Many non-adhd spouses are sad, angry, frustrated. I know I'm depressed and ADHD is ruining my marriage and my overall wellbeing. What techniques, actions, strategies can you offer (whether your non-ADHD or ADHD) in dealing with an ADHD spouse? Are there skills I can learn to help me manage my relationship, my husband, my own emotions/reactions towards my ADHD husband. I think hearing both sides are important...I want to build a more positive, healthier, stable life and solid partnership without being a doormat? It's difficult to explain but things only work when I make myself vulnerable. If I can use 1 word to define my relationship I would use "hurt". I just don't know how much more I can handle and I want to make sure I'm giving 100%.
Any techniques that work when dealing with ADHD husband (welcome both ADHD and non-ADHD answers)
Submitted by hope09 on 12/07/2009.
What makes you draw the
Submitted by LaTuFu on
What makes you draw the conclusion he has ADD/ADHD?
Has he been officially diagnosed, or have one/both of you read some internet articles and "suspect" that is the underlying issue?
If its the latter, part of the problem might be that he doesn't agree ADD is the issue. So the resentment and disconnect between the two of you could have a source in that.
If he's been diagnosed by a professional and is taking meds--is he seeing (and you with him) a counselor to help him learn the proper management skills needed to lessen the negative aspects of ADD?
Before we could suggest anything that might be helpful to you, its helpful to us to know some of the path you two have been walking.
He's been diagnosed since he
Submitted by hope09 on
He's been diagnosed since he was a child and then again in adult. He sees 2 therapists at the Hallowell center - 1 for behavioral therapy and the other a psychiatrist. He only takes an antidepressant and refuses to take anything else. There are times he fully admits he has ADHD and is taking action but when he has his ADHD (freaking out moments) he also gets in denial and refuses connect his issues to ADHD. So he goes back and forth depending on his mood. He's like a light switch.
So you are right, more then a handful of times he doesn't agree its an issue but then after all the craziness there is a ray of sunshine that he's sees what's going on, apologizes, admits to it and tries to improve...its a constant cycle that repeats itself. He has trouble staying focused and doing the tasks to help him improve. Nothing is consistant and there is no discipline.
We talk about seeing someone but it hasn't came to fruition yet. I'm sort of fearful about it. I already know that if I say something to a therapist that he disagrees with it can trigger him off. He will say "I'm the bad guy...always the bad guy" and it snowballs. I walk on extreme eggshells. I never know what I will say or do that sets him off that can start a bad fight and its really exhausting fighting and working 2 jobs (he's not working and sleep in daily). I'm holding down everything in life right now, put myself second and I'm just not sure how to tackle it. I really don't want the therapy (that I would think to benefit us) to come to haunt me.
Does that make sense? Yes I can see someone myself but I know what the problem is. Just not sure how to approach him in a way that he doesn't get defensive, think I'm a feminist, controlling, b*tch...the list goes on.
It makes perfect sense. I
Submitted by LaTuFu on
It makes perfect sense. I can't remember where I heard this analogy, but I like to think about it when I face similar circumstances: "If you stick your head through a hole in the fence 3 times, and each time you get whacked on the head by a board...will you be eager to stick your head through the fence a 4th time?"
That being said, I think you should consider going to therapy with him and discussing it with at least one of his counselors--preferably all of them. If there is a way you can discuss it with him prior to the sessions, great. If not, thats okay.
Therapy (and the therapist guiding it) is only as good as the feedback your husband is providing. Its possible, when he's in his sessions, the therapist is asking him "How are things going with your communication in your relationship at home?" and his response is along the lines of "OH, they're SWELL! We still have our moments, but its getting better every day!" A good therapist will smell the BS, but if he's an effective communicator (as many ADD'ers can be--we had to learn to compensate where we could, remember! We're used to explaining and rationalizing our behavior to non-ADD'ers since childhood, so its quite possible to fool a therapist. Often times we're so good we're fooling ourselves in the process) the therapist won't notice at all. I fooled three therapists this way. I suspect its because I was no more aware of the issue than they were. If I don't bring it up, they don't know to ask...
