12 year old ASD daughter keeps asking me to get her dad to leave.
She said he makes her feel like she’s living with a stranger 😢
For context, we also have a 14 year old NT daughter who idealises him however she is very sociable so does a lot in the relationship without even knowing.
Our youngest struggles to make conversation and show her feelings so I tend to constantly do these things now for her without thinking and he can’t.
He suspects he is ASD and I would massively agree - in fact we split when the kids were young for a year because I felt so emotionally unsupported but lots of promises of change and for a while things seems led to have improved to some degree.
Last night it all came to a head as the youngest offered to go with him food shopping and seeing as this is so unlike her ( she has lots of food issues and social anxiety ) I thought he would have bit her hand off.
Instead, he listed all the logical reasons it wouldn’t work.
In reality, it’s because he hyperfocus’ so much whilst shopping that he can’t stand anyone around him hence why he’s done the shopping largely alone for the last 20 years.
This results in DD crying, saying he rejected her offer because he doesn’t love her.
I think she has RSD as reacts like this to most people for things that others might perceive as small but in this case I completely see why she feels like that as I often have.
I have lost count of the times I have burst into tears over something and he just stares before saying “ I’m not sure what to say now / there’s nothing I can say to help “
I had no idea he would be like this as a parent and now I don’t know what to do 😢