I’ve seen what Vyvanse can do to marriages. Women with ADHD calling it the ‘divorce drug’ are telling only half the story: DR KIERAN KENNEDY

Some women with ADHD have given the stimulant medication Vyvanse a rather alarming nickname: the ‘divorce drug’.

In online forums, they describe starting the medication and feeling the noise in their heads quieten. They feel calmer and more in control and, in some cases, begin looking differently at their lives and the person beside them.

Some say the change has forced them to confront problems in relationships they had previously tolerated or struggled to make sense of.

But can treating ADHD really lead someone to leave their marriage?

Sydney psychiatrist and ADHD specialist Dr Kieran Kennedy, whose new book This Explains Everything: A Psychiatrist’s Guide to Navigating Adult ADHD is released on September 1, is wary of making that leap.

‘I would generally push back on that from what I see,’ he tells the Daily Mail.

In fact, after supporting many adults through ADHD diagnosis and treatment, Dr Kennedy says he much more commonly sees the opposite: relationships becoming stronger, not falling apart.

A diagnosis can change the way you see your past

The explanation, Dr Kennedy says, may have less to do with Vyvanse itself and more to do with just how profound an adult ADHD diagnosis can be. 

Vyvanse is the brand name for lisdexamfetamine, a stimulant medication used to treat ADHD. It is thought to work by increasing the availability of dopamine and noradrenaline, brain chemicals involved in functions including attention and impulse control.

For someone diagnosed in their 30s, 40s or beyond, however, a diagnosis isn’t simply an explanation for why they lose their keys, struggle through paperwork or leave everything until the last minute. It can make someone look back at years of behaviour, emotions and choices differently.

‘We really look at life so far and what life means now and what it might mean for the future,’ Dr Kennedy says.

That process can continue once treatment begins. When medication is effective, Dr Kennedy says the changes can be significant and positive.

That might mean looking again at their career, goals and passions. For some, it can also mean examining their relationship and patterns that may have been in place for years.

It isn’t that medication suddenly reveals whether a marriage is good or bad. Rather, as someone’s understanding of themselves shifts, they may start questioning whether parts of the life they built before diagnosis still fit.

‘You don’t care about me’

Long before anyone gets a diagnosis, ADHD may already have been shaping a relationship in ways neither partner understands. 

You forget the important meeting your partner told you about. You drift off while they’re talking, interrupt without meaning to or impulsively change plans you made together. Perhaps you keep promising you’ll organise something, only to put it off again.

To the person on the receiving end, Dr Kennedy says, those behaviours can start to feel personal.

‘There can be a sense of, “You’re not interested in this or me. I’ve told you that already,”‘ he says.

What one partner experiences as a lack of care or consideration may, in fact, be linked to difficulties with attention, memory or impulse control.

Emotions can add another layer. Dr Kennedy says some adults with ADHD can be particularly sensitive to perceived rejection and find strong emotional reactions difficult to regulate.

When nobody understands what is driving those patterns, the same arguments can play out for years. The person with ADHD may feel blamed for behaviour they aren’t choosing, while their partner feels ignored or let down.

Over time, Dr Kennedy says, that misunderstanding can place enormous strain on a relationship, and sometimes contribute to its end.

When chemistry feels all-consuming

For some adults with ADHD, the impact can begin long before a relationship settles into forgotten appointments and arguments over whose turn it was to do something.

Dr Kennedy says there is growing research into the way people with ADHD process reward, and how particularly stimulating the novelty and excitement of a new relationship can feel. Just as someone might hyperfocus on a new interest or passion, that intensity can sometimes extend to people, attraction and attachment too.

In his own practice, Dr Kennedy has heard patients describe relationships marked by ‘intense highs and intense lows’, including push-pull dynamics where couples repeatedly break up and get back together.

Impulsivity and difficulties regulating strong emotions can play a part in those patterns, he says, although he is careful not to suggest every whirlwind romance involving someone with ADHD can be explained this way.

Still, it can offer another lens through which to view relationships that begin with an extraordinary rush of attention and intensity, only for that feeling to become difficult to sustain.

