Navigating Marriage With Undiagnosed ADHD - The Beginning

After many years of confusion, it has finally become clear that my husband has undiagnosed Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

We are on a slow journey of understanding how his beautiful neurodiverse brain manifests in ways that brings both joy and struggle to his life and our marriage.

In the evening while tucked cozily into bed, we’ll read a few pages from Is It You, Me, or Adult A.D.D.? Stopping the Roller Coaster When Someone You Love Has Attention Deficit Disorder by Gina Pera.

We then talk about it. Digest it. And when the time feels right, we read from it, again.

S, 🌻

Is It You, Me, or Adult A.D.D.? Stopping the Roller Coaster When Someone You Love Has Attention Deficit Disorder by Gina Pera

Beginnings

Michael and I are in our eleventh year of marriage. During this time I’ve sorted out my own personal issues of alcoholism, mental health diagnoses of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), Histrionic Personality Disorder (HPD) and trauma.

With the trauma fog lifting, my emotions now regulated, and over 2 years of sobriety in a 12-Step program – I now “see” my husband’s behaviours more clearly.

Some of these behaviours are repeated issues I’ve struggled with over the years.

Such as feeling lonely. Like I do not exist or he does not care about me as he steeps himself in one creative project after another. Some projects he finishes, others he does not. I compare him to a creative machine – always outputting something – as I feel invisible, in the background, taking care of him.

While a gentle man with a kind heart, he has little empathy or understanding of emotions. It’s like living with Spock from Star Trek. A genius. A man with a brilliant mind who represses his own emotions and sees logic in all things. Emotions are illogical to him. Especially strong one. Needless to say, my once intense dis-regulated BPD emotions caused many problems between us.

Our marriage feels like I am riding a crazy train. Impulse ideas, out-of-the-box thinking and ways of living that have me spinning.

A chronically disorganized, spinning top I have to keep in-check to make sure he is eating, taking care of himself, prioritizing his responsibilities and making rational decisions. I sometimes feel like a parent, taking care of a reckless, stubborn teenager.

Add to this, the “taking care of ” is not reciprocal. I joke, but not really, saying how I could be starving to death and he wouldn’t notice because he is constantly distracted, consumed in his latest project.

Currently, I have over fifteen years of working in the private and public education system. My job is supporting students with physical, developmental and neurodiverse needs in the classroom.

There is a big difference between my job of supporting ADHD students in the classroom and being married to a man who has undiagnosed ADHD.

Loving someone, being emotionally connected to and living with is much more challenging to navigate.

Again, it wasn’t until I had my own issues dealt with, that I was able to focus skillfully on his behaviours I struggled with, without reacting or making these issues worse.

To truly “see” his ADHD in action, without my over-reaction. To soundly pull and piece together years of his ADHD behaviours and make sense of it all.

I then went online and looked for books to help me.

I ordered: Is It You, Me, or Adult A.D.D.? Stopping the Roller Coaster When Someone You Love Has Attention Deficit Disorder by Gina Pera.

This book was exactly what I was looking and hoping for.

I will be writing about the information we learn from it

This is my way to process the information. To get a better understanding of this “invisible enemy” that has caused problems for both of us.

From page #4, there is a list of few or many difficulties adults with ADHD have:

Losing track of priorities
Arriving late to events and missing deadlines
Having trouble initiating tasks and following through to completion
Being chronically disorganized
Managing finances poorly
Losing their temper easily
Overspending, smoking, gaming, and other addictions
Not being “present” in relationships

Woven through each of the symptoms are the complexities of how ADHD can manifest itself uniquely in every person who has it.

As I read this list to Michael, he felt embarrassed. I felt an overwhelming sense of love as his behaviours finally made sense to me. A love that signed in relief with his willingness to understand more.

This “invisible enemy” revealed, an enemy no more.

S, 🌻