Episode 77 – Self-Sacrifice Is Not Your Friend (And Here’s Why)

Jane McFadden:

Hi ADHD mums, let’s talk about something that so many of us go through — finally realising that maybe, just maybe, your brain has been playing by a completely different rulebook this whole time. Maybe you’ve always been forgetful, distracted, overwhelmed by basic life admin. Or maybe you’re go, go, go, bouncing between hyper focus, starting projects at 11 o’clock at night, running on pure adrenaline until you crash and then you can’t get out of bed.

The truth is ADHD is not one thing, and knowing how it actually shows up for you is the key to making life easier. That’s exactly why I created the ADHD Pre-Diagnosis Workbook, a guide that’s made specifically for women and mothers navigating through this process. Before you even set foot in the psychiatrist’s office, this workbook helps you figure out what type of ADHD you most align with — hyperactive, inattentive, or a mix of both. How ADHD uniquely impacts your daily life, emotions, and parenting, and the strategies that actually work for your brain so you can start making changes today.

Because here’s the thing — ADHD in women often looks different from the classic stereotype. If you’re ready to get clarity on what’s going on with your brain and walk through your diagnosis or self-understanding feeling empowered instead of lost, grab a copy of the ADHD Pre-Diagnosis Workbook now on ADHDmums.com.au because knowing your ADHD is the first step to working with it, not against it.

Hello and welcome to ADHD Mums. Today we have an episode on resentment in neurodivergent relationships, tools and strategies to build balance and connection in your relationship. Now, if you’re somebody that would love to share this episode with a partner, absolutely go for it. I’m going to record this in a way of educating and building understanding for partners and a way of bridging that gap if the neurodivergent mum is struggling to communicate some of these concepts.

This is always for the ADHD mum, but I want to make this something that you can share if needed. Now, this episode today is about how a neurodivergent mum might address feelings of resentment in their relationship. There can be issues around the mental load, who is doing what, and basically both of you could feel completely burnt out and spent. If you are parenting neurodivergent children, you probably both are exhausted and it’s so easy to look at the other person and go, ‘You’re not doing enough. If you had have done this differently, that wouldn’t have happened.’ But often both of you are running on empty.

This episode is primarily going to talk about the heterosexual relationship between a male and a female, but of course, it could be used interchangeably throughout any gender. I will use the ADHD mums as a female pronoun, and then you can use the partner as the male or female partner. I’m using those terms just for ease of talking.

The number one indicator for mental health with children is going to be the mental health of the parents. If we are burnt out, emotional, angry, resentful — that is breeding through your home and we need to make that time for yourself. If you feel bad or guilty for your kids, know that you’re doing it for them. Pushing down your needs is not helping anybody, especially if you’re going to blame your partner later when you have a plan for you to have that self-care, but you don’t do it. This self-sacrifice that ADHD mums tend to do can lead to burnout and resentment.

That can be when we turn to our partner and we can feel that we have so many unmet needs that we just feel neurologically overwhelmed. This is not the same as being emotionally unstable. Sometimes women and mums can get called crazy — ‘You’re being crazy.’ There’s a very quick way to get somebody upset. ‘Go for a walk. What’s wrong with you?’ It’s a little bit like the hysteria thing where people used to say that women had hysteria — or maybe they just had PMS, maybe they were just overwhelmed.

Unmet needs are not the same as being emotionally unstable or crazy. It’s really a neurological reaction to being overwhelmed. If you have a mum who’s exhausted, overwhelmed, and burnt out, she’s not going to be that great to be in a relationship, partners. If you’re wondering why you’re walking on eggshells, can’t do anything right, or you’re feeling like you don’t know who your partner is anymore — they may be in burnout. They may be in resentment. That’s actually a positive. It sounds really bad, but you can actually come back from that.

ADHD mums, I don’t want to minimise it, because you do not want to minimise anything, partners. But from a partner perspective, if I take a partner perspective here who’s usually fairly practical, they want to get to the problem solving. That is okay because you know what you’re dealing with. When you don’t know what you’re dealing with, but you just feel like she hates you — you don’t know what to do.

If you feel like you might be in this burnout resentment phase and you’ve been sent this podcast from your partner, there are some things that you can do here that are really going to support her. And that’s a positive because you know how to help.

Now, we’ve talked a lot about resentment. It can look like anger. It can look like mum rage. But if we unpack what’s underneath it — what is it really? Sometimes for neurodivergent mums, it can be envy. You might focus on your partner’s perceived capacity to disengage or leave the house without the same level of emotional or logistical intent.

Your envy might be like, ‘How come you get to leave without anybody crying whenever you want? I have to wait for everything to be perfect. How come I have to do all this coordination? Why don’t I get to do that?’ It could be perceived that the partner can leave easily for a weekend trip or a week away for work without agonising over the child’s emotional stability and how it will all work in the lead-up to going away.

