What is the prognosis for untreated ADHD for older men? My husband is in his mid-fifties, was diagnosed with rather severe ADHD about 15 years ago, and has refused treatment. At first he did try to understand some things about his ADHD and made efforts to learn to be more focused, which he thinks is about all he needed to do. We are approaching our older years and he seems to be getting worse in many ways: more forgetful, irritable, angry/short-tempered, unwilling to listen or participate in the marriage, I could go on. He only will do anything if he “feels like it” which of course nobody ever feels like taking out the garbage or feeding the dogs. I am reluctant to have the grandchildren around him because he might yell at them for no reason, just because he is frustrated with something. I think he is getting worse, but it may be just that my patience is wearing thinner. Here is my question: as an untreated individual approaches older years, are they likely to become worse, better or stay about the same? I realize that every case is different and I am asking for a rather specific answer for a generalized question. Thanks for your help and for this website.

The love of my life, my husband, was just diagnosed with adhd a couple of months ago. After researching the subject of adult adhd, I now see how all of the things that seem to have been bringing him down and holding him back lately are in some way attributed to his adhd. He is a loving and educated man with a true gentle heart who does not know the impact this has on my heart. I think he grew up with a lot of shame and pain due to his adhd and the lack of communication in his childhood. He doesn't have his parents to turn to, only me. I am a strong woman and lately my husband has been suffering from depression and lack of interest in our life due to his adhd and now I feel lost. We own our own home and live like a lot of young couples and are trying to move up in the world, start family someday and so on. He will be into all of that talk one day and the next day seem annoyed when I bring up the future or his possible success in life. Lately he seems to get bored easily and does not see the joy and beauty in our everyday 'routine' lives the way that I see it. His job is a burden, I talk too much about his feelings, he wants to drink and he is constantly looking for a change...buying new things and that is all worring me. He often says that he can't believe that he has to work everyday and that he wants to be free of the burdens of the everyday. I think he has had adhd since his boyhood and right now he is coping with the depression that can come from dealing with the responsibilites of marriage and all that adult stuff. He wants to change and he has taken a couple of weeks off of work under a doctor's care and upped his lexapro, stopped drinking for 2 weeks (he drank once in that time) and started taking adderoll today. I am so hopeful for our future but so scared that his lack of interest, anxiety, low-self esteem and easy boredem which are all adhd traits are going to be hard for him to let go of. Today is his first day on the low dose of adderoll and I am so hopeful that his doctor's care and my love will shed some light. I want to know if anyone can relate and give some advice.

My husband and I have been married for a little over a month now, and although it is such a short amount of time we are already facing the issue that we are very different people. We both have been diagnosed with ADD. My husband was diagnosed about 2 years ago and I was diagnosed almost 1 year ago. Some might think that this similarity makes our marriage easy; however, sometimes we are so different that I begin to wonder if I have ADD at all! My ADD seems to be coupled with a more anxious obsessive compulsive nature where my husband is forgetful and lacks intuition. We are running into issues with space around the house and me having to repeat myself every five minutes and then I get frustrated and upset because I am picking up after him and repeating myself over and over again which makes me anxious and in turn angry. It’s horrible! I get to the point with him where I can not even control the words coming out of my mouth. It hurts me so bad. I know it hurts him too. I love my husband very much, but we are young and this is starting to feel like overwhelming. He loves to go,go,go. If it were up to him we would be doing something every night. I have these same urges but I know that I have fibromyalgia and need to have 8 hours of sleep and keep my space organized or I will start to spiral back into my unorganized lifestyle. It seems as though I have developed a better grasp of organization, memory, and reading social cues where my husband can control his emotions better. But of course, when we fight we both get very defensive and can argue for hours. I feel like I have some very valid points but I am too forgiving so although my intention is to help our relationship I always give in. My husband uses his ADD as a crutch to constantly justify when he does something wrong. He says he is not using it as a crutch but rather just explaining why he does what he does, but I can’t understand why if I can overcome my socially unacceptable and inconsiderate actions why he can’t too! I know this is a lot of rambling but I have only been married a month and I already feel like we are failing at this marriage! I have already threatened with leaving him and he didn’t even take me seriously (which of course upset me more!) There are a lot of posts on here about a non ADHD spouse and a ADHD spouse finding common ground, but what if we are both ADD in very different ways? Are we doomed?

