On holiday with DH who doesn't do change well and has social and communication difficulties. Can anyone give me tips as I am finding it very stressful?

[tinseloatcake]

I had some useful tips on a previous thread but I didn't manage to read them in time. I'm finding things really difficult as I'm on holiday with my husband who is proving very difficult to have a nice time with .

He pulls his weight at home because we have worked out a system where he has some very regimented jobs but it just falls apart when we are away. We end up in an argument every 10 seconds.

He cannot keep the children safe while cycling, let alone pack a picnic or jolly them along when some one falls off etc. He cannot read a map on the go.

He gets really annoyed by me if I ask him to do things but says he is willing to help, and I generally think he is. But I find it baffling. My latest example is we got back from aforementioned long bike ride and everyone is hot and sweaty. He said I might go and fix the fridge. I said can you get everyone a big drink first, he started to re arrange all the chairs. I was can you get everyone a drink - and he says I am, I'm just making the chairs all nice ... So I get the drinks and he is annoyed with me.

Please give me tips. I am genuinely thinking about getting stuck into the booze to dull my frustration with it. But it is not constructive. If you offered something on the previous thread I didn't get to read and digest so I would be grateful for more help.

Thank you

@tinseloatcake

Caravan fridge. I have been asking him to see if he can find out what is wrong with it since we arrived 3 days ago. He broke earlier before we went out and I said I was annoyed he hadn't looked at it until then.

I can get my own drink, I don't know why I should be responsible for the kids' while he fucks off round the back of the van for however long he likes. Me having got every single drink and meal so far.

So you wanted him to fix the fridge and had a go at him before you went out because he hadn't done it. Yet when he went to fix the fridge you had a problem with him doing that also and wanted him to do something else?

If you can't fix the fridge makes more sense fir him to get on with that (which is likely a long job) and you get the drinks.

I thought we might have discussed the fridge enough but perhaps not. The way I see it is this: when you have kids they sometimes require attention. Sometimes it is immediate. For example someone urgently needs the loo and needs an adults help. Or does some significant exercise and it is important they rehydrate afterwards given they are hot and sweaty and have finished their drink. At that point it is important to meet the children's needs. There may be other things that also need doing like some DIY or starting to get tea ready but they are not as urgent as the kids immediate requirement. Therefore you have to see to the kids first. Sometimes when there are two adults around it is nice to share the load there so that one doesn't end up being the fucker who does everything all the time.

In respect of the actual fridge. It is broken. Whether it was fixable on Tuesday we will never know. But I will duly add getting it sorted to my to do list when we get home.

@tinseloatcake

I thought we might have discussed the fridge enough but perhaps not. The way I see it is this: when you have kids they sometimes require attention. Sometimes it is immediate. For example someone urgently needs the loo and needs an adults help. Or does some significant exercise and it is important they rehydrate afterwards given they are hot and sweaty and have finished their drink. At that point it is important to meet the children's needs. There may be other things that also need doing like some DIY or starting to get tea ready but they are not as urgent as the kids immediate requirement. Therefore you have to see to the kids first. Sometimes when there are two adults around it is nice to share the load there so that one doesn't end up being the fucker who does everything all the time.

In respect of the actual fridge. It is broken. Whether it was fixable on Tuesday we will never know. But I will duly add getting it sorted to my to do list when we get home.

I wouldn't necessarily agree with that as there were two adults present so jobs should just be divided up as appropriate at the time. However you seem to now be saying the fridge is not fixable so that's a little different and there's obviously the backstory that you are fed up of doing the thinking for both of you which is understandable. However my point was more that on leaving you had a go at him about not fixing the fridge. So you get back and he's like "right I need to fix the fridge" and you then get cross with him about something else. That's confusing for him plus there was change to his plans so that's likely why he starting rearranging the chairs - it's likely creating order and therefore calm for him. All if that changing the instructions and his plans would have made him feel stressed and overwhelmed.

He can't change the way he thinks so you either need to work with it and stop being angry and frustrated or split up. Your frustration will be making you very unhappy and will be causing rifts, bad feeling and making your communication issues worse. Accept that he just doesn't think like you do. Find out how you can work with it rather than fighting it and expecting him to be different.

For example people on the autistic spectrum generally need rules when things are not obvious to them. So for example the 3pm snack - the rule is, if there are no apples, the children can have x, y or z. If anything is too complex and vague (eg they could have a biscuit if they haven't eaten too many sweets or biscuits in the last few days) leave that bit out of the rule. Keep it simple. . They don't need a biscuit, they can have one when you are about to make the call.

I have an autistic son and this is what we had to do for him. It worked very well and meant he helped put usefully at home. But he always needed the very specific instructions.

Thanks for your comments and you talk a lot of sense. I need to do some reconfiguring now and start again somewhere different.

