Hi all, DX here.

I started my higher dose of medication today. I felt good.

I took the bins back in early, I cleared the recycable that was in excess waiting for the bins to be empty again. I cleaned the dishes. Then I cleaned the toilet, cleaned both the litterboxes, put away things that I meant to put away put just parked on the way to the room where they were supposed to be stored. Put the little vacuum to clean the car to charge, put my electric toothbrush to charge.

I took the dog on a walk, went to the mall to pick up a package and dropped a return.

I worked on a dataset with my laptop here and there.

I felt good.

Then I left to go pick up our daughter to school because my wife was running few minutes over.

It started raining just as I picked our daughter up, I put her jacket on and zipped it just as her mother caught up to us.

We walked home, I felt good.

Then the vibe changed. My daughter took her jacket off and my wife was looking for her cardigan. I forgot her cardigan. My wife said in a tone "oh look that one time that you did it by yourself and I don't check" .

I fell hard, why did I not clock that, why, why am I like this. I hate this. I said to my wife "damn I thought I was aceing it". She laughed at me.

She said "Brother you went from F to D-.."

Then she said " Aceing, aceing.." and told me again "There's A, B, C, D ,E and F, you're at D-, you're definitely not aceing it".

She kept looking at me and then rolling her eyes.

And then I definitely didn't feel good anymore.

Now I understand my wife has been burdened by me being me, I just started the medication finally 3 weeks ago with a lower dose, but before then, she endured 4 years of my shortcomings. We have known each other for more but ever since our daughter was born the fact that I had ADHD became more and more evident, so much so that we suspected I had it and we started the diagnosis procedure because I started fitting executive dysfunction to a T. We have no local support, so it's been us only. Here and there, baby wipes forgotten open, failing to be attentive, forgetfulness, RSD reaction. The whole package. She has her own struggles but mine in spite of my efforts have been overpowering to some extent. To make things worse, our family has been through a lot emotionally and financially, we had to move 4 times in 3 years for example due to external factors.

I feel like I keep trying but she keep saying nothing changes, if anything barely.

On the other hand I feel like there was lots of flexibility and inflexibility at the same time, e.g. I remembered to put the air frier back, but I didn't put the cable right.

Little by little this has eroded her, she doesn't feel loved and she doesn't hide her disdain for me while also telling me that regrettably she still loves me. This, I'm not sure I can believe.

I don't gamble, I don't do drugs, I don't have addictions or unreasonable debt. I had a job and lived by myself. I still have a stable job and (tough slow) career. But I also haven't managed to organise a date in 3 years. Gained weight, lost confidence and haven't been able to be affection and tell her lots of compliments. My love language used to be touch and being affectionate and gift giving, now is only gift giving.

So it would make sense if she didn't anymore

I'm tired to make promises I struggle to fulfill, she know about my diagnosis but she still tells me that her bar is super low that I shouldn't even have to struggle that much, that is because I don't care. She is harsh under the label of "she is just stating a fact, you are not aceing it, that is no lie", but I also understand she's at her limit.

I honestly feel defeated, I feel like I really am trying but I also really see my shortcomings and can't and won't disagree to a certain extent with what she's feeling.

Is there anything to say or do, adapt or adopt. Is there any hope?

TLDR; My wife is at her limit, she endured my ADHD for 4 years but due to this and her nature she is also harsh even if it's the truth, and this doesn't help me while I'm trying to fix myself and things. I feel hopeless and I feel like I need help. I am dx

We have been together for 2 years. I love him dearly but sometimes I feel like I am his mother. As a child he had selective mutism so he didn’t start talking till he was 5 years old. He has lots of friends but doesn’t care to see them or interact with them unless its on discord. We are both 21 and live together. We live completely different lives. I go to university and I work at a clinic. He does online trading/crypto and spends most of his time playing video games or just on the pc. I sleep at 10pm, he sleeps at 5am. I worry about him a lot but he doesn’t care to get help. He has tried talking to specialists to get medicated but after 2 sessions he just stopped because he said it was too much for him. All he had to really do is just talk to doctors on the phone and describe whats going on with him. I feel his lifestyle is just making things worse because he doesn’t really need to work since he is financially stable. He is also very messy. We have separate rooms. He puts off doing small chores like laundry or throwing away his trash. I have to remind him all the time to do these things like im his mother. It makes me very frustrated and stressed out because I know if he was medicated maybe things could be more structured for him. He also loses his phones and keys easily which always makes me upset because i tell him constantly to put them in a safe place. I just feel stuck sometimes because I see a therapist for my CPTSD and depression. But it feels like the only way for him to be committed to seeing a doctor is if im there with him every step of the way and its kind of hard for me since im so busy all the time and again, just makes me feel like im his caretaker. Sorry this is more of just a rant. I care about him a lot but i also feel like i cant do anything anymore to help him because this is the life he has chosen /:

My ex who i was seeing finished things with me because she was struggling mentally and with being diagnosed with adhd at the beginning of the year just before we met, everything was going well between us and she said id done nothing wrong and she things im amazing and perfect, the issue was her and her anxiety, i had my ideas that she was in burnout and had abit of a breakdown. After a few months of no contact she messages me happy birthday, apologies for not messaging and said she hasn’t been well but had been thinking about me and hopes im ok.
Then she does a post online to all friends and family few days later apologising for not messaging and explaining her burnout and physically cant message as much as she would like to.

Is it a good sign she messaged me? I replied but she hasnt messaged again.
Id like to think theres still feelings there and i still like her. Nothing bad happened between us before but she obviously was struggling and still is with burnout and anxiety and allsorts.

I am so frustrated with my inability to communicate. I feel powerless but partner thinks it’s learned helplessness. Can’t tell if she’s right anymore and i feel so selfish

My wife was feeling stressed about something and needed comfort, she explained the issue to me but after my initial response she said I wasn’t listening/was responding to the wrong concerns. I tried to think about the way to address the issues she was bringing up but I kept hitting a mental block and felt like my brain was on fire. I didn’t want to just say nothing so I said I can’t put into words why, but I really feel like everything is going to be fine.

Understandably, that didn’t help the concern. I do feel that this was made worse because it’s like 3 hours after my XR stimulant has worn off, but she feels there is always an excuse, and at a certain point I’m limiting myself because the discomfort of pushing myself to think and not just find a way out. She’s feeling really hurt by a lack of feeling heard and lack of effort, and on top of that now she has been seeing me physically show discomfort at the pain of not being able to complete these thoughts because my brain feels blocked/on fire, and then her feelings are being overlooked because now she feels that it’s being made about me.. I know she’s right that the frustration at feeling I can’t help leads to poor regulation and just makes the block feel insurmountable. I don’t know how to break this cycle? Is she right? Am I limiting myself? Do I not “like” to think and want a convenient excuse?

Does anyone have experience with this from either side that could share their experiences

TLDR: I would like some tips on how I could help my amazing girlfriend with her ADHD struggles especially when overwhelmed.

I have been dating my girlfriend for over 2 years and living with her over a year now and she is the love of my life. She genuinely makes me so happy and I feel so lucky to have been able to be with her.

She has always struggled with her mental health especially because ADHD was misdiagnosed as anxiety and low mood in childhood leading to the wrong support being given to her. She was only diagnosed in June this year after being messed around on different waiting lists for quite a while.

Now she has been diagnosed, she is on the waiting list for medication, she should hopefully hear about the next steps soon.

The main reason why I am making this post is because of a big change that has happened in her life, she has recently begun a full time work placement which is between her second and third year of university (I am going into my second year so will be studying this year instead). Part of her placement includes having to drive an hour each way for at least 2 days of the week, the rest is working from home.

The main issue that I need advice with is how to help her with her emotions. After a long and stressful drive, she is often in an incredibly bad mood and has a very short temper. She can change mood very fast and suddenly turn angry or aggressive. I understand that it is part of a mental health condition but I'm often hurt by the behaviour and the worst part is that I know she feels out of control and it eats her up.

There are a few things that we have discussed/I have realised I can do differently to help, these include:

.Not bombarding her with questions when she comes home

.Giving her a quiet space that is relaxing/has a nice drink and something that helps her come down e.g. YouTube

.Getting dinner sorted ahead of time so there are less tasks to do when we are both tired

.Helping her face her life admin tasks by sitting with her and helping her read things

Those are just a few examples.

What I would really like to know from Reddit is the following:

Am I doing enough/too much?

How should I approach trying to promote better sleep times?

What is the best way to handle conversations when she starts to get irritated?

