 Hi and welcome to today's presentation on what couples with ADHD are doing in their homes for maximum success We want to talk to you specifically about what couples are doing in their homes that have ADHD Whether their kids have ADHD or one of their part spouses one of their spouses their spouse has ADHD because it is so Frustrating to live with ADHD for both people. If you are the one with ADHD No doubt you feel maybe like a failure. Maybe like you could do better You're getting a lot of criticism. You're feeling like you're just not doing a good job maybe as a dad as a mom as a wife as a husband and it's really it's really depressing sometimes because It's this handicap almost that holds you back and you know you can perform because you are great at doing some things maybe work or Some kind of creative outlet you're awesome at but when it comes to certain things in the home It's very unpleasing to your partner and you're not maybe even sure why or if you are the one that doesn't have ADHD You're the non ADHD spouse you feel like you're the only adult in the room You want to have a partner you want to have someone you can rely on but you can't because you know Your husband or wife's brain just doesn't work the same way yours does You're not quite sure why but you know that it doesn't and Sure, you can you know have compassion for that But at some point it your you've reached your limit and you want to be able to rely on them and you can't so These are the problems that you're facing in this relationship amongst others like you know You have to take the kids to all their appointments chances are they might have ADHD or ADD So you're always looking for maybe a new natural supplement So you don't have to medicate them or you have decided to medicate them and maybe you need to up their dose Or you need to tweak the dose, you know And maybe you're doing behavioral therapy or allergy elimination techniques or biofeedback All kinds of things you're doing because you want to you want to help them Of course you want to help them, but you also maybe want to fix the problem and ease some of their symptoms and so what happens is then your Relationship with your spouse is kind of on the back burner because you know the kids are the squeaky wheel that gets the grease They are the ones who are receiving the most of the attention now because they are the ones that have the most needs so your relationship goes on the back burner and That puts a damper on things because you're not Actively working on your marriage. So then it's kind of just right It's just kind of passive and so you're not able to give it the attention that it needs And and we know what happens when when that is the case is You know little cracks show up in the foundation and you know at first there may be tiny little cracks But then over time they can wear into a big crack and make it so much harder to fix so That's what we're seeing with a lot of couples in our practice our marriage counseling practice amongst other issues So I forgot to mention the other things that show up between between the two of you maybe when you are trying to work on things and that is Your spouse has a lot of anger. There's a lot of unpredictability and post control challenges Impulsivity and that can wear you down. It can be embarrassing to be with other people It can cause a lot of debt maybe to be incurred with you know spontaneous purchases that are rather large You know negatively impacting your your financial situation So all of these are issues that couples were one or both spouses have 80-D or 80 HD or even just the kids have it but it impacts you as the parents and We'd like to share with you what will work for you to help you with these issues and Before we do we want to just share a little bit of our story. So when we were first married We were experiencing challenges and it got to the point when our first child was born that we really needed to get Or I felt we needed to get help. So I dragged Rifka to amygotherapy ADHD spouts And I was in school at the time studying to be a therapist and we were we had a really great experience it really helped us a Lot of the issues that we had were able to be dealt with and we were able to see a new way forward and understand Their relationship conflict that we experienced and it was really a wonderful experience And we continued to use those tools throughout our relationship and of course as I began to do this work professionally I am I was involved with this on a daily basis with the couples I work with and we're married 19 years now So we've had a long time to experiment when we first got help It was about what a year or two into our marriage two years So then one thing that I started noticing over the time even though I felt like I was definitely committed to the relationship I understood why we were experiencing the general conflict. So I had that commitment. I was all in that wasn't a question anymore But there were still things that even though we had our the skills it was and there's still things that would bother me And of course, I was more patient more compassionate But it also as Rifka said it kind of got to the point where I'm just like enough is enough like this is really not fair And I started when I started reading about ADHD and the ADHD marriage and then also noticing with my couples I started listening. This is probably the you know, the linchpin here This is probably the real underlying issue that's getting in the way And if we could work on that that could make all the difference. That's when I realized that Our brains work differently the things that I think are so simple that can be done The follow-through the impulse control those are some of the things that of course for me It's very easy to do but I just don't understand why can't you do that? Is it because you don't care about me? Is it because I'm not important because I can see that you can focus and do things other things and that becomes a frustration and the resentment And the feeling that I don't matter and not important So this is what we felt in our relationship and then as I started seeing this more and more with my couples I started seeing a theme that as We're still dealing with all the things that we typically do with a couple in the counseling office There's this other layer that's getting in the way and preventing