S3 E2: Marriage and Parenting with an ADHD Partner

In this conversation, Sophia brings her husband, Brandon Hyde, on as a guest to discuss their experiences of marriage and parenting while navigating the challenges of ADHD. 

They reflect on the early chaotic years of their marriage, the transition to parenthood, and the implementation of structure and schedules that ultimately improved their family dynamics. 

The discussion highlights the importance of communication, understanding, and adaptability in managing ADHD within a family context. In this conversation, Sophia and Brandon Hyde explore the dynamics of their partnership, particularly focusing on the challenges and strategies related to ADHD and organization. They discuss the importance of structure, the impact of time blindness, and the necessity of clear communication and mutual support in managing daily life. 

The couple shares personal anecdotes about their routines, clutter management, and how they leverage each other's strengths to create a harmonious home environment.

Chapters
00:00 Introduction to ADHD in Marriage and Parenting
02:50 The Early Years: Chaos and Discovery
06:12 Transitioning to Parenthood: New Challenges
09:07 Implementing Structure: The Turning Point
11:55 The Struggles of Scheduling and Resistance
15:00 Finding Balance: Parenting Dynamics
18:11 Growth and Adaptation: Lessons Learned
21:07 The Impact of Age and Experience
23:54 Conclusion: Embracing Structure for a Better Life
27:15 The Power of Structure in Daily Life
30:30 Navigating Clutter and Organization Challenges
39:10 Understanding Time Blindness and Scheduling
44:26 Leveraging Strengths in a Partnership
51:38 Commitment to Routines and Mutual Support

Keywords

ADHD, marriage, parenting, structure, chaos, family dynamics, personal growth, coping mechanisms, schedules, communication, structure, organization, ADHD, time management, partnership, routines, scheduling, communication, strengths, boundaries

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Transcript

Sophia Hyde (00:00.905)
Hello and welcome back. For this episode, I have a special guest today. Actually, it is my husband, Brandon Hyde. I am bringing him on to talk about what it is like to both be married to and parent with somebody that has ADHD. And so before we get too much further, Brandon, why don't you introduce yourself and tell folks a little bit about who you are.

Brandon Hyde (00:28.206)
Hello everyone, this is Brandon. I've been married to Sophia for almost 18 years now. We've been together 20 years, so we're getting a little old. My trade is I'm a cinematographer, photographer, and so a lot of behind the scenes stuff that I have with Sophia with, release your favorite self. I do a lot of her photos and any of the videos. You see all this podcast, I will have been the one to edit it.

So I play a lot of behind the scenes part, not only her business, but also in her life because she's the front facing and I am on the back end. But that's me.

Sophia Hyde (01:10.228)
Okay, so a lot of people who are listening to this did not know us 18 years ago, right, when we got married. And so they, I feel like if you've only known me in the last eight, it's been about eight years that we didn't know I had HD. We've only known that I had.

that ADHD was the source of the problem. And we've only really known for a few years what's happening with my brain and how to meet those needs better. But before we had a label for it, we had found some good coping mechanisms and started operating a lot smoother as a family, probably about eight years ago. And let's, for the listeners, I think a lot of people will probably relate to when things were...

more messy and chaotic. And so that those first 10 years of us being married, why don't you describe to them what it was like to be married to Sophia as far as like the problems we now understand were a result of ADHD.

Brandon Hyde (02:20.684)
Yeah, I think probably the number one thing being married and being young and not knowing what was, know, how your brain fully worked. It was messy a lot. Our house was kind of a wreck. Our finances were a wreck. There was just a lot of things that weren't working and they weren't organized. Our schedules seemed to never be the same.

You know, some of that is just our personalities and some of it was the ADHD. and so as we went along and, you know, kind of made our life together, we, we discovered things that, that did work, for time management, for how the house keeps clean, how, how our food works, you know, all the, all the things that weren't working, we did kind of, figure out and, and made them, you know, made them efficient.

Sophia Hyde (03:21.202)
Yeah, one of the, I don't even know, funny is not the right word. But one of the things that happened, I don't know how you even say it, when we started preparing for this episode, I said, let me get out of this notebook sheet of paper and let's make two columns. The things that frustrate you about living with me and the things that frustrate me about living with you so we can have like some dialogue.

of what it is like for a neurotypical person to be married to an ADHD person. And guys, it's really, it was really humbling. When I say, it's hard to say it was funny, because it wasn't fun. The whole frigging list was all of the things that were frustrating about me. And the only things on his column were.

him being aggravated by the things that were driving me crazy. let's roll through a little bit of some of what does that look like. So yes, it's okay, the food, the schedules, the messiness, but I think people can really relate to a little bit more of like some of the concrete examples. So paint a picture for what life was like when we were living in...

the condo together. I think that that's probably peak ADHD was the seven years that we lived in a 470 square foot studio together.

Brandon Hyde (04:48.526)
Yes, 470 square feet. We also ran a business out of it that was sodium video so that it comes along with equipment. But you know, I would spend a lot of time cleaning it, getting it ready, feet would come home, and then it would just be chaos entering the house. We lived in a lot of chaos. And if you know me,

know anything about me. Chaos is my number one, like that's what I can't handle. So Sophia would come in, she'd drop a purse here, drop her shoes here, take, know, a hair tie would be over here. Stuff would end up on the stove and I'm like, I'm trying to, like, I'm getting ready to cook. you know, it was just, it was messy, it was chaotic. And we didn't make smart financial decisions because they were impulse purchases, a lot of them.

