My DH wants to move out because I washed the car I'm the wrong way

Op, many wives would have driven to in laws in a filthy muddy car
hoping inlaws would remark upon it, providing the opportunity to
say, in the presence of husband of course,
”yes isn’t it, but John has FORBIDDEN me from putting it through
the car wash as he wants to hand wash it himself” and let the cards
fall where they will.

Men like this are often mean/spirited too which is hard to live with

if he doesn’t “ Spark Joy” you can safely dispose

also OP you have a blabbermouth kid which isn’t a good thing at all
especially when they repeat snatches of conversations with their own
interpretation applied

(Anthony Jr. in the Sopranos speaking out of turn to Livia, setting
murderous wheels in motion)

Honestly I would prefer it if he moved out. He sucks the energy out of the house but I don't want to live separatelyfrom my kids and feel like I should do everything to save the marriage. It's my fault I chose him so I.should try and save it

This is all when and good when you’re talking about someone who is an abuser.

But this is a neurodivergent man living with extreme anxiety who is only able to cope with the world as it is, and live in it in a productive way, by creating a set of rules that make meaning of it for him.

Now in no way am I saying that OP should follow any of these rules or feel that they should have to apply for her. She may decide the only way she can be free of them is to separate.

But that is categorically not the same as being an abusive partner.

I think people who have never loved someone who is ND do not understand that it affects every single thing about their life. It’s not just being socially awkward or good at maths or whatever. They simply do not understand how the NT world operates and create these elaborate coping mechanisms to survive.

The only thing has that stopped me divorcing my DH is my DD being diagnosed and me realising that I had been approaching my marriage all wrong . We are now in a much better place. That didn’t involve me being controlled by him or following any of his rules, but it did involve me letting go of how he parents when I am not in the house (nothing abusive obviously, we just disagree about certain boundaries around things like screen time and snacks)

Op, many wives would have driven to in laws in a filthy muddy car
hoping inlaws would remark upon it, providing the opportunity to
say, in the presence of husband of course,
”yes isn’t it, but John has FORBIDDEN me from putting it through
the car wash as he wants to hand wash it himself” and let the cards
fall where they will.

Men like this are often mean/spirited too which is hard to live with

if he doesn’t “ Spark Joy” you can safely dispose

also OP you have a blabbermouth kid which isn’t a good thing at all
especially when they repeat snatches of conversations with their own
interpretation applied

(Anthony Jr. in the Sopranos speaking out of turn to Livia, setting
murderous wheels in motion)

How's your son? Is he blaming himself for the atmosphere, because he mentioned the car wash?

I always feel sorry for the kids who entirely innocently light the match, and see their parents marriage explode because of it.

I've always thought that the whole point of marriage is for the stability of society, to create structure and order in society and to give children a secure upbringing, and the happiness, or otherwise, of the individuals within a marriage is secondary to its primary purpose.

If people discard a marriage for trivial reasons, then eventually society breaks down - which is perhaps what has been happening over the past 40 to 50 years as individuals pursue their own happiness at the expense of others'.

This is your quote where ive changed your use of the word rigid

I think for me it's triggered me back to 2021/2022 where he was so controlling about covid even way after the guidance was lifted. He was so controlling he didn't want me leaving the house with the kids. I remember him being abusive and freaking out at me because i ordered takeaway and he is controlling and he makes all the decisions and how dare i have my own mind and go against him as he thought that was too dangerous. He is so controlling and puts cameras up and watches me on these cameras i have no privacy and watched me on the ring doorbell and got angry as usual as thats his form of control i know when hes angry its my fault and because a delivery guy got too close. I had two young kids and felt so isolated because with control isolation is the first stage, He would never be violent or anything so its ok that hes abusive as he would never hit me , just the same as this, saying that I didn't care about him as he always has to be number one and i have to put him 1st before the kids and then he goes silent and i get scared and anxious and worried but its fine as the kids dont notice him abusing me and he doesnt abuse them, they are happy they dont notice that we all walk on eggshells or that he shouts at me, and i went to counselling and learned to break free of his rules so im ok really its normal to live this way he cant help it bless him

No, no.
Marriage shouldn't suck up energy.
Marriage is supposed to make life and parenting easier and more enjoyable.
You don't stay in a marriage because you are 'supposed to, out of some sense of duty'.
Children have better outcomes if their parents live together/ are married in a mutually supportive relationship.
Just living together/being married is not it.

I mean it's fine to feel like that about car washes but it's not fine to feel like that but also not wash it yourself! Washing a car only twice in 6 months can also damage the car and can even be dangerous if you can't see out properly.

Autism isn't an excuse for being an abusive dick. Millions of people are autistic but manage quite easily not to be shitwads.

If he wants his apartment, let him have at it. You deserve better, OP.

It is very hard living with a partner with very rigid thinking. I have one too. I love him and our family but I also know life could be easier without him in some ways.

