ADHD and Relationships

I knew something was up when a greater-than-usual  number of “help, please!” e-mails appeared in my in-box this morning.

Then my friend Doreen gave me the heads up on Facebook: MSN.com had featured a “When Your Lover Has ADHD” tag on its Valentine’s-themed homepage.  It linked to an interview I’d done last year with Health.com: “When Someone You Love Has ADHD: Frequently Asked Questions About Helping Your Partner and Yourself.”  It begins this way:

When journalist Gina Pera married a man with undiagnosed Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD) she embarked on a wild ride that took her from frustration and confusion to understanding and advocacy. Today she runs support groups for people with ADHD and their partners, and her book Is It You, Me, or Adult A.D.D.? was published in 2008.

“Wild ride” indeed. But our marriage started out more on the rainy side. (That’s us at our outdoor wedding in 1998.  Despite the huge two-person umbrella, my husband still managed to position the dripline right over me. Fortunately, that kind of center-of-the-universe tendency is a relic of the past — or neither one of us, not to mention our marriage, would have survived!) Here’s a sample of the questions:

Q: How did you realize that your husband had ADHD?

Q: In the title of your book, you used the outdated term “ADD.” Why that instead of ADHD? Read the rest of this entry »