My ADHD wife and I have been working hard on navigating our differences. We attended a marriage weekend with Dr. Hallowell. We've picked up some books like "Driven to Distraction" and "Is it You, Me, or Adult ADD?" She has gotten a diagnosis and is on meds. We are working together to put systems in place so that work. For example, we have followed Dr. Hallowell's suggestion of scheduling together time of at least a half hour at least once a week, where we usually talk about our relationship - and often discuss the weekly Marriage Tip Melissa sends out. We schedule one date night or date day a week - usually dinner and a movie, lunch and a museum, etc. I call her when I leave work, which increases the liklihood that she can detatch and leave work herself. I am working on nagging less. She is working on not incessantly using her iPhone. Etc. Etc. We have seen LOTS of progress. And we still have SO MUCH to work on.
One thing I am working on in particular is using "loving detachment" (to use Melissa's phrase) in order to avoid some of the on-going struggles we seem to be having. Recently, after yet another terrible argument because my wife is never ready to leave when we plan to leave, I found myself thinking "this just can NOT go on." The pattern we were in was: we would have plans to meet friends at, say, 6:30pm. In the afternoon, I would say something like "I'd like to leave at 6:15 - will that work for you?" to which she would answer "yes." At 6 o'clock, I'd say "Honey - it's 6 o'clock. Time to get moving." To which she might answer, or she might not. (Typically, she doesn't BEGIN to move until the time we agree to leave, and then it takes her 15 minutes to do whatever she has to do - close down her computer program, feed the animals, find her phone, go to the bathroom, get her coat on, etc. Hence, I give her a 15 minute "heads up.") I then also say, at 6:25 - "5 minutes, hon" to which she might say - "I know." Yet, she is STILL on the computer, and I know we'll be leaving late. So I start to get frustrated. It gets to be 6:30 and I say - "time to leave." Then she finally gets up while I sit for 5 to 10 minutes in the car waiting for her. Grrrrrr!!! It seems I'm ALWAYS waiting for her - to put down her phone, to get off the computer, to get ready to leave. And it's become a real hot button for me.
Some might say - tell her you want to leave at 6:15 and she'll be ready by 6:30, but that doesn't work because she doesn't move until I do, and when I get up I'm in the car in 2 minutes, where it takes her 15. And I'd still be waiting for her for 15 minutes.
So, I decided to try a new tact. I said to her - honey, I can't keep getting angry waiting for you every time we go somewhere. From now on, I'm going to tell you what time I'd like to leave and then leave it up to you to be ready. If you're not, I'll take my car and you can take yours. And she agreed.
In retrospect - maybe I shouldn't have said it to her like that - as it was me TELLING her what I was going to do instead of working out a mutual solution with her. Because when the next time we had to leave to go somewhere it happened again, and I started to leave, she totally lost it and YELLED at me not to leave, saying she was almost ready and how could I just leave? So, I ended up waiting for her , thinking "is this really worth leaving 10 minutes later than planned?" But I was very angry in return, and it took me awhile to "cool down."
The next thing I tried was this past Sunday while we were still in bed, I said "Honey, I'd like to take seperate cars to church." (I usually end up waiting for her at both ends - going to church, where we always end up running late, and then after church, when she ends up in long conversations with people and I end up waiting for her to leave.) She said - "how about you tell me what time you want to leave and if I'm not ready, you just leave?" And I said - "I'd actually rather just agree to take seperate cars. Then neither of us will end up getting angry." She angreed, and we took seperate cars. And neither of us got angry.
But is that the only answer - taking seperate cars whenever we go somewhere? That seems like a poor solution to me, as time in the car CAN be together time. And taking two cars is inconvenient, costs more money, etc. I feel between a rock and a hard place.
I wonder if anyone has other ideas of how to manage, and perhaps resolve, this seeming endless battle.
