My ADDamant Stand Against Marriage – Am I Wrong?

[lailamoon786]

Hi Y’All,  🙂

So here’s the thing:  even before I was recently diagnosed with ADD, I was adamant against marriage.  Why in the world would I want to give up my awesome independent life, only to get tied down?

Now that I have this diagnosis, I’m even MORE adamant against marriage!  With my procrastination already getting in the way of my personal and professional hopes and dreams, I’m having a hard enough time trying to do all the things I want to do – i.e., getting my body to do what my brain “brilliantly” plans out.  😉  I feel like a spouse (and kids, yikes!) would just “get in the way” and probably make my ADD worse.

Is it just me or does anyone else feel this way?

Leila

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[Scattybird]

Hi – I know exactly what you mean. I like the idea of a partner with whom to live my life, but anyone I have known just finally irritates me because they demand so much attention and I just can’t balance my job with home life. I can’t even do that when I just have myself to look after. My house looks like a bomb has hit it.

I have always had a need to be financially independent, probably after seeing how my mother struggled when my father left. She spent the best years of her life doing without an awful lot for him and then he dumped her/us leaving her in a mess. That aside, I have always had a need to focus on my job and I have always found it more stimulating than a ‘normal’ life. I look at friends who are married and none of them seem immensly happy – I think the drive to bring up children keeps them together and motivated.

But actually I haven’t met anyone that I could live with forever and I wouldn’t want to feel bitter towards someone if I perceived them as having stopped me reaching my potential. I suppose some people might see that as selfish, but I see it as realistic. I would ruin someone’s life as well as my own and I have never been remotely maternal so the need for children has never been a motivation for me.

Having seen unhappy marriages I would never ‘make do’ with someone just because of peer pressure – they would have to be perfect and perfection doesn’t exist. If you are happy, then why risk someone potentially spoiling that?

All that said, we all need companionship and if you lead a single life you need good friends – at least someone who really ‘gets you’ and who you can confide in.

Now I am older and realistically have reached as far as I can get in my career, I don’t regret anything.

However, the place I work in is changing and is more competitive than ever and the current management team is making decisions that are making it difficult for everyone. Imagine how an impulsive ADDer is faring – even with meds it’s a struggle not to tell them where to go sometimes!! At the end of the day most employees are seen as ‘resources’ and not as people and most employers think of themselves and not of the ‘resources’. So if you have a job that is fulfilling in its own right, then that’s great. But if moving up the ladder is the only driver, then be careful of your quality of life.

So the danger of going it alone, is that you might get to a point of stagnation in your career years down the line and wish to have a partner to share all the little everyday things with. If you have a partner who will be an equal in the house then the chores can be shared and therefore time spent doing the mundane is halved. Also, having the moral support of a partner will be a motivation when things are difficult in other areas and just having a real true companion would be lovely. If the perfect person exists then I haven’t found them yet and I would rather go it alone – my happiness is my responsibility then and not the result of the whim of someone else. My ADD makes me a bit temperamental and I like the freedom to do what I want and when.

However you lead your life, enjoy it!  🙂

 

 

 

 

 

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[lailamoon786]

Scattybird, you must be a mind reader!  WOW!  😀

Pretty much everything you said applies to my life EXACTLY:  the need to be financially independent, the issue of a spouse potentially keeping me from reaching my full potential (based on experiences with guys I’ve met and their expectations of marriage – STIFLING!), and where work is currently treating us as “resources” instead of people these days.  Ugh!!!

I’m blessed to have very supportive family and friends.  Yet I find it fascinating that even though they see for themselves how much I enjoy my independent life, they keep trying, trying, trying to convince me to get married.  Really!?!  Why???  Growing up, my friends dreamt of their weddings and had names picked out for their then-non-existent children – in the mean time, I dreamt of a fulfilling career, travelling, etc.  So far, things are working out well.  It’s not perfect, and my newly-diagnosed ADD has been an unforeseen complication, but I’m still enjoying this journey.  🙂

You’re right, companionship may not be so bad if I did miraculously meet someone who supported me in my hopes and dreams (as I would support him).  I find it mind-boggling that the guys I’ve met expect me to drop my life and simply fold into theirs – more like a marriage of subservience instead of a partnership.  Yeesh!  No way!!! :p

Thank you again, Scattybird.  It helps to know it’s not just me.  🙂

For you married ADDers, what has made your relationships work?  What are the challenges (whether married to an ADDer or a non-ADDer)?

