To think you can't just brush it under the carpet?

[CrohnicallyInflexible]

Disclaimer: I have AS so I really don't know which of us is unreasonable here.

I have had a 'difference of opinion' with someone. They asked me not to contact them any more as they were upset. I have apologised for hurting them, and asked what it is exactly I have done wrong (due to AS I find it difficult to work out, other person knows this) they responded reiterating that they want to be left alone, this time they were quite rude (shouting).

Fair enough, I haven't contacted them since. They did however invite DH over a few weeks later. He asked if they were willing to talk about what had happened yet, and the answer was 'can we just forget about it?'

Well, actually, no I can't. I still
don't know what I have done wrong, so I am at risk of repeating the mistake inadvertently. And there has been no acknowledgement that we were both partly responsible. No apology has been forthcoming.

So is the other person U for wanting to just forget about it without apologising/sorting things out? Or AIBU for not being able to forget things as easily as this person apparently can?

[TheClacksAreDown]

OP, two things occur to me here.

First it sounds to me like you've actually been unintentionally irritating your SIL for quite a period and she finds you difficult to deal with. If this is right it would be wholly unsurprising that she doesn't want to go through the incident as it is likely to open a can of worms and cause more problems than it solves. I have a family member I don't like (different situation) and I deal with her via rather gritted teeth but I certainly wouldn't get into why I didn't like her as no good could possibly come of it. Now perhaps she needs to be more tolerate of your needs but you're clearly not going to get this via pestering her on this point.

Second I understand your need to seek to withdraw from her but you need to think about what this looks like to third parties. People are likely to perceive that you are sulking as you haven't got your own way and may judge you for it. Particularly if they've viewed you as someone who has form for flaring up when things haven't gone your way - when in your mind this is you having meltdowns due to the stress/anxiety situations have caused. So I'd think carefully about how you can seek to build bridges quickly, perhaps seeing her in a larger group, to get it out of the way. I appreciate this may be stressful for you but it may be a price worth paying to stop this spiralling into a bigger thing.

One option to reach out might be to send a card or postcard or similar saying that you value her and look forward to seeing her soon.

[Shelby2010]

How often did you used to see SiL without your DH? Were they just dropping round for coffee type visits or for particular reasons? I hope this doesn't sound harsh, but it may be that she just doesn't enjoy your company that much. For example I get on with my brother's wife well enough but no way would I want to spend a whole afternoon on my own with her. The only thing we have in common is my DB & we just don't 'click'.

If your SIL feels the same way she is not going to want to spend ages discussing exactly why she finds you hard work because she would feel that a) it's rude & unkind and b) you would be unable to change so would just make things worse.

I hope I haven't offended you, but it doesn't sound like you have done anything particularly annoying, so maybe it's just a build up of minor irritations. If in future you only visit with DH then you can be more comfortable knowing that he can be the one to pick up social cues (such as not out staying your welcome) and also cover for you if you do need to withdraw.

[CrohnicallyInflexible]

We used to see each other without DH once a week or so, usually for the whole afternoon. It was about a 50/50 split, who initiated it. I would have classed her as my best friend.

[ChazsBrilliantAttitude]

OP I think you also may have to accept that NT people get a bit narked with each other from time to time but let it go. I might feel a bit irritated about what someone in work says or does but will usually "forget about it" i.e. decide that its not worth investing any time or energy on. Undoubtedly there must be times when my colleagues feel the same way about me.

NT people often accept that other people are flawed beings under pressure who will sometimes have a bad day (just as they do) and that it isn't personal. Most people don't set out to upset others but it still happens sometimes maybe because the other person is having difficulties.

Because social interaction is challenging for you and you are trying to make sense of an illogical world, you are looking for ways to solve a problem that doesn't need solving. Sometimes people have bad days because of everything else that is going on in their lives and get annoyed by things that wouldn't normally bother them.

E.g. on a normal work day I don't care if the train is 5 mins late but if I have an early morning meeting then I will be very grumpy if the train is late, so I might rush into the meeting in a grotty mood. That might make me sound brusque in the meeting or a little less tolerent of waffle. Nobody in the meeting has changed the way they behave but my capacity to deal with their behaviour has reduced due to external events.

[Theycallmemellowjello]

Aw if she's your best friend I really think you should take at face value what she's saying and move on. Not worth losing a friendship over one text exchange.

[hedgehogsdontbite]

That last post from the OP has reminded me of something I should have thought of earlier that people without experience of AS may be totally unaware of.

