Maybe we should add to the marriage vows a line about nurturing each other’s spirit.
A few years ago I worked with a couple that really stuck with me. Individually, each person was wonderful. Leslie was a sweet and determined woman. Her husband, Will, was brilliant, kind of the stereotype of “the absent-minded professor.” Unfortunately, their relationship was killing each other’s passion for life.
Their core conflicts fell into a rather straight-forward pattern: Leslie would hope for Will to do a particular thing, either mentioning it casually or sometimes never saying it at all; Will would not remember her passing request (and he wouldn’t spontaneously read her mind, either); Leslie would get sad that her wish hadn’t come true, and would be either sullen or harsh; Will would feel very frustrated and confused, and would try to avoid her until she calmed down.
One prime example was on Leslie’s birthday in 2010, when they were on their way to dinner, and she mentioned that next year they should hold the celebration at another restaurant they were driving past. They never spoke about it again. Fast-forward 365 days, and do you think that Will remembered to book dinner at that other restaurant? Of course not. And Leslie was heartbroken. She had built up all of this pressure around it, secretly, making it into sort of a meaningful test, one that Will was doomed to fail. On top of it, it wasn’t until one of our counseling sessions that Leslie explained all of this – meanwhile Will had been confused about her birthday bad mood for months.
As I’ve blogged about before, the blame game is a huge issue in the ADHD world, especially relationships. With this couple it came up yet again, with Leslie convinced that every unpleasant thing in life stemmed from Will’s ADHD. The silver lining was that Leslie’s blame had led her to reaching out for help.
This was a couple that really needed my Business Meeting technique. You spend half an hour each week sitting down and getting the grown up stuff done: no phones, a babysitter watching the kids, calendars out. You pay the bills, figure out the car pool, double check appointments, make plans for the weekend, and so on and so forth. There are no mind-games or secret wishes in a business meeting. You have each other’s undivided attention as you go task by task, first talking about it, then writing it down by hand and finally backing it up with your digital calendar or smartphone alarm. What’s sounds better – setting up little games to prove that your husband struggles with his ADHD, or being honest and actually getting what you really want? A business meeting could have prevented the birthday disaster of ‘11!
I think that when I started challenging both Will and Leslie to reconsider each one’s communication techniques, it threw Leslie for a loop. Why were we talking about her? Didn’t I see that this was all Will’s fault? That can be the breaking point for some couples in counseling, but Leslie stuck with it, although she must have been annoyed. She chose to get extra help with the process from a trusted spiritual leader, and she was twice as surprised when he challenged her to scrutinize her own behavior as well. It goes to show what a strong and compassionate person Leslie is, because instead of getting offended, she showed humility and got down to the hard work of looking in the mirror. She started to catch herself setting these traps for Will, and punishing him but refuse to explain her logic to him, and she took responsibility.
Over time, these two miserable people became some of my happiest clients. They had permanent smiles on their faces. Will was so relieved to become a man who could please his wife again, and Leslie fell back in love with her geeky absent-minded professor. Will learned to change the way he related to his ADHD, and Leslie learned how to handle her anger in a productive way. They got better at interpreting each other and supporting each other. I knew this transformation was really special when Leslie dropped by my office one day out of the blue, bringing me a bouquet of flowers, and telling me through her tears that her marriage had been saved.
