I was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult, and find it a burden. My first marriage ended after eleven years of my undoing. I felt that my wife was enabling me not to manage my ADHD. I have been in a relationship now for just over a year and I have no objective data as to why I am different in my current relationship. people with ADHD do very well at the tasks they like doing and poorly at the tasks they don't like doing. I characterized myself as having a T-1 personality to conflict, but I am functioning at maintaining a T-0 level. I now acknowledge the love of my life and her three daughters and my two as well. Five daughters and a loving and caring mom who is acknowledged daily by her ADHD boyfriend. This may sound very sweet but I have either the gift of seeing potential conflict before it happens to exceed T-0 status ( T referring to trauma) or I am creating conflict subconsciously  to justify my logic. I sat down with my girlfriend and our five girls and I basically told them that their feelings were more important to me than my own, when we decided to live together. I feel that I am alienating my girlfriends emotions when I speak to one of her daughters who just had an argument with her mom. I basically tell her children and mine that they have a right to be upset and that it's ok to feel that way. For me, when someone is upset it means they have strong feelings for something they feel is very important to them. When my girlfriend is crying, I just hold her close and say nothing. I understand how therapeutic listening can be without offering advice or opinions. I feel as if I am being stretched in six directions. The women in my life don't argue that much but I just feel overwhelmed.

     My girlfriend left an abusive husband and she stole my heart when she unloaded her emotions onto me when we first met. I was gobbed smacked. (surprised) We had not introduced ourselves yet, and she was unloading emotionally, I just sat and listened to everything she needed to say and said nothing. I am far from perfect but I feel that I need to be, for her sake and the sake of her children. Her Ex sees their three girls and when they leave their mom just cries and I am there for her. When her angels return home, they cry because of the psychological abuse their father is so generous to share. I never speak despairingly about him in front of my girlfriend or our children. I don't know what else I could be doing, I just feel that I am not doing enough.