I've got to be honest though I feel like crying if I am the only person who can make a decision about eating a biscuit. I'm not disagreeing with you, but it seems such a let down on the kids if I am not around to sort this sort of stuff for them (I actually work full time) that I do feel someone else should be able to.

Everything feels worse in the middle of the night. I think I need some sleep before I start catastrophising over a biscuit!!

It's a frustrating situation and because you are on holiday, these things have come to head.
Mind you being on holiday with small children is the same thing as being home but just in a different place. Same amount of work required.
With all due respect are all of these things really that important? I'm not discounting your feelings but are you focussed on all the things he does which give you the shits and not seeing the good things he does.
We all do it when our husbands are annoying us.
Is it possible that you are being to full on? Like when the kids get back from a ride, can they not get their own drink, not sure of ages but if they can ride a bike, they can get a drink.
You say you're controlling and you've implied that you are, does he just go things differently to you which you find strange, then you comment, then he feels like he's not going to do it right anyway so just doesn't do it.
We as mothers can get really full on when our kids are small and when they've grown you realise you probably could have relaxed a bit.

Of course give kids a good diet etc but strict snack times and food make life harder in the long run.
Don't get me wrong I'm not criticising you but most of the time everyone else piles on here and bashes the husband in support when sometimes we need to observe our own behaviour.

I disagree with the post above, I’m afraid - I am the daughter of a man with ASD who wasn’t diagnosed until his 60s. Growing up was a strong narrative around my mother being ‘controlling’ when actually she was dealing unknowingly with a neurodiverse partner and struggling to work out why he wouldn’t (as she perceived it - actually he couldn’t) for instance, pay the phone bill on time without being explicitly told to do so, many times over. And that didn’t help my relationship with my mother or my father.

So I would say it’s more about being open about his limitations and his strengths and working round them. As the child in this situation i can say definitely it would have been a lot better for me if we had known about dad’s ASD and been able to understand and accept it. He still wouldn’t have paid the phone bill but my mum would have stopped hoping one day he would just one day start ‘caring’ (as I think she saw it, in retrospect) enough to do what to her was obvious needed doing, but wasn’t to him.

And that would have made for a happier life for all of us.

I feel for all of you, he cannot be happy either. I wonder if your too controlling ( maybe because you have to be ) but if you said giving the child porridge every day is making them unhappy. What would he do. You may have to decide that you are going to have to be a single parent in the marriage, and do all the child related care or arrange it. Can the children get there own snack in the afternoon when they want one. Can they get their own drinks and for their siblings. Step completely back from organising him organising the children. Him being out of routine on holiday is not nice for him either.

1. Do I just give up on stuff he is not great at - like making sure they do homework or thinking for heelf re healthy diets etc or are there ways he can take on these jobs? (Another one is he is supposed to give Ds medicine daily and reorder and collect a repeat prescription. He gives it daily but I have to nag him to reorder the prescription and nag him to collect it in time - he won't factor in a Sunday for eg so nearly runs out if I don't remind him) I find it stressful as it is basically therefore my job with him in the middle

I'm no expert but the below is what I'd try.

I wouldn't say give up, but the two of you can't expect him to just suddenly "get it". He will need to find strategies. For example, maybe he could write himself a checklist of all the steps he has to take to make sure the kids get their homework done.

Things that are utterly vital that he struggles with, you could swap with him for a task he finds easy. You presumably can't allow him to fail on the repeat prescriptions, so it might be best to take that task yourself.

Whereas homework or meals, I'd be inclined to accept that it might go wrong sometimes, and try to support him to learn. I'm no expert, but I think very very clear verbal expectations would help (he can't read between the lines like neurotypical people). E.g. "the kids need a cooked meal between 5 and 6 each day that contains at least one handful of vegetables, some protein, and some carbs, and it should be a meal they like". Accept that his solution might look different than yours. For example, he might choose three meals and always cook exactly that and not differ from it. It wouldn't be your way if doing it, but if those three meals are tasty and nutritionally balanced, it's an equally valid way to "meet the requirements" as a different menu every single week. If his solution isn't acceptable to you, then probably you had a hidden requirement in your head that you didn't realise you needed to state.

Reading your further posts, you do sound very controlling. I would be mightily pissed off if dh micromanaged what I fed the dcs and when, when I was going to do a job, telling me to print off school newsletters etc etc. You also mention that he did not do some tidying to your satisfaction. Your satisfaction. And as for “apple gate” - surely a 9-year-old can get an apple

Some people like organisation, a supremely tidy house and everyone knowing what they’re doing. If that sort of personality type gets together with a more disorganised person then it can be a life of angst and frustration.

The dh may or may not have autism, but condemning him because he is not like you is arrogant. When i see people who live highly-organised lives I heave a sigh of relief that I am not their browbeaten partner, always falling short.

