Hello all,
I am new to this forum. I've found this site on the Google search "ADHD Marriage". I have ADHD. I left my wife for no reason in Dec. '21 from the nasty argument in Nov. '21 which was my fault for forgetting her one year anniversary as business owner, and I left me because I was running away from myself. Blame the Impulsive and rapid decision which I never think twice before I do anything stupid. We have been married for almost 3 years. We were separated for almost a year (COVID PANDEMIC - May 2020 to April 2020), and I moved back in with her. My wife did not want me to get the truck which I did it without communicating with her first before I make any impulsive decision. I wish it never happened, and now i know why she has been unhappy with me.
Before we got married, I was all hyper-focused on her, doing many things with her, and enjoying every moments with her. We shared so much together. Until we got married, I akind of changed. Now, I want my old self back when i was hyper-focused on my wife.
I always thought I have attention issues when it come to communicating with my wife, listening to her needs, and ignoring what she wants. Turned out, She pointed out to me that I have impulsive and not communicating openly with her. I would hold back myself then blow up at her. She would be yelling at me in anger, calling me names, and nasty words because she was telling me she felt that she was not being heard by me or not communicating with her openly. The whole times, I kept thinking, "What's wrong with my wife?! Why is she always angry at me? Why is she not being nice to me?". She wanted to have quality time with me when she's not working like breakfast date or lunch date or quality time every night. I simply ignored that and said, I am too busy with work. Not very proud of myself, and I would've take a break from work to focus on us. Could the ADDERALL XR be the problem that cause my major mood swings not caring how she is feeling? What is bothering her? Ignoring her needs? I regret it myself so much for sending her negative emails like what she did wrong and hurting her. I wish i never done that, and I saw that it is part of ADHD traits.
After talking to her the other night, it hit me real hard, and I realized so much and I need to make a big change for my marriage with my wife. I left her twice, and now I am fighting tooth and nail to save my marriage, and getting my wife back. I do want a family with my wife, and she is afraid that I may leave her again.
Any tips would help me to make big change for myself to save my marriage.
Thank you!
Non ADHD's perspective
Submitted by jp03 on
Hi
First of all, it's really meaningful that you want to fix things with your wife. I'm the non ADHD here, broke up with my ex boyfriend because he never saw the problem to even fix it. I hope I could help you in some ways.
First thing, please understand that your wife's behavior is the reaction to your ADHD symptoms. The hurt from your actions that never resolved the correct way, eventually became the resentment that make her like that. I reacted the same way, because I did not understand much about ADHD. So in my mind, he was hurting me intentionally. Your wife probably hasn't fully understood how different your brain work. Melissa has many good articles in her Blog section. It is just hard to find, due to how the website structured. But I found them and they helped me so much in understanding ADHD brains.
Second, you need to acknowledge how ADHD behavior affect your wife's mental health. As females we crave emotional intimacy, positive attention and empathy from our partners. Those aspects just brutally missing in ADHD relationships. We are left feeling unloved, unheard, abandoned. And yet sadly, the ADHD partner can't feel or even see that. Nothing get fixed.... Resentment built up over time and we changed...into nagging angry partners...
Please look for a behavioral therapist, who can work together with your psychiatrist. You need to find the right medication, right dosage and monitor how it affect your behavior. You already knew the problem.... it's the impulsiveness.... I hope the behavior therapy could help you keep it under control.
At the same time, help your wife to understand more about ADHD through this blog, or Melissa's seminars. Educate your wife, and let her decide if she would still want to fight for your marriage with you. I mean, you need to control your symptoms, while your wife needs to modify her reaction to those symptoms. It's team work or it would not work.
Meanwhile, find a way to increase your dopamine WITH your wife. That means you two can find things to enjoy together, could be just weekly date nights, or random roadtrips out of town every month, pick a random hotel and be spontaneous together. That could help you maintain the interest, but with your wife. Practice to pay attention to little details, and much more attention to her.
I truly hope that once both of you realize your mistakes causing the separation, you both could change for each other.
Thank You!
Submitted by GNHaa982 on
Good Morning JP,
I want to say thank you for replying to my post.