There is a pattern of social interaction which is used in the diagnostic process for adult females with AS. It one of the differences between males and females on the spectrum. Women with AS will normally have a history of being able to initially connect with someone, be very good friends with that person, and then out of the blue have that person cut you out of their lives completely with no explanation or reason. It's like they've died. Over and over again throughout their life. I've been through it so many times I've lost count and it is utterly terrifying. The last time it happened to me I spoke to nobody outside of my immediate family for over 2 years it affected me so badly.

I now suspect this is what the OP may be facing, or be in fear of, with the added complication that her friend is also a close relative.

Am I right OP?

[CrohnicallyInflexible]

I hope not. I didn't know that this was part of AS in females. But yes, I have a history of connecting, being very good friends with someone, then suddenly being cut out of their life. As in, no contact at all, not even 'yeah we'll have to meet soon' and 'soon' never coming. In a couple of cases I have later regained a loose friendship with the other person, when our paths have crossed again, so I hope that if this is what is happening we can at least remain amicable for our family's sake.

[CinnabarRed]

Hedgehog - does anyone know why that pattern of social interaction occurs between AS and (presumably) NT women? It seems an unspeakably cruel thing to do.

[MomOfTwoGirls2]

I very much agree with WhereYouLeftIt.

[CrohnicallyInflexible]

Thinking about why that pattern happens:
We're socially inept. We're quite likely to inadvertently hurt people's feelings, monopolise conversations, bore people etc. But I think sometimes we hit on a person who is maybe thicker skinned, or we share an interest. This person can shrug off our ineptities (is that even a word?) and we form a close relationship. But over time, the mistakes we make add up. NT people don't seem to like discussing mistakes or saying if something's annoying them (let's face it, most AIBUs could be solved by just talking to the other person) so they don't tell the AS person, who repeats the mistakes until eventually, the NT person has had enough. Either they have been offended or upset too many times, or the shared interest has waned. They don't want to risk a confrontation (maybe they noticed that the AS person is not the most emotionally stable) so they simply ignore.

Or an alternate version- the type of NT woman that an AS woman is likely to befriend, is not that emotionally mature themselves. They are the sort of person that 'vaguebooks'. They like the fact that when an AS woman is into someone, they are into them (again, not in a sexual sense) and will basically be the centre of the AS woman's social life. The AS woman feeds the NT woman's ego. Again, there comes a point when it all falls down. Maybe the AS woman has their own problems and isn't there to stroke the NT woman's ego? Maybe the AS woman offends the NT woman, who drops PA hints that the AS woman either misses completely or doesn't respond in the desired fashion? Either way, the AS woman is no longer needed by the NT woman so she purposefully drops them.

Does either or both of those situations seem plausible?

[murmuration]

Oh, hedgehog, that happens to me! I'm not AS that I know of. I do have high levels of social anxiety, am a massive introvert, and am really crap at reading people, though.

crohnically - sounds very reasonable to me. And can I say I think I'm in love? You're the first person I've run across that analyses social interactions in detail like that, just like I do. I'm really crap at reading people, but if given a set of motivations, I can logic my way to things making sense.

[CrohnicallyInflexible]

Why thank you my psychiatrist did say that I am very good at analysing social situations, and show 'amazing adaptive learning'. It's one of the reasons why I flew under the radar for so long. It's also one of the reasons why I struggle so much with anxiety- I can't help but analyse things long, long after the event until I reach a satisfactory and logical conclusion. Hence my posting on here.

The good news is, I'm far, far calmer about the whole situation after this thread. I think this is maybe the first time I've started an AIBU and I've been calmer by the end! What happened to the vipers? Are you all going soft in your old age?

[hedgehogsdontbite]

I don't think anyone really knows why. It's probably a combination of many things, including those Chronically just mentioned. And you're right it is unspeakably cruel. It's also heartbreaking that I haven't encountered a single woman with AS who hasn't been through it.

[CatOfTheWoods]

I've been thinking about this and with me it's more the other way round – I seem to attract women who turn out to be needy and play mind games, and I get overwhelmed by it and cut off from them - though this has happened less often recently, as I've learned to recognise them earlier.

However last time it happened, I had similarly got pissed off, but nothing was ever said, and we just stopped contacting each other. I think she had noticed that I was being off with her too. BUT she still contacts DP via facebook and "likes" his stuff and makes sycophantic comments. We were all friends, so that's fair enough, but it does make me feel a bit like a pariah (even though I don't want to see her, so IABU!)

The long-term friends who I have not lost are people who don't make continual demands on me, who I can see occasionally and pick up where we left off. I think there is a degree of acceptance of my oddness too. If someone expects me to maintain "normal" service IYSWIM it doesn't work out. And we often see friends as families, so the kids and DP can soak up some of the social requirements.

