to be struggling with Aspergers husband?

[CareyHunt]

Mr Hunt I have 3 dc's. Ds2 was diagnosed with Aspergers years ago, at which point we all realised Dh has it too!

He is lovely. I am enormously lucky and grateful, and our relationship is, by and large, a good one. However, there are some aspects of the relationship which I am finding increasingly difficult.

Mr Hunt is NEVER enthusiastic about anything. The gushiest he gets is to describe something as 'fine'. This applies to....our children singing/playing music etc in public in a way which makes me cry with pride, our wedding day, our home, every meal we have, every holiday/ outing...basically all of our lives. He has very straightforward needs, and beyond those cannot see the point of anything extra...ie.nice walks, picnics, pets of any kind,more dc's , anything! He sees all these things as 'needless hassle'.

He also struggles enormously with conversations that aren't about concrete things...you know the kind of thing...when you are on holiday and you say 'Oooh, imagine if we moved here, we could live in that cottage, I'd work in the restaurant', knowing it's not true, but he'll say 'Well, the council tax would be very high and there is no decent public transport' or something!

We also have no way to resolve conflict because he will not discuss anything. He does not believe in compromise, believing that it just leaves one party dissatisfied, and does not apologise because 'it doesn't change anything'.

I know I sound like a whinger, and I do know how lucky I am in other ways, so please don't flame me! I also know that this stuff isn't his fault.

I just feel really lonely, as if we have no shared experience. I love him so much, but I fear that his being with me is more a rational decision that a heart one. I need top tips on how to phrase things in a way that he will understand, and maybe a bit of a shoulder to cry on when it all gets a bit much.

Sorry for rambling.

This might be a very naive question as I have no experience of being with an AS person, but when your AS (or possible AS) family members make these insensitive or annoying comments, do you never pull them up for being such completely self-centred arses?

Maybe you can't "knock it out of someone" but isn't there an element of sufferers being able to learn that certain behaviours will get an adverse reaction and that, even if they don't fully understand the emotions and feelings their behavoiur causes, they coulld train themselves, to a certain extent, to behave as expected?

E.g. explaining to a father that most people think it special if a child makes somthing for them so that even if they are not impressed by the cakes or whatever they remember this aspect of "normal" behaviour and apply it. Sorry if I am being over-simplistic but I know people can be highly intelligent and still have AS so I just wonder whether this is a not unreasonable suggestion.

Just seen LadyThumbs post and I think that is the sort of thing IU was getting at. "Emulators" - good word for it

carey it sounds like such hard work.

My mum is also incredibly reliable and the house is always immaculate. She does everything to a strict timetable - shopping on this day, gardening on this day, there's no flexibility, everything is black or white, right or wrong.

She never apologises, never learns, never reflects on herself. She's admired at work for her organisation and single mindedness, her sheer efficiency.

She gets incredibly anxious in unfamiliar situations, she does socialise with her DP but they go out to the same places on the same nights with no deviation.

He's a bit useless and relies on her organisation/reliability which makes her feel good about herself (and is pretty much the only reason she's with him).

I believe my dad has AS and a lot of the things you say about your DH ring true of my dad. I feel very bitter and resentful that my childhood was so difficult and fraught - I've spent my whole life trying to accommodate his 'personality'.

I know little about AS but some of his traits/habits include - sulking beyond the norm (he didn't speak to me for months at a time when I was a child due to various misdemeanours I wasn't aware I'd committed e.g. sitting in the back of the car instead of the front), inability to deal with conflict (see previous point), having NO real-life friends but many internet friends on a rugby forum he goes on, a very brusque/abrupt manner generally but also on the telephone (he lost his job last year as people couldn't deal with him), a phenomenal brain with a remarkable capacity for remembering dates and information about the past, very little interest in anyone else but loves to talk about himself, no hobbies whatsoever apart from following a rugby team.

