I had one of the saddest conversations of my life the other day. My wife and I are separating after 9 years of marriage. I'm certain she has overfocused ADD (and an underlying personality/ character disorder). She has never felt physically attracted to me, never felt "in love" with me. The only time she has felt those emotions have been in prior highly volatile or otherwise stimulating relationships. The perspective she has from behind her wall of ADD became a little more clear to me when she asked me how I knew I was in love with her.

I spoke about feelings that seemed so completely foreign to her, about feeling her there with me even when she wasn't there, about seeing the color of her eyes when I looked at the sea... She just cried and my heart broke for her all over again. I don't know if she is capable of feeling that way, and her ADD has her trapped in a cage of self-hatred and denial.

We've spoken about ADD, but she has yet to "buy into it." How can my feelings not be real? she asks. They are real, I answer, the ADD causes misinterpretations, I think. I'm not a doctor, I tell her. We need help sorting this out. We're just not there yet.

I still have hope for her, if not our marriage. I still believe she can be the best mother possible for our kids, but she needs help to do that...

Thanks for listening, everyone.

Michael

Mike,
I have been involved in a bumpy relationship with an ADD man since April... we are now broken up but remain friends.
We had a similar conversation last week, in which he suggested he had never been in love with anyone. He actually asked me exactly the same question your wife asked you, "How do you know you're in love?" Perhaps it's just the analyst side of them, always looking for objective measures and distrusting their own subjective feelings? He certainly has MAJOR esteem issues...
He's almost 50 and has had many (usually brief) relationships, but it made me so sad to think he'd never been in love...
Is this a common ADD phenom?

My prayers are with you, Mike.
C.

I'm so sorry this happened, your wife does sound like a very dear person though and perhaps you both will find a way to have something of a relationship. I'd still go for friends if you could manage it...would be so good for offsprings, yes? Wah, this just sucks.

The question " how do you know you're in love" is something also alluded to by my ADD friend and I've been keeping it in my mind to know the same thing, Glinda. I realized that a previous man that I dated may (in retrospect) have had add, and I also recall a similar conversation with him as we tried to analyze whether he might be in love with me or not.

He felt something but he wasn't sure what it was, but seemed more sure what it was NOT, eg not really "friendship", not colleage/mutual subject interest that sort of thing.

I also recall when I first started dating and having fallen for my then boyfriend, having discussions with him about what is love, because I had funny feelings for him I couldn't easily identify, but now, I do.

Perhaps Mike, if/when your wife buys in enough to get into treatment...would this be something that counselling can help with???? I have no experience in the counselling aspect but I would hope all sorts of emotional ground should be covered.