First of all, I have been seeing my therapist for a while now, and she's been a great help. We talked about ADHD, why my wife reacted to me like that, and how to change that. I want to add my therapist used CBT (Cognitive Behavior Therapy) with me, and it’s been helpful. I do regret most of what happened to us. I do! I am fighting to save our marriage non-stop. Most of the time, I couldn't tell if my wife is overreacting to me during our arguments, and I always thought there was something wrong with her until my sister, my friend therapist, and my real therapist explained to me that my wife is an emotional woman, and she loves me to death. She was overreacting a lot to me to get my attention all of the time and begging me to figure out myself with ADHD. During our arguments, I get brain flood 100% of the time, and we both didn't know how to take a time-out, my therapist taught me about Brain Flood and how to take a time-out. If you get brain flood, and you have to throw out the code like time-out, remind your spouse that we need to take a time-out and go to another room separately or go out for a walk for 10 minutes but more importantly, make sure you tell your partner that you will be back and then, we can continue this talk when we both are calmer and have a clear mind. It is part of my wife's fault for not fully understanding my ADHD which she asked me to talk to her about it a while ago, and I kept denying her that there was nothing wrong with me until a few months ago, I realized so much. I put a lot of work into myself to work on myself to improve to be a better person and better husband. I recognized so many ADHD traits, when I saw the traits, I was speechless.
I have changed my medication to Ritalin LA from Adderall XR. Adderall XR was part of the marriage problems that caused a lot of issues like crashing hard at end of the day where would become a$$hole, cranky, tension, irritability, and not caring about my wife. I did not even think once about what is bothering my wife or what is going on with her. I was hyper-focused on work and myself. Until a month ago, I recognized a lot when I was on Adderall XR, my mood changed, cannot shift gears on focus for more than 5 tasks at work, have meaningful communications with my wife, and I don't think about what's happening around the house or my family. I was sick to my stomach after I learned all of that and how I treated my wife. I was angry for a couple of weeks and tried to blame myself for not waking up a long time ago. My therapist and my close friend (Who has ADHD and is currently on Ritalin LA) urged me to get off Adderall immediately, and did. I did cause tension in my family for some time. I have been on Ritalin LA for almost two weeks now, it is much better than Adderall XR. t gives me a clear mind, balances my ADHD focus, focuses on more than 3 tasks for work, communicates openly, and has more of an open mind, and at end of the day, I don't crash hard at all. It made me happier, more outgoing, and communicative than I was on Adderall XR.
I have been reading Melissa's book, The Couple's Guide to Thriving with ADHD, and I have been making a lot of notes on it and put a post-it in the book for important refers for the future and I recently got another book by Melissa, "The ADHD Effect on Marriage", and I recently ordered another book by Edward Hallowell - Driven To Distraction. I look forward to reading both of them!
Now, my wife wants a month’s break from me, and she is still stuck with the thought of me leaving her again. After what I have learned about myself, I get oversensitive by how my wife talks to me and her wordings to me. The words became stuck in my head and caused me to have tunnel vision, which led me to run away from her. Now, I know and will always remind myself and take a step back before doing anything stupid. If my wife and I are back together, I will never run away from her ever again as long as I have support from my therapist, my ADHD friend, and my friend/therapist to talk to.
You mentioned finding something to do with my wife like getaway weekend, dinner date, do some activity outdoor together. We do that, my wife is a hairstylist, and she works Wed to Sat. She can take some Sat off when we have a plan for out of town or something. We usually go to the beach on Sundays during the summer, and it’s only at least two hours drive. That is a good idea about getting a hotel away from home and spending time together! I never thought of that!
Thank you for all the tips you have given to me! I am pretty much ahead of it, and I still hope that my wife can see what I have been doing and improve myself!
JP - Have you reached out to your boyfriend? If you still love him, you can keep trying to reach out to him and talk to him about his ADHD and his traits. If you have the book, “The Couple’s Guide to thriving with ADHD”, you can share it with him. Keep trying to get him to wake up like I woke up a BIG TIME 2 months ago.
Thank you again, JP!
Hi
Submitted by jp03 on
Hi
Thank you a lot for sharing your thoughts and your progress. You have made a big change for your life as well as for your marriage. I hope that when you get your wife back, you will give us an update here. I believe that would give non ADHD spouses/partners in this forum some hope. Please make a new thread so more people could see your success story.
I believe that you can do it. Now that you have realized your mistakes, and especially you understand your wife better now, you can be the one who guides your wife back home. That's the most important thing that many ADHD people do not understand. I'm really happy for you both.
