I've just read the living with an asd partner support thread

[Blackeyesbluetears]

It's respectful but omg what a mistake.

This isn't a taat. Just musing on my own inadequacies.

I really hope my husband doesn't have a negative view of me and who I am as a person. Rightly or wrongly I try to manage my neurodiversity.

I don't believe I should put my difficulties on to others. I am responsible for my poor executive function and my poor emotional regulation.

I don't think I mask but wow. My self esteem is through the floor.

Ds1 was diagnosed on Mondy. Bless Him, he's learning.

Sorry for the weird formatting. It's been happening to me on mn all week

Yeah well, it's probably full of people who don't say what they mean, nor mean what they say expect their partner to mind read and guess, then get the hump when they guess wrongly. Then complain that ND people can't communicate well when in reality they should have said clearly what they want in the first place.

I'm gonna have to ask dh tomorrow if I'm as hideous as others have suggested. I really hope I'm not.

I had to hide those threads because I find them too upsetting. I've seen some posts where people have said pretty awful things about their partners and it triggers that part of my brain that thinks everyone hates me.

My being autistic has definitely added a unique strain to my marriage at times due to wildly different communication styles but I've been clear with DH: I'm not asking him to be responsible for my struggles but if he can see that I'm missing his cue, he might have to point it out to me and that may be the case forever. Ultimately, it's on me but I can't guarantee I'll ever be able to read social cues reliably and that's just reality. Basically, the options are "choose to stay with me and give me a bit of grace while I try my best" or "choose to leave". Any other option is unfair on both of us.

It doesn't help that I was recently told (by someone I trust) that I don't show empathy or react to things "properly", so talking to me is like "talking to someone who isn't even human". Apparently I'm like a humanoid robot. I felt like I'd been physically slapped

I was on the first thread, at the beginning, with a few other well intentioned posters and it quickly became obvious that it wasn’t about support, but it was a thread for ablest bitching.

Personally I think we must be fucking saints to put up with our NT spouses!

@amusedbush that person needs to not be in your village. My friends know that I care deeply about them but that I forget to ask questions. You need people who love you for you. There's nothing wrong with you

It's such a shame about the thread. The latest one I read mostly seems to be about separation rather than partner support.

I have no doubt that my husband finds me trying at times. But I think that's every relationship.

Honestly, I've come to the conclusion that most threads on here about relationships are an exercise in sophistry regarding separation (and the ones that aren't are all about judging others to justify their own intolerance).

The thread in question in particular...there's a certain group of people on here who seem to need to draw meaningless distinctions between "types" of ASD, mostly so they can discard any dissenting opinions or thoughts. It basically boils down to, "So-called 'autistic' people who are verbal aren't really autistic so they don't count, and we never hear from non-verbal autistic people, so we can say what we want about them and they can't disagree". Makes me a bit sick, to be honest.

My wife and I have had a long, often difficult life dealing with our differences - I'm autistic, she isn't - but that stopped when we finally got down to the work of talking to each other about it. Once the penny dropped that there's never going to be a hidden meaning behind my words, and that I'll almost never see the hidden meaning behind hers...our life together changed instantly. In the years since, we haven't had a single argument.

Not one.

It's not easy, it obviously won't work for everyone, and it took a lot of learning and re-evaluation for both of us, but I really don't recognise our life in a single post in that thread.