In this episode of the Translating ADHD podcast, Asher and Dusty explore the concept of New Relationship Energy (NRE) and how it uniquely impacts individuals with ADHD. They discuss how ADHD brains are drawn to novelty and intense dopamine experiences, which can make the early stages of any relationship—romantic or friendship—feel overwhelming and all-consuming. The hosts highlight challenges such as impulsivity, emotional dysregulation, and the difficulty in distinguishing genuine connection from the excitement of novelty. They stress the importance of time to truly know someone, managing expectations upfront, and being cautious to avoid rushing into commitments or overlooking red flags.
Asher and Dusty also share practical tips for maintaining healthy relationships beyond the initial novelty phase. These include setting clear communication expectations, using reminders to retain important details about partners or friends, and regularly renegotiating relationship needs to ensure mutual well-being. They emphasize self-awareness about personal values, limitations, and compatibility, along with the necessity of protecting oneself from toxic relationships by moving at a comfortable pace. Overall, the episode offers both insight and actionable strategies for people with ADHD to navigate new relationships thoughtfully and sustainably.
Episode links + resources:
For more of the Translating ADHD podcast:
- Episode Transcripts: visit TranslatingADHD.com and click on the episode
- Follow us on Twitter: @TranslatingADHD
- Visit the Website: TranslatingADHD.com
Episode Transcript:
[00:02:11] Asher: Hi, I’m Ash. [00:03:18] Dusty: And I’m Dusty. [00:04:20] Asher: And this is Translating ADHD. Listeners, reminder that the next live coaching demo is with me on Thursday, May 14th at 8 p.m. Eastern. I will coach one participant and then we’ll talk about what we heard in the coaching afterwards. So if you’re curious about coaching, if you’ve never had experience with coaching before, and you want a little more insight into what a coaching session looks like, this is a great opportunity for you to experience that.This is for our Patreon subscribers only. So if you visit the website TranslatingADHD.com and click on the Patreon tab for five bucks a month, you gain access to these monthly events with either Dusty or myself, and you gain access to the podcast discord. I am also still taking new clients, really trying to pack my schedule. We’re doing a lot more sliding scale because the economy is what it is right now.
So if you are interested in coaching with me, visit my website CoachAsher.com. Fill out the form. We’ll get a time set up to talk and if you do need to discuss sliding scale, that is okay. I understand that it’s a tough economy right now and we are all in this together.
[01:14:03] Dusty: Also, the Earlybird discount on the ADHD boot camp is ending on May 11th. The ADHD Boot Camp is my annual mega body doubling decluttering session, so I’m going to support you guys in organizing your house, making it more ADHD friendly. Do you do boxing? You do in boxes. There’s a big gang of us every year, and it’s always both exhausting and fun and really wonderful.If you go to ADHD studio, okay, and you use the code Boot Camp 2026, you get a discount of $100 only until May 11th.
[01:44:15] Asher: So Dusty. [01:45:21] Dusty: So, Ash. [01:46:15] Asher: You want to tell our listeners what we’re talking about today? [01:49:09] Dusty: We’re talking about ADHD and Nry or new relationship energy. [01:54:21] Asher: Ooh, I’m excited about this topic. Where do you want to start? [01:58:17] Dusty: So it has been said that the new relationship phase for people with ADHD is something that we we kind of want to think about in the context of our ADHD, because we know that ADHD brains love novelty and we get a ton of dopamine from our novelty. And there is pretty much nothing in this world as an adult that is like more dopamine like fueling than like a new person, a person who’s giving you attention a person who’s making you feel amazing, a person that you’re super interested in.And it can be pretty intense. So like we all, we all experience the new relationship energy phase. And there’s a, there’s like interesting science about kind of what the cascade of neurotransmitters and hormones is that’s happening during this phase and like how long it lasts. Because there’s a distinctive like drop off. We know scientifically that these chemicals last for such and so many weeks whatever.
Right. But I think the problem is with ADHD, when we’re bringing in all these ADHD aspects of ourselves like impulsivity, dopamine seeking, novelty seeking, you know, coming to a relationship, maybe with a history of poor self-esteem or struggling with self-worth. And then like, there’s this person that is making you feel amazing and seeing you, you know, and giving you lots of validation about how great you are, it can be really challenging.
