Recent forum posts (all topics)

Does the hyper-focus courtship phase really end at 20-24 months?

My husband will not talk about his ADHD at all and seems to believe that taking medicine is the cure all. He is ashamed of his diagnoses, and I believe that prevents him from being able to even acknowledge how it affects his and our lives. It's been two years and after minimal adjustment of his meds, he thinks he is fine but really all it is doing is giving him more focus at work and tempering his moods somewhat.

I just wanted to take a moment to give kudos and praise to ALL the folks on this site that are working so hard and diligently to better their lives, and the lives of their spouses and families.

     A special thanks to the men on here as well, who are loving their wives. (J, Curself, Adhd'er and others.....) I am also amazed by the strength and fortitude of many of the women here who have done incredible things, while taking themselves to the very limits of their abilities, yet they press on. 

Hi!  I'm a husband who is totally new to posting comments on a web site forum.  I'm here because my marriage is in crisis.

ADHD hubby has sick BFF. He wants to adopt BFF's teenage daughter. He has strong feelings of wanting to help and i have none.

Hi everyone,
I’m so sorry to those of you who have been waiting on this post. Life has been crazy! But it’s been driving me mad that I haven’t finished up this series like I said I would. Anywho, I’ll just jump right back in from where I left off.

In my last post, I spoke about letting go of my entitlements. When I realized that I didn’t want anyone doing anything for me unless they wanted to & only because they would be happy to do so – I realized that I shouldn’t be doing anything for anyone unless I wanted to & only because I was happy to do so as well.

For those interested, I wanted to make some observations of the effect of taking the couples course has had on our relationship. To start....nothing but positive things to say here.

Communication: Cue words to avoid conflict were hugely helpful initially to stop arguments and fights. The end result ended up with not needing them after very long. In fact....the need for our cue word "friend"....was only of use for the first month or so. It might still be useful....but what I have found is that when the conversation starts heading into one of those familiar directions....I tell my wife " hey....we've never successfully resolved this one before. Let's put this in a box and put into storage permanently...and one day when the time comes.....we'll know it when we get there." And we avoid that topic completely. These things are not logistical topics. They have more to do with each one of our personal challenges that were never going anywhere anyway and have no real relevance other than either one us don't really like this "thing" about each other all that much. Call it personality quirks or what ever. No real change is needed other than to just ignore it and let it go. It's just who we are but it doesn't hurt anything.

Learning conversations are really great any time I feel like my wife is not understanding me. I've got it practices enough that it know becoming second nature and I can incorporate my own version of doing the same thing and not feel so robotic and stiff in doing it. That was easy and it served the same purpose. to avoid conflict what so ever. The end result in communication as proven that we go for days and even weeks now without a real fight or argument and at most....a moment of frustration and that is just a drop in the bucket compared to before. Gotmanns ratio of 5 to 1....positive to negative has certainly proved itself here. One argument even limited....is survived easily and is not nearly as intense or severe because it. The funny reversal that I have found is in the control aspect between my wife and I. This is not a problem....just a funny observation.

Mansplaining: When you're talking to prove expertise rather than to connect with another person, the chances are high you're mansplaining.

Saw another (awful) therapist last night.  Ugh.  Trying so hard to stay within my insurance network because it would be a financial hardship not to.  But, these people are not ADHD experts.  Or anger management experts.  They say things like "Count to 10" or "just breathe" when my husband talks about his inability to stop an outburst.  That doesn't help him.  We want so badly to stay together, but now we are starting to use words like "separation".  That scares the hell out of me!!!  And I'm the one who brought up that word.  Because, after 13 years of marriage, I am spent.