I'm pretty sure he isn't in my city (Atlanta).  But who else would give an arm to get some good therapy from him?  I'm reading his Driven From Distraction book, which is SO good, and it just makes me wish we could drive down the road and talk to him!  We have a therapist right now, but she's not being terribly effective.  I wish so, so bad that we could find a therapist who's very good and experienced with ADHD-and we could afford it lol.  I really want my ADD husband to at least read his book but he doesn't ever read books, let alone on this topic.  *sigh* One day!

Hello everyone,

  First i'd like to say this site is great and very helpful. My story is a long one and my situation very complicated. I'll shorten it as much as possible.

  I am 25 and my OCD/ADD wife is 29. We met on the internet in 2006. I left the US in 2008 for South America to marry her. We have been married for two and a half years. I have only known for about a year and a half that she has ADD. She refrained from telling me out of fear that I would treat her differently.

 In the beginning of the relationship I thought her apparent laziness and lack of marital effort were results of her laid-back upbringing, and tolerated it all.

 Fast forward to the present day and we are on the verge of divorce. I truly, deeply love my wife. I am sure that if just a few things were different, we would be together forever and have kids, the whole nine yards.

 I should say that I pretty much lost all of my patience for her and have treated her very badly over the past months. I have cursed a lot, called her names, etc, and I hate myself for it.

 We have talked about divorce often, and seriously considered it twice in the last year.

 After talking about some major conflicts, she has improved in ways. She cooks and cleans as much as I do, other small things. I see she is trying her best to meet me halfway there.

 However, as her mother is a doctor, she is in a position to play with her meds as often as she wants. For at least six months now she's been taking Ritalin, Venoflaxine(Spelling?), and Ambien. She's really good about the Ritalin but she has repeatedly increased and decreased the dosage of the other two, randomly stopped taking them, etc. She has stopped taking the Venoflaxine completely, lowering the dosage from 75 mg in 15 mg increments or so. She did that the right way.

 This yo-yo medicating of hers put a huge strain on our relationship. She has been extra needy, has had huge mood swings, sex stopped being hit and miss a long time ago, and I am always the bad guy.

 I should say that my wife is attractive and has the youthful allure of a forest nymph. Even so, whenever I want to have sex, she doesn't, and vice-versa. I'm tired, we argued, many other reasons.

 As i'm a foreigner teaching English to high society sexually active females every day, I am routinely surrounded by opportunity. I believe in the sanctity of marriage and family, and the benefits that come from them.

 However, it has been a herculean test of character and morality for me to go to work, resist abundant temptation, to come home to my crying ADD wife, have her jump me for attention, ask for a little time for myself, watch her get offended and cry, and repeat the cycle the next day.

 Now that I have read about ADD and its effects I am more understanding of my wife and continue to berate myself for past behavior. I am torn between single, care-free life in the US, and a life of daily struggle for happiness here in South America.

 I have made a list of things that she would have to change in order for me to stay, and encouraged her to do the same, as I am no cup of tea either. She never even made a list, and objected to three of my demands.

 Chief among them is my control of our finances. She has controlled every cent I have earned for the last two and a half years. It's gotten to the point where I am afraid to spend money. She is absolutely obsessed. She will randomly spend money on something unnecessary, which I not only do not mind, but encourage. Then if I spend any, i'm wasting our money. I have wanted a spaghetti strainer for the duration of our relationship.

 Secondly, she refuses to stop letting the cat drink water from the bathroom faucet, another one of her obsessions.

 Thirdly, she refuses to talk with me about her ADD every day and start taking measures to take the more severe edges off of it.

 I have decided that I can deal with her forgetting everything all the time, emotional outbursts, varying sex drive, and the cat too.

 My question to all of the good people here is, would I be shallow if I left her to be able to spend money again? Would I be wrong to leave her in her current condition? Has any one here ever suffered similiar situations with their ADD spouse? I don't want to be the moron who left his beautiful ADD wife because of a cat, some money, and her extreme needs/lack of desire to fight her ADD.

Any help or comments would be greatly appreciated, thank you for reading. My prayers are with all the ADD couples out there.

Hi All, hope we all have ADHD free days in 2010 at least at least symptom wise.................

I am in my late thirties and after a life where I felt I was a cat held by it's tail and slammed around walls and objects for 30+ years. After being bloodied I reached a point where things became impossible literally, I was paralyzed most of the time ADD has reached it's peak with me and that is when I self-diagnosed after countless hours of confusion, fear and finally internet search where i put simply the highlights of my life hoping in utter desperation to find somebody else in the world who is riding this odd but powerful coaster called life with untreated ADD (did not know then). I lost job after job and things became as ugly as they can get and I became a bit suicidal, not that I would do it but it seemed very cool and logical. When you feel helpless and I mean extreme helplessnes the world will different.

