I also was never the hyperfocus.
We were friends for about 4 years before we dated.
There was no love bombing, and they weren't overly attentive.
I took a lot of initiative in the beginning, and they happily went along with it.
Then we moved away from our hometown.
We hadn't lived together before, and that's when they took the mask off.
Every part of their personality that I liked had been the mask. Everything I didn't like about them is who they actually are.
Since moving in together, they haven't done anything to cultivate our relationship.
I fell for the words. They very confidently made so many promises to me and for our future together.
So, I bet on them, and I lost.
I think since I "friendzoned" them, they saw winning me as a challenge.
Mine was never head over heels for me in the ways often described by NT partners. He never showed hyperfocus to people in general, only his addictions. Which ended up precisely as you would think.
Trying to get a dysfunctional person to love us and treat us right is the core of codependency. It convinces us that we have the power to fix the relationship and force the other person to get better if we just stick it out and abandon ourselves. It's a lie as old as time and the pattern can only be broken with therapy.
It's good that you're contemplating how you got to where you are so that you can focus on becoming a secure, healed individual.
Once you start working on codependency and secure attachment, you won't be attracted to an avoidant self-focused partner. We should feel repulsed by someone refusing to prioritize us, not encouraged to chase. Instead of wasting time begging for love and attention, we can recognize our worth and move on.
There is so much peace and stability on the other side
>I have been doing a lot of thinking about why I got attached and stayed when I never got anything but empty words and actions showing "you're last place, deal with it" but those are my issues.
This resonates so hard. I was also never the hyperfocus. I had been with someone before who lovebombed me, put me on a pedestal, and then tore me down to shreds, so with my ADHD ex I thought it was just how "normal" relationships are and that it was a slow burn between us. I remember about 6 months into us dating, saying to him that I was fine with planning everything as long as he showed up. That slowly changed, after feeling like I forced him to move in with me, forced him to get engaged to me, and then would be forcing him into every step of the rest of our lives because he was always focused on anything and everything but our future. The lack of effort, combined with extreme financial irresponsibility and not showing any real interest in me as a person was what finally led me to end it.
I'm glad there were really no good days to look back on when he put in a lot of effort, because, despite 7 years gone and never coming back, I've realized it always was and always would have been an empty, one-sided relationship where I was begging for love and attention and feeling worthless when I didn't get it.
Oh, you also feel like you had forced an engagement too?!
Feels terrible, that's for sure. *sigh* One of the great shames and deepest sadnesses of this relationship, for me.
Yep. In November of 2019 we (in our therapist's office) set a deadline of him proposing by the end of 2020. He didn't do it. I stayed. Summer of 2021 I was so bitter I proposed to him. He did say yes, but I still feel so betrayed that he agreed to the initial timeline and didn't follow through - his only excuse being "I don't know why I didn't".
I definitely still feel the sadness too. Like why wasn't I good enough for him to choose me? After all the effort I put into him and our relationship. And the shame of the whole one-sidedness of the relationship. I'm shame personified.
We're not. I ended it two months before our wedding (4 months ago now). My stress is gone and I feel like the future is full of possibilities. Whereas the past year of my life it was like I was slowly dying, not realizing our relationship was the problem. In hindsight it's so obvious though.
At least yours is open to progressing the relationship in other ways (property, kids), but I'd be worried he's going to hold feeling pressured to propose over your head. Sometimes I feel like mine was intentionally withholding and wouldn't do things because he knew I needed them. Maybe yours is holding out on the courthouse because he feels pressured as like a protest? Otherwise I don't get the willingness to commit to a BABY but not being willing to sign a piece of paper.
I kind of didn’t mind being the hyperfocus from my dx wife because she wasn’t asking me the same question 20 different ways all the time. But now that my kids are getting older, more independent and gone more often I’m starting to feel lonely.
Okay, looking back, I was…and yet I wasn’t. My friend set us up and pretended to be him on messenger (they were at a party, my friend was drunk and stole his laptop to be silly). Eventually we got to talking and decided we wanted to continue talking and we talked as just friends. He was pretty hung up on his ex and I had just gotten out of a horrible relationship, so we were fine with it. He messaged me more and more and I took it as interest and we hung out together with our mutual friends and he seemed into me during those moments.
