So, my bona fides, my self justification for writing here. You can skip this whole paragraph basically. I have ADHD. I was diagnosed when I was 35. I'm 36 now. I take my meds. I try to listen better. I really try to communicate. I try to focus on medium range life, not put blinders on and get lost in the immediacy of the now, or the la la land of the "whatever ionosphere" I can go to so easily (e.g. what if I write a best selling novel? Perhaps I should get my pilot's license and move to Alaska... What am I going to do when my dad gives me his fishing boat? What if I really am an alien robot sent to find humanity's weakness so that my superior designers can come here and reign destruction down upon the world... At the last thought, loop back to the first about a best selling novel. You get the idea).
My wife is on this blog all the time. I don't come here because I know her blog name, and I feel like she needs space. I don't want to read what she's written about us. Usually she's here when she's mad at me, at least that's what I see. She reads lots and lots about ADHD. And I appreciate her efforts, they have made a difference. But her clinical understanding doesn't yet equate to emotional acceptance.
So much of our pain comes back defensiveness. Let me assure anyone who reads this, my awful defensiveness is also the grit that has gotten me through life. Until recently, its been the steroid that allows me to play ball with everyone else--it assists me, while also killing me. Actually, this kind of "steroid" kills everything around me. Thus, I have the typical ADHD path of destruction behind me, a-la Sherman's march to the Atlantic.
Even with meds, diagnosis, etc., I am bewildered at how to give up defensiveness to emotionally relate to someone as "an equal." I am always perched, awaiting the blow from nowhere. Waiting to defend myself in the follow up conversations with friends I will soon abandon, which in essence state, "Psst. Andy. Newsflash. You should have seen that one coming from a mile away...what the hell's wrong with you?"
When it comes to emotional crises, given the right amount of time, the conclusions I have about the dilemma are not usually mean or selfish. Over the past several months, these conclusions have even begun to have less of the barbs of defensiveness than they used to. I truly admit fault now. But the time I need to get to this point is unfortunately is never in any relationship I've been in. Its "now-now-now--tell me what you feel right now!" And my mind is a hall of mirrors I have to extract meaning from. What I usually offer in the moment is too blunt and with no context, and comes across mean, selfish, narcissistic, etc. While I'm busy working it out, life moves on at life's pace, and then I'm in trouble for something else I didn't see coming.
I hate this cycle so much that a part of me simply hates people. People meddling with me and pushing me from one event to the next. Yell at me all morning about how I didn't respond to a fight properly, and how easy and obvious it all is. Tell me how you're so right, and you've got the books to prove it! Then when I begin to sort it out, just as I begin to get it down, come in and yell at me because I didn't feed the kids and you need chips and salsa for some friend who is dropping by. Act nice while the friend is here. Wander around a bit afterward, numb. Then its bedtime routine for the kids. Act nice again. Then I go to bed and ponder it all. Then get up, most likely optimistic. Remain happy until another dead fish flies in a random window and nails me right in the mouth.
I feel like I am the end of a long road. That this is the relationship that makes or breaks me. If it succeeds (and I am vested in trying to make it succeed), then I will be happy in it. If it doesn't work, then I am going to learn how to live by myself, which is to say that I'm going to learn how to live with myself.
That does sound like a very frustrating cycle
Submitted by Aspen on
and I am sorry for both yourself and your wife that you are in it. I am the non ADD wife of a 38 year old man diagnosed close to 3 years ago, so your bona fides sound kinda familiar to me :) The first year after our ADD diagnosis was not as much better as the previous year (which was our worst on record and what led him to "find out what is wrong with me" and is how we got the diagnosis). We will be married 9 years this fall.
Just for the record, he comes here sometimes to read and it makes me happy that he is getting informed. I am not afraid for him to read my posts. He was there too and I think sometimes it is good for him to see it from my side. I needed his help the other day to respond to an ADD person who had replied to me, and I just said "I'll read you the original post, but know this was the day after you forgot to do x and y, so I was frustrated if anything sounds like venting to you." He agreed it was all true and just the way it happened, and he helped a lot with my response. Just saying your wife MIGHT not mind you coming and posting here......you should ask. If she does you should definitely try to find a good place for you to share your views too. I really enjoyed the ability to see a familiar situation from what could easily be my husband's eyes.
SOOO back to your story. The reason that year was so hard on us was a combination of things. For me the diagnosis was the puzzle piece that allowed the rest to make sense and allowed me to believe him when he kept telling me that he wasn't less interested in me than before, he loved me very much, & yes he did care about how I felt. I'd been having a hard time believing those things when he hyperfocusing on his computer games, not following through on committments, and not doing the things I KEPT telling him I needed him to be doing so that I would be feeling more loved. But then the progress was SOOOO SLLLLOOOOWWW. He didn't take his coaching appts very seriously and would sometimes forget them and then it would take months for him to get back into a regular schedule. He never DID what the coach told him to do for *homework* between the appts, and then the coach would say, "Yeah I'm not surprised that you didn't" and nothing would get worked on. SOO frustrating!
We were both estatic to have a diagnosis, and he was pretty happy it wasn't as *bad* as some of the diagnoses that his family has received; but that next year took a lot out of us both. He wanted meds to be the magic bullet that would solve all his problems, and I kept telling him, and even illustrating the way some of the books did, why this would never be the case (ie he could *see* well enough to thread the needle now, but he still didn't have the know how to actually sew at this point). He "yes"d and agreed me to death and then just kept merrily going along believing the meds were going to take care of it all. I feel we lost months when he wasn't really working on his ADD.....just taking meds, but I eventually learned he was going through his own grieving process about having a diagnosis and it allowed me to be more patient with him.
However, I am in general impatient person. I have a quick brain and the enthusiasm and ability to follow through quickly & keep a lot of balls in the air simultaneously. He is like you and needs time. Some of our biggest arguments have been about me waiting for an answer to something when I am upset with him. I wait so long that I even have to ask him "Do you know that I am expecting an answer?" Seriously he takes SO LONG sometimes to answer that I am convinced that he either didn't hear the question, didn't think it required an answer, or has forgotten the question and it too embarrassed to tell me. He replies "I am thinking" So there we both sit on the couch waiting and waiting. And the profound answer he gives at the end of all this thinking and waiting?? "I just don't know." My reaction was SERIOUSLY!??!?! Yikes it was hard on us both!
The way we dealt with it was that I would accept that he didn't know RIGHT NOW, but that if this was an important issue, he had to think about it and get back to me with an answer. Do you get back to your wife once you have processed and aren't feeling so defensive? We are still dealing with defensiveness still and I expect that we will continue to do so, though he does eventually come around and can have a calm discussion a little later when all the buttons aren't pushed. We still struggle with the impatience for an answer thing because he still struggles to get back to me, which causes me to think he isn't taking the issue seriously and trying to resolve it, but this issues are lessening a lot. I have learned more patience and he has learned to have less defensiveness and not always react to me like my questions or concerns are attacks on him.
Do you see the issues that she wants you to change in your life as requests to change your very being? My husband took them all so personally, even if it was "Please don't leave your shoes in the middle of the walkway between rooms because they are a tripping hazard" It was all so PERSONAL in his mind. But he is backing off the defensiveness and accepting that needing to change things to get along more easily isn't only a result of having ADD.