And and then we’ve got emotional dysregulation in there too, right? So I’ve heard from a lot of people that the new relationship energy phase with ADHD can feel much more intense than than it would for most people. Like almost all consuming. Right. So like you’re already struggling to get basic tasks done, like it’s already hard enough to get through the day and and kind of like take care of business and now you’re adding in on top, like this complete physiological, like head to toe, full body distraction where you’re just like, obsessing about this person.
So one, I think the new phase can be really disruptive to like managing your tasks. It becomes a huge distraction. But two, I think it’s something that can be challenging because of like impulsivity. So there’s risk of love bombing. There’s risk of, you know, in both directions. There’s risk of like going too fast, too deep, like skipping red flags and just seeing the best in this person.
And impulsively, like, making commitments, you know, moving into serious commitments too quickly. And then lastly, one of the things that tends to happen is sometimes we can’t distinguish between, like, this is a new person and this is the novelty. And like I genuinely like this person. So for some relationships with where one or both people have ADHD, there can be this like big drop off.
And I’ve seen partners of people with ADHD sort of report this experience of like they’re getting all this attention from their ADHD partner. You know, they feel amazing. They feel like, you know, on top of the world. And then all of a sudden one day it wears off and the person with ADHD, like, forgets that they exist, goes back to what they were doing.
And that’s probably going to happen either way with ADHD. But if you’re not sure if you actually like the person themselves or you just like the way that they’re making you feel, or you just like the feeling of the new relationship energy and the novelty, then I think you also run the potential of like really hurting people. And I don’t know about you, Ash, but I know, like for me, in my teens, in my early 20s, this was a huge factor.
Like any time that there was a new person, like, I was just so obsessed with them. And then when the knee would wear off, sometimes I would find like, oh, actually, this person’s like, not even that interesting to me. I don’t even find them attractive. Like, it was like a dream that wore off. And so I’m sure I probably, you know, left a left a trail of broken hearts behind me.
And so I think it’s really important as a person with ADHD to be to know that about yourself and to be a little cautious because we don’t want to be like hurting people.
[05:35:00] Asher: Dusty, while this is not the topic of today’s episode, I do think it’s important to also call out that in that new phase, when novelty is kind of in charge, we are also vulnerable to toxic people. And we did an episode on this season three, episode 20 the ADHD experience Vulnerabilities in relationships. So if you plug that into Google with translating ADHD, it’ll take you right to that episode, which we’ve already discussed.So I’m not going to say more about that today other than to just double down on this does uniquely make ADHD people vulnerable to falling into toxic relationships. For those reasons that you were stating that the other person makes us feel really good in a certain way, but bringing it back to non toxic relationships, I do want to call out that we’re not just talking about romantic relationships here.
This can be a new friendship in which this type of experience happens, where you’re the novelty of the friendship has you go deep quickly and then the you do the ADHD thing where you fall off. So Dusty, you talked about three different aspects of this, the sort of managing yourself. So having the new kind of take over and make it hard to attend to other portions of life.
Did you talk about three, three things? What was the second?
[07:03:24] Dusty: I would say managing yourself, managing safety and then managing other people’s feelings or like managing impact on others because like me and we’d and so that middle part managing safety like I did manage I, I did mention I think one of the problems is because of impulsivity and emotional dysregulation and how overwhelming it is. The issue too is, yeah, we can skip red flags and we can make commitments too quickly, right?Where all of a sudden you’ve moved across the country to be with some person and it turns out they’re super problematic, or you, you know, you move them into your house or, you know, you let the moment, oh, no, they’re having a hard time. They just lost their job. And you lend them a bunch of money, something like that. Right?
[07:43:16] Asher: Precisely. Dusty. And again, that episode that I just named, we we we talk more about that second one. So if that is of interest to you, look up and listen to that episode. I don’t think we’re going to spend any more time on that one today. And that first one I think we address in many different ways on this show because we talk about cause and effect.So that is the cause. That is a distraction. But we talk all the time about how to manage distractions, how to manage, how to deal with your ADHD in that way. So I think the interesting place to go today is that third one is how do you show up? How do you manage your own ADHD as you are navigating new relationships, be they romantic relationships or social relationships?
