My husband and I do not think alike. This is true. We both comprehend this fact. But I don’t think either of us actually understands what this means as it relates to how we relate to one another, nor do we truly realize how very differently someone with attention deficit disorder thinks when compared to someone without ADD.

The other day, I woke up in the usual way – to a messy house, left in the wake of my ADD husband. An open drawer here, a dirty bowl there, crumbs and something gooey on the counter, a hot pad and a spatula on the floor, last night’s supper dishes on the table, a butter knife sticky with peanut butter on top of the stack of bills, a calculator in the fruit bowl…you know, the usual…when I happened upon a tub of very gross, dirty dishwater in the sink and a wash rag marinating in the mix. Eewww!

We had had a discussion just the night before about not leaving the wash rag in the old dishwater and to just dump the tub of water when he was done washing something. It’s a discussion that, like all of our discussions, we’ve had over and over. And as usual, he swore up and down that, yes, he agreed that leaving the wash rag in the dirty dishwater was as gross as I found it and that, yes, he would remember to dump the water this time.

My husband was diagnosed years ago as having Rapid-Cycling Bipolar Disorder. And for years, I took that diagnosis at face value – anytime that he got a little moody, well it was because of his bipolar disorder. But now, I’m starting to wonder if it’s just that simple.

We went on a mini-family vacation this past weekend. Let’s just say that the first half of the two-day vacation was hard, on everyone.

My husband was very moody. The kids were walking around him on eggshells, and I was wishing that we had left him at home…or the side of the road. Surely, me wrangling three kids and a bunch of luggage alone would be far more enjoyable than dealing with a moody man.

At face value, I could say that the vacation triggered his bipolar disorder. But once we got to the bottom of it – I’m never one to avoid the issue, although my husband certainly wishes I would sometimes – I learned that that his moodiness was more an issue of me and him having different vacation styles.

He likes to have an itinerary – to go from one source of entertainment to the next, on a set schedule so as to see and experience as much as possible. I like to be much less scheduled, to have a list of things I’d like to do but to not worry if I don’t get to all of them. What happened was that on the first day of our vacation, we left a little later than planned and was able to do most of what we both wanted but ultimately didn’t have time to swim at the hotel pool. Not a big deal to me; apparently, quite a big deal to my husband.

Imagine owning a business with your spouse. That’s a lot how it is when you’re supporting your spouse in managing his or her bipolar disorder or attention deficit disorder.

You have to take into consideration each of your personalities, skills, life experiences, hopes, and dreams as you work out the challenges together – and you have to work intimately, every step of the way.

Yeah, owning a business together is a lot like marriage…and dealing with bipolar together has a lot of similarities. Here’s an illustration:

There’s a new book available for couples that I’m excited to read. Attached explores attachment style as a relational dynamic.

Attachment, or bond, or connection, is based on Attachment Theory, which stems from research exploring how parents and their children relate to one another, and how this affects the child later in his life. I know a little about this: I work for Attachment Parenting International, which promotes an approach to childrearing that encourages a secure parent-child attachment.

Given my line of work, Attached is exciting in that it illustrates the effects of attachment style beyond childhood.

In the original research, there were three attachment styles identified: secure, anxious, and avoidant. Secure defines a healthy respect and love between two people in a relationship. People with anxious attachment styles crave emotional intimacy but fear rejection at the same time. Those with avoidant tendencies appear to be emotionally distant, seeming not to care about intimacy or rejection.

As you can guess, a relationship between two securely attached people is very stable. Adding anxious or avoidant into the equation complicates matters.

On the Attached website, there is a quiz where you can figure out your attachment style and learn how the book can help you and your current or future relationships. In trying to help their situation, someone with an anxious attachment style will try to change their way of thinking and acting – which is a good start – and try to do the opposite of what they usually do, so someone who tends to avoid conflict will then try to confront during conflict.

The problem is, rather than address the underlying insecurities, they’re still avoiding them; while the behavior has changed, it’s no healthier than it was to begin with.

