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.)

Changer I think you are right to tread carefully. I guess you could be curious with SIL and see what she thinks. Good luck with navigating the visit. It sounds tricky.

I hope they have a good visit Changer. You could mention that there are some health conditions that cause people to be repetitive, and see how she responds. If it leads into an amateur diagnostic session between you, you may be able to mention ASD. Along with OCD I would think. Only if she joins in enthusiastically though!

How is everyone? My DH is being a star at the moment. He's good with my Mum because he doesn't do nuance. So he doesn't take offence and he doesn't really moderate what he says. She finds it trying, but can see he has no attitude/agenda so she can't really object! She'll complain to me later that he 'gave her a lecture' or keeps 'telling her what to do'.

I am picking DH up from his trip today. DD said ‘mum, I know this sounds horrid and I should even think it but I don’t want Dad to come home. Our house is like paradise when it is just the two of us. When Dad is here it is like a rollercoaster, we never know how he is going to be’.

Poor kid, I told her that she could tell me anything, whatever she was thinking, it was fine and I would never repeat any of it. Unlike DH who acts as mature as DD.

Sad isn’t it. I still hate the thought of being without him but he makes our lives so difficult.

Still, we only have a few days together in the next few weeks due to separate holidays and work trips and he is meant to be leaving during the week of 4th September.

I am in a strange place. I've told DH I'm considering divorce and he wanted a list of reasons and then wrote them down exactly as I said them of why I wanted to leave. He said he will read them and reflect upon them. He isn't a bad person but just doesn't meet my needs but I do meet all his needs, which is really imbalanced and really sad. I've been looking at the list too, and I know half of the things won't change, like empathy or trying to understand things from my shoes. He said he welcomed my honesty (I think it's the first time he can see I'm completely serious about asking for a divorce) but he still wants to stay in the marriage and believes it is best for him. It's going to be a tough few weeks as I'm left again alone to make key decisions...

If he tried harder Kinderbean, could he come close enough? I used to think DH didn't care. I felt differently when I realised he cared but simply couldn't see.

@picklemepopcorn I think he does care but in a selfish way alot of the times but he can't see much at all :( and it's exhausting having to always spell things out and even then he's not willing to see it. It's utterly frustrating

Box and Kinder sorry to here you are negotiating a separation. It sounds really tough.

I have found these threads helpful and trying to see behaviour in a different light. One of the main problems for us is DH's anxiety and processing difficulties which together look like anger.

Also it has irritated me for years how much time he needs/wants to rest or sleep or have it quiet. So I'm trying not ro fight it by stropping round muttering things like "I'd like to bloody rest but if I don't hang up washing we'll have nothing to wear" etc

Since I have been more accepting of the resting he has actually done some washing. And I have told him I appreciate it. I'm trying to be open and clear.

Yes, the penny has dropped for me because I’ve wondered why my DH looks so cross and behaves angrily that makes no sense and when I ask him he doesn’t remember being angry.

A good example is that the only going out thing we do is the odd dinner for a special occasion - DH has hated and ruined every dinner out we’ve had in the last 8 years, I don’t remember a single one that was lovely, mostly he’s either picked a fight with me, tried to get out of it or spent ages ranting about other people in the restaurant.

He admitted he hates all of it - the other people in restaurants are too close to us for privacy, hiring a babysitter makes him anxious as he worries about that, and drives me potty over whether we have the right food in and then worries about not being late back so the fun is sucked out of the experience. And also he doesn’t really want to celebrate the special occasion in the first place!

Wish that’s interesting as we have over the last couple of years shifted from going out for celebration meals to going for celebration walks, sometimes whole family (teen DCs) but more recently just DH and me.

We take day off work and do a long walk together. It’s lovely. We barely see anyone else and we are building up some happy memories together of lovely places we have been. The most recent one we did meet the rest of the family for tea outside a pub but the meal wasn’t the main focus.

