Women With ADHD and Gender Expectations

I am happy to read your posts. All the posted it until now by women are married with ADDers, but this is a very important roll in women’s life, to be a MOTHER. My mother in Law it is not diagnosed, but I suspect she has ADD, She basically has the same basic discipline difficulties like my DH. She has difficulties of going to bed early,  waking up, getting up early (after 11 am or later) etc.

For what my husband and she have been sharing with me through the years, it seems that also it was difficult for her to know what was her responsibilities as a mother and/or to use common sense. According to his own words this is the things I found them strange and non-sense:

• My husband as a baby was hyperactive and she use to give a bottle at what ever time at night to make him settle down. (It is know in evry culture after certain age if healthier for a baby/toddler to sleep at least 10 hours straight)
• She use to put sugar in his milk bottles and suggested me to do the same for my daughters. (My mother never put sugar in hour milk, its know for decade is bad for your teeth)
• It was hard for her to wake up early to make (his son/my husband) be on time to school.
• She use to travel a lot for pleasure and/or to visit his mother in Peru (between 2 weeks to 1 month and a half trip), leaving the kids sometimes on the care of church friends or neighbors. (My father-in-law use to be a pilot, so sometimes he couldn't be there for them either). This period of time with out her supervision helps some unfortunate events to happen in her kid’s life: My husband and his brother were sexually molested at the age of 8 and 6. My husband told me that he tried to let her know about it, but he remembers that she kind of ignored it, or try to don't make a big deal about it, wishing this event was erase in my husband tender mind of 8 years old. My sister-in-law later was a victim of his own brother (my husband) who also molested her in the same way he was about 4 year later of the event. That same girl had early experience with sex, alcohol and drugs. She is more or less 37 and it seems she is recovering; she is back in school, getting married for the first time, etc
• My husband also told me long time ago, that her mother use to be in the phone all the time, and that make him feel jealousy and angry.
• My husband parents were separated for 6 months when my husband was 12 or 13, and she allow a neighbor to hit on her, without taking the proper measures to hide this from her kids or husband.
• She complaints about his sexual life with her husband, alleging he doesn't know about foreplay, and being rude. Now this is a topic that we women talk a lot, and I seriously think sex is overrated. Hollywood, literature, Internet and other media are diminishing the real meaning of intimacy. I have 20 years of marriage and I came to marriage with no experience in this topic, but I learned that all in live is a lesson you learn, you practice, you make mistakes with your partner, you learn, and you continue practicing. One of the good things in my marriage is intimacy; I still enjoy it because I still do it with my still-husband (we are separated for a year now).

Psychologist says that negative experience in live storage easier than good experiences. That is true, I sometimes, if I am watching a movie with some romance my first thought is about my husband, but then another thought hit my mind about my husband and all the girls he started an emotional affair, and how he maybe thinking about them when he is watching or if he watches the same movie. But it doesn't happen lately in our intimacy, it used to happen, but like another lesson to learn I have to block that thought and enjoy the only thing I know we share together, even if I am not in his mind.

So I am not sure when girlfriends and other women complain about their partners way of acting in intimacy, and the lack of sexual pleasure. I think is all in our mind and heart, And if we do not have your partner in your heart and in your mind, very little we will get from it.

Anyway, sometimes I think women come out with these statements to redeem themselves to satisfy their sexual needs. In my mother-in-law case, you can travel to Europe and South-America, or whatever other country or continent where she traveled alone and for sure she can tell you where to go to dance, gambling and shopping. (I am not against of dancing I love to dance, and shopping when I can pay cash, and gambling?, NOT REALLY. She loves to flirt and drink, I am not sure how far she had been after flirting and drinking in a nightclub far away from kids and husband, and I do not want to know.

• I remember my husband told me that she was in Peru with her sister (6 years old at the moment) and his father went to Peru to meet them and travel back with her. When his father showed up at home, he came with his daughter but my mother-in-law decided to stay even longer. My husband said that him and his brother started crying when they discovered their mom wasn't with them.
• My husband is living with his parents right now and he told me he found some pornography channels in their TV. I talked to my mother-in-law about finding a way to block these channels, to help my husband with his efforts to recover from pornography addiction. After listening to her about why this channel were there, she finished saying, that she will not change her life style for my husband. I wasn't talking about her lifestyle; I was talking about supporting his son.

