I just need to vent a bit...
I've been on meds for ~ 1 year with mixed results. I've been trying to implement new habits and tools that help me cope with ADHD. There's been some improvement not as much as I'd hoped.
My relationship has taken severe damage from me having ADHD and the conflicts this has caused in my marriage. My partner would so much want (and need) a partner who is reliable and dependable and can take care of stuff on their own, and actually takes care of stuff. Meaning: When I say I'm gonna do something I'm gonna do it and do it right. And I'm gonna know what and when something needs to be done without my partner having to tell me first.
I feel like I'm trying to swim with a weight tied to my feet and it's so hard to stay afloat. Every day feels like a struggle where I'm paddling paddling paddling and once I stop I start forgetting stuff again and things get bad.
I also know that my partner would have wanted to have kids and for a while I was open to the idea but now, after realizing I have ADHD and how much of a struggle it is I feel like life is already hard, why would I add another factor to my life that makes everything even harder?
And then I often feel myself falling into a downward spiral. My partner should be with someone else... someone who is a "real adult", someone they can rely on, someone who gives them a feeling of security... Not someone where it feels like (their actual words) being with a teenager or having a child instead of a partner.
I'm in psychotherapy to help me get rid of this negativity but it's still so long till my next session and I just needed to vent a bit. For a while I thought I was making good progress but now I feel like nothing much has changed, not really.
Meds are just drugs and like all drugs continued usage will build tolerance and come to have no effect. I use mine along with other drugs (nicotine and caffeine) as a tool to achieve a goal not a a continual thing that is some magic fix. I have had far more success with this than any other method. My doctor who prescribed said meds said this was fine to do and that it's probably better as it means I don't have to deal with the tolerance issues as much. Obviously not medical advice speak to a professional.
From what I have gathered from ur post it seems you haven't developed any strategies to help and that you are treating the meds as a magic fix all for ur issues (that's not how this works their is no such thing as a free lunch).
I have found great success with https://f-droid.org/packages/com.mhss.app.mybrain and putting the to do as my home screen. I also run GrapheneOS and I put all social media on a second profile creating friction to use and also switching to said profile invites a large deal of shame on oneself again ur emotions are a tool u can use to condition/train urself with. I use nicotine to train myself like a dog into doing things. And caffeine like a lite version if my meds.
Social media and the dopamine slot machine will fuck you harder than any drug ever possibly could. Its enough to fuck up regular peoples dopamine circuits u where destined to fail before u even started.
U also need to take advantage of the inherent abilities granted by ADHD for instance it makes one very effective at operating in high stress situations with many complex and/or conflicting goals (this is where ADHD evolved from hunting/war). Kids create exactly this situation so u might actually be pretty good at this.
Now to address the rest or ur post. U got something other than ADHD my friend. U got a serious self image/self esteem issue. Like holy fuck you hate urself so much that u think u don't deserve ur partner that's fucked up. And the way you feel about things tends to be how they manifest in life. If u believe ur a loser you become a loser. If u hang around losers u think of urself as a loser and become a loser. Marcus Aurelius knew this thousands of years ago don't become a victim of your own self degradation.
Their are no easy fixes their are no quick fix solutions. Life is a bitch then u die that's just how the cookie crumbles. You either say fuck you to life and carry on or let it drown u in an ocean of misery and most likely find urself at the wrong end of a bottle/needle wondering where it all went so wrong. You can either take action and exercise agency over your own life ur sit blaming something for which you had no control.
Also perhaps reframe ur issues. Don't make promises u can't keep that's only going to lead to failure and disappointment. ADHD doesn't effect ur ability while doing a thing it effects ur ability to do the thing. ADHD doesn't make u bad at cleaning dishes it makes u bad at doing the dishes in the first place. If u feel ur not doing things to a standard ur partner is happy with then that's not ADHD that's just u doing a shit job u can fix that the same way everyone else can fix that by learning or practice or simply doing a better job. I feel u struggled to do things in life due to ADHD then internalised when u got called lazy then got diagnosed and felt vindicated and thus now feel validated in actually being lazy.
If its any help I think you should know that one must be relaxed before one can be aroused. Ones feelings are not driven by the state of what is but by the change from what was. Thus by doing something that reduces the chaos that ur partner is experiencing that will lead to a more relaxed emotion state and might mean u get laid more. That should help as some motivation to tickle ur little dopamine starved lizard brain into action.
I'm writing all this while procrastinating my thesis so I'm gonna go follow my own advice chug 150mg of caffeine drop some meds hit the vape and get that done. I'll report back once I'm done (using others to hold oneself to account is also a useful strategy).