ADHD is a sneaky, unspoken complicator to interpersonal relationships. Showing up throughout a person’s life and not just in childhood. With about 5 percent of the population having ADHD (approximately 15.5 million people) and more of our population having symptoms that look like ADHD (VAST – variable attention stimulus traits) due to our increasingly fast-paced world, it is something to understand in relating to others.

ADHD brains function completely differently than non-ADHD brains and when we think differently, we go about life differently, and that can cause misunderstandings in relationships. ADHD brains look to create more dopamine than non-ADHD brains. This causes people to be easily distracted since new information is more exciting than sameness making consistency, and building trust, challenging – especially with blended families.

If a partner follows an impulse, that may feel like being ignored to the other partner; not remembering details may send a message of “I don’t care about you,” when the opposite is true. Trouble being on time can translate into “you don’t matter to me.” Frustrations and miscommunications can mount on both sides leading to resentment.

Trouble with executive functioning may cause a partner to: forget to lock doors, lose their wallet, car-keys and be chronically late. It may seem like your partner is home but disengaged and forgetting to follow-through with chores, leaving you to nag to get help. Or perhaps you’re the partner who carries around an underlying sense of dread (the low-level anxiety that can come with ADHD) and time is spent criticizing yourself and worrying about messing up something…yet again. Both partners become increasingly angry and irritable and before long the couple is in a negative relational pattern.

ADHD is not a trivial issue in relationships

It has an enormous impact on everyone in the family. The good news is couples can learn to work with each other and manage how they interact together. Understanding it’s disrupting your relationship is the first step. The good news is that ADHD brains and non-ADHD brains can learn to be work together to make daily life better for both halves of the couple.

 

Main ADHD Symptoms

• Chronic distraction
• Chronic lateness
• Fails to pay close attention to details
• Has difficulty organizing tasks, loses things necessary for tasks
• Feels restless, always moving
• Has difficulty engaging in leisure quietly
• Talks excessively
• Has difficulty awaiting turns

 

Other signs ADHD may be interacting in your relationship:

• Difficulty getting organized: procrastination, trouble following through, easily distracted from the task they’ve been asked to accomplish.
• ADHD brains have an intense dislike for boredom, high impatience and low frustration tolerance for tasks that are deemed “boring,” “inefficient,” or “unnecessary.”
• Impulsivity with money and decision making.
• There is often physical and mental restlessness.
• Moods seem black-and-white: they’re either really happy or really upset.
• Counter-will: shows up as a negative first reaction to others ideas, pushing back or a rebel attitude.
• Addictive behaviors may be present.

 

When your loved one has ADHD

Positive aspects of ADHD

• Generally, very forgiving, nothing really bothers them, they don’t hold grudges.
• The ADHD partner is easy-going, fun-loving and are generally well liked by others.
• They are usually very compassionate.
• They are able to take chances, and think out-of-the-box (entrepreneurial minds).
• Give others the benefit-of-the-doubt.
• Intuitive on a large scale.
• High resiliency toward life’s challenges and changes. They’re the come-back-kids who always manage to find a way with their unique perspectives. It can seem if they can manifest the things they want out of thin air.
• ADHD folks have a good sense of humor.
• Couples can learn to work together to lessen the effect ADHD has on their communication, and relationship.

 

Symptoms for the Non-ADHD Spouse

• Tremendous amount of stress, and over-functioning to pick up the loose ends left by the ADHD partner.
• Intense anger toward their partner for feeling stuck doing all the “adulting” and “hard stuff” in the relationship.
• Parent / child relationship between spouses with the non-ADHD spouse taking the roll of parent toward the ADHD spouse.

 

ADHD is not rare. It occurs in at least 5 percent of the population*

 

*The book ADHD 2.0 by Edward Hallowell, M.D., and John Ratey, M.D., 2022. Studies suggest a person with ADHD is almost twice as likely to get divorced as one who does not have ADHD. Another study suggests 58% of relationships with at least one person with ADHD are clincilally dysfunctional – twice that of the non-ADHD population. From the book: The ADHD Effect on Marriage by Melissa Orlav, studies she quotes from ADHD in Adults: What the Science Says by Russell A. Barkley, Kevin R. Murphy and Mariellen Fischer, The Guildford Press, 2008, pp. 308-384