I am in a rather new but serious relationship with a man who has nearly debilitating ADHD. If he is unmedicated he will go off grid and be unreachable, and contacting me doesn't occur to him. This I understand is not a slight against me and have made peace with it.
The issue I have is his tendency to become so focused on work, which he is especially passionate about since we both work for philanthropic causes. Probably not the healthiest of work schedules but we still feel too passionate to do less. There are days where we both come home exhausted but others I only get a, "Hello...going to bed." It is like the entirety of his mind is focused on work and remembering that I'm a few feet away is less than an afterthought. What's funny is that I know the reason and am usually successful at not taking it personally.
What I need to know is how to I remind him that I do need some occasional attention in a proper way?
Usually having some built-in personal space because of this phenomena is comforting but now I worry for the relationship. My typical relationship playbook doesn't cover dealing with medically induced neglect.
Hello: I am the ADD parther
Submitted by dk8654 on
Hello:
I am the ADD parther in my relationship and i have the tendancy to do the same thing. One thing my husband and I try and do is set aside a time during the week where i at least come home on time from work. He usually picks me up so I can't resist and it get me out of there. If I have an appointment, even just to go home on time, I tend to stick with it because it is a concrete thing. I put it on my calendar and it gains a new importance.
I tell my husband (and I hope he belives) that just because I work late it doesn't mean I think that home is less important. In fact, my relationship with him is much more important to me, I just might not rember at 9:00 at night when I am at work.