I am the Non ADHD Spouse trying so very hard to to learn and understand ADHD. I almost walked out of my marriage a month ago until a light bulb went on and I finally saw myself and the stuff I was doing wrong. I changed everything on my end and we have gotten along with things looking promising until last night. My husband had his medication (Strattera) doubled along with his Anxiety medication. He feels a lot better and I do as well since he is happier overall, easier to be around and I see him trying to be more attentive. Here is my experience that is literally making me feel like I am going crazy. I am hoping that this is somewhat familiar to ADHD and others experiences or maybe I am dealing with something different. I have noticed this cycle when it comes to my husband and hearing my feelings around his Symptoms with ADHD.
1- For almost 2 weeks once his meds doubled he seemed more attentive to me and even called out his symptoms as they happened giving me hope. He has listened and empathized with me sharing my feelings on other topics. When he listens he seems to zone out. I call him out on it and he says he is focusing. He will ask a question trying to be attentive and then I answer. Instead of seeking to understand my answer or diving deeper, which is what I want... he says " wow, ya i see that its hard... so what about this question" then he is off to another question. I feel like a checkoff list, the interaction between us feels fake, unauthentic as I watch him struggle to connect, engage with me. When I call this out to him and how it makes me feel, he immediately gets offended by me. He will say I hurt him, things were going so well until I mentioned that. He will turn it into now him being the victim and my feelings about his actions, symptoms are offensive. When I asked if we could talk about my feelings in counseling he said yes, but he is sick of hearing about my feelings..... Now this is the same guy who a week ago was kind, attentive , loving and seemed to see his side. Now I went to bed again feeling unheard, unloved and no real emotional connection.
2- I dont understand how one week he can be loving and kind and the next week come off uncaring, selfish, lacking empathy and no compassion. How does he not see the rollercoaster? Why is it that he is so defensive whenever I try and talk about his symptoms and how they make me feel?
3- I am trying to figure out how to live happily in this marriage when I will be missing the emotional intimacy I have always desired. Is there hope for this in an ADHD relationship? My husband is extremely prideful and arrogant. I confused him as being and looking narcassitic. The difference being that I hear him apologize for himself more often than I hear him brag about himself. How is emotional intimacy established in a relationship like this one? Does anyone else struggle with a partner who gets defensive and denies their ADHD behaviour and then accepts it a week later?
4- I cant seem to break through this barrier that exists when speaking to him. It's like I am almost all the way connecting to him and then he goes surface, coming off polite and cordial like a work buddy. He can switch into loving, compassionate, sweet, but because he flops so much I am not sure what to believe in who he is. He comes off inauthentic to me often like he is performing. The times I see him the most authentic is when he talkes about his struggles and I go into counseling mode. The same cannot be said for me. If I do the same he will say I talk to much, He cant do this right now and I just need to be happy. He says he knows what a marriage and women need yet doesnt really seem to know how to have relationships. Emotional intimacy and asking me questions to learn more about me, engaging in life together,,, all these things lack or are non existant for the most part. Does anyone have any positive alike experiences?
" I want to connect"
Submitted by Giorgia on
"I want to connect" or "We are not connecting" "why are we not connecting"?
Words I used to say in my relationship to my undiagnosed ADHD boyfriend at that time - well diagnosed by me.
It often felt weird, Like everything was there all the potential to connect but somehow it was not happening. For four years.
I literally had to announce hugging moments in order to get some of my oxytocin. I felt like I had to take it because it was not coming naturally. And especially because I couldn't get it often emotionally at least I was seeking the nonsexual hugs.
He preferred being on the phone at the evening or morning in the bed than talking to me. He was not really interested to what I was thinking about or what my plans were. When he was asking questions it was around a topic he was just randomly thinking about followed by explaining me what he was thinking about. But it felt like he is not interested in my answer but in his reply and his thinking about the topic. Sometimes he was so taken by his own thoughts almost like amazed by it and he valued his thoughts so much like it was very special and already a value.
