I've been with my partner for over 4 years. He was diagnosed with ADHD as a child and was medicated until young adulthood, chose to come off the meds, and went back on after we'd been together for a year when he decided to go back to school.
Because he was diagnosed so young and spent a number of years unmedicated, he's developed a lot of helpful coping mechanisms/routines I think a lot of people with ADHD never get to. I honestly think he's learned a lot of great ways to overcome his ADHD quirks. So much so that I find it hard to believe he can do even better - he's really leaps and bounds more focused and productive than other people I know with ADHD.
But that's where my concern is, because I need him to do better with picking up after himself and I fear that he won't get better with it. I've voiced dozens of times over the years how he keeps leaving his cups and bowls all over the house, his clothes in the middle of the room or the clothing pile even when he knows they need to get washed/be out of the way, etc. I've voiced that I feel I do to much laundry, so he says he'll help with the laundry, but he keeps forgetting laundry in the washer overnight so it needs to get rewashed.
We try to find ways for him to notice these household things, but they often don't work...like when he was putting dishes on the counter rather than in the dishwasher, he said it was because he defaults to thinking the dishwasher is clean (why he won't empty the dishwasher in that case is beyond me, but not the point here). So we decided to put magnets on the dishwater to indicate when it's clean or dirty. Still he asks me if its clean or dirty/makes assumptions with the status of the dishwasher/just doesn't bother putting dishes in the dishwasher.
All of these household inconveniences are minor, but they add up and make me feel like the work is uneven and like I'm his mom. We plan on starting our family in the next couple years, and the idea of picking up after him and the only one who notices the mess left by our children and therefore the only one picking up after them is...terrifying. I fear developing resentment.
I don't know what to do. We communicate all the time. I voice my concerns frequently. We try to come up with cues to get him to notice things, but they rarely stick. I get the feeling I'm just supposed to accept this is the way he is and he's as good at handling his ADHD as he's going to get, but I don't see how that's fair on me...
I'm really hoping people with ADHD/who are partnered with someone with ADHD will give pointers on how to get to a point where household tidying/picking up after each other feels more even.
