Hi all, this is my first post, thought I posted it somewhere else (not sure where if I did) but I dont know what I am doing LOL or if this is the right place to put it. Here is goes...
I have been reading and reading, I feel so extatic to have stumbled upon this site! I think my husband of almost 3 years is ADD. I, like many others on here Im sure, could type for hours on all of our issues and fights but I first off I need a little advice. I think he may have had issues as a child with ADHD but Im not sure what if anything was done to treat it. For some reason Im thinking we may have had a conversation about him taking meds or his parents wanting him to but its so faint I just cant remember what may have been said. It wasnt one of those conversations where we were specifically talking about past medical history, but something that was randomly said durring another conversation. Our marriage has been extrememly rocky the last 2 years. We have had some marriage counseling but my husband works out of town 95% of the time, it was hard to make counseling work if we were only able to go once a month, if that. I went individually once a week to work on my personal issues, faults etc. His time at home is never regular so sometimes he will be home 2-3 weekends in a row and sometimes Im lucky if he's home once a month.
So many of the info, articles, blogs and stories of other people and couples seem to fit him and our relationship to a TEE. Now I am fully aware that our marriage problems are not just him, even if he is ADD, but reading how people with ADD understand things and communicate, it makes total sense as to why the changes I have made and the different tools Ive tried to use, have not helped the marriage. I feel like I am in a better place with myself emotionally, but the marriage is worse. I have broke down and cried many times while reading, and thinking what Im reading is a diary of our relationship. I felt like I was reading a story about us but the names were changed.
Now that I have found this site and realized this could be whats keeping us from a happy marriage, I feel like I have won the lottery but with no way to cash the check. This is the first time in a LONG TIME that I have felt any kind of hope for him and I. My problem is, I dont know how to approach him with all this. We have serious communication problems and can basically only talk basic stuff: How was your day, hows the weather etc... He is very defensive and I dont want him to think that I am "Blaming" him for everything, or that something is "wrong" with him or any of the sort. I am hoping someone can give me some insight. He isnt the type to take medication for every ailment and Im not sure if he believes that ADD is real. I am hoping that maybe he will atleast meet with someone to determine if he does have it and if meds would help.
I love him dearly and want our family to stay together (we have a son 1 1/2yrs, 3 dogs and a cat) forever but if it turns out he isnt ADD or he wont deal with it if he is, it is inevitable that we will get divorced. I have suffered too long and taken too much emotional abuse. It wont be long before our son will be suffering from it too if things dont change one way or the other.
Thanks!
i think you just have to do
Submitted by happycamper13 on
i think you just have to do it. my totally unqualified advice? be as non-confrontational as you can. let him know you aren't trying to blame him for everything, but that you are trying to help both of you and your marriage. try to position it like things could get easier for everyone, including him. i think the reason it worked with my spouse was because i addressed it first by finding something that came from the ADD side, that let my husband connect with his problems and the shared experience of ADDers. by starting with something that showed him he didn't need to feel stupid or weird or inadequate, or like the only person in the world that thinks the way he does, i think it brought him hope about his own life and self-esteem, even independent from me. plus his behavior had gotten so bad, and i'd found this website and it's revelations, so i emailed his mom and asked her if he'd ever been diagnosed as a kid. lo and behold the answer was yes, but he didn't like the meds and they never told him what was going on.
we started dealing with it's impact on the family after getting a sigh of relief from him. of course, then i found out he may have knocked up someone else while i was pregnant with our first....so he real fast got anxious to fix things, address issues, (find an excuse probably) and lost his will to argue that his perceptions are sane. lucky me. hmph.
good luck to you...you might as well bring it up because eventually you will have nothing left to lose. just be gentle. be prepared for blow-back and realize that it doesn't necessarily mean the effort failed, he might get defensive but then go back and really think about it.
I've had two experience that
Submitted by desposi on
I've had two experience that might be helpful, and while they are not related to adhd, i believe they are relevant to getting people to seriously think and consider if they want to do something or not.
