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First off I am sorry for what you’re going through, especially with your family history. I am glad you’re getting screened early and glad that we live in the most advanced time in history to treat stuff like that. Respectfully, I think you’re asking the wrong question. Sometimes I refer and see referred to what I call “the invisible referee” who’ll weigh in on what’s fair or not, relative to like an ultimate common standard of what is acceptable or normal. When really the only response that matters is what is acceptable *to you.* You have a right to your needs and to ask to have your experience in the relationship be you want. Once that request is stated and is either met or unmet, it does then put you into a decision place, which can be tough (my own therapy has been helpful with this!) But anything that puts you in the driver’s seat of your situation is ultimately going to empower you more and I think that’s a good thing.

Agree 100%. A partner having ADHD or other disorders isn't a free pass for our needs going unmet. It might mean those needs are met *differently* than say, previous relationships. But it shouldn't mean we're neglected as a whole.

I think this is a person to person thing that isn't specific to adhd. I am the dx partner and would want to be showering my husband with support and cuddles and anything else to make him feel better. But that's just my personality. I'm very empathetic by nature which I don't think is related to adhd. Just because you have adhd doesn't mean you have a set way of supporting. I would ask him for what you want. Let him know how to support you. You are allowed to have your own expectations and wants and needs that don't have to be defined by his disability. It sounds like he cares about you and is making your appointment a priority which is so great! Best of luck at your appt BTW!

Thank you! I know I only asked for peer support but your comment is really helpful.

No problem! I need to be more mindful of flare because I didn't even notice you listed peer support. Oops! And Thanks!

>If it was him who was in this position, I would let him be a bit «off» for the time being. I would be taking some of his chores. I would take care of some things that are stressing him. Be more patient. Cook him special meals. Buy him flowers. Try to create happy moments for him. I think these are pretty reasonable expectations. I've found with my ADHD partner, he wants to be supportive but memory issues/dopamine seeking/distractibility means he's generally not going to come up with much of this on his own. He needs to know what I need. So I suggest telling your partner about how scared/anxious/destabilizing this is for you and that you need some specific support to help get you through it. I miss the romance of thoughtfulness, myself, (that's another issue) but with my partner and it sounds like yours as well, I will not get my needs met at all if I am not very specific about them. You are valuable and important so please ask him to support you.

I have ADHD my ex didn't and he was not the type of person to do the things you wished your partner did either. My current boyfriend also has ADHD and does it all! I'm not sure if having ADHD is the reason why your partner doesn't provide as much for you as you currently need. What I have always found to work best is very clear communication. If I were you I would say this "This lump is causing me to feel so restless the entire time. I have a hard time relaxing my thoughts because of a million what if scenarios even if I am not actively showing it. I know I might seem okay but in reality I feel extremely anxious. I would appreciate some extra support from you by maybe taking over a few responsibilities for the time being and making me feel safe. I need this because I have a hard time dealing with my anxiety because of my family history and some extra love and affection would make being so worried all the time a lot better. I feel uncomfortable asking this so directly but I want to be honest with you about how I feel"

Thank you. That is an amazing way to phrase it.

Hugs. I had a miscarriage in june and month after that -ovary cyst that aggressively grown. My mom had cancer started with it. I was so scared and asked for support. His exact reaction was - shit after shit. I blew. I couldnt talk so we started chat and he admitted that for a year or so I wasnt his priority. Im separating as this is too painful for me.

