Dealing with a Denial: Evaluating and Treating ADHD in Adults

Q: “My partner gets angry with me when I suggest that he get an evaluation for ADHD, which I strongly believe he has. How do I handle this?”

Your partner might say, “I know I have ADHD, or I suspect I do, but I don’t want to get an evaluation. I’m never going to actually do anything about it. Love me as I am.” I hear this in my practice. That person has every right to hold that point of view, and you have every right to respond in a way that helps you live your life as you wish.

You might say, “Okay, you’re sort of an absent-minded professor, and I enjoy that, and that’s just part of who you are.” Or you might say, “Actually, you’re angry at me a lot. You verbally beat me up a lot. There’s a ton of discord. If you wish to be that way, that’s fine. That’s your right. I can’t live with it.”

You might establish boundaries around what you want to live with and what isn’t acceptable to you. You might say, “I’d really like to see if I can convince you to think differently about this. Let’s talk about it some more.” And if this doesn’t produce a fruitful discussion, you might say, “You know what? I think we need to be separated for a while and see if this is going to work.”

So it isn’t a matter of coming to an agreement. It’s a matter of recognizing and accepting that your partner has a point of view and deciding what you want to do with it.

Melissa Orlov is a marriage consultant and the founder of ADHDmarriage.com.

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