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Post by penny on Feb 18, 2016 0:07:23 GMT
As a long-term partner of someone with ADHD, when I was looking for support, I became increasingly sick of reading how it's me that should adapt and change all the time - because after all that's what my ADHD partner needs. Often, threads in forums labelled as 'support for partners' are immediately hijacked by those with ADHD quickly telling us what they need us to do in order to help them - like we don't do that and live with that every day. I couldn't work out immediately why this irritated me so much until I came to to the conclusion that, actually yes, your lives are impacted by your condition, heaven knows, we can read everywhere how much it affects you and how hard it is for you to manage because you can't process stuff in the same way as the rest of us. It's may be hard for you, but here's the truth - our brains DO work as they should, but even so, ADHD imposes something upon us that WE can't understand. We don't have any psychological issues but we have to live in a world of chaos anyway, and in many ways that's even worse than an ADHD sentence. No meds available for us..no diagnosis for our problems..no specialist therapists to help us. We just have to get on with it: the frustration; the fear of not knowing what will turn up next - unpaid fines - motor offences - or even bank foreclosure and loss of home Here's some advice to anyone contemplating a relationship with an ADHD-er. Go ahead...if you're happy and rewarded to be a lifelong carer; if you're content to never have your own emotional needs met; if you're prepared to take 100% financial responsibility and manage everything of importance. If you're happy with all that, then respect to you. If not, then RUN as fast as you can - get out - free yourself before it's too late and you are trapped forever with no way out.
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Post by Kathymel on Feb 18, 2016 19:47:32 GMT
Hi Penny. Just wanted to say there are people aware of your post here, but until it gets approved, we can't see the body of it to answer it. We're not ignoring you.
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Post by Kathymel on Feb 18, 2016 21:02:55 GMT
Right. I've seen your post, now.
Not sure what you hope to gain by coming on a forum populated by ADHDers and insulting everyone by telling any NTs who happen to be passing to run for the hills. If you genuinely want advice and answers, don't you think a different approach might help?
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Post by roland on Feb 18, 2016 23:33:27 GMT
Hi penny,
Welcome to the forum and I'm sorry to hear that you've been having such a difficult time. Has your partner been diagnosed with ADHD, and if so is your partner receiving treatment? Does your partner have any co-morbid disorders (two disorders occurring at the same time e.g. ADHD & addiction issues)? I'm asking so that we can understand your situation better.
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Post by computermandan on Feb 22, 2016 13:41:12 GMT
I'd hazard a guess that this is exactly how my wife feels right now... actually the daily ritual of letting her down, getting screamed at and wished away would probably make it more of an assumption than a guess... Penny, straight A's for observation. Penny, I hope for your sake you don't run from all of life's problems. Penny, Cheer up
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merrial
Member's posted somewhat
Posts: 63
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Post by merrial on Mar 20, 2016 10:12:48 GMT
Hi Penny, sounds like your partner is a bit of a selfish pig!!! Sorry to be blunt but hey ADHD. I have to say though that this is not really every Man or
Woman with ADHD. My son has ADHD and apart from being forgetful his girlfriend of 4 years says he's very loving and caring.
I also have ADHD and I was in a relationship with some one who didn't. He was also a selfish pig...who gave up his job and expected me to keep him and
pay for him to live in the lifestyle he was accustomed to..he also used to drink and become abusive to me..he used to shout in my face and say "wake up
england" when I spaced off. He threw me out of the home on several occasions & I slept in my car and would have to go to work the next day. I was offered a place
in a woman's refuge but it was too far away from work to travel. So I lived in a caravan for 4 months and it was winter. I was then housed through the local authority.
So please don't blame the ADHD for your partners behaviour as it is Not to blame.