One thing that helps me is to accept that there are some things he CAN’T process and that he experiences overwhelm. So it’s not that he WON’T do certain things when I ask him to, it’s that he can’t. His thinking can’t flex so you have to make the case for things in a different way and avoid a right or wrong.

I’m also the same as you in that I do tend to ignore my DP sometimes because he sets so many rules but he finds that very triggering.

i’m glad your DH has a diagnosis. That means he has at least accepted that he is a certain way. I’ve not managed that. My DP still thinks he is right all the time and he just has to deal with all of us fools!!! He cannot understand that some things are just a subjective choice.

i have also learned to accept his moods as overwhelm which helps me. It’s not him punishing me with silent treatment - he is overwhelmed.

He struggles to understand his own feelings. We’re working at the moment at him recognising that his moods impact others. So if he’s being all withdrawn, saying “I’m fine” when asked doesn’t mean it’s not impacting others. It’s fine to have a bad mood sometimes, but you have to own it, try not to let it affect others and if it does, say sorry. He doesn’t understand. He firstly finds it hard to know he’s experiencing a bad mood, secondly that his mood is affecting others, and finally - and this is the biggest one - that he alone is responsible for that. It’s not our fault for being messy or late or loud…which may also be true sometimes. It’s his emotion and his mood. Very hard for him to understand.

It is bloody hard work I would say. And yes if anyone wonders…I also work on myself and my own ND.

my DP has agreed to do counselling because I framed it as “helping us to make decisions together since we often seem to have different ideas”.

sorry not a very well framed response but have kids running around so can’t type in peace!

Wtf. This is insane victim blaming.

If he decides he never wants the toilet cleaning next should the OP and her kids have to live in filth so as not to upset him.

You cannot be serious.

To be fair mechanical car washes do damage paintwork, you can tell a car has been through one just by looking at it. Last time our car was in for a service they washed it mechanically (we asked them not to wash it, they wrote it down) and we could see it as soon as we picked it up as it was a sunny day. The garage paid for a full t-cut to remove the swirls.

Hand car washes use strong chemicals to speed up washing. Ds’s fiesta grill paint is peeling because of them.

So I get his frustration when he highlighted the issue and asked that the car doesn’t go through them. I think you were wrong to unilaterally decide to use one on a joint car when you knew his concerns.

But shit happens, if I took the car through a car wash dh would not be happy the paintwork was damaged either, but we’d work it out, I’d look at the paint to see the damage, apologise and we’d decide together if we were going to pay to fix it or let it go . The bigger issue is how you as a couple deal with arguments.

I disagree. It's extremely toxic for your kids to be exposed to this kind of behaviour. If he moves out, it stops.

having a bust up because your wife took the car to the car wash is absolutely wild, unless it's a vintage Ferrari or something.

shag a few blokes at work and see what he makes of that, then divorce the plum

This is your quote where ive changed your use of the word rigid

I think for me it's triggered me back to 2021/2022 where he was so controlling about covid even way after the guidance was lifted. He was so controlling he didn't want me leaving the house with the kids. I remember him being abusive and freaking out at me because i ordered takeaway and he is controlling and he makes all the decisions and how dare i have my own mind and go against him as he thought that was too dangerous. He is so controlling and puts cameras up and watches me on these cameras i have no privacy and watched me on the ring doorbell and got angry as usual as thats his form of control i know when hes angry its my fault and because a delivery guy got too close. I had two young kids and felt so isolated because with control isolation is the first stage, He would never be violent or anything so its ok that hes abusive as he would never hit me , just the same as this, saying that I didn't care about him as he always has to be number one and i have to put him 1st before the kids and then he goes silent and i get scared and anxious and worried but its fine as the kids dont notice him abusing me and he doesnt abuse them, they are happy they dont notice that we all walk on eggshells or that he shouts at me, and i went to counselling and learned to break free of his rules so im ok really its normal to live this way he cant help it bless him

You know he has rigid thinking so why would you do something that he has specifically asked you not to do. You chose to do something you knew would upset him, what did you expect?

Yes, but sometimes we also have to acknowledge (and a lot of people struggle with this ) that a ND doesn’t preclude someone from also being an arsehole . Both can be true at once. You work with the neurodiversity, but the arseholery needs to be challenged.

Threatening to leave every time OP raises something in order to get her to back down is arseholery and emotional blackmail.

I think for me it's triggered me back to 2021/2022 where he was so rigid about covid even way after the guidance was lifted. He didn't want me leaving the house with the kids. I remember him freaking out at me because i ordered takeaway and he thought that was too dangerous. He watched me on the ring doorbell and got angry because a delivery guy got too close. I had two young kids and felt so isolated. He would never be violent or anything just the same as this, saying that I didn't care about him and got silent. I went to counselling and learned to break free of his rules