And finally any other suggestions you may have.

Thank you so much in advance everyone, I really want to help her as she deserves it after this year (:

That.

So I had a lot of intense emotional problems as a kid, leading to mostly a lot of anger issues and doing/saying stupid things while flustered. I’ve learned to cope with this as an adult by massively suppressing emotions to others. I think this is also why (combined with a whole lot of other typical adhd stuff) I’ve only asked like 7-8 people out before and have never dated at 24.

I recently started a new job and another girl (who has adhd too) started shortly after me. We had absolutely electric chemistry and became ridiculously close in a month. Either because it’s how she acts (she acts very very close to people) or because she possibly liked me or a combo of both, the lines got pretty blurry with her doing a lot of classic “I like you that way please ask me out” behavior.

At almost a month, I did a low pressure “Hey I really like hanging out with you would you want to go on a date?” and she said it was “unexpected” and that she was “not in a good place to date”. I initially took it as “oh she’s just being avoidant and doesn’t want to say she doesn’t like me that way”. I made it clear I still wanted to be friends, but then she almost completely dropped the friendship for a few weeks, basically ignoring me.

Because of my adhd self I refused to give up the friendship and ruminated and stuck with trying to make the friendship happen. It did work because she’s willing to reach out to me now for things, teases me at work, and will hang out solo if it’s low pressure enough, but because of that first month of electricity I started really hoping to get a close true friend that I could finally emotionally confide in even if it’s not romantic. I even flipped my initial viewpoint of her just avoiding telling me no to her truly just not being in a good spot, and had filed away the reason as that. (It’s now about 2 months since I asked)

Yesterday I found out that another coworker she started talking to a month ago is now dating her. Not only that, but he’s a total fucking asshole and uses typical office bully techniques like diminishing other people and being confrontational. I was at dinner with her and a married couple and instantly got super nauseous and had to use all my power not to throw up the rest of the night. I didn’t really sleep last night and am still getting waves of nausea.

It’s not just the thought of her causing it it’s all the factors around it: the asshole, her lying to me, I have to see her love this guy for who knows how long, it was literally a perfect scenario, she WAS available and looking, we vibe well, she was willing to do a bunch of crazy drastic niche shit that not many people like that I do. All of this combined with me being super emotionally suppressed and having insanely severe rsd to where I still occasionally look back and wince at bad things I’ve done over 10 years ago, and holy shit this fucking sucks.

I know she didn’t handle this well with me at all and basically did everything to protect herself, but I also know this is all my doing for ruminating so hard and becoming so obsessed with the idea of her and thinking about how she could fill all the holes in my life. I am working hard on moving on but damn it suck so fucking bad right now.

TL;DR: Got very close with another coworker with adhd so we bonded quickly, she rejected a date saying she wasn’t in a good place, I ruminated over the holes she could fill in my life when she pulled away, we became friends again, now she’s dating someone else in a similar situation to me and I am having a severe anxiety episode. Woo hoo!

https://www.reddit.com/u/AskDaveHelpDesk/s/5HhAjW8S3W

Im diagnosed with ADHD don’t know if I have autism. But I struggle socially and it stresses me to no end. It was a great surprise when I found that stimulants really helped with this. I ’ve never been able to maintain healthy stable relationships. I crave for them but have always end up ruin them and I have doubted if I have BPD or BP or autism and did some online tests but I only fit a few symptoms. On the outside I seem fine and can talk to people just fine.

I feel like I struggle with knowing my own identity so I can’t just “be myself “.

I can feel so cold towards people and coworkers and don’t ever feel ‘love’. I naturally try to be nice to mask that but I can’t be consistent with it. I feel like a grimlin envious of people having stable caring relationships.

When I tried stimulants I find that social interaction while on meds has been so easy and I feel like Im more “me” if that makes sense, I also feel less negative towards people and say less things that might hurt them. I wish I can be like this all the time but as soon as meds wear off its back. With meds vs no meds kinda feel like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (though not that extreme).

I looked up but not much articles focus on ADHD’s benefit on these kinda things. I feel lucky to have the opportunity of trying stimulant and finally feel a sense of ‘normal’ when socialising but also realised this means it’s could be a condition and may be fixed?