Um, and I think that all created, not that I didn't love you, but it created a lot of aggravation. And there was a point where I was just like, I give up. Like I can, I have done as much as I can to, to remedy some of the problems to, to, you know, to stay ahead of the game. And I feel like no matter what I'm doing, it's falling behind. So I would try and reorganize everything and then you would just blow that up and.

Yeah, there was a point where it just got so frustrating that I gave up on having a clean home, our food. you know, again, I still loved you, but it was very aggravating in those times.

Sophia Hyde (06:28.148)
Yeah, yeah. And then we got pregnant. And... Yeah. And we had to short sell this, you know, if you've heard my story and it's in the book, we had to short sell the condo. And then we had for three months, we moved in with my parents and then we had an opportunity to drop in our lap to move into the home that we now own and have been here for 10 years.

Brandon Hyde (06:32.28)
Yes, obviously, because I still loved you.

Sophia Hyde (06:56.117)
and the first couple of years in this home were also chaotic, but we had now taken, we had never really quite figured out how to adult well. And then we added a child to that. so talk a little, share with them what the experience was like. Now that was like being married to Sophia with her ADHD, but now parenting with her.

Brandon Hyde (07:19.83)
Yes, also frustrating, also aggravating, also still loved you. And I'm gonna keep reiterating that because it sounds like I'm complaining, which, you know.

Sophia Hyde (07:28.788)
No, like we had, we were delusionally happy and we had a good, like we've always had a strong marriage, but before we lay into the solutions, I want to paint a picture for people to understand what the problem.

Brandon Hyde (07:45.602)
Yeah. So adding a child, Sophia was very much under the like, you know, the couple or the parent that says, I'm not going to let my child like change my life. I'm still going to go and do X, Y, and Z for her. was like, I'm a still go network and I'm still going to go out with my friends. I'm still going to, and she would take our first born, Eleonora and be doing these things at 10 o'clock at night.

But then we would have to be, know, babies wake up earlier. They wake up in the middle of the night. And so we kept running into this entire thing of, hey, we should probably set a schedule. We should, you know, we should really think about like our timing and how things are going. And Eleanor will go to sleep at 11 PM and then wake up at 4 AM.

And we would be running ragged, but then Sophia would still be like, hey, let's go do this thing. Because as an Enneagram 7 and his ADHD, like, you know, you don't want to be confined. Um, and when Eleonora was about what, a year and a half, almost two, two, I reached another breaking point of aggravation. But this time, instead of giving up because I couldn't, I put my foot down and I said,

Sophia Hyde (08:52.052)
Cheers. Cheers to.

Brandon Hyde (09:07.598)
You know, no more. can't again. And, and, know, we got married when, we were 20 and 22, like we didn't know ourselves. As I got older, I realized how much peace needed I needed in my, in my life. I can't live in chaos. And I realized that what we were doing was actual just chaos at all times. There'd be impulses there, you know, there would be bad decisions, good decisions made too, but bad decisions made.

Because they weren't thought through and it was really getting to my mental health where To the point where yes one I remember the conversation one day. I said we are going on a schedule I put my foot down. I said I've written it out I've read and I've researched and I've looked at all these different things and This is what's best for not only our child, but also for me We're gonna figure you out but for

this household, this is what we have to do. I don't remember the exact schedule, know, bath time's at 6.30. Night time, we're in our pajamas at seven. 7.15, we're reading books. 7.30, we're doing teeth and all that. And then by eight o'clock, she's in bed and she's asleep.

Sophia Hyde (10:27.732)
It was earlier than that because I remember she was going to bed at 730. So yeah, you took over and I still remember, I still remember where I was sitting. I can still see you standing and you coming in, having basically this come to Jesus moment and you were like, this house is going on a schedule. And I think the reason that eight or yeah, nine years later, I can still remember that conversation is because of the way it made my body feel. Like it was...

So something for those who may be listening who have ADHD, you might resonate with this, that it's, we don't like the feeling of being in controlled. And so we rebel against things like structure and like schedules because it makes us feel like someone is trying to control us. And I don't remember us fighting about it because I knew it was one of those like,

surrenders because I knew how much stress we were under with the fact that we couldn't get Eleanor to go to bed at a decent time. And yeah, there was, she was waking up at random times and couldn't nap and all these, like we had all these symptoms. And you had, you were like, I've done a bunch of research and I have basically figured out that the reason that

She has all of these things that are creating stress and we're trying to figure out it's all because she's not on a schedule and she needs to be put on one. And so I don't remember like fighting you or putting or being resistant towards it. I just remember thinking.

Brandon Hyde (12:09.922)
Mm-mm.

Sophia Hyde (12:14.632)
Like it felt, you know what it felt like? Like somebody was putting me in a jail cell. Like I was getting confined. Like it was like, we're putting.

Brandon Hyde (12:22.658)
Well, that's part the reason it took me so long to get to that point. Because I knew that's how you would feel. Because we've tried for years and years and years, your time management, your structure, you know, you have always said like, I like waking up at 6 a.m. But then you wouldn't do it because you couldn't make yourself do the schedule. And so I knew it would be hard, it just, you you just the straw that breaks the camel's back at some point.