Poor husband.
Goes away on a nice family break, comes back with a diagnosis of autism.

To be honest, it sounds much the same as most self catering holidays, which is why people decide it isnt for them.

Your children should be doing things for themselves.

I don’t think you’re controlling at all, people are not reading it! 9yo can get an apple… the dh wants it cut. The op is bending over backwards to create a framework to help him make decisions. Whcih is very different from @MMMarmite who worked hard to create her own management techniques to eg get out the door on time.
The op is telling him to print the newsletters because many married women with children go batshit with frustration when they find themselves the only one capable of getting anything done. She’s at work, the dc need to do homework, shes pissed at having to step in but has told him it’s his job and he needs to print the newsletter. I’d be at the last straw with this.

Re: the newsletter… I once went to a woman’s house and she showed me her box files of school newsletters, all neatly filed in date order. Very commendable, but some of us just chuck ‘em in a pile. Today they are online - I’ve never printed one off.

I do think some people have missed their vocation as a member of the military, and diagnosing spouses who fail to fall into line as having various medical issues leads me to suspect that it is they who need to self-examine.

I don't see it as controlling, in the normal sense of the word anyway. The DH sounds frankly useless so the OP has ended up pegged as the organiser, which over time turns into the nagger and the micromanager because the bloke is so incapable. If he could be more proactive and perceptive of what needs doing and what to prioritise, I'm sure the OP would prefer not to be the drill sargent 24/7.

I think it's also really easy to say that the OP should just put up with this when it's not our husbands. It sounds really draining and completely unsexy to boot! I feel sorry for the kids too, it's a poor role model for them.

My suggestions;

Medication. He can set a recurring reminder on his phone for 'send prescription request' and 'collect DC's prescription' every 28 days. As you can set an alarm to come on x hours/minutes beforehand, it could first ping at say, 9am after he's given the medication so he could send it straight away and then it pings again later in the day in case he forgot to do it the first time.

He could also make a tick box for when it's given each day and stick it on the cupboard door where the medication is kept or the fridge door and write the time it's given in there, together with a column/line saying Order Prescription and Collect Prescription on the appropriate day. That sort of thing can be knocked up in Excel in about five minutes and, more to the point, it's accessible to the DC as well, so as they get older, they can easily become more engaged and responsible for their own health - good for learning a lot of concepts around time, recording information, reading tables and the like, too - and they'll be able to say 'Dad, I haven't had my medicine yet' or 'We need to order my medicine now'. A Nanny or school staff would have to keep a record of any medicine given, so it's not particularly weird to do similar at home.

For snacks, just let it go. A snack of any kind is a snack and better than not having anything because he can't weigh up the variables and know you'd be OK with the decision.

Homework - he can add that in a routine,

SCHOOL PICK UP

Hang up coats/hats/scarves,
Shoes off,
SNACK and DRINK,
Check all bags
Take out things to be washed,
Empty lunchboxes & wash water bottles,
Take out any letters or homework,
Check on school website for any letters. Print and read letters,
Add tasks/dates with notes to a large calendar (so 'DC1 TRIP TO MUSEUM, school at 7.30am, needs packed lunch, pick up 4pm' on the 18th and 'PACKED LUNCH FOR TRIP' on the 17th),
Mark Letters with Done 15/5 for each thing added to the calendar
File letters for checking (not Newsletters For The Nanny).

Something else that can help is being aware of how he most easily absorbs information. He seems to glaze over after the first bundle of words, as does my DP although he sometimes glazes over as soon as he's asked the sodding question. Perhaps he finds visual cues easier? A lot of people find long explanations or huge blocks of text less than absorbing - keep it to the point. For a lot of people, using different colours and a lot of negative space works well, along with things like Sharpies, rather than standard biros for notes.

It helps bring a framework, logic and structure to things that aren't obviously structured - and he might actually quite enjoy finding order from chaos, as a sense of being in control makes it easier to accommodate changes, as when he understands his structure, he can then see how things fit together and logical places to insert extra tasks.

Essentially, it's breaking things down into small blocks of specific information/tasks, rather than 'do everything until I get home and tell you you've done it all wrong and forgotten at least five really important things in that stream of consciousness I subjected you to about three days ago'.

Yes, it sounds very regimented. It's not treating him like a child, though, it's him learning how to control and plan rather than have his mind pinging off in a thousand different directions at once, including trying to imagine what your response will be and letting half of it float straight back out of his mind again.

@tinseloatcake

For full disclosure I may be controlling. But I can't tell for sure as I don't have a point of reference.

He has picked up on my displeasure and is washing up. He has asked my advice 3 times..