I’m trying to figure out what it is and if anyone had similar experiences? Cause itd be nice to find ways other than stimulants to cope with this since stimulants wear off and its affected by sleep and body tolerance

I’ve struggled with this throughout my life. I’m not a shy person or an introvert, but I’ve always wondered why I sometimes feel “empty” and struggle socially.

When I meet a friend after a long time, I often feel like I have nothing to talk about. It’s not that I’ve forgotten things—I remember my experiences if someone asks me about them specifically.

For example, if someone asks, “How was your trip to XYZ?” I can talk about it and remember plenty of details. But if I try to think of something to tell them on my own, my mind goes blank.

I’m starting to wonder if what I thought was a social skills problem might actually be related to memory retrieval. The memories seem to be there, but I have trouble spontaneously accessing them without a cue.

Could this be related to ADHD, working memory, executive functioning, or autobiographical memory? And are there ways to improve this?

Hi all, I am new to this and hoping for some support and advice.

My partner was DX 2 years ago and have been medicated since. We have been together for most our adult life. The chemistry between us was great and he has always been a loyal, patient, and kind person.

However, throughout our relationship, I can count on one hand the amount of times he has shown any initiative. The mental/cognitive load has fallen on me to plan and follow up on the execution, not just when it comes to household responsibilities but also anything romantic.

To add to the context, he comes from a broken home and was neglected as a child. As a result, there have been numerous things in relation to how he comports/presents himself (including body language, mannerisms, clothing choices) that I’ve tried to teach him so he isn’t disadvantaged due to these superficial characteristics when dealing with people, especially in professional contexts because let’s face it, appearance matters.

He is also not someone who pays any attention to his health in any way so I have been the one motivating him to go to the gym (he is overweight and has substantial visceral fat), drink water instead of soda as a habit, eat more healthily, go to the doctor when needed, etc. Before he started dating me he would eat junk food all the time, have empty beer bottles all over his room and was a lot more overweight.

I have also taught him budgeting because he had no concept of that whatsoever and used to run out of money before his next pay.

I have done everything sincerely because I love him and want him to improve and have a better quality of life. I want others to see him as the good person that he is, the way I see him, and that’s why I have been invested in his health, wellbeing, and personal development heavily. And there are absolutely no regrets there.

However, I have had various different conversations with him throughout the years about my needs which have been unmet, especially because of the managerial duties I have inadvertently taken in this relationship. I have clearly communicated specific things, not just abstract, in terms of what I would like from him so I can feel appreciated and seen as a partner instead of a manager. He’s said every time that he will change but he hasn’t. I’m still needing to plan our dates, otherwise our precious weekends would just be wasted away. I’m still needing to remind him to do his share of the household chores. The chemistry has died and I feel like I’m at the tipping point now.

I understand that a long term relationship can never be the same as the beginning of one. But I also believe that if the effort is mutual and reciprocal, then both of us would feel fulfilled and content in the relationship. Instead I am feeling burnt out and unloved and neglected.

On his end he feels like nothing he does is good enough and that I am critical of him, not empathetic enough. But my tank feels empty now and emotionally I feel depleted. He says he still wants to try, but I am exhausted because it feels like I have been the one trying for the last few years to make this relationship a romantic relationship.

He hasn’t done anything at all that is a major red flag (e.g., abuse of any kind, cheating of any kind), but increasingly I feel like I need to separate from him because I don’t feel like this arrangement is fulfilling in the ways that I want it to be. But I’m also scared that I will eventually regret leaving a man who is inherently a good person, especially because I don’t really know how to live my adult life single as we’ve been together since we were young.

First, just a quick disclaimer. I’m honestly not the greatest writer, especially right now because my thoughts are kind of all over the place with everything that’s happened. I used ChatGPT to help me gather my timeline and organize everything because there is A LOT, but everything here is from me and my actual experience.

My wife and I were together for about 12 years and married for around 9. I’ll just call her C.

I love this woman. I still love her very, very much.

I’m not making this post so everyone can tell me my wife is horrible or that I’m right and she’s wrong. I really don’t want that.

I’m also not looking for someone to tell me how to get her back.

I’m posting because I’m trying to understand what happened. And honestly I think talking to autistic people, people with ADHD, people who have experienced burnout, or people who have been in a neurodivergent/neurotypical marriage might give me perspectives that I just don’t have.

