How Married Couples Can Navigate an ADHD Diagnosis With Avigail Gimpel

On this episode of Intentional Marriage, co-hosts and married couple – Justin and Cresta Burt – talk to Avigail Gimpel about her 20-year-journey to understand ADHD and how to reverse it in her students as well as her own children, and more specifically how married couples can navigate an ADHD diagnosis.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• When both people in a relationship are struggling with ADHD symptoms it really makes for an extremely challenging relationship. I have less success there and the marriages usually don’t last that long. But, what I see very often is that people with ADHD symptoms tend to attract people that are a little more stable. 
• The first piece of advice I give to the spouse that doesn’t have ADHD symptoms is that your spouse is healthy, this isn’t a pathological condition, it is a lack of habit, and it’s certainly a way of doing things that is very different. What we need to do is bridge the gap by education and understanding each other. You need to understand what’s going on with them, what challenges your spouse is facing, what path they’re taking, as well as working with that person who has ADHD symptoms and helping them gain those skills.
• It’s not just about accepting the person, both member of the couple really have work to do gaining new skills, gaining patience and the main issue that I’ve seen over and over again is that the couple gets enmeshed in each other and they don’t know how to stop relying on the spontaneity or stability of the other and be their own person first and then part of a couple. Once they can stand as their own person they can work better as a couple.
• Mom’s with ADHD typically have a higher level of empathy towards their children and they’re able to bond better with their children. But, they’re a little more boundaryless which is problematic because you need to have clear rules and expectations for children. That’s something that I coach couples through, the bonding is so important and is at the centre, but because of that overwhelming empathy, I generally have to train them on the rules and the follow-through and not feeling sorry for your children and therefore turning them into sorry children.

BEST MOMENTS

‘My husband is extremely ADHD, he travels all over the world, he’s the life of the party, and is a lot of fun, but I’m definitely the anchor here.’
‘There are many, many different reasons why a person may behave in this way, from lack of skills to trauma and abuse to gut issues.’
‘Any couple that are not great at boundaries or their communication is not smooth and therefore their children are hearing a lot of fighting, arguing and childish bickering, that they get help right away. If you’re going to bring children into the world you need to raise them in a home where they’re not having to suffer with strife.’
‘Any parent whose child is diagnosed with ADHD: Take a deep breath, your child is healthy, it’s not your fault, you didn’t do anything wrong, you just need to learn more.’

ABOUT THE GUEST

Avigail Gimpel is a mom and educator who has earned her stripes! As her students grappled with ADHD symptoms and her own children were diagnosed with ADHD, she took a deep dive into the research (turning up unexpected results), studied and applied the best programs available, and developed many of her own. HyperHealing is the result of over twenty-five years of research, development, and application of cutting-edge intervention programs for her clients, children, and hundreds of students.

Website: https://www.hyperhealing.org/ 

ABOUT THE HOSTS

Justin and Cresta Burt are marriage coaches who specialise in helping couples regain their intimacy inside and outside the bedroom. They share how their Intentional Marriage principles can help c