Sophia Hyde (12:27.998)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Sophia Hyde (12:41.758)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Sophia Hyde (12:49.873)
I surrendered because I knew you were right. just, I knew, and this is something else I knew on that day too, was I knew it was the right thing. I just also knew that I couldn't do it. And so what happened was you took control and

you implemented the schedule. So it was like dinners at 5 30 and baths at 6 30 and books. And then she's asleep by 7 30. She's in the bed by 7 30. And I remember it being for those first few months of the schedule being implemented. I remember that it was so physical. When I say physically painful, literally guys, my

I now understand that it was cortisol like pumping through my bloodstream. It was literally the stress hormone. But I just felt so much pain being told like the bath is gonna be right now at 630. That was so hard for me that we created a new schedule where I would leave the house. So I started looking for, cause I was running a business from home.

So what we would do is and I'm home with Eleanor during the day and so what we started doing was I would leave the house Like we'd eat dinner and then I'd leave I don't even remember maybe I helped clean up the dinner. Maybe I didn't I just know that I couldn't do this whole schedule thing and so I would sign up for networking events and make plans with friends or I would take my laptop and Go sit in a coffee shop and work, but I had to physically remove myself from the home

because it was that uncomfortable. And we were trying to put Eleonora on this schedule. you know, she was two, so she would resist it, especially the bedtime. Like I can still remember. don't know if you, I'm sure you remember this. We didn't talk about for the episode, but I have so many like searing memories in my brain where you were like, it is time for her to go in the bed. So I am taking her right now. And so we started making the rule like daddy did bedtime after mommy doing it for two years.

Sophia Hyde (15:00.844)
and you would have her on your shoulder and she would just cry and scream. She would cry and scream because you were like taking her away from me and you would go put her in the bedroom. But I physically couldn't do it. so I just, night after night after night, like just seeing her like crying face as she's being like taken away from mom because dad's gonna go do bedtime. And I hated it. But I also, that version of Sophia,

couldn't, didn't have the discipline or the willpower or the whatever. I had so much resistance that we needed that from you. Like we needed you to be the one to pick up the child who's screaming and doesn't even wanna be with you right now and just do what was best for her and all of us.

Brandon Hyde (15:49.198)
Yeah, well, that's why I did it. I didn't do it out of fun or control or any of narcissism or any of that stuff. I did it because I knew that's what she needed and that what we needed. I knew that your buy-in would be difficult, but I also just, know, like I'm not controlling. I want to tell people like,

You say you want to do something. I'm like, okay, whatever. For a long time, one of the reasons that we didn't do this is because I was like, yeah, Sophia's got it. She understands. She, you know, she's the main, she's the, what is it? The primary parent, the, that wording, which she was. And I basically just took it. And, and I took over, not only did I take that over, I took over our food because she had to be on a regimented,

Sophia Hyde (16:38.878)
Yeah, you took over.

Brandon Hyde (16:48.952)
food schedule, interestingly enough later on in her life played a totally different part, which we can talk about later. So I took over the scheduling. I didn't do so well with the finances, but I did try and take that over. I took over the house cleaning and laundry and all of that because what I was seeing was Sophia's not able to function in this. I do, I'm blessed with

Sophia Hyde (17:02.28)
No.

Brandon Hyde (17:18.956)
having this job that's kind of, you know, I'm here and I'm not, I'm here and I'm not. But when I'm home, I'm just home. There's no work to be done when I'm home. So I was able to take on all of that and still provide for the family and save kind of my sanity at what I've been 31 years old at that point. I feel like that is, I feel like 31 is when I became an adult and I became a dad.

Sophia Hyde (17:45.813)
What is interesting is that people who only know me, like if you are a coaching client listening to this and you work with me regularly or you're a friend in my life, they all can see how structured my life is. So to hear like Sophia didn't want to be put on a schedule, I now, this version of me lives and dies by my schedules. Like my schedules are.

Brandon Hyde (18:11.214)
And even then, you still have a hard time with the bedtime. So, example, I worked 12 hours yesterday. I left the house at 6 a.m. I got home around 7.30. I come in and kids are supposed to, by 7.15, 7.30, supposed to been in the bath and already had their nighttime vitamins. That's kind of when we start our routine. And I come home.

and our son is still just hanging out in the bath. I don't know how long he's been there. He hasn't...

Sophia Hyde (18:43.445)
Oh yeah, let him, I put him in the bathroom on time. He did take a bath at 6.30. I had him in the bathtub. I gave him a warning and by 6.29, I was like, come on buddy. So by like 6.32, he was stripping down in the bathroom. I had him in the bath on time. But yeah, then I just let him stay in there however long he wants.

Brandon Hyde (18:46.926)
So.

Brandon Hyde (19:02.219)
Yeah, then he just stayed again. I don't know how long he was in there. And then he and you know, I Hey, bud, you know, had your vitamins? No. Hey, sis, did you have your vitamins? No. It's like, okay, well, this is not the timeline. And I've been at work all day. I need you guys to go to bed on time so that I can decompress and do, you know, my my self care. So yes, you still have times that are

Sophia Hyde (19:05.565)
You

Sophia Hyde (19:31.248)
years later I know when Brandon's in charge the kids are in bed by eight well we've pushed back Liam because Liam's used to be 730 and Eleonora was like 830 but now now I just have them in bed my goal is to have them in bed by 830 and then most of time they're actually in bed by nine because I yeah I can't

Brandon Hyde (19:38.574)
815.

