This is the background and extremely basic summary of how ADHD has affected my marriage.
I was recently diagnosed with ADHD and started medication along with adding ADHD coping strategies to my established mental health plan by my therapist.
My wife is not neurodivergent.
After the diagnosis and my research into ADHD, traits and behaviors commonly associated with it, and ways to live and even benefit from those traits and behaviors as well as how to control the ones I can't benefit from, I have realized after discovering The ADHD Effect on Marriage, how the past 18 years of marriage with untreated ADHD with other comorbidities contributed to the abysmal state of my marriage.
My wife and I have similar traumas from our both of our childhoods. Other than that we both had a completely different upbringing, with different values and morals.
I just thought I was broken and she thought I don't care. We didn't understand that we both don't just think differently but that my brain is wired differently and that I experience life differently than people who are not neurodivergent.
I also had to not show any emotions and was not allowed to express my feelings from the time I was a small child and my "macho, alpha male", dominated career in the Army exacerbated the problem. Eventually I had compartmentalized almost all feelings and emotions, walking around numb except for anger. The closest thing I can describe it as is acquired psychopathic and sociopathic emotional degradation. I understood when I should be feeling a certain feeling or emotion, could fake it well enough on the surface for it to pass muster for most people, but I was numb.
I married my wife in 2005 and since then my wife and I have been battling this ADHD monster that we didn't know was there. I didn't have the emotional IQ to be anything but a complete failure as a husband to know when and how to support her emotional needs, and she had the patience of a saint that I was able to completely destroy.
We didn't know that I was neurodivergent so neither of us understood that I was wired differently and needed to be handled differently. I just thought I was a selfish monster and couldn't get with the program.
Without knowing it she was pushing the exact triggers that would negatively stimulate me into noncompliance, cause me to retaliate, or cause me to withdraw from her.
It eventually wore me down to the point that I didn't care and chose to let an affair happen when a coworker propositioned me from mid 2009 to the end of 2010. My wife found out and didn't necessarily take me back but didn't leave.
Early 2014 we were going through a very rough patch and she turned me down on vacation so I was going through angry feelings about that so I had a one night stand. I admitted it to my wife after she was suspicious abd was poking me about it for weeks.
May 2018 to February 2019 I had been away for work and while I was gone my wife and I had an argument on the phone about her treating me in a way that I had perceived as disrespectfully so she just stopped communicating with me unless a major financial decision needed to be made. After repeated attempts to talk I accepted it and didn't let myself fall victim to the loneliness that time.
When I got home February 2019 she said she doesn't want me to touch her and needed time to process her feelings because it felt like I was invading her space after being gone. After about six months I asked her to talk to me about it and she said she still couldn't feel like letting me touch her so to go do whatever I wanted. I wasn't looking for anything but someone approached me and propositioned me and I did it again, then I cut that off a month or so later. Concurrently I had a one night stand with someone else that I had been friends with in high school.
In 2020 my mental health was steadily declining so I started going to therapy for PTSD, depression, and anxiety. Then about a year later in 2021 my wife agreed to start going to marriage counseling. She didn't actively participate much nor was she willing to even work at making the changes that the therapist suggested to her so it drove me even further away.
I went away for work again for a year in December 2021 and it seemed like out of sight out of mind and she wouldn't talk to me at all. I started intensive therapy because I was feeling abandoned and hopeless.
I was also diagnosed with ADHD in June or July this year. And the addition of ADHD meds and focused therapy for it, I am a completely different person as well as having a moment that my off switch for emotions flipped on since I was a school age child. And they hit hard. Much of what my wife was always asking for verbally and nonverbally I am learning to be able to provide and is ready for her if she reaches out and takes my hand. Only she hasn't seen me through this journey because she checked out.
I have been back about two weeks and she is so cold and when I told her that I want to discuss the future and try to talk to her about my experience, I just get an angry brush off.
She said she doesn't want to be with me anymore because I am unreliable and have never supported her emotionally, but that I need to be patient with her to see if her feelings change. I got her a copy of The ADHD Effect on Marriage, with the hope that she will have the same experience with it that I did and it clicked that so much was because neither one of us knew that I had ADHD or understood that both of our behaviors were causing damage to the other one or understand why. But I don't even know if she'll read it.
Now with that novel of a post does anyone have any advice or experiencef from a similar situation? I'm trying to get through to her to try and understand my behaviors and how the ADHD brain works. I'm not trying to excuse it, or blame the ADHD for my poor choices but to understand how I came to those choices and why it made sense or was on an impulse and not thought out.
Any advice will be appreciated and extremely valuable.
C.
