Marriage and LD

My advice is to say nothing at all. I’m a 50 yoa male, and tested high on IQ tests (I qualified for Mensa), but did poorly at every level of education. I managed 3 years of college but was suspended for “lack of progress”. Since I’ve always been an avid reader and good speller everyone assumed I was lazy, including me. I have 6 brothers and sisters and 5 graduated from college.
3 years ago I took up guitar and piano and really started to apply myself to learning notes, scales, etc.but found I could retain almost nothing including chords.After 3 years I don’t know the lines and spaces on the stave, the notes or strings on the guitar or the keys on the piano. I keep charts close at hand and use every trick I can dream up to learn the music.
I started looking at the rest of my life and noticed I had lists for everything. Calendars with everything relevant marked ahead. A work diary the same. I can only remember names thru image association. I was stunned to realize how little I can remember without being written out. And NO ONE believes me, including my parents, family and friends of 20-30 years. Only one person understood, a school teacher that grew up in my home town. When I described my memory flaws she told me I had a form of learning disability. It made sense to her, and now to me but no one else. I’ve never been married so I can’t help you there, but explaining LD is like trying to explain shyness to an extrovert. Live your life and fake it when you have to…

Hello Katy,

My advice is at the opposite end of the spectrum than John’s because I feel that honesty is the best policy when you get married since you will be spending the rest of your life with the person you are going to marry. Keeping such important matters from a future spouse will be extremely difficult and cause undue stress and hardship on you since you will constantly have to watch your actions as well as what you say; after awhile, all of this cover up will become overwhelming along with increased amount of worry. I personally wouldn’t jeopardize such a very important “rite of passage” just because how you are feeling because your view is subjective and not how others necessarily think of you. I was dating a guy a few yrs. ago and I told him about my LD even though I was very hesitant because I was ashamed, and embarassed; I also was scared of his reaction since I didn’t know how he was going to react. Well, the situation turned out well and all my thoughts and fears were for naught since he was vey supportive and appreciated my honesty. Even though there are people out their who don’t understand and are closed minded, I have met many wonderful and caring people. Some of the many great people I have met, I would have never imagined meeting and having them be so accepting.
If you have been dating for about 2 yrs. or so and talking about marriage then I would suspect that the guy likes you no matter what. My advice to you would be to listen to your gut and trust yourself and then you’ll know what’s the best for you to do.

Hope this helps,
Maria

You should tell someone you’re going to get married to. Otherwise it’ll allwasy be between you, and if there are problems that crop up because of it, well, at that point how the hell will your mate know what’s going on? Besides, if they can’t be supportive of you on this, what’re you doing marryingthem?

I can understand hte impulse well enough, my ADD & CAPD casue me no end of hell trying to become involved with women, and if there were some way I could just have it not be a part of who I am in relationships, well, if given the choice between having my arm cut off, and having various cognative dysfunctions, well, I’d lose the arm in a hot minute on a lot of days.

I agree with Maria and somewhat with Tim. If you are thinking of marrying someone who truly loves you, he should understand and be supportive. I have had my ADHD/LD interfere in relationships. And I know that I was not with the right person! The “right person” will treasure and support all of your qualities. Very few people understand high functioning people with ADHD and LD. But it is a major part of who you are. If you try to hid it, obviously, it will arise at times. Then your partner will be either confused or disappointed with you, if they are not the Right Person…. but rather one you try to show only your best qualities to and who has fallen in love with am image of you. I disagree with Tim, in the fact that I do really love that ADHD/LD part of me…its who I am. And beleive me at age 48, I have had more than my share of heartaches because of it. But it makes me an insightful, sensitive, creative, resiliant person.And I truly would not give up who or what I am, albeit its misunderstandings by the other 98% of the population.
Georgia

I THINK YOU SHOULD TELL HIM!!!!!
I have been dating a man for the last three years who has dyslexia. When we started dating I didn’t know he had dyslexia. We are now discussing marriage and I was very grateful he was honest with me for two reasons. First because dyslexia is hereditary, our children have a chance of inheriting dyslexia and we will know what to look for early on and what sort of tools to provide them with that will help them. One of his biggest frustrations is that his parents, teachers, and friends ignored the dyslexia and he was always labeled as lazy. After we had dated for two years I asked him about the possibility of a learning disability and asked him to be tested..sure enough he had dyslexia. It has been a sometimes diffcult process for both of us to understand how dyslexia affects our lives. But we have made it through together. He has not always wanted to talk about dyslexia principally because he views it as a weakness and he sometimes loses confidence wondering if I will still love and accept him. However, talking about it helped me understand, love and accept him better. Sometimes there were things he did that I didn’t understand; like why he always spelled things severely incorrectly (even small simple words) or why he had a great distaste for school. Education is important to me and I had a hard time understanding why he didn’t want to finish college. Once I understood certain things about school were difficult for him it was easier for me and for him =). He is a brillant artist and loves doing art and animation for video games. Talking about the dyslexia has helped a great deal…I say go for it!