Always stuck waiting too
Submitted by JAM on
Yes, this is "really worth leaving 10 minutes later than planned". Because if you don't set a boundary about leaving on time, something that makes you upset, you will put yourself in the position of being continually frustrated. This not disengaging even when given several gentle reminders behavior is one that can be changed if your wife chooses to change it. Apparently she doesn't choose to work on that behavior. If you say you will leave if she is not ready then you need to follow through or you are enabling her behavior. If you take separate cars you have given her the message that you think she won't work on a behaviour that is important to you. However, if you ask her how you can help her to be ready, do those agreed on things and she is still not ready, you should leave. She is choosing by her behavior whether or not it is important to her to share a ride with you. One of you is going to be upset. Why should it always be you? Of course, speaking from experience, this is always easier said than done.
being late
Submitted by Steph on
This really struck a cord with me. My DH is always late for everything, except for his plans with his friends. A few years ago I had a series of surgeries over the course of the year. Each surgery was precipitated with a "I have to be at the hospital at 6 am which means we have to leave no later than 5 am". Of course each and every time we left anywhere from 15 to 45 min late! His defense was "Its not like they take you right in, you have to wait so why wait there?" Ummm, because they need to prep me with an IV etc... Boy that didn't help my stress levels prior to the surgeries so I started telling him that we needed to leave a half hour before we actually did. Didn't work. We were still late all the time. We almost missed one surgery because we were so late that it would have held up all the surgeries for that day, but lucked out when one was cancelled!
Shortly after those surgeries I realized that he was never, ever, ever late for nights out with his friends or for things he wanted to do. He was capable of being on time, he just chose not to be on time for me. Its another form of him controlling me.
I hate late
Submitted by ccompton on
When our 7 year old son had cancer (he is 13 now, doing great) my husband was 1 hour late to the last chemo party. By the time he rolled in all the doctors and nurses had gone back to work. I was furious and he couldn't understand why. I am at the point now that I will leave without him if he isn't ready or start whatever without him if he is not there. He will stand in the bathroom and pick gray hairs out with tweezers for 10 minutes - EVERY MORNING. Thank goodness he has a job that doesn't require him to there at a certain time every day. He would never make it.
Oh but when he has plans or is doing something that he wants to do, he is able to leave on time.
Any Suggestions?
Submitted by Looking4Help on
So I'm not surprised others have similar experiences. What I'm looking for are suggestions on what I/we might do so that we can BOTH leave on time. Any thoughts?
I was thinking about this some more as I was driving to work. Usually, it is only at thepoint when I am walking out the door that she says "OK I'm coming" as she gets up from the computer (as that's where she usually is just before we have to go somewhere). And then I end up feeling like I am being a jerk if I just leave and don't wait for her at that point. But I always end up fuming as I sit in the car waiting - and it often leads to a fight. What I WISH would happen is that when I say "15 minutes" she does what she needs to do to close out stuff on the computer and then when I say "5 minutes, hon" is that she would AT THAT POINT say "OK, I'm coming" and get up from the computer. Instead, I think what she hears is "I still have 5 minutes."
When I try talking to her about this (and things like it" her response is usually "You always want what you want in YOUR time, when YOU want it." And in a way, she is right! I want to leave on time. I think it is inconsiderate to others to be late, and so I am almost always on time. With my wife, being on-time is ALWAYS a struggle and often a fight, sometimes a very bad one. And I am very tired of it.
So, I am looking for suggestions
I would often tell my husband
Submitted by Jeannie on
I would often tell my husband that we needed to leave x time and I would add half hour or so to the time that we really needed to leave. I wouldn't tell him but stick to the time I said. That way, he thought he was pushing it to the edge, but I knew we had a "cushion" so I wasn't so stressed.
On being late
Submitted by JAM on
You want to know what to do so you BOTH are on time. This will only happen if it is important enough for your wife to honor your request to be ready on time. You cannot make this important enough for her, she has to decide. My ADD husband does not have the same concept of time as I do. I didn't realize that 1:00 to him meant any time that still had a one in front of it including 1:59 while 1:00 to me meant 1:00. Perhaps this is the same with your wife.
I believe that asking her what you can do to help her be on time puts the ball in her court. If she chooses not to work with you on this issue and continues to be late even after you and she have agreed on thus and such to help her (such as leaving the computer 15 minutes before the agreed on departure time), the natural consequence is that you leave without her. The issue here is not to make it important to her to arrive on time because it isn't and you can't change that. What is at stake here is if it is important enough for her to ride with you. And only she can decide that.
The Issue
Submitted by Looking4Help on
Yep - I think you are right. It will never be important to her to arrive on time, so the question is whether it is important to her to ride with me. That remains to be seen, I guess.
