What It’s Like to Have Sex with Someone Who Has ADHD
By: Emma Austin
Tags: Sex, Relationships, Life, Self, Mental Health

For 15 years, I’ve been having ADHD sex without realizing it.

My husband has the condition, but he’s lived most of his life without knowing it. For more than thirty years, he chalked up all of the symptoms to personality, lack of sleep, and a dozen other little factors that didn’t quite add up.

Neither of us even suspected that he could have the condition because he didn’t fit the stereotype of a person with ADHD.

I thought of it as a learning disability, but I had supported my husband through three degrees, including the final stretch during which he earned his PhD in less time than most of his colleagues.

He also loved to spend a lot of time reading. He would wake up early just so he could lie on the couch and get through a few chapters before starting his day.

Even his taste in movies didn’t seem like the kind that someone with an attention disorder could enjoy. He would sit and watch what seemed to me like the dullest, slowest movies.

So, it was a bit of a shock to find out that he had it.

But once the shock wore off, it made perfect sense.

For one thing, he can be a really forgetful person. Things he just looked up or has just been told often slip out of his mind almost as soon as the information goes in. I’ll often have to give him a second reminder minutes after the first one because I know he’s likely to need it.

He tells me that the feeling I get when I walk into the kitchen and can’t quite remember why I went there is something he feels throughout the day.

Staying on task is a really big struggle for him, too. Whenever he starts something, it’s like he’s compelled to drift away from it.

He also struggles with impulse control. He doesn’t like to keep cookies or chocolate in the house because he’s simply too weak to resist them. When we buy Oreos, he’ll hand them out to the kids generously — to give them a treat but also to keep himself from eating too many.

Those are all fundamental parts of his personality. He spent years trying to change those parts of himself, but nothing worked. It’s just who he is. But he has found ways to manage them.

He deals with his forgetfulness by writing to-do lists in notebooks and important reminders so he never forgets anything important. Gmail’s schedule send function has been a godsend to him — he’ll schedule email reminders to himself so they’ll pop up exactly when he needs them.

To stick to something he’s doing, he’ll multitask so it keeps his attention in check. If he watches a movie while cooking or listens to music while working, it keeps his mind from wandering too much.

And he makes sure to keep the junk food out of his office, out of the kitchen, and basically anywhere he spends a lot of time in.

Learning that he has ADHD has put a lot of the puzzle pieces in place. It explained so many of the things that confused me about him.

But there’s one piece of the puzzle I only put into place recently. I’ve only realized in the last few weeks that his ADHD has a massive effect on the way he has sex.

A Horny Teenager in a 36-Year-Old’s Body

Generally speaking, ADHD tends to affect people’s sex drives in one of two ways.

Some people with ADHD become hyposexual. They find it difficult to get aroused or sustain arousal for an extended period of time.

It could be due to their difficulty concentrating, which makes it hard for them to hold on to anything for a long time, even their horniness.

In some cases, it’s the anxiety that comes with ADHD that puts the brakes on their libido. It’s hard to get in the mood when you’re gripped by a nervous, free-floating sense of worry.

Some find it hard to be interested in sex because they don’t find sex terribly satisfying. Because they even have a hard time focusing on their pleasure, sex is less exciting and orgasms are harder to come by.

And for others, it’s not the ADHD itself that keeps their arousal levels low — it’s a side effect of the medication they use to manage it.

That’s one side of the coin. The other is hypersexuality. Some people with ADHD report that it gives them an incredibly active sex drive.

The theory behind this is that it’s all about the endorphins that come with sex. That heady, hormonal rush you get from sex isn’t just pleasurable for people with ADHD — it can be the only thing that helps them feel in a sense of calm and balance.

That hit of endorphins makes them feel even, like their symptoms recede for a while. Then they crave that feeling, and the sex that led up to it.

That’s the camp my husband falls into. He hasn’t been a teenage boy for close to twenty years, but he’s still as horny as one — right down to the inconvenient, spontaneous erections.

It’s not even just that he has a high desire for sex. For him, it seems more like a need.

Years before I learned he had ADHD, I looked into the signs that your partner might be a sex addict.

I was worried he was one, because something about his sustained, intense desire for sex seemed really unnatural to me — especially compared to my low libido.

