For Women with ADHD ADD Who Want to Connect

Explaining the differnce between my husband(without add) and I in terms he can understand!

Here is a shore preface to my my question...

I was diagnosed with add as a young child and have been on most every medaction in the book. I took myself off meds prior to and while having kids. I went back on in between pregnancies for a short time. And decided I was ready to get back on when my 3rd son was 6 months old. He is now 19 months. My husband and I are very different, but very compatible. But he is an extremely ritualist, has his priorities in line at all times and has a military background. He doesn't need to force structure, he is structured. I envy this often, especially now that I am a stay at home mom. Oh and we have been married for about 8 years and are in our mid 20's.

though I was aware of the affect of the ADD on our marriage, I never embraced the idea of using resources to help my husband understand.

So on to my question... Has anyone found a great paragraph, article, short essay on what goes through our minds as women with ADD? Possibly one written from the ADDers perspective. Or with a comparison to a non ADDer?

I truly appreciate any info y'all may have.

Tags: husbands, marriage, understanding

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Permalink Reply by Jude on February 16, 2012 at 11:08am

Hi, Bre. I can emphathize. I've been married to my husband for 13 years, but we've been together for 16. I'm ADHD, and he is not, at least not in the way that I am. My husband is hyper-organized, bordering on obsessive; and he can be extremely intolerant of disorder. Add to that the fact that I was not diagnosed until about 8 months ago, so we've gone a long time together with him just thinking I'm a scatterbrain, and me beating my head against a wall not knowing why all my efforts don't seem to help. I almost lost my marriage over this. But thankfully, with treatment for me, information for him, and patience, we're now working through things.

I have not, unfortunately, found a real clear way to explain our differences to him. It seems extremely difficult for someone who functions naturally with structure to understand that ADD/ADHD is a condition that implicates precisely those functions ("executive function") in the brain that are responsible for structure.

One analogy that I have found useful is a comparison to addiction. I am not a drinker. I don't like alcohol. I don't like the taste of alcohol, or its effect on me. I have no trouble whatsoever not drinking. Yet, I have known people with drinking problems and I've said to them, since you have such a problem with booze, just stop drinking it! Well, therein lie the problem. They can't "just stop drinking" anymore than we can just "pay attention," or "just get organized." We struggle with those things because it's the essential nature of the condition. And for someone who doesn't have it, it's very difficult to understand.

I'm sorry that I can't offer you a quick article to help explain things, but if you are at all interested, I invite you to check out my blog. It's a mish mash of things I write about, but it's basically about is my experiences in life as colored by ADHD (also raising a child with ADHD). Perhaps you might find some things that look familiar to you and you can share with your husband. My writing is not scholarly. It's just from the heart, but it might help to convey that you're definitely not the only one! My posts are in reverse chronological order, with some of the stuff that you might find helpful in my earliest posts.

In any event, if I come across anything (I look for this type of article myself!), I'll pass it on!

http://inattentivepostergirl.blogspot.com/

Best wishes!

Jude

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Permalink Reply by Stacy on February 17, 2012 at 9:43pm

Hi Bre, I came across your thread on here when i was googling stuff about ADHD. I was just newly diagnosed yesterday and have been seeing a therapist since October with my husband always questioning why can't you just get it basically. Our last visit she finally told us that she believed I suffer from an attention disorder and referred me to a psychiatrist. A lot pointed me to ADHD but I didn't want to jump to conclusions. To make this short I am in the same boat, I feel my husband thinks we found the issue to my problems but i still don't he understands it and me fully. I almost lost my marriage towards the end of last year because of me and now looking back my ADHD. My husband is always very on top of things, doesn't forget things when he needs to get things don't, etc. I have always been envious of this. Anyways if you find anything that you think is helpful then i would love to Hete about.

Please excuse any typos, sending from my HTC evo.