Keep the Romance Alive: “Romance Management” for the ADHD’er

By Duane Gordon

Everyone is romantic on Valentine’s Day. One day a year is easy. But experienced, long-lasting couples will tell you that year-round romance is an essential ingredient for a happy marriage.

Many ADHDers excel at romance. In a new relationship, we’re excited and enthusiastic; the novelty, interest and challenge create the perfect situation for us to focus, even hyper-focus, on the object of our affection. Creative and charming, we do funny, silly, romantic things, impulsively embarking on adventures, doing things and taking risks many non-ADHDers would not.

My wife, a non-ADHDer, is the first to admit that there are few things more fun, exciting, thrilling or unpredictable than being courted by an ADHDer. Admittedly, she has limited courtship experience with ADHDers (just me!), but she often shares similar stories with other non-ADHD spouses.

And, as is common, she was disappointed post-courtship when things changed. I forgot her birthday. I chose practical Christmas gifts, things we needed and, lacking the patience to do it myself, I’d ask her to wrap them.

Though I was no Don Juan, I did manage something special for Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day and Christmas. After all, advertisers make sure we don’t miss those. But romance just for the fun of it fell by the wayside somewhere between paying bills, mowing the lawn and helping with homework.

The routine of running a household and raising a family is not romantic. Romance is special because it’s out of the ordinary. You swept your significant other off her (or his!) feet because you were out of the ordinary; you did things that were out of the ordinary.

A Valentine’s Day card on Valentine’s Day is routine. Put romance back into your relationship by doing something unusual. Don’t let daily life distract you from your obligation to be “out of the ordinary.” You courted your spouse, and closed the deal, using your “extra-ordinariness.” You’ll be guilty of false advertising if you don’t continue your creative, impulsive, thrillingly romantic ways.

The first time I brought my wife flowers just because “It’s Wednesday!” she had tears of joy in her eyes. All you need is a system, and the rewards for refocusing on romance are great; we’re celebrating our 25^th anniversary this year.

Valentine’s Day serves as my yearly romantic reminder, but instead of doing something just for Valentine’s Day I take time to plan romance for the year. I schedule a recurring task in my electronic agenda so that every few weeks, an alert appears reminding me to buy my wife flowers. When I see that, I know it’s time to impulsively, spontaneously do something romantic! It’s not spontaneous, but she doesn’t know that!

I choose an odd number of weeks so she won’t know, “Oh, it’s the beginning of the month so I should expect flowers.” I have the task pop-up on my To Do list on Sunday, the day I do my planning, so I can randomly schedule it in the following week, making sure she doesn’t always get flowers on Wednesday (and no, it’s not always flowers – I once surprised her with a night at a romantic country inn.)

Do this to keep the spark in your relationship. The system works wonders, and you can use this strategy even if you don’t use an electronic agenda. I first started doing this with a paper agenda. On Valentine’s Day, I’d flip through my agenda for the year and set an appointment every few weeks.

Yes, everyone’s romantic on Valentine’s Day, but if you want to stand out from the crowd, (and to your spouse, you definitely want to stand out from the crowd!) you need to be romantic all year long. Make “romance management” part of your time management system and then put your strengths, that impulsive creativity that won her (or his) heart in the first place, to work!

Duane Gordon is an artist, writer and the extremely lucky husband of Linda Walker.