Stay or leave? That is a question that many exhausted spouses ask as they struggle through the rollercoaster of feelings in their ADD-affected relationship. At the suggestion of one of the readers of this site I have just finished reading a very interesting book about how to resolve this ambivalence and I think it could be an excellent resource for many here.
Tara McGillicuddy is an active ADHD coach and educator. Her online work, in particular, has brought coaching to a much larger audience of people who might benefit from it. I asked her to put together an overview of ADHD coaching to post here.
There have been quite a few comments lately on this site suggesting that people should avoid marrying someone with ADD. This advice makes me very uneasy and I would like to weigh in on it.
Are you angry that your ADD spouse is able to focus on something of great interest to him, and not to anything you want him to do (like the dishes, or childcare)? If so, you would not be alone.
This show with Dr. Hallowell has been taped but we do not know the air date. It is not the week of May 4th, as previously thought. We will post the air date here when we are given it, or you can go to the Dr. Phil Show web site each weekend for a list of the upcoming week's show topics. Thanks for your patience on this - t.v. often works this way! Comments for this post are disabled as of May 3.
For info on the Dr Phil Show, please see the more recent March 30 post. I didn't erase this spot because people had posted attachments to it which would have disappeared had I eliminated the post all together.
If you are in a marriage in which one spouse has ADHD and the other does not, I will guarantee you that you are both even more different than you think. Your brains works differently, you experience the world around you differently, and you interpret information differently. By understanding how, you can avoid common communication errors that lots of “mixed” couples make as well as learn to treasure your unique abilities.
Great news! Dr. Hallowell and his wife, Sue (who is a social worker and experienced marriage therapist in her own right) are going to give a special marriage weekend June 20-21 in Boston specifically for couples where one or both parthers has ADHD/ADD. They will limit it to 25 couples total, and the sessions will include teaching, coaching, small group work...plus a nice hotel. They've just written a new marriage workbook that they will be giving to participants to take home, too.
We all interpret the world around us through a set of filters. These can be based upon our upbringing, our family’s values, certain knowledge and, sometimes, our fears. Recently, I’ve been thinking about how the filters one chooses to use affect your relationship for better or for worse. One of the tricks, of course, is understanding your own filters.
You may be frustrated at the slow progress that seems to happen in your relationship. You push and push, yet little seems to change. You may have read about my comment that “If nothing changes, nothing changes” elsewhere on this blog – I woke up this morning wondering if we could use this idea to help couples make progress, and wondering if a few of you might like to join me in an experiment that might improve your marriage. Read on, and you’ll find the experiment at the end.
