So, I'm back around to this topic again......
It's been a little over a year & as I expected, RAH has not followed through with this topic at all, in any way. While he managed it better for many months just from being aware of it (sound familiar, anybody?,) that obviously isn't enough to create long-term change.
After a particularly difficult week or so, I was pretty grateful to stumble onto these videos yesterday because frankly, my frustration hit an all time high at the same moment when my patience dropped to nothing. Detachment doesn't always work when dealing with a partner with active, unmedicated ADHD - it's a different animal altogether.
I figured I'd link this info here for myself & others if anyone is interested.
In the 1st video, she does a really good job of describing this all from the POV of the person who has ADHD so RAH was able to "hear" it differently, finally. The way she describes how the ADHD partner will often create chaos within a stable relationship as a dysfunctional way of staying attentive to their partner I almost fell over..... this is my husband to a T. The hardest part is that the ADHD partner can almost never truly see or empathize with what their partner goes through - they literally lack the ability to shift perspective or feel the empathy.... so he never, ever understands (not really) why I'm hurting & I never feel 100% "heard" or supported.
I also stumbled on a 9-part youtube series from the author of the book dandylion suggested that made such a big impact for me last year - Gina Pera, "Is It You, Me or Adult ADHD?" (it just got posted in Feb 2016) The content is wonderful but much more academically presented so he had a harder time following these, but it was still better than reading the book - he'd
never have the patience for that. This book SAVED my sanity last summer because it was so resonant with our lives. The examples were scary-accurate.
Part One here, you should be able to auto play through all 9 parts once you view the first, if anyone is interested:
I probably will call today to get the ball rolling for an evaluation for him - he's not opposed to it but will never prioritize it. The ADHD itself prevents him from seeing how affected he is so while I normally take a totally hands-off approach with this stuff, I'm going to bite the bullet this time.
I do want to point out that I'm not just throwing labels around/ assigning blame here...... from all that I have learned about this topic over the last year, there isn't any doubt for either of us that he does have this disorder to some degree. Truly, when we go through the "checklist" he is affected by about 80-90% of the "symptoms" that they list & it is not going to get better on it's own. At this point I think even he sees the insanity of exhausting himself trying to mange around it & then cycling around to depression/shame spirals when his efforts don't work out. Efforts that CAN'T work because he can't see that he's spending all that time trying to jam a square peg into a triangular hole.