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aardvark
Member's not posted much yet
Posts: 42
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Post by aardvark on Apr 3, 2016 23:05:38 GMT
I think it's all been covered but essentially, just as there are awful 'normal' people, there are also awful ADHD people. Not all ADHD people are the same. I'm pretty sure most of us are of the opinion that our ADHD is not an excuse to treat people badly. We can actually control ourselves! You sound like you've had a bad experience with someone but I don't think that's due to the ADHD, it's probably more to do with them having a selfish and immature attitude.
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Post by computermandan on Apr 6, 2016 9:14:45 GMT
Penny, straight A's for observation. Penny, I hope for your sake you don't run from all of life's problems. Penny, Cheer up Think perhaps I was a little harsh sounding now I've read this back. perhaps a little sensitive to the whole "I'm trapped" scenario... something I may well have heard a lot in recent years. maybe a better judgement call would be to point out this is, from my experience, on a scale. Some of us are bad at the things you mention. Some are awful. Some ridiculously careless. ADHD "mistakes" and being careless or care free are two very different things in my opinion. if you don't care about the damage your mistakes may cause, be it literal or some kind of psychological impact, then you're not being very nice at all. dealing with these issues in a shared partnership, whilst difficult to negotiate at first, should be a case of finding a way to prevent serious mistakes recurring by sharing different responsibilities. in my case I've turned out not to be the career driven "reach for the sky" individual I thought I was (and possibly 'sold' myself as when I met my wife). despite still wanting to be every day. - The chap who accidentally lets the kids stay up till god knows when if my wife goes out for the evening.
- The chap who has great ideas on fixing up the house, starts big projects wilfully, only to end up leaving piles of tools and materials and generally unfinished jobs everywhere.
- The person who tries to "help" when he sees how stressed out the wife is getting by doing the washing, but forgets to take it out at the end.
- who promises to fill and empty the dishwasher every day but generally never gets round to it
- who fails to make it to bed nearly every night due to passing out at some point downstairs as he's unable to sleep if he heads to bed at a time considered "reasonable"
- who also fails to get up and get going for work every morning despite multiple alarms and so on that serve only to wake up everyone else in the house
- who snaps at the kids when they don't do as they're told, somewhat unreasonably, mostly because he's accidentally get away with pushing the boundaries for so long.
There's so many more. These are certainly the day to day 'trivial' issues that I can think of off the top of my head too... When you don't even see how damaging that is until it's too late, and when even when it's too late you cant get your head round why these things are such an issue in the first place... I have learned to understand there is a problem... (ooh just remembered I don't hear things, never mind listen to things i'm told - that's a biggie in our house) I have somewhat gone against the grain in trying to tackle it/seek a diagnosis... against friends, family and my spouses thinking - "you're looking for an excuse", "how is it going to help anyway?", "why do you want to be labelled?", "that's just a made up thing for kids!" (and they were just the honest people who said what they thought!) My only answer to the doubters was that I have to do something because I'm going wrong here... depression.. marriage break up on the horizon. none of us wanted that at the start. All I need now is buy in form the most important people to me... I still doubt that it's fully there, but I'm trying hard to overcome my faults and be good enough for everyone else to accept me. I guess all I'm saying is that if the ADHD person in your life is trying, really trying, then you're kind of both in the trap. neither wanted to be in it, both want to be happy. I said to my wife only last week as we came to another "head" so to speak... if you really really feel so trapped, then you are the one who can break free of it on your own. you CAN go somewhere else and get on. I have to live with this issue regardless. it went downhill from there, I hate being accused of making excuses when I'm just trying to explain myself... (hang on is that actually making excuses? pah I dunno?) anyway what my waffle is aiming to suggest is that we're all unique. every single one of us, adhd impaired or not. So I can't agree with your blanket statements of "lifelong carer", "never have your own emotional needs met", "100% financial responsibility" then "RUN as fast as you can" these are not the case with everybody. I am not the best with our money. but I... yes ME have managed it (somehow haphazardly) since I got married. I have made MANY mistakes along the way and BAD BAD decisions... but they're ALWAYS on me. I take the blame and shoulder the looks of disgust from family etc etc. I also take the shame of seeking advise from friends... "how do you budget like that?". Some of us CAN do some things better than others. just like anyone. and take responsibility for their own shortcomings. sorry for the mumbling... this has bothered me since I first replied and I think I need to steer away from this section in future... Dan.
