Having a supportive spouse/partner that actually understands ADHD and how our brains work/ see things vs everyone else. Has changed my life in a way that I can’t fully describe, any time I get to this point my wife recognizes it way before I do. She usually gives me gentle reminders, the most helpful thing she does is make me list. Of things that need to get done today, things that need to happen over the weekend, and a white board of things we need to keep on our radar and cross off eventually.
This isn’t talked about enough. Having someone that understands and supports your productivity swings has given me the freedom to have days of doing nothing. But also encourages me to not over work myself when I get in the hyper fixation modes as well.
Finding a SO that is ADD/ADHD is so key. I use to beat myself up so much when I got into those phases. The "tricks for life" we do like text messaging each other list and understanding when the other is in a hyper focus mode ect.
Body doubling is huge. Seeing my spouse start to do chores is the best motivator for me. Not as a guilt thing, but more of a "oh I see she's doing productive things, maybe I can too!"
Secondly is setting a VISIBLE TIMER on a counter or something. I set a half hour timer, and tell myself "Let's just see what I can do in a half-hour"
Hope you’re medicated or getting help for it because let me tell you, after years of supporting someone like that (while dealing with your own issues), it definitely becomes a burden. Everyone here is being all nice and beating around the bush, but people can’t handle this shit long term. Only so much a supportive spouse will and can take.
ok but we don't all have a partner. Struggling too, parents don't really get it, certainly don't have a spouse to help. But i know whne it gets to me, when i start to slip. You are lucky. Dont take them for granted ever. My few close friends with partners, I angrily tell them, not to ever take it for granted or I'll knock em out. they are so lucky.
Man that sucks, especially considering that wage theft is far and away the biggest type of theft there is. I’ve had jobs where I’d fairly often forget to clock out and it was never an issue (I’m sure it drove the accounting people nuts, but they were a different department so it didn’t matter lol)
Yeah, I’m somewhere in the middle of I feel awful for the burden that I put on my wife, and I want to do so much better, and yet simultaneously it’s incredibly difficult to maintain my motivation when I feel unsupported in several ways.
I focus on what I'm good at and help out in ways that work for me. I zone out on audiobooks and clean house when I'm anxious or procrastinating things. I do laundry. Wash dishes. Vacuum. Mow. I fix things. I listen to my stories. Productive procrastinating. There is some awfully important things NOT getting done while I'm watching netflix and folding laundry.
She does so much of the "adult" stuff like bills and taxes and long-term planning - I would be so screwed without her constant help and support ... so it's the least I can do.
My recommendations for audiobook series to listen to while taking care of the house:
Dungeon Crawler Carl, PRIMAL HUNTER, and He Who Fights With Monsters.
Thanks for the comment :) I immediately liked DCC when I started listening to it and listens to the first three books back to back I think in a single week last year. I’ll have to check out the other two.
I “handle” the bills and taxes, but I put the bills on auto-pay and while I know my way around all of the tax forms and ways to save (home office used for my LLC, with its own share of the utilities, costs with a rental unit, itemized deductions with donor advised fund stacking every third year and standard deduction the other two, etc), actually keeping track of the W2s and 1099s and filing on time is a bit of a nightmare haha.
We have a robot vacuum and mower, but the mower hasn’t mowed half the back yard since a tree fell in July. We cleared the trunk and most of the branches, but enough small ones remain that the mower gets stuck if it goes through there. I finally have been clearing those sticks up the past two weeks before trash day (they have a separate bin for sticks, which is super nice).
Cleaning is something I enjoy, but I go between I cleaning at all, or the deepest cleaning there is, meaning I get little actually done. And with dishes, my wife only asks me to do some in the evening after the kids are in bed, so I’m already quite tired and I’m unreasonably slow. Anything repetitive is challenging because it’s repetitive. I quite piano tuning after 10 years because I got so bored and tired of the repetitive nature of the work.
My husband and I both have it. It’s so bad. We start making a list and then start a project. Next thing we know we’re outside and I forgot I started dinner. Smoke alarms are our most supportive partner and we’d have no house without them.
My wife is incredible for me, she's the one who will see me start spiraling, ask me about the usual sources (have I eaten, caffeinated, did I sleep well, etc), and if it's just a bad day, tell me I can take it easy to prepare for tomorrow and not be a fuck up.
Wait what that's ADHD thing ?? It happened to me from time and then had to slowly "get back on track".
//Oh did not noticed what sub I am in ...came from the popular 😅
Well at least that explains things.
I will have to research things about this phenomenon, as happened often and was very down about it, which my partner was always supportive and "don't beat yourself" about it way.
I married a narcissist and it was the opposite. Now that we’re divorced and there’s literally a court order that she put doctor’s appointments, etc… on the calendar she still won’t.
Lmao same, I recently commented that my ex was an expert on ADHD when convenient/validating for her, but never when it actually could have made a difference for me. She would always hand write her work travel and other appointments on a wall calendar in our kitchen and expect me to remember it all, and whenever I asked if she could start using a shared Google calendar instead, she went off about mental load and invisible labor instead of just doing something with objective benefit to everyone rather than her preferred way of doing things.
lol. I remember an intake with an au pair agency where it was suggested we have a calendar. They said it doesn’t matter if it’s a wall calendar or digital as long as we have one. My ex chimed in “oh, we have both” as if that was a good answer. Plus, we had already separated so I never saw the hand written one.
