Question about my boyfriend (ADD)…

[starcat81]

Hello all. I’m writing about my boyfriend who was diagnosed last year with ADD. He’s 28. I, myself, have ADHD and was diagnosed in 2003 when I was 22. We’ve been together for 4 years and 8 months now.

Since we’ve been together, there have been a few instances of him talking/flirting with other girls. When we first got together, he was still talking to a couple of girls. Though not an issue as much when we were just dating, I found he was still talking to them after we were officially together. My gut led me to finding texts on his phone. I confronted him and he sent texts to them to tell them he was in a relationship now and didn’t want to talk to them anymore. There was no communication with them since then. I was using his computer one day and, again, my gut told me something was there. Sure enough there were pictures from two girls he used to talk to. One was just pics in lingerie, the other nude shots. I flipped. He deleted them all, saying he forgot they were on there. He also had a fairly good sized folder of porn. I don’t have an issue with that, really, because some of it we’d watch together, but he seemed to add to it a lot for a short period. A few months later, I was using his laptop and when I opened the browser, his email was still signed in. I was about to close it when my damn gut pinged again. There were emails to/from a girl from a BDSM site. He sent her a couple of pics of himself (nothing nude; just head shots) and there conversation was about what she’d do to him if they hooked up. This was the first time any communications were sexual in nature. I confronted him about it and he said it wasn’t anything he was serious about and removed himself from the site. Last year, he got a new phone and gave me his old one to use. As I was getting acquainted with my new toy, I came across texts to other girls. One was harmless, the other not so much. There was a question of her being up for phone sex later, comments on her body, and thanks for the pics she sent. I called him and was livid. This was by far the worst thing to me. I could almost overlook the texts and talk, but phone sex? No way. Shortly after this he started therapy and was given his diagnosis. Things were changing with us. He was more attentive, helpful, and doing better day-to-day thanks to his meds. He had more interest in me in the bedroom (our sex life was almost non-existent for over a year. I wanted it, he didn’t and it majorly affected my self-esteem). Things were going well until this New Year’s Eve. Prior to, he went out and stayed out two night in a row. This isn’t something he’d done before. I knew he was out with his friend the one night, but the second night he said I was getting him upset and needed to go somewhere. He said he was going to go to his mum’s and he’d wake me when he got home. I asked him about it the next day and he said he didn’t go to his mum’s but out drinking with some friends then to an all-night diner. He didn’t get in until after 7:00a and didn’t wake me. He slept in our guest room. We got into an argument and he said he wanted to end the relationship. I was crushed. I was trying to talk to him and he said he wanted to talk to a friend. I asked him who and he told me. It was a girl he knew from high school. She seemed harmless and I eventually gave in. I went to his aunt’s house that night for a NYE party (though I was in no mood to party). He talked to her and told me they went out with her sister and her sister’s boyfriend to a bar in town then crashed at her place because he was too drunk. He came back the next day and we smoothed things out. I figured that it was all over and done. I joked about my friend (who was at the party) said that he’d be my date for the night but he wouldn’t kiss me on the lips at midnight because he was as gay as them come. He laughed at that. I then asked if he kissed anyone at midnight and he said yes, that he kissed his friend but that it was just a friendly, hey-it’s-New-Years kiss. I was a little bothered (and had a slight gut ping) but I let it go. We were talking Monday night and I asked him if anything else happened with them that night. My ping was bothering me too much. He said yes. They slept together. I was shattered. He said that we was so drunk that he doesn’t know how it started, but it did. He considered us done that night. We had a long argument/discussion and he was in tears and apologizing for everything from the beginning to that night. I asked him to cut ties with her (I swore I’d never do that, but this was reasonable exception). He did. He unfriended her on Facebook and texted her to tell her I knew and it was best to not talk anymore. That night, we were in bed and talking. He suddenly broke into tears and said, “What’s wrong with me? I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

Because he was honest with me – no matter how much it hurt me – and apologized so sincerely and emotionally, I forgave him. I told him that I forgave him for everything. It did me no good to hold onto it and was unfair to him that I’d use the past in arguments. I forgave this last instance even though it was the worst thing that could have happened because we were technically broken up. It still hurts and I haven’t totally forgotten (it’s only been 3 days), but it really seems to have hit a nerve in him that he did what he did – both the break-up and the sex.

