Building strong relationships can be challenging, especially when ADHD is in the mix. Melissa Orlov, a renowned marriage consultant and author, highlights that adults with ADHD often carry a shadow of shame from their younger years, a sentiment echoed by respected figures like teachers and parents. This shame can seep into their romantic life, manifesting as defensiveness or denial about their ADHD, and often leaving their partners feeling overlooked or unappreciated.

Research published in the Journal of Child and Family Studies indicates that couples where one partner has ADHD might struggle with intimacy and overall happiness in their marriage. However, the power of a close bond can soften the impact of ADHD symptoms.

Orlov, known for her books The ADHD Effect on Marriage and The Couple’s Guide to Thriving with ADHD, points out that a staggering 80% of adults with ADHD might not even know they have it. This lack of awareness can lead to misunderstandings and conflicts in relationships. Three major symptoms often stir up issues:

1. Distractibility: The ADHD partner might seem to ignore their significant other, leading to the other taking on more tasks and eventually feeling resentful.
2. Difficulty in Completing Tasks: When ADHD hampers the completion of promised tasks, trust and reliability can suffer.
3. Impulsivity: Rash decisions or actions, like overspending or poor communication, can add tension to the relationship.

Orlov sheds light on the dynamics within such relationships, saying, “The classic mutual stance when people start to learn about ADHD is that the non-ADHD partner says: ‘If you would only fix the ADHD, everything would be fine.’ And the ADHD partner says: ‘If you would just stop being so angry and mean to me, everything would be fine.’” She emphasizes that the solution lies in both partners acknowledging their part in the relationship’s dynamics, addressing the ADHD symptoms, and managing emotions like anger and hopelessness.

Key steps to nurturing your relationship include:

Educating Yourself about ADHD: Understanding how ADHD affects behavior is crucial for both partners.

Seeking Treatment and Management: Using strategies to handle ADHD can significantly improve relationship dynamics.

Professional Guidance: Consulting therapists specializing in ADHD can provide tailored strategies for couples.

Orlov encourages couples to focus on their core relationship needs and remain adaptable. While ADHD presents unique challenges, with the right approach and support, relationships can not only survive but also thrive.

Considering a professional evaluation for ADHD? 

Your mental health is worth more than a 60-second quiz. ADHD Online offers comprehensive and convenient ADHD assessments by licensed psychologists. Begin your journey to understanding and leveraging your unique strengths with ADHD Online’s Diagnostic Evaluation. Your mental health is invaluable – invest in it wisely.

Sources:
ADHD & Marriage
Journal of Child and Family Studies
Journal of Attention Disorders
ADHD & Marriage: ADHD Effect In-Depth Seminar

By Beth Levine

“God, always dreaming … Little girl, always running away. Never finishing what you started.” – Gong Gong, as played by James Hong, in the movie, “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”

When Everything Everywhere All at Once swept the Oscars last month, Asian Americans rejoiced in finally being seen in their total humanity. As Anne Anlin Cheng wrote in The Washington Post review of the movie: “To be an immigrant is to live in a fractured multiverse, one riven with geographic, temporal and psychical dissonances.”

But there is another group with geographical, temporal and psychical dissonances that is celebrating being represented realistically — if also metaphorically — in the movie: the ADHD community.

In a Salon interview, the movie’s co-director and co-writer Daniel Kwan noted that the original intent was to create a movie about chaos, which led his team to form the main character, Evelyn (played by Michelle Yeoh, who won the Best Actress Oscar for her role), as a woman with undiagnosed ADHD. Kwan and his filmmaking partner Daniel Scheinert began deep research into ADHD, leading Kwan to suspect that he had it. He has since been officially diagnosed and started therapy.

In the movie, Evelyn, a Chinese American laundry owner — overwhelmed by life, a failing business and an ever-growing IRS problem — is suddenly yanked through alternate universes (or “the multiverse”), where she is an opera singer, a martial arts expert and a chef, among many other identities. She has no time for her sweet husband, Waymond (Ke Huy Quan, who won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role), who is so desperate to capture her attention that he serves her with divorce papers.

