Married to someone with Asperger's? Support group here!

[picklemepopcorn]

This thread is for partners seeking to understand the dynamics of their relationship with someone with ASD. It is a support thread, and a safe space to have a bit of a rant. Avoid sweeping generalisations if possible, try and keep it specific to you and your partner.
(ASD partners welcome to lurk or pop in, but please don't argue with other posters and tell them they are wrong.)

Bluebellforest1 - I'm the same as you (we're not married to the same person are we?!). I no longer ask H for anything and i no longer rely on him for anything either. I will be busy doing jobs and he will say 'what can i do to help' , it sounds promising but when I ask him to do something it's always 'in a minute' or 'yeah later' and it never ever gets done. or he will say it doesn't need doing and ask what the next job is. So i no longer bother. Its easier to do it myself. I sort the DCs out (3, 2 are ASD), run the house/finances/car/2 jobs/do all the decision making/food shopping (me and DCs only, he buys his own food as he cant make a decision on what he wants for a weeks worth of food or ever a few days worth of food).

I have my own life - i see friends and do stuff with DCs. However, my social circle is v v small (1 v close friend and 2 friends who i see every now and then but only for coffee not going out out). In getting my ducks in a row and I am trying to increase my social circle but its hard.

I cant leave yet as we are paying off debt, quite a lot of it, and i don't want to be left with all the debt, which i couldn't afford alone, and then to get blacklisted if he refuses to pay it (its in joint names - i made sure of that - but he wouldn't care if he was blacklisted by non payment. By the time we had gone to court to get him to pay his share I would already probably be blacklisted). We have 2.5 years of the debt to go.

For the moment me and DCs have a comfy lifestyle ; we rely on H financially as we agreed when children came along that i would give up my career and do the school runs etc. I do work but have massively but back on hours/pay and not taken opportunities for promotion. These opportunities will not come along again.

H really cannot see the error of his ways. If i try to point it out to him then i am accused of nagging. He never opens up to me emotionally, he refuses to talk sex and is sexually v v selfish He shows no interest in me and v v little in the children, he is so withdrawn from us he can only think of himself.

He shoves the kids to bed asap if I'm out on a week-end night so he can watch tv and have his dinner alone. No movie nights for him and the DCs, ever, or trips to the cinema with them etc. I argue its their week--end night too (eldest is 13).

He watches TV/you tube on his phone during family movie nights (or he goes to sleep) as he doesn't want to watch the DCs choice of film (neither do i sometimes but i still engage and make out I enjoy the film and stay awake)

My sibling passed away and H never met them - H has never remembered the anniversary date of the passing or if he does he has never openly acknowledged it to me in the 20 years we have been together. He doesn't know which grave it is and has only ever been there a few times with me.

I'm his personal 'ask Alexa' - he asks me everything. What date is it, what time is it, where is x and y, what are the DCs having for dinner, where are the plasters, where is x and y in the kitchen for cooking, where and the DCs clothes, what are the DCs wearing today, how do we get to x & y, what time is x open till today.

He is constantly gaming either on his phone or pc.

If me and DCs are in the living room during his dinner time then he eats his dinner away from us, with headphones on, watching his PC and laughing out very loudly at whatever he is watching.

He wont eat dinner if anyone else cooks it, including me. He will reluctantly eat xmas dinner at both our parents, but that's not made obvious to them by him (thank goodness)

He has anger issues and social anxiety; he has outbursts in public places (mainly airports) which are embarrassing beyond belief. He cannot go through an airport without having a drink(s).

He has no idea of my wants/wishes/dreams/hopes for the future. He has no idea what i feel, think or probably even like.

He v v raley compliments me; in fact he has called a stranger beautiful in front of while holding my hand before. He never makes me feel special or goes out of his way to do so.

He says i don't' understand children or animals (we have both).

if i have not loaded the dishwasher correctly he will openly shout 'which moron has loaded this up'. Obviously its me if he's not done it as we are the only 2 people who do it. Nice of him to call his wife a moron.

The list could carry on.

I am mentally drained and exhausted from it all and doing all the thinking/decision making.

Has anyone found any books helpful in terms of communication or Asperger's & marriage? @orlando I think you mentioned you had read a few?

Things get escalated so quickly if we have a different view or need to discuss anything, he is undiagnosed but I think struggling more with his condition.

I need to have something to help us, as I am not going to leave now, we have a 5 year old and much of the time DH is tolerable. I definitely think he has got worse as he has got older.

Yesterday I was trying to talk to him about his decision to let DS 5 play out in our estate for the first time in a car park. Yes, a car park. It didn't matter to me that he was watching from a window in our house on the other side of the road. We have spoken quite a lot about when etc he would be ready to play out unsupervised. He apparently couldn't remember any of this. I just couldn't get him to discuss the issue more broadly in a normal way parents or even friends might. He just kept drawing it back to the event / decision yesterday and yet couldn't see the bigger picture.

I felt so pissed off and frustrated, cos we just can't talk about anything. Then he says to me that it's very difficult to change my mind. But I can spend 30 minutes trying to draw out of him what he thinks about something so we can talk about it.