[WhereYouLeftIt]

"NT people don't seem to like discussing mistakes or saying if something's annoying them (let's face it, most AIBUs could be solved by just talking to the other person) so they don't tell the AS person, who repeats the mistakes until eventually, the NT person has had enough."

There are so many reasons not to tell someone that they are annoying you. It's pretty damned rude for starters, and women in particular are socialised to not be rude. It's confrontational, and most people don't like confrontation, so will either avoid it completely or will approach it in an oblique way, hinting rather than being blunt in an attempt to remain polite. There's also the worry about the likely reaction of the person who is being told they are annoying - will they be upset? Angry? Cry? Shout and storm out? Sooo many reasons.

If the hints aren't picked up then many people feel at a loss on how to deal with it, and so back away. They may also feel that the hints have been noticed and deliberately ignored, and feel angry about that. So then they not only back away, but actively reject the person for not only being annoying in the first place, but for not caring that they are being annoying.

Maybe you would be OK with someone being really blunt, telling you that you are being annoying and all the behaviours that you do that they find annoying. I would curl up and die if someone did that to me, and knowing that that is how I would feel, I don't think I could ever bring myself to do that to anyone, regardless of how much they were annoying me. So I would try to raise it subtly, and when I felt my concerns should have been noticed but were still being ignored, I'd be so pissed off.

[CrohnicallyInflexible]

I've been on the receiving end of bluntness many times. Yes, it's embarrassing and for me at least, leads to replaying events over and over while I process it. But I think, so long as the person raises it as politely as possible given the circumstances (eg 'I need to talk to you about x', not 'will you fucking stop doing that!'), it's preferable to dropping hints that aren't being picked up on and getting pissed off that they're not being picked up on. And of course, once it dawns on me, I am then even more mortified when I realise just how many hints have been dropped, and how blind I was to it.

Here's a (rather embarrassing) example: around 6 months- a year after moving out of my parents' house, my boss took me to one side and spoke to me about my personal hygiene. She actually told me, in no uncertain terms, that I smelled and I needed to sort it, and gave me some tips. Afterwards, I realised just how many hints my coworkers had dropped- things like discussing different wash cycles and telling me that 'washing at 30 doesn't always get clothes clean' and I had blithely insisted that 'no, it's OK, I wash my clothes at 30 and they come out clean enough'.

If they had gone to my boss and she had had the discussion with me earlier, I wouldn't then have been paranoid about whether people were talking about me behind my back, I wouldn't have wondered if they were dropping another hint every time someone made a seemingly innocuous remark, I wouldn't have replayed the whole previous 6 months trying to work out just how much I had missed.

[funnyossity]

I think in-law relationships are (we hope!) for the long term. Therefore it can be a wise path to brush quite a lot of irritations under the carpet and focus on what everyone can be positive about.

It's not the arena to thrash out issue after issue.

It's taken me about twenty years of shared experiences to really take to my bil!

[0x530x610x750x630x79]

There is a pattern of social interaction which is used in the diagnostic process for adult females with AS. It one of the differences between males and females on the spectrum. Women with AS will normally have a history of being able to initially connect with someone, be very good friends with that person, and then out of the blue have that person cut you out of their lives completely with no explanation or reason.

oh my god, my sister and I were only discussing this weekend about how impossible it is being friends with females. (I am self diagnosed she is ignoring it :) )

[CinnabarRed]

OP, have you seen this thread?

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/disabled_parents/1426936-Females-and-Aspergers

It's got links to some other threads in it too.

You might find some practical support re your meltdowns from people who've been there and done that.

[CrohnicallyInflexible]

Thanks cinnebar I'm on one of the other female AS threads

[CinnabarRed]

Grand - glad you've got support.

[CrabbyTheCrabster]

I am at the amount of ignorance and intolerance of ASD/AS displayed on this thread.

Chron have you read this book? She talks about meltdowns in the book (from an adult perspective). It's an excellent book, and her blog musingsofanaspie.com is very good too.

[CatOfTheWoods]

I second that book – I bought several when I was diagnosed, and that was the best.

[CrohnicallyInflexible]

I haven't read the book, but I have read bits and pieces from her blog. I tend to read more online stuff.

[CrabbyTheCrabster]

I was thinking specifically about the meltdown stuff, Crohn, as that's what you were saying you wanted to hear about from an adult perspective. Cynthia writes very eloquently about that. Might be worth ordering from the library for that if you don't want to buy it.