I'm very recently married, and I have been diagnosed with ADHD since I was 4(now 26). I met my wife 3 years ago, and we've had a rocky relationship for a majority but we managed to keep things together, even if its with duck tape and super glue. Like I said, we've both known about my ADHD since the beginning, but I've only been back on medication(adderall) for about 5 months now. Only recently did we find this book and this website. We've had similar issues as most of the posts that I've seen on here, and looking at the books "hotspots", they summed up 80-90% of our fights. I feel like this book and this community will be my saving grace, and thusly our hail mary to save our relationship.

As I mentioned, our relationship has been held together with duck tape and super glue. What I mean by this is that we've been in and out of therapists(personal and couples), I've read books( Love Languages, Co Dependent No more, Lost art of Listening, Boundaries in Marriage), and its always been like a patch on the leak that is our love. It works for a little while, but then when the pressures on, it breaks. I feel completely responsible for all of our unhappiness, but it just feels like when I start to make progress, I slip up in some way(be it small or big... usually small) and all the fears, insecurities, and hurt comes flooding back to my wife, and I'm knocked back down to square 1. She's tried setting boundaries, punishing, consequences, incentives, sex, no sex, etc. to get me to "shape up, and stay in shape" but despite my best efforts, I fall short of making her happy long enough for her to let go of the past. I am completely devoted to her, and I have noticed that I have the "high tolerance for pain" because regardless of what she does, the consequences don't stick. I feel miserable, sure, but apparently it isn't enough for the things we talk about to "sink in". I am working very hard to rebuild the trust that has been stripped away by all the lies and broken promises, but I can't seem to get any footing long enough to get moving. It also feels like there are so many "holes" I need to repair, that by the time I turn my attention to a new one, I seem to let go of the patch before it sets, and the old problem starts leaking again. 

She also has a vicious temper. We grew up in much different environments. For one, she's a strong Type A, and I'm a typical Type B. For two, my family was the type to not talk about grievances and to bottle the emotions up and ignore them until they go away. I never saw my parents fight, until the night they decided to divorce, which was a huge fight and screaming match. They were both drunk and my father actually approached me when I was 9 and asked who I wanted to live with. On the flip-side, my wife grew up in a household where no one bottled up anything. If someone had an issue, they had no qualms about laying it all out right then and there. I've been a bystander to many screaming matches between sisters and children/parents. This was completely foreign to me and just screamed disrespect, which is a lesson my dad literally beat into me. You don't disrespect your parents. This gives a little insight to how we both approach conflict. I'm very conservative, if I bring up issues at all, and she is not against having a list of my flaws and faults at the ready for any given moment. She says hurtful things when she's mad. Tells me she hates me and that she knew the day of the wedding that it was a mistake. These are the moments where I lose my temper and recently lost control and punched a hole in the drywall as I stormed down the hallway away from the bedroom. This is completely unlike me. I'm very laid back normally and not easily excitable, but in those moments, i just see red, and that is another one of my issues. I struggle greatly recognizing emotions within myself. 

We've had this book for about a month now, and I'm about to start my 2nd time through it to make sure I get the information to sink in, but it feels like my wife isn't giving me the room and/or time necessary to fix these issues. She says she is tired of being patient and that she has sacrificed so much of herself to get to this point, but I don't know how to ask her to give me more time. I'm doing the best that I can with the availability I have.(I'm in my senior year of accounting and working 2 jobs to try to even out the load of bills because she's basically supporting me with her salary while I finish school). It also feels like she isn't really taking to heart the tactics expressed for the non-adhd partner. This point, I can understand honestly, because through all of our time together, she has been feeling more and more pressure and stress from my lack of symptom management. There were parts in this book that made me bawl to think about how much I put her through with ADHD. I can understand her hesiation to trust and rely on me and the constant expectation for the other shoe to drop when I'm experiencing a good time and successful at meeting her needs as a good husband. I totally get it, I really do, but it still hurts all the same. Having her expecting me to fail, doesn't instill confidence in me. Sorry for the essay. I just really don't know what else to do. I REALLY need help and advice on how to get her to give me time to grow into a better husband. 

Anyone else here feel like friends/family have absolutely no clue what we deal with, or think we are being petty or exaggerating?  I was just talking to a friend who's husband is an alcoholic.  She is trying to get him to go to AA and to get help for depression.  We were talking and it finally dawned on her what I have been going through.  We both realized how similar our situations are.  Until this conversation, I think she thought I was just bitching and moaning about a perfectly nice husband.  I get the impression from family that they think I am really hard on my husband.  He is an incredibly sweet person who does whatever I tell him to do.  But they see it as me bossing him around.  They don't see that if I don't tell him what he needs to do, that it won't ever get done. 

I have learned over the years to keep his ineptness on the down low or I just come off looking like an evil witch.  Feels like I am hiding the fact that my husband has a neurological disorder and that I am doing the best I can to survive within it.

Like many non-ADHDers, I was the subject of hyperfocused dating by my ADHD partner (who I did not know at the time had ADHD). Within a month he said he loved me, wanted me to meet his family, etc.

I began to notice many symptoms of ADHD (angry rants, easily frustrated, drifting off in conversations, etc)... and asked him on several occasions if he had it. He would either change the subject or ignore my question. He did admit one time that he would never take meds and "doesn't need to talk to anyone", so that tells me he must've done so at some point and had a negative experience. We eventually planned on going on vacation together, and just a week prior he was still telling me he loved me... then he simply disappeared. Stopped answering texts/phone calls. 

