The "Parent/Child" Dynamic (Patreon)

"You never do what you say you're going to do."

"You have an excuse for everything."

"Take some responsibility for once."

"You did it wrong."

"Nothing is ever your fault."

"You can't ever follow-through."

ADHD romantic relationships are tough, plain and simple. Long periods of frustration lead to chronic anger, which leads to resentment. 

Excerpt from "The ADHD Effect on Marriage," by Melissa Orlov:

* In this context, if both partners have ADHD, "Non-ADHD parent" means the person who has a better handle on their symptoms.

"Parent/child dynamics between spouses is perhaps the most common and most destructive of all of the patterns. In it, one spouse (the non-ADHD parent figure) is almost always responsible and the other (the ADHD spouse) rarely is. Here’s how it usually starts: Symptomatically, an untreated ADHD spouse does not follow up on tasks for which he (or she) is responsible. He intends to, and says he will, but he simply gets distracted or forgets. At first his wife compensates and takes over the lion’s share of the responsibility, but soon she resents the burden this places on her. She gets to do all of the scutwork, while he “cruises along” and does “the fun stuff.”

When approached about his lapses, he agrees to help out, but rarely follows through. She reminds him again; he agrees again; he forgets again. His actions aren’t intentional; he’s simply distracted and unfocused. Over time he becomes “reliably unreliable” in his wife’s eyes, and she begins to nag and attack him in order to get him to “pay attention to what he should be doing and stop goofing off.”

He retreats from the attack; she attacks harder in the face of his retreat. Soon, they both learn that interaction is painful: an exercise in being hurt, and feeling hurt. The only way she seems to be able to get his attention is to blow up at him. Sometimes he does get things done. But his wife learns to be wary because he is so inconsistent.

What she will remember is not his accomplishments, but his failures—and she behaves accordingly. He learns that getting things done doesn’t get him much credit, which demotivates him. Eventually, she is sure that his lack of action means that he doesn't care or is lazy, while he is convinced that there is no point in making the effort to help out because "I'll never be good enough for her, anyway!" She ends up responsible for everything. He ends up feeling inconsequential in the relationship. Hopelessness, frustration, and anger set in."