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Been married many years. Wife has probably alway been a little like she is but, I think menopause also, its become more pronounced. Anyway, she got diagnosed and its on medication.

I try to be understanding but I have a hard time. Few of the things below. Want to ask really is this "normal" for someone with ADHD and how should I react.

1. She has other illnesses but still works and its not an easy job. BUT she'll come home and won't stop even if it makes her ill. I just don't get this - why not just sit down and chill a bit but she won't.

I posted in the midst of great frustration last night, which is something that I try to avoid, so I am going to delete this.  

So I am at a very hard and difficult place in my life. We are not married but have been together for 4 years. It's to the point where I have been in and out of counseling for years after being diagnosed. I really never took it seriously that I was the majority of the problem because of my ADD symptoms. I finally am very serious about my treatment as it being a non negotiable for her in our relationship. Well now we are not in a relationship but are still living together due to our son. He is from her previous marriage . He is my son and I don"t care what anyone thinks he is mine.

I think those of us who have struggled for years to find that healthy attachment we all crave, like to hear encouraging stories...My wife and I have made a lot of progress, and or at a place today, that I only believed possible by a miracle...What happened? Simply put, awareness happened...Fifteen years ago when we got married, the reality of my mind's desires and abilities for day to day life...And her mind's desires and abilities for day to day life, threw us into Shock!....Which immediately was followed by turmoil, chaos, expectations, non-acceptance, pointing out of dysfunction, fighting, and fussing on an epic level...etc..etc...We were in the marriage from HELL....

Certain things just happened....I lost myself pretty much, got on eggshells, became an enabler/mother to my wife...My mind became so over whelmed with watching her live out a life that I said in my heart; Nobody lives this way!  I was so messed up emotionally that I ended up in the ED one night w/ my heart jumping around...Which the heart doctor told me, we can't find a physical reason (wrong) for it...He kindly looked me in the face and said....You've got to relax!....I already knew....

After about 11 months a part, lots of praying, reading and soul searching, I realized for us to have any type of a peaceful future, we had to have full acceptance (agree or not, accepting the lived out reality of another person, does not mean you agree, it means you respect their right of life.) of even that we could not understand...And there had to be boundaries placed on myself to be 100% responsible for my emotions, words, attitudes, behaviors etc, all the things I wanted from her...Also the eggshells had to be move out, and my own life had to move back in....No expectations, but just full acceptance of the reality she was showing me daily....

That was year 5...ever since then it's been steady progress (SLOW, steady progress)....Because after the eleven months when she moved back in...She still had basically the same attitude (and all the same symptoms of a high level ADD mind) as when she left....But, I did not....

She did not, like this new guy, who was living peacefully like she didn't exist, in the things that caused all the toxicity in our lives those first 5 years...She realized that I was not going to enable, be controlled or manipulated, and most of all I wasn't going to jump into verbal combat with her...She was most miserable....Without her old partner in arms, she had no one to blame...When you can't blame, it makes justifying your own evil and self serving actions much more painful...Because even minds locked in denial need to be able to prop up their denial w/ blame and justification....By the way, I've been far from perfect at holding to some of my boundaries...Some of the hardest for me was walking away when a conversations was clearly headed off the tracks, and to stop pointing out behaviors that were detrimental to trust and unity....But, I've gotten better at ignoring and walking away from attempts to draw me into verbal conflicts....Usually built around her desire to use me, or control me...Make her life easy, and w/ out accountability...lol....

What has happened over the past few years is much more about our individual lives geared toward the love and trust of our savior, than our own abilities....But she just started being a person I didn't know, and the more I love and appreciate her, the more this new girl shows up...Just the other day she was telling me something she wanted to do, she had that in control matter of a fact look in her eyes :)....I just smiled and didn't reply....About 3 seconds after she looked away, she turned right back, leaned into me, and said calmly..."It will just be what ever you think"...I almost broke down...Do you know how many times in 15 years, I have witnessed an act of submission, along w/ a look of love?  And heard the words "what ever you think"....That's right; zero! :)

I didn't travel with her the past several years, (self imposed boundary) because I couldn't trust her to not get me out of town, or out of the country, and start making demands, and ruin our whole vacation...What a waste of money! lol....But we just got back from a seven day trip a few weeks ago...It was awesome!

Part of it is, she know's I love her, she know's I expect and am not shocked by features of high level ADD being part of her existence...She trusts that I have something bigger living inside me than the guy she is married to...We will always have some boundaries, but, that's a good thing for us two humans...

Self ownership, and respecting your spouse enough to never attempt to think for them is life giving....When we have these huge difference's, we end up fighting and disrespecting each other trying to think for each other, and demanding they move over to our way of thinging/living....That is where all the conflict and unhappiness comes from...Many even forfeit martial sex, because who wants to make love to an angry bitter person?

Wishing you all a marriage of what is possible and peace be had... <3

c 

Hello all,

I am looking for The ADHD Effect on Marriage in the Chinese language to give to my wife.  Where can I find it in other languages?  

Whilst it is too late to save the marriage itself, (truthfully I think the right time for me to have known my ADHD diagnosis, read this book, and begun working hard on changing myself was around 2016/17 so about 7 years too late) the book covers a lot of areas that will be helpful regarding ADHD relationships which other co-parenting manuals do not; communication, empathy, treatment, boundaries.  We need to co-parent our daughter amicably and if we are constantly at odds with each other that is not going to be good for our child.  

(Hint: maybe Melissa Orlov could work on a version of this book specifically on co-parenting with ADHD in the future?)

My wife has gotten a lot better in the last year or so with some of the aspects of her ADHD that were most problematic in our relationship, mainly since she got back on regular medication and we finally were able to have some (albeit very defensive) conversations about how ADHD was affecting things between us. But one thing that has not really budged at all is the nagging cycle we fall into. Here's how it goes..

Guess what happened. After years of begging him to get a new job that would pay him better (and let's face it, he has ADHD - he's probably gotten bored and complacent at that job and it's not going to get better.  He should be switching jobs more often, but instead he overstays his welcome and gets laid off.)   For the first time in our 27 years together, he updated his resume when he still had a job.   We will see if he actually applies to something.   I should be happy, but I'm kind of annoyed that I decided he would never change and I had to go and he changed.  And that's why we've been together for so long.  I decide that I've had enough and he switches gears.  But he never does it before it's too late.   We are now not putting groceries on credit cards and NOW he decides to get a new job? 

Why can't he do the right thing when things are bad?  Why?