hi, I'm very new to this site. I have a boyfriend who I found out from our couples therapist that he has ADHD a year ago. I read about ADHD and now understand why I was always angry at him about small things and he seemed to not care about me and our little boy safety. I.e leaving the house door wide open when he went out in the evening while I was sick in bed with a breastfeeding 6 months old and drive recklessly with our child in the car. You know all the crazy little and big things that ADHD people do. Recently, I found out that he has been having an affair. I havent address it to him (yet) and he still doesn't know that I know. He is still in touch with her and planning on seeing each other again as she lives abroad. I have been seeing our therapist on my own about all of this and he told me to not say anything yet. He said my bf will get bored of this new toy and therapist said she isn't the only one my bf is playing around with. And I know also that she isn't the only one as I saw messages from another girl popped up quite often saying how she misses him. I try not to read everything as they hurt my feelings but I look briefly to keep my finger on the pulse to see if they r flings or more or how long is it going to last.
My question is are they related? ADHD and infidelity?? I read melissa's book but doesn't say much about affairs and online has mixed info of yes and no mostly nos. I also think my bf has narcisstic personality disorder like his father. The thing is I don't want my therapist or myself to give him an excuse to have an affair because he has ADHD. I'm still thinking whether to leave or stay. I'm not sure how long I can play calm and cool for. I have a little 2 year old with him who loves his dad very much and he is also a good father, as good as an ADHD can be and works very hard. I could put up with all of his dirtiness, scattiness, forgetfulness but affairs I'm finding it hard to cope. At the beginning of the affair he had been going around telling some of his close friends how much he loves her and wants to explore her. And then expect it to be hush hush. I just couldn't get my head around it all as to why he does this!
My two cents? ADHD is not an
Submitted by dvance on
My two cents? ADHD is not an excuse to be an unfaithful jerk. There is no excuse for cheating. That said, my ADHD DH has had three other women that I know of. My guess is there are more, maybe even currently. He travels a ton for work so cheating would be super easy--he could be down the block for all I know as long as he hid his car. We don't have sex, so I really couldn't care less, but to address your bigger issue--are cheating and ADHD related? My opinion--affairs are part of the impulsiveness of ADHD--"oh--someone new thinks I'm great!!! I'll go with her!" The lack of thought to the consequences of their actions doesn't help. Add to that, if the ADHD person is married, it's likely the non-ADHD person has lost their newness and has become a big annoyance by needing them to act like an adult, pull their weight, be a grown up (in the mind of the ADHD person). Throw in the tendency to break rules and get a thrill from getting away with something, the attitude that they are somehow above it all or exempt from the rules that the rest of the world follows--that adrenaline rush that many ADHD folks crave--that doesn't help. As I understand it, the thrill of having an affair for anyone is that you can present yourself to the new person any way you want--charming, carefree, funny, etc., and the affair person doesn't need them to take the garbage out or pay bills or finish some boring project. One of my husband's extracurricular women used to email him all the time what a bitch his wife must be to not realize what a great guy he was. Well of course she thought that-he called her to wake her up every morning at 6:30 on his way to work. This from a man who cannot return MY texts to save his life. But really--who doesn't want to hear that??!!! If you have limited ability to think through the consequences of your actions and little ability to resist your own impulsiveness (look something new and shiny!!!) affairs are likely to happen. To be honest, when I read on this board how lonely and unhappy the non-ADHD spouses are, I am amazed all of us AREN'T having affairs!! (sort of kidding...) Listen, everyone likes to be paid attention to, to be thought of as the funniest, most charming, likable person ever, but really, it should be our spouse that thinks that because we ARE that for them.
Why should you have to cope with affairs? That seems like a really low bar for a good relationship. He does not want to be faithful to you-his actions make that clear. Does it matter if it's the ADHD or NPD or that he's just a big jerk. He can be a good dad and a lousy partner (although you could make an argument that a good dad would be faithful to the mom of his kids as long as they were together).
Clearly I have no answers, just opinions. I wish to God above that my DH would find someone. He very well may have and I just don't know it. I have pretty much taken myself out of everything that involves taking care of him but someone needs to!
I hope that helped and wasn't just rambling...