It can feel like the neurodivergent mum can struggle with this type of thing because it feels like the grass is greener on the other side. And that may be true because we spoke earlier that the neurodivergent mum might struggle with actually leaving and prioritising herself, and it’s harder for her than her partner.

One thing that we need to look at is that the mum’s sense of responsibility isn’t necessarily better. I don’t think we should push our partners to feel that same sense of responsibility. I actually wonder whether we need to meet in the middle, because waiting for everything to be perfect before you have your own time isn’t healthy either.

So instead of pushing the guilt onto our partner from the ADHD mum’s point of view and saying, ‘Why don’t you feel shit as well? Why don’t you feel resentful? Why don’t you struggle to leave? Why don’t you struggle to do self-care?’ — maybe it shows that we need to collaborate at a better level. Maybe there’s something that we can learn from each other about how we can understand to create more balance for both parties.

I think resentment can really start to be untangled through empathy. I don’t think resentment is a one-way stop to divorce. Some people believe that once resentment is present in a relationship, that’s it — that’s the indicator of divorce. I don’t believe that at all. I think you can absolutely manage and come back if envy is in your relationship or resentment is in your relationship.

Now to clarify, I’m not talking about cheating, trauma, abuse. I’m talking about two parents with kids who are struggling to maintain who’s doing what and the envy from the ADHD mum that maybe their partner has it better, or maybe even from the partner — the partner might think that the ADHD mum has it better. Whatever the envy is, I think we can unpack it.

So the envy can really start to breed into resentment. And if you’re wondering why would a partner be envious of the other — envy in a relationship is frustration and exhaustion and then it kind of leads to resentment around how things just seem easier for the other person. Like grass is greener.

An ADHD mum might watch a partner relax. They might be on their phone, they might be watching TV, having a rest. The ADHD mum might be like, ‘How can you just sit there? How can you just scroll on your phone and relax when there’s a million things to do? I can’t turn off. I’m go, go, go.’ And they can feel angry and resentful, or even start saying to their partner, ‘You need to get up,’ and start to pressure their partner because they feel like there’s so much to do.

The ADHD mum might feel like they’re the only one that carries the mental load. ‘Why do I have to remind everybody about the school forms? Book the appointments? You just seem to exist. You just seem to just go along with things.’ The partner might be like, ‘What do you mean? Stop stressing. Everything will just work out.’ Whereas the ADHD mum might be like, ‘Yeah, because I’ll work it out because I’m the motor here. I’m the thinker. I’m the person that does all of the thinking.’

The ADHD mum might feel like they have the running dialogue and their partner is living a more simple life in their brain. They may go to sleep straight away. It may look like they have less stress or they just don’t look like they are struggling in the same way.

So when we are talking typically that the ADHD mum might be feeling this resentment from the mental load, there may be resentment from the partner back to the ADHD mum too. If that’s there, acknowledge that also. Maybe the partner is feeling overwhelmed with all of this neurodivergent talk. Maybe they are feeling like nothing they say is right. Maybe they are feeling burnt out and overwhelmed as well.

Maybe they are sick of feeling like what they’re doing is not enough and being told, ‘Get up off the couch. You need to do this now.’ Maybe they never signed up for that hyperactive break. There can be so much going on between both sides.

But if we have resentment in the relationship, you can look at reframing it as an unmet need. For example, you can end reframe — you can talk about what you admire about your partner’s approach. You can say, ‘I envy the way that you just drive away without guilt. If you have an appointment or you’ve got to go to work or you’ve got to go do something, you just get in the car and leave regardless of what’s happening. Sometimes I just wish I could do that.’

It’s better to name how you feel than to let it breed. Now, if you’re a partner and you’re hearing that, you want to validate and just breathe through it. So instead of going, ‘Well, I have to go to work,’ or ‘That’s just what you do, I don’t know why you don’t do that,’ you might want to have a look at how you can step away without guilt.

If you are the ADHD mum and you are saying, ‘I’m envious of the way that you drive away without guilt when you have to go to work or you want to go do something that’s agreed upon, I’ve got no issues with you leaving, I just envy the way that you just drive off — wish I could do that.’ Now, if you are the partner, it can be difficult, but we need to be careful that we’re not defensive.

If she’s bringing up ‘I feel’ statements, what not to say is, ‘I do plenty around here,’ or ‘You make me sound like a bad partner,’ or ‘You’re acting like I don’t care.’ When she’s saying an ‘I feel’ statement — ‘I’m envious of the way that you do that’ — not ‘You shouldn’t do that.’ It’s just, ‘I’m so envious of the way that you just do that.’