1) my freshmen year, i knew one girl who was in the honors program. She was rather nice, but if you knew here, her overly calm, yet sarcastic humor was so common that it could be mistaken for things she was really saying. All in all, This made the question of wheather she was trully happy pop out of my mouth one day as i was talking with her. It wasnt really even something i thought about before saying..like the adhd person in me..it just came out rather casually and non challantly.
For what ever reason she gave me a sort of odd look when i first said it. After that first time, i continued to ask her just as randomly and non challantly as before "Anna, are you happy?" I popped it in here, i popped it in their over the course of several weeks.
at this point i was just doing it, admitedly, because i thought it was interesting that i never got an answer from her, so i kept it up.
then one fate ful day, i posed the question to her again "anna, are you happy?" and believe it or not, she sat down with me their and actually shed a tear...telling me how having me ask that question to her randomly over the past few weeks actually made her seriously think about wheather she truly was happy in her life. Something she apparently hadnt thought about before.
She thanked me before we were done. - i was shocked...and if anything this was an experience that made me realize how to really get in peoples minds, to make them think, without forcing it or asking them to make a deliberate decision. For if you notice from the above example, this girl irgnored me for quite a while, it wasnt till her unconcious mind kinda seeped in when she was away that she really seriously considered it.
2) Ive been doing a neurofeedback program called play attention for adhd latley, and when i moved in with my dad he didnt have a laptop for me to use with the program. I needed one to continue on with my progress!
what did I do - I spent 3 weeks telling him here or there what owning a laptop could do for him - like, he could check his email at home finnally, he could watch shows like house and 2 and half men that he loves on HULU.com, he could access national georgraphic on youtube ..etc...etc..for about 3 weeks.
*each time I added another benefit of doing so, what I did was only tell him 1 at a time. I let it sit there.
Even if he scoffed at me and was like.."buy your own laptop..etc.etc" acting like it wasnt going to happen - i knew i won the game of influence the day after thanksgiving where all these crazy sales where going on. how - i didnt know it at the time, but my mother told me he woke up at 5am to go to best buy to look for a good laptop.
I was like 5am - seriously - this guy never wakes up that early even when he has to. and though he didnt purcahse on that day, that event signified i won and he would purchase one soon, and yes i did have to suggest..lets go to this store tonight and find one unil we got one finnally.
__________
what can be gleaned from these two examples - Influence, when done right, has a large effect. It can cause a topic, idea, decision to enter somebodies mind, without them realizing it. as i never forced them to make a decision, never pushed the issue, if anything I said what i wanted to "nudge their unconcious Mind" to finnally think about something ON THEIR OWN..without any pressure...and let them be each time i did it.
This is the power of suggestability and influence, find a way to fill your husbands head with knowledge of people simiar to him, wheather people in simialr relationship situations, or people like him finding they have adhd - and the changes that can take place.
dont direct these "fill his head moments" at him like he has to make a decision. space them out, and dont mean to have them guide the conversation unless he does.
Over time, these will help them start to think about something, even surrounding them with information about something helps to.
on top of that, do something for your husband that is out of the ordinary and in the form of a gift, something he will enjoy that is specifically coming from you. wait a bit so the two are not connected(as thats the opposite of what you want), but after you wait, then you can approach the situation of adhd in the relationship.
it sounds complex, but in the end i have found things like this often are not that bad, as most of it can be made up on the spot - and all you need to know is the general direction you want to head with the whole prospect of influence and you can actually succede with it.
the reason i suggest this, it might not work to broach the subject directly, and even if you already have, its not a bad idea to try a bit of what ive described above.
