Last week, Part 1 of this entry had some quick facts about adult ADHD, and discussed two of the four top issues that affect the relationships of adults with ADHD: relating to others and success at work.

Today covers the remaining top issues adults with ADHD have in relationships: contributing equally at home and sexual functioning.

3. Contributing equally at home: As mentioned in the previous post, having a partner with ADHD can often feel as if you have a child to be responsible for, as opposed to an adult partner who can take care of business themselves. Collaborating to create a system that divides the responsibilities and reminds your partner of what needs to be done when, and communicating effectively about your concerns may help. Many people recommend hiring an ADHD coach who can help your partner identify helpful strategies to organize their life, including home responsibilities. Working with a couples counselor who specializes in ADHD is another idea. This article about being married to a partner with ADHD might also offer some insight.

Your partner forgot to pick up the kids at daycare, again.

The dinner with friends was going great until your partner suddenly made a blunt comment that hurt your best friend’s feelings.

You try to have a conversation with your partner, but always feel as if their attention is elsewhere, or they get up abruptly and walk away when you are mid-sentence, or they fiddle with whatever is within reach and wiggle in their chair like they are a child again until you give up and stop talking.

Such is life with a partner with untreated ADHD.

Some quick facts about ADHD in adults:

• Although ADHD is often diagnosed in childhood, it’s estimated that 30-70% of adults still have symptoms. Many adults were never diagnosed as children, or they were misdiagnosed with other disorders, such as learning disabilities, depression, anxiety or bipolar disorder. As a result, adults with ADHD sometimes do develop depression or have low self-esteem because they were not treated appropriately or were called “stupid,” “lazy,” or “unmotivated” because of their ADHD-related behavioral patterns.
• Forty to sixty percent of adults with ADHD also have a child with ADHD (Waite, 2010).
• To be given a diagnosis of ADHD (for the first time) as an adult, the symptoms must have been present during childhood. If the symptoms first appear in adulthood, it is likely that the symptoms are related to a different disorder.
• The pharmacological treatments for adult ADHD are similar to that for children–namely, stimulants and sometimes also antidepressants–but these medications may work differently in an adult than they would in a child.
• ADHD is recognized as a disability under federal legislation (the Rehabilitation Act of 1973; the Americans With Disabilities Act; and the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act). Appropriate and reasonable accommodations are sometimes made in the workplace for adults with ADHD, which help the individual to work more efficiently and productively.

If you look at most ADHD-related websites (see below), they have a special section dedicated just to how this disorder manifests in adults.

How do you know when your partner’s use of pornography is “too much”?

Where is the line between someone just “really liking sex” and needing sex in order to function?

Have you had fights with your partner about their sexual behaviors, with promises from them that they will change, only to have the patterns continue (or escalate)?

If you have found yourself wondering about some of these questions, or others related to your partner’s seemingly “excessive” needs around sex, you may have a partner with sexual addiction.

I will begin this post by saying an entire blog itself could be (and should be–anyone out there an expert??) dedicated to the topic of PTSD, and the havoc it wreaks on the lives it touches. This blog entry is mostly to acknowledge the partners and relationships that are struggling under the weight of PTSD from past trauma, and it will be a topic I return to from time to time.

When I think of PTSD and therapy clients, I think of experiences such as military service, rape, sexual abuse, and traumatic car accidents, and the subsequent paralyzing symptoms of nightmares, flashbacks, the inability to relax (hyperarousal), intense fear of something bad happening again, and panic attacks.

What I don’t often hear about is the role the non-traumatized partner has in the life of the partner with PTSD. Again, this blog entry will just touch the tip of the iceberg, but it will be a start and guide you towards other helpful resources. Also, in this entry, I will be speaking generally about PTSD, not to specific causes, such as military experience vs. sexual abuse history, which can look very different.

You did it again. You didn’t fold the laundry right, you didn’t wash your hands long enough before touching the lettuce to make a salad for dinner, or you threw away what looked to you like trash, but now has your partner rifling through the garbage can to retrieve because it was “important.”

The rest of the day is ruined and your partner can’t relax until they do something to “make it right again.”

Welcome to the world of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).

What people often don’t realize is that OCD is a form of extreme anxiety for the person experiencing it. They can’t stop the thought in their head that they need to do whatever the behavior is, even if they realize the thought is distorted, unrealistic, or out of control.

People with OCD have a “short” in their brain’s wiring system that controls the brakes on distressing thoughts. Like all other mental disorders, it is not something the person can just “snap out of,” although they desperately wish they could.

What must it be like to live with a brain that says you are constantly in danger, and the only way to protect yourself is to perform a certain behavior? And as the partner of this person, what can you do to help?