[08:31:11] Dusty: I mean, I think that I think the first and most important thing is just to know that this is a thing, like just to have awareness that people with ADHD can have a tendency to become attached to the novelty of a person, and it can be hard to distinguish whether or not you actually like this person, or you just like the feeling of this new with them. [08:51:09] Asher: Okay, Dusty, so with that awareness that this is a thing, how do you for yourself distinguish between those two things? [09:02:00] Dusty: Oh man, everyone’s going to hate the answer. But but the answer actually also is going to address the the second piece like around safety. And it’s just it’s time. There’s no there is no substitute for time. And I really learned this the hard way, getting into a very toxic and not good relationship years ago. And I did exactly that.I got way too deep, way too fast. I made a big commitment, and by the time the red flag started showing up, it was already like too late. Like there was so much invested and it became like a sunk cost fallacy. And it cost me like years of my life. The thing is, like when we are in that now, we’re just we’re flooded with like serotonin and dopamine and we’re seeing the best in people and we think we know someone.
Right. And and so, you know, there’s this, impulse, I think, to be like, okay, I know who this person is. I see them, yes. Ticking the boxes. I like them, right. But you can’t know someone just from them telling you about themselves. You can’t know them all at once. The only way to truly know someone is to, like, go through experiences with them, to see them in different phases of their life.
How do they handle stress? How do they handle being disappointed? Right? It’s easy. It’s really easy to see the best in someone when when you’re giving them everything they want and they’re giving you everything that they want and they’re happy, right? What happens the first time you let them down? What happens when they’re going through life? Stress. What happens when you ask for more or you disappoint them or they disappoint you?
Or like, you know what happens when they’re struggling? You need to see the only way to know who a person truly is is to, like, experience them over time in different situations. And you just can’t cram that into like a week, a month, whatever. Because people are always putting their best foot forward, you know, at the beginning. And so I think like the only way to know if you, you really like someone for who they are and whether the relationship feels good versus like you, just like the way that they make you feel. It’s just time, right? There’s no substitute for time.
[11:03:17] Asher: I 100% agree with that, Dusty. And on top of that, I will add that something that I do in any new relationship is I manage that expectation upfront, that I am a slow burn, that I want to take things slowly, that I don’t want to make any serious commitments for an amount of time, that I want to take our time getting to know each other, dating each other, spending time together before we make any commitments from there.And that not only kind of sets the tone for the other person, especially if that person also has ADHD. It lets them know where I’m at. It also is a good first step in terms of opening the lines of communication, because if at some point I am somewhere different, then that’s an opportunity. If I do want to take a next step, then that’s something that I need to communicate with that person.
Or if they are feeling like they want something more out of the relationship, I make sure that they know that that door is open, that I may not be able to give them what they’re asking for, but that they can always talk to me about where they are and how they’re feeling, because I don’t want to inadvertently hurt someone else’s feelings.
And so I try to be really clear about where I’m at, but also leave the door open for exploring after a period of time. Do we take a next step, and if so, what does that next step look like?
[12:32:07] Dusty: You know, the question is, how can you tell if you really like someone or if you just like the new relationship energy or how they make you feel? And, and part of that has to do with knowing yourself right and understanding your needs, understanding your preferences and understanding like your ethics and your values. Right? Like if you meet somebody and they generally share your ethics and values and they have a lifestyle that’s compatible with your lifestyle and you have some level of shared interests or whatever, right?If you can identify things about them that you know, historically you’ve liked or that have worked for you, you know, you have to give it time. But there’s a I think there’s a higher likelihood. And I think it’s really important to recognize, like if if you’re like, you’ve met someone who’s just like so different than everyone else you’ve ever met, like, do you actually share values?
Right? Because if the answer’s no, then as soon as the entry wears off, you’re gonna have some, like, hard, hard arguments, right? Are is there some compatibility of lifestyle? Right. And and you can’t know these things unless you’re honest with yourself about your needs and your limitations. Right. Like, this is the thing is, you know, I, I’ve been I’ve been sort of slowly dating somebody who is going through autistic burnout.
