Help? Advice?

Hey all,

I was hoping the combined experience and knowledge of the people here might help me by offering advice.

First, I’m a man… who is married to a beautiful smart woman who I know has a big heart and cares deeply about a lot of things in life.

We’ve been married for about a decade and have some children.

Long ago she told me she had ADHD but didn’t really think it impacted her life or she felt she was able to manage it just fine. So, she is unmedicated for ADHD.

There is a lot of issues in our relationship, and i think deep down she knows she is the cause and reluctantly admits as much to friends but not to me.

I used to think her behavior stemmed around trauma and was some sort of PTSD that I just didn’t understand , but the more I have learned about ADHD, it all is starting to make sense.

Anyhow, let me describe my wife’s behaviors:

1. She seems to be normal with strangers or in public, but the “mask” generally drops at home or with close family. The mask dropping seems to mean she has way worse emotional regulation.

Her empathy for others is high and people come to her to confide and have a cry. However, I don’t seem to get that empathy. It’s as if she doesn’t care for me or care if I’m crying… and even early in marriage when she wanted me to give her kids, her behavior would wreck me and make me cry and she would belittle me for crying…. It was sort of a “how dare you make me feel bad by crying”… she kind of can’t admit to herself or me that she’s the problem.

1. She can be triggered easily . For example, painting a restroom wall with “eggshell white” and not “alabaster white” because eggshell was just supposed to be for the laundry room…. That is the sort of thing that might end up with her locking herself away for a day and me getting eyed with daggers of hate…. It’s never as simple as “that’s the wrong color, would you paint it again?”
2. Low intimacy engagement: like maybe not since dating does she ever initiate. Like not even a hug, or peck on the cheek, a passing pat on the back or tussle of the hair, or whatever. I’ve seen in this forum that a lot of adhd women have problems initiating… and so that helps me understand. I think after so many years (and now years of basically zero intimacy other than a kiss or two that I initiate), we’ve had a enough conflict that there way be some general animosity or disinterest too (which isn’t specially adhd).
3. Anyone here have ODD? I feel like my wife has some Oppositional Defiance disorder as part of her ADHD. I can tell her something, recommend some advice, tell her how something works and whatever it is… it’s like she wants the opposite thing. But it a stranger comes a long and then says the exact same thing she will think they are so smart and wise.
4. Fatigue and rage…. I’ve noticed my wife seems to have the most anger in the evenings. I knew before that she often didn’t want to talk and would be tired and irritable, and more consistently triggered with bigger displays of anger at night . Like, I think she gets tired of emotional regulation, and masking… she gets home and just lets it all out.

That’s all I got for now.

But I’m very tried to talk to her about doing some sort of ADHD meds…. But she really dislikes the idea because she already has so much trouble sleeping. She takes Gabapentin pretty regularly to quiet her brain to help her sleep. And she thinks adhd specific meds will make her sleep even
Worse

But the anger and irritability is a huge strain on our marriage and impacts our kids too.

I don’t know how much more co dependency I can do… I need something to change.

She has done some EMDR and found that to be helpful… and really needs to get back into that regularly. She also should really get a regularly exercise schedule… that helps her. Of course being regularly routine is hard for her to get started and keep. She’s not very organized … but when she can make a habit it’s very helpful.

Suggestions?