ADHD impacts many areas of one’s life, and without a careful understanding of the issues, it can pose a challenge. The impact of ADHD on your relationship, and your sex life in particular, is important to understand.
Impact of ADHD and the Relationship – The challenges
ADHD can have an impact on your sex life and on your relationship in general. Individuals with ADHD, especially when it is not treated, can feel a roller coaster of emotions, including disappointment with themselves as they try to cope with mounting responsibilities and unfinished projects. The non-ADHD partner can feel the strain, especially if they take on more than their share of the burden such as household tasks and being more attentive. The partner may try to take care of and compensate for the ADHD partner, which can lead to anger, or they may blame themselves for relationship difficulties.
When this happens, expectations of a mutually balanced and beneficial relationship start to erode and resentment can increase. Relationships with a loved one who has or may have ADHD can feel imbalanced and in a stuck place.
When the couple is placing blame or feeling resentment, intimacy suffers.
So, what does all this have to do with sex?
Sex and the Impact of ADHD
If there is unacknowledged resentment in the relationship, then a healthy sexual relationship can also suffer. This is true for couples in general. Resentment can stem from the lack of communication or avoidance about the problems that ADHD presents in the relationship in general. In the bedroom common issues include a heightened need for sex, feeling distracted and/or anxious about performing, worry thoughts about being rejected, and worrying that the sex is unfulfilling.
If these issues are not addressed, emotional tension can build and may create a lack of sexual desire and difficulty tapping back into the good feelings that your sexual relationships once had.
Does sex matter more to ADHD couples?
When a couple begins to avoid or lose interest in sex, that is often very distressing for couples and really take a strong toll on how both partners in the couple feel about themselves. They may worry that they are not interested, not perform well, or worry that there is something fundamentally wrong with the sexual relationship. Partners can be on two different pages, with one feeling very distant and the other longing to create closeness and connection. Because sex can be a way to nourish closeness and intimacy, it is important to work on the relationship.
Putting in extra effort as a couple to improve the common patterns that ADHD can have on relationships such as communication, education, and proper treatment can help the health of the sexual relationship, allowing a positive loop of both giving and receiving to the relationship.
Counseling and support in Bala Cynwyd and Philadelphia
Pamela Kelberg, LCSW, CST is an AASECT Certified Sex Therapist with extensive post-graduate training in sex therapy. She works with couples to help educate and learn about ADHD and restore relationships.
Appointments are available in our Bala Cynwyd office, conveniently located right off of City Avenue and virtually in our Philadelphia office.
Our Bala Cynwyd office is convenient to Center City Philadelphia, East Falls, Mt. Airy/Chestnut Hill, Manayunk, Roxborough, Wynnewood, Overbrook, Villanova, St. David’s, Broomall, Gladwyne, West Conshohocken, Penn Valley, Merion Station, Ardmore, and Narberth.