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Post by Gina on Jul 15, 2016 16:47:03 GMT
Hi everyone,
Just want to share my story as I found this forum could help me understand my situation. I have been married last month with my live in partner for almost 3 years. Our life together is full of love, happiness, fun and adventures like I am the center of his world. Though we also have fights and arguments as same as normal couples do. But we never let the day end without forgiving each other and settled the misunderstanding.
Then, honeymoon came a week after the wedding. I noticed my husband dramatically changed from being a knight in shining armour to be an evil one. He often ignored me and left behind and never had a single night together as honeymooner. As he always went back to our hotel room well drunk where he never used to (I myself don't drink and smoke). When I tried to talk to him that I was feeling ignored and unloved in a nice way he just started shouting out me. I cried as I had no idea why he was being horrible to me. There was a night he told me he wished he never met me and married me as he is not a marriage person and he doesn't want feeling trapped. Whereas, it was his idea to get into marriage and he worked hard to save money for it. God knows how many times I asked him if he was really sure of marrying me. Even his mum asked him days before our wedding. He just said he loves me so much and he is so happy to be with me as his wife. We had a wonderful wedding ever as our guests were so enchanted how we did it well. But in our 2 weeks honeymoon I only got verbal abuse and some of beating up as he was drunk and couldn't control himself. When I talked to him in the morning about hitting me he just said he never remembered doing it.
I thought him going back in England and being focus at work again will get him back with a same nice guy I know. But unfortunately, I feel more ignored and not cared about. His mum knows all the changes and unpleasant behaviours he has during our honeymoon until now. She talked with her friend (who is psychiarist for children) and consulted about the behaviour of my husband. Her friend said my husband may have a "chemical imbalance to his brain" due to life changing event happened to him like being married. He maybe thinking so much about the obligation and responsibility of marriage and his brain cannot cope with it. Yeah I remember him saying this marriage won't never work and we will end up hurting each other. He is being so pessimistic with our relationship now.
Out of curiousity, I searched online if I am the only one experiencing this situation. I started typing in the engine search "Why husbands suddenly changed after the marriage?". Then I have been with load of sites, blogs etc. and it was like I am reading my own story. Most of the wives linked the sudden changes of their husbands behaviours as symptoms of ADHD. They said their husbands were hyperfocusing to them during the courtship and swiftly flipped on as different person after the marriage. I am reading and learning about ADHD and found all the symptoms to my husband. I tried to tell him about this and he replied, "I am not a mad person. I know people who have ADHD and bipolar. I just knew I am changing but not the same person you know. This is really who I am. I don't want anyone or anything. I just want my space and run free. I don't want being trapped."
He said he cannot sleep at night time as his brain is fucked. He cannot eat properly and always distracted when he is not working. His mum said he is very loud and noisy in the morning, walking, talking and running up and down the stairs. Now I am really suspecting my husband has ADHD.
Please help me understand this.
Thank you, Gina
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Post by Marion on Nov 22, 2016 12:36:15 GMT
As a long-term partner of someone with ADHD, when I was looking for support, I became increasingly sick of reading how it's me that should adapt and change all the time - because after all that's what my ADHD partner needs. Often, threads in forums labelled as 'support for partners' are immediately hijacked by those with ADHD quickly telling us what they need us to do in order to help them - like we don't do that and live with that every day. I couldn't work out immediately why this irritated me so much until I came to to the conclusion that, actually yes, your lives are impacted by your condition, heaven knows, we can read everywhere how much it affects you and how hard it is for you to manage because you can't process stuff in the same way as the rest of us. It's may be hard for you, but here's the truth - our brains DO work as they should, but even so, ADHD imposes something upon us that WE can't understand. We don't have any psychological issues but we have to live in a world of chaos anyway, and in many ways that's even worse than an ADHD sentence. No meds available for us..no diagnosis for our problems..no specialist therapists to help us. We just have to get on with it: the frustration; the fear of not knowing what will turn up next - unpaid fines - motor offences - or even bank foreclosure and loss of home Here's some advice to anyone contemplating a relationship with an ADHD-er. Go ahead...if you're happy and rewarded to be a lifelong carer; if you're content to never have your own emotional needs met; if you're prepared to take 100% financial responsibility and manage everything of importance. If you're happy with all that, then respect to you. If not, then RUN as fast as you can - get out - free yourself before it's too late and you are trapped forever with no way out.
