You know I remember times when I would get home and just sit in my driveway because I didn't want to go in and deal with my husband.  There were moments and even weeks where I was so angry at him for letting me down and for not being the man I felt I deserved.  I resented him and anything that he did, no matter how small, was just another excuse for me to resent him more and put further blame on him for the decay of our marriage.  I would have panic attacks that I was going to find him "focusing" on yet another woman and giving her the attention that I felt that I deserved from him.  We would have the nastiest fights one can imagine and I don't know if anyone, even us, believed that we should remain married.  And now I am more in love with him than I can ever remember being.  I would love to tell you that it's because my husband woke up one day and was no longer ADHD or that he suddenly saw that everything I said was right but that would be incorrect.  Don't get me wrong, he has grown and changed a lot and seems more like the man I remember falling in love with but most of the change came from the way I viewed and treated him.  It certainly didn't happen over night but slowly I began to start seeing him as my husband instead of some bum that was squatting in my home and draining my life away.  And as I started to change the way I saw him and thus treated him, a funny thing happened, he started seeing and treating me differently too.  It was incredibly hard sometimes especially when my husband was at his worst but I forged on through; mistakes and all.  I started by promising to never make my husband look bad in front of other people again and then that became to not only not make him look bad but to also make him look great.  It was tough at first and my negative self talk tried to convince me that I would have no one to turn to when I had problems if I couldn't say anything bad about my husband but I actually didn't have that issue.  In fact it kind of made me feel good after awhile to not be the one with the miserable marriage and without all the negative feedback fueling my hatred I was able to really start thinking.  Next I made the decision to try not to fight with him.  I don't mean I did nothing, I mean that I went out of my way NOT to fight with him.  That was very tough because I am extremely confrontational and I always felt like I was going to get walked all over and never be happy if I didn't fight for it.  Basically I didn't trust that he would give me what I needed if I didn't fight him for it every step of the way but on second thought I realized he wasn't giving me what I needed anyway and all the negativity and fighting was slowly chipping away at my soul.  I also started taking better care of myself.  I went to the doctor and got put on meds for depression and anxiety which took a lot of edge off for me and made it easier to control my emotions.  And I made sure to look nice every day, like I was going on a date or something.  I forced myself to go to PTA and scout meetings and get involved (I say force b/c I get very nervous around new people) and even started volunteering.  I had every excuse in the world before about why I couldn't live my life or enjoy my hobbies, but once again I stopped listening to my negative self talk and made the effort to find sitters and trust my husband to watch the kids.  It's amazing what you can accomplish when you stop saying I can't and you start saying I will.  And coming from someone who wants her house CLEAN kids or not, I had to let go on some of that stuff and re prioritize. I started to feel pretty good about myself and my husband started to notice changes too.  At first he thought I had a boyfriend, LOL, which I have to admit kind of made me glad but over time he realized that I was just happier, more positive about life, and more relaxed.  It's a side of me that both of us missed.  And he responded.  What I learned is that my husband believed that I HATED him and that he couldn't do anything to make me change me mind so he just gave up.  He was depressed, he felt worthless and he reacted to me with hurt and resentment.  Ironically the same exact way I had been lashing out at him.  It's funny how we both had the same thoughts about the other person.  I must admit I felt like a pretty awful person for claiming to love someone and then treating them so abusively.  I look back and remember some pretty horrible things that I said to that man and I am ashamed.  I'm not very churchy but a verse from childhood stuck in my head and stayed there, I'm going to butcher this but it goes something like, why do you point out the splinter in your neighbors eye when you have a log in your own...  Anyways I realized that I was so worried about how poorly he was making me feel that I never stopped to see how poorly I was making him feel.  How could I ask him to make amends to me when I was too selfish and stubborn to make amends to him?  And so the story goes... I see a lot of that in this forum.  So much pain and hurt and disappointment that it blinds us to our own flaws.  It makes us treat our spouses like monsters instead of men and we justify the abuse because they didn't do the dishes for us or bought something we think was unnecessary.  My husband treats me with love now because I treat him with respect.  I didn't make him EARN that respect because I don't feel like I should have to EARN his love, I gave it to him as a gift.  I remember when I finally told him that I was sorry for the way that I had treated him and that I was wrong.  I thought he would hold it over my head but he sobbed on my shoulder, I felt like the monster at that moment.  Nothing is ever perfect and we still have our moments and sometimes I let that negative self talk back in but like anything else it slowly becomes a habit and our problems today are nothing like our problems two years or even a year ago.  I wish that one of my friends would have stood up and told me the cold hard truth instead of being "supportive".  Maybe my marriage could have turned around sooner and I could saved us both a lot of hurt.

I am a non-ADHD spouse who recently stumbled on this site while trying to find some information on ADHD.  I bought Melissa's book and so far have found it incredibly insightful, I am often surprised to see our exact issues staring back at us in print.  I was thrilled to find this site and to hear people's suggestions, to receive advice and encouragement, as I'm sure many of you know it is difficult to find someone who can really understand what it is like to be with an ADHD spouse.  I am saddened to say that I have found none of that here.  Everyone seems like they HATE their spouse who has ADHD.  Maybe I am confused, but after seeing all these posts I'm beginning to wonder if this isn't just a forum to feed the fires of resentment.  Or maybe I just have an exceptional spouse.  I certainly think so.  We have been married for around five years, we have kids together, he has had affairs, he has went on spending sprees, and drank way too often, and has said some pretty nasty things to me.  He hyper-focuses and leaves me alone to take care of everything else, but I certainly don't hate him.  Because he is also kind, intelligent, affectionate, fun, generous, hard working, he is a wonderful father and a great friend.  Maybe I am just luckier than others because what I see in my husband is a man that tries incredibly hard in spite of a brain that gets in his way.  When I speak to him I generally hear a lot of pain and hurt and disappointment.  When I confront him on something and he lashes out that he is just a bad husband and I should leave him, my heart feels physical pain for him because he really believes that.  But he is a good man and a good husband.  He is intelligent and attractive and in most regards a success but he doesn't believe that.  He constantly feels like he is not good enough and when I speak to him and he lashes out at me I know that what he is really saying is that he hates himself and is guilty and ashamed.  I have seen many of you write about how living with an ADHD spouse is like having another child.  I can see that, because I often feel the same way.   However, I would never treat my children as poorly as I am ashamed to say that I sometimes treat my husband.  I love them unconditionally and their pain is my pain, why not so with my husband who I also say I love unconditionally.  So I am posting something for others like me who want to focus on the positive.  I may not be able to find it but I can attempt to give it. 

