Recent forum posts (all topics)

My ADHD husband has zero coping skills and has a tantrum whenever things don't go his way. I will do pretty much anything to avoid engaging him in a fight but I'm only human and it happens. When we argue he has a tendency to scream that he hates me and wants me to leave. I never leave because I tell myself he's "not himself" and he doesn't mean it. When he calms down he will usually apologize and say he didn't mean it. But lately I've been struggling to believe him when he apologizes. I've told him that the things he's said to me in anger are hard to forget, even though I honestly try.

This is something that I do think is relevant to people with ADHD in terms of lying or perceived as lying or not telling the truth.  In this case it comes in the form of rationalizing which is something that I have worked very hard in eliminating in my repertoire.  It is simply trying to explain yourself or justify why you do things which in the case of undiagnosed ADHD.....this almost becomes second nature to do.

Do you think it's possible to have ways (techniques) to re-set your spouses hyperfocus back onto you if it has shifted away? Hyperfocus is what we non-ADHD spouses feel and fall in love with during the romancing early stages and find it wonderful. As we marry and time goes on, we non ADHD spouses begin to notice a drastic change in our marriage. Due to the ADHD symptoms, we begin to see our spouses turn away from us to more external stimulating criteria. Has anyone tried different approaches to get that focus back to you? 

So my H is not medicated. He hasn't been for his whole life. We are newlyweds who live in Japan. I am aware that things like Ritalin are actually illegal here... not even sure what medicine IS available. (Japan is a culture that loves to hide their head in the sand, refusing to admit there is a problem, so he hasn't been to see a doctor about his ADHD since his initial diagnosis at about 7 or so. )

I wanted to make a post around things that I have come to understand from the learning process I have gone through too date. This is more of just a summary and conclusions I have arrived to in my own thinking and applying them to my own experience. I thought about posting this in the section for couple seminar participants (as my wife and I am just coming to the end of) since I am applying a lot of the things that Melissa has provided there in the out line of the course itself.

For most of our marriage, H was the primary breadwinner.  He had a very good job, and I stayed home raising our children (I worked full time during the first 5 years of marriage, until first child was born).  Once the kids were raised, H began hinting that I should work.  And, whenever he was mad at me for some minor or NOTHING reason, he'd yell at me to get a job.

My husband and I started counseling toward the end of 2015 and things were going ok.  We discovered his issues with anger management likely come from ADHD, especially b/c our son was just diagnosed.  I've endured years of his outbursts and walking on eggshells.  My husband does have insight and understands his flare ups hurt my feelings.  But, unfortunately, insight doesn't always prevent it from happening.  The other night, he began yelling at me because I cleaned up his desk and he said I moved some papers around.

Hi,

How long did you know/date your ADHD spouse before marrying?  

And what red flags were present during the dating years?  

unemployment?  

underemployment?

unable to keep a job?

anger?

instability?

 losing things?

immaturity?

relationship issues with others?

bad with money?

disorganized?  messy?

other red flags?