Married to Distraction

An expert on attention deficit disorder (ADD) and his wife, a marriage therapist, offer suggestions for keeping distractions and distractibility from harming marriage relationships. Both the Hallowells share the narration, and neither has the professional sound of a seasoned narrator. Furthermore, they overdramatize dialogue. In spite of these shortcomings, they come across as caring teachers. The case studies they cite are helpful and concise as they show couples getting into exhausting conflicts and blaming patterns because of distractibility, failing to organize, over-organizing, and not managing their outside commitments. Though the strategies they suggest often sound thin or poorly delineated, they succeed in reminding us that resolving conflicts about distractibility must have a foundation in empathizing, not judging each other, and in staying emotionally connected. T.W. (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine