confusing you" or if I am really angry at a certain atttiude like a while ago we had a man here who ran his family completely into the ground and finally got help after she filed for divorce and then was furious that his soon-to-be-ex didn't consider him "a big hero" for finally getting help, I vent about it to him, and generally he is on the same side of that argument as me. I guess we just find it bonding a bit to see that even though one has ADD and one is "a non" that we really do see a lot of these issues the same way. And he is able to help me sympathize more with the ADD posters even when the way they phrase something really rubs me the wrong way. He is good at explaining that. Or sometimes he can see how frustrated the nonMate is and he'll ask me if I have that reaction to his doing the same thing.
ADD husband, neurotypical wife
ADD husband here, diagnosed just over a year ago, with NT wife.
The thing to remember is that ADHD is a problem, and like any problem can't be solved until the person admits that they have a problem. I knew for a long time that there was a problem, but I couldn't figure out what it was. Once I knew what it was, I could start working on it. (We had five of the six signs... fortunately our son seems to not be ADD, and I couldn't be happier!)
I'm still working on it. My wife has gotten a lot better at dealing with me and my issues, especially related to attention. (She's known about the "turn away from the computer and look at me" trick for several years now.) And I think I've gotten better at paying attention and staying on task with household stuff, but the meds help with that, to the point where my wife can tell whether or not I've taken them.
An adult who has had untreated or undertreated ADHD often learns that there is very little correlation between effort and success. Many with ADHD learn, instead, that they can't predict when they will succeed - no matter the effort - and that they often fail (at least by the standards set up for them in the classroom, at home and with their spouse).
Speaking from experience, this is so very true. When I'd hear people say "You can do anything if you just put your mind to it," I used to think that was some kind of sick joke on me.
ADHD: the non-ADHD Partner; When is Enough Enough?
As an adherent to the principles of Al-Anon, I often reach a point where I simply walk away from my ADHD spouse, saying to him, "OK, whatever you say." And, I let him flounder, confused and unproductive. The chasm between us is growing wider, and I am not confident our marriage will survive. My quality of life HAS to matter.