That's why you'll see a few blog posts/articles on here that discuss how important it is for an "outside" third party review of the ADD'ers progress.
If you asked me how I am doing with my progress, I would probably say "I'm doing pretty well, I see my challenges and I struggle with them, but I put energy towards them daily." Depending on the moment of the day...my significant other may or may not agree so stridently.
I've reached my acceptance point. I will no longer tolerate the repetitive failure of my behaviors. Therefore, I am very open to listening to her talk about what I am doing/not doing. I would want her input in my therapy sessions, and I would want her to discuss them freely.
I was not in that place 2 years ago. It sounds like your husband isn't there yet, either. If you can get in front of the therapist, he might be able to help you bring your husband around. He's clearly trying to figure out something, based on what you're telling me he's been doing. It sounds like he has "plateaued" and needs a nudge from the outside to get going forward again.
What have you got to lose by trying? A few eggshells on the carpets? Sounds like a risk worth taking to me!
I think you are right. I'm
Submitted by hope09 on
I think you are right. I'm going to ask him if I can go to his therapy session(s). Hopefully he'll be open to it. I really have nothing to lose and I'm desperate to make positive changes. He gets so trapped in his mind...crossing my fingers. Thanks for your help! I now can guide my effort in a new direction!
Direction
Submitted by MelissaOrlov on
a good place to start for general direction is the favorite blog posts area.
Lack of awareness
Submitted by phoenixgirl78 on
To me, it sounds like that's key. It sounds like he can't fully accept just how much this affects him. And by limiting the drugs he takes and such, he's pretending that he can draw a line in the sand and say, "This stuff is ADD, but the rest is just me."
I know a little about denial, especially about something that isn't really understood by society. I have chronic fatigue -- something that permeates my day to day life, limits me in many ways in this society, and is not something visible. For years, I was in complete denial. I just kept pushing, kept using the wrong language. I wasn't tired, I was "lazy." I said it as something of a joke to my friends -- Oh, I was going to run some errands, but I'm too lazy -- but words really do have power. Point is, I tried for years to draw the same kinds of boundaries your husband is now. I couldn't work a full-time job, but two part-time jobs would be fine. I could say I had been very ill, but not that I was disabled. Things that make me shake my head now, but seemed so reasonable back then. Human beings don't do well with being powerless to something. So we create the illusion of control, which can actually just make things worse.
My husband has been diagnosed since he was a kid, but he still has little to no clue what ADD really is. I asked him how (if at all) they explained it to him when he was diagnosed. He said it was basically, "This is why Tim can't sit still." When people think of ADD, they think of forgetfulness and maybe impulsivity. But it goes so much farther than that. I'm reading a Thom Hartmann book which is just fabulous. It's showing me just how much of Tim's personality and life is affected by ADD. So many things about him are right there on the page. Things that he feels are flaws and detractors. But they're all related to this condition. The more I learn, the more I want to know, and it's helping both of us to find out just how much of his day-to-day problems are a part of how his brain works. (Warning: You will cringe when you realize how many times you yelled at him for something that, it turns out, is perfectly natural for someone with ADD. You saw it as carelessness or indifference. In fact, he was probably trying as hard as he could, then got demeaned for still not being good enough.)
Perhaps the thing I like best about Hartmann's books is the idea that ADD isn't a disease. My husband is a bright man. He's creative and bubbles with ideas and energy all the time. But he's been told he has an illness, a disability. He's been told he acts wrong, he's deficient in ways that others take for granted. In short, his most basic aspect -- his brain -- is bad. How on earth do you live with something like that? It's the reason a lot of people with ADD have supremely low self-esteem.