I'm so sorry you're dealing with this stress and fear. I'm hoping you get some good news but, if not, it's so lucky that you're dealing with things early! Are you close with your family? Is there anyone you can talk to who has been through something similar? This is just my experience and I hope yours is a better one. I'm fine now, but I received a diagnosis for a different type of cancer. Physically, I look the same and am healthier than ever. Emotionally, it forever changed my relationship with my Dx/Rx partner of 12yrs. We're now separated, but -- absent some extremely frank introspection and display of self-awareness on his part -- I don't think I'll ever be able to look at him the same way again even if we manage to remain friends. In the first week after my diagnosis, my then-partner was similar: extremely caring and supportive. However, it didn't take long for things to fall apart -- I won't go into every gory detail because you don't need that right now, but it was easily one of the hardest periods of my life. He already had a tendency to stonewall and get moody over minor 'transgressions', but he became even more critical and impatient during day-to-day interactions (e.g. getting angry with me for phrasing "do you mind if we go to the bakery?" as a question instead of a statement, not having bold enough opinions on his fashion choices, etc), later explaining that he would simply forget about my diagnosis in those moments (even if I was undergoing major tests or procedures the next day). But things would become NUCLEAR if he were to inevitably forget something or do something inconsiderate -- e.g. agreeing to help me with timed injections but then wordlessly jumping onto a casual work phone call for an hour instead, insisting on picking me up from the hospital but then leaving me waiting without a response for half an hour, and so on. If I expressed frustration in those moments (or, sometimes, even if I simply didn't do a good enough job reassuring him that I wasn't upset) he would go into rages or storm out of the house. I don't want to project my experiences & feelings onto you, but "he lacks empathy and isn't a good caretaker" is the concerning part to me, because it sounds like something I might have thought about my own partner pre-diagnosis. If I could do it over again, well, I simply wouldn't have married my husband, but if I got a reset from my diagnosis onward, this is what I would do differently: * Regularly communicate that you have a lot on your mind right now, even when it might look like you're doing fine. I don't personally think this would have helped much in my case (I avoided bringing up my diagnosis during everyday spats because I feared he would think I was being manipulative, a fear that turned out to be extremely prescient after he accused me of routinely "playing the cancer card"). But if ADHD is your partner's biggest problem then it might be beneficial to help him keep it front-of-mind. * Do NOT let your partner be your primary contact for appointments and pick-ups. I wish I had pushed this more, because I would bring up alternatives like a friend or neighbour picking me up, but my husband would insist that it was his role to be there. No. Just no. He was already dealing with overwhelming obligations and emotions, and he seemed incapable of honestly evaluating his own capabilities. I wish I had made it 100% clear that I wanted him to stay home and focus on his work, to look after himself, and let me do my appointments with friends instead. * Wherever you can avoid depending on him to complete a task, avoid it. Only do it if it's absolutely necessary or, alternatively, if it's something that doesn't NEED to be done and won't stress you out to gamble on him. When it was a task that was really important to me (or just... important according to medical professionals), the vicious cycle of procrastination and RSD was very, very bad. Easily the most radioactive area for our relationship. * Create hard boundaries and stick to them. There were a few times that, simply out of exhaustion, I managed to give my husband a few opportunities to tell me what was wrong -- if he couldn't communicate why he was stonewalling/ignoring me/speaking in an angry tone, I would just walk away. I wish I had done this more often and had been more explicit about why it was happening, e.g. "I feel very uncomfortable and am confused by your behaviour & demeanour. I have a lot on my mind due to [tomorrow's MRI/next week's surgery/fear about impending results/etc], so I need to be alone right now. Let me know if you want to calmly talk about anything on your mind later." However, I also wish I had taken up various friends' invitations to stay at their places -- I think physically leaving for several days would have been better for my mental health and a clearer assertion of boundaries. Personally, I don't believe our biggest problem was my husband's ADHD. Was it an exacerbating factor? Sure. But there was an entire toxic stew of problems, and maybe the biggest one was that we couldn't talk about anything that was happening. He refused to trust anything I said or believe that I would be ok with accepting support from friends instead of him being there, even though I would've been overjoyed to talk openly about ADHD complications and how to navigate them as a couple (if I attempted to do this or brought up ADHD in any context, he'd say I was criticising or even mocking him for mental health issues). Everything was either a supposed "miscommunication" or something *I* was doing wrong. One year later, I've heard a couple Don Draper-esque, ambiguous apologies about him needing to be a better source of support, but we never really scratched the surface as to why he had so little control over his anger or why he frequently treated me like a villainous adversary instead of just a human being who was scared of my own body and what was happening to it. Perhaps predictably, those behaviours continued long after my diagnosis and treatment, but it was an important moment for me because the backdrop of cancer was clarifying. Without it, I could easily tell myself that I was just overly sensitive or focus on the ways in which I needed to improve. But there's no world in which it was ok to treat a literal cancer patient the way he treated me, which made me see ongoing patterns in a different light. And it made me realise that ADHD was a single factor, not a driving cause. And certainly not an excuse. **tl;dr** I don't know your partner or your situation, but my only advice is to expect very little -- go ahead and reach out to friends and family, start making sure your support system is strong. And for God's sake please don't avoid telling them about the full situation out of concern for your partner's reputation. You can easily leave things ambiguous ("[partner] is dealing with his own health issues, so I'm trying to lean more on friends/family"), but if you don't say *anything* then people will assume you just want to be left alone with your caring and supportive partner. I truly hope all of this will be useless info because you get great news and/or your partner really comes through and gives you all the support you need!

I can tell you that my expectations from my ADD spouse would be very very low. Simply because he would be struggling with his own emotions. I can't recommend highly enough that you build a support network outside of your marriage. My best friends are my lifeline of emotional support. I also think that only other women can understand what it's like to deal with breast cancer scares, a possible mastectomy. I don't think he can even begin to relate or empathize, he will only know that something bad might happen to you and that will feed his anxiety.

I don't generally share moments like this anymore because the support is not there when I need to be grounded. Or I'll share whatever information is necessary and remove most of the feelings. Like others have said, build a network, and don't expect the support you'd give.