Forum topic: Is leaving a spouse with ADHD like leaving a spouse with some other disability?

If there is a benefit to not commenting for a while, it's coming back to the forum and seeing a rich conversation going on like this one!

The situation that you all describe is the quintessential issue for ADHD relationships.  That may not make you feel any better.  But the issue is, where do you draw the line?  I tried to get at that a bit with my last post, though I struggled to write it, and still don't think I said exactly what I wanted to say.

But here are some thoughts:

• First and foremost, you all have a right to a happy life.  This blog tries to give people the tools to find that life with their ADHD spouse, but I don't encourage giving up your life just to stay with someone who won't take responsibility for their ADHD
• If your husband is willing to try meds, etc. great.  But the issue isn't trying the meds, it's fixing the biggest issues between you.  Meds are only a tool, not an ends.  He needs to try to find a med that will help him manage his worst symptoms (worst for your relationship, that is) AND THEN ADD BEHAVIORAL CHANGE TO THE MEDS or else he is doomed to fail from the start.  A good doc will tell him that.  Unfortunately, too many don't.
• Don't have a kid until this is settled.  Which gives him a timeline - perhaps a year to make significant enough progress that you feel comfortable.  After that, if you decide you must leave, then do so.  You'll know in your heart what feels right and how committed he is to you.
• "I'll change after we have kids" is a lot of crap, as you saw.  First, his main responsibility is to you, his partner.  Second, kids make living together much, much harder.  A man who can't manage now will have all that much more difficulty after kids.  Don't fall for that line!

In my observation, it is both partners who need to be invested in fixing the relationship, in part because it takes developing good communication - by definition something that happens between two people, not one.  The non-ADHD spouse cannot organize the ADD spouse unless that is part of a larger plan for how the couple uses their various strengths to make the whole marriage work.  "Organizing" a spouse in order to get them to "do better" is always a losing proposition - one that engenders resentment on both sides, and one that also gives the ADD spouse an opportunity to depend on the non-ADHD spouse.  On the other hand, the role that the non-ADD spouse can plan (and should, in my opinion) is that of cheerleader and supporter.  Change is hard, and it is easier if you feel your spouse is in your court.

So, what that means is this - if you are going to ask your husband to try for some period of time longer, then make sure that you aren't checked out from the process.  Don't interfere, but don't abandon him, either.  Let him lead the process of change, but be a sounding board for him.  An example of this, ask if he wants your input about behavioral observations as he tries out various medications (often takes experimenting to find the right one).  Your input can be useful in this.

If it gives you any hope at all, my husband and I were in the exact position of all of you in this thread, with the exception that we had two kids (the reason we decided to keep trying a bit longer).  We finally did have the breakthrough necessary to stay together and work it out and now I can't imagine we could be happier...so it can work out, though won't always.

The important turning point for me was deciding in my heart that the most important thing, bar none, was to be myself - happy, outgoing, thoughtful - no matter where that took me.  This decision unhooked me from the thought that I had to stay married for my kids or that I had some obligation to the struggle we had been having other than to behave honorably and as I would want to be treated.  It freed me to change my behavior from resentful and angry back to the "true me".  The result was that my husband noticed the change right away.  As we worked through whether or not we wanted to stay together he saw the person whom he had fallen in love with orignally - a person who had disappeared under the stress of our ruined marriage.  He decided to try one more time and we were both able to clear out the ruins of our past and reinvent the relationship.

That may sound backwards, and I didn't decide to be true to myself with the goal of staying together in mind.  I just decided I was better and stronger than staying in an awful relationship and fixing the relationship happens to be where that decision took me.

Be true to yourself, and if that includes compassion for your husband, who knows where it will lead you.  But you cannot support him forever - either he decides to be the person with whom you fell in love or he doesn't.  Marriage always does include compromises, but in my mind that doesn't mean that you become someone you don't like.

Melissa Orlov