Brandon Hyde (19:54.542)
You use it as a loose structure. don't like.

Sophia Hyde (19:57.181)
It's a very loose structure. It's a template. There is no, but you, to you, you're like nickel and diming it. Like, you know exactly what time everything is supposed to be going down. And to me, it's like loosely held.

Brandon Hyde (20:00.034)
Yes, but.

Brandon Hyde (20:10.54)
Right. And let's be honest, also for me, a lot of it is I need the kids to go to sleep so that I can have my me time or us time. Like those are important things.

Sophia Hyde (20:21.876)
Yeah, and my problem is I get, again, ADD, I am distracted, whatever they're doing. So I put Liam in the bath, he's old enough to take care of himself, Eleanora was doing her thing, so then that let me go do my thing. So instead of being in my mom hat, I went to my own personal hat, and who knows what I was doing? I might've been at my computer, I might've been reading, I was probably reading, I was probably lost in a book. And so,

Brandon Hyde (20:42.25)
You're probably probably reading. See, and I do those things too.

Sophia Hyde (20:49.469)
and you don't give yourself permission to check out and do whatever you want until you're off. Hey, when you came in the door last night, okay, there are many, many nights you come in and I have been reading and not like parenting, but last night specifically when you came in, I had just made, warmed you up some dinner and I was washing dishes. You came in to me washing dishes.

Brandon Hyde (21:07.362)
Yes, which doesn't always happen, but either way. So that is to say, also, when I have been gone, you have settled into the routine. have picked up.

Sophia Hyde (21:24.552)
Right, right, right. Okay, so here's one of the reasons I wanted to record this podcast at this timeline is we've painted a picture of like how messy it was, how we started getting things in order. You put us on a schedule. Also what you, that we haven't glossed over is you did the schedules, but then somewhere along in that same timeline, I started, was, you know, I've always had really been into personal growth and development and I had really understood like the...

John Maxwell quote really just resonated deeply with me that it was, you want to change your life, you have to change something you do every day. And so I became really attached to habits. And so while you were putting us on schedules, I was trying to figure out our habits. So you say you took over the cleaning, but I know if you remember this, I put us on a cleaning schedule. Like I started like taping stuff to the refrigerator of which days we do, which chores, not that we ever like followed it to a T, but it at least, yeah, you're shaking your head because we've never followed it to a T.

But I at least needed my brain to understand that the way that the house stays picked up is because it gets picked up every day, right? It's not this, and the way that things stay clean is you have to have everything on a schedule and know when you're gonna do those things in tiny increments each day. And so while you were putting our family on a schedule, I was trying to cultivate habit development. And so,

Now, fast forward many years, one of the reasons I really wanted to record this podcast is because you, as I have shared in previous episodes, I mostly was solo parenting for the whole fall. Like from August through December, you were hardly here. if you count the times, there was times you were in India, but then there were other days that you were working on, still working on that film or other projects that came through. And so,

Brandon Hyde (23:03.726)
you

Sophia Hyde (23:16.308)
I'm mostly solo parented from the whole fall.

Brandon Hyde (23:23.746)
I mean, really even starting in July. Yeah.

Sophia Hyde (23:26.118)
It did, mean, June, I took the family vacation we had planned. I ended up going on by myself because you had to work on the documentary. And so yeah, it started like in the middle of June. And so from June until Thanksgiving, mostly solo parented. And the crazy part was though, while you were gone, we weren't under stress.

And that's what's fascinating because you got your first feature when Eleonora was six months old. So that was the first time that you went away for a month was she was six months old. And since then, that's just been the world we live in. I mean, in 2018, you shot like five features. I did Liam's pregnancy almost entirely by myself, right? And so you were hardly ever here. And that...

those times, like when you would like, let's look at 2018 when I was pregnant and had the full-time job and Eleanor was in preschool. Um, and you were gone. That was the, to this day, I've not had a year of my life that was more stressful than 2018. Like not just because I was solo parenting with a preschooler while I was pregnant, but the pregnancy itself was very challenging on my body and I was in a lot of pain every day. And so, and then you were gone, but I had so much stress.

And so then we had two kids, still 2019, 2020, you're still shooting features. Like you continue to leave for these long projects. And every single time you have ever left for a long project, I am under duress while you're gone. Like I send you text messages of how stressful things are and oh my God, and I wish you were here because you were the glue holding everything together. And so then I didn't have that support system and

I couldn't, I mean, I did a lot better keeping us on the schedules, but still like there was no way the house was being picked up and the kids were definitely like not going to bed on time. we were, you know, surviving off of oatmeal for dinner. I just, my goal was just survive, just survive. But this time, the 2024 trip, that's not what happened. I was not stressed. The house ran like freaking clockwork.

Sophia Hyde (25:51.485)
We had healthy meals. We went to bed on time. We, the house stayed decently picked up. I was not under a lot of stress. It was easy. Like you left and it was easy and the house continued to work and flow like it does when you are here. And I think that that's a testament to several different things. One, the kids are older. I mean, let's be real.

It is easier to parent. They would have been six and 10 while you were gone. It is a hell of a lot easier when they're six and 10 and they can do a lot of things for themselves. So that's probably a very significant contributing factor that we need to address. But beyond that, also, I have learned over the years to not resist. ended up by 20, you started putting the structures in place in 2016.

