DH hates people and will no longer tolerate people he doesn't like including both our families

[wendall456]

My DH (possibly undiagnosed autistic) is not a people person and finds people annoying. He really hates my family and isn't overly keen on his either but I like my family - this is where the problem lies. He feels like he is going to explode when around anybody apart from the few people he likes (which is probably 5 different people ). He hates any type of socialising apart from with his 4 friends who he likes. Every christmas we end up arguing about it and he this year he has said if he knew now how annoying my family were he would have dumped me within a few months . We have been together 18 yrs. He knows that there is not much he can do about it as they are my family but he wishes I could see how annoying they are . Last year he really struggled over christmas with having to tolerate people and he made a really good effort all of this year to learn to tolerate people but he has decided he can't live a lie anymore and "pretend" so from now on he is going to only like who he likes and not pretend by tolerating people he doesn't like.

He says life is to short to fake it and he understands that I like my family and I like his family too but he is no longer able to pretend to like people. This means this coming year instead of making an effort he will completely step away as he needs to look after his own mental health and do what is best for him not other people.

My argument to this is that I would never treat people the way he does and although he doesn't actually treat them particularly badly because they aren't his type of people he doesn't want to be around them at all and he is so much happier when he doesn't have to be play happy families.

So this year he wants no contact with either side or made or forced to be social with anyone he doesn't like.

AIBU to think he is being selfish or should he do what is best for him and what keeps him sane?

Perhaps your and your husband's respective families don't like him either.

@Bitchassmosquito

If they have nothing in common that’s not all on him is it? If their differences are irreconcilable then yes they may have to split up 🤷‍♀️

The fact they have nothing in common is not all on him but his behaviour is. He doesn't have to insult the OP's mother or say he wouldn't have married her if he knew in advance what her family was like. Or suggest that she shouldn't go out. Those comments serve no purpose whatsoever other than spite and cruelty and autism/social anxiety do not justify this.

And yes, they very clearly need to split up already. Should probably have done so years ago.

Those comments serve no purpose whatsoever other than spite and cruelty and autism/social anxiety do not justify this.

I never said it did.

You didn't say this in so many words, but you seem very keen to want to gloss over this bullying/insulting behaviour on the basis of his being antisocial/introverted/possibly autistic, as if this were somehow a provocation which justified his comments.

There's a suggestion of moral equivalence between the DH being a spiteful dick to his wife and the OP being sociable and occasionally expecting the DH to put up with talking to her family. As if people who hate people are entitled to absolute freedom from coming into contact with anyone they dislike.

I'll be honest: while I do have a degree of sympathy for people who struggle with forced socialising I think a lot of people pathologise it in a way which is unnecessary and completely over the top and these threads bring a lot of people like this out of the woodwork. Some people do need a lot of time to regroup and recover after social contact, but very few people find this so difficult that they can't suck it up for two hours a year.

You manage what social contact you can in a way that works for you but no one who is married with children has an absolute entitlement to completely rid their life of people, less still to force their family to do so. If you want to live like this you go half way up a mountain and live on your own, you don't seek to shoehorn your spouse and kids to live in isolation.

And even if, for the sake of argument, you accept that the DH physically cannot bear to tolerate an hour or two with his in laws (or his own family) for harmony, that doesn't justify his desire to belittle and insult them.

Yet you and others seem very keen to insist that it's a "he said/she said" scenario in which the long-suffering DH has been subjected to behaviour from his wife which has somehow forced this and he is finally putting boundaries into place to protect himself from hated social contact. There are people on this thread saying "Good for him, standing up for himself" etc.

In no conceivable universe is the expectation of a fairly normal degree of human social interaction a justification for bullying or coercion. It worries me that so many people think it is.

Autism is harder to manage as you get older or more stressed. It's a disability. Some things he can't help.

He might be more I need of his safe space right now so you visiting family outside the home would be good.

Once he is less stressed you might be able to agree on the less annoying members of your family friends to visit in certain rooms for certain periods.

Visiting people can be excruciatingly painful. Has he been enduring this for 18 years for your sake? Is that long enough? Should you now be helping him to be in less pain?

Imagine a physical disability...say someone has been enduring a painful journey to visit your parents... it's no different for autistic people other than many people thing that they are being awkward or difficult just for the hell of it.

I agree and have to wonder how many Christmases he's had to sit there because you wanted to go there again.

My husband does not like my family, I'm not even sure I do. So he doesn't come when I go there. Probably once a year he puts in an appearance for a short time, the same as me with particular members of his family. No one is forced to go anywhere or spend lots of time with people they don't like. They have no idea though and we wouldn't make them feel uncomfortable.

