I've been married to my ADHD partner for several years, and after the initial hyperfocus phase, I suspected infidelity. My wife, diagnosed with ADHD since college, seems to have lost focus on me. As a lawyer, she works extensively, and when she does focus on me, things can go well, but this is now rare. Do others feel the same sense of loneliness I do? We maintain intimacy on weekends, though she struggled with the schedule I established due to our busy household with six children, one with special needs. She admitted that without this schedule, we wouldn't be intimate. We still exchange daily kisses and expressions of love, but I feel her absence. When she's home, she's often preoccupied with her phone or focused elsewhere. When I try to hug or kiss her, she claims I'm overwhelming her. I acknowledge being a touchy-feely person, which leaves me feeling isolated and unfulfilled. I contribute to household responsibilities, handling cooking, cleaning, and laundry. I desire some form of intimacy and affection. Do others experience similar challenges with their ADHD partner?
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Too much
I know what you’re saying. In my marriage to a severe ADD partner, his overwhelm made him feel everything was too much.
Periodically he couldn’t sit down to dinner with our family of five.
I concluded he shouldn’t really have had several children, a demanding career or mortgage. He should have lived differently. But for an academically gifted person, like your wife too, it seems achievable to live all those things, doesn’t it?
In retrospect, it’s easy to understand these things. But for a good many years, I had no idea how his difficulties would impact us as a family.
I feel its especially difficult to understand executive dysfunction in the otherwise gifted. This non-symmetrical ability.
I’m sorry you feel alone.