Reply to If your spouse has ADHD..

Forum Index » General Parenting Discussion

Reply to "If your spouse has ADHD.."

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]I have ADHD and I don't know why I am so different from the many of the spouses described in this post.

I have dinner on the table every night except when DH wants to order out. My kids do a variety of activities and they always get to them on time. I am on top of their healthcare (mental and physical) and I get them to all their appointments on time. I do not lose my temper with my kids or husband. We have emotionally close connections. I have friends. I do not drink or do drugs. We never run out of toiletries, cleaning supplies, etc. My kids always have clothes to wear that are clean and fit properly. I do not overspend. I take care of my health. I pay all the bills that aren't recurring. I don't lose things frequently because I have developed systems that keep me from doing that.

I do drive DH crazy sometimes. I have stuff in places from projects that I started but haven't completed. I don't fold my clothes and I don't make the kids fold theirs. I usually do dishes in the morning because I'm too tired to clean them at night. I do get overly emotional about things. I have stacks of paper around that I need to go through. I often don't see mess. My oil is always changed and tires rotated on time.

But these have all gotten much better with therapy. I mean, if DBT can basically cure emotional regulation issues for people who have BPD, it can certainly work for people who have ADHD. I am learning to judge more appropriately how long something will take so I don't take on tasks I don't have time for. I have enlisted the help of my kids to help me tidy up so that I have some support and can "see mess" better.

I suspect that I do better than many of these spouses because I care more. Of course there are various degrees of ADHD, but I dive in to ways I can manage ADHD in a way that works for me and my family. This has, I will note, required me to ignore advice from people who are neurotypical and do what actually works, and sometimes when you have a spouse who thinks there is one right way to do things, it's hard to figure things out. But a lot of these spouses people are complaining about are men, and many men of all neurotypes don't make the big effort to take care of kids and home life like men do. Men who don't have ADHD might not lose things, but do they tend to look at their phones when mom cleans up? Yes, some do.

Maybe women who are on the ball shouldn't avoid men with ADHD, maybe they should avoid men.

But I do know that ADHD is hard on partners and I want to validate that too. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics