Weekly Marriage Tips

“Let Go” - sticky note permanently pasted to my computer”

I’ve heard it said that ADHD adults often find themselves paired with non-ADHD partners who have significant anxiety.  Personally, I think this isn’t quite accurate – I, for example, did not start out an anxious person, but living with a partner with undiagnosed ADHD for many years increased my anxiety to a point where it now definitely plays a role in our relationship.

As a result, I’ve developed some coping strategies to diminish feelings of anxiety, including reminding myself with this ‘let go’ note, which I see every day!  I’ve decided to “be like Teflon” rather than “sticky like Velcro” and that letting things go really helps support positive feelings in my relationship.  Note that I’m not talking about disliking things and saying nothing…I’m talking about actually letting go of feeling disgruntled all the time.

How much could you gain by ‘letting go’ more often?

 

Is it time to recover the loving, adult closeness you so cherish?  This multi-week seminar will get you going with practical and immediately useful information, tools, and weekly exercises designed to strengthen your affection and connections. Starts May 5th.

You can find great resources for couples impacted by ADHD at my marriage and ADHD website, including: an online treatment overview; downloadable chapters of my books; a community forum with other couples facing similar issues; a large number of blog posts on various topics; referrals; and my very popular ADHD Effect In-Depth Couples' Seminar. This eight-session seminar has helped many couples turn around their relationship, and is given by phone, so anyone may participate. Next session begins Fall 2015.

Recovering Inti macy in Your Relationship - This new seminar, designed to help couples become closer on every level, will be given by phone conference call and begins on May 5th.

The Couple's Guide to Thriving with ADHD, available in Audio Book and Kindle, explores the emotional "Hot Spots" that couples impacted by ADHD commonly face and what to do about them.

Adult ADHD can have a huge impact on your relationship.  Please take a moment to investigate the information available to you on ADHDmarriage.com.  It can literally change your life!

“Try not to become a person of success, but rather try to become a person of value.” - Albert Einstein

We are, Einstein is trying to say, defined by who we are more than what we do.  An interesting idea coming from a man who is so well known for what he did!

In relationships impacted by ADHD it is too easy to fall into patterns that judge partners for what they ‘do’ or, often, what they ‘don’t do,’ forgetting all the positive things about who each partner is.  I’m always thrilled when I ask “what do you love about your partner?” and given a long list of wonderful personal qualities…and saddened that those qualities are often overshadowed by ADHD-impacted lack of ‘doing.’

What are the characteristics that each of you has that makes you a person of value, rather than a person of success?  If you aren’t sure, then this could be a great area of conversation for the two of you.

 

Is it time to recover the loving, adult closeness you so cherish?  This multi-week seminar will get you going with practical and immediately useful information, tools, and weekly exercises designed to strengthen your affection and connections. Starts May 5th.

You can find great resources for couples impacted by ADHD at my marriage and ADHD website, including: an online treatment overview; downloadable chapters of my books; a community forum with other couples facing similar issues; a large number of blog posts on various topics; referrals; and my very popular ADHD Effect In-Depth Couples' Seminar. This eight-session seminar has helped many couples turn around their relationship, and is given by phone, so anyone may participate. Next session begins Fall 2015.

 

Recovering Intimacy in Your Relationship - This new seminar, designed to help couples become more intimate on every level, will be given by phone conference call and will begin on May 5th.

The Couple's Guide to Thriving with ADHD, available in Audio Book and Kindle, explores the emotional "Hot Spots" that couples impacted by ADHD commonly face and what to do about them.

Adult ADHD can have a huge impact on your relationship.  Please take a moment to investigate the information available to you on ADHDmarriage.com.  It can literally change your life!

“Here’s to a wonderful 2015, filled with lots of Todays and very few Somedays.” - a Friend

A friend sent this to me in her annual New Years letter.  What a wonderful way to think about grabbing the best you can out of life every day, rather than waiting for a tomorrow that may or may not ever come to fruition.  Dreams are good, to be sure.  They provide us with direction and hope.  But if you focus on tomorrow too much, you risk missing what today is already bringing you.

Live your Todays so they are rich, varied and filled with happiness.  And then add in the somedays…

 

Is it time to recover the intimacy you so cherish?  Starting May 5th, this multi-week Intimacy seminar will get you going with practical and immediately useful information, tools, and weekly exercises designed to strengthen your connections.

You can find great resources for couples impacted by ADHD at my marriage and ADHD website, including: an online treatment overview; downloadable chapters of my books; a community forum with other couples facing similar issues; a large number of blog posts on various topics; referrals; and my very popular ADHD Effect In-Depth Couples' Seminar. This eight-session seminar has helped many couples turn around their relationship, and is given by phone, so anyone may participate. Next session begins Fall 2015.

