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Mini Couples ep. 1: "I'm not your parent" and "why cant' you just relax"
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In these mini episodes we’ll explore common relationship conflict patterns that emerge within neurodivergent and neurotypical couples. These patterns tend to be more disruptive when ADHD is either undiagnosed or not understood.
In this first mini episode we'll look and the 'parent-child' dynamic that can emerge within a couple and how it can cause conflict and build resentment. As well as taking a quick look at 'weekend anxiety' that see's the neurodivergent partner trying to fill the 'free' time with tasks, activities, outings and projects. Often leaving their partner or family to clean up in the wake of the creative chaos and ungrounded energy.
Sound familiar? Then take a listen.
I'd love to hear your thoughts and stories. Reach out via email or socials
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Transcript
Introduction to Awaken ADHD Podcast
00:00:09
Speaker
You are listening to Awaken ADHD, a podcast where people share their ADHD stories, life before and after diagnosis, support strategies, strengths and challenges. Hi, I'm Jade and I'll be your host. I'm a counselor, ADHD coach and fellow ADHD-er. So join me as we Awaken ADHD.
00:00:33
Speaker
This podcast is recorded on the land of the Boonwurrung people of the Kulin nation, and we wish to acknowledge them as traditional owners. We recognise First Peoples of Australia as the original storytellers and pay our respects to elders past, present and emerging.
Conflict Patterns in Neurodivergent Relationships
00:00:54
Speaker
Hello and welcome to this mini episode of Awakened ADHD. In these little episodes I've decided to do, I'm going to focus on common conflict patterns that emerge within neurodivergent and neurotypical couples or even neurodivergent couples.
00:01:15
Speaker
These patents tend to be more disruptive when ADHD is either undiagnosed or not understood. Sometimes people have a diagnosis from early on in their childhood and they may no longer take medication or seek treatment for it, or even if they do, they may not be kind of in that
00:01:36
Speaker
deep dive into really understanding what it's about. It just is part of their identity, but that has some problems because if it's part of your identity as a child, then you're not really understanding how it's showing up as an adult and especially in your current adult relationship. I work with a lot of neurodivergent or neurospicy couples.
00:01:58
Speaker
And I just want to start with a couple of patterns that I notice. One of the patterns is the parent-child pattern. So the neurotypical can sometimes feel as though they are the parent to the neurodivergent partner, you know, picking up the slack, the life admin, the household organization, time management, and also
00:02:20
Speaker
you know, they're parenting in a sense of repeating themselves, reminding them of appointments, helping them find something they've lost. You know, somehow the keys ended up in the fridge. I swear I only did that once and I was pregnant at the time, so I should be let off the hook for that one. Anyway, the list goes on of things that a neurotypical partner can do and support of the neurodivergent, which feels like parenting.
00:02:47
Speaker
especially if, you know, the neurospicy partner is undiagnosed ADHD. The neurotypical partner may feel as though they're being taken advantage of or as if their partner's not pulling the weight or lazy or perhaps they just think they're generally incompetent. You know, my sister and I used to refer to our dad as the absent-minded professor. Speaking to the paradox of a very bright person being pretty rubbish at day-to-day tasks,
00:03:16
Speaker
He was and still is forever losing his keys and his wallet and forgetting to charge his phone and avoiding opening mail and running late for things and getting sidetracked. But if he was interested in a topic, you'd never hear the end of it. Sorry, Dad, if you're listening. And I remember early on in my relationship saying to my husband, you're not my father. Stop parenting me, which is kind of ironic seeing his dad never parented in that way. But
00:03:43
Speaker
It was mum's job and I remember mum being frustrated that she felt like she had another child to deal with. Now I know that I'm a bit rubbish at some adulting tasks, especially early on in the relationship.
00:03:58
Speaker
I arrived at the relationship with a giant garbage bag full of unopened mail, courtesy of my messy twenties, as I like to refer to them. But being unaware of my ADHD, which I don't think was diagnosed for another 13 years or so, I thought it was a learned anxiety of some kind from my dad, which I guess wasn't too far from the truth.