I've grown up with an overwhelming sensitivity to other people's every action and mood, which I know makes me difficult to be around and I also find it quite hard to be with myself as I over-analyse and torture myself about every tiny nuance of people's behaviour. My brother has his own issues as he never had a male parent who dealt with conflict in an appropriate way or gave him any discipline. I have a bit of a 'daddy complex' and have always gone for older men no doubt because I never received fatherly love as a child. My dad still doesn't know how to show affection appropriately and can either physically hurt people (think Lennie in Of Mice & Men) or totally blank them. They often recoil when he comes near them.

He's 64 and probably way too old to be diagnosed with anything even if he accepted he was less than perfect, but like itisnearlysummer I would like it if he was, even if it was (selfishly) to just make me feel better about my childhood and the way I am now.

His first grandchild (my 1st DC) is due in October and I hate the idea of my child growing up with the same issues as me because Grandad sulked for a month about something stupid. I hate even more the idea that I will end up like my mum, making excuses and accommodating his behaviours. It's hard because it's probably not his fault after all.

I'm also offloading a bit (sorry, but it's been most therapeutic!) but in short what I am saying is I hope your children aren't affected long term by your DH's behaviours. My mum made me feel like his unreasonableness was my fault. Then when we were teens she said many times she'd leave him if it wasn't for us (cheers mum) and we would both encourage her to leave him but she never did. It hasn't been easy to live with someone with undiagnosed traits like this and although I've been lucky to meet my DH, move away and get on with a different sort of life, I don't believe my brother will ever be happy which is so sad when I consider the potential he had as a child.

LadyThumb Sorry, I didn't take time to express myself properly there: I know having Asperger's isn't the same as being selfish and self-centred in the usual, negative meanings of these terms: I meant them in a more matter-of-fact way, as I don't think my dad chooses to be like this, it's just the way he is. People meeting him for the first time judge him negatively, but Mum, DB and I love him and give him the benefit of the doubt!

How do you draw the line between Asperger's and what another poster states: "a lot of men behave in "aspergic" ways, for want of a better word, because they are just over-indulged and spoiled and have been indulged, first by their mothers and then by their wives"? My dad's mum didn't indulge him, but my mum certainly has. Maybe it's the only way she could get her marriage to work, as she'd have been railing against the Aspeger's for the past 50 years?

5foot5 WRT my mum (who does not have a dx, but we suspect of having AS) there is no point in pulling her up on it.

She can't see it, what she said sounds completely reasonable to her.

When she said my DD wasn't as pretty as she used to be. She couldn't see why this might be an inappropriate thing to say. She thinks it is true and is no more offensive than saying "you're taller than me". It's just an observation of fact (in her opinon, of course!). That will be the same for the previous poster whose child made cakes for their dad.

If I say something and inadvertently hurt someone's feelings, I feel awful and apologise sincerely, because I understand how it feels to have your feelings hurt and don't wish to cause someone else that pain.

My mum has no empathy (the more I think about it, the more convinced I am of the AS!) so she doesn't see the need to mend your hurt feelings. She doesn't feel hurt by it and even though she has her feelings hurt, she seems to be completely unaware that other people feel like that too, and have been made to feel like that by what she just said!

Many an argument has occurred when trying to pull her up on it, and many an evening has been spent crying to my DH trying to make sense of why she says/does the things she does.

My mum is quite intelligent and she just thinks we're all being over sensitive and silly.

I think with children it is possible to teach them strategies, less so with adults, unless they accept their world view is different to other peoples!

5foot5....I do try! I try to say to Dh 'When you said 'Oh you've put on weight, you're quite fat now' to someone, they will feel offended, despite that not being your intention'

He will say 'Well, It's true, they must know they are getting fat' or ' Well, I didn't intend to hurt them .I can't help how people react to things.' or he will take offense to something about my tone...he will say it is patronising or grumpy. You have to picture me saying these things in a slightly simpering way, trying to be supremely diplomatic, but through slightly gritted teeth and with a rigid 'cheery' smile. I explain things slowly or he finds it confusing, but then he says I am acting as if he were a child. I have said that it is not that, but that we all have areas of weakness and in a partnership we help each other ( I am quite rubbish at maths for example, and he helps me with that).

