DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I first want to express my appreciation for the work you do in helping people become their best versions of themselves. I saw one of your YouTube videos explaining your journey with diagnosis and treatment of ADHD, so I’m hoping you can give me some insight into what my husband is going through.

Ok, some backstory. I’m a 34 year old woman married to Buck (not his real name), a 35 year old man. We’ve been married for 10 years, together for 14. We’ve spent pretty much all of our adult lives together. We have a three and a half year old and a five month old baby together. Buck is an awesome guy. His hobbies are playing guitar, brewing beer, and weight lifting. He cooks meals often, does the shopping, has a good job that allows me to be a stay at home mom, plays with our son, buys me thoughtful gifts, and more. He makes me laugh and is a good lover too. He is also into some of the same nerdy things I am, so we have fun watching sci-fi stuff and playing board games (well, before we had babe #2 anyway!). He’s also down for outdoor adventures like camping, hiking, etc. like I said, he’s just a great guy.

My/our problem is that ever since he started working full-time at a professional job and becoming a father, he’s been struggling big time with emotional regulation, reactivity that seems to stem from anxiety, and what I have recently discovered is probably rejection-sensitive dysphoria. I tried for literally years to figure out what is going on with him because his behaviors towards me and our son have been challenging to deal with to say the least, and unintentionally abusive at times. I know he is a good guy with a good heart, and that there was something causing him to not be in control of his emotions. After exploring lots of possibilities I asked him one day if he had ever been evaluated for ADHD, and he said that he had been diagnosed with it as a kid and medicated for it for a while. I was pretty shocked that he never told me this! He apparently didn’t think it was a real thing. I joined a support group for wives with partners with ADHD, and have been learning an incredible amount about adult ADHD. The knowledge I have gained from that group and my own research has been hugely helpful in understanding Buck and his struggles, and has given me more appreciation for everything he has accomplished and all that he does for our family. I’ve also learned strategies that I can use to avoid RSD reactions, and about the importance of setting boundaries for myself.

It’s been seven months since I found out about Buck’s diagnosis as a child, and while I’ve learned so, so much about ADHD…he hasn’t. He isn’t convinced that it’s a problem for him even though I’ve explained over and over again that his behaviors and over-the-top reactions to things are not only inappropriate, but sometimes feel abusive. Growing up his family was pretty dysfunctional when it came to discipline, communication, and expressing emotions, so I understand that he may not feel like he’s doing anything wrong by having angry outbursts or being majorly disrespectful towards me since that’s what he saw as normal growing up. I told him the other day that if he didn’t start treatment of some kind — he’s not interested in medication, but has (kind of?) agreed to therapy, supplements, and a mindfulness practice specifically for ADHD — I was going to leave him. I’m looking at it as a boundary that I need to have to protect myself and our kids, but I obviously really want him to follow through on this.

So at long last my questions: Is it fair for me to demand he treat his ADHD? If so, is it also fair for me to put a time limit on seeking treatment? Like, if he doesn’t start seeing a therapist and practicing mindfulness in the next month then I’m out type of time limit. I’m having trouble with his complete avoidance of this, but want to support him in this journey since he’s totally worth it in my opinion. Any insights you have on this would be so appreciated!

Kindest regards,

Too Tired To Come Up With Clever Sign-Off

DEAR TOO TIRED TO COME UP WITH CLEVER SIGN-OFF: I’m sorry you are going through this TTCUWCSO with your husband. You’re right to want to push him to go into treatment, just as you’re right to feel like his behavior has reached levels that you simply cannot and are not willing to put up with.

That’s one of the reasons why it’s important that, if he HAS been diagnosed with ADHD before, it’s important that he starts getting treatment. One question that desperately needs answering is, is his behavior a symptom of the disorder, or is it separate.