You didn't say this in so many words, but you seem very keen to want to gloss over this bullying/insulting behaviour on the basis of his being antisocial/introverted/possibly autistic, as if this were somehow a provocation which justified his comments

No I never said his comments were acceptable or provoked. I just think calling him a sociopath /abusive for not wanting to socialise is a bit OTT. Even the rude remarks he made are not sociopathic even if they don’t bode well for the future of the marriage.

Some people do need a lot of time to regroup and recover after social contact, but very few people find this so difficult that they can't suck it up for two hours a year.

That’s nice but for the people who do? They could perhaps sit it out and you suck that up?.

Having MH issues is not an excuse for behaving like a twat. He sounds deeply unpleasant

@Thepeopleversuswork 👏 absolutely spot on post.

"and he this year he has said if he knew now how annoying my family were he would have dumped me within a few months "

And this comment is absolutely vile. What a nasty man

This.

It’s part of misogyny that a woman is expected to subjugate herself to the man’s wants.

“I've seen lots of women shutting themselves away from society to be with these tedious, solipsistic, society-hating bores.”

Yes, well, to each their own. I can’t think why they would want do this but then I’m the sociopath who swerves Christmas so what would I know?

It’s great that you’re happy with this and it works for you. But if my dh couldn’t put his feelings aside a few times a year for the sake of me and my family it would be a dealbreaker for me.

Your way of being isn’t the right or only way.

He likes normal people the same as him (his words)

What is normal? And insofar as “normal” is a thing, he’s not it.

He doesn’t like being around people who make him feel insecure and rather than get therapy he tries to shut the world out.

There is a significant difference between one bloke saying, "socialization isn't for me but I'll say hi to everyone and I'm happy for you to have people over whenever"
And one who says "I would have dumped you if I had understood what your family was like and also complains if you go out to socialize even outside the home"

Indeed. Also, he doesn't like people who underline to his wife how dull, unimaginative and cloistered her life has become since she married him so he seeks to eliminate them.

@Bitchassmosquito

I can’t think why they would want do this but then I’m the sociopath who swerves Christmas so what would I know

I feel like you keep pretending not to understand this, like a dog with a bone. You know perfectly well what the issue is.

It's not about the fact that he "swerves Christmas". Or the fact that he "hates people". Disagreeable and tedious though I find this behaviour at a personal level, I do acknowledge people's right to do this with their own lives.

The point is that he's trying to impose his "people hating as a lifestyle choice" on his wife by insulting her and trying to make her feel insecure about the fact she has more social skills than he does. Why is it so hard for you to grasp that this is not acceptable behaviour?

Can confirm.

Autism also does not justify the comment about "turning into your mother" nor does it justify gaslighting OP about the normalcy of seeing her own family. Why are half the posters on this thread apparently not seeing the coercive control elements?

Bit of both.

My OH has a couple of friends I don't like very much, so I don't socialise with them, but I would never try to stop him seeing them. If he invites them to our house, I'm polite and civil for 15 minutes or so, then I go out and do something else.

Obviously I'm not a total misanthrope and we do socialise happily with mutual friends and family, but we don't have to like every single one of one another's friends and do everything together.

That's a perfectly acceptable compromise, IMO.

I feel like you keep pretending not to understand this, like a dog with a bone. You know perfectly well what the issue is.

And I feel like you’re projecting tbh.

The point is that he's trying to impose his "people hating as a lifestyle choice" on his wife by insulting her and trying to make her feel insecure about the fact she has more social skills than he does. Why is it so hard for you to grasp that this is not acceptable behaviour?

I thought the issue was he doesn’t want to see people not that he lacks social skills. Why would he care about who has the best social skills if he doesn’t want to socialise?

And for the eleventy billionth time I never said him insulting her was acceptable.

@Bitchassmosquito

I thought the issue was he doesn’t want to see people not that he lacks social skills. Why would he care about who has the best social skills if he doesn’t want to socialise?

No the issue is not that he doesn't want to see people. The issue is that he doesn't want his wife to see people. And that he insults his wife's family repeatedly, presumably in order to intimidate her into not seeing them either: it's a well-worn playbook by such men.

I can't know for sure what his motives are for wanting to cloister his family in a hermetically sealed world free from other people. But invariably in my experience when people behave like this it comes from a place of insecurity about themselves.

Anyway, I don't care what his motives are and I don't care what spurious excuse he has for it. He doesn't have the right to bully his wife into thinking her family are a source of shame and that's the bottom line for me.

Also the fact that “he’s annoyed that you can’t see how annoying your family is”. That coupled with starting to get narky when you go out is him trying to isolate you.

Same, why should we have to do stuff that pains us snd makes us feel so unhappy?!

I think the nasty rude sod should just go and live in the shed. How utterly hurtful to say he would have dumped you 18 years ago if he'd realised that you were a normal sociable person.

Same, why should we have to do stuff that pains us snd makes us feel so unhappy?!

Because it keeps other people happy I guess.