Her daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu, who was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role) is in a massive depression from her mother’s criticisms, a result of Evelyn’s anxiety about being judged. And part of the tax problem comes from trying to deduct expenses for her never-initiated career dreams: novelist, chef, teacher, singing coach, Watsu practitioner. If you are a person with ADHD, this may sound familiar: the inability to stay rooted in the present; anxiety over how you are perceived; the prickly feeling that you just didn’t get the same operating instructions that the rest of the world has gotten.

In fact, several people with ADHD who were interviewed for this article mentioned that the experience of watching the movie mimicked their everyday experience so realistically that they found it overwhelming and anxiety-inducing. Some had to stop after ten minutes.

“As Evelyn started to experience all of the bizarre events that took place, that feeling of confusion was overwhelming to me, much in the way that Evelyn seems to be confused by it all,” says Nick Priscott, 48, of Danbury, Conn., who was not diagnosed until a few months ago.

Stephanie Sarkis, PhD, a counselor, author and expert in ADHD, anxiety disorders, autism spectrum disorder and chronic pain, adds: “What Evelyn goes through in that movie could be like a Tuesday to somebody with ADHD.”

Here Are Ways that Everything Everywhere All at Once Explores the ADHD Experience:

• Evelyn cannot stay focused.

The movie’s opening shot is Evelyn sitting at a table that holds piles upon piles of tax forms she cannot begin to organize or make sense of. When people talk to her, especially about stressful things, no matter how hard she tries to stay present, she disappears into alternative universes that also demand her attention. The evil taking over the multi-verse that she has been tasked with saving is chaos. As Alpha Waymond (one of her husband’s alter-egos in the multiverse) tells her: “You have so many goals you never finished, dreams you never followed. You’re living your worst you.”

“When people with ADHD are under stress, we can start to drift. We just shut down and retreat to a safe space in our minds; Evelyn’s safe place was a fantasy world,” says Sarkis, who is the author of 10 Simple Solutions to Adult ADD: How to Overcome Chronic Distraction and Accomplish Your Goals and Making the Grade With ADD: A Student’s Guide to Succeeding in College With Attention Deficit Disorder.

• Evelyn is scared of being judged.

Her father has been criticizing her for her whole life, which makes her feel unworthy and ashamed. Even though he has never been supportive, she still craves his approval. She doesn’t want him to know about the tax problem, and throws an elaborate party for him to curry favor,

“This accurately portrays the heightened emotionality that is common among individuals with ADHD, where even a simple sentence of disapproval can feel overwhelming,” says Amira R Martin, a licensed clinical social worker, communication expert, psychotherapist and wellness professional.

• Evelyn’s undiagnosed ADHD is negatively affecting her relationships with her husband and daughter.

Evelyn is heartbroken when her husband surprises her with divorce papers, the only way he feels he can get her attention. “I don’t think she was ever intentionally ignoring or putting him down, but women with ADHD sometimes have no clue as to what’s going on in their interpersonal relationships. She was totally unaware of what she was doing to him and how he was suffering,” says Patricia Quinn, MD, a developmental pediatrician in Washington, D.C., and co-author of Understanding Women with AD/HD.

Her relationship with her daughter is also fraught because Evelyn can’t see how her criticisms have left her daughter feeling worthless and unseen. As Jobu Tupaki (a Joy alter-ego in the multiverse) says: “I was just looking for someone who could see what I see, feel what I feel.”

“That’s the way Evelyn’s father treated her, so that’s the way she’s treating her daughter. And when she realizes this, she knows this has to stop,” adds Quinn.

• Evelyn feels like she is lacking whatever everyone else seems to so easily have to get along in the world.

