I met my ADHD boyfriend at church we were both growing in our relationship with the Lord and it seemed to be a match. But things quickly changed. He was so sweet and caring, loving and made me feel like no one ever did. Things are completely now. I didn't know he had it, until I mentioned it. He was showing signs which reminded me of a family member who has it. He never said it directly, I just guessed and it became truth. He's extremely private about it, and it's taken a lot from him to let me in on the condition. He struggles a lot and got diagnosed as adults a couple of years ago, so he's never had any professional help on coping skills. The ADHD is taking a huge toll on my mental health as the Non-ADHD partner. I am constantly getting accused of doing things, like cheating, hiding stuff, lying. He gets extremely agitated which leads to verbal abuse. He accused me of being nosey, if say I happen to go put his laptop on top of the desk, and he's by it on his phone, he accused me of being nosey. I feel like everything he negatively throwing at me, is nowhere close to what I've read.
I love him very much and care about him. His parents ignored the diagnosis as a child and he never got help. he just started going to therapy, and is in the beginning stages of hopefully learning some coping skills that will help him with his emotions.
We don't go to church anymore because I get accused of looking at other men. It's heartbreaking, and as much as I want to just leave him behind in the past, I know it's not his fault why he behaves this way. Everything is heightened with him. The medication sucks! He last like 5-6 hours, I see it! And I could vouch for him with the therapist who always say he's okay with the generic stuff.
I'm frustrated, scared, defeated, and lost.
When is it enough? For me to just leave? He has no one, his parents basically gave up on him and he has no one else. I feel trap in a way, I empathize with his situation and are trying to help him. But at the same time I'm being put through the ringer. 😮💨
☹️.
Do any ADHD'ers experience these type of emotions?
Written by
GodiswithmeAlways
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Thanks for being open and sharing about this here.
Relationships are built on love, trust, and commitment. If you both love and trust each other, then you ought to be able to be open, honest, and vulnerable with one another.
However, it takes time to build up a relationship, and you both will make mistakes...there will always be mistakes.
Each person is unique, and will change throughout their life. Each relationship is unique, and will change over time as well.
How you describe him, he sounds insecure. I recognize it, because I also am insecure.
BUT, that does not give him license to be controlling or manipulative of you, and it sounds like that's what is happening.
• Church should be a good environment for a couple. It should be a safe place to help you two build your relationship.
• He probably needs reassurance that he is your #1 choice, that you not only love him but respect him.
(Respect of a huge need for men. We men need respect as much as women need love. Think of Respect as the male dialect of Love...women speak and hear and demonstrate LOVE in a way that they understand, but which is difficult for men to fully understand. The same goes with RESPECT for men. I'm not talking about the kind of respect based on some lofty position or for some great feat. I'm talking about simple, everyday "I love you, so I respect you" gift that cannot be earned.)
My advice to you:
• separate the person from the disorder...a person is affected by their disorder, but it doesn't define who they are, so make sure that you pay attention to the other pieces that make him who he is
• don't give up on him or the relationship, but also do not lose your identity in the relationship
• (from a Faith-based perspective) is that you should both get back to church, and both seek mentorship by an older couple(s) within your church community
• talk about your needs, wants, expectations, and boundaries
• pursue relationship counseling (based on what I've learned, a relationship counselor/therapist who practices the Gottman Method might be best)
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As for me, I was in an opposite situation of your relationship. As the ADHD husband who was married to a seemingly neurotypical wife*, I was extremely trusting of her and she was the one who was often snooping and questioning if I was looking at other women.*(I know that she puts on a front of being "normal", but I saw her closely enough and knew her long enough to know for sure that she's not.)
Long story short, we both had trust issues. She suspected that I was interested in other women and that I wanted to cheat on her. (She actually flirted with other men, and said that she was just playing around. She would openly talk about what singers or actors she was attracted to. And she acted cheated on me twice [that I know of] while we were married. --- Maybe I should have been more jealous. I definitely should have established good, firm boundaries with her, as I did for myself. But boundaries are expectations based on openness and honesty, not jealous ultimatums.)
It sounds like you have a big heart, and that you are led by your heart.
To answer your question: It is enough when you decide it is enough.
As much as you want to help him, he is responsible for himself. You are responsible for yourself.
I'm not saying that you should give up. But I was in a relationship that was sometimes extremely difficult, and nobody in my life would have blamed me for walking away at certain points along the way.