This can actually be hard to tease apart. One of the things that doesn’t get brought up much when talking about ADHD — especially if it’s gone undiagnosed for a while — is the effect it can have on relationships. This is something that actually goes both ways. If you’re the person with ADHD, it can feel like you’re struggling constantly and your partner’s just always on your back. This, of course, leads to a dynamic where you are more likely to say or do whatever you think it takes to get them to back off and leave you alone for a while. Meanwhile, if you’re in a relationship with someone with ADHD, it can feel like you’re being neglected or constantly made a lower priority. You can’t rely on them to actually follow through with what they said they’d do. Words seem to go in one ear and out the other and, worse, they seem to pay attention to just about anything except you.

And that’s before we get into the issues of emotional dysregulation, morbid fear of rejection in almost any form and just the general sense of feeling frustrated and overwhelmed with… just about everything, really. And part of what’s the most frustrating — and what makes folks with ADHD the most irritable and upset — is that our brains will simply not do something. It’s not that you don’t know you need to write that report or file that paperwork, it’s that you literally can’t. You can’t get started on it, and your brain will often end up hyperfocusing on something else… which again, you can’t break away from. It’s not a matter of will, it’s about neurochemical deficiencies and it’s the most frustratingly maddening thing ever.

Plus there’s the ever present out-of-sight, out-of-mind issue, where even things that are important, that you are determined to remember and take care of, simply fade into the background and disappear.

So yeah from the jump: your husband really does need to work on getting treatment. I can speak from experience about just how much of a difference treatment can make when you have ADHD.

Which is why his reticence is understandably frustrating.

You would think that with all the drawbacks and all the problems that ADHD can cause, you’d think that getting treated would be a no-brainer. It’s understandable that you’d be frustrated with your husband; it seems like it should be a simple decision to go back for treatment. Why wouldn’t you, especially when it seems like it’s all upside, no downside?

To answer that question, you have to look at it from his perspective. To start with, even as mental health care has been increasingly destigmatized, there’s still that sense of shame of having a mental illness. For men, especially adult men, having ADHD can feel especially shameful because it feels like we should just be able to muscle through it. Even when you know better, it still feels like weakness or failure on your part. You just aren’t disciplined enough, not tough enough, don’t have enough grit. For someone who grew up in a household that really bought into toxic ideas of masculinity, it can be hard to shake the feeling that you’re taking a shortcut for something that you should be able to overcome on your own.

Another possibility is that Buck had a bad experience with his medication. ADHD meds, like a lot of psychiatric medication, are often more art than science, and different treatments can affect people differently. A lot of the earlier medications for ADHD had some gnarly side-effects; a loss of appetite and insomnia are common, but a lot of folks had issues like blinding migraines or nausea. If the medication didn’t feel like it helped and the side-effects were particularly unpleasant, it’s understandable that he wouldn’t want to give it another go-round, even with new and more effective meds.

But it’s also entirely possible that part of why Buck is digging his heels in is because he feels like you’re attacking him.

Don’t get me wrong: you are VERY well within your rights to draw boundaries and tell him that you need him to get treatment. His behavior’s gone past the point that it’s damaging both his relationship with you and your own emotional health.

But at the same time, the way the two of you go about those conversations can end up being counterproductive. For example, it can be really difficult, for both parties, to separate the symptoms from the person. You — and presumably he — know intellectually how much of this is (or may be) due to his having ADHD, but emotionally it can be hard to distinguish between them. Even when you know somebody’s inattention or absent-mindedness is the result of their condition, it’s still hard to not take it as a judgement on their feelings for you. Similarly, even when you know you have a condition that makes it harder for you to accomplish or remember things, it’s easy to feel like you’re being treated like a child or an inferior. In both cases, it’s very, very easy to let things get personal when those conversations get heated, even when you don’t intend to. That has the net effect of turning it less into a discussion about how to make things better and more of a fight about who has the right to be angry. Or worse, it becomes an opportunity to air all the grievances that’ve been piling up.

The way you’re phrasing things to him, especially talking about how what he does can feel abusive, may well sound like you’re attacking him as a person. From his perspective, with not just his RSD but also his feelings of frustration and being unable to get a break, this may feel like just one more way that you don’t understand him or appreciate how hard he works and so on. That feeling of “I try so goddamn hard, why can’t anyone acknowledge that instead of telling me how I’m f--king up” can cause people to push back in part because they feel like the other person just doesn’t GET them. As such, they may reject solutions out of hand because they don’t believe the other person is correct; if their partner doesn’t understand, why should they try the solution their partner suggested.