So let’s discuss the scenes where she and Deirdre (Jamie Lee Curtis, who won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role) have hot dogs for fingers. It seems insane but it’s also how people with ADHD sometimes feel in the world — like something about them just doesn’t work. Metaphorically, they have to play piano with their feet because their fingers don’t work the way everyone else’s does.

But in a hopeful note, they can learn to adapt; they can learn to play a pretty decent Clair de Lune with their toes.

“Because I wasn’t diagnosed until I was about 33, I spent my entire life just thinking something about me was broken or incorrect,” says Ariel Fisher, 35, of Ann Arbor, Mich., who has written about her experience of watching this movie. “And if I just tried harder, and I tried to be more like everybody else, it would make life easier. And I just wasn’t trying hard enough.”

• Evelyn is exhausted.

She is trying to save the family business, repair her familial relationships, and well, that minor detail of being asked to save the universe. The woman is tired.

“The movie represented just how exhausting it can be, having to go from thinking about one thing, and you’re pulled somewhere else,” says Jack Lewis, 30, of Washington, D.C., who was diagnosed with ADHD three years ago. “Evelyn is talking to the IRS agent, and suddenly she is pulled out and is talking to someone else. It’s this whiplash of where your focus and energy have to be and it just wears you out.”

• Evelyn is searching for silence and peace. But once she gets it, she doesn’t know what to do with it.

At one point, Evelyn and Joy become rocks in a completely silent, wide open landscape. “I’m always searching for that moment of silence where the noise will finally stop,” Lewis says. “During that scene, I thought, ‘This is what my mind feels like.'”

Joy urges Evelyn to just sit with the quiet, enjoy it, but Evelyn can’t. It makes her anxious, so she chases Joy over a cliff. “It’s kind of an ADHD thing that you’re going to make something happen when life gets boring,” says Sarkis.

Everything Everywhere All at Once Can Help People With ADHD

The movie shows that people with ADHD can learn to adapt, and even thrive.

Quinn even suggests that it would be a good movie for people with ADHD to discuss with their therapists, to use as a jumping off point for how they feel.

At the end of the movie, Evelyn recognizes her patterns that have been holding her back and that, while she may be imperfect, it doesn’t make her a bad person and it doesn’t make her incapable. She can, in her own way, learn to play Clair du Lune with her feet.

In one of the last scenes, Evelyn is once again at the IRS offices and once again becomes distracted. Deirdre asks if she is listening and Evelyn says, “I’m sorry, what did you say?” But she says it calmly and with a smile. “We get to witness her have that magical moment of being okay with the reality of who she is,” says Martin.

The movie also validates, even celebrates, the ADHD experience, which can help viewers with ADHD feel seen and not so alone in their struggles. It can also help neurotypical viewers in understanding ADHD.

Fisher notes: “As someone who was diagnosed as an adult, and thinking about all of the other children, especially girls, who don’t get diagnosed until later in life, this kind of representation offers them an opportunity to see themselves more clearly than my generation did or any generation before.”

Priscott, in an email, goes even farther: “It illustrates the way in which life can come at people from so many directions, and can be so utterly overwhelming. It suggests the idea of a multiverse, where people could have been anything, but what I take from that is that people have picked up skills in their lives that they don’t even realize they have. As such, if people are able to clear their mind, they can utilize far more of their innate capabilities than they currently do. By doing so people can work through all of the clutter in their lives and mental state, and can drill down to finding what is important in their lives, what brings them joy (pun absolutely intended), and can learn to get the best out of their lives, and out of any challenge that faces them.”

And that, Sarkis says, is what is important about great art: “It’s something that you can see yourself in. So it might be somebody struggling with depression or anxiety, and they can see all of that and know they are not alone. And that’s what this movie can do for people with ADHD — give them a space to be seen, understood and even celebrated.”

Then journalist Sarah Gelbard shares her observations from her role as researcher for our interview with Melissa. What stood out to the healthcare reporter when she started diving into the history of Melissa’s work and ADHD?