Hartmann wants us to think of it like left-handedness. Lefties' brains work differently than right-handed people. But we stopped thinking they were "sick" or "wrong" (a few centuries too late, of course, but at least we got there). So what if ADD is just another way of thinking, with the same kinds of advantages and disadvantages as any other kind of unique neural pathways?
Like I said, words are powerful. So I am working on Tim's vocabulary. I want him to stop thinking of himself as having an illness. He loves Magic the Gathering and is great at most strategy games. He just sees things in ways others can't. He can build a MTG deck in no time. He is an amazing fighter because of his heightened sense of everything going on around him. His brain isn't diseased. It just works differently. And the sooner he stops seeing ADD as something to be ashamed of, the sooner he can start to build a life where he isn't always apologizing for not being as patient as other people.
I'm not saying that ADD is great. It has a lot of inconvenient aspects. On the other hand, I don't have ADD and I have plenty of flaws that i have to work around. So that's how I'm trying to get Tim to see his situation. It takes adjustment on both sides. I'm not a patient person, especially when it comes to "flaws." I demand too much of myself and, often, too much of others. So there have been a lot of fights where I just couldn't understand why he didn't remember the things I'd told him a zillion times. Or why he couldn't remember to look at prices before he bought something. (That actually is something he's had to learn.) Why he couldn't see something without automatically wanting it. Etc.
So now I'm working on remembering that this is a facet of who he is. It's not going to change. He's not doing it out some perverse indifference to my frustration. So we have to find ways around it. For example, I try to ask him, before we leave the house for any extended period of time, whether he's eaten. If he hasn't, he'll get stomach cramps while out and then we'll have to buy food somewhere or he'll throw up. It's frustrating because it seems so obvious to us; but it's not intuitive for him. He doesn't worry about food until he's hungry.
We're also saving up to get him an iPod Touch, which will work as a PDA. A lot of the forgetfulness can be solved by them just setting multiple alarms. We got cell phones with keyboards, hoping he could it as a notebook and electronic reminder. But you can only set five repeating alarms total. Everything else has to be typed in manually. Hence the upgrade to the iTouch. He has alarms for just about everything. And it helps. He wants to put off a chore, so he sets an alarm. When it goes off, he has to start it. That way, I don't have to remind him. He sets an alarm to take his medications, which is huge. Things like that.
Sorry, my piece is epic. I'm a fast typist and so I go on at length. And then some. But I guess my point is that I don't think we can really understand our partners until we understand more about ADD. Once we have a better knowledge of that sort of thing, we can differentiate between general annoying traits and things related to ADD. When it's the latter, you need to find ways around the problem. Just telling someone with ADD not to be so forgetful is like telling someone who is colorblind to stop wearing clashing clothes. Great idea, but no helpful suggestions on how to implement the change. Hartmann says that ADDers are often great at working within certain guidelines. But if you ask an ADDer to create the guidelines, he's lost.
One of the bigger new ideas for Tim and I is how we start projects. In the past, I'd tell him to do something. He'd procrastinate or do a half-assed job and we'd bicker. Now I finally understand that when I say, "Go clean the kitchen" he looks in and sees every single thing in that room as a separate task. How would any of us know where to start? So from now on, I need to list the specific tasks I want him to accomplish and help him figure out a place to start. Just knowing where to start can be one of the biggest hurdles for Tim.
Once you understand why some of these problems occur, the solutions can be really obvious. But I never would have thought I had to break down how to clean a kitchen.Just didn't occur to me. Meanwhile, Tim sees new tasks as daunting, because it's another thing he doesn't know how to do. That's another chance that someone will be angry or disappointed in him, another chance to underscore that there's something wrong with him because he doesn't know something basic.
I know this was (really) long-winded and (very) meandering, but I hope this gives you some ideas on how to live with/not kill your partner. And even be there to be supportive. Sometimes it will feel like you're holding a kid's hand, as you walk him through aspects of life you think he should know by now. But he will learn. And it will help improve his confidence, which goes a long way for both people in the relationship.