Sometimes he will grasp what I am saying, but then he will say that
I am making him feel shit about a situation he cannot go back and change and that it is pointless. He lacks the ability to apply what he has learned to a new situation, so it just feels like pointless criticism ( he has also said that I make it harder because he becomes anxious that I will criticise what he says or does). As far as he is concerned, this is my problem. He does believe he has AS but is really a bit in denial about it, and about Ds's Dx, saying 'just leave us be, it's fine'....It's NOT bloody fine. I have tried to say ( not as a horrible threat) that maybe things won't work between us if we don't get better at dealing with this stuff, and he said 'If that's what you want then that's what will have to happen' and then went back to his paper.

Reading these asperger spouse threads breaks my heart.

My husband was in a nasty car accident a couple of years ago. he walked away from the accident, but his personality changed quickly. He went from smart, perceptive, lovely and occasionally bonkers, to indifferent/clingy (what a shitty combination), oblivious to social cues, oblivious to the needs of his family (he behaves at times more like a friendly flat mate, than a member of the family), lazy/sleepy, unimpressed with the achievements of DD, unless I bring it to his attention, unreasonably bossy to DD, etc, etc. He refuses to resolve conflict, as conflict doesn't exist, just my over-reaction to issues. The change was subtle but real.

After much effort he was finally diagnosed with a very mild form of permanent brain injury. That is it, it is permanent, I have married one thing, and ended up with another. I used to be deeply loved, now my presence is warmly tolerated.

Subtle brain injury is not the same diagnosis as Aspergers but sometimes I wonder if the end result is the same; a lonely and sidelined spouse.

MaxineHeadroom I've grown up with an overwhelming sensitivity to other people's every action and mood, which I know makes me difficult to be around and I also find it quite hard to be with myself as I over-analyse and torture myself about every tiny nuance of people's behaviour.

You sound just like me! I've tried to expand on it and give examples, but I know that you already know how it feels and that you will now know how I feel too!

The amount of time my brother and I spend now trying to understand her - anger, despair, frustration. We both have older women in our lives who we consider to be extended family and mother figures so I completely get that too. But I find it really difficult to be around someone who considers me and my feelings. It's very weird!

5foot5 WRT my mum (who does not have a dx, but we suspect of having AS) there is no point in pulling her up on it.

She can't see it, what she said sounds completely reasonable to her.

When she said my DD wasn't as pretty as she used to be. She couldn't see why this might be an inappropriate thing to say. She thinks it is true and is no more offensive than saying "you're taller than me". It's just an observation of fact (in her opinon, of course!). That will be the same for the previous poster whose child made cakes for their dad.

If I say something and inadvertently hurt someone's feelings, I feel awful and apologise sincerely, because I understand how it feels to have your feelings hurt and don't wish to cause someone else that pain.

My mum has no empathy (the more I think about it, the more convinced I am of the AS!) so she doesn't see the need to mend your hurt feelings. She doesn't feel hurt by it and even though she has her feelings hurt, she seems to be completely unaware that other people feel like that too, and have been made to feel like that by what she just said!

Many an argument has occurred when trying to pull her up on it, and many an evening has been spent crying to my DH trying to make sense of why she says/does the things she does.

My mum is quite intelligent and she just thinks we're all being over sensitive and silly.

I think with children it is possible to teach them strategies, less so with adults, unless they accept their world view is different to other peoples!

um for some reason that post ended up there twice. that's a bit weird!

midoriway so sorry to hear about your husband.

Not the same diagnosis, no, but if it 'looks' quite similar on a day to day basis, the effects will be the same.

Midoriway, I am so sorry. You must miss your 'real' husband so much.

