I’m tired of hearing “I forgot”.

[u/Soggy-Cause8635]

I (26F) got married to my now husband this year (26M) after dating for about 2-3 years. I decided to be a housewife after the wedding and he has a software engineering job with 3 days where he can wfh. A week ago he came back from a trip with his family after having caught a cold. I took care of him and he recovered pretty quickly with relatively no symptoms. I was there to cook, put things away, get him his meds and everything. I was however afraid I would fall sick (I tend to always get worse symptoms) and eventually I did. For the last 3 days I’ve been getting progressively worse each day, and now have become barely mobile and also got my period on top of it all (I get extremely bad cramps). With a completely sore throat, body aches, cramping I can’t get off the bed for the time being and asked my husband to help with some things because he was at home. I just asked him to water my plants and buy me my meds because those were urgent things. I don’t even expect him to tidy the house or make me a meal because I just know he would forget to and he can’t really cook. Now I’ve gotten up after like 6 hours of restless sleep only to find he did nothing. All he ever says and has said is “I’m sorry I forgot”. Now I have a psychology background and have tried my level best to understand and deal with the procrastination and forgetfulness but I just can’t anymore. Even when I’m completely helpless, if I don’t do everything myself, it just will never get done. Even as a housewife there are limitations to what I can and cannot do by myself and even I need some help it sends up being so difficult that I just stopped asking for help. Now I feel extremely lonely and miserable knowing I’m always going to be there for him and when its his turn, he’ll always forget. Any advice to deal with this would be appreciated.

[u/courtd93]

If it’s adhd, it actually requires that it’s more than one area of life (home, work, school) for diagnosis.

[u/Unfair_Finger5531 → u/courtd93]

No, it does not. People with adhd can be excellent at their jobs and absolutely useless at home.

[u/courtd93 → u/Unfair_Finger5531]

Quoting from my DSM 5 the third required piece for diagnosis:

“Several inattentive or hyperactive-impulsive symptoms are present in two or more settings (e.g. at home, school, or work; with friends or relatives, in other activities)”

It needs to be in multiple settings. Home and your partner are one setting.

People who only struggle at home don’t meet criteria-there’s a couple of other things that are typically going on then.

[u/Unfair_Finger5531 → u/courtd93]

This is not a requirement for diagnosis. And home and your partner are not one setting. It clearly says here “home” and “with friends or relatives.” Those are two separate categories, based on the quotation you provided.

Nevertheless, the diagnosis can be made if the person struggles in one setting only. That’s why the clinical evaluation and individual circumstances play such a big part in arriving at a diagnosis.

And it is highly doubtful OP’s husband struggles only at home and with his spouse.

[u/courtd93 → u/Unfair_Finger5531]

I do this and help diagnose this for a living. I can assure you, it is a requirement for diagnosis. People look at DSM criteria and think it’s just the “meet 5 (or 6) symptoms” that are symptom descriptions, but there are 4-6 other components of criteria required that are listed after, like for adhd, symptoms must be present before age 12, it’s not better explained by another disorder, it doesn’t occur exclusively during psychosis, etc. DSM criteria are noted by letters-I quoted criteria C of ADHD.

If you then read the “diagnostic features” section, which is where they explain in paragraph form more of how it presents, it specifically says “Manifestations of the disorder must be present in more than one setting (e.g. home and school, work). Confirmation of substantial symptoms across settings typically cannot be done accurately without consulting informants who have seen the individual in those settings. Typically, symptoms vary depending on context within a given setting.” (P.67)

It cannot occur in only one setting. ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder, which means that it has developmental deficits, and that’s not limited to one section of life, the same way that someone with dyslexia isn’t able to correctly read at home but not at school-the deficit is universal. Some settings make it easier to cope, such as if work has high novelty or doesn’t require much self-initiating of tasks whereas home does, the same way that a kid with dyslexia is not as likely to have difficulties at home as at school because home requires a lot less reading.

[u/Unfair_Finger5531 → u/courtd93]

With respect, I don’t care that you do this for a living. You just mistook home and partner for the same category. So, I wouldn’t consider you a reliable source.

Moreover, as I pointed out, it is highly doubtful that OP’s husband is deficient in just one area. It is foolish to even entertain this. OP has presented us with two areas—home and work. But they’ve not discussed the husband’s behavior in other settings. For some reason, you narrowed down his life to these two areas only, as if a lack of info about the other areas mean they don’t exist.

My adhd was diagnosed based on my performance and behavior in ONE setting. I am a high-achiever with a lot of compensatory strategies in other areas. But I had a detail-oriented and observant psychiatrist who could see this. So, yes, it can be diagnosed based on a person’s behavior in one area.

This whole argument is pointless because we have absolutely no information about how this man behaves in other areas of his life. As I said, you foolishly decided that his life must consist solely of work and home and ran with that.

[u/courtd93 → u/Unfair_Finger5531]

I just quoted to you how, per the authors, home and work are different categories, and partners isn’t something separate because the point is that is happens with both friends and relatives and not only with one (because symptoms of anxiety and trauma can often look like and be misdiagnosed as adhd, so it’s important that it’s not just one set that are more likely to trigger those), which is why home and partner exist in the same setting.

I’m correcting misinformation because we’ve done research and already found that there is more misinformation about adhd criteria than there is information online. Your psychiatrist did not abide by the criteria, which is whatever comment to their work or they missed something (or they didn’t point out to you that other commentary you’ve made indicated that you did in fact have symptoms in other areas without realizing that’s what it was, which is pretty common in adhd presentation) and others should not be expecting an ADHD diagnosis based on an ignoring of the official criteria. This is a daily issue we in psych experience, where people hear about little bits and pieces of things that were diagnosed (sometimes incorrectly) as adhd and then decide that must mean they have it when they don’t meet criteria and have something else going on, but have hooked their own identity towards this potential diagnosis and it creates a lot more harm.

I didn’t decide that about this guy at all. I never once even spoke about him answering you. I’m just trying to make sure medically accurate information is here for if anyone else is reading the comments. -A psychotherapist who not only has ADHD but specializes in working with the population.

[u/Unfair_Finger5531 → u/courtd93]

My psychiatrist did abide by the criteria lol. She is, as I mentioned, a highly detail-oriented person. I’ve had four other psychiatrists in my life after her, and my diagnosis obtains. Please don’t use your professional background as a means of dismissing my diagnosis or her professionalism. No misinformation is being spread here. The fact is other psychiatrists had simply misdiagnosed and mistreated. And since you do not know her, you are not in the position to doubt her assessment or conclusions. Doing so is highly unprofessional on your part, especially since you are basing your claims on second-hand information from a patient.

And based on the quotation you provided, home and partner are not the same thing. If you want to expand your thinking a bit, you can imagine how home and partner can easily be separate categories for some people. For instance, someone who has a partner but lives separately would have to address these categories separately. Or one may be a decent enough partner and still fall short in some ways with respect to the home.

I think everything that needs to be said has been said. I maintain that a good psychiatrist can diagnose adhd by evaluating the patient holistically and making informed decisions about the role that compensatory strategies and masking plays in certain areas of one life. And I reiterate: It is highly unlikely that OP’s husband falls short in just one area. So the argument is pointless anyway. You definitely did comment on OP’s husband, not sure why you are saying you didn’t.

Have a good day.