ADHD & Relationships

By learning about how ADHD affects relationships and your role in the relationship, both parties would be able respond to challenges more positively and productively. For the one with ADHD, you may want to understand how your symptoms are affecting your relationship and learn how to manage the symptoms. If you are the other partner, you may want to learn to react in encouraging and motivating ways. Communication is key to greater understanding to your relationship.

If you are the partner with ADHD…

You may feel like you are constantly being criticised, nagged and micromanaged and find yourself avoiding them.
It may seem like you cannot please your partner, not matter how hard you try.
Understand how some ADHD symptoms may cause problems in relationships and try to improve your weaknesses.
- Trouble sustaining or controlling attention: You may space out during conversations, leading to your partner feeling ignored. Important details may be missed or you mindlessly agree to something and forget about it later.
- Forgetfulness: Even if you do pay attention, you may still end up forgetting about an important date, a promised errand, etc. This may make you seem uncaring or unreliable to your partner.
- Weak planning and organisational skills: You may find difficulties in finishing tasks or being on time. Your partner may feel like they have to be responsible for everything and is always cleaning up after you.
- Impulsivity: If you make impulsive comments without thinking first or interrupt them when speaking, you may accidentally hurt your partner’s feelings. You may also seem reckless and irresponsible if you make impulsive purchases or risky financial decisions, bingeing, etc.
Weak emotional control: You may find yourself losing your temper easily and it is difficult to discuss problems calmly. This may lead to impulsive insults and unacceptable behaviours. Your partner may have to constantly tiptoe around you to avoid your emotional outbursts.

If you are in a relationship with someone with ADHD…

You may feel ignored, unappreciated and offended.
It may seem like you are the only responsible one in the relationship and that you cannot rely on your partner, leading to physical and emotional exhaustion.
Try to understand what it is like to have ADHD:
- People with ADHD tend to be weak in attentional control and may accidentally zone out when you ask them to do something. To avoid misunderstanding and to help them understand your request, get them to repeat it back to you.
- It is often easy to be frustrated and misinterpret your partner’s actions and intentions. You cannot control your partner’s behaviours, but you can control your own actions. Consider whether your current actions are beneficial and what you can do to encourage your partner’s efforts.
- Understand that people with ADHD can have difficulty expressing emotion and can have attention and memory difficulties. Their behaviours are not a reflection of you as a partner, but it is a symptom of ADHD.
- Emotions can become intense when talking to people with ADHD and it may be difficult to maintain objective and look from their perspective, and people with ADHD find it even more difficult. Try to focus on their intention, rather than their actions and behaviours.
- Ask your partner how they feel and listen to them.

Communication

Remember that a relationship is a two-way system and responses from both sides can either lead to misunderstanding or help to compromise. Find a time when both parties are calm to discuss an issue face-to-face.
Communicate with your partner and let each other have a chance to speak and describe how they feel, without being interrupted. Do not try to explain or defend yourself – just listen to their side of the story, their complaints and how they feel. After your partner has finished talking, paraphrase the main points or ask questions for clarification and to show them that you are listening. You may like to write down the main points to remind yourself and to reflect on them later. Listening to each other is a good way to understand and acknowledge how your behaviour(s) (both the partner with ADHD and the partner without ADHD) affects the relationship.

Problem solving together

When you and your partner get into an argument or have an issue to discuss, use problem solving skills to work it out together. It is important to not have only one person making the decision, but it is a joint decision (compromised), even if you do not think it is the best option.
People with ADHD may have difficulties in flexibility, metacognition and problem solving, inhibiting their ability to think widely and consider all options. The partner without ADHD should help their partner through the problem solving process:

As a team, list out all possible solutions to the problem, without evaluating or scrutinising any option.
Pick an option to try out that you are both happy with.
- If there is not an agreement on which one to try, have each person list their top 3 options help find a match.
- If you are the partner without ADHD, it is important to encourage your partner to engage in problem solving, so it may be beneficial if you compromise with trying their option first.
If the option chosen did not solve the problem, guide your partner through the evaluative process:
- What went well?
- What was the problem?
- Can this option modified? What other solutions are there?

Together, you can help your partner with ADHD by coming up with solutions to their weaknesses and problem areas.