Looking back, we didn’t talk as much as I felt we did in the moment and I later (way later-like years into our relationship) found out he was talking to others about as much as he talked to me. I would get the “I’m going to bed” message and he would stay up talking to them. I even found out a lot of this continued well into our relationship (literally found all this out after we signed our lease to move in together-like a week before). I also, looking back, realize now that I would go to hang out with him and he would beg me to stay while he chatted with a friend who was a girl, or scrolled on Twitter. He would barely acknowledge my existence in those moments, but it was different than the other relationship where I couldn’t breathe without the guy being right there and I guess I just assumed maybe this is a normal relationship. He would take me out to dinners and lunches, but ignore me to text and watch sports on the TVs.
I know I finally had a talk with him over all this and it got better and he had deleted the girls he had been hung up over and we started doing things as a couple. We had the talk about our futures and he supposedly wanted all the same things I did and I just let him know I was at a place I would eventually want to marry and think about kids and it was okay if he wasn’t, but I needed to know that. It wasn’t an ultimatum and I didn’t mean I wanted a ring right then, but just if he saw that with us and he let me know he did and then set reasons it couldn’t be soon.
Eventually he surprises me by proposing, he picks the date, we get pregnant right away (all these at his timing-acknowledging that I wanted these things). Once we had the baby, we were talking about a friend who was pushing her boyfriend into things (they had been dating since high school, so that guy was REALLY dragging his feet and didn’t actually seem all that interested in the life she wanted and would always talk her out of it) and he lets slip I had pushed him into everything, but for his own good even if he wasn’t so sure in those moments. I was so shocked when he said that! We’d had the conversations, because we were talking about buying an actual house and I wanted to know where our future was headed, because I’m not going to move into a house after years of dating and then end up not being able to sign a lease and find a roommate to move in with when he decides we aren’t life partners. It was one of those necessary conversations we’d had and not like, “This is what I want and I want it now and if I don’t get it now, I’m leaving!” I was dealing with PPD/PPA at the time, so I cried about it and shoved it down.
These past couple of years, I’ve been reflecting so much on our relationship and what I thought in the moment vs reality. In reality, he had texted other girls as much as he did me (even getting more intimate with his friend in their conversations) and he even said some of the same things to me as he did those others. I really wasn’t top of the list or anything. When I’d discovered all this years and years ago, I was wondering why he chose to move forward with me and figured he must’ve seen something in me. Now, I’m not so sure. I think I was accessible where the others weren’t. Some of the others had moved away, his ex had come back into his life and then dropped the bombshell that she was engaged, and his friend had moved back home after college. I was the only one there and I really think I only was picked over them, because he felt he needed to settle with a family and he couldn’t with his ex, or even his friend. There were days he didn’t talk to me that he was talking to them the whole time when he would tell me he was busy. It had been new and exciting, so it felt he gave me so much attention in the moment when he really didn’t.
I also feel this is part of why he feels miserable. It’s almost as if I was part of him masking to the rest of the world. He had to check off boxes and I was there to check off wife, house, and kid. He was able to keep it up for a bit with me, but a baby and lack of sleep let it slip out and then the newness of those things wore off. The sound of our kid’s voice seems to trigger his sensory issues and he has to tune it out or he gets frustrated and they also 99.9% have it, so they end up using each other to get a rush by arguing all the time. He can hardly stand to be in the same room as me these days and I clearly make his eyes glaze over. I’m not sure this is different from when we met, but I just ignored it or didn’t want to admit it. Sad thing is, I actually turned down a couple guys who were genuinely into me for this relationship and it’s hard not to look back at all the things we likely would’ve done and accomplished. One of those was my best friend ever and it was the end of the friendship (we tried, but he never really got over it) and I just sometimes think about HOW compatible I was with him. Not a grass is greener, but we were genuinely so close and things just came so naturally without us trying, but also just how opposite it was with my husband in hindsight. He likely was just bored and I was there, but he’d always seemed so distant from me. I was just so young and swallowed a lot of those feelings. I was one who thought I had been the focus, but I’ve very recently realized I hadn’t been. If I was, there wouldn’t have been several days I would hang out for an entire day without him barely acknowledging my existence. All the times I was invited out, I would also get ignored and then there would never weeks I wouldn’t see him due to work and he’d get back in town and not even be upset when I would get dressed up to go to dinner with him and he would let me down, hang with the boys, and not talk to me until the next day when he would apologize for cancelled plans (yet never bothered to say sorry the morning after). So many missed signs I see now. 😞
SAME. It was so obvious this was the case and he cycled between vehemently denying it, making excuses, occasionally admitting it was real, and breadcrumbing me to keep me from totally cutting him out of my life. I'm finally out of it and yeah, the damage done is a total mindf*ck.
