Adult ADHD and Your Marriage

Adults with ADHD often end up in tense and frustrated marriages due to their ADHD symptoms. Here are 10 tips for overcoming problems.

It can be very difficult to maintain a marriage or long-term relationship when you have attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder or ADHD. ADHD symptoms like impulsivity, inconsistency, and hyperactivity can interfere with your ability to perform the day-to-day necessities that keep a relationship happy and running smooth.

Deb Rowley, 37, of Madison, Wis., has ADHD and remembers how hard it was to take care of daily tasks before her diagnosis, and the frustration that it created in her partner. "I was in a doctoral program. I should be successful at simple things," Rowley says. "But everyday living tasks were huge problems for me. I would be asked, 'Why does it take a week to change a light bulb? Why can't you wash the dishes? Just act like an adult! Just get it done!' There would be lots of arguments about motivation."

ADHD and Marriage: 10 Steps for a Successful Relationship

Here are 10 tips for maintaining a marriage or long-term relationship if one partner has ADHD:

1. Get treatment. Treatment is essential for dealing with the problems caused by adult ADHD. Psychotherapy can help the person with ADHD better understand his or her disorder, while couples' counseling can help a couple communicate more effectively. Couples counseling also can be essential in helping a spouse or partner understand how ADHD symptoms affect adults.
2. Take your medication. Adults with ADHD who are prescribed medication need to take it on a consistent basis. "The meds are very effective in calming you down and lessening distractions," says Constance Wood, PhD, a practicing psychologist in Houston.
3. Swap duties. One long-term relationship of Rowley's worked particularly well because her partner often offered to swap some of his household duties for daily tasks she struggled to complete. "He was very generous in working with me like that, and it made it easier," Rowley says.
4. Keep your promises. "The main problem is that untreated ADHD makes it difficult for people to be consistent," says Ari Tuckman, PsyD, a psychologist in West Chester, Pa. "That causes problems in the relationship, where we have expectations of our partner to be consistent and predictable." If you tell your partner you're going to do something, you need to make every effort to fulfill that promise.
5. Write down what needs to be done. One way to help keep your promises is to make lists of the chores that are your responsibility. Need to change a light bulb? Need to pick up milk? Need to pay the bills? Write it all down. "You can ask your spouse in the morning to do something later in the day, and the reality is 10 hours later the person with ADHD is not likely to remember that," Tuckman says.
6. Minimize clutter in your home. Adults with ADHD already have problems concentrating and maintaining their focus. Don't make the problem even worse by maintaining a messy home that offers distractions at every turn. Keep things organized. "Have a designated place right inside the door where keys, wallets, purses, and cell phones go," Tuckman says. "It's got to be as close to the door as possible. Even if it doesn't look great there, it's better than running around the house in the morning hunting for something that wound up somewhere else in the house."
7. Listen without interrupting. It can be hard to communicate when one partner has adult ADHD because his mind often is racing ahead of the conversation. He is tempted to interrupt his spouse, which can terribly offend the other person because this makes it seem as though he isn't paying attention or doesn’t consider his partner’s thoughts to be as valuable as his. Resist the temptation to interrupt, and refocus your attention onto the flow of the conversation.
8. Repeat back what you're hearing. One way to make sure that you are paying close attention to what your spouse is saying is to repeat what she says immediately after she is finished speaking. This way, she can correct any misinterpretations or misunderstandings that might have occurred due to poor communication on either end.
9. Openly confront bad behavior. Don't use adult ADHD as an excuse for forgetting an important appointment or errand or for impulsively making a decision without consulting your partner. The disorder may have been at fault, but you will still need to make amends for the poor behavior and come up with a way to prevent it from occurring in the future.
10. Maintain patience (on both sides). The person without adult ADHD needs to be patient and understand that the spouse or partner has a medical condition and will need help overcoming some of the problems caused by ADHD symptoms. The person with ADHD needs to be patient and understand that the spouse or partner will have to make lists and repeatedly offer reminders of what must be done.

"The most important thing to remember is that you are on the same team," Tuckman says. "Usually when relationships run into trouble is when couples forget they're on the same team. It becomes a zero-sum game — for me to win, you must lose."