Marriage would be so much easier if only one person was needed to make the union work. Then, when your spouse was having a hard day or week or month or year, you could just carry the relationship until they got better.

But, of course, marriage doesn’t work that way. It’s designed to be a single entity made up of two separate beings – you and him, or you and her. And if one person is having a difficult time, it can sometimes make for a very long day.

My husband’s moods are tied to mine. Maybe a better way of putting this is, his self esteem depends directly on however I feel toward him. There is nothing healthy about this. I’m no therapist, and he doesn’t go to a therapist despite much encouragement from me and his doctor, so I’m only stabbing in the dark to try to help him find another way to boost his self esteem.

In the past, I thought that doing a hobby or a job that he did really well would help, and while I think it has helped his self image, his sense of self worth is still related to whether I’m happy with him or not.

The problem is, as we all know, conflict is a normal part of relationships. It’s how relationships grow, and if resolved in a healthy manner, conflict can lead to both spouses becoming more emotionally close to one another.

Now that I’m better recognizing my husband’s depression in his everyday activities – having the insight since my own depression has lifted – it no longer seems like his mood switches so quickly as it used to. I can see him fighting it long before he gets to the place where he no longer has the strength to talk or move anymore.

And since my depression has lifted, I’m finding it easier to think of new ways to respond to his lethargy. For a long time, I had tried to revive him back out of catatonia by encouraging him to do some sort of activity – sometimes fun, like Monopoly, and sometimes a chore, like clean the bathroom. Then, I would get frustrated when he didn’t do anything.

Lack of empathy. That’s what they call it. They being the experts, researchers, or whoever they are who know about these things. I call it, being a jerk.

I’m three months postpartum and, lately, I haven’t been feeling the best. I suspect a possible hormone imbalance, perhaps with my thyroid, but since mothers wake up several times a night at this point, it’s hard to tell if the reason I’m so tired and achy and a tad moody is because of simply not getting enough sleep or something more.

My husband thinks I’m a hypochondriac, although he refuses to say it. He just tells me that “it’s normal for women who’ve just had a baby,” since because he’s a man, he’d know?

I ask him what his opinion is based on, and he says he’s just assuming. You know what they say about assuming things – it’s a great way to make an ass out of you and me. I remind him when he had his wisdom teeth extracted this past spring and he nearly bled to death because of a clotting disorder, and what would have happened if I had just assumed it was normal to bleed so much out of your tooth sockets to fill a few gallon-size buckets. His response? Whatever I’m feeling isn’t that bad.

OK, now that you are all under the impression that I’m some super-human caregiver who adores her husband through all, never getting angry or frustrated, I’m going to shatter that perfect image you have. Today, I am mad – not just hot under the collar but seething, breathing fire.

Yes, his bipolar mood swings are under control, but his Attention Deficit Disorder symptoms are alive and well, not as well as before this last med change but well enough that I’ve taken notice – and in his world, I’m the last person he hopes to take notice because I won’t turn a blind eye and let it go for long.

He was called back to the factory to work on Tuesday, and there’s always a bit of a bumpy transition for him when coming off a shut-down period to an in-production period. Usually, the trouble with transitioning comes out as a mood swing, but since he’s so stable right now, it’s been unusually quiet around here. Apparently too quiet.

“What happened?! Why is there only $50 in the checking account?” I asked my husband. We had just gone out to eat at a local restaurant, and although I keep close tabs on the family finances, I hadn’t objected to my husband carrying the checkbook around in his pocket and paying for the fuel and the items at the store, and later the meal. But I was certainly objecting now!

He looked at me. In true form, his selective mutism took full hold. He was being criticized and this is how he protects himself, or tries to. It only infuriates me. I’m a writer, a professional communicator, and I don’t appreciate being shut out of the conversation, especially when it involves our finances. My mind flashed back to six months ago when I learned that my husband had drained the checking account with purchases of junk food. Anger – and let’s be honest, really fear – gripped me.