 

Recovering Intimacy in Your Relationship - This new seminar, designed to help couples become more intimate on every level, will be given by phone conference call and will begin on May 5th.

The Couple's Guide to Thriving with ADHD, available in Audio Book and Kindle, explores the emotional "Hot Spots" that couples impacted by ADHD commonly face and what to do about them.

Adult ADHD can have a huge impact on your relationship.  Please take a moment to investigate the information available to you on ADHDmarriage.com.  It can literally change your life!

“Many people think passion is a fuzzy feeling that makes taking action effortless.  In fact, it’s the gritty courage and tenacity to forge onward…” - Martha Beck

When we think about an athlete who performs with passion we think ‘intensity’ and ‘tenacity,’ yet when we think about romantic passion, we somehow assume that ‘it just sort of happens.’  Why is that?!  How many relationships could have been salvaged if partners did not make this assumption about ‘effortlessness?’  Aargh!

In my new phone seminar, Recovering Intimacy in Your Relationship (starts May 5, click here for more details) I provide couples the tools they need to reconnect and reignite their intimate feelings for each other.  And one of the first things I intend to reinforce is this idea that recovering intimacy and passion takes courage!

 

Is it time to recover the intimacy you so cherish?  This multi-week Intimacy seminar will get you going with critical information, tools that work, and weekly exercises.  It's designed to provide you with practical and immediately useful information to strengthen your connections. Starts May 5th.

You can find great resources for couples impacted by ADHD at my marriage and ADHD website, including: an online treatment overview; downloadable chapters of my books; a community forum with other couples facing similar issues; a large number of blog posts on various topics; referrals; and my very popular ADHD Effect In-Depth Couples' Seminar. This eight-session seminar has helped many couples turn around their relationship, and is given by phone, so anyone may participate. Next session begins Fall 2015.

 

Recovering Intimacy in Your Relationship - This new seminar, designed to help couples become more intimate on every level, will be given by phone conference call and will begin on May 5th.

The Couple's Guide to Thriving with ADHD, available in Audio Book and Kindle, explores the emotional "Hot Spots" that couples impacted by ADHD commonly face and what to do about them.

Adult ADHD can have a huge impact on your relationship.  Please take a moment to investigate the information available to you on ADHDmarriage.com.  It can literally change your life!

“Life is short, and all we have to offer, in the end, is love.” - Steve Almond

Anyone who has suffered a serious illness, such as cancer, will tell you that it forces you to face up to this idea – life is short. The good news is that doing so can help you re-evaluate your life in major ways. Is this the work I want? What will be my ‘legacy?’ Am I spending time with the people I love most? How can I make every day count? These are just a few of the questions cancer survivors ask.

But why wait for the disaster of major illness? Wouldn’t we all benefit if we asked these questions? And if we did, how would our lives change?

In my own case, facing the idea that life is short helped me assess how I want to be living the rest of my life (making each day an adventure of some sort; focusing on my deepest relationships) as well as provided direction on how I want to act each day. This includes finding things each day for which I am grateful; no longer playing the role of ‘family manager’; seeking a better balance between autonomy and connectedness with my husband; and spending a great deal more energy on healthy eating and exercise.

How would your daily actions change if you had confronted the fact that life, truly, is short?

 

We are looking for partners with ADHD and partners without ADHD to share your responses in this very important ADHD Relationship Sex Survey created by Ari Tuckman, PsyD, MBA. The research will help counselors understand how to better help couples impacted by adult ADHD. There is no research data on this important topic...but there should be! As a survey participant, you will be the first to receive the results and be entered in a raffle. Your opinions and experience are important - I hope you will share them with us by taking this ADHD Relationship Sex Survey. Thank you.

You can find great resources for couples impacted by ADHD at my marriage and ADHD website, including: an online treatment overview; downloadable chapters of my books; a community forum with other couples facing similar issues; a large number of blog posts on various topics; referrals; and my very popular ADHD Effect In-Depth Couples' Seminar. This eight-session seminar has helped many couples turn around their relationship, and is given by phone, so anyone may participate.

Recovering Intimacy in Your Relationship - This new seminar, designed to help couples become more intimate on every level, will be given by phone conference call and is tentatively set to begin on May 5th, lasting for about 5 weeks.  If you are interested in this topic, please contact me, and I will email you when the final dates and syllabus are available.

The Couple's Guide to Thriving with ADHD, available in Audio Book and Kindle, explores the emotional "Hot Spots" that couples impacted by ADHD commonly face and what to do about them.