I agree with everything that
Submitted by peachy123 on
I agree with everything that you said. I didnt write too much or go into details of the affairs and horrible things that he has done because I didn't wanna focus too much on affair topic. I know the new woman is thinking what a great guy he is, and I must be stupid to not see that or im not meant to be ....or him and her are actual soulmates. Just as how I was when I first met him. When I first met him I was surprised how this fun, nice, good looking, successful wasn't married yet at the age of 40. Im a little forgetful and scatty myself so I found those trait that he has funny. Until we had a baby!!!! I just wish that I knew more about ADHD and spotted it sooner. Sharing life with him and affairs is like being in a really bad soap opera that you see on TV. I have thought of going on dates with someone else but it may complicate things and just wanna focus on myself and my little boy for now and saving money and making sure im secure financially. Sometimes I just want to disappear from his life with my little boy but then I don't think he will learn anything from that. If people ask he will then be able to blame me, and I will be the cold heart bitch who left with his son.
Hi Peachy 123
Submitted by c ur self on
I agree w/ dvance's assessment...There are plenty of faithful spouses w/ adhd...But when you mix a heart that lives without convictions, with a mind that is constantly seeking thrills, (adrenaline junkie)....You have a person who has a very high probability of careless and selfish actions....(No thought of others, and their commitments)....
This relates to most everything you said...Reckless driving, emotions, Sexual immorality...Just a very unstable person that can't be counted on for stability in a monogamous relationship...
c
NPD
Submitted by bowlofpetunias on
If it is NPD, you should get out of there ASAP. ADHD is treatable. NPD is vary rarely, if ever, treatable. ADHD people do a lot of inconsiderate things, but it may be out of lack of awareness rather than malice. NPD people are malicious.
You should also strongly consider the affects that growing up with an NPD parent will have on your child. My wife's mother was very, very narcissistic. This has left incredible scars on her, which then causes her to lash out at our kids and me. Nothing my wife could do could possibly every please her mother. So my wife continues to constantly try to prove herself to her--even though her mother died a year ago. My wife HAS to be the BEST MOTHER EVER. The problem is, that conflicts with being a good mother. Her kids SHOULD be the best in school because she is a great mother! If they are not, she erupts in rage and shames them for not living up to what she knows is their potential, undermining their self confidence and making it harder for them to succeed. It prevented her from recognizing our kids have ADHD and other issues and made her resist getting them on medication--good mothers don't do that! And good mothers use cloth diapers--even when it leads to excessive rashes. The pattern my wife's family was, "Oh, that's just the way Mom is. She will never change, so why bother challenging her on anything?" Her mother constantly talked behind everyone's backs. When I was with her, she put down her "friends" who had just visited and told us what terrible people they were. For years, she kept telling my wife how rude I was because I did not talk enough--I am an introvert, and also my wife's family constantly interrupted me, even when I tired to answer a question they just asked! I was trying to be polite by not talking at the same time as others. Rather than tell me that her mother was talking about me behind my back, my wife tried to convince me that I needed to talk more and that it was a problem. It finally blew up when, after repeated requests that I had not acted on, I defended my wife to her mother. Yes, thought I needed to defend her, even though she would not stand up to her mother herself. As if me doing it would work. Previous times included things like her putting her daughter down for not being smart enough, or bragging about the accomplishments of other people's kids. Finally, she kept telling my wife to get rid of our cats. My wife's father and brother had allergies, so having cats must be an insult to the family, right? It could have nothing to do with actually liking cats and caring about our cats. It must be just to spite my wife's mother, right? I wrote a very polite email trying to explain why the cats were important to us and why we would not want to have them killed--let's face it, putting them in a shelter would be a death sentence. That led to a huge fight and her parents refusing to talk to either of us for six months--until my wife became pregnant. I also remember being incredibly embarrassed by the way my wife's mother would treat waiters and waitresses, especially after she had a few martinis. I had to apologize to some of them because I felt so bad. The family also refused to confront her about drinking and driving. I warned my wife that her mother might wind up killing herself or other people, but still, no, no one couldsay "Boo" to her mother. At the funeral, my wife's brother acknowledged that a positive aspect of her health problems was that it forced her to stop drinking and made her less abusive. But they could never tell her to cut back on the sauce when she was actually drinking. She also stopped driving when her health worsened. Fortunately, she did not wind up injuring anyone else because of her drinking and driving.
During therapy a few years ago, my wife expressed fear that I was giving up on her. I responded that confronting her about her problems was proof that I was not giving up. Her whole family gave up on her mother--they gave up and accepted that she would always be a horrible, abusive person and would never love them enough to even consider changing. Her parents never got divorced, but her father certainly gave up on the marriage--he accepted his wife was horrible and decided to never do anything about it. My wife still expresses her anger at him for not defending her by getting angry at me. (That was part of I why she expected me to stand up to her mother for her. I was supposed to do what her father should have done. Of course, she also gets angry at me for standing up to her--her mother got away with abusing her husband and her kids, so why can't my wife? Isn't it her turn?