You cheated more than once
Submitted by adhd32 on
Even if your wife educates herself about ADHD the multiple betrayals are damn near impossible to get past. People don't "fall vicim" to affairs, they make conscience choices to be unfaithful. You are asking for a lot. Instead of focusing on her becoming accepting of all the past betrayals why not focus on becoming someone she can trust? Work on yourself. Be a better man. You don't need to "get through" to her, the reasons/excuses don't really matter. You went outside of your marriage more than once which is devastating to your wife. You want to feel better about that by using ADHD as a reason but you own those affairs and the fallout. ADHD or not, you are still responsible for your actions. You knew it was wrong, you knew she would be hurt, yet you did it anyway.
adhd32 said it perfectly
Submitted by 1Melody1 on
She has already given you more chances than most partners would. The treatment you're getting is great, but not evidence to her that when things get challenging you won't have another affair. If she's done, I think you need to respect that and not expect yet MORE understanding from this woman you've put through the wringer again and again.
Adhd32 advised you to show her through your actions that you're someone she can trust. Be accountable and don't expect anything in return. You've shown her for 18 years she can't count on you, so show her for the next 18 that she CAN and maybe she'll believe you.
Hi Friend
Submitted by swampyankee on
You sound like my husband, minus the affairs and minus the awareness that you have ADHD.
I think you have to accept that the dynamic between the two of you, with many root causes, one of which being that you have ADHD, which probably exacerbated other causes, including her coldness and her ultimately being done with the relationship, didn't work.
It's tragic that so many of us understand too late what was causing so many problems in our relationships, But the silver lining is that now you know. Whether you and your wife get back together or not, I think you have learned a great deal and I wish you luck. For what it's worth, I wish my husband had as much clarity over his own shortcomings due to his ADHD as you do.
Thank you. I appreciate the
Submitted by Cmonkey83 on
Thank you. I appreciate the non-judgemental feedback. I didn't have that kind of awareness until after my diagnosis, which prompted me to conduct research into ADHD. I am not trying to hide behind it and while I felt like I had no options, I take responsibility for making the choice. It's been a hard road because I never meant to hurt my wife, I was taking care of my neglected needs, and that was a byproduct that I would give anything to take back. But since that is impossible I have to instead, just be better.
Hello Cmonkey
Submitted by Giorgia on
I would like to ask you a few questions as I would like to possibly gain more understanding with a similar situation.
But let me say at first that your regret and sadness is felt through your words and also the willingness to save the marriage and take responsibility and that is highly valued.
I though don't understand quite some things and would like to understand the perspective of ADHD man and affairs. It seems to me that there is lack of understanding how hurtful the cheating can be for the other partner.
It seems to me that when you talk about fulfilling your needs - that is so far from the approach one should have in the relationship. I do not understand - if the woman is telling you ( and I am sure she was telling you) why she is not happy, how she needs you to communicate differently with her and in what way she doesn't want you to talk to her... When she was telling you what of your behaviour is hurting her or what hurts her when you are not doing it... And then you kept ignoring her needs all these years but still expecting your need would be fulfilled..
My head just don't understand this. Isn't that clear when she feels so disrespected when she feels ignored so often, when she feels like you don't listen to her and you speak over her, or give attention to other women... Isn't that clear that she will not feel like sleep with you, and feel like being the loving wife? How could she even respect herself?
Ad as you see I am kind of sharing here my own story, my own feelings with a man who at the end also cheated on me. But still this might give you a bit of more understanding how your wife might be feeling. And I can assure you that me later not feeling like sharing my body was not due to he was not attractive for me.. he was still very attractive, but it was all caused by him disrespecting me every day little by little. Every day adding just a slightly more bitterness.
Just every day liking myself less and less. It caused huge inner conflict - as I loved him and wanted to have a good relationship with him, but every day I had to ignore myself a little more in order to stay with him. Every day I was hoping for him to finally get it, hoping that he could look at things with clear eyes. He didn't. His eyes kept looking more and more towards other women! Causing me even more to distance myself from him. It truly started to feel like sleeping with him means I am betraying myself. Because of how he treated me, as someone not important.
And I JUST don't understand, when you say you now understand and you want your wife back. Tell me, what would you do differently?? If you knew years back that you have ADHD what do you think would be different in your story?
Please tell me when you layed down with these women, where in your head was your wife at that moment. And when you came back home, how was it to look into her eyes? Please tell me why do you think it would be different when you knew you have ADHD?
I ask these questions in a hopeful way, that things can change in relationship like this. But this probably will not happen until you will be able to see all these daily hurts of hers and you will feel them. Until then I can understand other people telling you that probably too much damage has been done and you ask a bit too much of your wife.
From me you will hear that I wish you you can make it work again, and not only for you but also for others, so we know there is a hope. But I truly think that in order you could gain trust of your wife again, you would first have to you see her real HURT.
Until then, she can't trust you will not hurt her again. And there is only a certain amount of hurt one is able to take. Good luck!