Later even less we were talking because we had some bad experience both of us. I was complaining about how he keeps talking about one topic and not knowing when to stop - this created then he didn't feel like talking to me because it was not a positive experience. And same for me it was not a positive experience because it felt like he doesn't care for me but he just wants to talk his thing in this very unemotional way very analytical way.
So yes I think you definitely are describing something that could be connected to ADHD but was may be not mentioned so much here. But I think it's a thing. And often I felt it when calling, it was like he was not able to imagine/feel our relationship when calling and it sounded so distant polite and was at the end causing arguments and negative association with calling.
Yes often I felt like he is reacting to me and even talking to me but it feels like we are strangers. Like he was polite to a stranger and not like talking to someone to whom he has a lot of emotions and memories with. And I think it might be because they are so focused on the details sometimes and they have a hard time to see a bigger picture then it is also difficult for them to somehow feel all of you and who you represent in their life at certain moment.
So weird
Hello, we are living very
Submitted by mlac111 on
Hello, we are living very similar lives! Is your husband having counseling on his own for his adhd or are you only having counseling together?
I absolutely see myself in
Submitted by Lost In Space on
I absolutely see myself in this. Married 28 years to my ADHD husband. Emotional intimacy, attempting to have shared experiences is a struggle. Also, mine also treats any attempts at connection as a performance/checklist. I didn't know that was what I was dealing with when we met, but after a few years his son was diagnosed with ADD and then it all clicked, though I felt my husband was semi-good at hiding any deficiencies.
Feeling abandoned – – is it the ADHD or or my fault?
Submitted by forfolk on
I just want to validate in the above post that it can be so confusing to be in a relationship with an ADHD partner who seems to ping-pong back-and-forth, sometimes stating loving intention, but sometimes seeming as though he doesn't care about the relationship, just putting on some kind of performance or attending to a checklist in his mind of perceived "relationship duties".
In the latest episode of my fiancé wanting to put our relationship on a break, I'm considering that ADHD may be being used as some sort of get out of jail free card for other avoidant attachment issues that he just doesn't want to address. Maybe that's at the heart of the defensiveness others mentioned above.
I was really struck by the characterization above about a "checklist" because the whole engagement seems to have been what he would "have to" do if he found someone to love, not necessarily me. Also, things on which he seemed to keep changing his mind and/or not hearing or recalling conversations with me were mostly about if and how we would ever share a future, such as a place to live together; I was always excusing it because of his ADHD, and trying to figure out ways we could accommodate and work around it, one of the main reasons we continued to spend money on meeting with a couples therapist, but it seems often that he didn't remember or attend to what the therapist recommended either.
The fails in communication about finances and future plans became an increasing source of anxiety for me. I was having to go ahead and make decisions independently in lieu of our being able to discuss them jointly, and then, even when I made decisions for myself, not him, but that seemed to be what he wanted, he seemed to resent them. Indeed I felt making all the concessions and suggestions was turning into my responsibility in other areas of our relationship, for example he complained that we were never having any fun on dates, but when I'd be the only one to suggest we do something a little different, it generally fell flat.
I had been having individual therapy and worked pretty hard to address learned behaviors from the previous marriage that my fiancé saw as negative. I had managed to change a lot. He too came out of a sad relationship with his ex (he said probably at least a little but not all of that had to do with his then-undiagnosed ADHD) but has always reacted defensively to any suggestion that we both may have some baggage to be worked on. In the recent interactions with the couples counselor, he stated that I'm the one affecting him in a negative way. The other times that he temporarily said he wanted out, I seem to have "repaired" the breaches by leaning in with careful conversations following many of the recommendations that Melissa makes in her course. He didn't really seem to be leaning in with repair attempts himself, but he responded positively to mine. This time it appears the breakup will stick because I didn't try as hard to repair things, so that meant no one was trying.
I felt much more dismissed this time, not only because of the things he was saying he resented about me but also because of the timing he chose, which made it seem this wasn't just impulsive behavior on his part, but he'd actually been stringing me along for quite a while after deciding to break up. I had been keen to learn more about rejection sensitivity dysphoria associated with ADHD, but it really doesn't seem as though that is in play here, because the way Melissa's blog citations describe RSD, it may be quite frequent and very painful but is fairly short term, not months and years in the extreme negative reaction. So this didn’t seem like RSD. It does feel like he was just going down a checklist for companionship to get through some rough patches in his life, and then he could dispense with it.
