I have been married to a man with ADD/ADHD for 14 years. He has taken medicine several times. In my eyes, the medicine was a miracle! I felt like I had a partner. I wasn't carrying the weight of our lives on my shoulders. He got off the medicine because he said it makes him feel dead inside. For 5 years I have held onto the hope that he would realize how much medicine helps him and maybe try a different medication. Currently our lives are suffering tremendously because of his untreated ADHD/ADD. I asked him if in an effort to help relieve some of the stress in our marriage he would please try some of the other medications out there. He said he won't. I am committed to my marriage but I am completely miserable. I am 3 months pregnant with our 4th child and he is unemployed again. He watches TV and the IPad for 10 hours a day. I am so alone in my marriage! I do almost everything myself. I am so scared that my kids are learning to be lazy by watching him. He has an issue that needs treatment. Why doesn't he see how important it is? He had only tried adderall. I researched many other medications and there are other options but he absolutely refuses to try anything else. Any ideas?
I am feeling there is no hope because he says he will never take medicine.
Submitted by Nats375 on 07/25/2012.
Medication trial and error...
Submitted by Pbartender on
You're right that there are several types of medication, they work a little differently, and each type (and sometimes different dosages or variations within a type) will affect different people differently.
It would be worth his while to try different medications and different doses... It does take time, since you generally want to try out a particular prescription for several weeks, before you make a decision on it. But if it means he can find the right medication for himself, it would be time and effort well spent.
I started out on Concerta (a long-acting form of Ritalin), and while it helped me get things done, it felt like drinking a pot of coffee all at once... I'd get antsy jitters, it intensified mood swings, and I'd crash hard when it wore off about dinner time.
I switched to Vyvanse (a long-acting variation on Adderall that activates in the blood, instead of the stomach), and it made a big difference... About a half hour after taking it, I can feel it kick in. It was like the mental equivalent of taking cotton out of your ears. The mental lab rat of my attention no longer has to run down every single side track in the mental maze of my thoughts... It still might pause to sniff them out for a moment, but can now continue straight on to the end of the maze, when I ask him to. There's almost no side-effects for me, and when it wears off, it's a slower, steadier glide down... Which also means there's at least some effect for longer in the evening, when I need it most for the wife and kids.
I think most of the ADHDers here had to try more than once to get the right meds... Perhaps our collective med success stories could get him to try again?
Pb.
ADD meds
Submitted by hacienda on
I'm sorry to read your post.....I feel I'm in a similar boat, feel very alone, my husband doesn't "get it", and didn't like the meds he tried in the past. He has just started some counseling, is open to meds, so there is a little hope in our house. But, to quote the Cat in the Hat, "this mess is so big, and so deep, and so tall", I don't have a lot of interest in trying again (!) to see if things can get better. I am too busy trying to keep all the balls in the air. Please know you are not alone, and let us know if your husband tries something new.