ADHD Couples Therapy: Healing Relationship Challenges & Building Empathy
When it comes to ADHD and couples therapy, it’s never just about the dishes.
As a couples therapist who specializes in ADHD I think a lot about differences. People with ADHD tend not to be the best at things like dishes and in my experience, as a person with ADHD, we tend to find ourselves with partners who take things like dishes very seriously.
In relationships where one or both partners have ADHD, there is a common dynamic: one partner starts to feel like a parent, while the other feels like they’re constantly being criticized. This dynamic doesn’t exactly spark playfulness or romance in either partner.
How ADHD Shows Up in Relationships
To me, being an ADHD couples therapist means being sensitive to the ways ADHD shows up in romantic relationships and show up it does. Couples where one or both partners have ADHD are, by some estimates, twice as likely to divorce as the general population. ADHD can affect everything from how couples communicate to how they share responsibilities. One partner may forget important tasks or appointments, seem emotionally reactive or distracted during conversations, or struggle to follow through on commitments. These behaviors are often misinterpreted as laziness, selfishness, or lack of care, when in fact they’re rooted in ADHD related challenges like executive dysfunction, impulsivity, and emotional dysregulation, all of which can create cycles of conflict, resentment, and disconnection if not understood and addressed with compassion.
ADHD in Adults: It’s Not a Character Flaw
Now, as a practitioner with ADHD, I understand the struggles it can create. But it’s not an illness. ADHD is simply a different way of being in the world that is set up to serve a neurotypical brain. It comes with its own challenges but also with opportunities for resilience, connection, and creativity.
How ADHD Couples Therapy Can Help
As a couples therapist trained in Emotionally Focused Couples therapy (EFT) & Relational Life Therapy (RLT), I help couples understand and bridge those differences. My goal is to help partners find the possibilities within their differences, not just tolerate them, but truly see each other through them.
The Deeper Pattern: Why We're Drawn to Each Other
There’s an old rule of thumb in couples therapy: we’re often drawn to partners with whom we experience a kind of tension. You could call it “opposites attract,” but I think it goes deeper than that. At the core of healing is what therapists call the corrective emotional experience. In the words of a renowned couples therapist, Harville Hendrix, we tend to pair with “someone who will ultimately trigger the same frustrations we had with our parents... but doing so brings our childhood wounds to the surface so they can be healed.” Through this process, our partners have the chance to respond to us in the ways we have always longed for, offering the understanding, patience, and care that allow those wounds to heal
Understanding Both Partners' Experience
Imagine someone with ADHD. They’re adults now, still struggling to follow directions, to remember the little things, to avoid small mistakes. Think about how many times they’ve been corrected, reminded, or criticized over the years. How often they’ve felt like they were falling short in ways they couldn’t quite explain. Now imagine the kinds of messages they may have internalized about themselves: I’m unreliable. I’m too much. I’m not enough.
It’s just as important to honor the very real frustration of the partner who feels forgotten, overwhelmed, or like they’re carrying more than their share. As an emotionally focused couples therapist, I believe that deep understanding on both sides is the first step toward shifting out of those painful, repetitive cycles. Now, I’m not saying that understanding all of this will magically get the dishes done. But when each partner can see the vulnerability beneath the other’s behavior, they can begin to move with more empathy, less blame, and a renewed sense of connection. That’s where real change begins, not in fixing each other, but in learning how to stay connected, even when things are hard.
-Written by Matt Nitzberg
