Jigsaw Hearts: When ADHD Meets Marriage A Memoir About Neurodivergent Love, Lost Suitcases, and Learning to Laugh at 4:30 AM Chaos (The Jigsaw Mind Series) by Melanie Du Preez

What happens to your relationships when you finally understand why you’ve always been “too much” — and also never enough?
Getting an ADHD diagnosis at 50 explains a lot. The missed plans. The forgotten conversations. The arguments that somehow always ended with you apologising for things you weren’t entirely sure you’d done. The way you could be completely present in one moment and completely gone the next, while the people who loved you quietly wondered which version of you was going to show up today.
Jigsaw Hearts is the second book in the Jigsaw Mind Series — a memoir written by a clinical psychologist who spent decades helping other people understand their minds before finally understanding her own.
This book is about what a late ADHD diagnosis does to the relationships that were already in place when the pieces started falling into place. A neurotypical husband who is also a psychologist. Two adult children who carry their own ADHD diagnoses. A professional life built on being the one with answers.
It is not a book about saving your marriage or fixing your family dynamics. It is a book about sitting with the discomfort of finally understanding why things were so hard — and realising that understanding does not automatically make them easier.
You’ll find:
• What ADHD actually looks like inside long-term relationships — not the cartoon version
• The specific chaos of a household where ADHD runs through multiple generations
• How a late diagnosis reshapes the stories your family has been telling about you
• The dual perspective of a clinician who knew the theory and still missed it in herself
No toxic positivity. No transformation arc. No suggestion that everything will be fine if you just communicate better.
If you got your diagnosis later in life and you’re trying to make sense of what it means for the people who have been living with you all along — this book is for you.
Melanie du Preez is a clinical psychologist with 26 years of practice in Klerksdorp, South Africa, and the author of the Jigsaw Mind Series.