Practices

ADHD rarely turns up on its own. If anxiety or low mood is in the room as well, it needs treating in its own right, and that includes when it is the other partner who is struggling.

This is the part that gets missed in couples. One person becomes the identified patient and everybody works on them, while the other one's untreated…

Twenty minutesFeelings and focusADHD skillsQur’an 2:153

When you cannot skip it, shorten it. Come for the meal and skip the drinks afterwards. Two hours of you at your best is worth more to everyone than five hours ending badly.

Decide the leaving time before you arrive and say it out loud on the way in, so that it is a plan rather than a walkout. Booking something afterwards…

Twenty minutesFeelings and focusADHD skillsQur’an 25:63

Saying I need a break only works if you have agreed beforehand what a break means. How long it lasts, what the other person does meanwhile, and when the two of you come back to it.

Settle it on a calm evening. Twenty minutes, no following, no messages in between, and we sit back down at nine. Then keep the return time exactly,…

Twenty minutesFeelings and focusADHD skillsQur’an 8:46

If someone close to you has become the person who chases you, that arrangement is wearing you both down, even on the days it works. It is worth naming out loud and changing on purpose.

Once a partner or a manager supplies all the pressure, nothing inside you ever needs to. They end up tired and resentful, you end up handled like a…

Twenty minutesGet startedADHD skillsQur’an 13:11

Before treating something as your failure to get going, check whether you ever agreed it was yours. A job that bothers one person and genuinely does not bother the other has not been agreed by anybody.

That turns a stuck task back into a conversation, which is where it belongs. Say plainly that the unpainted wall does not trouble you, ask what it…

Twenty minutesGet startedADHD skillsQur’an 5:48

Tell your spouse about a raw spot, an old tender place that still gets touched.

When you go quiet I feel abandoned, like I did as a child. Name the ache, not the blame.

Twenty minutesKnowing your partnerEmotionally focusedQur’an 17:24

Ask one open question about their inner world tonight, and just listen to the whole answer.

What are you hoping for lately, what are you dreading. Questions with no single answer.

Twenty minutesKnowing your partnerGottmanQur’an 30:21

Ask your spouse about a moment from their childhood that shaped them, and listen closely.

What comfort felt like then, what they longed for. It still lives in how they love now.

Twenty minutesKnowing your partnerGottmanQur’an 17:24

After a betrayal, heal by talking the injury through together, fully, rather than skipping past it in silence.

Couples who avoid the subject drift apart; those who talk it through, honestly and thoroughly, are the ones who make it.

Twenty minutesRebuilding trustGottmanQur’an 2:42

Atonement is not only apology; it is changed behavior over time. Let your actions become the apology.

Words open the door; sustained new behavior walks through it. Trust returns through consistency, not speeches.

Twenty minutesRebuilding trustGottmanQur’an 25:70

Let the hurt partner set the pace of healing. It takes as long as it takes; there is no rushing trust back.

You cannot demand that trust return on a schedule. Honor the injured partner's timeline without pressure.

Twenty minutesRebuilding trustGottmanQur’an 2:286

The more one person checks up, the more the other hides, and the more they hide the more the checking looks justified. Both are responding reasonably to the last move and nobody is having a good time.

Getting out of it usually means the monitoring comes down first, which feels like the wrong direction to whoever is doing the monitoring. A workable…

Twenty minutesRemembering to do itADHD skillsQur’an 3:159

Name one old hurt with your spouse that still aches, gently and without re-litigating.

When you were not there that day, it marked me. Naming it is not attacking, it is asking to heal.

Twenty minutesRepair after ruptureEmotionally focusedQur’an 42:40

When your spouse names a wound you caused, listen without defending, even once.

Not I didn't mean to. First: I hear that I hurt you, and I am sorry. Defence can wait.

Twenty minutesRepair after ruptureEmotionally focusedQur’an 4:135

Where the harm has truly stopped, begin to set down a grievance you have carried.

Not forgetting, releasing. Once the wound is no longer being made, let it start to close.

Twenty minutesRepair after ruptureEmotionally focusedQur’an 24:22

Revisit a past fight only once you are both calm, from the balcony, without climbing back into it.

Processing means talking about the incident, not re-fighting it. Wait until the heat is gone.

Twenty minutesRepair after ruptureGottmanQur’an 4:128

Once this week, sit together unhurried and share one feeling and one reassurance.

Not logistics. How are we really, and what do you need from me. A regular heart to heart.

Twenty minutesRituals of connectionEmotionally focusedQur’an 30:21

Mark one milestone together this month, however small, rather than letting it pass.

The anniversary, the finished project, the hard season survived. Pause and honour it.

Twenty minutesRituals of connectionGottmanQur’an 14:7

Share one meal today with nothing else happening, no screen, no rush.

Undivided attention over something ordinary is a small daily ritual of belonging.

Twenty minutesRituals of connectionCoreQur’an 4:19

Keep a weekly date, just the two of you, to keep learning each other with open questions.

A regular two hours together, asking about dreams and hopes, keeps your map of each other current.

Twenty minutesRituals of connectionGottmanQur’an 25:74

Looking for a whole subject rather than a single practice? Start from the nine areas.