Finally, coordinating producer Phil Rodemann makes his show debut and we share some of our biggest ah ha! moments from the four conversations we shared with you throughout the month of February. 

We’re putting February to bed — a little late but in a big way on today’s show! And we would love to hear from you! Share your own observations or antecdotes by emailing us at hello@refocusedpod.com.

A romantic relationship with someone with ADHD can be wonderful — and confusing, challenging and frustrating, says Melissa Orlov. And that wonder, confusion and frustration goes both ways — which means relationships that include at least one person with ADHD can be challenging to maintain.

Most often, that’s because the partners don’t understand the ADHD or each other, Orlov says.

Orlov is a marriage consultant and author of two books about ADHD and relationships — “The ADHD Effect on Marriage” and “The Couple’s Guide to Thriving with ADHD.” She is considered one of the world’s top experts on ADHD and adult relationships. She recently spoke in-depth with ADHD Online’s Refocused Podcast — about the roller-coaster emotions and relationship challenges that are part of ADHD. The Refocused Podcast conversations with Orlov will continue throughout February.

Here’s a sampling of what Orlov talked with Refocused’s Lindsay Guentzel about:

• People with ADHD tend to be exceptionally enthusiastic and attentive at the beginning of a relationship. Orlov says she knows this first-hand because her former husband had ADHD:

“It is so great to go through that. It is so much fun to be part of that courtship process. You are the center of the universe if your partner has ADHD. You just feel like everything fits perfectly. But that’s actually part of infatuation. Chemically, in the brain, it’s about a lot of extra dopamine. And for people who have ADHD, it gets them really focused and really intense. I mean, they just laser in on the person they’re with. They’re fun, they’re energetic and they have lots of great ideas. They’re really attentive. And you think, ‘Wow, this is amazing.”

• But then that attentiveness and infatuation wear off — sometimes in a big way, Orlov says:

“The hyperfocus courtship tends to wear off abruptly. I always remember … there was one week, very soon after we returned from our honeymoon when suddenly everything was different. And I’m just looking around the room going, huh? Wait, what? And there were all these gender things that came into it as well. …This is not intentional. But anyway, it’s very abrupt.”

• Those realities of infatuation and then seeming disinterest are only a couple of the challenges that ADHD couples have, Orlov says. They often don’t understand each other and don’t understand how certain behaviors are actually coming from ADHD. And they often may not even realize one partner has ADHD. All of that takes work to explore and navigate toward improvements in the relationship.

“So the very first part of my task with almost any couple is demonstrating to them that it’s not personal. It’s not actually that your partner is a jerk or whatever. This is actually about symptoms and expressions of symptoms. And then how you can respond in a healthy way and grow your relationship. So that’s the starting place.”

She adds: “It’s not just about, quote-unquote, fixing the ADHD partner. It’s also about looking at what those interactions are and what the responses are. So couples need to be much more nuanced in terms of understanding what’s ADHD and what’s not and how to respond when ADHD is present. There’s a huge educational component to it.”

• With work, ADHD couples can significantly improve their relationships, Orlov says:

“People say to me: ‘I read your book, and it made me cry.’ As much as I don’t like the idea of making people cry, they’re crying from relief. Because they see themselves in the pages and in the stories. And also in the potential solutions. They have been hopeless. And they suddenly go, ‘OK, there’s a little glimmer of hope out there. Maybe if I pursue this.’ So there’s this process of getting going and learning. And, as I said, the very first step is finding out as much as you can about ADHD and how it impacts relationships.”

You can listen to much more about what Orlov had to say in four upcoming episodes of the Refocused Podcast.

Tune in now to learn more about ADHD and impulsivity from Melissa Orlov!

Affected by the stimulant medication shortage? #AdderallShortage us too! Melissa’s latest post Adderall Shortage Hacks for Adults with ADHD offers up ideas on how to deal with the dysregulation, tips for dealing with the pharmacy and even has non-medicinal ways to help alleivate some of the side effects. Check it out now!