And one of the things that we had to navigate first is, is this going to be okay for both of us? Because I, as you know, have a very busy, very chaotic lifestyle, which can be, pretty, you know, challenging on a sensory level to a person who is in, in burnout and autistic and, and, you know, as a person who tends to give a lot of care, is it a safe choice for me to enter into something serious with someone who’s going to need a lot of care, like, is that fair to me?
Is that sustainable? Is, you know, do I have capacity? And, just is that going to be healthy for me? Right. And so we both actually weren’t sure. And so we’ve been taking it really slow so that we can make sure that it’s going to be safe for both. Like we really, really like each other. That doesn’t really matter because at the end of the day that like is going to go away if, if like, you know, several years from now or several months from now, we’re like really stressing each other out and causing like unhealthy ness for each other because we’re not compatible.
So we just have to wait and take time to see what it’s like to go through days and weeks and months and what that looks like for us. There’s no there’s no shortcut. And so I think it’s okay not to know, but at least like in this instance, like I can be honest about my limitations. Like I’m a very busy person.
I have a lot of people to care for already. Can I cope with, having a partner who’s like, maybe not always able to show up for me because they might be having a really tough day themselves? We’re going to find out, right? I think it’s going really well so far. But it’s not just about, I think, like being honest with yourself about your preferences and that kind of thing.
Like with ADHD, you know, we got to stay out of shame. But we do have certain limitations. Like, for example, I’m really messy and it’s tough because I actually I think I’m like a pretty clean person. I clean up after myself a lot, but I it’s something that I’ve had to learn to do, right? It doesn’t come naturally to me.
And so I give myself a lot of credit for all the progress that I’ve made. I’m very comfortable with the level that I can maintain my home in my space. But I also acknowledge that there are other people who find it not to their level of preference, or it might be stressful for them. Same with like how I manage my calendar, right?
I like to be busy. I like to do a lot of things. Things get a little chaotic sometimes. Some people can’t roll with that is like too stressful for them. Right. And so I have to be aware of, like, what are what are limitations for me or like things about me that might cause friction points for people who are very different than me.
And what does that going to? How is that going to gel? You know, not just now is fine. Now everybody’s you know, everyone’s like, oh you’re great. Well what’s that going to be like in five years. You know.
[16:32:01] Asher: Really well said Dusty. I do briefly want to go back to the shared values shared interests piece, because there is a potential red flag in there too. A common abuse tactic is known as mirroring. So if somebody seems to perfect for you, you might want to step back and evaluate. Are they showing you themselves or are they just reflecting back? Are they just reflect? Are they just taking in who you are and reflecting that back to you? [17:03:09] Dusty: Yeah, and there’s something really interesting here to be said about like naivety. And although this isn’t necessarily like a DSM characteristic, I’ve certainly found it to be the case that sometimes with ADHD, like we do struggle with a kind of naivete, because as neurodivergent people, a lot of us tend to be very authentic. We wear our hearts on our sleeve.We, you know, we always try to do our best and speak truthfully. But the problem is, I think we assume the same of others. Like we have this problem where we’re because we’re open hearted and we wear hearts on our sleeves. We think that that’s the case with everyone else, and we forget to remember that, like, not everyone is a safe person, right?
And that like, some people are unsafe, some people are looking to harm, some people are looking to manipulate, or some people are just like, they may not even be doing it intentionally, but they just might be messy people who have problems. And so I think we’re too quick, too often to trust others. And that’s the problem with oversharing, too, right?
Like we have a tendency with ABC to overshare. But if you are oversharing with someone that you think is a safe person that you think is a lot like you, you’re potentially handing harmful information that can later be then used to like, manipulate or control you. And so again, that’s why it’s so important to like go slow and like not show show your whole hand at once because you just don’t know if someone’s a safe person until you’ve seen what they do with some pieces of information.
And so that’s the thing. Yeah. If you’re like displaying your whole personality, there is the potential that a person could just map onto that. And like, I don’t think that necessarily people have to have all the same interests. I think it’s actually quite good when they have separate interests. But I guess, I mean, like, is there enough overlap of interest that like, you know, you’ll have something to talk about years down the road.
