Dear Lucy:

You wrote: “About my parents’ fights.. I would listen to  them and stay quiet calm I guess… thinking about the practical side and not trying to think of the emotional side and how I felt. I would mostly remain calm”- Your parents fighting scared you  intensely and you adapted by going numb and rational, calm in the face of disaster. The price you paid  for this adaptation, or adjustment, is ADHD elsewhere, outside  the context  of their fights. Calm when they fight; hyper later, elsewhere. The fear of their repeating  fights, calmed during the  fights, was unsettled in between the fights, leading to that hyperactivity.

You wrote about your boyfriend: “He has  been critical of my being too loud, enthusiastic, too talkative to strangers”. My question is was he critical of you being loud, enthusiastic or too talkative only when  in public where there were  other men he was  afraid  you will hook up with later, or otherwise, in private or with his family and friends???

You wrote: “He comes from a close knit family that emphasizes the importance of communication and talking out issues. His parents are  loving and still kiss, have fun, cuddle, dance in the living room”- IF your boyfriend was critical of you otherwise (regarding my question above), it is  a possibility that his parents managed their lovingly appearing marriage by being very restricted, self controlled, rational, quiet voices…  no passion, no spontaneity and therefore there was a quiet kind of desperation, a hunger for more but settling on an appearance  of love that didn’t  fool your boyfriend.

He then wants passion from you but restricts it at the  same  time. On one  hand he is attracted to the passion that drives your impulsivity, and on the other hand he is afraid of it so he discourages you from expressing it.

You wrote: “My boyfriend feels I have  never known what he  wants or given him my love  freely and passionately… I had always felt some kind  of restriction in my relationship because I had this feeling of so  many expectations… of doing what  is right, what is  best  for the relationship”- maybe he wants  passion but is  afraid of it; maybe he expects to conduct the relationship with you the same way the relationship between his parents was conducted.

If this is the case, then the relationship itself is discouraging you from expressing yourself spontaneously, encouraging  instead your continuing the adapting  behavior to your parents’ fights, the numbing and then, later, the hyper/ impulsive  behavior elsewhere.

I hope to read from you soon.

anita