Wandering attention: If your partner’s attention tends to wander off while you speak, get them to face and look at you as you speak. Discuss together a form of physical contact, such as holding hands, that may help them focus their attention on you. Vary the pressure of your contact as you speak, which serves as a gentle reminder to help them maintain that focus.
Your partner may not like to admit that their attention drifted, so encourage them to tell you when they accidentally drift off as it will help them become more self-aware.
Forgetfulness, planning and organising: Give short and simple instructions when telling them to remember to do something or about a planned event. Get them to repeat it back to you to confirm the instruction.
Decide together on a shared platform to put reminders and checklists, and a system to add onto it. For example, whenever you tell them about a planned date, get them to repeat it back to you and your partner to put it into the reminder immediately. This helps them form a habit of using the reminder system.
You may also like to plan a time when you both sit down at the end of the day, such as before watching TV or before eating dinner, for your partner to check the calendar, reminders and/or to-do lists for the next day, and to read them out loud. Use this time to add or change the schedule.
Impulsivity: If your partner has problems with impulsive spending, discuss on an agreed method to help restrict spending. This may include putting a restriction on card use, a requirement of a second signature on purchases over a certain amount, or sticking to a shopping list. Have these rules apply to both partners to prevent feelings of control or overpowering.
If your partner tends to interrupt in conversations, set a system together that indicates whose turn it is to talk. This may be holding each other’s hands, with the talking person’s hand on top. Both partners are to wait for the other to turn the hands to indicate that they have finished talking. People with ADHD may not be able to remember what they want to say until after you have finished, or will not pay attention to you when they are holding it in their head. For these cases, set an agreed gesture for them to indicate that they have something to say so that you can give them their turn to talk earlier (eg. hold with one hand normally, and hold with two hands when they want to talk.
If you would like to practice turn-taking in conversations with other people, or where hand holding is not convenient, practice a habit of taking two deep breaths before you want to talk to stop and wait for the other to finish a sentence, or their comment.
Emotional control: Have a codeword or gesture for when an emotional outburst occurs (eg. “rainbow bananas”, or both hands on head). This can be used by both partners and signals a cool down time when you both take a moment to pause, breathe and when calm, talk it out. This will help prevent escalations.

Creating a plan

Understand the strengths and weaknesses of each partner and divide tasks accordingly. For example, it may be better for the partner with ADHD may be more suited to cook and clean, and the partner without ADHD can be responsible for remembering and planning bills. Balance out the workload and learn to compromise. This may include separating individual tasks and chores into smaller steps. For example, if you have problems with packing up after cooking, your partner may step in to help clean up while you set the table for the meal.

Develop a schedule together, including to-do’s and deadlines, which can help the partner with ADHD form a routine and reduce the effort needed to remember everything. It may help to set a shared digital calendar system and have external reminders around the house (eg. a daily to-do whiteboard on the fridge and/or front door). You may like to set automatic reminders for calendar events. Have a set time each week, or at the end of each day, to do these together.

Online applications such as Google calendar can be shared with multiple users and you can also set automatic reminders (eg., 1hr before or 10 minutes before an event). You can integrate other calendar applications such as monday.com, where you can set personal “assignments” for an individual to complete by deadline. monday.com is free for sharing between to 2 people.

Dealing with ADHD medication rebound

What is a rebound and how does it affect relationships?

ADHD medication rebound occurs when ADHD symptoms resurface when the stimulant medication wears off, usually at an increased intensity and greater behavioural changes for about 60 minutes at the end of the medication dose. Some rebound behaviours include hyperactivity, impulsiveness, irritability, depressed or angry. It often follows the end of a short-acting stimulant dose but can also occur with long-acting stimulants.

These rebound symptoms may have a sudden onset. If it occurs around the time your partner comes home from work, or when you come home from work, your partner may feel like they are a trigger to the behaviours and cause a misunderstanding. It can also lead to meltdowns and outbursts if the medication effects reach a low (trough) around the time you are expected to do household chores.

Managing rebounds

It is important to observe patterns and note when rebounds occur so that you and your partner can better prepare for them or prevent rebounds entirely. Becoming aware of your own medication rebound symptoms will help you establish the need to manage them. Also, your partner can help initiate and encourage you to try management techniques.

Try some natural remedies during the afternoons and evenings to manage the rebound symptoms. Research has noted that regular exercise can help during a medication trough. Exercise elicits the same dopamine and noradrenaline systems that are activated by stimulant medications. Therefore, it is recommended to do some exercise with your partner, such as running around the block or yoga, before doing evening chores. Mindfulness exercises may also help to calm the system down to manage potential emotional or behavioural outbursts.

You and your partner may like to adapt and plan the evening schedule around medication rebounds. This includes planning for exercise and/or mindfulness times, and prioritising high-concentration tasks that are likely to trigger emotional outbursts or require a lot of attention so that they can be completed while the medication is still effective. For example, if you like to cook, start by cleaning the house (a non-preferred chore) as early as you can.

Correspond with your doctor to adjust the dosage and timing of the medication or try a different medication. For example, you may like to try “booster” doses or combine short and long-active medications.