Maxine...shit, shit, shit. I am so sorry for you too. You sound alot like me, I am hugely over-empathetic as a result of my messed up childhood ( mother and step father are alcoholics with mental health issues). This makes me really scared that in someway I am an 'enabler' , but also makes me wonder whether I am being over sensitive to other's needs and this is exaggerating how I feel about my husbands insensitivity.

I really, really hope this is not fucking my kids up. DH is not horrible to them ( I would NEVER tolerate it), more just disinterested. I'm like a single parent really, I'm the nurturing one, the playing one, the disciplinarian, the one who plays football at the park, the one who builds sandcastles...the whole lot.

Dear OP,
Just an idea, you say you really love your husband and are saddened by his lack of emotions for you all and that he could just leave you all behind without regret, but I wonder if that might not really be true. You also said that when you tell him he's hurt your feelings his sad/bewildered/confused face breaks your heart (I think), which suggests that he really does care how you feel, it's just a foriegn language to him that he's struggling to learn. If you did break up perhaps, in his own particular way, he may be really hurt. Perhaps you are not as alone as you sometimes feel.

Have exactly the same experience as OP. Have name changed as embarrassed. My life looks good because DH works hard and is steady and trustworthy. That's it though really. Nothing more shared than the home and children because he can't.

I was attaratced to him because he is calm and steady and loyal and I needed that after a very unstable childhood. I knew he wouldn't leave me.

I don't really want to say more because in my experience people say 'oh yes that's just like my DH' or 'why don't you leave him alone, stop labelling and accept him' But this is much much more than the normal men behaving badly scenario.

I would really like practical solutions. Not cures obviously. I know Maxine Aston specialises in people who have asperger's partners but it seems to me permission to moan on and on. I have lived with DH for 20 years and before that with my dad who has it too. I don't feel self pity anymore, just want to salvage a family life that does not damage the DCS

Does anybody have advice for dealing with adult asperger's partners ?

Blindcavesalamander (great name BTW)

Thankyou so much. That just made me cry. I really, really hope that's true. Sometimes I sort of feel like I have to make the whole relationship up in my head. I know that doesn't really make sense, but I have no indication of how he feels, and I have these moments of panic when I think that all the time I have been imagining that he loves us really but doesn't know how to say it, but that really he just doesn't care at all.

itisnearlysummer in some ways you could be talking about my dad in your post

He refuses to deviate from routine and gets very anxious if things change. For example it's fish and chips on friday night and they have to leave the house at 8 and return at 10 for no other reason than that's what they've always done. Tuesday is steak night, Wednesday is chicken and rice, you get my drift. My mum panders to all this.

When he lost his job he had some 'time out' but couldn't handle not having the routine of work. He temped in jobs that were totally beneath him and was treated like dirt. He's told me he will never retire and will work til he drops as long as he can keep finding work - he can't imagine having an unstructured life or spending time with loved ones simply enjoying their company.

They live in the town where he was born but there is literally NOTHING there for them any more and they both hate it, they keep moving houses to try to make it better but it's all money down the drain as it's never any better. He couldn't contemplate even living in a nearby village because it's not Hometown.

Yes I know exactly what it's like, it's a headf&%$

I just hope that with better understanding/dx/support now means that there be fewer children/spouses feeling like this in the future.

It is a headf&%$, you're right. And then I worry than I'm not affecting my children by being too much the other way.

They both think my mum is unkind and I find it difficult to challenge it. I'd rather they believe it was her being a bit odd and not that they deserve the lack of interest/ascerbic comments, but I don't want to criticise her either.

It is hard, although everyone knows about fish and chip friday so we can give your dad that one for nothing .

I really want to know more about these "emulators", these sound like the sort of things I teach my suspected-aspie brother.

OP - YANBU. It depends whether you can get enough support and love and "normal" reactions from your friends etc really, as to whether you can carry on like this.