00:04:19
Speaker
Anyway, my very organised partner found my haphazard and half-assed approach to life admin really, really frustrating. So I guess he took the reins and I surrendered without much protest because paying bills just isn't my idea of fun. So this might be okay for a while. However, these tasks can often end up more often in the neurotypical partner's basket
00:04:47
Speaker
which can seem like they are laden with all of the boring tasks and that doesn't really feel fair. We need to find some workarounds to these potential conflicts that can arise from one person feeling like they're handed all of the boring finance or admin tasks and also feel like they're the one constantly repeating themselves. You forgot to do that. When were you going to do that? I feel like I'm nagging. Why didn't you pay that?
00:05:15
Speaker
whereas the so-and-so. Some of the work around for this kind of parent-child dynamic conflict cycle, firstly is self-awareness. If you don't know how ADHD is showing up in your relationships, then you can't change it. The more you know, the better chance you have of minimizing conflict and harm in the relationship. If working memory is causing conflict, then you can ask for post-it notes or text rather than verbal instructions.
00:05:43
Speaker
and even demonstrating initiative to find these workarounds yourself rather than the kind of hands up in the air. Oh well, I have ADHD. I can't remember. Too bad.
00:05:54
Speaker
is probably going to get you more compassion and support. You and your partner can also work as a team and find some hacks together. So you could write a list of general household tasks and then when you have free time, you could choose to do something off the list rather than having to either forget to do anything or ask your partner what needs to be done.
00:06:16
Speaker
I also list the family admin tasks and take over the ones that are going to work for you. So in regards to my family, I tend to opt for the communication and finance tasks that are more app-based and not consistent. And because they're sporadic and don't involve stamps, because in case you'll recall from previous podcasts, I don't really like post office or stamps or envelopes. Anyway, they often don't involve
00:06:44
Speaker
many phone calls and for me that means they're less likely to be avoided or forgotten. And when I was thinking about this topic I also noticed that there can be gendered differences that can have an even greater impact. So in heterosexual couples where the male partner has undiagnosed or not understood.
00:07:03
Speaker
ADHD. The parent-child pattern is often exacerbated, so a number of factors may be at play here. Often the women are caretakers or nurturers by nature, which also historically, they can carry more of the emotional load.
00:07:21
Speaker
Therefore, if we have a male partner that has surrendered some of these admin tasks, the female partner may become even more overloaded with the physical-emotional load of the relationship. Again, this is amplified when caring for children or elderly parents or even fur babies. Whereas the female partner has ADHD, which is in my relationship.
00:07:45
Speaker
they may be more inclined to take on the emotional labor, even when that increases stimulus overload. So for me, whilst some of the boring admin tasks are not there, or they're kind of handed to my husband, I tend to do all of the thinking and remembering and knowing where things are from the family, even though that's not my strength and can often be quite overloading and overwhelming for me.
00:08:15
Speaker
So knowing how to then share in the other direction the emotional weight of the family.
ADHD Traits in Daily Life
00:08:22
Speaker
Another factor that can lead to resentment and conflict is the cliched driven by a motor. You know, in the initial assessment, they're like, are you driven by a motor? Which nobody really understands at the time what it means. But basically, is that need to be on the go and busy all the time? And for a neurotypical,
00:08:44
Speaker
as far as I'm aware, from what I've heard, it's really quite overwhelming to have somebody that's constantly on the go, constantly moving, constantly doing things, especially when somebody wants to relax. And this often plays out in wanting to spend the weekends doing immune things, though, and they're often really not knowing what it is you want to do, or
00:09:10
Speaker
you know, how to even divide the time up. It's too open-ended. So often we'll get caught up in a new hyper-focus project and then we'll forget to stop and eat and breathe or take medication and work until we collapse.
00:09:25
Speaker
that can be really difficult for our family. So, there are two parts to that that are really difficult. The first part is not knowing what you want to do with your weekend, but feeling this innate drive to do something, to make it count, to make it worthwhile in the sense, I've got to do something, I've got to achieve something, I can't just waste time,
00:09:48
Speaker
This can overflow in the rest of the family who might just want to kind of mill around or just not do much on the weekend. And we've got this burning desire to achieve. However, it's not really directed anywhere in particular. And it leads to this kind of weekend anxiety.
