So I Married an ADDer

Ernie Gets Organized

For your Friday amusement, another Bert and Ernie moment. This week, ADD Ernie comes up with his own organizational system.

 

 

If you enjoyed this post, subscribe to So I Married an ADDer.

What About Me? Wednesday: If You Can't Beat 'Em, Join 'Em

For many, many years, my motto has been "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." But it didn't start out that way. I was an uptight child, the one that was always like Stop, you guys! You're gonna get in trouble! And as a teenager, I was leery of anything teenagers found interesting. I changed dramatically in college; I knew that if I ever wanted to grow as a person I needed to be open to new ideas and experiences. I stopped resisting the influence of people around me. And I started saying If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

When I met Jen, it didn't take me long to figure out that she marched to the beat of her own drum. And even though by then I had grown into an easygoing and flexible adult - doing a lot more joining than beating - I found myself resisting Jen's way of doing things. In fact, I still struggle with it, and that's where the What About Me? advice comes in.

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. When your ADDer hatches another harebrained scheme, just go along with it. When they insist on going to Wal-Mart at 3:00 in the morning for string, put on your pants and get in the car. You will get a lot less gray hairs by joining them.

Once you've mastered going along with it, it's actually very good for your sanity to start enjoying it. Remind yourself often that life would be boring without your ADDer. Whenever I see a married couple on TV complaining about being "stuck in a rut," I have no idea what that's like. With Jen around, life never gets stale. She is always finding new things for us to do, always moving on to the next big thing.

So my self-care advice for this week is to join your ADDer in their crazy exploits, instead of trying to beat them.

 

Presale orders are now being accepted for Jen's new book, Odd One Out: The Maverick's Guide to Adult ADD. Reserve your copy today and save!

What About Me? Wednesday: Stop Taking Cues from Your ADDer

If your ADD spouse is anything like mine, they march to the beat of their own drum. They may often set out to do one thing, and end up doing something else entirely. They may succumb to hyperfocus and stay up all night for reasons you can't understand. But we love them for their uniqueness, and that's the way it goes.

However, as I am quickly learning now that I am working from home full time, it's a dangerous thing to take on your ADDer's habits. For example, Jen has a tendency to stay up late and snooze through her alarm, and she takes a few hours to get going in the morning. She needs coffee and CNN before she can even think about working. I have always been the type of person who functions best first thing in the morning. But I didn't stay true to that once I started working here. I started snoozing through my alarm and watching TV in the morning, with Jen. By the time I got to my desk, my brain was a lump of mush, and I couldn't get anything done.

So now I am making a point of honoring my own rhythms, and doing what I need to do in order to be at my best. If you've gotten in the habit of staying up later than you're comfortable with to accommodate your ADDer, or if in general you find yourself marching to your partner's drum instead of your own, it's time to reflect on what works best for you. After all, you both need to be at your best in order for your relationship, your home, your work, and everything else to thrive. If your partner is doing things "their way" to manage their ADD (which is a good thing), you need to figure out what your way is, and take care of yourself.

 

If you enjoyed this post, subscribe to So I Married an ADDer.

Jennifer Koretsky Has Tentatively Accepted

Working with Jen has been a great experience so far, but I'm still trying to get used to the way she works. It's been impossible for me to connect with her face to face, which is ridiculous considering we live together.

First, I tried just popping into her office. That was a disaster. It would have been safer popping into a bear cave. I had some success with shower meetings (the only way I could get a captive audience with Jen), but there's only so much you can accomplish in the bathroom.

So I tried the corporate approach and sent a meeting request from Microsoft Outlook. I thought that was a good idea, to plan a meeting a few days in advance. The response I got? "Jennifer Koretsky has tentatively accepted your meeting request."

Tentatively?! Tentatively accepting something in the ADD world is the equivalent of totally ignoring it. So the meeting requests are out.

I decided to stop trying to have meetings with Jen. I wanted to see how much we could accomplish over email and impromptu conversations.

Then (and I kid you not) on Saturday night just after midnight, as we were getting ready for bed, Jen turns to me and says, "Can we have a meeting now?"

 

If you enjoyed this post, subscribe to So I Married an ADDer.

What About Me? Wednesday: Your ADD Moments

Even though our partners are the ones with ADD, we are certainly allowed to have "ADD moments".

Everyone has times when they feel overwhelmed and disorganized; when no matter how hard you try, you just can't get it together. Have you ever had one of those days where you sleep through your alarm, make a big mistake at work, and come home to discover you forgot to defrost the chicken for dinner? Unfortunately for our ADD partners, those kind of days are the norm, but we all experience them from time to time.

You may feel like your role in your relationship is to "hold it all together". It's your job to make sure the bills get paid on time, that everyone eats three meals a day, and the house stays reasonably clean. It's hard for your ADDer to handle that kind of "life admin" work, as I like to call it. So you take it on, because it doesn't faze you.

