feels like boyfriend is ignoring me? can anyone with adhd help!

[adawn3201]

hi!! i’m new but i know that a lottt of information can be found on here for practically anything! i’m hoping that y’all can help me figure out my boyfriend a little better! i found this website a couple months ago after googling some things about ADHD that i think relates to my “boyfriend”. he mentioned to me in a brief conversation months ago that he had ADHD or ADD, i’m not sure which one, and i just accepted it and didn’t think much of it. i myself don’t have either and don’t know anyone personally with it, so i just wrongly figured it meant he was “hyper” or something; however, about 2 months ago, there were certain things i picked up on that i just randomly though could be a result of his ADHD/ADD.

he’s extremely kind, down to earth, and sweet. he likes to act all tough and manly, but he’s so so sweet and caring. on times when i’ve hung out with him, he even asked to stop to speak to his neighbor then volunteered to cut his grass (which kinda was weird because i was just there watching him cut grass haha) he also offered to give a boy he knew from high school that was walking in town a ride home (even tho he hadn’t seen him in yearsss, but it was super nice)

just for context, i say “boyfriend” because we’re still in the talking stage. we haven’t started dating because he doesn’t have a car right now (or an ID, due to a DUI) and i think he feels that without a car or id, he’s not the “man” in the relationship. i’m the one that drives whenever we hang out, and i have to come to him (we both live in very small towns, about 20 minutes apart, so i don’t mind the drive at all). i flat out asked him one of the last times we saw each other if he had intentions of dating me and he said he absolutely did, he just felt that he couldn’t because of his driving/dui situation.

SO, back to the point of this post, there are some things that he does that make me feel as if he’s ignoring me or doesn’t care as much about me as i do him. i only really feel this way when we’re not together and our communication relies on texts/snaps. let me note that he’s not very tech savvy and whenever we’re together he’s rarely on his phone. half of the time, he loses his phone and can’t find it. there’s also been multiple times we’re he’s broken his phone, even one time where i went almost a week without hearing from him and assumed he was ghosting me (then he got his phone fixed and let me know that he just fucked up his phone). he works all day, everyday so i don’t expect him to be on his phone 24/7 (which he isn’t) and reply to me immediately; but i just want someone with ADHD/ADD’s perspective to tell me if this is “normal”. again, i say “normal” because i know everyone is different and deals with disorders differently.

i’ll look back on old conversations and see where he messaged me more often, more quickly compared to now and i think “oh, he’s lost interest in me”; but then i compare it to how he acts when we’re together and what he says and it doesn’t match. when we’re together, everything’s fine, with the occasional disagreement/argument we’ve had like once or twice. it’s just when we’re not together, i feel like i’m being ignored. the last time we were together, i asked him if he doesn’t answer back because he just doesn’t see it or if he doesn’t remember OR if it’s because he doesn’t want to speak to me but i can’t take a hint, and he told me that it’s just because he typically doesn’t see it. and i asked if my feelings shouldn’t be hurt when i don’t hear from him, and he said absolutely not.

i want to add that i’m a very, very anxious person. i have anxiety and OCD, which i take medicine and CBD to help. im also insecure at times because i can’t wrap my head around the fact that a cute boy like him would wanna date me. so me being anxious, mixed with his communication skills not being the best doesn’t help. but i am not looking for a way out of this relationship. i don’t see his lack of communication skills as a reason to stop dating him. i truly love him and i know he loves me, but when the communication through the phone lacks (when i know he’s been on his phone) it sends me into a spiral of “does he actually love me?” “if he did, wouldn’t he wanna message me throughout the day?” “are we not compatible?” and it’s just a never-ending cycle… that is until we do see each other in person and everything’s fine.

also, he just started back up playing golf in april/may and has been playing in soo monday tournaments on the weekends; throughout the week, he’ll go to the good course he lives by a hit too. i don’t know if that has something to do with it - like he’s focusing on that so much? idk i’ve been reading a lot of stuff on ADHD/ADD and i try to understand the whole “focus” and like executive function (i think that’s what it’s called) aspect of it all but i’m still new to it. anyway, it anyone can understand this mess of a post that i just typed out that would be great.

[HeyImNotCrazy]

Yea as a person diagnosed at like age 7 and who has had a phone since around 12 I can say that forgetting to check your phone or text are sooooooo an ADHD thing.

I sometimes get a message ping, open my phone, read the text, get distracted by something or remember something I have to do, sit the phone down with the full intention of texting back, and then its seven hours later and I suddenly remember I forgot to text back. I also lose my phone or forget it places regularly all the damn time (once I lost my wallet five times in one year, I started to think the people at the DMV were remembering me and judging me hella hard 😂).

Something that helped me be better about responding was using an app like Discord which works on both my phone and my computer, because I'm on my computer most of the time when I'm at home I see the message alerts pop up there as well. If he's not savvy with things like that then you could try to set up a regular 'talking time' with him, like 'lets call/text on Saturday regularly', having a set time/date that is always the same helps me remember events.

For me and my ADHD brain its also often 'out of site out of mind' even with relationships. I don't not like people I just sort of forget to reach out to them, and in my brain its NBD because we're still friends and me not talking to them regularly doesn't flip the 'not friend' switch. Some people I talk to every day some once a month and I like them all at the same level. So I wouldn't worry about it. Unless he's a bad person and a liar you can probably trust him when he says he cares about you but sometimes forgets you need more communication than him to be happy.

His golf hobby sounds like a new "Hyper-Fixation". HFs are kind of like 'Special Interests' are for people with ASD, we get super super invested in something that interests us to the point of near obsession over the topic. However unlike with ASD people with ADHD don't often fixate on one single thing for years/decades (although we can and do), we often jump from hobby to hobby like butterflies. This can be bad when coupled with bad spending habits; i.e 'oops I got obsessed with bonsai trees and now I own several thousand dollars worth of bonsai stuff but I got bored after six weeks and now I'm really into hiking instead'- but can also be really cool because people with ADHD often know a lot of stuff about a lot of weird random things.

The good news is he probably wont be so fixated on golf forever that he forgets about you, bad news is its probably a behavioral pattern that will repeat.

Good on you for being curious and supportive of your guy, ADHD can be hard to understand even for people living with it much less a partner who doesn't! Keep up the good work and remember that communication is key! ♥️

[Rodster]

I have ADD and in the past people would text me and I would read it but forget to text them back. Sometimes I would answer them in my brain and not text them a reply but in my mind that was ok. I didn’t know it was an issue until multiple people pointed it out to me. I just didn’t have any idea that they were actually waiting for me to respond and that it was antisocial not to respond. I also wasn’t aware of how it made them feel either. Now that I look back I’m surprised I had any friends at all. But in my mind, at the time, I wasn’t doing anything wrong.