I have ADHD. My partner doesn’t.
Over the weekend we had friends round and there was a lot of laughter about the Scrub Daddy sponge that had been lying on the floor in the corner of the kitchen for three days.
My ADHD brain had seen it. But it never managed to divert enough neurotransmitters to actually picking it up. I know that at least twice I actively decided to deal with it (I’ll pick it after I put the washing-up away) and then again (I’ll do it once I have put the potatoes in the oven). By the time I’d done these, the sponge had ceased to exist in my mind.
My partner, meanwhile, sees it every single time he walks past. The sponge. The shoes by the door. The unwashed coffee cups. The laundry in the machine. He sees all of it, constantly, and his rage metre oscillates between frustrated and incandescent.
So there he was, appealing to our guests for backup. His position: these things aren’t his mess, they’re not his job, and if he keeps picking up after me I’ll never learn. (At 60, I think I’m rather past learning. But he lives in hope.)
I’d love to know where you sit on this one.
If you’re the ADHDer, how does your partner cope with the chaos? Do they pick up the sponge, or do they leave it as a small, passive-aggressive monument to your executive function?
If you’re the partner, are you the one seething quietly, or have you made peace with the sponge?
You are me and your husband is my husband… except my husband definitely has ADHD & OCD & ASD. I’m working with my therapist about all of this, and currently we have hired a professional home organizer, who understands me and my husband as we’re very similar also. It doesn’t help alleviate his OCD stress between the days that someone isn’t meeting with me to help me… so the problem is mostly me, obviously. 🙄