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[ramblinon]

Hello…I am 49 years old, a recently diagnosed ADHDer, married – twice, just celebrated 15 years with my wife; divoriced my high school sweetheart a while back. My current wife and I decided to go with the DINKS lifestyle by choice: Duel Income No Kids. We have three cats. We have a tremendous amount of respect for each other and separate bank accounts. I’m a great dishwasher and she is a dynamite cook…I’m the test kitchen.

Who ever brings up a requirement to hit a restaurant, it’s their turn to pay. We are adventous and spontaneous. We rode for the first few years on the same motorcycle, until she announced she wanted her own. Too cool, eh?

We love trying beers from around the world or finding a micro brewery. We’ve often had contests to see who can fit more wine bottles into the side motorcycle bags!!

Listen…..I just want to say that you don’t need to have offspring to be married, nor do you need to be married to live with someone. Just being me attracted my wife, so don’t do nothin’ different.

Our challenges have been overcome maybe because when we met and for the past 18 years, I was just being me, not me with ADHD. Focus on the awesomeness of being you…be independent, and when someone sees the value in an independent you, don’t let that one go. You can be independent and be married.

Here’s my little secret: we even sleep in separate bedrooms. No longer to I interrupt her much needed rest with my snoring, and I get an entire bed to myself and don’t worry that my endless tossing and turning will awake her. We can have a sleep over anytime we want!

Find someone who can finish your sentences instead of you finishing theirs.

Ramble On

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[lailamoon786]

Thanks, ramblinon!  You bring up some great points.  I’m so happy you have a marriage built on love, respect, kindness, trust and fun!  If I were to ever take the plunge, I wouldn’t settle for anything less.  🙂

 

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[Patte Rosebank]

@Lailamoon786, I’m a confirmed singleton, and I now see that I’ve been that way my whole life. My reasons are pretty much the same as yours. And because I’ve seen how toxic an ADHD “mixed-marriage” can get, as I look at my parents’ marriage—like a cross between the Costanzas and “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”.

I’ve heard of several ADDers who have a great marriage, and sleep in separate bedrooms to keep it that way. It makes so much sense, that you wonder why our culture thinks that it’s “wrong”. Besides, that “norm” of sharing a bed was historically something only done by people who were too poor to afford separate beds or separate bedrooms.

I think the key is really knowing and understanding who you are, and what you want from life. It doesn’t matter what the rest of the world thinks you ought to do; do what actually works for you.

My brother and I are very lucky that our parents always taught us that marriage and children are the biggest responsibilities of your life, and if you don’t feel completely ready for them, DON’T DO THEM. They taught us the facts of life, starting when we were very little, and always emphasizing the tremendous responsibility of it all.

They’ve also NEVER asked us, “When are you going to get married and give us some grandchildren?”

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[lailamoon786]

Thanks, Larynxa!  It sounds like our parents would be good friends because they have the same philosophy. 🙂  I, too, have been very, very fortunate to have their unconditional love and support.

Anytime someone asks me “Don’t you want to give your parents grandchildren?”, I always respond with “The only reason anyone wants grandchildren is for revenge – so their children can suffer the way they suffered!”.  LOL!!!  😀

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[blackdog]

Well, since I have made a mess of my life on all fronts, I am probably not qualified to comment here. But that’s never stopped me before… 😉

I would say keep an open mind. You never know what the future might hold. If you don’t feel the need to get married or have children, then don’t let others pressure you into it. But someday you might meet someone you really, really like and get along with so well that you can stand the thought of being together forever. And that is a rare opportunity you may not want to turn down.

The day I found myself in a long term relationship (quite by accident) was the day my life really began to fall apart. Suddenly I had this other person demanding my attention, expecting me to take care of him, disrupting my nice little daily routines. Top that off with suddenly having to take care of my parents when they simultaneously developed serious health problems, and having no financial security due to jobs coming and going (mostly going), and it’s no wonder I’m a mess. I couldn’t possibly manage having kids now, but it wasn’t a conscious decision on my part. I just never thought about it much, and never thought that it would reach the point where it was no longer an option, that the decision would be made for me.