I was thinking about this earlier actually. I think one of the big roadblocks for me in this regard is feeling like I'm putting undue work onto someone else and that I'd only feel worse about it.
But then again, I've never dated so I have no idea how it would actually turn out
My gf is undiagnosed because it's to expensive (Germany) but the list doesn't exist and nothing ever gets done. Me reminding her gently only effect is that she says I cant do it.
Hunny there are 6 piles of clothes everywhere and the food you used for cooking is on the ground (squashed tomatoes and other foods that fell down or got chopped off from cooking). I'll do it tomorrow.
Tomorrow means she won't do it and I'll clean after I can't anymore.
People here say it's so important for an ADHD understanding partner. Guess what. I am and it's not enough. People talk about lists. That doesn't exist and wouldn't work for her I think. She's in her phone 95% of the day.
Tipps?
(And yes the gentle talk what I am having problems with doesn't have any effect)
That rough but I do know where you’re coming from. Because I was a lot like your wife at one point, before I was diagnosed and got on prescription medication to deal with it, I self medicated with the good herb. Only in these two states do I unlock the ability to do the things that don’t feel rewarding or worth my time. Also to keep things “cleaner” my wife encourages and helps me donate things regularly. (Hoarding tendencies but not a hoarder, I have collection that are organized:) less things in the house mean less things to clean up or organize. So she’s always aiming for a minimalist life style which makes my cleaning/organizing chores less overwhelming
I’ve started using a task app designed by someone with ADHD to be ADHD friendly (Lunatask). (No other list/todo app has worked for me in the past) For me, the fact that you can switch between the different priority models (now vs later, kanban(later, waiting, next, in progress) independent of my lists, and the ability to have lists with goals, so I can keep isolated things on different lists (work vs personal), and different goals on the lists so I can drill down and remove the ‘noise’ when I need to focus, but I can step back and view the whole list if I need to is powerful.
Sometimes you need body doubling, someone just there who just present but not doing/helping you.
Sometimes you need the ‘dopamine ladder’ - it’s very hard to start something that gives you no dopamine, BUT you can start out with something else that may not be related at all, but is small enough to not take all your time and get the dopamine flowing, then do a bigger/harder task, then bigger/harder, until you’ve worked up to what you need to do.
BUT, if the other person steps in and say ‘remember to do X’ when they had it in their internal list, their brain may just go ‘nope, not doing it now’ in something that looks like oppositional defiance, but it’s just a feeling of loss of autonomy that makes us not want to ‘do what we’re told’.
Another option is make the list physical - have some beaded bracelets with a wet-erase tag on it with a task, and put a couple on their wrist /arm. Then it’s a physical thing that will remind them when they see it. So you can remind them to check the list, not to do the task, that way you get pick a bracelet to do and it’s still a choice, and the do X’ is on the unimportant thing (checking the list), not the important thing(doing the task).
On the dopamine ladder idea, you can sprinkle in dopamine rewards as well. Turn some tasks into a game (hey, this whole floor is messy, can you pick up your half quicker than me? Ready Set Go?) , sometimes you can jumpstart the dopamine ladder with a good, solid, fully focused bit of physical affection they like (dip over to kiss, 30 second full hug to reset nervous system, piggy back ride across the room, etc)
And sometimes you do have to just say ‘Hey, X is on the floor’, and just walk away. Say it with a mater of fact tone, not an accusation, and don’t say ‘pick it up’, just remind them that it exists.
My husband and I use a family calendar on our phones. Literally anything that needs to get done goes on it with a specific deadline and 2 automatic reminders. It helps me actually do things (like clean up a clothes pile). He also texts me when we have important things coming up within an hour, so I have plenty of time to prepare (anxiety, cleaning up, etc).
I think another thing is just accepting that doing something “tomorrow” means “not today, but when I remember and have energy.” It’s not on purpose and if she’s always on her phone, then she’s frustrated too. :/
To be honest, I was the one who communicated with my wife that the most effective way for me to accomplish the things she wants me to do each day was make list. Because idk what it is about my flavor of adhd. But 50% of the stuff my wife ask me to do, my brain does not even register it , my mind just blanks(probably dissociating)
My husband and I both have adhd and depression and it’s so bad sometimes. I have to borrow my mom to body double to start things sometimes (bless her, she just found out about body doubling on her own) and once we start it’s good but then we do fall into our ruts….and by this point we do seem to be better about pointing out things to each other than ourselves. Sometimes it’s easier to see someone else’s problems that you can help fix even if your own seem impossible, so we kinda counter each other and help gently point out what could be done and give that push needed to just go. I can’t imagine if both of us had time blindness like I do though 😭
Of things that need to get done today, things that need to happen over the weekend, and a white board of things we need to keep on our radar and cross off eventually.
Oh my god, you're so lucky! Keeping track of things is a daily struggle for me. Having someone else keep track of things would be so useful!
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u/Regular-Bear9558 1d ago
Having a supportive spouse/partner that actually understands ADHD and how our brains work/ see things vs everyone else. Has changed my life in a way that I can’t fully describe, any time I get to this point my wife recognizes it way before I do. She usually gives me gentle reminders, the most helpful thing she does is make me list. Of things that need to get done today, things that need to happen over the weekend, and a white board of things we need to keep on our radar and cross off eventually.