My question in this long-winded tale is this: Do these actions relate to his ADD? Is this something he can get control of? He was also diagnosed with depression with the ADD. He was molested as a child and I also wonder if these issues together are at the root. He’s going to get back into therapy because he wants to get himself to a better place and stop doing things that hurt him, me, and our relationship.

REPORT ABUSE

[anniea]

Glad to hear he is going back to therapy, I think we all can profit from talking to a neutral third party. As I was telling my daughter over Christmas…. humans are the only ones that don’t follow our danger instict… we second guess ourselves WAAY too much. Our guts tell us many things we just have to KNOW that we KNOW…you know??

When enough is enough…listen..you KNOW.. what you KNOW and YOU KNOW when enough is enough..listen and do what YOU have to do to stay SAFE and SANE…period.. ADD or no ADD.

REPORT ABUSE

[kc5jck]

Reminds me of Eagerhelper. Read her story at http://totallyadd.com/forum/topic.php?id=2127 It seems she is having a happy ending to her story.

I’m sure others will chime in with their take on your tale. I’m just not the one to comment on this one. It’s a good site and glad to have you as a member.

REPORT ABUSE

[billd]

Check the list of pratfalls, symptoms, whatever you want to call it for ADHD – ADDICTIONS are one of the biggies that most experts agree will be on the short list of many many folks with ADHD.

And among those addictions most commonly listed? SEX.

And for men, pictures and talk can be stimulating. Some docs call it “self-medicating”. The stimulating effects release chemicals in the brain that are like a medicine, like a stimulant med. I dunno how to explain it well other than it’s sort of like if your toe hurts bad, you’ve noticed some folks will bite their thumb? The toe no longer hurts so bad……..

For me, the addictions are soda/pop/cola, chocolate, or can be anything with strong flavor. I go through anywhere from 2 or 3 to 6 cans of soda a day, plus coffee, flavored water, whatever. Yes, I am indeed addicted, and I get a bit goofy and anxious feeling if I try to not have a couple cans of soda – even DECAF makes me feel good now!

HOWEVER, I also am one who could find myself in a situation of thatr “other” addiction if I let it happen. Frankly, I believe that I’m at a place where I’d be more resistant to becoming so addicted with the meds I’m on for ADHD – that’s one of the things it’s controlling just a bit.

Sort of funny, my first wife and I, well, she wasn’t ADD/ADHD, but, well, any excuse, any place, at the drop of a hat which matched my ADHD “desires” very well. Then we divorced and I started dating again…… and got married again, and it lasted just weeks. Funny, as after #2 and I divorced (she was a bit crazy, I found papers in her stuff as I helped her carry things out showing that the very week we got married, she’d bought a house in another city and was kind of creepy and a bit off in a few ways) -I started dating again, and my 2nd ex found out who I was dating and wrote her a letter attempting to scare her away from me, telling her that I was, well, addicted……. anyway, the letter didn’t work.

#3 and I will celebrate 23 years this weekend. in MY case, I’d read enough, learned enough, I learned to recognize some of those things about me, and it’s oddly enough, one of those things about the ADHD and myself that I CAN control therough logic and will-power at most times, so she’s not got to worry. I’ve put sort of a control on the computer if you want to call it that, by literally teaching her everything about it, having her do email, pictures and documents and knowing where and what everything is on the computer.

Anyway, again, the med stuff wears off about 5 or 6 pm, and it’s almost 10 here so the posts are growing long again……. ahem….. that’s a long way to say – addictions are not unexpected with ADHD, and among those addictions – yup.

I’m not a doctor, but having lived nearly 55 years with this stuff – in MY personal opinion as one who’s been there, done that, and knows how life with ADHD can be, the addictions, the needs/wants/desires, my first instinct is that he’s ADD, and he has addictions, that he’s “addicted to sex”, even if it’s just talk and pictures, (for a male, that can be a big deal) and needs help, and may actually want help. That’s the first step – and usually the hardest.

REPORT ABUSE

[starcat81]

Thanks for the replies.