It Actually Worked
Submitted by hopeless in hawaii on
Thanks for your post. It actually worked. When I first found this website, I told my husband about it. As most things I introduce to him regarding ADHD that require WORK, other than the hourly therapy sessions, he is critical and discredits them. I don't know if it's the timing also. Considering that we've been seperated for over a month, and contemplating divorce, basically something had to give. Normally, I tell him what needs to be done, and bombard him with questions as to brainstorm on how we can "fix" things. Of course, without understanding about the dynamics on ADHD, the ending result is always failure. This approach of just putting out a question without expecting an answer, made him open to discussing it even more. The goal I had was to just get him to view this website so he can start to educate himself on ADHD. Knowledge is Power! This website I feel, is more stimulating due to current personal posts and feedback from all perspectives. We have bought numerous books on it, and as many of us non-ADHD spouses know, is that they can never keep focused enough to read it cover to cover.
I know he truly loves me, and I love him. I know it kills both of us, when we're apart, because we don't know how to communicate effectively enough, which always ends up in fighting. So, in my last efforts to try to salvage our relationship, I asked him "Are you happy"? His response, "No". Then I asked him "What makes you happy"? He hesitated, and I replied, "You don't need to give me an answer now, it's just something for you to think about". I don't know if anyone else can relate to this, but I have noticed, that everytime I ask him a question, he hesitates. You can see their minds start to overload, which normally ends up shutting down. He has asked me many times when I do ask him a question, "Is this a trick question"? He goes on to tell me that hes afraid of answering my questions, in fear that he might say the wrong thing. Thats why I think the ADHD spouses avoid communicating. Normally through wrong approaches, and misinterpretations, the ending result is most always negative.
All I really wanted was to get him to open up to me. Tell me how "he" truly feels. Tell me "something" in his own words without pressure on feeling if he said the wrong thing, it's not good enough. I wanted to hear "sincerity" in his voice. I haven't heard "sincerity" in his words for years. Lo and behold...I heard it. What a breakthrough! By not expecting him to answer me right away, took off the fear of him opening up. This led to an open minded conversation including suggestions on my part (not demands) to just take a couple minutes to view this website to see whats it's all about. He immediately drove back home, and jumped on the website. I initially expected him to only take a few minutes to browse on here, but I was shocked that he spent well over an hour. We now have agreed to set aside 1 hour daily, to both visit this website together, to learn how to better our relationship. I know it's not going to be easy...but it's a positive start! Thank you david.esposito1.
Thank you!
Submitted by desposi on
Thank you for your feed back, you have given me a moment that I will relish in for a few moments knowing I have helped another.
:)
I might have some more thoughts on this, in the future that i might attatch to this, but till then i hope what i have left you with will serve you well.
keep it novel!
Submitted by desposi on
also, before i forget
making that 1 hour a week novel is important - first of all , i dont know if you have either A) laptop B) smart phone or C) a printer
but make that hour a week fun and interesting, even different each week.
start out at home by the computer - but ( keep this a secret to spice up later) but then when things get boring ( were adhd you cant blame us when things get boring...its how we work) take the two of you some where -- a coffee shop ..hell, pick up dinner somewhere and go out for an hour or so somewhere. - even a treat of ice creame late at night under the stars would be a great way to relax and pour over some of this site together.
the trick..different places..different activies..mixed in with going over this information on this site, reading related books, listening to audio tapes..etc. could help you carry it on.
sides the nice thing about the web - you can take it wit you, either by COpy/paste parts of site to a word document - or even reading on a smart phone - or hell, print it out if thats what you need to do.
just anything to really enjoy this time together and make it productive.
he did hesitate answering questions
Submitted by brendab on
I don't know if anyone else can relate to this, but I have noticed, that everytime I ask him a question, he hesitates. You can see their minds start to overload, which normally ends up shutting down. He has asked me many times when I do ask him a question, "Is this a trick question"? He goes on to tell me that hes afraid of answering my questions, in fear that he might say the wrong thing
Hopeless,
I did notice this in my exBF. Many times he'd reply, "let me get back to you in 3 days" and usually I'd never get an answer to my question because both of us would forget it. For the life of me I could not understand why a simple question would require a 3 day consideration! So you are probably right, it was an attempt to avoid saying the wrong thing.
Brenda