Your wife probably just like me, emotional and sentimental. So I could tell you some tricks. Start with small nice gestures, that show you care about her feelings and happiness. You could hand deliver flowers with note/letter to her work. Tell her what you wrote in the last post, but don't forget to say that you respect her decision to take a break....just start slow dont overdo it... and then later ask if you could pick her up for a date afterwork. No need to dress up or fancy, just have fun and don't put too much pressure on her. Let her feelings grow again for a new caring attentive man.
Once she comes back to you, please pay attention on her sincerely, realize when she feel cold and give her the jacket, text her at work asking if she eaten lunch yet, don't stare at other women in public, or try not to say impulsive hurtful things.... Just be a sentimental man...I have high hope for your family, your wife needs nothing more than your love and your attention/care for her. You don't know how small subtle gestures could melt a sensitive woman's heart!!!! And happy wife happy life :)
Thank you for asking about my case. It's hopeless and too late for us. The guy said he loves his ADHD because it gives him amazing daydreams...and doesn't want to take medications. I only started learning more about ADHD after the breakup because I'm curious. I hope to help anyone that need an opinion. It's really meaningful to read such story like yours. Please give us an update when you are happy again. It's a long battle especially when you start having kids. Please keep this mindset til the end. Good luck!
Hi Again!
Submitted by GNHaa982 on
Hi again!
I will do that once my wife and I are back together. It has been almost 3 weeks since I haven’t heard from her. She is in Florida with her good friend/business partner staying with her friend’s father. It is her birthday weekend, so my wife wants to celebrate her birthday there. I was friend’s house last night to set up a birthday gift bag for my wife, he is watching my wife’s cat at her house while she is away so he can drop it off at her house. I got her favorite clothes from lululemon, small gifts like her favorite pens and sunflower door pillow.
Her friend has told me what he has seen from my wife. He said, my wife is a complicated woman, and she doesn’t know what she wants. We both agreed that she has low self-esteem and can be always indecisive at times with me. He saw how much progress I have been making and noticed my ADHD Focus balance has gotten so much better. My wife is a very emotional and sentimental woman. I forgot to mention to you, my sister and I had a long conversation about what was happening in my marriage, and she was trying to help me to understand her emotions like if she is overreacting, DO NOT TAKE IT PERSONAL. It means that my wife doesn’t mean that, and she wants my attention. It hit me hard right there and the more I realized that she never meant any nasty words and unpleasant name-calling. My wife was begging for attention and care from me. My sister explained those to me and how I approach my wife if there is something is bothering her.
Of course, I sometimes text her if she would like anything from Starbucks or a smoothie place when I have free time from work so I can use that excuse to stop by to see her. Now it’s been three weeks since I am on a new medication, Ritalin LA, it has given me better ADHD focus balance, thinking more clearly, make me happier, and do not crash hard at night. BIG DIFFERENCE from ADDERALL XR! Going forward, I will give her a lot of attention and check on her to see how she is doing. Ask her if she needs anything. Make time for her when I have a break from work. I will keep making sure she plenty of attention and love from me going forward in our marriage and continue to work together ups and downs. I need to stop running away from her when things become hard or get very oversensitive from my wife’s words.
I am taking a huge risk with my wife to keep going in our marriage, and I sincerely hope that my wife will be willing to another huge risk to keep going in our marriage. No marriage is perfect. Not everyone is perfect. We all make a lot of mistakes, and we learn from them. It is a learning process every day for the rest of our lives. I know the damages has been done, and my wife is afraid I will leave her again. I want her to know that I will continue to work on myself going forward when we are back together, and I will never give up on our marriage.
I am sorry to hear about your ex-boyfriend, he is making the mistake of not being willing to work on himself and trying to work things out with you. You deserve better than that. Hopefully, he wakes up one day and realized how much he misses you.
I will keep you updated!
Thank you again!
You are very welcome. I just
Submitted by jp03 on
You are very welcome. I just basically gave you some opinions. You have done a great work on your own. I actually admire you for what you have done for yourself. It was a big turning point and not anyone could sit down have some reflection like you did.
You are so lucky to have such good sister, friend and also a helpful therapist. I wish we would have those people to help us when we were struggling in that relationship.
I will be looking forward to hearing your happy story. Thank you for making me happy listening to your story. I just wish that my ex could be someday wake up you did, for him to be happy with his new partner. I can only wish him happiness from the distance.