My ex was like this too. For a long time I actually thought it was all my fault for being controlling. Then my dc2 was diagnosed autistic, my then-DH got a diagnosis too and it was actually a relief all round, if a bit saddening as it showed that some of the struggles he was having with living as part of a family were unlikely to change as they are part of who he is and not a symptom of his chronic depression (in fact they were probably the cause of it) or habits that he could change with willpower.

It was also a relief in many ways once then he left, and I realised that I'm not very controlling, it's just that I'd had to be carrying all the load for so long and knew that anything I didn't plan didn't get done. Since then I've stayed with friends and family and it's so freeing to be with other people who will automatically see things that need doing, or even come up with a plan for what comes next. I am consciously working on learning to relax too because I've learnt some bad habits over the years and am a natural action-focussed person (it's partly why my ex liked me in the first place and probably your DH too), but it's not all you either.

Growing up was a strong narrative around my mother being ‘controlling’ when actually she was dealing unknowingly with a neurodiverse partner and struggling to work out why he wouldn’t (as she perceived it - actually he couldn’t) for instance, pay the phone bill on time without being explicitly told to do

This OP. The things you think he should be able to do he can't do, that's the problem. ASD is a disability. A hidden disability, so he looks like a fully functioning adult on the surface, but isn't. It will be upsetting and frustrating for him too. You need to work round it (the ASD). What that looks like will be different for each person/couple. He can't be someone he's not.

The meds thing. Can the pharmacy deliver? Maybe he can't organise it himself because it's not part of his daily or weekly routine. You could try an alarm/reminder of some sort in case that's enough to prompt him.

Can you have a specific snack cupboard and only healthy stuff goes in there, therefore anything from the snack cupboard is fine for that meal?

It won't kill the DC to eat porridge every breakfast, quite the opposite, porridge is good. There's nothing really wrong with them not having a choice of cereals. Our grandparents would have eaten what they were given and been grateful for it. Children ruling the roost over every little thing is fairly modern.

Not being able to do several tasks in a row (coat, shoes and stand by the door) if he can't then he can't, its part of the condition for some, some people need prompting for everything.

Have you looked into the autism charities? For ideas of strategies for getting stuff done, setting routines etc. If you're thinking of splitting with him over this it's surely worth saying first that you need him to accept something is different about him and you want him to look into the possibility of an autism diagnosis (a trip to the GP with a list of his foibles might be enough for GP to diagnose) and then you can both get help to make the relationship run smoother. Otherwise its almost like you're his mum trying to sort the issues out for him without him knowing. When these are his issues and he should be on board with exploring solutions himself as well as you doing it. Marriage is a partnership.

I'm only suggesting diagnosis because I think it sounds like he won't accept he has it if there's no diagnosis. But it wouldn't be a bad thing to have it on record in case he ever has to stay in hospital, or go into a care home when older. It's useful for people to know that a meltdown is a meltdown and not just someone kicking off over something they don't want to do.

Im not thinking of splitting with him.

I appreciate the suggestions of how to do after school routines and reminders on phones but if it was that simple we'd have cracked it by now. I don't have problems doing this kind of stuff, my DH does.ive told him it all a millions times in a million ways. I have no doubt that if a simple reminder would do it we'd be sorted.

What do you mean when you say he can’t keep the children safe when cycling?

Some of the things you mention my DH wouldn’t do either. He is part owner of a business and concentrates all his thinking to this. I often say that when he comes home, he turns his brain off as I feel like I am constantly thinking for him. He would probably only realise the mental load I take on if I wasn’t there.

My DH wouldn’t be able to cope with the numerous emails/events from school etc but as I work part time some weeks, I take all this on. DH just wouldn’t prioritise these things.
However, he does lots of other things that I can’t do.
Maybe you need to step back a bit.
I can relate in a way when my DD was small, as I read the parenting literature etc I ended up wanting things done a certain way but would berate DH if I felt his way wasn’t right. So in the end, he was afraid to make decisions for himself in case he got it wrong. He couldn’t win really.
Maybe this is how your DH feels?
I would say don’t sweat the small stuff.

@tinseloatcake then perhaps you've come up against the things he just can't do. People don't get diagnosed as autistic unless they have sufficient symptoms that seriously impact their life/abilities. Some people can find ways to work round some things and others can't. Every person is a individual (obviously) and how their ASD impacts them will depend on which things they can't do versus the life they're trying to lead. Maybe come at it from the angle of extra relaxation time for you, to help cope with the stress of carrying all the mental load? Or a nanny or something to get the childcare support you can't get from DH? Maybe he can't help much with childcare but could happily work overtime to pay for someone who can? I wish you luck working something out anyway

Communicate in imperatives...with name to cue him in.
Bob, Kids squash now please.

@BlackeyedSusan

Communicate in imperatives...with name to cue him in. Bob, Kids squash now please.

You'd seriously speak to another adult like that?