By 2017, I understood that they were a gift. So whereas I had been rebelling against them, and it was hard and it was stressful, I ended up learning that they actually made my life better and easier. Because when you know what's gonna happen and when it's going to happen, then you know when you have your free time and your creative time, and so you actually give yourself a lot of your life back.

when you have that structure. And so I came to love the structure and have structured the hell out of our lives, which is why I started saying this again, rabbit trail, ADD. But I was saying my clients and my friends who know me now would not even be able to recognize that Sophia because I am like a drill sergeant with the schedules. And even though I work for myself, I have friends who try to get on my calendar during the week.

and say, let's go do this, let's have coffee, let's paint pottery. And they're like, can you do, you know, Wednesday? I'm like, no, those are my office hours. but you work for yourself. And I'm like, no, you do not understand. Everything is held up by the calendar. So the calendar says that I work 10 to 3.30, sometimes nine to 3.30. It just depends on if you're home. My goal is to work out while you're getting the kids ready for school. If you're gone, I have to work out after I drop them off.

Sophia Hyde (28:07.74)
So sometimes I start at nine, sometimes I start at 10. But I get the kids off and I work out and I work until 3.30. If you're home, I'll work till five. And that four o'clock hour is flex. And so I live and die by that. And I have these really guarded business hours. Fridays can be flexible. The four o'clock hour is flexible and the Fridays are flexible. Don't touch my Monday admin day. Do not touch my coaching hours.

Like those are unpenetrable. So when someone's like, let's grab lunch on a Tuesday. Sorry, coaching hours not happening. So when people like, let's have plans. I'm like, well, I can do, I've already committed these Fridays for the upcoming, whatever this, this, that, and the other. So like four Fridays from now, I could do something or a weekend or an evening. But I have so, I respect my calendar and my time more than anybody else does. And.

sure it might be aggravating for people who are like trying to find a spot on my calendar, but I've picked my priorities. My priorities are taking care of my health, my business, my family. And so there's these little slivers where other people might be able to slide in, but they're far and few between. And it's so funny because people who are in my life know that I run that way and it is so structured and so boundaried in a good way.

I think it's really funny how far, like I swung from one extreme to the other. And I think usually the soft spot is in the middle, which I think is what I have found. I have found the structure, but literally I have actually scheduled flex time. And this works really well for me. And do you know that the only times like I missed a...

dentist appointment for Liam a couple weeks ago. Like the only times that I make mistakes or drop a ball or forget something I was supposed to do is when I allow something into my calendar that's not in the spot it's supposed to be. It messes, that's when it messes me up and throws me off because my brain has compartmentalized my whole life. And so if I do something outside of these hours and the schedule that I'm supposed to be, that's when things can, I mean, I need like.

Sophia Hyde (30:24.36)
three or four alarms to remind me that I'm doing something out of the ordinary because my life has become so predictably structured.

Brandon Hyde (30:30.734)
Yeah. Well, and I think a lot of we've discovered a lot of what works for you and for us together. But I will tell you.

Sophia Hyde (30:41.372)
My piles! We should talk about my piles.

Brandon Hyde (30:44.342)
Yes, your piles. Your piles of shit everywhere.

Sophia Hyde (30:46.709)
Listen, if you have ADHD, listen, this is an ongoing, I don't want say it's a fight, because it's not like we're fighting about it, but this is a contentious subject in our relationship. So you talk about the piles. You lay the ground. Yeah.

Brandon Hyde (31:00.046)
Okay, I'll lay out for me, from my perspective, again, peace is very much like my driving force. Like everything I do in my life is to achieve peace, which includes my environment. My environment has to be clean and organized and I like for it to be pristine. I understand that's not part of life, but as close as we can get to it.

A big, huge, massive pet peeve of mine is piles of stuff on surfaces, like on our island, on our countertops, our tables, our side tables, by our front door. And those are all the places that Sophia loves to put all of her stuff. We have a small, I don't know what you call it, like a cube.

like four cube thing you get from Ikea by the front door. And apparently that is where things go that we're going to give away or that need to go back to somebody. But it sits there for three months. And for three months, it drives me insane. She brings mail in, mail that we don't need, and she'll put it on our island and it'll sit there for a week.

Sophia Hyde (32:22.238)
That, the mail, you are wrong sir. You are wrong sir because I have a system for the mail. The mail in my 20s, that did happen and it would be all over the place and I wouldn't know. But now my rule of thumb, if the mail came in and it is sitting and it is stuff that could be recycled, that means the kids brought it in. Because my mail process, cause I understand how things work, is while I'm standing at the mailbox, I sort it at the mailbox.

Brandon Hyde (32:33.248)
Mm-hmm.

Sophia Hyde (32:50.227)
what is getting recycled and what's allowed to come in the house. And if it's getting recycled, it goes in the bin on the way. Sometimes I gotta sit there and rip it up. If it's something that should be shredded, I just rip it up and it never even, I don't even allow it to come into the house if it's not something that we're keeping. So only mail that matters is even allowed through the threshold. So if you see junk mail around the house, that means some, one of the children or you or somebody decided they were gonna be helpful and check the mailbox and then I didn't get to follow my procedure.

Brandon Hyde (33:17.28)
Okay, so if it's not male, then it's something that the kids brought home. Or, you know, from school, or from... Yeah. Yeah. They sit there for, you know, a week.