Also, my brother would never be an arse about it. If you can see that something is upsetting someone, you can learn not to do it, even if you don't know why.

My ex boyfriend had mild aspergers. He's a lovely person and very sweet and clever and has many good points. He's very knowledgeable about music and football (his two obsessions, literally!) but I found it very frustrating at times.. at first I thought his quirks were cute but after a while it got very wearing.

He seemed to barely listen to me, he'd always interrupt me with his point (ie missing natural cues in the conversation) and I'd then tell him off for not listening to me..

He had lots of food issues (there's only about 4 things in the world he will eat!) which was hugely irritating after a while as he would not be physically able to try anything else and I was concerned about his health (ate no veg and no fruit at all).

He wasn't able to pick up on emotional cues at all, I'd have to TELL him if I was upset, he wouldn't know..

And he was very concerned about his ears and sound, he can't abide loud, sudden noises. Once I was at a gig with him and was a bit drunk, I wanted to say something to him so leaned in to talk into his ear, obviously had to shout as the music was loud and he went MENTAL at me just said "FUCK YOU" to me, completely irrational response which he couldn't really control. Once he went into melt down when he was drunk and the music in a club was too loud, it was like being with a toddler. I was very patient in that situation and looked after him but it did make me pause..

I know these were all aspects of his condition and we're still friends (at a distance) but ultimately I couldn't imagine a life with him. Ultimately, I need more nuturing, he made me feel needy but actually I realised I wasn't needy, it was just I was missing the "normal" NT emotional responses I had previously been used to.

Sorry.. bit of a long old moan there!

CH,

"An Asperger Marriage" written by Chris and Gisela Slater-Walker may well help you. Its available on amazon.

Itisnearly summer,

Have you also considered the unwelcome possibility that your mother could be a narcissist in terms of personality; these people show no empathy at all towards others.

Thanks Attila, I'll have a look now.

Jan...Yy to food issues, and noise, and having to say when you are upset.

It's really, really hard sometimes, when you are at your wit's end, to have to say 'I'm crying now, I need you to hold me'.

Has anyone seen the film 'Adam' about a relationship with an Aspie? I don't know whether to watch it, or if it will be too upsetting?

This Empathy Quotient quiz appeared in the Observer a while ago, and DH and I completed it with my dad in mind. For questions where we weren't sure, we erred on the side of generosity i.e. indicated a more empathetic answer.

The score came out very low, about 12 or 15 as far as I remember. Not scientific, but it confirmed what I already suspected!

I found myself "training" him in some ways. He didn't give a hoot about clothes so I'd buy him stuff (he'd wear a massive coat in the summer just because.. that drove me mad!).

I tried to get him to try other foods but no, he'd just gag when I offered him some of my veg (peas or broccoli etc).

I did try and work on him with conversation and listening though, although I'm sure he felt deeply patronised, but he knew he was "doing it wrong" so would take notice. I'd get him to pause during conversations, so that even if he wasn't listening, it would seem like he was! And I told him people liked their stories/anecdotes commented on, rather than ignored as he launched into a sometimes irrelevant or at best vaguely related story (often cutting them off before they had finished speaking), with no acknowledgement that he had heard what they had said at all..

He STARTED to nod as they were talking and comment on what they said if I kicked him under the table or something.. but I felt like I was trying to change/control him and I didn't think it was healthy, I didn't want to be a "teacher". This is probably why I had to end it, I didn't want to be this harridan that nagged him all the time!

Thinking back I was probably really annoying! haha.

midoriway I am so sorry to hear about your husband, how horrible for you. My db suffered subtle brain injury in a car crash some years ago, and also underwent some personality changes - not the same as your husband's, but definitely negative. He had CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) and it helped enormously. It took a long time for him to admit that it might be useful and give it a go, but it was so worth it.

Also, time has really been a healer for my db and consequently for all our family - a cliche but true - he is so much better now, 9 years on, than he was in the first five years (I realise that may be somewhat cold comfort!).