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Anonymous
Hello! My wife and I are finally facing the impact of my ADD head on and it feels fantastic.
It has taken a LONG time to get here, but we may finally be able to get off the roller coaster and that is good news for us.
This has been a long road fwiw, and not something we are going to fix over night.
A book that opened my eyes to better communication with my wife is Difficult Conversations: Discuss What Matters. 💡
http://www.amazon.com/Difficult-Conversations-Discuss-What-Matters/dp/014028852X
One of the biggest gains I made from reading this is learning to forget about Right and/or Wrong or at least being Right or Wrong.
We are all Right when we say something and we are all right when we interprete some thing someone else said, but it doesn’t mean we interpreted what they said the way they meant it and it doesn’t mean we did a great job telling our story so as to be interpreted the way we intended. We also assume we understand the intentions of others. These assumptions coupled with our beliefs and experience can lead to a conclusion that “I am right and they are wrong”, this closes doors and ends conversations. By changing the I’m right or wrong thoughts and asking questions to better understand the intentions of the other person, the conversation keeps going and we can learn something by being curious rather than shutting everything out by being upset.
It was also important for me that my wife understood that for what ever I brought to this, she has a part to play as well. There were things that she didn’t see or understand in the beginning and because she didn’t understand she closed those doors. It was very frustrating as the message was clearly “you are wrong” and I am not. At least that was my interpretation. In reality it was I don’t know what you want, I don’t know what to do, I don’t understand. Having the Difficult Conversations and openly talking without placing any blame, we have started moving forward. When I feel the blame-thrower warming up, I force myself to switch to figuring out what I’m not understanding and figure out how to ask questions to better understand why I feel I need to place blame on someone. They didn’t see a problem so let me understand why I do and what I can do to provide them with what they need to move forward as well.
Yesterday she went to her first visit with a psychologist, it went well and had lots of good things to say about the conversations and questions she was asked. She has 2 follow up dates booked and is excited to figure out more.
As for my parents (I’m 41), my mom reacted like I told her I had purple skin and green hair. Oh, really, well.
I was prepared. She’s a retired elementary school teacher, ADD in the 70’s and 80’s was considered by most to be a parenting issue. Not enough rules or boundaries at home results in this behaviour, period. She also was in denial about my dad and his issues. Again, he choses to be a hermit and not have any close friends. Armed with this site and a few books I’ll let her make up her own mind and ask lots of questions as we go.
Good Luck!
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