Highlights

• What is rejection-sensitive dysphoria? 
• Emotional dysregulation in the ADHD partner
• Parent-child dynamic in ADHD-impacted relationships
• People pleasing and over-committing 
• Addressing ADHD, shame, and rejection 
• Establishing routines with ADHD 
• Sleep hygiene and disorder 
• Impulsivity and distractibility in ADHD
• Handling finances in ADHD-impacted relationships 
• How the non-ADHD partner can help nurture the ADHD-impacted relationship

On today’s episode, Lindsay dives into the power that emotions can hold in an ADHD-impacted relationship with ADHD relationship expert Melissa Orlov. Melissa talks about the intensity of anger, shame and self-esteem and how the non-ADHD partner can help support specific emotional needs of their ADHD partner. She also offers a ton of suggestions on how couples can get started on a path to better understanding and communication. 

This is part three of Lindsay’s four-part conversation with Melissa. To start at the beginning, go back to episode 65 ADHD & Relationships with Melissa Orlov released on February 6th.

Highlights

• How the ADHD brain works with anger
• Depths of shame, grief, and ADHD  
• What is the very present moment focus?
• Defensiveness and cover-ups mechanisms

Today’s episode is the continuation of our conversation with Melissa Orlov on how awareness and self-acceptance of ADHD can help save relationships and marriages. After establishing ADHDmarriage.com in 2007, Melissa has helped couples learn to thrive in ADHD-impacted relationships. Today, Melissa dives into hyperfocused courtship, looking at guilt and how the pressures of having ADHD can affect a couple and how defining and acknowledging ADHD symptoms can help guide the ADHD partner through rough patches. 

Tune in now to learn more about ADHD, dating, and divorce from Melissa Orlov!

Highlights

• ADHD, marriage, and divorce
• What is hyperfocus courtship? 
• Pressures felt by women with ADHD
• ADHD women and the biological clock

Today’s conversation with Melissa Orlov is all about how ADHD can show up in our relationships. Motivated to start ADHDmarriage.com in 2007 while sharing stories from her own ADHD-impacted relationship, Melissa has helped so many couples by sharing her expertise with the neurodivergent community over the last 16 years. 

Tune in now to learn more about ADHD and relationships from Melissa Orlov!

Join the conversation by reaching Lindsay via podcast@adhdonline.com or on social media at @lindseyguentzel now!

Highlights

• Melissa’s journey in helping couples with ADHD
• Melissa’s career with ADHD and couples’ counseling 
• Defining Adult ADHD and the emergence of the culture 
• Adult ADHD’s pointers and symptoms 
• How ADHD is managed in different interpersonal relationships
• ADHD in the digital age 
• Awareness, misinformation, and stigma of ADHD
• Patterns of ADHD in couple dynamics

To connect with Becca, check out her website here and find her on Instagram here.

Marital and domestic relationships that include someone with ADHD can be challenging. And at times very unhappy.

The issues can be even more challenging if the ADHD in the partner is undiagnosed. Then, neither of the partners understand the root cause of so many of the issues.

But even when a spouse or partner has diagnosed ADHD, there can be problems. The partner without ADHD can feel ignored and lonely. He or she can feel resentful at their partner’s distractibility. And resentful about having to be the responsible person in the relationship.

Meanwhile, the partner with ADHD can become frustrated with their partner’s continual nagging. And how they seem to always be unhappy with them.

All of these issues show up in research on adults with ADHD. Some studies show that marriages that include at least one partner with ADHD are more likely to be unsatisfying. Other studies have shown the divorce rate is twice as high among relationships with one person with ADHD.

But experts point out that relationships that involve a person with ADHD can be rewarding and exceptionally loving. The secret, the experts say, is understanding and continual communication.

ADHD Online asked one of our writers — someone with diagnosed ADHD — to write about some of these issues in her own marriage. And to write about how she and her partner have worked — successfully — to deal with the issues. Here’s her interesting report.