And if he’s feeling like you’re acting more like a parent or supervisor than a spouse… well, that’s going to feel especially s--tty, possibly even emasculating.

To add to that: one of the effects of ADHD, as I’m sure you’ve learned, is emotional dysregulation. Even setting RSD aside, folks with ADHD have a hard time controlling their emotions. In some ways, it’s almost like having two settings: slightly below normal and over-the-top, and the level of pressure it takes to flip the switch is variable at best. When you’re feeling especially attacked, pressured or otherwise treated unfairly, things tend to go off… messily and all over the place. And unfortunately, one of the side-effects of this is that it’s very easy to hear what they THINK you’re saying instead of what you’re ACTUALLY saying.

That’s why I think one of the things that may help is to look into couple’s therapy, especially with a counselor who’s familiar with ADHD in adults. Having someone facilitate the conversation may make it easier for you two to actually understand each other, instead of throwing up walls instinctively. It can also help to change the way you describe his behavior when you talk with him. Separating the symptoms from the man, especially when dealing with conflicts, can go a long way towards defusing things. It can also help to talk about just what triggers these outbursts; not with a mind towards preventing them, but simply to understand how he’s feeling and why he’s feeling that way. Not only will it help you understand his triggers, but for him, feeling like someone is actually listening to him and making an effort to understand is going to be huge.

At the same time, having a third party involved, especially someone who understands ADHD symptoms, can help him realize just how much the untreated symptoms are affecting his relationship with you and the kids. That outsider’s perspective could help him realize why his behavior has been so harmful and why it’s pushed you to the point of needing to make an ultimatum.

I would also talk with him about his experiences with treatment in the past. It may well be that the treatment he received didn’t help. He may never have gotten the right dosage, or the medication just didn’t work for him. And if that was the case, then it’s understandable why he might think that ADHD is just not a thing. Talking about his past experiences may help him change his stance and help him be willing to try different therapies, even if those didn’t work for him last time.

However, I would also caution you that all of this takes time. While medications like Vyvanse don’t have a ramp-up period the way SSRIs and MAOIs do, therapy and treatment is still a marathon, not a sprint. For a lot of folks, it’s not just about treating the symptoms of the disorder, it’s dealing with the emotions and coping mechanisms that get wrapped up in there with them. Just because the symptoms go away or ease up, that doesn’t mean that you’re suddenly operating at peak efficiency and all of your previous issues are gone. And if he’s taking the route of therapy and mindfulness meditation but not medication… well, that’s definitely going to take time. I can tell you from experience: mindfulness meditation is something you have to practice, and it takes time to not just make it a successful habit but to get results.

In the meantime, there’s an excellent article from HelpGuide that talks about managing relationships with ADHD. Reading through it with Buck may help open up avenues of conversation and help foster some productive changes. It can help the two of you have a better grasp of what the other is feeling and experiencing and — with luck — foster a little more peace and understanding so that Buck will be willing to get the help he needs.

I’m sorry that the two of you are going through this, but hopefully this is something that can be fixed. It will just take time, patience, love and clear, effective communication for both of you, as well as treatment for him.

Good luck

Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I am contemplating a big move and looking for a distanced opinion. A few years ago, I met Awesome Guy at a work event. We hit it off, had a lot in common, and amazing chemistry. We both travel a lot for work and actually live in separate countries. Neither of us was looking for “the one” at the time, so we agreed to see each other casually when we found each other in the same city, which was about once a month or so.