It was me who decided to remain committed, even when I was at my wits' end, physically exhausted, mentally drained, and hanging on to my faith by a thread...but it was a very strong thread.
If you are experiencing this much struggle early in the relationship, then you can expect similar struggles to come and go. Every relationship its challenges, but it's both partners who have to choose what to do with those challenges.
I chose love and commitment 100%. (I should point out that I wasn't always able to show romantic love, sometimes the only thing I could do was show acceptance and tenderness. Sometimes I needed to lean on the prayers and wisdom of others to help me hang on. Yo her credit, my wife had to put up with a lot of my issues, might of which were due to undiagnosed ADHD.)
But because we stuck it out through the difficult times, we also got to experience many good times, and some remarkable blessings along the way (particularly our four children).
.....
Don't think that you can fix him. You can't. You can encourage him, you can help create an environment that will help him...but he has to want to change, and he has got to do the work.
It can happen. I know that I've grown a lot. But it's never easy to change.
Whether you need encouragement to stay or permission to go...you have it.
The only time when you most certainly should go is when there is abuse. Relationship abuse is never motivated by love, and is always destructive.
~~~~~
As for medication, if the one he is taking isn't effective enough, then he needs to communicate that to his doctor.
In my own experience, generics can be as effective as the name brand. However, there can be a lot of difference between the two. The name brand medication sets the standard, but a particular patient might be better treated on a particular formulation (whether generic or name brand).
• Talking to the doctor and pharmacist would be best.
It took me months to find what worked best for me, which in my case is non-stimulants for ADHD.
Thank you so much for the insight from the ADHD perspective. I do tend to say to myself I can fix him and I can help him change. But I guess, we just can't. You are right, they need to want to change. I know he's trying, he's begun to see a therapist to help him manage his thoughts and impulsivity.
Many thanks. My next goal is to get us back to God.
YOU can't get HIM back to G-d. Only G-d can do that with your boyfriend's willingness and cooperation.
Again I wasted years with many different boyfriends who were all gung ho for faith and the L-rd when we met but it was a temporary fad for them not a real thing.
I respectfully suggest that you leave him, wait a while and then find a man who has been practicing his faith for a long time and is a solid believer not brand new or relatively new to the faith.
Remember we are commanded to not be unequally yoked and that doesn't just mean an unbeliever with a believer but a believer who is not strong with a believer who is strong .
It just doesn't work especially if the man is the one who is weak in his faith because he's supposed to be the head and leading things which he can't do if he's not strong in his faith.
And remember or perhaps this is the first time you're hearing it if you start making noise that the relationship is going to end he might start towing the line temporarily because he's going to lose his toy and he doesn't want that to happen.
Please do not be deceived and betrayed -- he's just pretending to be nice and the things that you want so that he can keep you and then he'll go back to being the abusive monster you described.
And remember abuse does not have to be physical in order for it to be abuse.
There’s more than just ADHD going on with your boyfriend (as STEM_Dad has already mentioned). He’s being very controlling with you, and that will likely only increase as time goes on and will continue even if his ADHD symptoms are full under control.
You should not let anyone take you away from your faith! What would your pastor counsel you on this? What advice would you give a sister or female best friend? If you would not counsel someone else to do what you are doing, then why are you doing it to yourself?
I have learned that there are ADHD symptoms and then there are wrong actions. They are not one and the same. I am 48 and just now getting diagnosed and I have never done any of those things to another human being. There is probably something else going on along with his ADHD.
Also, I don't entirely know your situation but some guys look for good church girls because they are more likely to put up with their shenanigans. It sounds like he is using you!
Something I wish someone would have told me along time ago: it's not your responsibility to fix him, but it is your responsibility to take care of yourself.
It's enough when you say it's enough. Trust yourself. Hugs. ❤️
Have a look into autism, it sounds very much like autism to me. I was diagnosed with both ADHD and autism. Autism wasn't what I was expecting, but trust the assessor and diagnoser. I too would get aggressive and start the accusations, even to the therapist. For some reason I had it in my head that they are on some sort of target driven focus and my diagnosis was part and parcel of them meeting those targets.
It's not true though. The medication works to a certain point, and if you take more to combat the comedown, it makes things alot worse. The strength of meds has to be right because if they wear off, it can entice taking more than you should, and round and round it goes.