For some people, Dr Kennedy says, ADHD may be one part of what makes those early stages feel so intense.

ADHD doesn’t stop at the bedroom door

Sex and intimacy can be part of the picture too, although Dr Kennedy stresses there is no single ADHD ‘type’ when it comes to someone’s sex life.

For some people, particularly those with more hyperactive or impulsive symptoms, difficulties with impulse control and a drive towards stimulation may also influence libido, dating and sexual behaviour.

‘It’s not a really clear hand-in-hand thing,’ Dr Kennedy cautions.

Plenty of other factors shape someone’s sexuality, but for some of his patients, those ADHD traits have formed part of the conversation when looking back at their romantic and sexual lives.

Then suddenly, there’s an explanation

Imagine spending 15 years arguing about the same things, only to discover there may have been another explanation sitting underneath them all along.

That can be an emotional reckoning for both partners. Dr Kennedy says an adult diagnosis often means revisiting years of tension and finally talking properly about what was driving it.

For the person with ADHD, that can bring up ‘a lot of shame, guilt, but even resentment’.

Someone who has spent years believing they were lazy, selfish, unmotivated or simply ‘too much’ may suddenly understand that some of the things they had blamed themselves for may have been connected to their undiagnosed ADHD.

Their partner, meanwhile, may be confronting a different interpretation of behaviours they had taken personally for years.

It doesn’t mean ADHD becomes an excuse for every argument or hurt. But understanding where those patterns came from can change the conversation around them.

Dr Kennedy acknowledges that adjustment can be difficult at first, particularly when emotions that have been ‘bottled up for quite some time’ finally surface.

Yet this is also where the ‘divorce drug’ narrative begins to come unstuck. Far from watching diagnosis tear couples apart, Dr Kennedy says what he sees ‘far and away’ most often is greater understanding strengthening relationships.

What if your partner misses the old you?

Treatment can bring another unexpected adjustment. Not everything associated with ADHD was necessarily something a couple wanted to change.

A partner may have fallen in love with someone who was spontaneous, energetic and always chasing the next adventure. Perhaps that pace suited them both. Then treatment begins and some of those dynamics change. That can mean a couple needs to find a new rhythm.

For the person being treated, feeling calmer or less driven by impulse may be an enormous relief. Their partner, however, may experience the change differently, particularly if those traits were woven into the relationship from the beginning.

‘The relationship needs to kind of fit and adjust and change within that too,’ Dr Kennedy says.

Sometimes, then, the challenge isn’t that treatment has exposed a terrible marriage. It’s that one person is changing in ways that feel good and healthy to them, and the relationship they built together has to change with them.

So, is Vyvanse really the ‘divorce drug’?

For all the chatter online, Dr Kennedy doesn’t believe the nickname tells the real story. In his clinical experience, ADHD treatment is far more likely to strengthen relationships than end them.

Nor does medication somehow tell someone whether their marriage is good or bad.

But Dr Kennedy can understand why the nickname has emerged. Diagnosis and effective treatment can mark a profound period of change, and for some people that includes recognising that parts of the life they built before diagnosis no longer fit.

If a relationship is one of them, Dr Kennedy isn’t surprised that someone might decide it needs to change. But that is very different from saying Vyvanse caused the divorce.

Don’t go through it alone

Medication, Dr Kennedy stresses, is only one part of managing adult ADHD. When someone is in a relationship, diagnosis doesn’t have to be something they navigate alone.

Partners often join him for assessment or follow-up appointments, while some couples benefit from therapy as they work through what the diagnosis means for both of them and untangle patterns that may have developed over years.

Above all, Dr Kennedy encourages couples to stay curious about what is happening between them rather than rushing to interpret a behaviour as a personal failing or proof that their partner doesn’t care.

‘Being open to the fact that it might be coming from somewhere different, not just an act of choice or a failing from the person themselves,’ he says, can help stop ADHD from ‘hijacking our relationships’.

‘This Explains Everything: A Psychiatrist’s Guide to Navigating Adult ADHD’ by Dr Kieran Kennedy is published by Simon & Schuster Australia on September 1.