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[lindsey3]

Wow! Thank you Leila for opening this conversation, and to everyone who is posting. I am in the process of being diagnosed with ADHD right now, at 54 ( although I feel either 10 or 23 most of the time! ) and I too have chosen to be single. I always saw boyfriends / lovers and even a partner of five years as a sort of add on or bonus to my life – they never were my life. My inner life was always too intense, and it took all my energy and focus to simply be me – I chose to put my energies and focus into a rewarding work life. I remember sitting on a step with a good friend when I was 20, and she was imagining having children and a family life, and I knew then in my heart that this wasn’t something for me and would never happen, but I didn’t know why. The thought just made me feel claustrophobic, anxious and stifled. However I am a maternal person, and have had a rewarding career working with children. I have been called eccentric, a free spirit, fiercely independent, odd but nice, a private person, strange,  creative, a loner, maybe a lesbian …… Although I never knew why I turned away from a 24/7  conventional marriage, it hasn’t been too big of a problem because it was simply not an option. I knew that I couldn’t possibly cope with the responsibility of children or marriage.

This is an example of my thinking – in school staff rooms many teachers and staff sit  down at lunchtime and open home made lunches – tuna salad, a  pesto pasta salad, red vegetables all cut up into little pieces because of their diet, a few favoured herbal teabags emerge from a hand bag, a home made slice of cake wrapped in tinfoil is joyfully opened….you get the picture. Throughout this I drink coffee from the coffee machine and a chocolate bar also from the machine, and look on in wonder. How can you possibly deliver all the pre prepared work needed to teach children every day, AND think far enough ahead to have a daily home made lunch which involves shopping, planning, time and effort? All of this was incomprehensible to me. Preparing short, medium and long term planning for each day at work took 100% of my thinking.

So, marriage and children as well? No way. I always felt a sense of difference and being ‘strange’ in comparison to my contempories, but never enough to be forced as a round peg into a square hole. And there are always independent and unique people around to make a connection with!

Thank you everyone – you are helping me a lot x

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[Scattybird]

lindsey3 – hello.

Your comment about viewing partners as ‘add-ons’ really struck a chord with me.  I think you are spot-on there. I never really thought about that before, but I often feel like I am watching aspects of my life going on, but they aren’t really part of ME. It’s a bit like acting in a scene of a play and then being allowed to get on with my life again.  There are many add-ons and these usually relate to people who aren’t on my wave length but with whom I have to have dealings.  People I meet that are similar to me don’t feel like add-ons.

I also agree about packed lunches….. How do they find the time?  Anytime I have been organised enough to do a packed lunch (not often), I usually forget I have it and find it in the fridge at work a week or so later! ….not to mention the wasted ingredients at home because they don’t get used again.

 

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[gianmaria]

Wow. this looks like a very interesting conversation.

And I topic I think a grat deal.

Are my duties as a father and a husband keeping me from reaching my potential?

Possibly. But to be honest, I think without a spouse my life would be now pretty much the same disaster in terms of PERSONAL accomplishments.

And  it would also be devoid of the happiness brought by my kids

I guess no one can really tell. Unless we could be shown in a Frank-Capra’s-movie- fashion what our lives would be if we were or weren’t married, we must accept the idea that we COULD be equally happy or even happier otherwise.

But that does not mean we must change our resolutions.

You think a family is a bad idea for you? that’s ok. Don’t feel challanged.

I don’t like the pressure a lot of people is put under: you should marry! you should have kids! As if this is the only important achievment one can dream of. I suppose women feel this a lot more, not because of biology, but just because society in general pushes that role-model.

 

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[blackdog]

@lindsey3 and @Scattybird

Both of your comments are striking a chord with me- seeing people as add ons, rather than an actual part of your life, and feeling like you are acting in play.

I can act like I am expected to act, like a caregiver and a cook and even a wife if I have to, but it’s really just an act. I don’t feel like I am any of those things. Even going back to when I was a teenager, I can remember when I had to help with the housework I would tie my hair up and wrap a kerchief around my head, grab some rubber gloves, and become a maid for the day. But as soon as the kerchief and gloves came off, I went back to being myself and messing up instead of cleaning up.