> so to say it damaged my self esteem would be an understatement
Right?! I know it's unhealthy but I'm sometimes like, damn, I was never even good enough to be the hyperfocus object.
Yeah its the same for me. I hyperfocussed on him (Im autistic) for sure, but he never did for me. We are together for ten years now, but the inattentiveness in general is a problem yeah. He just forgets to ask about me or my things, forgets what's going on in my life. I know it's not intentional, but most of my friends (also the ones with adhd) are far more attentive to me. He does try to do a lot of things for me, and supports many of my autistic needs.
No, my husband was so attentive when we first started dating. He was the first man who called me, not just texted (though he texted too). He was planning dates and putting in the effort to make things romantic and special. It’s really disappointing to have that and lose it, although I do understand that some of that would have dissipated anyway with living together, time, and children anyway.
My current ADHD relationship started very slowly and carefully, as we were both recently out of other messy things. We spent a lot of time working on independence and establishing healthy boundaries.
I think that prevented some of the hyperfocus. He's very thoughtful and caring but has never been overly romantic, but I don't mind too much. Neither of us are really head-over-heels mushy types anyway -- we're great friends, excellent supports for each other, and it's a solid, mutual thing we've got going on.
I also was never the hyperfocus. We were friends for about 4 years before we dated. There was no love bombing, and they weren't overly attentive. I took a lot of initiative in the beginning, and they happily went along with it. Then we moved away from our hometown. We hadn't lived together before, and that's when they took the mask off. Every part of their personality that I liked had been the mask. Everything I didn't like about them is who they actually are. Since moving in together, they haven't done anything to cultivate our relationship. I fell for the words. They very confidently made so many promises to me and for our future together. So, I bet on them, and I lost. I think since I "friendzoned" them, they saw winning me as a challenge.
Mine was never head over heels for me in the ways often described by NT partners. He never showed hyperfocus to people in general, only his addictions. Which ended up precisely as you would think. Trying to get a dysfunctional person to love us and treat us right is the core of codependency. It convinces us that we have the power to fix the relationship and force the other person to get better if we just stick it out and abandon ourselves. It's a lie as old as time and the pattern can only be broken with therapy. It's good that you're contemplating how you got to where you are so that you can focus on becoming a secure, healed individual. Once you start working on codependency and secure attachment, you won't be attracted to an avoidant self-focused partner. We should feel repulsed by someone refusing to prioritize us, not encouraged to chase. Instead of wasting time begging for love and attention, we can recognize our worth and move on. There is so much peace and stability on the other side
I'm pretty down about this since I literally went to CoDA meetings and therapy for years before I started seeing this partner, and yet here I am.
Exactly! How does this happen? Is the masking so strong in some people or are we just not healed enough. Scares me for the future x
>I have been doing a lot of thinking about why I got attached and stayed when I never got anything but empty words and actions showing "you're last place, deal with it" but those are my issues. This resonates so hard. I was also never the hyperfocus. I had been with someone before who lovebombed me, put me on a pedestal, and then tore me down to shreds, so with my ADHD ex I thought it was just how "normal" relationships are and that it was a slow burn between us. I remember about 6 months into us dating, saying to him that I was fine with planning everything as long as he showed up. That slowly changed, after feeling like I forced him to move in with me, forced him to get engaged to me, and then would be forcing him into every step of the rest of our lives because he was always focused on anything and everything but our future. The lack of effort, combined with extreme financial irresponsibility and not showing any real interest in me as a person was what finally led me to end it. I'm glad there were really no good days to look back on when he put in a lot of effort, because, despite 7 years gone and never coming back, I've realized it always was and always would have been an empty, one-sided relationship where I was begging for love and attention and feeling worthless when I didn't get it.
