Need tips for dealing with a DH with no social skills

[SenseofEntitlement]

Before I start, I'm leaving out details, can we just focus on the question please, he really isn't just this problem.

Ok, DH is, well, there is no quicker way to explain, a bit aspergersy. Very very clever (people queue up to ask him facts, he can argue the part of anyone in a debate) but with very few social skills - he admits that people are 'a mystery, why they act so strangly and illogically'

He keeps saying things that are blatently insenstive. Eg, me and childless (but very broody) sister talking about my severe mental illness and hospitalisation - first proper talk about it. 'Well, I should be careful. If they get hold of me they will lock me up. If fact I often think that if I dosn't have kids I would just stab someone and get locked up and then I wouldn't have to meet people and be nice. You wouldb't know, you don't have children.'
He was obviously making a very awkward joke to lighten the mood, but not an appropiate one.
This is quite a common event (not usually talking about violence, but just being completely unaware of what other people might think or feel)
Is there anything I can do? He is normally lovely, but comes out with these howlers several times a day and just doesn't seem to notice them.

I've been sitting here for a few minutes now trying to think of something helpful to say, and failing.

All I can do is bump this thread for you and suggest you re post in Mental Health where someone with knowledge & experience may be able to help.

My Dad is similar (minus the inappropriate comments) intelligent and brilliant at anything technical, but is cripplingly shy and completely clams up in company. Unfortunately in a man in late middle age, it is often misconstrued as rudeness. My mum makes things worse by manically talking so much in order to 'cover' my dad's inability to do small talk.

I think he genuinely likes other people and wants to be liked by them. He tries to compensate for this, by doing things he is good at and feels comfortable with for others: offering to mend computers, fix electrical items, undertake DIY tasks, I think people get the message that he is a nice bloke albeit a cripplingly shy one who is uncomfortable in social situations.

It probably doesn't help, but people can and do make more nuanced judgements about people and can be accepting of the eccentricities of others.

Obviously I'd have a chat about how what he said in the company of your sister was hugely insensitive, sure if she knows him well, she will know there is no malice in the comments he made.

Have you told him he does this? Is he aware? Or is he completely oblivious? Would he agree that what he had said was inappropriate if you challenged him on it?

He sounds a bit like my mum to be honest. She can be incredibly rude and insensitive, but largely because she's completely egocentric and only understands any situation in relation to herself. It's really hard work and can be very embarrassing, I know.

Folkgirl my dad is like that too. :{
Composhat I agree with what you are saying. I imagine your sister is well aware of what he is like and maybe you should allow him to deal with it himself. Then he will have the choice to alter his behaviour and try and be more sensitive or sink like a brick..............
He sounds like most of my family and we 'get' each other. Ousiders [very Royston Vasey] and new comers to the family grow a thick skin quickly.......

You can help your DH by giving him "instructions" on how to deal with situations, like the "social stories" used with children with autism.

For example, explain to him that what he said is likely to be construed as insensitive, and cause the other person to be upset. Imagine for him what he might have said in that situation.

My DH is currently reading How To Be A People Person. If your DH likes instruction manuals, rules, guidelines, then perhaps he'd find something like that useful!

My dad is like this - no empathy. He could bore for Scotland with his tales of roadside vehicle tests he did in the 1970s (no kidding - this is what he thinks "conversation" is!), and not pick up on the fact that his listener's eyes have glazed over and they're bored witless!

Euphemia I'd love to be able to give my mum instructions like that! Surely it's hard though with an adult, especially if they don't have any insight into their behaviour. I know I'm a bit socially awkward and do 'copy' other people. I seem to be getting better at it! But some people aren't aware and won't accept that they do it.

We've tried talking to my mum at various times about the things she says to people and how it might be perceived but, as it makes complete sense to her, and she is totally egocentric, she really has no idea or ability to understand that other people find her rude!

It's only as an adult that I've really been able to understand the damage she did to my brother and I as we were growing up and we've had to encourage the children to have a healthy disrespect/disregard for the things she says so that she doesn't have the same impact on them.

Sorry OP, none of this is going to help you. Perhaps it might make you feel better to realise you're not alone!

Would talking to him work? I know from experience that my mum would be very resistant to it.

My dad's quirks mean that I struggle with speaking out in groups, as I'm terrified of coming across as a blawhard bore like him! I'm OK with one or two people, as I can pick up on social cues easily, but with a large group I tie myself up in knots worrying that half of them are bored rigid!

Also, at teacher training college we had a lecture from a storyteller; a woman who wanted to revive the oral storytelling tradition i.e. telling stories from your head rather than reading aloud from books. I HATED the whole session, and wanted to scratch my eyeballs out in frustration, as it was too much like listening to my dad! I tolerate my dad because I love him, but I was shocked by my strength of feeling in reaction to this woman!