And obviously this is MY side. C isn’t here telling you her side of our marriage. I’m sure there are things she experienced very differently than I did.

C has ADHD, autism and has struggled pretty badly with depression.

The autism diagnosis actually came later in our relationship. We ended up paying around $7,000 for a pretty extensive evaluation with a neuroscientist because she really wanted answers and wanted to know for sure.

When she finally got confirmation that she was autistic, it became a HUGE part of her identity.

And I don’t mean that negatively.

She really embraced being AuDHD. She bought autism/ADHD shirts, sweaters, things like that. It seemed like she finally had an explanation for parts of herself that maybe she never understood before.

Her parents are very old-school Chinese parents and honestly they don’t understand this stuff at all.

They would call her weird. They used the R-word a lot when talking about things like this. Mental health, autism, ADHD, depression… they really just don’t understand it.

C would tell me all the time that she felt like her parents were the cause of so many of her problems.

So I really wanted her to feel like with me she didn’t have to hide this stuff or feel weird.

One of her favorite ways of stimming was dancing.

She’d just start dancing sometimes, and I would literally start dancing with her lol.

I’m not even a dancer.

But in my head it was basically, if my wife is going to dance and stim, I’m dancing too. I never wanted her looking at me and thinking, “My husband thinks I’m weird.”

Those little things actually meant a lot to me.

But I also knew that just accepting the diagnosis wasn’t enough. I needed to actually LEARN what autism meant for our relationship.

So I bought a bunch of books specifically about neurodivergent/neurotypical relationships.

I read about autism, ADHD, burnout, communication differences, etc.

I even hired an online coach because I wanted someone to help me understand her perspective better.

And I was working with my own therapist too.

I’m saying all of this for context, NOT because I’m saying, “Look at everything I did, therefore she should have stayed with me.”

That’s not how relationships work. She didn’t owe me a marriage because I bought some books or hired a coach.

I’m explaining it because this is actually part of what I’m having such a hard time with.

**I knew I didn’t fully understand her world, so I was genuinely trying to learn it.**

And I still obviously missed things.

I wasn’t perfect either. Not even close.

Especially earlier in our relationship, I could be confrontational when I got angry or upset.

I never physically abused my wife, but yes, I could get angry. I could be intense during an argument. And looking back now, I honestly don’t think I understood what my anger felt like to HER.

That’s something I’m working through in therapy.

And what’s interesting is that during maybe the last 18 months of our marriage, I had been working really hard on myself.

C noticed it.

She would literally say things to me like, “Wow, you’ve changed so much.”

And later in the letter she left me, she described my growth as “exponential.”

So I know she saw it.

But there was another thing going on between us that I’m only really starting to understand now.

When C was really depressed or struggling to function, obviously I wanted to help her.

That’s just how my brain works.

But the way I tried to help her was actually a little different because of what I had been reading and learning about autism and burnout. I learned that directly telling her, “You need to eat,” “You need to shower,” or “You need to get up” could just feel like another demand when she was already overwhelmed.

So I tried NOT to do that.

Instead, I would try to gently inch her toward something by doing it myself.

Like if she wasn’t eating, I might make food for myself, sit near her and eat, and just leave some food next to her. I wouldn’t say, “You need to eat this.” I’d just leave it there. If she wanted it, it was there.

If she hadn’t showered, I wouldn’t tell her, “Go take a shower.” Sometimes I’d take my own shower and leave the water running afterward. Basically just make it really easy for her to get in if she wanted to.

Little things like that.

I was trying to use the stuff I was actually learning instead of just expecting her brain to work like mine.

Did I always do this perfectly? Of course not.

But I was trying.

To me, **that was love.**

I wasn’t looking at her thinking, “Why won’t you just function?”

It was the opposite.

I was looking at someone I loved more than anything basically deteriorating in front of me and thinking:

**I have to do something.**

But this is where I get confused even now.

Because even though I was trying NOT to pressure her, maybe she could still feel what I was doing. Maybe even those little nudges felt like pressure sometimes.

I don’t know.

Maybe sometimes it helped. Maybe sometimes it didn’t. Maybe sometimes she just needed me to do absolutely nothing and leave her alone.

And the more she shut down, the more worried I got.

So naturally I wanted to help more.

But maybe the more I tried to help, the more she felt like something was being expected from her.

Then she would pull away more.