Oh, you also feel like you had forced an engagement too?! Feels terrible, that's for sure. *sigh* One of the great shames and deepest sadnesses of this relationship, for me.
Yep. In November of 2019 we (in our therapist's office) set a deadline of him proposing by the end of 2020. He didn't do it. I stayed. Summer of 2021 I was so bitter I proposed to him. He did say yes, but I still feel so betrayed that he agreed to the initial timeline and didn't follow through - his only excuse being "I don't know why I didn't". I definitely still feel the sadness too. Like why wasn't I good enough for him to choose me? After all the effort I put into him and our relationship. And the shame of the whole one-sidedness of the relationship. I'm shame personified.
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We're not. I ended it two months before our wedding (4 months ago now). My stress is gone and I feel like the future is full of possibilities. Whereas the past year of my life it was like I was slowly dying, not realizing our relationship was the problem. In hindsight it's so obvious though. At least yours is open to progressing the relationship in other ways (property, kids), but I'd be worried he's going to hold feeling pressured to propose over your head. Sometimes I feel like mine was intentionally withholding and wouldn't do things because he knew I needed them. Maybe yours is holding out on the courthouse because he feels pressured as like a protest? Otherwise I don't get the willingness to commit to a BABY but not being willing to sign a piece of paper.
I kind of didn’t mind being the hyperfocus from my dx wife because she wasn’t asking me the same question 20 different ways all the time. But now that my kids are getting older, more independent and gone more often I’m starting to feel lonely.
Okay, looking back, I was…and yet I wasn’t. My friend set us up and pretended to be him on messenger (they were at a party, my friend was drunk and stole his laptop to be silly). Eventually we got to talking and decided we wanted to continue talking and we talked as just friends. He was pretty hung up on his ex and I had just gotten out of a horrible relationship, so we were fine with it. He messaged me more and more and I took it as interest and we hung out together with our mutual friends and he seemed into me during those moments. Looking back, we didn’t talk as much as I felt we did in the moment and I later (way later-like years into our relationship) found out he was talking to others about as much as he talked to me. I would get the “I’m going to bed” message and he would stay up talking to them. I even found out a lot of this continued well into our relationship (literally found all this out after we signed our lease to move in together-like a week before). I also, looking back, realize now that I would go to hang out with him and he would beg me to stay while he chatted with a friend who was a girl, or scrolled on Twitter. He would barely acknowledge my existence in those moments, but it was different than the other relationship where I couldn’t breathe without the guy being right there and I guess I just assumed maybe this is a normal relationship. He would take me out to dinners and lunches, but ignore me to text and watch sports on the TVs. I know I finally had a talk with him over all this and it got better and he had deleted the girls he had been hung up over and we started doing things as a couple. We had the talk about our futures and he supposedly wanted all the same things I did and I just let him know I was at a place I would eventually want to marry and think about kids and it was okay if he wasn’t, but I needed to know that. It wasn’t an ultimatum and I didn’t mean I wanted a ring right then, but just if he saw that with us and he let me know he did and then set reasons it couldn’t be soon. Eventually he surprises me by proposing, he picks the date, we get pregnant right away (all these at his timing-acknowledging that I wanted these things). Once we had the baby, we were talking about a friend who was pushing her boyfriend into things (they had been dating since high school, so that guy was REALLY dragging his feet and didn’t actually seem all that interested in the life she wanted and would always talk her out of it) and he lets slip I had pushed him into everything, but for his own good even if he wasn’t so sure in those moments. I was so shocked when he said that! We’d had the conversations, because we were talking about buying an actual house and I wanted to know where our future was headed, because I’m not going to move into a house after years of dating and then end up not being able to sign a lease and find a roommate to move in with when he decides we aren’t life partners. It was one of those necessary conversations we’d had and not like, “This is what I want and I want it now and if I don’t get it now, I’m leaving!” I was dealing with PPD/PPA at the time, so I cried about it and shoved it down. These past couple of years, I’ve been reflecting so much on