In one minute

ADHD does not just affect the person who has it. Partners, friends and family live with the forgetting, the lateness, the half-finished jobs and the sudden intensity too — often for years without a name for it.

The commonest pattern is not conflict about big things. It is a slow build-up of small ones — the bin, the unanswered text, the plan that was agreed and then forgotten — until one person feels like a parent and the other feels constantly criticised. Neither role is any fun.

A diagnosis is a good moment to reset. Most of what helps is practical: taking things out of memory and putting them into systems, and agreeing how to talk about it before it goes wrong.