I can’t remember if I’ve posted on this before. So, thanks for your patience if I have.
I really like my wife. AND SHE REALLY LIKES ME! We have a great marriage and really complement each other. Despite my quirks, idiosyncrasies, weaknesses, and complexities, I’ve never, ever gotten the feeling that she didn’t love me for who I am exactly the way that I am. It’s possible I got that from my highschool girlfriend, but that I was too insecure to realize and appreciate it. But, I certainly never got that feeling from anyone else I’d been with before my wife.
She has a saying about me, “It’s not that he’s a dick… He’s just intense.” But she loved that intensness almost right away. I will say this, and you’ll know it if you know me well, that I’m always working on myself. With 31 years post-diagnosis under my belt, I don’t always present as the ADHD partner that I am. But, I’m also not the easiest guy, being that I’m pretty intense pretty much all the time as a compensation method to not be ADHD guy.
The reason I mention this is because I believe everyone has a right to be with a partner, or partners* who love them for who they really are. But we all have to do the work on ourselves to be the best version of that person. I think this extends to friends and even family as well. More on that in the next post.
*I think that it is fair to note that in this day and age, the traditional nuclear family is only one of many structures that can work. As long as you are safe, happy, and loved, I do think it should matter what your family structure looks like. And, I wanted to include this as a nod to those people I know who have “non-traditional” family structures. Don’t hate. Focus on our own happiness!
Standard Disclaimer: In an effort to foil my own perfectionist tendencies, I do not edit my posts much… if at all. Please excuse and typos, mistakes, grammatical errors, or awkward phrasing. I focus on getting my content down. In my humble opinion, an imperfect post posted is infinitely better than a perfect post that goes unfinished.