So I would not start with defensive statements. If you are the partner, you can also then go back to validation. Like, ‘Yeah, I think it’s a bit harder when you’re here a lot more with the kids. They’re so attached to you. It is a bit harder when you leave.’ Or even something like, ‘You’re a great mum and you love them, and of course it’s hard to leave them if they’re crying. I get that.’

If you are feeling resentful to your partner, naming that and reframing it is a really positive thing to do. I think resentment gets worse when it’s not mentioned. It’s better to say, ‘I’m feeling a bit resentful and I’m feeling exhausted and resentful because you’ve had a lot of work trips lately.’ Or, ‘It’s cricket season and you love playing cricket and you’ve been out a lot on Saturdays. It’s been leaving me with the kids and I’m feeling really exhausted.’

And that might be a conversation around where the cricket season ends, what will be something that the ADHD mum would like to do. Because it’s easy for them to just then self-sacrifice instead of really putting in place something for them. So if you are feeling resentful, feel free to reframe it in a positive ‘I feel’ statement.

If you are the partner, hear it, validate it. Once you validate her and she feels like, ‘Yeah, you get it,’ you can look to making a solution and get behind her and go, ‘Well, what would make you feel a bit better? What’s something we can do for you?’ Whatever it is — and then have that conversation.

So if you’re the partner and you’re thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, I don’t want all of this stuff,’ it’s not about that. We’re looking at just working well as a team. We also want to acknowledge that we are setting up a structure for both partners and the needs of both partners. We are proactively protecting each other’s time for regulation.

Now, often the ADHD mum has a bit of a feeling around, ‘Oh well, I’ll just do everybody else’s needs and then at the end, I might have time to do a wee.’ That self-sacrificing mindset’s probably not going to help you in this situation. If you’d like to feel supported, ADHD mum, you may need to set up some non-negotiable time blocks.

If one person is getting 30 minutes to decompress in the morning, the other person is getting 30 minutes later on in the day. The kids and the extended family are understanding that both parents require equal space to self-regulate. If the ADHD mum has something that they would love to do, and it doesn’t seem like there’s enough room for it, partners — be aware that the ADHD mum is waiting for you to go, ‘Oh well, we don’t really have time for that, so you don’t get to do it.’

It’s almost like society’s expectations that women just suck it up. We almost don’t even fight for ourselves, but then we get upset later when we haven’t had any time. So partners, in that moment, it’d be really good if you could encourage your partner to really do it. There’s so much guilt around being the perfect mum and not putting yourself first and sacrificing and sacrificing, and there’s never enough time.

Really try to encourage your partner to do something for themselves. Now, if they don’t, they cannot get angry with you later when they haven’t had any time for themselves, okay? Because this is the time and space to do it. If your partner is saying to you, ADHD mum, ‘Why don’t you go and do that? I’m happy for you to do that in this space,’ and you say, ‘No, don’t worry about it,’ well, that was your opportunity.

So maybe that needs to be an open invite. Like, ‘Just do that on a Saturday if you’d like to. If you choose not to, that’s okay. But it’s an open invite. You could if you want.’ And basically from the partner’s point of view, like, ‘Don’t throw that back in my face later because you didn’t do it.’

And that’s the sense of responsibility that we as ADHD mums have to have. So we get caught in the guilt and the shame and not prioritising ourselves. Don’t then blame your partner if you don’t go and do that if they’ve tried to create that space for you and you’ve not taken it up.

The reason I’m saying that is because I’m guilty of that. My partner might say, ‘Well, you can go and do that,’ or ‘You know, that would be really good,’ or ‘I’m happy to do that,’ and then I go into the guilt that I shouldn’t be doing that and I don’t take him up on it. And then I get upset later when I’m burning out and I feel exhausted and I get all emotional.

And really, it’s not a great time then for my partner to say, ‘Well, you could have done that for yourself, but you didn’t.’ That’s not the time. When I reflect on it later on — what were the preventative things that I knew that I should have been doing? It was taking him up on his offer.

There is a sense of responsibility on both parties to take and make time for themselves. So yes, I acknowledge ADHD mums — it can be really difficult if you feel like you’re helping with the emotional regulation with kids more, they get more upset if you leave. You may need to just start leaving because if you wait for the stars and the moon to align for you to have the time off, you may never go.

So there is a sense of responsibility on you to make that time with your partner and then take the time, ADHD mum. Your partner can’t force you to get in the car. You need to actively take and carve out that time as well. And it’s not up to your partner to make it perfect for you to leave. It’s up to you to leave no matter what, because that is the scheduled time, because that is what partners do.