I read through Eagerhelper’s post. I know sex addiction can be a part of this. I went through it through my early 20’s as did my boyfriend. The only thing that really put the brakes on for me was that I gained weight and didn’t feel very confident anymore. It’s still an issue now. I was already quite overweight when I started to take care of my mum last year (she had a form of Parkinson’s) and I ballooned another 25-30 lbs. over the time I was watching her. I also have back issues (bulging discs, one putting pressure on my sciatic nerve). Between those issues, sex is sometimes the last thing on my mind because I don’t feel sexy.

I guess I have a bit of a male mind because I also like talking, pictures, videos, but I also have times where I want candles and stuff. I have my own little collection of magazines and videos. I can understand how one can get addicted to it. I haven’t gotten that bad. My addictions are pleasure-related, though: shopping (retail therapy!), food (when you’re happy, when you’re sad, because nothing is on TV, …), drinking (I never get trashed, through I can drink a lot), smoking occasionally (I know it’s bad and all that but it honestly helps me think…or at least it seems to… this isn’t about me!). I find that I can control one and the others can go haywire. I stopped drinking for a time and that’s when I started smoking. Transference. Isn’t it a lovely thing?

Since I forgave him of all of it, I feel lighter and I feel more into him. I don’t know how it makes sense but that’s how it’s been the past few days. I guess I’m ready to make a new start of it. We have nearly 5 years behind us. You can’t forget that in a couple of days.

REPORT ABUSE

[kc5jck]

The forgivness thing makes a lot of sense. Carrying aroung a lot of hurt, resentment, and desire to “get even” is not good for a person. Forgive the person who has wronged you and let it go whether the offending person deserves forgiveness or has apologized or not. You will be the one better off for it.

Somewhere I saw, “Forgive your enemies, it will mess with their mind.”

REPORT ABUSE

[starcat81]

I have felt much better since I forgave him. And I’m trying to fully trust him because I forgave him. He knows how much it all hurt me and apologized for it. I’m looking at this year as a bit of a fresh start. I’m making steps to better myself and he’s getting back to therapy so hopefully we can grow together. I think that I wouldn’t have been as forgiving if I didn’t know or have ADD or this history. My best friend said we need to stop using ADD as an excuse and that really hurt.

REPORT ABUSE

[Anonymous]

Wow. Reading this story, I actually had to scroll to the the top to check the date and see if this was posted by some former account I’d created years ago and forgotten about… Because everything you described — from the tragic childhood experiences of your bf to the behaviour patterns prior to NYE — are moments I experienced with my ex nearly ten years ago.

It took a lot of hurt, and a lot of dealing with my own low self esteem (this was before my treatment days for ADD) — before I finally stopped accepting his tearful apologies and ended the romantic aspects of our relationship for good. Yes, I understood there were reasons for his hurtful behaviour, but that didn’t mean that I deserved the pain. And I realized that the paranoia, distrust and negativity I was developing as a result of his repeated misconducts was making me less of a person than I wanted to be.

Of course, I continued to encourage him to seek professoinal support and tried to be his friend, but inevitably, we eventually stopped talking altogether.

I’ve never regretted that decision to look after myself. After some time on my own, concentrating on being true to myself and growing into the woman I want to be, I met the man I would marry. A man whose presence and behaviour naturally makes me feel even more like the kind of person I want to be.

We all have problems, but like me, my husband works hard to ensure that his personal issues, hurts, and life challenges have as little negative impact as possible on the wellbeing of the people around him.

It sounds like you do a good job of striving to do that too. I hope you’ll find the courage to find someone who does the same.

REPORT ABUSE

[Anonymous]

If makes you feel better, you helped me. There are times I wish I was in a relationship, but I honestly have enough drama in my life as it is. Once I get my life on track, I’ll start looking actively.

REPORT ABUSE

[starcat81]

I’m sorry you went through this, too. Right now, I’m trying to put myself first (or at least in the top 3). I’ve been below everyone and everything for too long. I love him so very much, but I told him I can’t be hurt again. I am putting this ball in his corner. He knows how I feel and how much I hurt. I’m hoping this relationship lasts because he’s my best friend and lover and I can’t imagine my life without himor his family. We had so many good times and that’s what I want to focus on. That and the future. I’m just going to take it all one day at a time.

REPORT ABUSE

[Anonymous]

I wish you both success.

REPORT ABUSE

[Author]

Posts