Having said that, I finally got my medication and slowly but surely things got better gradually. But I woke up in a huge pile of disasters, career, money (in debt), marriage, things that need massive energy and time to restore if possible. Now things with my wife were getting bad to worse partly because of my symptoms, laziness around the house, no job etc.....which is sadly the case many times.

I see myself as a big hero, knowing where I was and where I put myself after a lot of hard work and tough days and self diagnosis. Now I am happy like never before, i have life before diagnosis and after, things in between like marriage, school etc,....don't count much at least not relatively as I was consumed by this disease.  My wife witnesses all this and even if she has the right to be pissed off after 4 year marriage I thought it would be ok for her to show some compassion, and a tiny bit of understanding of my very painful and fragile mental situation while she knew about ADD by then and the symptoms.

For the past 6 months when I was going through the difficult process of learning about this weird mess and taking meds that had ugly side effects until Adderal saved the day, she showed zero emotion, understading, I needed to talk about my case with somebody who knew me well to compare notes regardign meds and their effect etc.... Sometimes going through this is tough and a person might need support, by this I mean minimal like my wife giving 20 mins a week not more to talk my heart out explain what the real deal is and try to get better. I think as a human who fought to get better, not like other husbands i hear cant be bothered ..... living in a city where my social contacts are limited and going through sometimes weak moments I thought my frustrated wife (and she is right in being that way) could show a tiny bit of compassion and understanding and really believing that my failures were due to my severe ADD that made an employee with "one eye and one ear" and that now things will be better.

So for month she just left me there and everytime I felt like sharing my feelings about this she shut me off saying go and talk to your friends and family I do not want to have anything to do with it even when I almost begged. she shut me off completely and all is needed was 20 mins a week and that hurt very much. I wasnt a guy who saw his son with it and said OMG! i paid a huge price.

Now is this normal? I dont think so even though i realize i was a pain. i mean what is a wife for if she cannot give minimal support to a partner who is really suffering and scared about what is going on with his brain and who is reliving so many painful events with a new eye. I think marriage is a load of BS if a partner after seeing that the man is trying to get better, he is fighting to get his drs appointment asap so he can take meds and stop this freefall and his wife for months just treats him like an old rag while he is begging for a hug and a word of encouragement nothing more once a week of so for a few short minutes.

I think she does not deserve me and i need somebody more human.

HNY!!!!

I am 48 year old female on the verge of losing my second marriage.  Recently a friend of mine suggested that I maybe ADD.  She suggested several sites on-line that self test.  I tried several different sites over a two week period and all three I scored HIGH "92" with the recommendation to seek help for ADD.

I made an appointment to see a psychristist and after a 15 minute consultation, and me disclosing that I had been tested for bi-polar at the age of 14. She diagnosed me with bi-polarII?  That diagnosis came without even reviewing the 15 page questioniar I had completed.  I was sent on my way with the dr. telling me that there is not alot known about the bipolar II but think about getting on the meds she perscribed and come back and see her in a month!  I tried sharing the information that I researched on-line she said... I will ask the questions and "we don't treat ADD with stimulants anymore unless there are significant problems"  Hello losing my marriage is not signicant???? Driving my patient husband even farther away with my stupid actions of interrupting, putting off important stuff, spouting out mean words then feeling bad?

I had not told my husband about my self diagnosis until a couple of days later. Just when he was on the verge of letting me spend the holidays ALONE,  I woke him at 2:00 am to talk and share some of my concerns.  He said that he had thought that for quite sometime.  In the morning I had him sit with me and answer the questions on the Bi-Polar self test and the ADD.. (not disclosing which test was which, with him answering the questions about me ... through his eyes. I again scored very high on ADD but not so on the Bi-Polar.

I have thought for years that I may have ADD but have never been diagnosed.  I am menapausal and for the last ten years been told it is my Hormones, or I am taking on too much?

I want to try some medication but don't know what or what dr. may perscribe me something other that anti-depressants, I have tried several. Wellbuterin twice, paxill, zoloft,prozac.  They never seem to make a difference?

I could go on for hours but if anyone is out there with suggestions I would really appreciate anything at this time.  I PROMISED my husband I would call and get and appointment with someone NOW.  He is patient but I cannot continue the abuse toward him. And I just feel so crazy and frustrated!