What could I do to help my relationship work better with my boyfriend who has ADHD?
Hi,
Maybe my story is not more complicated than anyone else’s who is going through something similar, but I’m still looking for people who have gone through the same thing, because I’ve reached a point where the only reason I’m still with my current partner is that I truly love him, yet I’m suffering terribly in this relationship.
He has diagnosed ADHD and is on medication, although honestly I don’t see much difference from it. I can only imagine what he was like without it, since he’s apparently been taking it for over 10 years.
Our relationship started really well. We connected deeply and moved in together quite quickly. The problems really started after that. Little by little, I became completely lonely beside him. Sometimes he doesn’t even seem to notice that I’m there. Knowing about his condition, I try not to complain when I feel neglected, but I can only suppress it for so long before it all bursts out of me, which always causes outrage on his side.
He works from home, so he’s basically always there. His sleep schedule is completely unpredictable. Sometimes he sleeps through most of the workday and then becomes hyperfocused in the evening, regularly staying up instead of coming to bed with me. I try setting boundaries or time limits, but he simply can’t stick to them. At times like this I feel like I just have to go to bed alone, because the more I bring up that he should finish for the day and come sleep, the longer he stays up.
I often feel like I’m just an annoying little red dot on his radar, while he wants to live his life however is most comfortable for him, without making any compromises at all. Sometimes for a day or two he manages to pull himself together, and during those moments we can actually talk things through. But he still doesn’t seem capable of seeing himself or how absurd the situation has become, that he can’t even put the bare minimum into the relationship anymore.
At this point I feel more like a mother than a partner. I cook, clean, and I’m there whenever he needs affection, but in return I get almost nothing emotionally. His constant sleeping habits are driving me insane, and when I brought it up, his solution was that maybe I should simply stay up later too if I want to spend time with him.
The strange thing is that he’s actually an intelligent and deeply complex person, which makes it even harder for me to understand how he can be so blind to this side of things, as if his awareness of the disorder simply stops before reaching this area.
There are things I absolutely understand are caused by ADHD, but deep down I still believe that with enough willingness, a person can make changes if they genuinely want their relationship to work. And lately I feel like maybe he simply doesn’t want this enough anymore.
And I’m just becoming more and more exhausted.
Deep in my heart, I feel like this is a losing battle. But at the same time, I’m terrified that maybe I’m missing something, something I could still do differently to help save the relationship.
Has anyone else experienced something similar and managed to pull the relationship back from this direction?