But my advice for today's What About Me? Wednesday is to forgive yourself for those "ADD moments". If you forget to pay the cable bill one month, is it really that bad? If your dinner plans flop, will anyone be that unhappy with pizza? It's important to cut yourself a little slack. You're entitled to your "ADD moments". You could even try to enjoy them.

 

If you enjoyed this post, subscribe to So I Married an ADDer.

Sticky

I've blogged in the past about Jen's hypersensitivity and how much it annoys me. (The other night again I had to change the sheets four times before she was comfortable.) But I'm forced to admit that sometimes her acute senses come in handy.

Right now we're having problems with our water. It looks like there might be a crack in our well that is letting dirt into the water supply. And we would never have known had Jen not complained that the water felt "sticky". At first I thought she was crazy. I didn't feel any difference in the water. But she insisted something was off, and she was right. There is definitely dirt in the water. I don't know how she felt it on her skin, but I am so grateful. If we had let it go undetected we could have ended up with a much bigger problem.

So the next time your ADDer re-washes the laundry or makes you take part in an all-night hunt for the source of a smell you can't even smell, remember that someday, someday, their heightened senses will work to your advantage.

 

If you enjoyed this post, subscribe to So I Married an ADDer.

Yay Jen!

I'm happy to share with you that Jen's blog, Experiencing ADDvantages, has been chosen as a recipient of ADHDCentral.com's First Annual Top Site Award. Exciting stuff!

That's Why It's Called Work

There was a great article in the parody newspaper The Onion this week that you can use to remind your ADD partner that everyone has aspects of their job that they hate.

New Lion Tamer Shocked By Vast Amount Of Paperwork

BARABOO, WI—Traveling circus performer Scott Mueller, who said he has dreamed of becoming a lion tamer since childhood, was dismayed Monday to discover that the most death-defying part of his new job is not putting his head into the mouths of ferocious animals, but the abundance of paperwork his profession requires.

"When you're a kid, you just assume it's all whips and chairs and keeping roaring jungle predators at bay," Mueller said. "But it's far less thrilling than it sounds. Do you have any idea how many forms are involved in transporting a federally controlled predator across state lines via train? And every county has a completely different set of health codes and what have you. Hell, just processing the immunization records alone takes me like six hours."

Mueller added that he sometimes wonders why he left the insurance business in the first place.

Even though this article is satire, it illustrates a good point. Every job, no matter how exciting it sounds, has some drudgery to it. Your ADDer may classify more things as drudgery than not, but it might help to remind them that work is work, even for lion tamers.

 

If you enjoyed this post, subscribe to So I Married an ADDer.

What About Me? Wednesdays

Today I'm starting a weekly series, which I've decided to call What About Me Wednesdays. Every Wednesday, I'm going to focus on self-care for the non-ADD spouse.

When two people get together, they learn to compromise. It's the friendly alternative to homicide. But when your partner has ADD, you don't get to meet in the middle the way other couples do. You meet about 3/4 of the way to the ADD side of the road. In exchange, you get a partner who will never, ever bore you as long as you both shall live. It's a fair trade.

You grow accustomed to things in your house being out of place, or not even having a place. You get used to eating dinner on the fly. You don't even mind being woken up out of a deep sleep by a crazy person trying to recall the theme from Mr. Belvedere.

But what about you? You used to go to bed at the same time every night. You used to buy toilet paper before you ran out. You really had it together. You were bored off your ass, but you could find your keys.

So my self-care advice for the very first What About Me Wednesday is this: You don't have to understand your partner in order to support your partner.

Do I think it's a good idea to read books about ADD and learn the basics? Absolutely. But you're never going to comprehend the inner workings of your own spouse. They are one of a kind. So give up the psychoanalysis and embrace the fact that you have chosen to spend your life with someone truly unique and unpredictable. Plenty of people would trade places with you in a heartbeat.

Once you learn that, and accept it, you'll be clearing the way for more and more happiness to come into your life. You'll free up a lot of mental and emotional energy when you stop trying to find all the answers. Loving and appreciating your partner for their ADD is a big step in taking care of yourself.

 

If you enjoyed this post, subscribe to So I Married an ADDer.

No Soup for You

Like most ADDers, Jen comes up with a lot of good ideas that never see the light of day. So when she announced that she wanted little soup crocks to make French onion soup, I ignored her.

But on our next trip to Linens-n-Things, as we pillaged the aisles like vikings (as we're prone to do with housewares), Jen came up to me with little soup crocks, with this look on her face like a small child wanting a toy. It's not like she needs my permission to buy things, but we were trying not to overspend. I said it was fine as long as she actually made soup.

I knew she wouldn't actually make soup.

The soup crocks sat in their box on the counter for a few weeks. I thought about unpacking them and putting them away. Then one night, as I sat down to dinner, lo and behold there was a crock of French onion soup on my plate.

I was in shock. Jen actually followed through on a random idea from start to finish. From now on I won't be so dismissive. Hell, it was really good soup!

 

If you enjoyed this post, subscribe to So I Married an ADDer.