Re: the suggestion to tell her we need to leave 30 minutes earlier than we really have to, that doesn't appeal to me. One - it is sort of "manipulative" and two, She would catch on to THAT very quickly. And I don't really want to arrive 20 or 30 minutes early, either. I value my time and I could be using that 30 minutes for something else.
The thing is - I am an excellent judge of time. I know exactly what time to leave to ensure I will BE on time, allowing for traffic, etc. I don't like to be late, nor do I like to be early. It is a skill I have honed.
My wife knows she is a terrible judge of time. She readily admits that. We both know that is probably because of her ADHD. I suggest to her that since I tend to be a better judge than she is on how long it takes her to do something, that when I say something like "It's time to finish up on the computer" it is because I know it's going to take her whatever amout of time to do whatever she needs to do before walking out the door. That while she may THINK it will only take her 5 minutes from when she gets up from the computer, experience shows that it will take more like 15, and that's why I give her the 15 minute warning. I'm not sure she has "bought" this, though.
And while I'm at it, I should also say that she often adds to my frustration by seeming to have only one speed of doing things. What I mean by that is that when she DOES keep me waiting, when I do get to the point of saying "Honey, let's GO" she doesn't seem to have any awareness or ability to quicken the pace. And I find that very frustrating.
I think I am finally realizing that it's probably not going to change and that I am going to have to leave without her more often than not in order to reduce my frustration and anger and avoid yet another fight. And that saddens me, as it means I will have even LESS time with her. But I guess that's the lesser of the two evils. (sigh.)
Have you tried having her time her *preparing to leave* routine?
Submitted by Aspen on
My ADD husband is often more punctual that I am, but we have had this issue come up in other areas. He thinks something takes 30 minutes...for example everything he needs to do on the computer at night can be done *in his mind* in about a half an hour. When it has been an hour and he is still at it, I'll gently ask what he's doing, and I frequently get a puzzled look because I knew he needed to check email/research x, y, z/etc etc. When I tell him it has been an hour or hour and a half, he is SHOCKED. I mean completely shocked, so he has started with timers so that he's only online for the 30 minutes he planned rather than it growing and growing while time passes without his awareness. Obviously this doesn't relate to work related issues....often you get into something and it takes longer than you think, but it is IMPORTANT. Checking email and web surfing is not. But we try to figure out, for both of us, how long these things actually take so that we are in control of our time.
He was always down to the last possible moment turning in his invoices because he thought getting everything together for end of the month would take "10 minutes". I pointed out to him that in all the times he's done this job it has NEVER taken 10 minutes. We timed how long it took to fill it all out completely and carefully enough to be sent in with no errors, and now he knows to allow that amount of time.
You are right that being on time will likely never have the importance for her that it does for you, but that doesn't mean that riding together won't, or just making you happy won't have that level of importance. Perhaps you could brainstorm ideas together?
why is it?
Submitted by ccompton on
I picked up a button at a conference that says, " Why are the people who are late always happier than the people waiting for them?"
True. Very true.
Hope
Submitted by Looking4Help on
Thanks,
What you said in your last paragraph helps me continue to have hope, which is so hard sometimes.
Me, too
Submitted by Nettie on
"I don't like to be late, nor do I like to be early. It is a skill I have honed."
It's fun to get it EXACTLY right, isn't it?
My husband is completely time blind, but I also saw I had a problem with inflexibility and impatience. Not that I think one should be late for an appointment, but now I take a book or a few trivia cards in case we arrive early or he's late meeting me (I feel amazed if he remembers WHERE to meet me). I also plan meeting places that have something interesting to occupy me, like a book shop, so it doesn't irk me as much if he forgets.
I still have fun using wicked planning precision to get DH out on time, for example, asking him early to do a non-electronic activity he will gladly stop (e.g., dishes) and reminding him we'll have several hours when we get home for uninterrupted gaming. I don't see it as manipulating in a bad way, because I'm open about why I'm suggesting things, and he says he appreciates help with time management.
Another idea: plan an activity in between home and your appointment, one that's flexible, for example, getting a coffee (take-out if you have less time, linger at the cafe with more time). Then, you are already out of the house, screen-free (by agreement) and occasionally have even more time together.