Euphemia I share your pain! completely.

Social situation tips for geeks : 1) self deprecating humour is safest if you need to fill gaps in conversation. Stories of your recent mishaps and experiences. 2) if someone seems initialy boring to you then its a challenge to you to find interesting common ground to discuss. Their work , their recent holidays , their kids.

Treat conversation as a computer game you can learn to get better at it.

He sounds like me (minus the brilliance! never had anyone queuing up to hear my useless facts...)- I embarrass my parents constantly, ramble on far too long, jokes trail off in the middle because I do sometimes realise how pointless/awkward they are...

Does he find it confusing to focus on the conversation and changes in expression?

YABU... .Why marry a man knowing what he was like and then try to change him later? Never works and will only cause upset and resentment.

Euphemia- I also have a Dad like this. I can cope as I know how to make an escape but DH and the DDs sit in polite silence listening until I rescue them. I love Dad dearly but oh my goodness why does he do it?

All this brings to mind Mrs Dashwood to Margaret: If you cannot think of anything appropriate to say you will please restrict your remarks to the weather.

You can't really give an adult a list of suitable topics of conversation but perhaps you could suggest a few to avoid?

Another useful trick is to always ask other people open questions and get them talking about themselves.

YABU... .Why marry a man knowing what he was like and then try to change him later? Never works and will only cause upset and resentment.

Agreed 100%. I can be a bit 'aspergersy' too . I would divorce my husband if he tried to change me like this. It won't happen. It's a disability. To me, it feels the same as being fed up with me using a wheelchair, complaining about it and looking for ways to force me to walk.

I disagree Kladdkaka. My friend's son is like this. He asked my son if the school wld give him a day off if yr sister died. They both have sisters! He is really struggling socially as he is very egocentric and feels rejected by the other children. And he is getting into trouble. But his mum says he wouldn't listen to her if she tried to help not dominate every conversation. I know he is a child but his father is the same. Claims to be shy but comes across as arrogant and rude.

I dont think its a question of trying to "change" someone but helping people with aspergers with their social skills so that they are less likely to be offensive etc, and professional help is available. I have known people with Aspergers put themselves at risk because they dont realise their behaviour or what they say is risky.

duckdodgers: I think you've got it right :) it's helping someone with their social skills who has a disability, not trying to change someone for the hell of it.

I don't understand Bluebell. What are you disagreeing with me about?

There's a big difference between trying to help a child get to grips with the world as a parent and marrying a fully-grown, independent man, knowing his personality, and then, a few years down the track, saying 'I want you to be a different personality now'. Unless he's actually recognising that he has a problem and asking for help, which it doesn't sound like.

Bit like marrying a fat, ugly bloke and then deciding you want him to lose weight and have plastic surgery....

I think you've got it right it's helping someone with their social skills who has a disability, not trying to change someone for the hell of it.

It doesn't help. In fact it makes things worse. They will try and try to comply with your social expectations but will eventually reach the point where they can't keep up the pretense and will then give up completely and end up even more socially isolated than they ever were before. It's called autistic burn out and it's horrific. In my experience, this sort of help makes the helper feel better but ultimately destroys the helped.

Again in my experience, intervention for adults with these kind of problems is about finding safe environments where they are accepted as they are and not judged and made to feel bad about who they are.

I found the Myers-Briggs model really helpful for understanding why other people are so weird personality types different to my own.

"'a mystery, why they act so strangly and illogically'" - exactly. Gifts Differing by Isabel Briggs Myers is good because it gives you a theoretical framework and then others e.g. Kiersey extend it to more practical application.

Then you can make working people out and developing strategies for dealing with them into an intellectual exercise, which does help. Well, it helps me anyway.

He's not shy though - when we met we were in a kind of rock and roll lifestyle, where it was kind of normal to be a bit loud and self obsessed.

Even then, he was.known as being quite unusually foot in mouth - he had quite a list of people he had offended but he insisted he was just stating facts and they were illogical, and he kept getting banned from internet forums, but when it was just us two he coped.
It was a kind of running joke that he was a bit of a 'rainman', but that was more because of his 'freakish hippocampus' as he puts it.

I should add, he is lovely, and generally friendly and so on. He is just rubbish when people aren't doing something he has already worked out how to respond to.

Sense- have you talked to your DH much about this? You say he doesn't notice but do you discuss the awkward moments afterwards?

If you told him how upset you are when he makes inappropriate remarks how would he react?

I think your answer to that determines how you can play this one. If he does care then you can suggest some strategies but if he is content to be his old self then you are going to have to continue to put up with it (or not).

'Rainman' wasn't 'aspergersy'. He wasn't even autistic. Just how offensive to people with Asperger syndrome are you planning on being in this thread?