And if my husband didn’t make noise I would forget that he exists. Actually, I sometimes just tune out the noise too, until he comes looking for me to tell me that he’s been calling me. Every now and then I’ll think maybe I should go watch the game with him, or see if he wants to watch a movie, but then I just forget agian two seconds later and go on with whatever I am  doing.

I always felt bad about not making my own lunch more often, kicking myself for wasting money buying food when I had food at home that I could have used. But I never could plan ahead enough to buy the ingredients and make something with them. And when I did the stuff always sat in the fridge until it went bad.

Like when I was buying frozen burritos at the grocery store and decided that it would be better to make my own. It would be healthier that way, I could control the ingredients, and I could put more spices in them. And it would save time and trouble tool make it easier to get to work on time. I could make them all up on my day off and wrap them and freeze them and have lunch ready to go for the next two weeks…. Easy, right? I can remember coming up with this plan at least two or three times. And every time I bought the stuff to make them, threw it in the fridge  and forgot it  was there.

 

 

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[blackdog]

@lindsey3 and @Scattybird

Both of your comments are striking a chord with me- seeing people as add ons, rather than an actual part of your life, and feeling like you are acting in play.

I can act like I am expected to act, like a caregiver and a cook and even a wife if I have to, but it’s really just an act. I don’t feel like I am any of those things. Even going back to when I was a teenager, I can remember when I had to help with the housework I would tie my hair up and wrap a kerchief around my head, grab some rubber gloves, and become a maid for the day. But as soon as the kerchief and gloves came off, I went back to being myself and messing up instead of cleaning up.

And if my husband didn’t make noise I would forget that he exists. Actually, I sometimes just tune out the noise too, until he comes looking for me to tell me that he’s been calling me. Every now and then I’ll think maybe I should go watch the game with him, or see if he wants to watch a movie, but then I just forget agian two seconds later and go on with whatever I am  doing.

I always felt bad about not making my own lunch more often, kicking myself for wasting money buying food when I had food at home that I could have used. But I never could plan ahead enough to buy the ingredients and make something with them. And when I did the stuff always sat in the fridge until it went bad.

Like when I was buying frozen burritos at the grocery store and decided that it would be better to make my own. It would be healthier that way, I could control the ingredients, and I could put more spices in them. And it would save time and trouble tool make it easier to get to work on time. I could make them all up on my day off and wrap them and freeze them and have lunch ready to go for the next two weeks…. Easy, right? I can remember coming up with this plan at least two or three times. And every time I bought the stuff to make them, threw it in the fridge  and forgot it  was there.

 

 

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[Scattybird]

Hi gianmaria – you make some interesting points. I am glad your children have brought you a lot of happiness. They can be fun.

I wonder if female ADDers view this topic in the same way as male ADDers and whether there’s a difference between generations of men and women too?  So the older male ADDer might be looked after and organised by his spouse but a younger or more enlightened male (not that older men can’t be enlightened of course!) might be expected to pull his weight around the home more meaning that his ADHD might be more problematic because of shared responsibility?

I suspect we won’t find out here because folk who contribute to the forum are probably all enlightened and not of the dinosaur era.

blackdog – I don’t know why, but I now have a vision of your husband being like a  little incidental pet. You sometimes remember to give him a walk or feed him, but not always? 🙂 Actually I think it’s great that you have plenty to occupy your mind to an extent that you forget him. That’s healthier than being in each other’s pockets.

 

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[blackdog]

LOL Scattybird, you have no idea how close that description is. I can’t forget to feed him because he’s in my face complaining that he’s hungry all the time. My response is usually “so, what do you want me to do about it?”, but then I take pity on him and go help him find something to eat. I might even cook it for him on a good day. As for walking him, he’s usually happy to wander around Walmart while I wait for my prescriptions to be filled, and he gets a trip to Canadian Tire every now and then. He doesn’t really like going outside much.

Seriously, I agree it is good to have separate interests, spend time apart. And Lord knows I need to do something to keep my mind occupied. But it isn’t good that hours go by with no sign of him and I don’t even think to check and see if he’s still alive.

But I guess that isn’t really so unusual, when I think about it. Most couples spend their days apart and don’t  check on one another or think about each other constantly throughout the day. At least, I think they do. I really have no idea what a “normal” relationship is like.

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