This worked out well for almost a year, but as you can probably guess, it got more complicated as we both developed “feelings.” We started making excuses to see each other more often, and I guess this is also where we both started acting pretty stupid. I think of both of us as intelligent, responsible, successful people, but in this instance, we both rolled zeros in emotionally mature decision making. Neither one of us really wanted to admit we had fallen for each other, because then that would mean big decisions would have to be made. Did we want an exclusive relationship? How long could we stay long distance? Did one of us want to move to be closer? We started an explicitly causal relationship, what if the other didn’t want to make it “official”? Would we then stop seeing each other and lose what we had? So we both continued in this love-limbo for an embarrassing long time, like a year.

Eventually though, resentment began to grow. “Why can’t HE just say it?” And I realized I really needed more out of a relationship, so I ended it and I started dating someone, Local Guy. Almost immediately, Awesome Guy said he was sorry and wanted me back, and was ready, for as you say, an Awkward Conversation, but I thought I need to actually try dating someone local in a “real” relationship for a while, so I put him off. Well a few months of dating Local Guy, I realized a convenient address doesn’t automatically make someone a great partner. I also realize as I am writing this how daft I seem in retrospect. Epic failure.

So now, present day, back with Awesome Guy. We had said Awkward Conversation, and we both admitted we loved each other and should have talked it out a long time ago. He said he loves me, he also wants a real relationship, and he asked me to move in with him.

So here is where I need help. At first I was ecstatic. He said all the right things I’ve been waiting for and I was all ready to pack up and move. And then I started to second guess everything. Yes, we have a lot of shared interests and we’ve been seeing each other for a long time, but all of that has been long distance. Yes, the chemistry is fantastic, but is that because we’ve kept the NRE going an unnatural length of time because we only see each other once or twice a month? Will we lose that if we are living together? Or keep it because we’ll still be travelling for work? I do speak the language in his country, and I’ve visited before, but I won’t know anyone there besides Awesome Guy. Am I crazy to pack everything up and move in with him? Maybe I should move there and get my own flat? Or maybe we should just stay where we are and try to visit more often? Or this is just normal jitters before a big change I should go for it?

What say you?

Just Indecisive, Maybe Packing?

DEAR JUST INDECISIVE, MAYBE PACKING: Y’know, I get a lot of questions from folks who are worried that they’re overthinking things. A lot of times, that overthinking comes about because they’re trying to avoid getting hurt,  and the way they do so is to try to find a way to critical path their way through life. Other times… well, the over-thinking comes about because they may be overly focused on the wrong things.

But let’s take things a step at a time, shall we? First and foremost: you and Awesome Guy spent a year in a long-distance relationship, getting together as schedules allowed. Now I presume that you and he were staying in contact over the course of this LDR, so it wasn’t just a case of you or he arrived in the other’s city with a couple days’ warning, you banged like weasels in heat and then went back to your separate lives until such a time as fate or work brought you together again. So, a fairly standard long-distance arrangement.

Over the course of this year and the next, you and he were having a hard time having that Defining The Relationship talk… and for understandable reasons. It’s a not inconsiderable commitment to move to another city or state for a relationship. It’s an even bigger commitment to move to another country to be with someone. That’s a pretty big leap of faith to be taking, no matter which of you ultimately chose to make it. Then, you began to realize that you had needs that weren’t being met by this relationship and so, quite sensibly, you ended things. Awesome Guy, seeing the relationship was ending, made a last-ditch Hail Mary, saying all the things you’d wanted to hear… and you decided that you needed to pursue something different instead of just immediately changing your mind.

This was actually a good call. While there are plenty of times that the threat (or reality) of an impending break up is the wake-up call that will finally slap the stupid out of someone, there’re just as many times where somebody will say whatever it takes to keep their partner around. The fact that you stuck to your guns (and prioritized those unmet needs) speaks well of you. And then, when you realized that no, the issue wasn’t that your lover wasn’t local, you and Awesome Guy reconnected, talked things out and are back together. And now the question is: where do you go from here?