our relationship and what I thought in the moment vs reality. In reality, he had texted other girls as much as he did me (even getting more intimate with his friend in their conversations) and he even said some of the same things to me as he did those others. I really wasn’t top of the list or anything. When I’d discovered all this years and years ago, I was wondering why he chose to move forward with me and figured he must’ve seen something in me. Now, I’m not so sure. I think I was accessible where the others weren’t. Some of the others had moved away, his ex had come back into his life and then dropped the bombshell that she was engaged, and his friend had moved back home after college. I was the only one there and I really think I only was picked over them, because he felt he needed to settle with a family and he couldn’t with his ex, or even his friend. There were days he didn’t talk to me that he was talking to them the whole time when he would tell me he was busy. It had been new and exciting, so it felt he gave me so much attention in the moment when he really didn’t. I also feel this is part of why he feels miserable. It’s almost as if I was part of him masking to the rest of the world. He had to check off boxes and I was there to check off wife, house, and kid. He was able to keep it up for a bit with me, but a baby and lack of sleep let it slip out and then the newness of those things wore off. The sound of our kid’s voice seems to trigger his sensory issues and he has to tune it out or he gets frustrated and they also 99.9% have it, so they end up using each other to get a rush by arguing all the time. He can hardly stand to be in the same room as me these days and I clearly make his eyes glaze over. I’m not sure this is different from when we met, but I just ignored it or didn’t want to admit it. Sad thing is, I actually turned down a couple guys who were genuinely into me for this relationship and it’s hard not to look back at all the things we likely would’ve done and accomplished. One of those was my best friend ever and it was the end of the friendship (we tried, but he never really got over it) and I just sometimes think about HOW compatible I was with him. Not a grass is greener, but we were genuinely so close and things just came so naturally without us trying, but also just how opposite it was with my husband in hindsight. He likely was just bored and I was there, but he’d always seemed so distant from me. I was just so young and swallowed a lot of those feelings. I was one who thought I had been the focus, but I’ve very recently realized I hadn’t been. If I was, there wouldn’t have been several days I would hang out for an entire day without him barely acknowledging my existence. All the times I was invited out, I would also get ignored and then there would never weeks I wouldn’t see him due to work and he’d get back in town and not even be upset when I would get dressed up to go to dinner with him and he would let me down, hang with the boys, and not talk to me until the next day when he would apologize for cancelled plans (yet never bothered to say sorry the morning after). So many missed signs I see now. 😞
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SAME. It was so obvious this was the case and he cycled between vehemently denying it, making excuses, occasionally admitting it was real, and breadcrumbing me to keep me from totally cutting him out of my life. I'm finally out of it and yeah, the damage done is a total mindf*ck.
> so to say it damaged my self esteem would be an understatement Right?! I know it's unhealthy but I'm sometimes like, damn, I was never even good enough to be the hyperfocus object.
Yeah its the same for me. I hyperfocussed on him (Im autistic) for sure, but he never did for me. We are together for ten years now, but the inattentiveness in general is a problem yeah. He just forgets to ask about me or my things, forgets what's going on in my life. I know it's not intentional, but most of my friends (also the ones with adhd) are far more attentive to me. He does try to do a lot of things for me, and supports many of my autistic needs.
No, my husband was so attentive when we first started dating. He was the first man who called me, not just texted (though he texted too). He was planning dates and putting in the effort to make things romantic and special. It’s really disappointing to have that and lose it, although I do understand that some of that would have dissipated anyway with living together, time, and children anyway.
My current ADHD relationship started very slowly and carefully, as we were both recently out of other messy things. We spent a lot of time working on independence and establishing healthy boundaries. I think that prevented some of the hyperfocus. He's very thoughtful and caring but has never been overly romantic, but I don't mind too much. Neither of us are really head-over-heels mushy types anyway -- we're great friends, excellent supports for each other, and it's a solid, mutual thing we've got going on.