They go, ‘Oh, I have to go now because cricket’s on. I have an appointment. I have to go here. I said I was leaving at nine, so I will.’ They just leave. And there can be that sense of misunderstanding from ADHD mums around, ‘How could they just leave during that?’ But there’s also that sense of non-understanding from the partners, where it’s like, ‘Well, I told you that you could go and do that and you never went.’

We know that there are some significant differences in emotional regulation capabilities and sensory processing compared to neurotypical individuals. If you have an ADHD mum, they could experience emotional dysregulation and also RSD, which is Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria.

What RSD or Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria looks like is that it can be a really intense emotional reaction to perceived rejection, criticism, or failure. It can look from a partner’s perspective like, ‘Gee, she’s sensitive. I can’t say anything because she just flies off the handle. She overreacts.’

And it probably is an overreaction, depending on what the situation is. But for the ADHD mum, it can feel really overwhelming and painful — a response to perceived criticism, failures, and their emotional pain can really represent more intensely.

The other way that ADHD mums can experience this different way of processing emotions is they can feel acutely guilty when they leave their children. They may struggle to leave their children even though they’re desperate for a break. It can look really confusing for the partner — like, ‘You’re saying you want a break, and I’m telling you to go take a break, but you won’t leave. I don’t know what you want from me.’

From the ADHD mum’s perspective, the partner can feel or appear less emotional about leaving, more comfortable stepping away from the parenting duties. But this can feel really confusing for the ADHD mum that’s desperate to do it, feeling isolated and resentful, but yet isn’t doing the thing that would help them.

So the emotional dysregulation really comes from the prefrontal cortex and amygdala where the emotional processing occurs. What this can really look like is that the neurodivergent mum can feel disproportionately affected by their partner’s actions or perceived inaction, which can create a cycle of guilt, envy, and resentment.

Now partners, you might be thinking, ‘Oh my god, I knew I couldn’t win and that she’s just told me that.’ Well, what I’ve actually done — what I hope I’ve done — is I’ve helped to create awareness so you understand how it’s a bit harder. If you have an ADHD partner that’s caught in the guilt or caught in the emotions of leaving the kids, but you know they’re desperate to leave, you may need to just tackle that guilt right up front. You may need to actively encourage them to leave.

Now, this isn’t about the ADHD mum going, ‘Well now it’s up to you to make me feel safe to leave.’ It’s not about that at all. It’s the ADHD mum’s responsibility to prioritise herself, and if there’s a plan that’s met with, ‘Hey ADHD mum, at this time, that is your time for you, you leave then.’ But from the partner perspective, understand it may be harder for them to leave. If you’re confused why that is, that can be why.

So it may be offering smaller things, smaller spaces, more regularly, rather than like, ‘Take a whole day off once a month.’ You might be better off saying, ‘Go for a walk for half an hour once a week.’ This is not about clearing your schedule forever. This is about creating short, sharp breaks that will start to alleviate some of the burnout and the resentfulness in ways that the neurodivergent mum thinks will work.

So this may be taking a shower by herself for 30 minutes of a night-time. That might be all she wants. Now for me, to give you a personal example — partners — there are times with my partner that I feel resentful and he says to me that he feels he’s walking on eggshells, and he’s probably correct.

Particularly when I’ve got PMS, I really am quite unreasonable. I completely — I get it, and I acknowledge that. But one thing that we have come to agree on is if he says he feels like he’s walking on eggshells, I say to him, ‘Let me lock the door and have a shower.’

When I do that, I might just light a couple of candles, put some music on, but like 20 minutes later, I feel so much better. For him, that investment in that time and knowing that I need that and I come out feeling better — he’s more than happy to do that. But if he doesn’t know what to do and I’m just irritated, it can be really hard.

So look practically at creating the smaller breaks in a way that works for both of you, because who is right? And we need to make time for ourselves.

One thing for the partners that I think is just always, always going to be great is if you could remind your ADHD mum partner that she is enough exactly as she is. ‘You don’t need to be perfect. You’re a great mum. You’re doing so much. I’m so proud of you. Well done.’

Acknowledging how hard she’s trying and that she’s enough just as she is, is always going to make your ADHD mum partner feel loved. If you are unsure what to say, you can always come back to that one.

All right, so let’s wrap up. Thank you so much. I know these conversations are not always easy. No one wants to feel like they’re failing their partner or dropping the ball. If there’s one thing I hope that you take away from this episode, it is not about blame — it’s about awareness and teamwork.

If this episode hits home, share it with your partner. Use it as a starting point for your own conversation. Jump into the Facebook group, share your experience. I hope this was helpful for you. Thank you so much and see you next time.

The key message here is you are not alone. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, follow us on Instagram or head over and join our amazing ADHD Mums Podcast Facebook community. Everything you do matters and helps to spread the word about what neurodiversity in females looks like.