Recent forum posts (all topics)

Lately I have been trying to compliment and thank my wife more often (and nag and complain less).  Both to help me focus on what I love about her and to help her know what I appreciate about her so she might feel more loved and less criticized.  I have been doing this for a couple of days now and we seem to be in a much more caring place.  My compliments and gratitude are always genuine.

Has anyone else experienced their ADD spouse having occassional sudden flare-ups of temper?  My husband is doing it again.  He calls me horrible names, tells me he hates me, etc.  I can't spend the rest of my life like this.  Then he comes out of it just as suddenly as he started.  He cries, apologizes, says he doesn't know what happens to him.  When it gets really bad he makes impulsive, sweeping decisions that often throw our life completely off coarse.

Hello everyone:

I definitely criticize and nag my ADD wife way too often.  It is something I have been working on, but I am not always successful.  In fact, I am NOT successful way too often.

Here's what I have been doing:

When my wife does something (or doesn't do something) that annoys me, and I recognize that it annoys me, I tell myself not to take it personally, because she didn't MEAN to annoy me.  And I KNOW that is true.  Sometimes that works, and sometimes I still feel annoyed.

My husband has been diagnosed with dysthymia and lymbic ADD. He's been taking Wellbutrin for about 6 weeks and it's really helped. He started taking Concerta last week and went back to how he was before the Wellbutrin or worse. He's VERY irritable, unpredictable, angry, has a short temper, etc. Has this happened to anyone else? He's stopped taking it and is going to try to get an earlier apointment with his Dr. (she had scheduled one for 3 weeks)

The situation (somewhat simplified version) is as follows.

I have heard my wife (ADD) say that she needs me (non-ADD) to say affirming things more often and criticize her less often.  I think I am criticizing her less and saying affirming things more.  I hear her saying that it is not enough, that she needs me to say affirming things even more often and criticize even less often.  

My wife and I are stuck in a vicious cycle of "the blame game."  I'll ask her a question, like "Do you know where the attachment for the vacuum is?"  She'll hear it as a criticism, as if I said "I can't find the attachment to the vacuum and it's your fault."  She will respond by yelling "I DON'T KNOW."  I'll respond by saying "Why are you yelling at me?"  And she'll say something like "I'm tired of being blamed for everything."  And I'll say "I wasn't blaming you for anything.  I was just asking you for help finding something.

Does anyone have any idea how to make an ADDer care when they lose your stuff?

My daughter gave me a GPS for Christmas because I always get lost. I mostly only go to work, school and the grocery store, so I let my husband use it. (His job requires him to travel from client to client, so he could use it.) I told him I'd want to use it if we went anywhere.

The divorce looks inevitable to me now. He was diagnosed a number of months ago, after he had what looked like a nervous breakdown and left. He's on meds (as far as I know), but is with a non-ADD therapist (again, as far as I know) who, according to one other professional source I've consulted about this, knows almost nothing of the condition or how it should be treated. So, my husband is largely untreated and thinks all of the problems with the marriage were due to me, or, in his "kinder" moments, some vague sense of incompatibility.

Hi.  I apologize in advance that this is going to long...