But like the weather discussion, the change at home discussion and the bedroom furniture discussion, he ends up crying. He can't cope with it and I can't cope or help him. He refuses to talk to anyone else and says he's only got me. I have asked that he talks to his parents and even a Dr or counsellor. He says he doesn't feel well and keeps getting things wrong but won't elaborate more than that.

Any books anyone found helpful?

Has anyone successfully got their partner to recognise that they have AS? How did you broach that? Is there any point?

Sorry just got carried away with my rant there!

I definitely find emailing important points to DH and then him choosing the discussion times takes a lot of the fight/flight reaction out of it - it took me years to learn that, spontaneous discussions cause most of the problems and never help as he is just programmed to fight your point of view in the moment, almost without consideration of the underlying rightness of it.

As to staying or not, we’ve made progress since we’ve started talking about AS and whether DH accepts it or not, many of the strategies I’ve learned for our dc help explain his behaviour too so I’m feeling optimistic - the key thing is my DH reflects and reconsiders and sometimes changes a bit, if there really was no progress at all I would see it differently.

I am worried about him becoming like other older family members who are grumpy and embittered but so far I don’t feel that this is unavoidable as yet.

earlgrey i’d sending your DH a simple rule ‘ds doesn’t play outside until x age/prior family meeting where rules decided’. I do think my DH is reluctanr to seek help because he doesn’t want to admit the full extent of some of the difficulties - a sort of ‘if I don’t open that can of worms’ denial. As well as not having any belief that there exists anyone with enough expertise to help.

It is hard to convince a DH that’s fundamentally finds no upside to social communication to enter into therapy for themselves.

That's really rubbish bluebell it's like there are there but not there. I have that with all the questions, lack of initiative and fussy eating, which is his incredibly limited food choices at home but if he is out he is way more adventurous. So it just makes things harder. He is often on his phone with his games, but if we are watching something together he makes a big deal if I go on my phone , " do you need me to pause this / are you ready?" etc when we are watching something that progresses so slowly I could not be more bored out of my brain !!

We’ve had this advice with the dc too - whether the diagnosis is there or not, employing strategies that help with behaviours that might be considered autistic may be the best way forward, rather than trying to persuade someone that is avoiding or reluctant to get a diagnosis they don’t value. I know it’d be nice to have that lightbulb moment but I know even if I had 5 clinical psychs disgnose my DH he’d merely start arguing about false positives and not looking for disconfirming evidence.

On the obsessive phone checking - both DH and I guilty of this (what mumsnet habit?) and cross-accusing each other of this - again no phone time rules help, and also a clearer division of who is having a break when. A lot of that behaviour is about wanting and not getting a break so you end up with 2 parents avoiding interacting with dc as both want a break at that moment and it serves no one at all.

Thank you wishiwas that sounds really helpful and practical. Yes when I first gently mentioned AS to him he said " I don't even want to think about that " so it is managing around that I guess.

Maybe my wish to do stuff / discuss together is just too idealistic, although he has often complained " I have learned that you make the decisions on that" ( usually re practical small things - house stuff, stuff to do with DS routines etc) , it is probably easier not to gain his input or give him responsibility ( which is what happened in this playing out situation ).

I had to remind him that big stuff, moving house , when and where our son went right school, how much pre-school he did , were all decided by him and I accepted that after we talked together. Can't imagine that happening anymore, toys get thrown out of pram too easily!

Thanks again.

Good points wishiwas and yes that's probably right about phones / breaks!

I had friends that introduced what they called ‘divorce rules’ for a while, which oddly, saved their marriage. They split their weekend time with the dc down the middle on certain days and every social event they’d handover the kids every half hour. We thought it was hilarious pre dc watching them handover their kids to each other, it was extreme but they went from wanting to kill each other to getting through some tough years ok and I feel it was somewhat inspired now, if still slightly crazy.

Ha ha! Pre-emptive rules . . . At least everyone knew where they stood!

earlgrey, the problem I find with most books is that they say the NT partner must do all of the changing, all of the compromising, in effect all of the work. Well, nuts to that. I expect effort and no effort indicates Bad Behaviour, to me. I don’t expect to be able to change the neural pathways, sure, and I no longer expect spontaneity, but I do expect effort.

That said, you might find something useful in Maxine Aston’s books which I exempt from the criticism above, Tony Attwood’s ditto, Rudi Simone. I am sure you would find something useful in Different Together, under both the communication threads and the most requested posts. I am parti pris but even so. I also think you’d find something useful in Different Together’s ebook, available on Amazon, Between you and me. You might also find the Danish website AspergerPartner helpful.

Further to my post above, I’ve just seen a review on DT of the ebook from someone saying the tips on communication are really good.

The biggest thing which helps us to stop escalating and getting into tricky waters, is to stop discussion and disagreement and focus on acceptance.

Most things don't actually need challenging.

Some stuff I ignore.

Some stuff I put right. I go and rehang the washing after he has pegged it in a crumpled heap on the line.

Some stuff I challenge then immediately change the subject. If an inappropriate comment is made in a restaurant, I'd respond just as loudly as them 'that's rude, FiL. So who is having pudding?'