Sophia Hyde (33:23.452)
yeah, like, my God, they're papers from school? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so Brandon, Brandon sees piles on all of the surfaces. What I see is my running to-do list. And so then sometimes he will have one in a clean house and he will just come through and clear it all. And then you know what happens? Something is forgotten to be paid or a form is forgotten to be turned into the school.

or a who knows if I left it out and on the counter it was because out of this is the way ADHD brains work out of sight out of mind the only way I'm going to remember to do the thing is if I have the visual reminder that it exists and so that paper is out reminding me to do that thing and so we have learned over the years

you have learned that you cannot hide the piles because there were times that he would tuck them somewhere. And then a month later, I pull something out and it was like a hidden pile. They used to go in bags. Sometimes you would put them in bags. I don't know if you put them bags or I put them in bags, but I'd find a bag of the papers and it'd be like, my gosh, I was supposed to deposit this check. Like it's three months old. Can I still go deposit this check? And so this is, that's going back to our twenties. But the way that it works now,

is if he does need to pick up and doesn't know what things are, he takes all of the piles and puts them into one consolidated pile and then puts it in one of the stool chairs. And so then I can see the running to-do list of the one pile that needs to be sorted.

Brandon Hyde (35:10.734)
this but it's still not put away. Now we have we

Sophia Hyde (35:12.136)
That's our compromise.

Yeah, well because putting it away, can't be put away till it's done. And so this is what ends up happening is we'll get to maybe an evening or a weekend and Brandon will be like, all right, there's enough on the pile. I need this to get cleared. So what he wants is he wants the piles to disappear. But he's probably like, why does it take Safiya two hours to clear off the effing island? It's because.

I pick up some postcard, like I could just think of one that came in the mail. The kids are in this free, this partnership with the University of Florida to their elementary school. And so they get this free book, but I gotta like answer surveys about the books and I gotta do, so there's like a postcard that's like new world reading, once you, you gotta fill out your questionnaire. And so I'm not like in a rush to fill out my like questionnaire on the kids reading thing. So it's just sitting there waiting for me to do it. And so when it takes me two hours to clear off the island.

it's because I'm now have to, cannot do anything with that postcard until it is complete. So I have to go and I have to log on to my little account and I got to do the little thing on the postcard and now the postcard can be discarded because the task was completed. But otherwise I need the physical objects to see them to know what I still have to be to do. But it drives Brandon crazy because it's just to him it looks like clutter and to me it looks like reminders everywhere.

Brandon Hyde (36:26.638)
Thank

Brandon Hyde (36:36.758)
Yeah. And I, I just, I have a very hard time with it. don't know if that makes you right or me right or whatever, but I have a very difficult time just accepting that there is going to be, you know, a stack of school papers on my island for a week or.

Sophia Hyde (36:54.473)
So to offer the solution, the solution for those listening who are like, my God, that's our life. my God, we fight about that. The solution is you tell me, like when it has gotten too much, you're like, okay, Sophia, it's time. Tonight, the island's gotta get cleared off. And then you will, you always are cooking the dinner, but then if this is like a, need the island and the surface is cleared off night, then you will do all the dishes.

and you will take over the bedtime and make sure they're doing baths and make sure they're doing whatever, because I will, basically I just needed time to decide to like do those tasks. When you're like, okay, your little pile of stuff that needs to go to other people, I need it cleared by this weekend, because like people are coming over and I want all this gone. It's for me, I don't want it hidden, because if it's hidden, I'm gonna forget to return that stuff to those people or give them the thing I said I was gonna give them.

And so it's just sitting there. And so then I'm like, okay, well, I guess that's what I'm doing on Saturday morning is I'm going to run and I'm going to go take this return here and drop this off at this person's house and give this back to this person I brought this thing from. And so I just run all my errands on a Saturday morning because you've given me the deadline. Cause that's the other thing is we now understand that my brain is deadline driven. And so we have to attach deadlines to everything. Remember how

And I mean, I'm not as I'm not like this anymore, but for a long time, I was never more productive than when I had a trip because for some reason the like, I'm going to go out to out of town means that all the stuff has to be like done and cleared. So the three days leading up to a trip, all the shit I've been putting off for three months is suddenly all getting done. And I don't know what that effect was, but that's how I used to be the most productive. OK. Another go for what we use.

Brandon Hyde (38:40.876)
I think, well, I think if we're talking solutions, the number one thing that came to my mind, both for you and for me, is ask for what you want. If you need help, ask help. Ask for help. You know, there are times when I'm just like, hey, I just need you to do this. Yeah. When the house gets too much and I need the island cleaned off, I, yes, I have to go. I need help. And I think.

Sophia Hyde (38:53.044)
Hmm.

Brandon Hyde (39:10.126)
for a lot of people that's know, ADHDers, like I get a sense that they kind of want to do everything on their own the way they want to do it. And sometimes I also, you you need to ask help from me to, you've come to me many times, hey, I need to work on my schedule. They're like, hey, look at this. Like, what order should I do this in? Or how long is this thing going to take? Yes.

