ADHD + relationships: why does not seeing my boyfriend feel like rejection?

23F with ADHD, on long-acting meds. I function pretty well and work 32 hours a week. I’ve been with my boyfriend for about 3 months and I genuinely love him. He’s sweet, affectionate, calls almost every day, and we’re great together.

But I’m starting to wonder if my ADHD brain is messing with my sense of what’s normal in a relationship.

Our schedules are difficult. I work Mon–Thurs. He studies part-time, works, and plays a sport at a high level, so several evenings and Saturdays are taken up. He recently got a new job and now also works one weekend day.

I KNOW he’s allowed to work, play sports and see friends. I want him to have his own life. But I organise mine around the possibility of seeing him.

If friends ask when I’m free, I almost never say Wednesday because “what if he wants to see me?” Sometimes I keep my weekend open too. Meanwhile I’m often the one asking, “So when do I get to see you again?”

He says he misses me, but doesn’t seem to plan ahead the way I do.

There’s also the drinking. His sport has a heavy drinking culture and he sometimes gets VERY drunk after matches/training. I drink too, but it bothers me because it affects our already limited time together.

A couple weeks ago we had Friday plans. He got wasted Thursday, then Friday changed because he had to take his dad to the hospital. Obviously I understood that. What hurt was that he knew it was coming and hadn’t told me, so I’d spent the week getting excited.

He said: “I’ll make it up to you Sunday.”

So my brain went: okay. Sunday is our day.

Saturday he had a match, got smashed afterwards, and Sunday had a huge hangover. Then he asked ME what we were doing. I was way more upset than I expected because Sunday had become this big promised thing in my head.

This week is similar. We only saw each other Wednesday. He said he can come over Sunday after work, after 10pm. I know I should be happy he wants to come, but part of me thinks: why not tonight? Why does seeing me always seem to get squeezed into whatever tiny bit of time is left?

I also have a higher sex drive, which makes this feel weird. We often sleep together after his training without even having sex, and I genuinely love that. I just want him there. But if the only time he can come is late at night after work, after barely seeing each other all week, my brain starts making it feel like a booty call. Like he’s coming because there happens to be a gap, rather than because he wants actual time with me.

And I KNOW that’s probably not how he means it.

I get embarrassingly sad when I can’t see him. Part of me wants to text “can’t you just come tonight?” Another part wants to say nothing all day so he notices I’m upset. I know that’s passive-aggressive/toxic and I don’t want to be that person.

I also wonder if hormones make this worse. Earlier this week I felt amazing, almost euphoric, and now I feel ridiculously low and rejected. I can’t tell if this is ADHD/RSD, emotional dysregulation, hormones, attachment stuff, or all of them teaming up against me.

So how do you tell the difference between “my ADHD is making this feel 10x worse” and “this is actually a reasonable relationship need”?

I don’t want him to organise his whole life around me. But wanting him to initiate plans, communicate changes earlier, and make actual time for us instead of fitting me into leftover gaps feels… reasonable?

Please tell me I’m not the only one whose brain does this 😭