He didn’t fit the profile. He doesn’t cheat. He doesn’t say creepy things to women online.

He might have impulse control issues when it comes to chocolate, but not sex. In fact, he’s always had an easy time making friends with women, and I think that’s partly because he never comes on to them or tries to nudge things in a sexual direction.

He loves sex, but doesn’t impose it on anyone. He’s just really fucking horny.

In the past, though, that massive sex drive of his caused some problems.

I found it hard to flirt with him or be seductive in any way, because he could easily shoot from zero to 100 long before I was fully aroused. It didn’t take much to get him pouncing on me, because he was always ready.

When we were having sex, it seemed to just make him crave it even more. That put me in a strange place. Even when I wanted to have sex with him, I had to wrestle with the thought that it wouldn’t be good enough — that it wouldn’t satisfy him and that he’d be pawing at me again the next day, or even later in the same evening.

And just knowing that he wanted it constantly while I was struggling with a really low libido felt like it put us at odds with each other.

We managed to cope with that. We communicated about my need for more seduction and fewer sexpectations. We found ways to be physically intimate even when I didn’t want to be sexually intimate.

And things have been even better since we discovered that getting off makes such a big hormonal difference for him. When he can’t do it regularly, he finds it harder to focus, to handle tasks, and to cope with things without spiraling into anxiety or depressive feelings.

He makes it a point to manage his high sex drive and his hormones by getting himself off daily. But it’s not an easy habit to sustain in a house full of kids.

When he slips, I can usually tell. Whenever he seems depressed, frustrated, emotionally drained, or overwhelmed, I’ll ask him if he’s been masturbating. I’m almost always right.

Pure Concentrated Sex

ADHD has given my husband an extremely high, barely containable sex drive. That’s not always the blessing it should be.

What is always a massive perk, though, is the way he has sex.

He can be present with me when we spend time together, but sex is about the only time he’s thoroughly focused. I’m guessing that has something to do with the endorphins, combined with his sheer love of it. Other things can draw him in, like movies that he’s excited to watch, books he can’t wait to read, and captivating conversations. But nothing brings out his attention span the way sex does.

His ADHD might have caused some problems in the past, but I think it’s what makes sex with him so incredibly amazing.

When we’re having sex, he’s completely in the moment. Because it’s the only time he feels extremely concentrated, he doubles down on it. My normally scatterbrained husband instantly turns into a fully present and giving fuck.

He becomes extremely attentive, patient, and determined. Even when we go at it for two hours, I can feel his entire focus on me the whole time.

He even has more patience for getting me off than I do. When I give up because I’m struggling to come and it’s taking forever to get me there, he’ll take matters into his own hands and give me perfect, expert stimulation for however long it takes.

His focused fucking especially comes out with his dominant side.

The more he plays around with sensual domination, and the more I submit to him, the more focused he gets. When he hits that dominant groove, he tells me it’s like entering a sexual flow state. Everything is clear and immediate. He is completely in the moment, without a single thought distracting him out of it.

He’ll tie me up lovingly, spank me until I moan, talk dirty to me and reward me with praise, and take as much control from me as he can because it’s the only time he truly feels like he has control over himself.

I have no idea if he would’ve been dominant otherwise. Maybe if it wasn’t for his need to feel like he has a hold on everything, he would have been much more vanilla. But whatever the reason, I’m grateful for it.

Distracted, Horny, and Completely Satisfying

There are definite challenges to being married to someone with ADHD.

Sometimes, it’s like I’m the only one who can keep track of everything at once, without losing sight of what needs to be done.

When we have a task to work on together, it can be frustrating to see his brain darting off in different directions and having to reel him back in.

And it can be hard to give him those second reminders he needs sometimes without worrying that I’m patronizing him.

But there’s a lot of good. He might struggle with his attention span, but he’s funny, caring, and extremely loving, and all that counts for a lot more.

And the sex is absolutely incredible. When I drop flirty hints, he never leaves me hanging — he’ll seduce and chase me all day to keep me excited. When flirting turns to foreplay, I can feel his hypersexuality turning into overwhelming passion. And the way his every action becomes completely and totally focused on me is just an amazing feeling.

So what if we can’t keep Oreos in the house. It’s worth it to get fucked like that.