I don't understand the way my husband's brain works and I have a tough time seeing things from his point of view but it goes both ways and honestly, who is to say my way is the best way.  This is about both of our happiness and both of our lives.  Here are some things that have really helped us.  I handle all the money, but we discuss weekly what we have and what we can spend.  I even keep a spreadsheet so that we can track where money goes.  This is helpful since he genuinely doesn't even remember what he spent money on.  My husband isn't a moron and he doesn't want his wife and children to starve.  He understands cause and effect.  Keeping him in the loop of our financial situation helps him to control his impulse to spend.  He kept missing family events so now we have a shared calendar.  I talk to him about the event and make sure it fits in his schedule and he wants to go then I add it to the calendar.  If necessary I remind him that its coming up.  He rarely misses anything anymore and he is proud of himself.  He owns his own company and uses the calendar to organize all his appointments, I handle his billing now so it is one less thing he has to remember and I can get the bills paid on time.  I never hold out intimacy on him.  That is the way that he feels close to me and I find it cruel to take that away from him, is it any different or less cruel than him refusing to spend focused time with me.  It also helps him to stay faithful.  He doesn't help much with cleaning but he does have his assigned chores and that's what he does every week.  He loves to cook so he does the cooking.  It drives me crazy that he rarely goes to the grocery store and runs to get meals last minute but dinner is always there and why cause a fight over how it gets there.  He takes out the trash and I set up a calendar reminder for him the night before.  Does he forget? Of course he does but I don't say anything.  The next week I will tell him, it's trash night, do you need any help getting it out?  I forget things too, maybe not as often but it would still make me pretty angry if my husband always threw it in my face and acted like I was useless because of it.   He doesn't do things the way I do, he doesn't always put things in the right place and when he does dishes he usually gets distracted in the middle and ends up with only half done but it's half less than I had before.  Sometimes I ask him to do things and he doesn't want to do them so he pretends to forget, lately it was cleaning the garage.  In the end, I figured I'm the one who wants it clean not him, so I cleaned it.  Instead of a big fight, I had a clean garage and a happy husband.  I don't ignore my hobbies or my life because he is so busy, I just work with him to find a way to fit both our interests in.  It's never been that he doesn't care about my interests he just honestly forgets I have them.  He expects me to take what I want the way he does.  So I do and he accommodates because he loves me.  What I have always found is that my husband is incredibly self focused but not selfish.  He loves to be the hero he just needs to see the bat signal before he will show up.   

My relationship is far from perfect.  We have bad days and sometimes I feel incredibly lonely but I do think that it is coming up with creative ways to help us BOTH succeed that will save us, not harboring bitterness and resentment over what could have been.  We fight and our feelings get hurt and randomly we feel like throwing in the towel.  My husband will NEVER not be ADHD.  But every couple has something, it is foolish to think otherwise.  I have my own issues, I come with my own baggage.  The point is to find ways to set yourself and your spouse up to succeed.  Expectations always lead to disappointment.  Someone once told me that I should picture my son married to someone like me and when I do I often feel ashamed about how I treat my husband.  I have a daughter who is ADHD and I would HATE a man who treated her like she was lazy worthless scum because of it.  Just because you are ADHD does not mean you do not have feelings.  In the end I do truly believe that people are generally good willed and that you must give love to receive love, be a friend to have a friend.  It is easy to blame others and to sit back and let them do all the hard work but how can you ask someone to change or treat you better when you are not willing to do the same. 

I'm certain that I will get angry responses to this (although I would remind you that if you have nothing nice to say you shouldn't say anything at all), but I would REALLY love to hear from other non-ADHD spouses who have found ideas that have helped their ADHD Spouse and their marriage succeed.  I would also really love to hear from ADHD Spouses about things that would help them excel and to feel less shame and criticism from their non-ADHD spouse. 

Thanks for listening.

Dear Melissa, so much of what I read on this forum just looks like straight forward old fashioned marital abuse. The money issues, the anger, the violence, the witholding of affection, attention, sex, the abuse in fact. I have read a lot since I first came across this potential explanation for husband's awful behaviour - and the other explanation I have been given for the increasing difficulty of dealing with him is a narcissistic personality disorder (incurable) - they seem to share a lot of themes the two conditions, and yet one can be helped. Can you please sort out the difference between personality disorders (incurable) and ADHD (helplable with medication and therapy). I am now so deeply confused I don't know where i am. But I do know that being blamed for the breakdown of my marriage by an angry dysfunctional man, who thinks of no one but himself, and says the very first thing that comes into his head however illogical, and does things without thinking that lead to serious disasters, is a pretty awful experience. Can you help with this question? It would really help me. Thanks!

I was told I could not have AdHD because my iq test was 82 I am a 62 year old female I had higher sorces on short term memory but I do not remember what catagory I had the 82 on. Is this likely?