So let’s talk about the over-thinking and what you may need to be focusing on instead. I’m of a mind that you’re overthinking the issues of whether the chemistry and NRE and whether the connection you two have has been artificially prolonged because of the distance and that means you and he are making a mistake. But in my experience, chemistry tends to die faster in LDRs because, well, they’re long-distance. While seeing each other infrequently can keep the novelty factor longer, the fact that you have fewer opportunities to bond and the frustrations of long-distance mean that absence tends to make the heart go yonder, not fonder. One of the reasons why LDRs tend to fall apart is because it’s harder to maintain a relationship at a distance, especially when there are other compatible people who are closer. So the fact that you and he have made things work for as long as you have and kept your connection is a mark in the plus column, not in the warning column.

The issue that I think may need more attention is that you don’t mention about how things have changed with you and your partner. You had some understandable concerns when you decided to call it off. While being with Local Guy made you realize that convenience wasn’t the problem… what about the other issues? You and Awesome Guy had the Awkward Conversation and the DTR conversation, but have the circumstances that lead to your break actually changed? One of the issues that comes up when couples get back together after breaking up is that while they may miss each other and genuinely care for each other, the underlying cause of the break up hasn’t changed. As a result, they end up going through the 12″ dance remix of their first break up… just faster, more intense and with a really sick beat.

You don’t mention it in your letter, so I’m hoping the answer is yes. But it’s still something I felt needed to be brought up.

But what about moving to another country for him? A country where you don’t have a support network or a social circle outside of him? Let us be real: yes, that’s a pretty hefty leap of faith. Leaving aside the logistics of moving to another country (work visas, whether they’re accepting people during COVID, etc), you’re pulling up stakes to move to a place where he is literally the only person you know. That’s a risk. But I know people who’ve done just that, who’ve gone on to have happy and successful marriages and are happy as clams.

Now that doesn’t mean that risks can’t me managed. Getting your own place is probably a good idea, so that you’re not completely dependent on your partner. It also means that you’re going to have to get more familiar with the city on your own and create your own relationship with it, separate from your relationship with your partner. I would also suggest trying to find organizations or MeetUps, whether for expats or locals, that match your interests. Having your own support network and your own circle of friends can be vital for your own mental health, as well as for the health of your relationship.

However, at the end of the day, you can’t insulate yourself from all risk or critical path your way through life. You have to make risky decisions and take leaps of faith. You’ve put a lot of thought into this, you and your partner have gone through alot together… and now it’s time to decide whether you love him enough and trust in the strength of your relationship enough to make this leap. There is no reward without risk. And yes, leaps of faith can be scary. Sometimes you fall.

But sometimes… you fly.

The only way to know is to jump.

Good luck.

Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: So my partner and I have been in a committed relationship for 10yrs, we moved out of state together in 2017, and we just bought a house together this year. I think we both agree on finances pretty much… except I make about 1/3rd of what he makes.

My income is a really big sore spot for me because I did everything “right” but still end up making barely enough to survive at a job I hate that I’m not qualified to do. Financially I don’t see a successful future for myself.

I’m able to afford the house because technically paying a mortgage is cheaper than rent, but with buying a new house came buying repairs and landscaping and everything else. My savings took a big hit and I haven’t added to them in years, (except for my 401K through my job). An easy fix for this would be just having a joint bank account, since we wouldn’t have to divide all the bills in half anymore and we could pool our savings.

Except I’d know that I was only contributing 1/3rd of what he makes. I feel uncomfortable just spending my own money on myself. He doesn’t pressure me about finances at all and we have similar opinions when it comes to money, but again I feel really uncomfortable with the idea of sharing finances when I make so little. Should I just get over it? And how? I feel worse when I think about quitting my job and trying to improve my situation, since it means I’ll be contributing even less on the off chance I’d eventually make slightly more. None of these feelings are from him, just from me living from paycheck to paycheck.

Junior Partner

DEAR JUNIOR PARTNER: This is one of those times where I’d have to ask whether this is an active issue in your relationship, JP, that’s actually causing problems… or if it’s just something that you‘re worried about.

Before I get deeper into this, I do want to say that having anxiety over income and income disparities is a legitimate worry. Money is probably one of the biggest sources of anxiety when it comes to dating and relationships; close to a third of relationships struggle because of money problems, often resulting in break ups or divorce. So it’s entirely understandable that your making so much less than your partner does would cause you some sleepless nights and legitimate anxiety.

