When the cheater has ADD, recovery from an affair can be especially frustrating. The limited ability to think in terms of long-term consequences can be challenging to deal with.
Affairs and ADD <<– listen to the audio here
Hi, this is Jeff Murrah with Affair Recovery Radio. In today’s session we’re going to be dealing with a timely issue, one that many couples find themselves face to face with and are often feeling frustrated and at a loss as to what to do. What that issue is is affairs and Attention Deficit Disorder.
When the cheater has an attention deficit disorder, recovery from an affair can be especially frustrating. Because my experience is that many of the books and materials out there that help you in terms of dealing with an affair, that’s assuming you’re dealing with a “normal” or functional type of population, as functional as an affair can be. But they don’t take in consideration, many times, special populations such as attention deficit disorders.
That’s why I feel the need to go ahead and address this because there’s some unique dynamics that can be very frustrating and make this a little harder than it it has to be. We’re going to talk about that.
- When you’re dealing with attention deficit disorder you’re dealing with a person that has a limited ability to think in terms of long-term consequences. So when they’re faced with the opportunity for an affair, they look at just short-term only.
Their mind is not even thinking long-term, they’re only thinking about what’s going to happen that night. Thinking beyond that, or thinking in terms of how it can affect others, that is totally off their radar screen.
Since they think in those terms that presents some unique challenges when you’re trying to confront them and you’re trying to deal with the problem. In terms of the solutions, or ways to go about dealing with affairs when the cheater has attention deficit disorder, number one.
You’re going to need to listen to their story or their narrative, depending on which term you prefer to use, in terms of high-risk sensory overload moments.
What I’m talking about here, when you’re dealing with a regular type of person you listen to their story and you may hear themes of seduction, you may hear themes of overindulgence in terms of alcohol, over-stimulation in terms of other medications, or the person that they saw was just so seductive that they couldn’t think about it.
But when you’re dealing with an attention deficit disorder (ADD), rather than listening for the titillating sexual bits or the alcohol bits, you want to listen to it in terms of high-risk sensory overload.
Because many times with attention deficit disorder they get into situations where they are overloaded, too much going on. And when your brain is overloaded it hits the brakes and quits functioning. When you’re dealing with that kind of situation that calls for a different approach than somebody who has been plotting and planning an affair and just looking for the right lover.
Two different kinds of situations, two different types of approaches. When you listen to them, listen for those high-risk sensory moments. That’s going to give you some clues as to what you’re dealing with.
Your biggest threat, with ADD, may not be the lover. It may be the poor decision making on the part of the cheater and that’s what you’re going to have to realize.
2. Consider a buddy system approach. If they’re putting themselves in high-risk situations a lot you may have to set up the buddy system so that they will call you or someone else when those moments of sensory overload are approaching. When they start to feel overwhelmed by what’s going on to call before they get into trouble. And position it that way.
3. Avoid interpreting bad choices of the ADD cheater as a rejection of you. With attention deficit disorder you’re dealing with being in sensory overload, that is a very different situation than someone who is rejecting you and is choosing not to love you anymore, and is choosing to kick you to the curb. That’s not what’s going on with ADD.
With ADD they’re just not thinking. It’s react, react, react. And a person who’s in react react react way of thinking, they’re not being malicious. This is something that you’re going to have to realize. I know that the tendency is to go ahead and want to take it personally. You’re going to have to resist that when you’re dealing with attention deficit disorders.
These things you can start to do right away, and it’s going to take time. You’re going to have to have a little more patience with ADD than some other situations, as well, but this will start you on the road to your affair recovery. These are things that you can do even before we get off the phone this evening, or we finish this radio broadcast.
You can put these things in place and you can be well on your way to being one up on dealing with the attention deficit disorder problem. I know it can be frustrating and my heart goes out to you. But these are some ways to go ahead and start dealing with it.
Best Regards,
Jeff
P. S. If you are dealing with an affair situation and want to know how to start changing things, the Affair Recovery Workshop provides you direction in terms of what to say, what areas to work on and ways of communicating with reduced conflict.