[18:41:22] Asher: Sir? Sure. Yeah. Again, I think, too many shared interests can, can kind of feed into that red flag. And more so than that, I’ve come to think of, trust is something that is earned over time. I no longer give implicit trust, and not that I’m mistrustful in a new friendship or relationship, but I am better at distinguishing.What level of trust do I know this person to be on? Like, have we been through stuff together and how have they shown up for me and that? Or have we not? Do I not yet know whether or not I can place my full trust in this person? And again, you can only know that with time. So now, Dusty, let’s pivot to the novelty piece wearing off.
So novelty is an incredible motivator for people with ADHD so early in a relationship. It can be very, very easy. Almost too easy, almost all encompassing, easy for us to attend to another person. But when that novelty wears off, even if we still care about somebody, we can do that ADHD thing of sort of unintentionally ghosting somebody, or all of a sudden there’s just this total tone change that this other person is experiencing where communication drops off of a class.
And I have a couple of thoughts about that. The first is I try to manage how much I communicate with somebody when the relationship is new. I try not to overly lean into that. Oh, I want to talk to this person all the time. I want to be texting and talking with them 24/7. So that way I’m not setting up upfront a pace that is going to be unsustainable over time.
And again, this plays right back into taking it slow. So there’s more than one reason to kind of pump the brakes for yourself in that novelty phase. But secondly, when novelty wears off, if this is something real, if this is something you want to keep pursuing, you might need some actual strategies in order to keep that going. I have sort of multiple core relationships in my life, friendships and intimate relationships, and it’s a fair bit to juggle as a person with ADHD.
And so I actually keep notes and set myself reminders like these people are important enough to me that A I keep notes about where we are, what we’ve talked about last, like where, and even things like what I think my expectation is in terms of how often I should be communicating with this person and then be I make it part of my daily and weekly practice to make sure that I’m keeping those lines of communication open.
I leave myself reminders like, is this is this sexy? No, it’s absolutely not. But is it needed for me as a person with ADHD to not, especially since a lot of my relationships are with other neurodivergent to not just let the lines of communication fall away? Yes it is. I also find it really helpful to discuss expectations about how often we spend time together with another person, especially since I am in more than one relationship, so that that way we are on the same page.
I know what the expectation is. I know what fits into their life. We’ve made it. We’ve come to an understanding about what what works for you, what works for me. And so now it’s just a matter of taking care of the logistics. But I can take care of the logistics much easier knowing what the expectation is versus it being this open question mark.
[22:17:28] Dusty: Yeah. Yeah. I think expectation management is important. And you said something there that you said like oh it’s not very sexy like leaving yourself reminders. But this is the thing and I’m willing to bet like this will resonate with a lot of people when I’m like, have a new relationship again. Yeah. Whether it’s a friendship or whether it’s, you know, romantic relationship.I don’t need any reminders. Like you tell me something I will, like, remember it. I will, like, get you. You tell me you have some, like, interest or you owned something like 20 years ago that you never found again. Like, I will find that crap on Etsy for you. And I will give you, like, the best Christmas present ever for like the first.
You know what I mean? Like, I’m really good at that at the beginning, remembering I’m very interested in the person, but then it does fade because life comes back in right? You can only keep life out while you’re in your little love bubble. So long, and then life comes back in and it can get harder to pay attention to your partner all the time.
And there’s nothing that feels worse than having your partner tell you something about themselves and you don’t remember it, or even ask you to do something differently. And you keep not remembering it. Like, a really good example is like my one of my very best friends is the really funny, one of my very best friends does not have pierced ears, and I’ve known her for years, but it was like a birthday, Christmas, birthday.
I sent her earrings like three times in a row. Then I’d be like, how do you like the present I sent you? And she’d be like, great, if I had pierced ears. And it wasn’t until that moment. There I go. Oh my God, that’s right. I sent you a gift like this last time, and you didn’t. I don’t know why.
It just the information that her ears are not pierced, like, just is not getting in there. And so I keep forgetting. So I keep getting her earrings because I keep thinking. I keep finding cute earrings and the thing is, like, I’m trying to do something really nice because I’ll find earrings that are like related to things that she likes, like fruit that she likes or colors that she likes, or things that I think will will really work for her.