couples from reaching true success Yeah, let's let's talk a little bit about that Um, and this is a short video So we'll just touch on some of the the ideas here And if you want more information or you want to talk to Shlomo We have a button below where you can schedule a time to speak to him So he can help give you some clarity about your unique situation because every marriage is different even an ADHD marriage and but you talked a little bit about the brain Shlomo and You know a lot of you out there know that your brains are different But you might not have known how they're similar and that's going to lead us to the one secret that really makes a huge difference So let's talk about something called the trying brain So the trying brain is a model. It breaks the brain to three parts We have the more I would say the older part of your brain meaning the part that develops first The more primitive part of your brain that kind of keeps you alive We call the brain stem that's what's really regulates your breathing and just keeps you surviving That's right here at the base the base and then you have your middle brain You have your limbic system the emotional brain and then you have the cognitive brain That's the more part of higher thinking. That's what kind of separates us from man from beast now Ideally we want to be integrated with our whole brain so that we can access all our cognitive faculties and be able to think And be able to self-regulate That's how we want an ideal state But the challenge is when we're not feeling safe when we're feeling threatened We're going to go into that very primitive part of our brain And we're going to be focused on one thing and one thing alone and that is survival And the problem is when you're focused on survival, you can't see it beyond yourself The only thing you can focus on is yourself and your needs so you can't think well, you know How's this going to impact my relationship if I'm upset right now? I'm yelling at you I don't think like well, is this gonna actually hurt your feelings Maybe I shouldn't say that if you're so far gone and so far reactive You're not going to be able to get to that place where you can actually make choices that are mutually beneficial for your relationship And you're just going to worry about surviving yourself So one of the things that we teach couples is how to be able to self-regulate How to be able to calm yourself down so that you can actually choose how to respond and Instead of reacting which oftentimes especially in a you know a neural neural Atypical spouse can lead to a lot of damage in a relationship If you're able to learn how to calm yourself down to self-regulate to express yourself in a way that the other person can hear you In a way where you're not blaming or shaming the person But you're really setting up in a safe way then your relationship can improve and get to the next level But if you're just responding and reacting out of impulse and out of hurt then you're going to do a lot of damage and That is huge that I hope you guys wrote that down because that really is the secret that we wanted to share with you today It's all about Being a safe enough partner for your spouse and and communicating and showing up for them in a way That's no shame and no blame Right so that puts them at ease so that makes them more able to hear you so that makes them more open to following through Despite their challenges with follow-through and accountability, right? because then It puts them at ease and they're not in that fight or flight impulsive part of the brain But they can access their full brain and actually come up with the solutions that they're great at coming up with and actually You know Completing them So it's all about creating that calm and creating that connection and when we do that we can All the symptoms that we are associated with the tension deficit disorder ADHD Can be can be calmed down can be regulated And then you're going to feel better about yourself too because it doesn't feel good to just feel like I just I'm upset So I'm just going to explode and I almost feel like I have no self-control and that can bring a lot of shame for a person But they really feel like I can self-regulate. I can actually have some type of self-control I can do it and I have tools that can actually help me do it tangible tools Not just now go over there and just you know, try to concentrate for a few minutes But really tangible tools step by step something that you can do in the moment Calm yourself down and to be able to respond in a different way Yeah, it's really remarkable and many of our colleagues are using this same process with their couples And the people that they see that have these you know Same kind of challenges with the ADD and ADHD and it's wildly successful I can also speak from my perspective as the one with ADHD that when I Can show up in this way for Shlomo and when he can show up for me and I can calm my impulsivity and anger down a Light bulb goes off whereas before it was dim and you can communicate too because a lot of times You know, I remember when we first did this and I remember you were asking Well, you know, I have ADHD How am I gonna be able to really listen to him because one of the complaints is what you don't listen to me You can't sit for more than two seconds to hear me But it's amazing this process actually helps you even someone who is ADHD be able to calm your brain down enough to be I don't actually listen to your spouse, which is a huge thing for the 98 she spouse to really feel hurt and understood You will sit there for you know More than more than a minute and really intently hear and remember what they're saying and really understand Where they're coming from and that's a huge thing just to be able to do that alone is a Creates a major shift and brings back a lot of hope for the relationship Absolutely, it absolutely does and we love to share more of this with you. We're so passionate about it It helps us many years to go and it continues to help us through daily challenges And we're very excited to share with you so just click on the button below schedule the time to speak to Shlomo you will speak with him directly and Book a time no charge. No strings attached just free advice and some clarity So you can get a little bit of hope and perspective. Thanks for watching. Take care