But the fact that you’re worried doesn’t automatically translate to it being the incoming meteor that’s going to devastate your relationship.

The question of whether you should get over this or not all comes down to communication, communication and also communication. You’re spending a lot of emotional bandwidth getting spun up about something that may well not be a problem so much as borrowing trouble from a future that doesn’t exist (yet).

I think the most important factor to consider is: are you and your partner able to actually talk about your finances, openly and honestly, without hesitation or rancor? This is incredibly important; if you two aren’t talking about finances, then you run the risk of discovering that the two of you have been sitting on a ticking time-bomb. Not because of the disparity of income, mind you, but because you both may well be working from assumptions, mistaken beliefs and conflicting values, not actual facts. If you haven’t — and considering that you bought a house together, I really hope that’s not the case — talked about money, finances and income then it’s vital that you do so now. It’s important not just for practical reasons, but for emotional ones too. On the practical side, understanding who has how much, who earns how much and where that money gets spent and how is vital to future financial planning. On the emotional side, it helps make sure that you and your partner understand not just each other, but your relationship to money. Different people, especially from different classes or backgrounds, can have very different relationships to money. People who, for example, have grown up living paycheck to paycheck or struggling to make ends meet are going to view money very differently that someone who came from privilege. The person who grew up without often keeps that feeling of “this is all going to disappear until my next paycheck” because that’s how they’ve lived their lives. That directly affects the way they handle their finances; they’re less likely to save it or invest it because they’re going to need to use every single penny.  But to someone who grew up with financial security, that can seem wasteful.

Similarly, someone who has grown up seeing money as a scarce resource and has had to decide between paying for food or paying the bills may have very different views on how their partner — who grew up with privilege — spends their money on what may seem “frivolous” or “indulgent”. And that’s before we even get to differing definitions of what’s frivolous and what’s necessary.

Just as importantly though is making sure that you’re on the same page in terms of how to handle things and how everybody feels. Right now, you’re worried about not being able to contribute as much to a joint bank account or being able to contribute to the same level that your partner does. But how does he feel about things? He may well have accepted that, as the partner who makes more, he’s going to have to shoulder more of the financial load. After all, there’s a difference between splitting things equally and splitting things equitably. Splitting all the bills equally seems to make sense on the surface; you’d be paying the exact same amount. However, the fact that it’s equal doesn’t make it equitable; you may be paying the same amount, but what that amount represents is significantly different to you and to him. To somebody making $500,000 a year, paying $1,000 a month is a relatively negligible amount. To somebody making $25,000 a year, that’s nearly half their income. Asking you to contribute the same amount he does may be equal… but it sure as s--t wouldn’t be fair.

If you haven’t talked with him about how you’ve been feeling and the worries you’ve had about not contributing the way he can… well, that’s got to be your first step. The sooner you two can talk this out, the sooner you can get on the same page and, in the process, ease your worries about how much you can put into the family coffers.

However, you should also talk to him about wanting to change jobs and what that might mean in the short term. One of the reasons why we can get anxious over situations like the one you’ve found yourself in is because of the uncertainty. Humans don’t do well with uncertainty; when there’re too many unknowns or variables, we get deeply uncomfortable. But the cure for that is knowledge and having a plan. Talking to your husband about wanting to switch jobs will not only get the two of you on the same page, but it will also mean that you can come up with a plan for the interim between leaving your old job (that you hate and makes you miserable) to a new one (that you will hopefully enjoy and provide more financial security). Having a plan in place, knowing what you’ll do in that transitory period, is the cure for anxiety.

I would also suggest that you and he see about finding a financial counselor who specializes in family financial planning. Having a trained third party involved in the conversations can help go a long way towards not only easing your anxiety, but coming up with equitable solutions for dealing with your household finances and how to handle your making the jump to bigger and better things.

But more than anything else: talk to your partner. I think you’ll discover that not only do you have nothing to worry about, but that he understands completely and that he is entirely in your corner.

Good luck.

Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com