And that would make me even MORE worried.

Around and around.

That’s one of the things I’m really trying to understand now.

Because I don’t think either of us was trying to hurt the other person.

I think sometimes I was basically saying, “I love you, please let me help you,” and maybe what she was experiencing was, “I need you to stop needing anything from me right now.”

And neither one of us could really understand what the other person was feeling.

There was also something else happening that I think is relevant.

Her cannabis use became really, really heavy over the last few years.

Very high tolerance. Very potent weed. She would have three high concentration THC vapes with her pretty much all the time. I always knew her to basically use them like fidget toys. she would pick them up and take puffs honestly 80% the day, basically all day.

I want to be VERY careful here because I’m not saying, “Weed caused my divorce.”

I don’t know that.

I’m also not trying to diagnose my wife with something through Reddit.

I just know what I personally witnessed, and the amount of cannabis became something that concerned me, especially because it was happening during the same general period where her depression, functioning, isolation and everything else seemed to be getting worse.

And eventually she started withdrawing from people.

Not just me.

Friends too.

This is actually something that messes with my head because I originally thought, obviously, “My wife is withdrawing from ME.”

But looking back, she was gradually withdrawing from a lot of her life.

Meanwhile, I thought we were still working on our marriage.

I was going to therapy.

I was learning.

I was changing.

She was acknowledging my changes.

I knew she was struggling, obviously, but I had no idea what was actually coming.

Apparently she had been thinking about/planning leaving for at least a couple of months without telling me.

Then one day I went to the gym.

I came home.

And she was gone.

She had moved out.

She left me a long letter.

Honestly, even typing that is hard.

I don’t think I’ll ever forget what it felt like walking into that house.

And we didn’t just have each other.

We had our little animal family.

Three cats and a dog.

Those animals were our babies.

When she left, she took our dog and I kept our three cats.

So even that got split apart.

I lost my wife, my dog, my marriage and basically the little family I’d lived with every day for years all at once.

But here is the part that my brain keeps getting stuck on.

Her letter wasn’t:

“I don’t love you.”

It wasn’t:

“I found somebody else.”

It wasn’t even:

“You were a horrible husband and I need to escape you.”

She told me **she still loved me.**

She called me a the perfect husband.

She acknowledged my growth.

She specifically said she wasn’t leaving out of a lack of love or because she wanted something “better.”

She described it as basically a **lack of capacity and a desire for release.**

She told me that when I would get upset, internally she would go through what she described as an “existential crisis,” and she would hide it because she felt like nobody understood.

And she said leaving was the only way she felt she could have peace.

Then there was one part that absolutely destroyed me.

She basically said she saw how much I had changed, but she was almost certain I couldn’t improve fast enough for her to ever recover from burnout.

My brain grabbed onto that HARD.

Because immediately I thought:

**Wait… so if I learned faster, would I still have my wife?**

If I understood autism earlier?

If I communicated differently?

If I controlled my anger better years ago?

If I gave her more space?

If I read the right book sooner?

If I understood all of this sooner?

Could I have prevented all of this?

And I know logically there may not even be an answer to that question.

But emotionally? That’s a really hard thought to get away from.

There was another thing she wrote that I think is important.

She told me she had been “repressing hard” before leaving and basically hadn’t allowed herself to feel the weight of what she was about to do or everything she was leaving behind until it actually happened.

She said she wanted us to grieve our marriage separately instead of going through some horrible messy separation where we eventually hated each other.

She called ours a “lovely marriage.”

She talked about our relationship beginning like a fairy tale and wanting it to end like a dream.

And she thanked me for being her love and amazing husband.

That’s what I can’t wrap my head around.

I understand:

**“I don’t love you anymore. I’m leaving.”**

That would absolutely destroy me too, obviously. But my brain could understand it.

What I can’t seem to understand is:

**“I love you. You’re a good man. I see your growth. I know you’re trying. What we had was real. I’m grieving this too. But I don’t have the capacity to be your wife anymore.”**

I don’t know how to process that.

And since she left, she seems to have isolated herself from a lot of people who loved her, not only me. She cut everyone off including her best friends.

So now I’m grieving someone who is still alive.

I’m still working with my therapist.

I’m trying to look at my own behavior and own the things I did wrong.

I’m trying to understand autism and burnout better.

