Transcript People with ADHD are from Mercury — Romance and ADHD

“People with ADHD
are from Mercury”
Relationships and ADHD
Lew Mills, PhD
Marriage and Family Therapist
ADDA Regional Conference
San Francisco
October 6, 2007
What you might expect I might tell you
about couples and ADHD,
and something you wouldn’t…
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Communicate better,
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Understand each other better,
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Develop strategies & structures to help the pwADHD
remember, follow-through, check impulses…

Bonus – A meta-strategy, to improve your ability to deal
with a Mercurian.
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Related to “why” your pwADHD does those annoying
things

Touches on the issue of “what is fair?”
www.millsconsulting.com
Five Biggest Complaints
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Sharing the Burdens of a Household
Doesn’t Listen, Never Remembers
Social Skills
Getting in Trouble
Disorganization, Messy, Collecting
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Sharing the Burdens of
Managing a Household
Being in love is easy. Having a
roommate/partner is the pits.
 Not sharing duties, income earning,
“responsibility”
 Can’t be trusted with details of running
household.

 Can’t
do even tiny chores without
forgetting, etc.
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Doesn’t Listen, Never Remembers
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
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Feels absent
Intentions don’t translate into follow
through.
Irresponsibility
Inattentive, most of the time,
…even including in the bedroom
 May be impatient

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Social Skills
May not share feelings well
 Not careful about what they say,
impulsive
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 Statement
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May not get the more subtle cues.
Interrupts
 Solves

of fact may be insensitive
problems instead of listening.
Emotionally volatile.
 Little
control of emotional reactions.
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Gets In Trouble

Sketchy job history, (despite talents)

Legal problems
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Spending problems
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Wandering libido
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Puts people off, gets in fights
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Addictions, etc.
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Denial
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Disorganized

Messy
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Loses things

Collects things, papers, projects, ideas,
stuff to fix, etc.
This causes a lot of stress, and it’s very
difficult to change the behavior.

Time challenged
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Examples of Strategies

Communication

Dedicated time, but,
 Not on the couch, face-to-face, abstractly whining about “our
relationship.”
 Try a “walk and talk” approach – peripatetic
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Operationalize, with exemplars
 Active listening skills
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Give structure for remembering, without being a nag.

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White board with requests
Communicating is not enough if you don’t really know what to say.
“What were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t thinking…”
www.millsconsulting.com
Gets in Trouble (Strategy)
Clear limits and expectations
 Consequences
 Collaboration

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Bonus: Attribution Theory
Q: “Why is it helpful to know that your pwADHD
is from Mercury?”
A: If you don’t understand why a person
behaves the way that they do, you’ll make up
your own story.
…and it won’t be pretty.
www.millsconsulting.com
The Sixth Sin:
“He’s just not trying.
He doesn’t seem to care!”

Doesn’t come up right away,
like the Big 5 do.
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Cuts to the core of the relationship

Has everything to do with each person’s
role in the relationship.
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Examples
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“She does that just to annoy me”
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Misunderstand behavior as passive-aggressive
“Why doesn’t he seem to care?”
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Lack of attentiveness taken personally
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“We don’t seem to understand each other at all.”
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Judgments that partner is “Not normal”
www.millsconsulting.com
Reinterpret Mercurian
Language & Behavior
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Non-Mercurian
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Do not take it all personally.
 Don’t set up task that will lead to disappointment and accusations.
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Understand “motivation” issues.
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It really is not laziness or wanting to hurt your feelings. (Though you
should expect to hear acknowledgement that your feelings have been
hurt anyway.)
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…and from the other side
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Mercurian:
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Don’t promise what you know will be difficult, even
if it seems like it makes life easier at that moment.
Tell them: “That would be difficult for me to
manage successfully.”
www.millsconsulting.com
Know that:

Nobody gets enough out of being a flake
to make it worth faking it.
 It is not a reasonable assumption that this
is all an excuse.
 It is important to not make ADHD into an
excuse but …
more often people go too far the other
way and don’t give themselves any
slack.
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Implications

You really do need to know what is not
easy for your Mercurian to do…
and what might be easy to do.
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You need to find creative ways to keep
the relationship fair and balanced

ADHD behavior itself does not confer
“child” or “imbecile” status
www.millsconsulting.com
Take Home:

This disability affects the balance of
control and responsibility in the
household.

Rather than attribute this imbalance to
an abdication by the pwADHD, it may
mean that you need to find new ways to
be partners.
www.millsconsulting.com