My husband was recently diagnosed with ADHD.  We are in couples counseling and he sees a therapist privately.  After years of growing apart our relationship is betting better.  But, out financial life is a disaster.  When we were first married I had retirement savings.  He convinced me to invest in a business that failed.  We bought a home and because I had a better credit rating the mortgage was put in my name.  I also let him use one of my credit card and he ran up $27,0000 which he pays the bare minimum.  We took out an $80,000 home equity loan to fix up the house.  Every project was left unfinished and I ended up paying this loan.  He is not working now because of  a heart condition and is retraining for another career.  

Last night while we were out to dinner he decided to tell me he wants to retire in 3 years.  I said maybe 5 years (he is 68 and I am 69) but not before we are out of debt since we have no retirement savings. We also have to fix up the house before we csn sell it.  He said he thought we should move out of the country and not pay these bills. And furthermore, accused me of only thinking about money.  I finally said I couldn't do that and if he felt it was so important he should leave without me but please don't leave me holding the bag on all these bills.  I did not get an answer. He just shut down.

I sm sure if I hadn't been so surprised by him bringing up this topic I could have handled it better. Maybe asked how he planned to fix up the house and where he was going to find the money. Now I am panicking that one day he will walk on on thes obligations and I will be overwhelmed with debt.  i would appreciate any suggestions about ow to handle this.

Acceptance is key.  After 50 years of following my well-meaning mother's advice, "Act as if.", I have come to the point in my life that in the case of my husband's ADD, acting "as if" has been detrimental to my well-being.  I now challenge myself to accept reality as it is and heal after years of being ignored by the one person I devoted my life to supporting and loving.  Here is a meditation that I will re-name "Meditation for ADD/ADHD" for those of us who are impacted by ADD/ADHD in any way.  Feed your state of mind and heart to thrive in the face of pain and change to a heart of light and wholeness.  It makes a great start to your new day.  Enjoy:

Google the words "Powerful Guided Meditation for Healing & Letting Go" on YouTube.

Hey all, so my spouse has now confirmed he has ADD and not ADHD like we had both originally thought. And I feel so....lost? As in, it was a bit surprising that he doesn't have ADHD but I'm not sure it will really matter in the long run, there's now a lot of work to do on it and I'm not sure which way to turn. I mean, all the things I've learned about ADHD...do they still apply? I know the next step is to push for couselling for both of us, I think it's a deal breaker for me, but I also feel confused about that too. Not sure if that is the right next step or what. I know no one here can tell me what to do (as much as I would like that to be honest), but what have others done when a diagnosis finally (!) happened and now it feels anti-climatic or just, deflating? 

On a side but relevant note, I have been hearing the suggestion of the non-ADHD spouse (me) about reading Boundary Boss and I finally got my copy and I'm super excited to get in to it. But that also feels overwhelming too like that is not what I should be doing? (my therapist would kill me if he heard me now... 'coulda, woulda, shoulda') 

Anyone else ever get a different outcome/diagnosis they weren't expecting but it didn't seem to set the world on fire and what next steps did you take? Just curious. 

Hello everyone, this is my first post here. I have read the "ADHD effect" book and it was a revelation.

I have been married to my wife for 12 years, and while there have been "issues" it was a happy marriage for the first ten years. We have a son who is 9.
Recently we have moved to another country and this seems to have triggered something in my wife. She also had a long form of covid that lasted for many months. The "problems" (textbook ADHD symptoms) were however there right from the start pretty much, I just didnt know what they were and what to do with them.
I first thought she has narcissistic personality disorder and was fairly set on that - until I came across the ADHD symptoms...... I had no idea and now I have gained a fairly clear picture. I always had a feeling that while her conduct taken at face value would indicate narcissism, there is a missing element - she isnt taking advantage of other people, she's not in it for the gain or for admiration, I am pretty sure of that. As selfish as she may come across at times, it doesnt look like she's out to get an advantage, there isn't any malicious intent in her actions and omissions, it's just that she can't get her act together in so many things.

I had long resented her for getting up in the morning, making herself a lovely cappucino and not even asking me if I want one too. Or just not bringing the products home from the supermarket that I enjoy, she would usually come back with the bare basics only. Or the fact that when we are on a vacation trip (that I organised all alone) she wouldnt even see if she can find a nice restaurants or do anything at all. She's really bad with household cleaning too (and if she does something it's usually really sloppy and I have to do it again) and her own bathroom is so dirty honestly I wouldnt use it myself. It's filthy. Her clothes are thrown into the wardrobe with no system, some not even folded, it's a complete mess. I heard about the "ADHD walk" with the posture sway and it's 100% her. She also constantly runs into things, she forgets to switch the iron off and leaves the house for a week. It's scary at times. She left the gas cooking stove on twice, burning away the whole night. She has no vision or goal in life other than make her boss at work happy - which she does consistently, her shortcomings at home and in our marriage are completely absent (it seems to me from the outside) at her work life. 

I task her with easy things like "Please buy a bed head for your bed otherwise we'll have to paint the wall when we move out" and she says yes and nothing happens. That was a year ago and she still doesnt have a bed head. She also wasn't able to buy placemats for the dinner table, I have to do all these kinds of things myself because she can't get them done. I manage all finances, insurances, pension plans, travel, etc. 100% myself for the family, she has no interest. She hasn't picked up a paintbrush once, hung no photo on a wall ever, and generally drifts along in our life without making substantial contributions. She can't make a family home a nice place, it's imposible for her.

The thing that got me thinking and really alarmed was when our son got a diagnosis for severe dustmite allergy (and we live in a rental place with an old carpet). We treated his room together and then explicitly agreed that she would take care of the necessary steps from there - meaning vacuuming, dusting blinds etc. As it happened she was away for a few days and I got around to vacuuming his room with a new dustbag, and it was shocking. The room was absolutely filthy, six weeks after my son's diagnosis. When she got back I confronted her and she admitted she had not vacuumed it even once. She wasnt able to say why, just that "i didnt expect this". I got soooo angry with her and our marriage is seriously on the rocks now because of all of this. We have a serious problem with me being the parent and her being a child in our relationship, and we both actually acknowledged that even before I came across ADHD as a possibility. It's terrible. I sometimes think of her as an imbecile, despite the fact that I love her so much. I have zero trust in her that she can get things done and contribute to our life.

I am scared to confront her with the suggestion that she may have ADHD. Not only because she might reject it, but also because I was set on her having narcissistic personality disorder and now I'm pretty sure I am wrong with that. What if I am wrong again? I will come across as a husband who is trying to label his wife as mentally ill, it's not who I want to be. And maybe it's NPS after all or maybe something completely different... who knows....

How have others approached their better half with this topic? I am so scared of doing the wrong thing and ruining my marriage - which I really want to save - irrecoverably.

Hoping for some of you out there to share your thoughts and how you went about it in order to get your partner to seek a diagnosis. Many thanks from downunder