Fortunately for me, my ADHD team are absolutely brilliant at understanding ADHD/autism. They get that we get aggressive and angry. It's not them we get agitated with though, it's ourselves. Our brains are wired different, we dont think the same as neurotypical people. Some of us think ADHD/ autism as a negative vulnerability, and fight when we think we're being taken advantage of. We're taken out of our life as a neurotypical and placed into a world where even society are 'only just' recognising the conditions. Some people see ASD as a learning difficulty, and so think we're stupid or don't notice things that others do. This impacts anyone negatively, and in turn can make us angry that we go from not having to deal with that, to having to. It's hard for us, and hard for the opposite.
Unfortunately, it seems there's division in society, neurodivergent people are different, and it takes a good person to put up with the challenges of such people. It's only a matter of time before there's a massive awareness drive to 'accept' neurodiversity, but, even then there's still the battle of 'being different' compared to 'being normal'.
Wow. This is a huge red and green flag the constant feeling of paranoia he has can either be good or bad . In my personal experience with the struggle of being a divergent man one side he may just be overwhelmed by anxiety of the feeling of losing something he holds dear like he probably has many times in his life. On the other hand he may have messed up somewhere in the past and he's self conflicted and his lack of trust stems from his lack of trust in himself. He may love you so desperately that he fears he will lose you because of his mistakes causing him to communicate that with mistrust and anger. Sexuality is one of the core needs of our secure feelings. If the relationship isn't physically healthy then these are all normal reactions. Do yourself a favor and be open and honest about your feelings. Set a clock for 2 minutes in a personal setting or write it out and let him read it and ask for the same in return about his feelings. It doesn't work without being completely honest. Trust and respect are essential in neuro diverse men. We have to believe you that you believe us. Any doubt will cause emotional shutdown because it's not attention deficit disorder it's attention and emotional regulation dysfunction. We are extremely sensitive to tone and often can interpret a loving criticism as an attack. Once defensive mode kicks in it's best to let your partner have his time to work through his feelings. My wife had trouble with me being a flight person. I would run from situations that made me uncomfortable. Now I have a better understanding and I just say I can't do this right now write down your feelings and I will try my best to prioritize your message and respond when I'm done spinning out. The anger often times comes from overwhelmed thoughts. The manipulation is often times because he doesn't have control of his emotions and doesn't register how you can feel that way. So he tries to reason out to you why he's right honestly most times out of fear of being misunderstood. It's not right but it's how he was treated as a child and now his brain is stuck in that pattern. Remember it's more emotional dysfunction than hyperactive disorder
I'm sorry to hear about your struggling and your suffering.
I have ADHD so I'm not talking out of my hat.
Your boyfriend's behavior is abusive and wrong and probably more than likely has nothing to do with ADHD but rather him being a perpetrator and a colossal jerk perhaps also with a personality disorder.
Even if some of the things he does he is choosing to do because of things he is feeling and thinking because of the ADHD there's absolutely no excuse for doing abusive wrong things even if you have brain cancer.
You do not deserve to be treated that way at all and I respectfully suggest that you get the blue blazes out of there before you waste any more of your precious time and life.
Almost all of my romantic relationships with men were almost exactly how you describe your relationship with your boyfriend.
I kept cutting them exponentially more slack than they deserved because of their diagnosis and tolerated things that should not have been happening in the first place irrespective of the aforementioned diagnosis.
I also respectfully suggest that you check into the experience of trauma bonding because just like I definitely was you may be trauma bonded to this relationship and that's why it's so difficult for you to leave.
I am also a follower of Jesus so understand I'm not saying this disrespectfully to Him or to you and your faith but you are not the Savior.
It's not your responsibility or capability to save your boyfriend.
It's great that he finally started therapy and he's trying to take meds but you don't have to wait around until he gets better which may not ever happen.
If he also is saying that all of the abusive things he's doing is because of the ADHD than he's not going to be addressing why they actually are happening and working on stopping being an abusive jerk.
And yes extremely controlling behavior is abuse.
Preventing you from attending religious services by saying hateful accusations is abuse.
I don't know you but I know for a certifiable fact that you do not deserve to be treated the way you described.
I respectfully suggest you check into (maybe on YouTube or just Google it) the 'cycles of abuse'.
Perpetrators start off exactly how you described -- better than life and then they turn into Mr. or Ms. Hyde.
We then spend the rest of forever waiting them to become the person we met mistakenly thinking that that is their real self when Mr Hyde IS the real self.
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