Adult ADHD can have a huge impact on your relationship.  Please take a moment to investigate the information available to you.  It can literally change your life!

Link to ADHD and Marriage website

I will be in London on March 25. Learn more here.

“Dear ‘Whatever Doesn’t Kill Me’…I’m strong enough now, thanks!” - Facebook post

I laughed out loud when I read this post!  Because, truly, doesn’t life feel like this sometimes?  Relentlessly throwing sh*t your direction until you feel as if you can’t take any more?!

But there is something in that old “whatever doesn’t kill me” adage – because every challenge does present an opportunity to learn and grow.  The most important issue, I think, is what we choose to learn and in what direction we choose to grow.  Because most often, we do have a choice.  Do we choose to focus on the negative, or on our own or partner’s failings?  Or do we choose to seek the positive?

I’m a big believer in the second approach.  When we choose to seek the positive, we are more likely to end up with something we like.

 

I will be in London on March 25. Learn more here.

You can find great resources for couples impacted by ADHD at my marriage and ADHD website, including: an online treatment overview; downloadable chapters of my books; a community forum with other couples facing similar issues; a large number of blog posts on various topics; referrals; and my very popular ADHD Effect In-Depth Couples' Seminar. This eight-session seminar has helped many couples turn around their relationship, and is given by phone, so anyone may participate.

 

Recovering Intimacy in Your Relationship - This new seminar, designed to help couples become more intimate on every level, will be given by phone conference call and is tentatively set to begin on May 5th, lasting for about 5 weeks.  If you are interested in this topic, please contact me, and I will email you when the final dates and syllabus are available.

The Couple's Guide to Thriving with ADHD, available in Audio Book and Kindle, explores the emotional "Hot Spots" that couples impacted by ADHD commonly face and what to do about them.

Adult ADHD can have a huge impact on your relationship.  Please take a moment to investigate the information available to you.  It can literally change your life!

Link to ADHD and Marriage website

“Only a mediocre person is always at his best.” - W. Somerset Maugham

If you’re a “type A” person like me, you’re probably used to setting some pretty high standards for yourself and your partner.  But what I’ve been learning lately is that this is not always a good thing.  First, we shouldn’t be setting standards for our partner – they get to do that!  Otherwise we are in the position of ‘judging’ whether they meet our standards – and that’s not conducive to intimacy.

Second, if we think we must always ‘be at our best’ we have only two real options – fail some of the time (and then are you disappointed?!) or lower our standards enough so that we don’t fail…which, as this week’s quote suggests, may lead to mediocrity.

Instead, I suggest we allow that failure is a good thing – it means that we are striving to do better (or at least differently!)  Further, forgiving yourself and your partner for failure is an important part of a healthy relationship – particularly when ADHD is in the mix.

Are you able to let go of your own – and your partner’s – failures?

The next live ADHD Effect In-Depth Couples' Seminar starts NEXT WEEK - February 17th! Learn more here.

You can find great resources for couples impacted by ADHD at my marriage and ADHD website, including: a free online treatment overview; free downloadable chapters of my books; a community forum with other couples facing similar issues; a large number of blog posts on various topics; referrals; and my very popular ADHD Effect In-Depth Couples' Seminar. This eight-session seminar has helped many couples turn around their relationship, and is given by phone, so anyone may participate. The next session begins February 17th.

The Couple's Guide to Thriving with ADHD, available in Audio Book and Kindle, explores the emotional "Hot Spots" that couples impacted by ADHD commonly face and what to do about them.

Adult ADHD can have a huge impact on your relationship.  Please take a moment to investigate the information available to you.  It can literally change your life!

Link to ADHD and Marriage website

“You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” - Buddha

I have recently undergone a lot of soul searching about self-love…and have found it a wonderful experience.  Because, quite frankly, it’s way too easy to spend a whole lot of energy thinking about how to better love your partner and forget about what it means to love yourself.  If you find yourself in that situation, as I did, you are losing out.

For each person self-love means different things.  My approach to self-love will likely change as my circumstances change, but here are a few things that I decided to do differently, right now, to love myself better:
-    Pay more attention to my body – lots more exercise; far better diet; resolve some health issues; dress in ways that make me feel good, rather than Boston frumpy (those of you who live here know of what I speak!)
-    Overtly de-stress my life – find the optimal work/life balance; exercise; learn to meditate; spend more time on personal connections
-    Learn to say ‘no’
-    Live with a sense of adventure and gratitude.  Seek out new experiences and knowledge.
-    Seek laughter and fun.

What could you do to love yourself better?

