ADHD: A Love Story
Our family was enjoying a lovely meal out when a woman stopped by our table and patted my husband, Joe, on the shoulder.
“Can you believe it?” she asked, shaking her head in disbelief.
He couldn’t, he said, nodding back. “You should have just sat right down!” he told her.
“I know!” she said, eyes wide.
As she continued on her way, I looked to Joe for an explanation.
Those suits over there had weaseled their way to a high top and took it over, he said, though it was absolutely clear that the woman and her guests were standing in wait. The woman was miffed but appreciative that someone else — Joe — would take her side.
Now I was the one shaking my head in disbelief. I had missed the conflict in its entirety because, well, I was talking with Joe and the kids. And Joe was listening and talking, too, but thanks to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, he was also able to take in minute details of the activity around us. Having ADHD while dining in a restaurant is like listening to jazz, Joe says, “but you hear every single note from each instrument as if it’s a solo — and there’s a carousel in the background.”
Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder is a neurodevelopmental disorder that begins in childhood and can remain undiagnosed until adulthood, when characteristics of inattention and impulsivity make holding down a job or keeping up with relationships and responsibilities difficult.
Indeed, Joe’s therapist told him he was so far off the scale, it’s surprising he’s not homeless. And while it’s hard to separate out the characteristics of Joe’s personality that ADHD is responsible for, he holds forth — and I agree — that the disorder has run (but not ruined) his life.
When I first started dating Joe, all the sappy love songs finally made sense. I had never felt this way about anyone. We were soulmates who had met back in high school but were in our 40s now with kids, routines and habits.
He’d joke that I wouldn’t have been able to handle him back then; shrugging this off, I’d contend that he needed a strong woman like me. Likewise, I needed his strength — someone to push off of, someone to calm me. When I was around Joe, it felt like my heart exploded in small displays of fireworks. We balanced each other.
But once we moved in together, small things surprised me, like when he couldn’t follow simple directions on a recipe. He had to hear something explained three times — not in a cliche bad-husband way, but a real lack of communication. As a writer, I took this as a challenge — I will find the best words — until I realized it had nothing to do with how I said something, and everything to do with the chemicals in Joe’s brain.
Inattention doesn’t necessarily mean that a person with ADHD is lacking in attention span but rather has an inability to delegate attention where it’s needed. “You hyperfocus on things you want, not on things you don’t want to do,” Joe says. “That causes problems.”
Procrastination is among the problems, of course, as is an inability to see the forest for the trees at times — in Joe’s case, the forest being the social cues relationships rely on. I have to remind him to greet people when they walk into a room, as he tends to think he sits invisibly on the sidelines and will not be noticed. He downplays his role in my sons’ lives, thinking he’s got nothing important to add until I remind him of all he’s walked them through already.
To which he responds, “I can’t even come close to explaining what my brain goes through.”
We’ve had our biggest arguments regarding these issues. Being on second marriages, we take communication seriously, and these knock-down drag-out fights go nowhere until I accept that Joe’s brain is his burden. He makes no excuses for his behavior but instead apologizes and laments. He hates the control ADHD has had over his fate, and wonders what life could have been like had he been diagnosed years earlier. Meanwhile, not every argument is the fault of ADHD, of course; I bring my own set of baggage to the relationship to sort through.
Talk therapy and dietary choices help Joe, as they do all of us; but mostly, Joe’s meds save the day. But far from implying that adults with ADHD are helpless souls, let me spell out the joy that this hyperfocus brings.
Joe can cut through to the truth in ways I’ve never heard anybody else do. There’s no one else whose insight I trust like his, though sometimes I have to drag it out of him. I call myself a writer but he is the true wordsmith — and I have a pile of love notes to prove it.
He has a nonverbal ability to see and communicate, as well. His wedding and portrait photography — he’s had his own business for decades — is unlike any other’s. There are photos I can’t stop looking at for their subtle beauty and power.
When it comes to love, Joe’s hyperattention is every girl’s dream. He exists to protect and serve me with his actions, and to calm and cure me with his manner. Indeed, where I always had sensory problems — misophonia, trouble with eyeglasses — I can now handle these as minor disruptions rather than overwhelming challenges. We are so in tune with each other that we have trouble with full moons — the energy is too intense — and we feel each other’s pain from afar.
“I do really well at loud concerts,” Joe says.
“You need a lot going on,” I tell him.
“Yes, I do.”
Managing his needs and mine are essential to any marriage, but especially when ADHD has moved in. Some days we’ll wrestle on the carpet — he’ll show me a move from his coaching days, and I practice throwing him to the floor. It gets some of the energy out.
And some days I shoo him away, because he’s too much for me in that moment. He’ll go off to another room and crank up Tool or a drum solo.
Though I was married to a musician before, Joe is the one to help me see the power of music. Music is like food for Joe— filling, comforting and sustaining him. And films like The Godfather have a magic, soothing combination of speaking tones, background noise, and who knows exactly what — he’s watched them dozens of times.
Because procrastination, denial and misplaced energy are a lethal combination, financial struggles can be a common theme among people with ADHD. I had been upset when I learned the cost of my engagement ring, which was more than Joe could afford — until he told me the story.
The day he planned to shop for a ring, Joe didn’t shower or shave — on purpose. He put on his rattiest clothes, topped off the outfit with a sweaty ball cap, and headed out to the jewelry stores.
At the first stop, no one spoke to him. He looked around until it was clear he wouldn’t be helped, then left. Second store, same treatment.
The plan was working.
At the third, a woman at the counter smiled at Joe and asked how she could help. She showed him a few standard offerings, but none seemed right.
At last he came upon the marquise cut that would become my ring. Joe didn’t know that this was the diamond I had always been drawn to, and sure enough it’s way bigger than it needs to be. I’m not flashy in how I dress, and at the time was working in a gym — but to Joe, this ring was as unique as his bride, and, price be damned, he would buy it for her.
“None of them looked like you,” he told me. “None of them were special enough for Amy except this one.”
We’ll be paying off the ring a while. But to me, this story shows everything that’s difficult and wonderful about the disorder that my husband manages every day.
ADHD is not uniform in its effects, which can devastate individuals and their relationships. We are fortunate that Joe recognized his need for therapy and meds, even if it took 40 years. And I am blessed to be able to benefit from side effects such as insight, energy and attention.
Joe will never fasten his seatbelt before the alarm chimes, and he will always pick up another small McCormick jar of celery seed at the store, just in case (we have 5).
But the ADHD brain is beautiful, and his hyperfocused love is exactly what I need.