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Post by Marion on Nov 22, 2016 12:37:58 GMT
Thank you so much for your story!!!
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Post by Marion on Nov 22, 2016 12:42:57 GMT
As a long-term partner of someone with ADHD, when I was looking for support, I became increasingly sick of reading how it's me that should adapt and change all the time - because after all that's what my ADHD partner needs. Often, threads in forums labelled as 'support for partners' are immediately hijacked by those with ADHD quickly telling us what they need us to do in order to help them - like we don't do that and live with that every day. I couldn't work out immediately why this irritated me so much until I came to to the conclusion that, actually yes, your lives are impacted by your condition, heaven knows, we can read everywhere how much it affects you and how hard it is for you to manage because you can't process stuff in the same way as the rest of us. It's may be hard for you, but here's the truth - our brains DO work as they should, but even so, ADHD imposes something upon us that WE can't understand. We don't have any psychological issues but we have to live in a world of chaos anyway, and in many ways that's even worse than an ADHD sentence. No meds available for us..no diagnosis for our problems..no specialist therapists to help us. We just have to get on with it: the frustration; the fear of not knowing what will turn up next - unpaid fines - motor offences - or even bank foreclosure and loss of home Here's some advice to anyone contemplating a relationship with an ADHD-er. Go ahead...if you're happy and rewarded to be a lifelong carer; if you're content to never have your own emotional needs met; if you're prepared to take 100% financial responsibility and manage everything of importance. If you're happy with all that, then respect to you. If not, then RUN as fast as you can - get out - free yourself before it's too late and you are trapped forever with no way out. Dear Penny! Thank you for your story. Sometimes I think you must run. You are not hash sometimes you shall run. Hugs
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Post by Ftm42 on Feb 17, 2017 18:28:12 GMT
Hi Penny. I read your post & reacted exactly the same way about half an hour ago when my husband told me that yes he does indeed have adhd. Two weeks after a similar diagnosis for our 19yr old son.
So now I have 2 to 'care for'! However, after the initial shock, I realised that I've already coped for 22 years. It just explains why we have always had what seems to outsiders to be a volatile & odd relationship.
Strangely it might also explain why I am drawn to naughty (in the old fashioned sense of the word!) boys?
In summary, we do as partners & parents of special people, we do need to explain how we feel. It's easy for us to feel ignored while we sort them out but it's just the way it is. We aren't being nasty or cruel - we are trying to find how we can best help whilst not feeling overwhelmed.
Chin up & keep going...
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Post by London Lady on May 1, 2017 18:06:49 GMT
Penny, I totally agree with everything you've said. Stay strong.
LL
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on May 8, 2017 19:59:33 GMT
iv been with my wife for ten years and literally this week just learned I have this condition. Now I know I have put my wife through some sh*t over the years. She has stuck with me through it all..
Let me just say, yes im selfish most of the time and im hardly ever in the room. I also plan to get flowers and forget.. She never believed me!! Until now..
But.... Erm... No im joking. I have my moments of caring, loving and laughter with her that I dont get with anyone. Lets not forget the passion. She is the most unselfish person I know.
Maybe one wants to look at oneself a little more. You know when you get a woman that has very little morals, yet claims theres no decent men about..
Just saying....
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