The next live ADHD Effect In-Depth Couples' Seminar starts February 17th! Learn more here.

You can find great resources for couples impacted by ADHD at my marriage and ADHD website, including: an online treatment overview; downloadable chapters of my books; a community forum with other couples facing similar issues; a large number of blog posts on various topics; referrals; and my very popular ADHD Effect In-Depth Couples' Seminar. This eight-session seminar has helped many couples turn around their relationship, and is given by phone, so anyone may participate. The next session begins February 17th.

The Couple's Guide to Thriving with ADHD, available in Audio Book and Kindle, explores the emotional "Hot Spots" that couples impacted by ADHD commonly face and what to do about them.

Adult ADHD can have a huge impact on your relationship.  Please take a moment to investigate the information available to you.  It can literally change your life!

Link to ADHD and Marriage website

“The only person you should try to be better than is the person you were yesterday.” - Oprah Winfrey on Twitter

One of the challenges of working with couples is to get them to see that the process of improving their relationship is not about ‘fixing their partner’ but about addressing their own issues.  People get this concept intellectually, but it is really hard to let go of the idea emotionally.  ADHD partners often think the non-ADHD partner’s anger is really the issue, while non-ADHD partners are likely to blame their partner’s ADHD.

These attitudes leave them stuck.  You can’t make your partner ‘better.’  You can only make yourself better.  And, as Oprah suggests, this is a process of making yourself better than you were yesterday – it’s one day at a time.

What could you do better today than yesterday?

For those of you in the Seattle, WA area, The Hallowell Todaro Center and ADD Resources have invited me to speak on Monday, February 9th about strengthening intimacy.  Learn more here.

The next live ADHD Effect In-Depth Couples' Seminar starts February 17th! Learn more here.

You can find great resources for couples impacted by ADHD at my marriage and ADHD website, including: a free online treatment overview; free downloadable chapters of my books; a community forum with other couples facing similar issues; a large number of blog posts on various topics; referrals; and my very popular ADHD Effect In-Depth Couples' Seminar. This eight-session seminar has helped many couples turn around their relationship, and is given by phone, so anyone may participate. The next session begins February 17th.

The Couple's Guide to Thriving with ADHD, available in Audio Book and Kindle, explores the emotional "Hot Spots" that couples impacted by ADHD commonly face and what to do about them.

Adult ADHD can have a huge impact on your relationship.  Please take a moment to investigate the information available to you.  It can literally change your life!

Link to ADHD and Marriage website

“The story of human intimacy is one of constantly allowing ourselves to see those we love most deeply in a new, more fractured light.  Look hard.  Risk that.” - Cheryl Strayed

No one ever really talked with me about how love changes over the course of a long-term relationship, but I sort of wish I had known more about it!  Strayed’s idea – that we see our partners in a more ‘fractured light’ is a very interesting way to think about the strength we can gain from long-term love.  We start thinking our partner – and our relationship – are perfect.  Then we learn better.  And over the years we see more and more facets – positive and negative - of our partner and ourselves.

This can be scary stuff.  What do you do with the idea that your partner is capable of betrayal?  Or that her work record is more spotty than you expected?  How about the times when you feel resentment – perhaps even hate - and don’t act on it in ways that you feel proud of?

I would agree with Strayed – learning who we are at a deeper level is a risk, but well worth it.  We are infinitely more complex than we thought when we first met…and constantly changing.  But that is good.  I like that my husband sees the good and the bad in me and is still around to talk about it.  I like that I can see him more accurately for who he is and still feel deep love for him.  This is reassuring, even as it can be hard to digest sometimes.

What sort of ‘fractured light’ have you benefited from in your relationship?

 

For those of you in the Seattle, WA area, The Hallowell Todaro Center and ADD Resources have invited me to speak on Monday, February 9th about strengthening intimacy.  Learn more here.

The next live ADHD Effect In-Depth Couples' Seminar starts February 17th! Learn more here.

You can find great resources for couples impacted by ADHD at my marriage and ADHD website, including: a free online treatment overview; free downloadable chapters of my books; a community forum with other couples facing similar issues; a large number of blog posts on various topics; referrals; and my very popular ADHD Effect In-Depth Couples' Seminar. This eight-session seminar has helped many couples turn around their relationship, and is given by phone, so anyone may participate. The next session begins February 17th. Learn more here.

The Couple's Guide to Thriving with ADHD, available in Audio Book and Kindle, explores the emotional "Hot Spots" that couples impacted by ADHD commonly face and what to do about them.

Adult ADHD can have a huge impact on your relationship.  Please take a moment to investigate the information available to you.  It can literally change your life!

Link to ADHD and Marriage website