Parenting with a neurodivergent partner

[EmmaCC88]

Hi everyone, I'm just looking for a little advice from anyone who has parented with someone on the autism spectrum.

My husband has Asperger's (and also very mild ADHD and is very dyspraxic). He finds it near impossible to learn new skills and does everything literally exactly as you tell him, but generally gets by in life extremely well by learning how to cope in different situations and staying in the same job, which he's really successful at. Unfortunately kids change all the time! He is an extremely loving and devoted father but when it comes to the actual "parenting" all he can really do is watch them for me and get them dressed, change their nappies, drive them to places etc, but he wouldn't be able to make decisions, do them dinner, decide what clothes they would wear etc.

The reason for this post is that I just don't know how far to encourage him with "learning" to parent, because while that feels like the right thing to do, I've been trying it for 3 years now and honestly it just seems like it's better for everyone if I just do everything. I'm torn because as much as I don't want my children growing up seeing me do everything , the few tasks I have given him (such as brushing my daughter's teeth) have failed miserably and ultimately I think the damage that does to thier relationship is worse. A couple of examples so you understand what I mean. I went out for dinner with a friend and asked him to put our toddler to bed. He asked if she needed to wear pyjamas but it was the height of summer so I said, no don't worry just take her clothes off and put a night nappy on. I forgot to say to take her shoes off, so I got home and she was in bed with her shoes on. The toothbrushing example is what really got me worried because this morning she was making a fuss about it (as usual) and he tired to pin her down and forcibly brush her teeth which is definitely not something I would ever do and I had to explain to him why that was not acceptable to me. His response as usual was "well she won't let me do it so you'll have to do her teeth from now on". I said no, you need to figure it out because she won't start seeing you as a parent until you start acting like one but honestly I don't know if that's the right decision at this point.

Just wondering if anyone can relate to this in any way or give me any advice because for the first time I'm literally just stumped on what to do.

TIA :)

Lot to unpick here. Firstly he must have changed at some point as left school, got a job, he met and married you. That shows there is capacity. Hopefully when you moved in together, you then didn't pick up everything and go straight into "mum" role to him instead of equal partner. But i have a feeling that you probably did.

Next, how much parenting have you actually let him do? If you are telling him every each time, and telling him off if it is not to your standard, he will never have a chance to think of anything for himself. He put his daughter to bed and she came to no harm, but still got in trouble for it. Have you stopped going out now as you don't trust him?

It's also entirely you trying to "fix" it as well. You aren't putting any of the responsibility on him. What does he propose to do? Can he get her ready every Wednesday and if nothing she is wearing matches, so what? Can he take her out for the morning and if he forgets her coat he can deal with it?

We have a whole jumble of neurodivergence in our house, everyone is a different combination! One thing that I had to accept is that if I feel it is the right thing to do to make allowances and support for my kids, I need to be able to do that for my partner too. We often have different priorities and my constant rush and chaos isn't better than his slow and methodical, just different.

I have ASD (what used to be called Aspergers) and I know that children have to take their shoes off before going to bed, because for the last 40-odd years I have taken my shoes off before going to bed.

Your husband is not unable to work this out because of his Aspergers unless he wears his shoes to bed.

Aspergers is not a prophylactic against the common-or-garden affliction, most commonly but not exclusively found on the Y chromosome, of "learned / weaponised helplessness."

Thanks to you both for your feedback. I totally accept that we both do things differently, and that perhaps this is more of a personality thing than it is to do with his ASD - I sometimes find it difficult to know which is which. I also accept I do take over most of the time, but to clarify, he's never "told off" when he does things differently than I would, if it's not important I don't mention it, if it is I'll just tell him why I would've done it differently so he understands and can make an informed decision next time (in the example of putting her to bed with her shoes on we actually joked about it). But equally, what's common from both of your responses is that I need to let him take a bit more responsibility, and that's on me.

Really useful to have an outside opinion, thanks for taking the time to reply!

I can’t comment on the Asperger’s side, but my DH has ADHD and his behaviour sounds very like your husband when our kids were younger. Unfortunately DH’s own parent were/are truly awful parents, and his own childhood was dreadful, so zero positive role models on which to base his own parenting. The teeth brushing example you give is exactly the kind of thing DH would do. And all the other examples I can also relate to. I work shifts and if I was working weekends DH would call me at lunch time to ask me what to feed them. He literally can’t do more than one thing at a time, and that thing is usually related to him.
two things helped. He went on a parenting course (it was an online one by Stanford or Harvard- and no we aren’t US based- it wasn’t interactive). I had begged him to go on one and he had always refused, but his parenting got gradually worse, and this was an ultimatum when the DC were 6 and 4. Either he went on it or I left. His take home message (which he proudly told me) was ‘kids do better with praise than criticism’ ……🤨. It made a huge difference. And as the children have grown (now 12&10)he has grown into parenting. For him it’s a skill to be learned. There is almost no natural parenting.
the second thing is I highly recommend you read ‘the ADHD effect on marriage’. This doesn’t change him but it will change how you think of him, how you frame situations and how you cope. It was a game changer for me.
its not an easy road, and I also think there is a very fine line between having a lazy arse husband and having a husband with ADHD- the overlaps are huge.
good luck.

Your rigid thinking and black and white nature, e.g your child can’t sleep with their shoes on when they’d be absolutely fine, is making your life incredibly stressful.

You’re also not dividing life based on your strengths. If your husbands dyspraxia why give him tasks that require significant co-ordination skills? It’s like asking someone whose unable to walk to walk your child to the shops and berating them when they can’t do it.

Im autistic and have ADHD, Im also the default parent. I don’t behave like your husband. It sounds like there’s lots of things he is good at so divide your tasks based on your strengths and weaknesses. If he needs to learn a new skill to even things out you’ve already explained that he is more than capable of doing this.

@Famousperson2023 Thank you so much, that's incredibly good advice. When he got his Autism diagnosis, they did mention they also strongly suspected ADHD but they weren't there to assess that so I think you could be on to something there. Everything he is really good at he has taken the time to learn. I think my frustration has come in expecting him to just find an ability to parent or use common sense but you've really hit the nail on the head, he needs to learn it, you're 100% right. I'm literally going to buy that book and look for classes for him now. Thanks so much for the advice and it's so nice to feel understood on this topic :)

Good advice