Sophia Hyde (39:34.997)
Oh yeah, my time blindness. okay, so one of the things I'll do is, because another ADHD factor is not being able to understand, and people also have time blindness who don't have ADHD. So time blindness is just a thing that a lot of people have, but it's really, really common if you have ADHD. So time blindness is where our brains don't understand how long something is supposed to take. So we will completely miss, like,

destroy our schedules because we will think that it can be done faster than it ever could have possibly been done. So what I will do is sometimes I will bring him my like intentions for the week or the day and I will say this is what I have to work with. These are the appointments I have to work around and these are the things I'm trying to get done and is this possible or can I get this all done? And oftentimes what ends up happening

And so I highly recommend that couples or even if you're like in business, you and your coworkers or whatever they are sharing your to-do lists with each other because sometimes what will happen is you will say like I would have put something on my calendar and like I'm gonna do that on Monday and then you'll say I was gonna do that but I was gonna I was I can't get to it till Wednesday and I didn't even realize that you also had that thing on your mind

Now I will say fair play, that's a whole other conversation, but if you're not sharing cards, then that's not gonna happen. the, when I will, I will bring my projects to you and say, how much time do I need to put on my calendar for this? Because I know that I always severely, underestimate how long something should take.

Brandon Hyde (41:21.186)
Yes. And I have a weird uncanny ability to pretty much know how something's going to take pretty much down to the minute. I don't know why my brain works that way. I couldn't tell you. I am very structured and I understand how long something will take and I'm very good at pinpointing it. You know, there are so many examples, but we went to Disney the other day and you saw that the line for Ratatouille

It was like 25 minutes we were headed to Magic Kingdom.

Sophia Hyde (41:51.615)
Okay, Ratatouille, they don't know. Okay, we had just left Hollywood Studios and we were in the middle of park hopping to Magic Kingdom and walking towards the monorail to take us, we were at the transportation station, heading on the monorail to go into Magic Kingdom to do the three, it was our daughter's birthday and she had like three rides she wanted to do at Magic Kingdom. And I was in the app going to go look up how long these lines were and then saw Ratatouille, which we haven't been able to ride yet, normally has a really long line, at Epcot.

and there's a monorail that takes you straight from Magic Kingdom to Epcot. And so I, in front of our children, was like, my gosh, why don't we park hop twice? What if we do these three things in Magic Kingdom and then we'll park up over to Epcot and then we'll ride that. And you were like, shut it down. Shut it down, no.

Brandon Hyde (42:41.676)
And not because I didn't want to. It literally like, we had like three hours left and we had a dinner and then we had to ride the rides and I was like, I'm not even convinced that we're gonna get done with all the stuff we wanna do at Magic Kingdom and you wanna try and throw in going to Epcot and riding Ratatouille? Like, no, because I understood how long. Now, what I didn't take into consideration was how fast some of the rides that we were going to take would go because we randomly ended up going at a

really low day but even right but even then even then we still barely finished it

Sophia Hyde (43:12.264)
We didn't know that everybody was gonna leave when the rain started. so, but that's a different, that's a different conversation. yeah, yeah. The only reason we got our Magic Kingdom list done was because the park like disappeared because of the rain. Cause yeah, she almost didn't get Barnstormer in. It was only because the park got deserted.

Brandon Hyde (43:25.485)
Yes.

Brandon Hyde (43:29.678)
Yeah. So that's just, that's an everyday example. mean, people don't go to Disney every day, but that is an example in our marriage of me just going like, no, you can't. No, this doesn't make sense. Like why, why would we even do that? Like I understand you're impulsive. Cause there are a lot of times that if I do see the benefit or if it can all get done where I'm like, yeah, sure. That sounds great. Because I am not the fun. I'm not the

Sophia Hyde (43:55.732)
Right. I'm gonna bring the life and the party and the fun to the family.

Brandon Hyde (43:58.83)
Right. And so it's hard for me to want to squash that because that's one of the things that I love about you. But there are just times where I have to go and you know, I have to go. No, we can't. We can't do that. And that is the, you know, almost like the again, asking for help asking, hey, how long will this take? It's going to take. mean, in my head, that was a four and a half hour like thing. We only have three and a half hours. Like this just doesn't even make sense.

Sophia Hyde (44:26.036)
Yeah, okay. So just to wrap this up, was looking over my notes to just see if we had any loose ends that we hadn't gotten to yet. And one of the things I think is really important, because again, I don't want anybody to compare their lives to our lives when you're dealing with maybe very different personalities. Everybody, I think what we have done is we have both leaned on the strengths that we have to offer. And so we rely on your strengths and we rely on my strengths.

But one of the things you guys have to know about Brandon, so if you, the strength, I talk a lot about the Clifton Strength Finders, I love the Strength Finders assessment, but Brandon has both consistency and discipline in his top five. They are in my bottom five. So what that looks like, because one of the few things I had on my frustrations list, yeah, his is like my piles.

Brandon Hyde (45:03.032)
Mm.

Sophia Hyde (45:18.204)
My schedule is getting stuck in the sit pit, the messes, the clutter, the time blindness, the fact that you never know what time I'm wake up in the morning because it changes every day. Yeah, I'm just like reading this whole list of like what it's to live with somebody with ADHD. Yeah, yeah, yes. So for Brandon though, he is like a constant at all times. So he always wakes up at the exact same time.

Brandon Hyde (45:26.798)
you

Brandon Hyde (45:32.184)
I just want to I love you very much.

Sophia Hyde (45:48.437)
Every single he is like you can guarantee that it's 7 15 in the morning No, it's not seven your alarm goes off what at 7 10 and then your second alarm. It's like 720. How does it work? Yeah, so then So then you're putting you got to put on your pajama pants and so around 720 he's gonna walk out of the door Wearing his pajamas and he's gonna immediately go start breakfast for the children like clockwork Okay. Now when he comes out

Brandon Hyde (45:57.006)
715. It's so there's

Brandon Hyde (46:14.254)
Mm-hmm.