But I’m missing this key piece of data, and I feel like such a jerk. And this has happened to me in relationships before, where people have told me they have a strong, you know, dislike of something or I or I do something that kind of bothers them and I genuinely want to do better, and the information just doesn’t get retained.
And it might happen time after time after time. So like, yeah, notes aren’t sexy, but I certainly find it like the way that I show up for my partner or even my friends, is to keep notes like I keep literally. Now, when I have a new person, like I just keep a list of like things that they tell me that I want to remember, like facts about them or things like preferences, because I know I’m not going to remember forever, and I don’t want to feel like a bad partner later when I can’t name their favorite food or I don’t remember some like anniversary, that’s really important to them.
It doesn’t happen because now I know better to just start capturing it and not to think that like just because I’m doing a really good job remembering all these things now because I’m interested in them, that that’s going to happen later, like notes are essential. And I once read this really good tip. It was a tip for like people who’ve been in a long term partnership.
I can’t remember the context, but it was like basically like when your partner gets home from work, basically set a timer for five minutes, or look at a clock discretely and shut up for five minutes, like ask them about their day and just like, listen to them for like, make a goal of listening for five minutes without interrupting because it will make them feel really heard and cared about.
And sometimes we need to remember how to listen because we forget. Especially if you’re say you’re living with someone, co-parenting with them. I think it’s just too easy to fall into a pattern where like, you just start to see them as this, like person in your house and you forget to stop and actually, like, listen to them the way that you used to listen.
And so it’s very unsexy to think like, I am watching the clock as I listen to you, or I’m like, I’m setting a goal of five minutes, but in that five minutes, you know, first you set the goal, okay, I’m not going to talk for five minutes. And it enables you to show up as the person you want to be, because once your partner starts talking, you’re actually able to hear them.
And then they feel really cared about and the outcome. I think the ends justify the means. So as the relationship goes on and becomes less novel and becomes more routine, we need to rely more and more on some of these, like external structures to help us show up as good partners. And that that might be weird concept for some people.
Like I’ve heard of people putting sex on their calendar, like saying like, don’t forget to like, have sex this week. Because for some people, you know, with ABC, they might be very hypersexual, they might be very caught up in whatever their current interest is or whatever’s going on in their heads and literally not check in with their bodies and forget to make a bit of space and time for like, arousal.
So they got to put it on their calendar. You do what you got to do, you know, to show up as a good partner. And that’s okay.
[26:48:14] Asher: Really well said Dusty. And the last thing that I will add, because this has been such a helpful framework for me, we talked about on a previous episode, we talked about kind of flexible relationship frameworks, and we were talking about things like kink and polyamory and nontraditional relationships. And in those types of relationships, negotiation is a necessity because there are so many moving parts that you’re always negotiating and renegotiating, which is so helpful for ADHD, because it means that you’re always coming back to and asking yourself those curious questions about, is this relationship working for me?If not, what do I need to ask for? What do I need to change? What do I want out of this? And I think in a long term monogamous relationship, you can lose sight of that. You just you forget to come back and check in with yourself about what’s working and what’s not working, to check in with your partner about what’s working or what’s not working.
You just sort of getting this right where you go with the flow of life and you’re you’re not realizing that you’re not attending. So even if you are monogamous and not kinky, the concept of negotiating and renegotiating and having that always be an open door if something doesn’t feel right for me, if I want to renegotiate time spent, or how we spend time, or how you’re showing up in a situation or how I’m showing up in this situation, I just think it’s a really helpful concept because again, it’s that reminder to ourselves, the person with ADHD, to check in with ourselves, to get curious about the relationship, to not just let it slide on to
the backburner without realizing how to do it. And, it opens those lines of communication between you and your partner to have these explicit conversations to to keep putting that effort into making the relationship something that is good and positive for both of you.
[28:46:05] Dusty: Well said. [28:47:05] Asher: And on that note, Dusty, I think this is a good place for us to wrap today’s episode. So listeners, until next week, I’m Ash. [28:54:00] Dusty: And I’m Dusty.
[28:55:01] Asher: And this was the Translating ADHD podcast. Thanks for listening.
