Forum topic: extremely frusterating end to a very serious relasonship...HELP

Wed Oct 1st, 2008 - 11:39am by firerescue

Forum: 
Joy in Marriages with ADHD

So here is the jist of my story I had been dating the girl i meet in colorado for 9 months we decided to move out east to pa so she could take over her family's business and i could continue my firefighting career out east. So we packed up and drove out east. We get here and things got hard. new place,people,area,no family,no friends, for me anyways. So lets go back a few years i was diagnoised with adhd when i was 7 and put on ridlin for a few years. I was in an IEP class all through school. (individual education plan). Adhd was a big part of my life when i turned 18 i told myself i had grown out of it well when we made it out east my adhd hit hard more so then it has sience i can remember. Well her parents specialize in none medicated forms of treatment for adhd. there professional psychologists. They use Nuerofeed back, well i sat down with them and told them my adhd problem which they had suspected. So i had to fill out and intake sheet for the sessions and evaluations to begin. the intake sheet  showed pretty much everything bad thing about my younger life adhd, parents divorces, hard times in school, abuse. which she already knew about. well one saturday i had to work it was the morning i filled out my intake sheet. she sat down and read it while i was gone. and just so you know we were so happy and so in love or so i thought. things were great. we moved here together were living with her parents good times ahead.i came home from work and she was distent i asked to talk to her. so we went down stairs she brought the intake sheet. she said that she doesent think that i can give her the life she wants. and my adhd and my past life is to much for her to deal with. so she left me. totally a shock didnt see it comein. we were so happy. now im in a wierd situation living at her parents and she has turned cold and emotionless to me. so im trying to move out get two jobs go to the fire academy and volunteer at a fire station. life just got 1000 times harder which is ok . before we moved out here i asked her many many times if this gets hard we have to stay together and be there for each other she said we were stronger then ever and will will be there for each other no matter how hard it gets so i trusted her.it seems like i go through relasonships there great for so long then they just fall apart all at ounce???????im still going to get nuerofeedback from her parents which is great. i want to try everything to get her back and i have been but nothing is working she says she still loves and cares about me but i dont know. i want her back but is it worth it????????????????thanks for reading. i appreciate every response.

corey

Comments

Submitted by Gar (not verified) on Wed Dec 31st, 2008 - 1:24am

Hey Corey - I read your post and felt a lot of empathy with your situation. I've been in a relationship where you think something is going very well and then the other person finds out something about you that really makes them apprehensive about continuing the relationship. It can be a very disheartening thing to learn that the person you are involved with is basically judging you: at least that's the way it sometimes seems. I think maybe the emotional disconnect that ADHD'ers sometimes feel (in terms of empathy) might cause us to really be surprised by someone's reaction when it might very well be typical. (In my case, it was her finding out about my then-current level of income) Anybody who is looking for a long-term relationship and finds out a piece of information like that might see it as a deal-breaker even though everything else has gone well up to that point. If I have any advice for you this is it - her reaction is clearly indicating that it's a deal-breaker for her. Living with an ADHD person is hard as I'm sure you've guessed from the posts by Non-ADD spouses/significant others on this forum. (I don't know if I have it but I am working with therapists to determine what is actually going on; however my history and profile would seem to indicate that it is a very strong possibility) I think many women are genuine when they say they still love and care about somebody even though they are the ones ending the relationship, but the damning thing about it is that ADHD'ers can't place themselves in the empathetic position of trying to understand those feelings; there's too much of a focus on the immediate pain, disruption, and confusion that this upheaval causes and it's hard (for me at least) to move beyond that, especially if criticism and negativity toward oneself related to undiagnosed ADHD was prevalent in the personal history. I would like to suggest to you that since this is a deal-breaker for her, you try and separate yourself from this person and her family as soon as possible. I did not do this in my case, and have basically turned my whole life upside down in a very scattered and chaotic way for the purpose of trying to get myself on a career arc so I could be an earner and a good provider for my family. My promises to become a respectable earner for my wife and our young daughter have not come true yet and I don't know if they will; my way to try to do this was to go back to school, but the school schedule is more of a hindrance now that we have a child and less support from extended family than we really should have in that arena. This has pushed my graduation date back yet another semester. The economy being what it is I do not even know how much of a help a degree would be in my getting a good job right now. In the meantime, the stress of being new parents coupled with my distractibility, defensiveness, and emotional reactivity, has made my wife tear her hair out and is eroding our marriage. I have learned first hand the folly of promising something and taking the scattered ADHD route to deliver it. It would seem to me that the only way you might be able to continue your relationship is if you promised that all the personal history and things that scared her were being addressed so they wouldn't influence your life together at all, but who in your shoes could make that promise? It is part of your personality and it would influence your life no matter what.

Submitted by MelissaOrlov on Thu Jan 8th, 2009 - 5:44pm

I'm sorry I didn't see this when you posted it, Corey!

I really like the perspective offered by Gar on your dilemna, but I also offer you another one...the best spouse for a person with ADHD is one who is flexible, empathetic and strong.  My initial response to your story is that perhaps you were headed for a problem relationship...once the infatuation wore off it might have been that you would have found your girlfriend to be very "black and white" (intolerant), which could have been very hurtful over the years, essentially extending the pain you now feel.

Also, it may not be a coincidence that things fell apart after you got to her parent's home.  Don't know that for sure, but I'm not a big believer in coincidences...they may have played a role (how likely is it that she formed an opinion about ADHD without asking her folks, who are professionals in the area???)

As an aside, firefighting is a great career for folks with ADHD so you've found a great field.  Your ability to take in lots of information at once and focus under fire (pun intended) should hold you in good stead.

Good luck!

Submitted by Heather (not verified) on Fri Feb 27th, 2009 - 6:18pm

Gar, Answer me this... How is it that you became so insightful about your ADHD? My fiance still makes those promises that he can't keep although he truly believes he can. And some of them are ridiculous promises! Everyone here is so lost yet it seems like you are the only one that sees things for how they are. I wish I could take that insightful aspect of you and inject it into my fiance. If only...