This particular event makes me worry about my daughters (12 and 14) whom sometimes expend nights there... I just worry about it and try to make as much excuse possible to not let them to visit them. Now, you can say kids learn a lot at school with friends, Internet, movies, etc. and that’s true. Nevertheless, I have a strong believe that if adults in the family keep a proper behavior, it will help them to develop a sense of security at home. Kids are going to try and make mistakes, but it is important to have a safe place were they can find themselves back.

I think it is hard to be a mother but it must be double hard to be a mother with ADHD/ADD, and the risks to take are to expensive and the affects can last for ever in the kid’s life.

One day we were visiting my husband’s endocrinologist, who also has ADHD. He said that for him was really hard medicine school, and he was aware that he had to make 10 times more effort than his classmates to have good grades and he did. He wanted to be a doctor and he knew what to do. Now, the question is: Are women aware of the huge responsibility of being a mother? Is it possible to have ADHD and be a descent mother? At least, the kind of mother able to protect their kids from episodes like my husband and brother-in-law and sister went trough?

• My mother-in-law never work, it wasn't necessary her income in the family, and my father-in-law became the most dangerous enabler for his own family.

I do not know what an ADD mother have to do to success as a mother, but prescription and cognitive therapy will help, along with reading good books about the topic, pray and find joy in the efforts they do to improve. The way to go is long, so we cannot get tired.

It's taken a long time to overcome the shame of not being able to do 'regular housekeeping' but I think it's also been very freeing to have traditional roles really off the table. 

Then along came flylady.net and now I have a beautiful clean home, too!

Smiles,

ADDMomma

My husband and I have a running joke that he has just learned the difference between a flathead and a phillips screwdriver. I have always done the repairs and mechanical stuff and he folds clothes much better than I do. We all have frustrations at times but it all works out.

Thank you, Melissa, for writing about a lesbian couple with ADD.  I am the female partner of a woman with ADD.  She was diagnosed at age 50, 7 years ago, 3 years after we became a couple.  It's been an interesting, educational, fun and loving ride.  Luckily we have a great psychopharmacologist and both of us have had psychotherapy in the past so we have fairly good communication skills.  Household chores have always been a challenge.  We've found that it helps to review what chores need to be done at the beginning of every weekend and to agree as to who will do them.  At most a quarter of the chores on the list will be completed by the end of the weekend, so I've learned to clearly prioritize and to adjust my expectations.  In recent months I've had the opportunity to spontaneously visit a number of friends' homes (meaning that they didn't have time to clean before my arrival) and I've realized that their homes look about as chaotic and messy as ours does, so I've become more at ease with the overall condition of our home as well.   

I am happy to read your posts. All the posted it until now by women are married with ADDers, but this is a very important roll in women’s life, to be a MOTHER. My mother in Law it is not diagnosed, but I suspect she has ADD, She basically has the same basic discipline difficulties like my DH. She has difficulties of going to bed early,  waking up, getting up early (after 11 am or later) etc.

For what my husband and she have been sharing with me through the years, it seems that also it was difficult for her to know what was her responsibilities as a mother and/or to use common sense. According to his own words this is the things I found them strange and non-sense:

• My husband as a baby was hyperactive and she use to give a bottle at what ever time at night to make him settle down. (It is know in every culture after certain age if healthier for a baby/toddler to sleep at least 10 hours straight)
• She use to put sugar in his milk bottles and suggested me to do the same for my daughters. (My mother never put sugar in hour milk, its know for decade is bad for your teeth)
• It was hard for her to wake up early to make (his son/my husband) be on time to school.
• She use to travel a lot for pleasure and/or to visit his mother in Peru (between 2 weeks to 1 month and a half trip), leaving the kids sometimes on the care of church friends or neighbors. (My father-in-law use to be a pilot, so sometimes he couldn't be there for them either). This period of time with out her supervision helps some unfortunate events to happen in her kid’s life: My husband and his brother were sexually molested at the age of 8 and 6. My husband told me that he tried to let her know about it, but he remembers that she kind of ignored it, or try to don't make a big deal about it, wishing this event was erase in my husband tender mind of 8 years old. My sister-in-law later was a victim of his own brother (my husband) who also molested her in the same way he was about 4 year later of the event. That same girl had early experience with sex, alcohol and drugs. She is more or less 37 and it seems she is recovering; she is back in school, getting married for the first time, etc
• My husband also told me long time ago, that her mother use to be in the phone all the time, and that make him feel jealousy and angry.
• My husband parents were separated for 6 months when my husband was 12 or 13, and she allow a neighbor to hit on her, without taking the proper measures to hide this from her kids or husband. She complaints about his sexual life with her husband, alleging he doesn't know about foreplay, and being rude. Now this is a topic that we women talk a lot, and I seriously think sex is overrated. Hollywood, literature, Internet and other media are diminishing the real meaning of intimacy. I have 20 years of marriage and I came to marriage with no experience in this topic, but I learned that all in live is a lesson you learn, you practice, you make mistakes with your partner, you learn, and you continue practicing. One of the good things in my marriage is intimacy; I still enjoy it because I still do it with my still-husband (we are separated for a year now).

Psychologist says that negative experience in live storage easier than good experiences. That is true, I sometimes, if I am watching a movie with some romance my first thought is about my husband, but then another thought hit my mind about my husband and all the girls he started an emotional affair, and how he maybe thinking about them when he is watching or if he watches the same movie. But it doesn't happen lately in our intimacy, it used to happen, but like another lesson to learn I have to block that thought and enjoy the only thing I know we share together, even if I am not in his mind.

So I am not sure when girlfriends and other women complain about their partners way of acting in intimacy, and the lack of sexual pleasure. I think is all in our mind and heart, And if we do not have your partner in your heart and in your mind, very little we will get from it.

Anyway, sometimes I think women come out with these statements to redeem themselves to satisfy their sexual needs. In my mother-in-law case, you can travel to Europe and South-America, or whatever other country or continent where she traveled alone and for sure she can tell you where to go to dance, gambling and shopping. (I am not against of dancing I love to dance, and shopping when I can pay cash, and gambling?, NOT REALLY. She loves to flirt and drink, I am not sure how far she had been after flirting and drinking in a nightclub far away from kids and husband, and I do not want to know.

I remember my husband told me that his mother was in Peru with her sister (6 years old at the moment) and his father went to Peru to meet them and travel back with them. When his father showed up at home, he came with his daughter but my mother-in-law decided to stay even longer. My husband said that him and his brother started crying when they discovered their mom wasn't with them.

• My husband is living with his parents right now and he told me he found some pornography channels in their TV. I talked to my mother-in-law about finding a way to block these channels, to help my husband with his efforts to recover from pornography addiction. After listening to her about why this channel were there, she finished saying, that she will not change her life style for my husband. I wasn't talking about her lifestyle; I was talking about supporting his son.

This particular event makes me worry about my daughters (12 and 14) whom sometimes expend nights there... I just worry about it and try to make as much excuse possible to not let them to visit them. Now, you can say kids learn a lot at school with friends, Internet, movies, etc. and that’s true. Nevertheless, I have a strong believe that if adults in the family keep a proper behavior, it will help them to develop a sense of security at home. Kids are going to try and make mistakes, but it is important to have a safe place were they can find themselves back.

One day we were visiting my husband’s endocrinologist, who also has ADHD. He said that for him was really hard medicine school, and he was aware that he had to make 10 times more effort than his classmates to have good grades and he did. He wanted to be a doctor and he knew what to do. Now, the question is: Are women aware of the huge responsibility of being a mother? Is it possible to have ADHD and be a happy progressive mother? At least, the kind of mother able to protect their kids from episodes like my husband and brother-in-law and sister went trough?

My mother-in-law never work, it wasn't necessary her income in the family, and my father-in-law became the most dangerous enabler for his own family.

I think it is hard to be a mother but it must be double hard to be a mother with ADHD/ADD, and the risks to take are to expensive, and the affects can last for ever in the kid’s life, and affect (like any other experiences in life) generations.

I do not know what an ADD mother have to do to success as a mother, but prescription and cognitive therapy will help, along with reading good books about the topic, pray and find joy in the efforts they do to improve. The way to go is long, so we cannot get tired.