Sophia Hyde (46:17.094)
he has no way of knowing which version of a wife he is gonna have. Because sometimes I have already woken up, gone to the gym, and I'm back home. There are other days that I am at the gym, so he wakes up and I'm not even there. And then there are other days, like today, where I woke up at six, but I had a real hard time getting started. So he came out and I wasn't even in my gym clothes yet, and he's like, did you already go and come back? And like, what? And...

I was like, no, I didn't leave yet, right? And so I got really behind schedule. And there are other days I'm still asleep. And you're like, well, I guess I'm letting her sleep in this morning. You really, it is just a surprise of which version you're going to get every morning. But Brandon is completely predictable. Like completely predictable.

and he drops them off and then he comes home and he makes his breakfast and it'll drive me crazy because sometimes I feel like it would have made more sense for him to eat breakfast when everybody else was because he had like to go off and do something but no no no no no he has to come back and eat his very specific breakfast in the quiet house after and then he's allowed so he cannot go anywhere till like 9 30 because he has to drop them off and do his breakfast and watch his show or whatever he's doing and then he's allowed to start his day so like if you want him to do something at nine o'clock like

He's not going to because he's always going to like come back and eat his breakfast. He has a whole little system and it's always the same thing every single day, like clockwork.

Brandon Hyde (47:49.166)
Well, and going back to why is that? Because I crave serenity, calm, quiet, peace. And my breakfast time, because as you said, as soon as I come out, I come out, literally sometimes don't even go to the bathroom. like, hey, Liam, start putting your clothes on. What do you want for breakfast? I jump right into it.

So my coffee time, which I don't drink coffee, but like my coffee time is that time that I make breakfast and then I eat my breakfast. That is my peace time. That is my starting my day time. If I'm sure that if something happens and I have to start waking up earlier, I will also still work in that dirty.

Sophia Hyde (48:36.232)
Well, yeah, because you have the system, all of this only applies if you're not shooting that day. So on the days that you have shoots, because like twice this week you were out of the house by 6.15 in the morning. And so like that it only applies on the days that it applies. But yeah, you just have, you have a different system that you have when you have.

Brandon Hyde (48:41.695)
Right.

Brandon Hyde (48:54.776)
Well, I'm a creature of habit that needs that peace time. And that is not something that I was taught. That wasn't something that I made in my life. That is how I was made and who I am and just part of that. That is Brandon Hyde. That is me.

Sophia Hyde (49:16.276)
Yeah, and so if somebody's listening and their partner is, know, so you have the ADHD with the neurotypical and the neurotypical person's like, they may not be able to manage this the way that you've managed it because you are a top, your top five's consistency and discipline and the structure. So I don't want anybody to like compare themselves to ours. Like this is some recipe for like how things are supposed to be done. This is just our lived experience using the strengths that we both individually bring to the table.

But I would say to summarize this, a partnership between somebody that has ADHD and somebody that doesn't is they both have to rise up. And the way that the neurotypical needs to rise up is honestly to take on the leadership role. Because we, in that, in that, in the schedules and the consistency and the routines, because like.

We can't, we will rebel against ourselves and self-implode. I don't know how else to put that, but it is just the truth. We need you to lead in that department. For the ADHD person, the way that we have to rise up is to do our absolute best to honor and respect the schedule, the routines, and the habits, even when we don't feel like it. Sometimes it is nails on a chalkboard. I actually did not want to go to the gym today.

but I just have this, this is my commitment, this is what I'm doing, this is the structure. I don't always want to sit down at my computer at the time that I said I was going to, but I understand that being loyal to the calendar that I have set, it allows me to achieve all the goals, because again, the things you do every day, if you wanna change your life, you have to change the thing you do every day. So those little things that I'm doing, whether I sleep in or don't sleep in, what I...

whether I go to the gym or don't go to the gym, like all these little tiny choices, they end up creating my entire life experience. And so the ADHD person has to be really, really committed to the schedule and the routines and the habits because everybody is gonna benefit if they do. So they need to just try their damnedest to not resist it. And the neurotypical person has to lead the way because we...

Sophia Hyde (51:36.244)
It's it's so hard for us.

Brandon Hyde (51:38.786)
And if you're both ADHD, I don't know what to tell you.

Sophia Hyde (51:43.028)
Yeah, I can only have one friend I can think of with two the two ADHD people marry each other God bless them. So Yeah, is there anything else that you wanted to add?

Brandon Hyde (51:59.854)
Not that I can think of. my camera stopped for some reason.

Yeah, no, think you wrapped it up well is I would just reiterate ask for help on both sides. It's not just not just ADHD or not just the neurotypical like both sides because you have to help each other because as you know, it's not insurmountable. These things can be can be taken care of and can can work. You just you know, we all need help sometimes.

Sophia Hyde (52:31.956)
All right, well, thank you so much. Brandon is gonna be back. We have a couple more conversations and I'm looking forward to sharing those with you guys. And so this is part one of a series and we will have Brandon back maybe next week, maybe the week after. But thank you so much for being here today and we will talk to you guys soon. Bye.

Brandon Hyde (52:53.484)
Bye guys.