00:10:04
Speaker
The other part of it is that hyper focus that I was talking about when you do get caught into a project and you're kind of unaware of anything else that needs to get done or unaware of how it's destructive. So recently I decided to finish a project that I started four years ago. I started painting the house, the exterior of the house, painted the front four years ago, finally decided that I have to paint the back of the house
00:10:31
Speaker
like right before I had a barbecue on the weekend. It was really hot one morning when I was kind of wanting to finish off this last corner of the house and I was in the sun. It was just really hot, really overwhelming. I was already physically exhausted from the days and days of painting and tidying the house and such.
00:10:52
Speaker
And then I was so tired and hot and thirsty and hungry that I just kept pushing myself and decided that instead of going and stopping and having a break, I needed to paint the fence as well, even though I didn't have paint for the fence. So I started mixing old paints together and then kind of slapped it onto the fence and paint was going everywhere and all the colors weren't mixed properly. And my kids came out and said,
00:11:22
Speaker
what on earth are you doing, mum? To which I said, I don't know, I've lost the plot. And then I called my husband, he was on his way home from somewhere and said, heads up, I have burnt myself out and been impulsive and kind of lost the plot. And now I've made a big mess and I need you to help me stop.
00:11:47
Speaker
So then he came home, he's like, it's all right, doesn't look as bad as you think it looks. I think it's just been kind and and helped me stop, even though that was hard because I'm like, just one more bit, just one more bit. And then I kind of cooled down and and just realized that the pattern and the cycle that I got myself into. And it was a bit heartbreaking when my daughter kind of came to me and said, Mom, it's really hard.
00:12:15
Speaker
when you do that to yourself, when you get caught in that, just have to keep going, just have to finish it. And then you're too tired for anything else and then you're cranky and then you snap at us. And that is true. When I get to those points of overloading myself and overstimulating myself and exhausting myself, I'm then very irritable as well. So just being mindful of that. And a few years ago, I wouldn't have even caught myself and said, hang on a minute, what you're doing is not
00:12:44
Speaker
is not okay, you need to stop. And then of course I kind of calmed down and had something to eat and had a drink and cooled down.
00:12:52
Speaker
And then I was able to kind of chat to the kids and apologize for losing the plot. And then we all went for a paddle board and it was beautiful. If I hadn't had the awareness and my family hadn't been supportive and had the awareness that it all could have been a lot messier. So some of the workarounds here, as I've mentioned, are self-awareness. When we talk about the first kind of weekend free day anxiety,
00:13:20
Speaker
We need to realize that weekends or free days can be too open-ended and the possibilities can become overwhelming and paralyzing. So you can try and maybe write a list of things you want to get done on the weekend. Something that feels fun, something that feels accomplished, time with your loved ones. And of course, if you're anything like me, you're probably not going to stick to writing down lists every weekend because that would be boring and too much for a routine.
00:13:49
Speaker
but you can utilize it when you are feeling overwhelmed or you know there's a lot to get done but don't know where to begin and really get your family on board with that strategy. So if they notice that you're anxious or that you're struggling to be settled on a weekend, that they can go, alright, what should we do? Let's make a bit of a plan. Also, if you have a menstrual cycle, it's a good idea to try and keep track of it.
00:14:15
Speaker
know when you're likely to be more agitated or anxious and really double down on your self-awareness and self-care and I guess advocating for yourself. Let your family know where you're at. Hormones and ADHD is something I will devote quite a bit of time to down the track but that's all for this mini session on couples.
Upcoming Topics Preview
00:14:40
Speaker
Next mini session I'm going to talk about missing bids for attention.
00:14:44
Speaker
at the phone as a fidget device and the why can't I just do that thing. So if you'd like to hear more or you'd like to share your story, whether it's your ADHD diagnosis story, your story of parenting or even your story of being in a neurodivergent, neurospicy couple,
00:15:07
Speaker
I'd love to hear from you so you can reach out on Awakenedhd.com.au. Until next time, stay in your spicy. This podcast is not a licensed mental health provider. It represents personal opinions and experiences of individuals. No content should be taken as professional advice or recommendation.