A recent trip to the pub for easy tea went badly though. DH often gets sidetracked by poor service/rudeness as he sees it but sometimes he’s misunderstood or taken offence or got confused and can’t process or read situation well. The D.C. hate him complaining. DH then took offence at D.C. trying to explain the staff member’s point of view, then he took even bigger offence at me trying to intervene to stop him arguing with DC.

yes, sounds so familiar heather and it's always often the spontaneous and should-be-easy stuff that ends up biting you although for my DH it's usually rudeness of other diners he goes for and rants/swears about them in their hearing for infractions of manners I didn't even notice, whilst appearing pretty rude himself! My parents are always complaining about service, and that makes him crawl, but he doesn't see that him talking loudly about other diners is a different side of the same coin.

I've refused and sidelined the dinners as they don't help anyone, you're right that better traditions are needed. My DH makes a big effort with the present of late, which I really appreciate, as he's learned that he makes me sad when he gets me nothing, and last anniversary we had a takeaway at home, much better experience.

picklemepopcorn
You list of suggestions to teach is exactly what i'd love my husband to do, if only he could comitte to doing some of that, some of the time, our relationship would be so much better..

theboxofdelights
I often look at couples and i'm baffled by behaviour/ relationships that I once thought normal. I remember once, I had saved money to buy DH a 5 course meal, jazz cruise, live music, beautiful day in London. I bought it for his birthday but it wasn't available to do until a few months later, we were in the que and there were staff going around asking if any of the people were here for a special occasion ( they presented these people with cakes and sparklers etc), they asked him and he said no. I asked him why, because it was his birthday present and he replied that it wasn't his birthday now. This lead to a petty argument, and then we got to the front of the que and they asked again, and again he said no. So, he basically sat and ignored me through 5 courses and coffees, whilst everyone else on board were chatting and holding hands and enjoying the music. It was movie romantic and he refused to speak or make eye contact with me for hours.

Daftasabroom
You're posts are exhausting, it sounds like a battle from the moment you wake up. You're right, and like others have said, you need time for yourself to be yourself. It didn't even occure to me until reading this thread. Sometimes for us, it's better when my 3yr old and I go and do something, and DH just does what he wants. It's less stressful. If he wants to join us, he needs to organise himself. If he has drama or starts sulking, then I distract my son and leave him to it. I can't have my son's or my own spirit crushed any further.

Those of you talking about the difference in male and female behaviours, have you heard of Limpsfield Grange? There was a documentary about it a few years back, it's a boarding school for girls and they showed different girls' experiences and behaviours on the spectrum. It was very interesting. I found the video here...

vimeo.com/199745757

imsadness sorry to hear about your London disaster. It's like once somerhing goes wrong it's hard to claw it back and it stays wrong.

I couldn't sleep last night. Bloody perimenopause. After 2am I snook out of the bedroom and eventually got to sleep on sofa much later.

DH comes downstairs 7.15 makes his breakfast opens living room door, sees me asleep then says why don't I go up to bed. But if he was concerned for me he would have left me asleep and eaten breakfast in kitchen or taken back to bed with his phone. But he likes to eat breakfast in living room watching the news so that's what he's doing. I would have let him sleep

Interesting about complaining about other divers. My DH used to do this too and it was excruciating. His pet peeve is fat people. So if he saw an overweight, especially obese person get a giant piece of cake or burger (basically anything other than steamed veg + protein or a salad) he'd comment, loud enough for them to hear. I literally told him to shut up but he'd do it another day. Eventually I'd speak to him before going out t'avoir how it was totally unacceptable because it was rude, but it was also I credibly damaging and hurtful. Not sure the second part meant much to him.

He views the body as a machine. He's into solo sports and does them a lot. We're on holiday now so daily there's a one to two hour run or 120km cycle plus a 1-2km swum later in the day. Food is little more than fuel (but he wants good quality too). So if someone is overweight there's a "simple" solution (increase activity + lower I take). And nobody shoujd be overweight because it's not optimum for the machine body.