Honesty is a good start for your marriage, and, if he truly
loves you…He will appreciate it, and move on into a hopefully great life. My wife loves me, and often helps me with dyslexic/L.D. symptoms. We laugh about it, and I remind her
how much I appreciate her unconditional love and understanding.

One piece of advice. I often get defensive about LD or something I forgot to do, etc. My advice is to just humble yourself to God and your boyfriend/possible husband, and give him respect. You may want to say it in a, “by the manner” instead of…(soap opera music)”I have something to tell you.”
I told my wife I had a tough time in school, and ways I also am
successful. Tyler

Oh I absolutely agree with telling him! I am very happily married now (for 2 1/2) years to a very supportive man. At first he didn’t seem to realize that I had such learning difficulties. I also have slight vision and hearing impairments and that’s all he knew. As time went on, he learned very surprising things about the way I act and process things. It was hard at first, but I think he understands now and it helps me understand myself even more. When I get finished with my retesting later this month, it will be an even bigger help since I’ve never been able to fully explain my LD because I’ve never fully understood it myself!!

As for having children, I don’t think all LD is hereditary. Mine came from Congenital Rubella, so there doesn’t appear to be any concern of passing that on to children. I don’t know the full nature of your LD, so unless it’s dyslexia like Emma said, then I can’t really say for sure on that, sorry :(

Just be honest and hopefully he’ll love you for YOU, like my hubby does!

Good luck!!

Christine

I believe you should tell your husband to be that you are LD. I have been married now for ten years. My husband is very helpful in many ways. I have two boys. One who is LD and the other one is not. LD can be in heredity. The more you know about the LD the more help your future children in and out of school.

The big question is will he be supportive to you now and in the future to come.

Good luck in your talk. Just be yourself and God will take care of you.

Holly Meyers

I too have LD and my husband and I talked alot about it. He treats me no different. But there is at times that he does not understand why I do the things I do. I have a set routine and if I don’t follow it or it get’s out of synk I get very frustrated. And he doesn’t understand why I am mad. We do discuss about children and I too get worried that our child migh inhearted he LD. He told me that we will work hrough it and if you made i throught College then they can too cause you been there and know how to do it. We are very close and with alot of explaining and openess about LD he works with me and understands and no put downs but alo of encouragement.

Heidi

I have a very supportive husband too. At times he also doesn’t understand why things happen the way they do for me or why I have trouble with things like organizing. If you could only have seen me yesterday—I was back and forth between two rooms and it looked like a tornado swept through—just about everything is put away now but I’ve got more to do! Talk about overwhelming!

He was angry that I had started too many projects at once but he helped me get back on track and kept me from getting overwhelmed.

I think you should tell him. First, it is nothing to be ashamed of. Second, he loves you. Plus, if you do end up have a child with LD the topic will probably come up in the future. Unfortunatly I have never been in this situation because my boyfriend has LD too! I don’t know how we found each other! Good Luck!

Dear Kate,
I can’t think of anything more fundamental to a relationship than trust. Either you can trust this person with who you are, or you can’t. Having ADHD or LD attatched to your name makes about the same difference as PHD. Who you are is who gets married, not your classification. I know many doctors and successful professionals who I would worry about marrying my daughter, because they aren’t pleasant human beings. The same is true of any group. You are who you are, not what you are. At least that’s who will be coming home day after day, sharing holidays and work and children. If you aren’t comfortable with yourself, see a therapist;don’t think your spouse will make up for those things you percieve as missing. That’s not their job.
Next LD and ADD/ADHD are only part of your experience and our culture. That’s not to suggest they don’t exist, but it is to put them into a human perspective. Today still more than half of the world doesn’t read…not even poorly. Education is a cultural enterprise that has a broad societal value, but an increasingly high human cost. I’m not dismissing education; that’s what I do. But to have endured American Education as a learning differenced person is not a neutral 70% passing. Too often it is a marginalizing, destructive series of events that continue until each individual determines they can’t stand anymore. We carry scars; we see our lives magnified in our children and are terrified. Not because of the ten thousand other reasons to be terrified to bring children into the world, but because we want to end our own suffering. Well, so what? There are more reasons not to have children, more reasons not to trust someone, more reasons to shy away from love than there are rational explanations to get married and have a family. That’s why it’s so incredible that every day people get up and make breakfast for the people they love.
You can live in the fear you’ve been taught or step out into your own life. That’s not to say this person will accept or understand you, ot that telling the truth will be successful of pleasant. But it will be your truth, you will be living your life, not your fear. Good luck.