I only confirmed for sure that he had ADHD because I began to get suspicious, and Googled him and found old articles from his early adult days that reported on his petty crimes (theft, vandalism) which were attributed to his depression/ADHD. (The courts ordered a psych eval and he was given a lighter sentence in combination with rehab/anger management therapy.)

The "ghosting" came at about the 3 month mark in the relationship. I'm not sure if this was just an abrupt end of his hyperfocus, or if he became squeamish at my persistent asking about his ADHD. I'd texted him a few times since, and know that he's gotten them (my iPhone says they were "delivered" so I am assuming he hasn't blocked or deleted me... yet). I wrote to tell him I know everything... his criminal past, his depression/ADHD, etc. and that it did not change how I felt about him, and that I accept him the way he is. Still, no response.

My question is, does the end of hyperfocus mean you're just dead to them? That whatever feelings they had for you weren't real? That they just feel nothing for you now? For him having gone out of his way to avoid the ADHD topic when pressed tells me he's pretty embarrassed/ashamed of being found out. I admit we had some spats over him not following through on promises, drifting off during conversations, talking too much/not at all (to which he once replied "geez, you tell me i talk too much/too loud one minute and the next minute you're saying i'm too quiet... I just can't win with you!")... but that was all before I read several books/blogs on what ADHD actually is, and had no idea. I do feel bad for not being as understanding and patient as I could have been, and I feel I would have been had I known... so I do feel perhaps him disappearing is partially my fault for being too harsh on him when I didn't know. 

So what do I do now? Should I keep trying to attempt to connect and have a dialogue with him? Should I just let it go? I care so deeply for this person (as someone who also has suffered from depression on and off), but I don't know if the whole thing was just a moment of hyperfocus for him and it wasn't real or if he's retreating because he's hurt by my handing of his behavior/ADHD disclosure. Is breaking up with someone via "ghosting" a common tactic among ADHDers? I'm really hurt he chose this action. Even if were to angrily tell me off and break up with me, that would have been better than "ghosting" and feeling like you're just discarded like garbage. 

-Feeling Lost

I don't know if "conflict seeking" is the right way to describe this  or not.

I don't even know if it's his problem, my problem, or a mutual problem.

Basically, every discussion, every disagreement, and every expression of negative emotion on my part--  it all turns into a fight.  Zero to yelling in 10 setconds flat. 

In 16 years, I haven't been able to find a way out. 

If I state my opinion, it's an argument.

If I advocate for my point of view, I'm being controlling and aggressive and it's an argument. 

If I try to guess his opinion, I'm being a people-pleaser, and it's an argument.

If I try to extract his opinion so I can agree with it, I'm being passive-aggressive and it's an argument.

If I talk about negative emotions (anger, fear, sadness, grief, hopelessness), I shouldn't feel that way, and it's an argument.

If I talk to someone else about negative emotions instead, that's emotional adultery, and it's an argument.

If I just don't talk, that's withholding, and passive-aggression, and it's an argument. 

If I just don't react, that's withholding, and passive-aggression, and it's an argument. 

Short of smiling all the time and making lots of smalltalk, there is NOTHING I CAN DO that isn't going to turn into an argument (and smalltalk isn't safe either; sooner or later I will make a mistake that can be turned into an argument). 

This has always been taxing.  Several years ago, I got so tired of it that I decided to just do the submissive wife thing.  Smile all the time, always be available for sex, make no demands of him, keep all my feelings to myself, jump to meet every request, not pursue any interest that wasn't in his immediate service, say "YES" to everything.  I enjoyed the NOT ARGUING.  After about 5 years of that, I had a complete nervous breakdown.  Which was, of course, my fault.  And AN ARGUMENT that has been ongoing since 2011 (when I finally ended up in the hospital wanting to kill myself). 

I'm a nervous wreck.  I can't go back to being a submissive wife again (he won't allow it--  now it has to turn into an argument even if I say "YES" to everything).  I can't handle everything being an argument any more.  The mere thought of having to speak unless I'm saying something like, "I love you honey" or "What do you want for breakfast honey?" makes me shaky and sick to my stomach. 

Either the arguments have to stop, or we have to separate. 

And separating isn't an option.  Our kids are too little, and it's common knowledge that either I would relinquish all parental rights and walk away or it would be the custody battle from Hell. 

ETA--  Self-awareness on his part isn't going to happen.  I KNOW how painful self-awareness can be for the variously disordered (I'm an Aspie--  I would love to stop being obsessively self-aware every waking moment, but I understand that that is something I must never, ever allow myself to do b/c The Beast Autism will slip it's leash if I relax my guard).  I would NEVER wish that pain on him.  Plus, as painful as constant obsessive self-awareness is for me, at least I had the blessing of a loving, supportive, basically emotionally healthy family growing up.  He didn't.  He was subjected to an almost total lack of support and constant and unending low-to-moderate level verbal and emotional abuse.  His self-esteem, while it looks great on the outside, is a fragile and hollow shell.  He could never sustain self-awareness without completely and totally crashing.

If there's going to be a change that stops the arguments, I'm going to have to be the one to make it.