Some stuff I bring up later for a proper conversation. 'We need to have a chat. It might sound like I'm being a bit mean, but I just want us to be happier. It would be lovely if you talked to DC more, but not just about chores.'

Sometimes a situation will go badly, he's being grumpy, and just acknowledging 'well, new people aren't really your forte are they,' helps him move on.

I've just split up with someone with undiagnosed Aspergers. It was nearly killing me and I'm heartbroken. I did everything I could - read all the books, had counselling with an ASD/NT relationship specialist and bent over backwards to be accommodating of his differences. He went cold on me overnight and dumped me. He did accept when we spoke that he probably had Aspergers but didn't see that it would impact us at all!
I hope it's not too provocative a link to post but all the books I read were how the NT spouse must change for the Aspergers spouse and in the end I found this website to be unbelievably helpful and it's helping me to heal. www.heartlessaspergers.com. the testimonials from NT spouses are heart breaking.

Sorry. Correct link. The other one was dodgy. heartlessaspergers.com

I've spent years trying to understand him/. Work him out ,make allowances..fuck that shit..I stopped that a couple of years ago..I would leave..but we gave 4 kids ...why should I knock myself out doing everything paying for everything,and he gets to leave and be single again....errr no ...if anyone gets to jump this ship it's me...I've 2 kids with autism diagnosed,and a dh not diagnosed.

Never in 25 bastard years did he try to work me out / understand me / care about me...I'm not kicking him out so I get left alone manageing house and kids..he made them too ,he can do his share.

Thanks sally
I find I need to te read again those comments/website/description to remind myself there is a reason why I'm struggling so much.

The difficulty fir me atm is dc1. We have been away wo H fur two weeks. He had started to get his smile back and be much less stressed out. Coming back home, it's all back to square one again :(
Ds2 is on the spectrum, Im pretty sure so isn't affected nearly as much by it all.

Thanks @orlanda and @pickle that's helpful. It's all about facing up to the behaviour management it seems. I will try getting on to DT forum again and might get the maxine Aston book.

I found the heartless Asperger's website strangely reassuring when I found it months ago! In an "it's not just me!" way.
Push out of my mind if i had realised this years ago - as I am sure many of us do.

Thanks @Sally

earlgrey, I may sound obsessive but the DT ebook looks at communication from the points of view of NT, AS and then has Tony Attwood commenting, as it does with each theme. I can not recommend it highly enough..( it was nothing to do with me).

I'm glad the link is helpful. I'm so conditioned to walking on eggshells that even posting a link on here made me nervous. I haven't posted on MN at all while I was in that relationship but have followed this thread. It's reassuring to know I wasn't going mad.

@earlgreymarl you asked if anyone got their DP to recognise they have Aspergers. In our case we were seeing a psychologist (not specialised in Aspergers) who recommended a Simon Baron-Cohen book to DH. He's one of the leading psychological researchers into autism. I'm pretty sure it was Autism and Aspergers Syndrome: the facts. DH liked that book and said suddenly a lot of things from his adolescence and early 20s made sense and he wished he'd known earlier because it would have made a difference to his life (made me very sad for him). However, before he shared that, I gave him
Marriage and Lasting Relationships with Asperger's Syndrome (Autism Spectrum Disorder)
by EvaA Mendes, because a) it didn't refer to non-Aspergers partners as neuro typical and b) my problem was our relationship dynamic, not that he had or didn't have a particular label. That book talks about relationship dynamics from both sides and also switches pronouns each chapter so it's not implying Aspergers = man, non-Aspergers = woman. Some of the discussions outlined were word for word discussions we'd had multiple times. He read that too and said he totally recognised our dynamic too.

So they were both wins.
Also incredible that he read them (especially my recommendation) because he hasn't been willing to read even a few pages of anything I've suggested to help our relationship, ever.

However, it's worth keeping in mind, to avoid the crashing and crushing disappointment that can follow when your hopes are raised if the understanding they have it comes: it's not only recognising that the person (likely) has Aspergers, it's them then deciding they want a) to understand how they relate to you and b) to try to understand your non-Aspergers way of thinking.

That process is scary I think for some (I would imagine not all) people with Aspergers because it involves putting into psychological practice the fact that there are other ways of thinking. Given that their rigidity partly stems from the security gained by always being right, this would undermine that. What made me finally crack and say it's over was DH's outright refusal to try to understand how my brain worked. Said straight out when asked that he doesn't want to.

I've never managed to get DH to read anything about relationships. Never. Which is why I feel completely justified in just getting on with doing my own thing.

Re relationship with someone on the spectrum.
What do you all think about adult children on the spectrum? And if you can have a good relationship with them?

DS1 is 22. We have a great relationship. He accepts help concerning big life decisions- interviews etc. We talk about the news. We can't sustain conversation on a 3 hour car journey though, which I can with DS2. DS1 isn't always 'in the room' when he looks like he is. He'll often ask the same question we've just finished discussing.

Possibly due to how we have had to learn to function as a family, my children tell me we have a much better relationship than their (Male) friends' families. We all use management techniques on each other, I think!