I was diagnosed with ADD almost a year ago after being married for 26 years. My wife is very quiet, does not like confrontation and I am of course type A, like to have fun , pretty much like everyone else with ADD. I will try to not jump all over the place, but you know how us with ADD are ;-) When I met my wife 30 years ago, she was the first woman whom I felt really liked me for who and what I am. Needless to say I fell madly in love, what I did not know is her fiancé and her had taken a break for reasons, I still don't know. Anyway, at some time they did get engaged and I was no longer in the picture, I was devastated, needless to say, at the time I did not know I was hyper-focused. I dated other women off and on, but even with others I could never get her out of my mind completely. Needless to say, your new flame does not want to hear about past girl friends, this I learned. Anyway, I did hear from a mutual friend that she was separated from her husband of 2 years as he was having an affair with an older woman whom was friend of theirs. I did meet her one night and asked if she would like to go out to dinner, she said yes and I was thrilled. Even though it had been almost 3 years since we dated, it was like yesterday, and we picked up where we left off. We married a year later to the date on Halloween and had a fabulous week cruise for honeymoon. I could not have been any happier. I was a manufacturers rep and traveled a extensively, so when I came home we were always excited to see each other and our marriage was great and loved each other very much. About 4 years later I tired of being out of town so I changed jobs and really enjoyed being home all the time. Our marriage was still good, we purchased an older house and spend many hours working around the house and in the yard. This is one of the few interests we have in common. We have a beautiful daughter who was born after 8 years of marriage and I could not have been happier. I was transfered to another part of the country when our daughter was a year old. I was very busy with work and traveled quite a bit so my wife spent most of the time raising our daughter. Fast forward another 5 years, I quit my job and we started a company, (oh yeah, forgot to say, we have worked together at the same place for the last 17 years) that was fairly successful. I was hyper-focused at first and once things became routine, I would get bored and onto something else. I went from high speed driving school (have logged many hours at Charlotte Motor Speedway (Lowe's) to quit that and spent 2 years restoring a car and going to car shows, then it was on to golf, then it was onto the present owning, showing and working dogs. Needless to say, none of these activities the wife enjoys. So here we were two years ago, wife doing her thing, I am doing mine and she would never seem to want to do anything with me. I would go out of town to dog shows having fun, while she stayed home taking care of our daughter. During this time our sex life went to almost nothing. That was a problem, while I never had an affair I have always had a strong sex drive. Arguments became more frequent, and at one time in anger I asked if she wanted a divorce, she stated "we could not afford a divorce". Needless to say I took that the wrong way in the sense as I thought she wanted one, but we could not afford it, and to tell the truth at the time she was probably correct, as I was always spending money. While at a dog show I met a younger woman who had many of the same interests I had, and we became friends. She was separated from her husband (since divorced) who also did not care for the things she liked. As time went on we began to talk more and more, not about us, but about our interests. Then we both began to start to confide in each other and before you knew it, on occasion my mind would wander and I would imagine a future with this person. We would talk to each other on the phone about once a week. One night my wife read me the riot act and spoke her mind about many of the things I had done in the past. Some of them were, my drinking early in our marriage, my hobbies she said were in excess, and ignoring her and my daughter, spending money and most of all being angry much of the time. But, she said she would, and wanted to try and work on our our marriage. . We were doing much better and we began to get along better, do more things together. We went on a trip for a week together and had a good time. About two months later I had to go into the hospital for stints and that part was non eventful and made a full recovery. While I was in the hospital they did see some nodules on my lungs and said not to worry, but have another CT scan in three months, YEAH RIGHT, don't worry. Of course you think the worst, oh God I have cancer and I don't have long left. Short story, after six months and two CT scans the nodules are gone and everything appears to be OK, however the thoughts were there and I had gone into a deep depression. During this time I continued to speak to my new female friend and needless to say my wife was less than pleased. I was accused of having an affair which was not true. But in any event, in an effort to try to save the marriage I was no longer in contact with this person I went to my family doctor who prescribed Zoloft and recommended I go to a counselor, which I did and still am.My wife and I also had gone to marriage counseling. My depression had not improved and my counselor recommended a psychiatrist whom I went to and he switched me to Welbutrin. On my second follow up visit he diagnosed me with ADD and suggested I read the book "Driven to Distraction" and prescribed Straterra for the ADD. Upon reading the book it appears many of the things I have done in my life, can be attributed to and are symptoms of ADD. Here we are now, almost a year of my diagnosis of ADD, our marriage is better, and we don't argue as much, in fact we can talk about anything and we have no secrets and while my wife was very bitter for the past years of my anger and ADD stunts, she understands why. Our sex life is great again and we enjoy having dinner out once a week. I have completed many projects around the house, in fact, remodeled the kitchen and a bathroom. The problem now is, after my wife vented her anger about how I acted all these years and it was before we knew I had ADD, I was angry and hurt deeply. Who wants to be told your a looser, lazy, spend too much money, and of course ignored her and my daughter whom she pointed out she raised by herself? Somewhere after that altercation and considering we were more or less roommates, I became hyper focused on the other person and while I have not spoken to her in almost a year, still have a problem getting her out of my mind. My wife picks up on this and we are not going anywhere without this issue being resolved. My wife has said, if I want to be with this other person, go for it. She wants me happy and I too want to be happy, but also want her happy. That said, I'm not even sure this person would want to be with me, and of course I know better now, than to make a impulsive decision. Thanks so much for the great forum to post and seek advice.