Melissa's Favorite Posts

A long time friend just sent me this Pharrell Williams Happy video to cheer me up.  Loved it!  Why not take a few minutes to bring a smile to your face (and bop around the room a bit)?

A woman wrote me recently explaining that her ADHD husband had announced that he didn't love her, and possibly never had.  She is in the middle of a much-needed reset of her own non-ADHD behaviors - anger, belittling and the like, saying that reading my book made her reassess her own behaviors and that she was actively trying to improve herself with therapy and other hard work.  They have children, and she asks the very important question of "how do I get him to give us another chance?"

Want to know what success looks like when you've pretty much lost hope and then turn things around?  Here is a letter that came in to me this week that describes it so well that I thought I would share it.  Of particular interest, I think, is the connection between the two partners as they progress - they create an upward spiral of positively reinforcing behavior that really helps them succeed.

What’s it like when both partners have ADHD in a relationship?  Is it different from when only one has ADHD?  Are there other resources we need to know about?  Are there different challenges?  These are questions I get regularly and would like to answer here.

Want to read some love letters?  I like to be even handed, so I asked the ADHD spouses in my last couples course to tell me what they love about their non-ADHD spouse.  Here is what some said:

One of the things I love about my own spouse is his empathy, generosity and warmth.  Is this related to his ADHD?  I’m not sure, though I do observe that if they don’t have specific anger issues, many of ADHD spouses I work with have very generous spirits.  Sometimes they act on that generosity in a way that warms others…sometimes they don’t…which makes them pretty much like the non-ADHD around us.  Regardless, generosity of spirit, if you spouse possesses it, is something to celebrate.  Here is “what I love about my ADHD spouse” part 2:

There has been a lot of talk recently about executive function issues and ADHD. What are "executive functions" and how are they related to ADHD?

Dr. Hallowell and Melissa Orlov were interviewed on Today on August 6th about how ADHD can impact marriage.

Recently, a poster in the forum asked the very good question - if you are all so miserable in your marriages, why do you stay?  I'll give you my own answer - George and I stayed together because even though we were really miserable, we couldn't believe we couldn't do better.  The intractability of the issues we were dealing with didn't make sense.  We had chosen each other as partners for good reason...then things fell apart...but couldn't we make them better again?