The challenge with separating the person from the ADHD symptoms is that the symptoms exaggerate everything. The hyper focusing make things larger then life, make the person larger then life, and make growing as a person extremely slow and laborious. My ADHD partner is born under the astrological sign of Cancer. Canceriams are known for loving the past, which includes their past. I know Cancerians who can balance that and still dwell and engage with their present and future. With my ADHD-partner the symptom of hyper-focusing makes her past the most important thing! If a friend from her past gets in contact with her she hyper-focuses on them. She hyper-focuses on rekindling that friendship and then on keeping it a live and she hyper-focuses on how they have known each other for x number of years. I can't begin to tell you how many times our 4 years together have been compared to their 20 (she even compared our short time together to her 7 years with her son the other day!). And it is odd how it happens....we are all close and connecting and she shares with me something about someone from her past and I can tell she starts to feel less comfortable with me and less engaged in our present or future and her mind drifts to that person and the years they have spent together and all the things that has happened and probably runs off to get in touch with them. The odd thing is....or a challenge is...that she won't reminisce about our past....all be it short in comparison to some people who she has known since childhood, but no less full of events, growth and need for closure on some issues and misperseptioms. It is the hyper-focusing on her past that makes this part of her character so troubling. And. Since she is obsessed and hyper-focusing she can't wait to take the time to involve me on this journey. She drives off to talk with past friends in private....and perhaps she feels uneasy that she is hyper-focusing/obsessing over this person and so hides it from me because some where she knows it is being taken to an unhealthy level that crosses relationship boundaries. As well, the intensity of the conversation probably crosses acceptable relationship boundaries and so she takes it away from me so as not to hurt me or have me get angry with her. Non-the-less, I can feel her obsession with that person and it is that obsession that hurts because she then is not obsessed with me and I am not receiving her attention yet am doing all the work and being at home, alone, taking care of our home and business...while she is off having that connection with someone else. I have been called jealous and insecure many a time over this hyper-focusing over someone else. She says "what do you think I am going to do, sleep with them? Leave you for them?" I have never been able to express to her that No, I don't think she will do those things......but that she does leave me when she is hyper-focusing on someone else....she does leave the relationship in an inappropriate and unhealthy way and although she does not have sex with them, she also does not have sex with me because of that darn adhd symptom of having a hard time with transitions. If she is hyper-focused on someone and is obsessed with them, when she will next get to talk with them, what they said, what she is Dying to say to them, ask them, know about them, etc...if she is having conversations with them in her head.....then she is NOT feeling that way about me and is not transitioning from that person, to me...to our life....to making love with me! So in a indirect way, she is cheating!! Emotional cheating!! And this can happen for people from her last to new people she meets......it is as if she always needs to have someone on the side!! Sepperating ADHD from the person! Ok, so my partner is a fun dynamic person whom everyone loves!! Hell I fell in love with her. I was charmed by her and felt like the most special person in the world in her presence! I felt desired, sexy, interesting, and fully loved and adored! I was the joyous recipient of her hyper-focusing! Now....I see others receiving that and blooming under her attention. Since we are lesbians and she is a very handsome women....(though I suppose it could be a problem for headero sexual couples as well) women just flock to her and giggle and swoon after her attention (both straight and gay women, as the straight women see her as a very sensitive and engaging man ..even though they know she is a women, their brains can't make sense of what they are seeing and hearing so they see an attractive man connecting with them in away women connect with each other and they think "he is speaking to my soul...right to my heart...we are kindred spirits!" And her is where an ADHD symptom causes a larger problem with this: she hyper-focuses on them and showers them with attention and carrys the memory of them with her all day and doesn't become present with me or is "bored" with me. And these women just LOVE her!! She shines and they giggle over everything she does......and I pale in comparrison to her! Don't get me wrong, I am NOT a wall flower! I too am dynamic and fun and out going.....but when I am engaging with someone she walks into the room and talks loud, out of turn, and all eyes turn to her and it becomes all about her, as well, she dousnt carry the stressful energy I (and most people do) so she comes across all fresh and enlightened and care free. People end up liking her more then me and prefer to be with her and bask in her attention and child like attitude. I end up looking and feeling like a wet blanket, a bore, uninteresting, etc. I can't even stand to be around it anymore! So I walk away and then she gets mad that I always walk away...ha ha...but I am not going to be one of her groupies or stand by and watch all her groupies swoon over her as she puts A show for them.....all the while me knowing that is not the partner I have behind closed doors!! And that later that evening, when it is time to go to bed.....that is not the sexual, flirtatious, dynamic, playful, and deep person I will get!! No....I will get distracted, silent, low energy, un sexual, un playful, un flirtatious, tv watching, xbox playing, silent, in word, slug. It has taken me all,these 4 years to not take it personally and not feel rejected or ugly, etc. and I do still need to work on it at times....but each day gets easier and easier. However these days I get jealous because she HAS so many flirting with her and I do not!! She spends her days surrounded by love, admiration, desire, curiosity, connection and being sought out! I spend my days being committed to this marriage to our home and business, trying to understand Adhd, worrying about money, her symptoms, and what my life will be like with her in it. I want someone to flirt with me!! I want to be found intriguing and to be sought after! I want to be hyper-focused over! I want to have feeling for someone and have to deny them because I am in a marriage!! I want to feel alive like that too!! It isn't fair that she gets her cake and eat it too!! Separate the person from the symptoms.....sometimes they are so connected that is hard to do. Because the symptoms make a do-able trait exaggerated and un-doable!!......even destructive!!