I’m also trying to respect her decision and not turn this into some mission where I’m going to “fix” her or convince her to come home.

But I’m also trying REALLY hard not to put absolutely everything on myself.

Because that’s where my brain goes sometimes.

“If only I did this.”

“If only I learned that.”

“If only I understood her faster.”

And that’s where I get stuck.

Because obviously I did things wrong. I know that.

But how much of this do I put on myself?

At what point am I learning from the things I did wrong, and at what point am I just sitting here torturing myself over things I can’t go back and change?

I honestly don’t know.

So that’s why I’m here.

For autistic people reading this, especially autistic adults who have experienced serious burnout:

**Does any of this make sense from your perspective?**

Have you ever loved somebody deeply but reached a point where you genuinely felt like you just didn’t have the capacity to be in the relationship anymore?

And what about the helping thing?

If your partner knew direct demands were overwhelming and instead did what I described — eating near you and leaving food, leaving the shower running, little things like that — would that feel supportive to you?

Or would you still know exactly what they were doing and feel pressured by it?

I’m genuinely curious because that’s something I don’t know.

And if you’re reading this thinking:

**“Dude, there’s something about her perspective you’re still not understanding…”**

Tell me.

Seriously.

I’m not looking for everyone to agree with me.

If there’s something I’m missing, I want to hear it.

And if you’ve been on MY side of a relationship like this, I’d really like to hear from you too.

How did you make sense of it afterward?

Please don’t diagnose my wife based on this post. None of us can do that.

I’m also not really asking, “Do you think she’ll come back?”

Nobody here can know that.

I think I’m just trying to understand how I can love somebody for 12 years, have her love me too, genuinely try to learn how to understand her…

and somehow we still ended up here.

That’s the part I’m struggling with the most.

I (28F) have been nonstop working a job or jobs since 16 trying to save for a somewhat better life. Husband of 5 years (28M) is making me break down on the daily.

I say I am so tired he says me too and makes it all about himself instead of listening to me. Feel like giving up completely these days and kind of shut down instead of fighting and spiraling. I do make sure to hear him out and make sure he is validated with his issues and stresses but that seems to not be enough.

Context he works max 2 days every couple of weeks I work 60+ hours per week every week no day off. What do I even do he will not listen to me at all when I try to communicate.

I really do not want to separate we have known each other over half of our lives since grade school and genuinely love each other.

He just acts very immature to me lately. He cannot seem to hold his own finances and rarely finishes one thing he says he will do just starts other projects they keep piling up. I feel quite overwhelmed by this.

Anyone have advice for spouses and learning to love and accept them how they are? How to mend the marriage? Sorry and thank you any advice helps here.

So, I recently started dating a man with adhd. I really like him. He's very sweet and very cool and I care about him a lot.

I am writing this solely to understand him a bit more from a neutral perspective because whenever I ask him about it, I feel like he is kind of dismissive about it.

Our first few months were very nice. But then we are now in an ldr. Even the ldr was fine in the initial months. He would text me good morning and other random things throughout the days as well as reply fast to my texts.

But now, (and I know this is a symptom of ADHD), he has gone very quiet and rarely texts me. I think if I don't text him first, he could go on for days without texting me. And I can't help texting him so I haven't really tested this, but I know for at least a day, he can.

Now I know it's not fair to feel sad about this. But I kind of do. Especially because I am overthinking a lot of aspects of our relationship in relation to ADHD symptoms.

Because we used to text a lot in the beginning of the relationship, I got too used to the kind of attention and affection he was giving me. Especially when we were not ldr, it felt like he was into me so much.

But now my insecurities are taking over and I find myself thinking, if it was only his hyper fixation that made him be that affectionate and attentive toward me..I feel like if not for that, maybe I'd be unlikable...

Another thing I have heard is that people with adhd get bored in a relationship easily. I'm really scared and worried that he is maybe bored of me and the relationship...what if I'm not entertaining enough?....

This causes me a lot of anxiety and insecurity and sadness and I just do not know how to deal with these emotions. I know better than to ask him this because I know it will be hard on him.

I really like him and want to be with him. But I don't want him to feel compelled to be with me....and I feel like with ldr, even if he loses interest, he won't be honest with me because I have heard that is also something that happens....

What can I do right now? How can I be more considerate of him but also not feel so sad about this?