So I wonder how much of this can actually be attributed to ADHD, vs. how much is ADHD is being used as an excuse so that he doesn't have to feel guilty but can just start his checklist over with the next someone he wants to love, maybe even giving her the same gifts and using the same draft prenup that we could never finalize.
Replying to my own post here;
Submitted by forfolk on
Replying to my own post here; after many confusing interactions, months later with the help of friends and therapist it seems I was correct thinking that it wasn't all ADHD, though my ex repeatedly was able to use ADHD as an excuse for other difficult behaviors that may have arisen from BPD (aka EUPD). This is characterized by repetitive seesawing between love bombing and strongly avoidant behavior, which I'd seen in my ex but had not recognized until the therapist saw the periodicity, by which a lot of his pronouncements that didn't make sense or were contradictory suddenly became predictable.
in BPD the duration of both the love-bombing phase and the rejection/avoidance/harshness "splitting black" phase can be much longer than the attention issues of ADHD and the brief though deep shame moments of RSD. Unlike ADHD or autism, which have a strongly genetic component, BPD is a behavioral pattern that seems to be initiated in childhood related to abandonment experiences. I'm guessing the reason it is seen so often in the descriptions on this forum about ADHD behavior is that many ADHD children suffer experiences that seem to them like abandonment from parents and teachers that don't understand their behavior. The avoidant phase behavior of BPD is rooted in shame, and fear that the loved one will abandon the relationship, but to make this phase emotionally bearable, the sufferer projects everything bad in his own feelings onto the previously loved person, "splitting", which can seem cruel and drama-filled, utterly inexplicable.
Anyway, I also benefited from advice Melissa was giving to ADHD couples that are not yet married. After he ended a long engagement, in which we never progressed very far toward even the basic partnerships of a committed couple without punctuation by these "splitting black" periods in which there was dive-bomb destruction of conversation, fun, happiness and contentment, not to mention hope, career satisfaction, libido, self-confidence, and relationships with my family, I am now only starting to overcome the grief this relationship was causing in my life. I realized it wasn't within my capacity to stop his feeling unhappy. It turns out to have been beneficial that we never married, although I loved my partner and did, during each love bombing period of time, feel that I was truly loved. That's the toughest thing about BPD and it may merit more attention as a frequent accompaniment of ADHD when the parents are unaware of the ADHD child needs, as they were, decades ago when my ADHD ex was a child who needed more love and understanding than he got. I feel sorry for my ADHD ex and the pattern he fell into, and it may be possible that with therapy for the BPD as well as the ADHD he'll have a wonderful relationship someday with someone he loves stably rather than the adores/can't even tolerate/hates/misses/adores cycle, rinse, repeat.
Forfolk
Submitted by 1Melody1 on
So unbelievably happy for you that you have found clarity and freedom. I hope you will find someone to share your goodness with who gives you just as much back.
Nothing changes
Submitted by Mizeeyore on
Sorry to bring you bad news. There's no way to tell my ADHD spouse anything he has done has hurt me. My spouse will deflect, deny, and verbally abuse me for telling him he hurt me with a behavior or his words. I just quit caring what he says or does. He has told me my feelings are not his problem. I was wasting my breath. The only thing I can do is accept he is never wrong, it's all my fault for being hurt in the first place. I'm done having any expectation that my husband will ever care enough about the marriage to solve anything and stop being defensive. All I can do is avoid him. He knew how to act before we were married. The piece of paper is now his free pass to say or do whatever he wants. If I object, he'll twist the blame on to me by the end of the argument. Nothing is worth this.
I HEAR YA....
Submitted by kosty on
I feel that same way that you do, I tried the other day to bring up the ADHD and he just gets so irritated, mad, rolls his eys, blames me, or just shuts down, so I too am done wasting my breath, as the saying goes you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. All that I'm trying to learn now is how to not react to him. I think this is so hard for women as we are the fixer, but if you have a person who doesn't want to be fixed, helped ect how do you interact with them.