He's changed in rudeness level because I developed a thyroid problem and he could see I was putting on weight when I wasn't eating more. But even though I previously explained that could happen to people, it didn't sink in until he saw it with his own eyes. Then it was a real thing - my words meant virtually nothing.

Needing to see directly/experience it before it becomes real it absolutely totally and utterly exhausting for me. Not for him though, he's always fine!

*diners, not divers!

Anyway I'm reaching my hand up and waving from the middle of Aspergers Central here. People who think we all assume everybody with Aspergers is the same - or people who think they are the same - need to come and spend a few days with me right now.

It's been four days. I could write a case study. Another week to go. Everybody is very well meaning (something I always saw in his family, no malice, and liked - still do) but when one gets stressed it's just a nightmare. I'm currently hiding out in a downstairs bedroom to get a break!

Changer, it's funny how living in aspie central sometimes leads to you taking on aspie traits- needing to be alone to defuse, not liking plans to change, needing everything organised ahead of time. Well it does for me, anyway.

Changer the rigid thinking and inability to instinctively see things from the point of view of others is one of the defining aspects for me.

I think one of the reasons behaviour seems to deteriorate is that at first there is a blank sheet of paper but over time it gets filled up. And where the NT can if inclined rewrite or alter things, for an ASC this is incredibley difficult. So although circumstances may change and people may need more or less the script once written cannot be changed. And as time passes and as new things happen a new line is written which leaves less and less space for anyone else.

Does that make any sense? Hard to write long passages on a phone.

And hence the ever increasing anxiety, anger and aggression when the just keeps on doing it's own random shit and not following the script.

Oops missing the World.

Daft yes it makes sense. Although I do find that if my DH can experience something himself then he'll rewrite it to that particular experience. If he can witness it directly (like me putting on weight) then he'll take it on board. That seems limitless, but only through experiences.

And most, of not all, these scripts he has in his head originate from things his mother or father said or did. We used to have a lot of fights because he wouldn't (couldn't) accept that my way of, for example, doing the washing, was ok, because that's not how his mother did it. Almost all these arguments involved me saying "I'm not your mother!" Or "You should have married your mother!"

And (sorry can't see who wrote it) but the idea that to deal with Aspergers you kind of become it is very true. If outsiders were to look at our relationship I'm certain I'm the one they'd think had Aspergers. That actually likes me a bit inside. I'm warm, sociable, creative, tactile, sexual, polite, enjoy spontaneity, giving compliments and laughing. All these things have been sucked out of me. I'm slowly putting them back. But it's hard.

Right now, in Aspergers Central I have to be someone I don't like to get through it. I'm not sure what they notice - especially because that's what they always see of me! - but I don't like myself. I don't even recognise myself really. That's in general when I compare to pre-this relationship but it's all more prominent in this location because I have no escape.

Oh yes, the harking back to what his parents did, so true. My mil is a self sacrificing saint who did everything for all of her family and worked part time. I can’t imagine when she had any time to enjoy herself.

My social skills have degraded - they were never great and I’ve always been introvert but if I express any doubts about a situation or something I’ve said socially to DH they end up multiplied to the point where he actually makes situations worse as I’m anxious about him worrying about me saying something silly.

We had our favourite strop from DH today who’s been grumpy, about the place being a tip. It absolutely isn’t at all, I’m always cleaning but with pets and small kids..only a show home (like the one he remembers where there were no pets) will do.

If we ever got it up to his standards, I fear he’d make us miserable trying to maintain it and any damage would trigger a meltdown. Which is also a mirror of his childhood.

Wish oh yes! Wish I didn't know what you were talking about with tidiness but totally, totally understand.

We lived in a country where people had cleaners and live in maids as normal. We had a cleaner who was an absolute miracle worker in terms of cleaning and making the whole place look like a show home after. She was incredible. He'd come home and somehow find faults (minuscule things that nobody would ever notice, or something small I'd done after she'd been) and tell me I wasn't managing her properly!

Exhausting. It's totally exhausting.

Yes and that’d be on you change - i organise all the repairs, contractors/handymen (quite a few house moves under our belt) and if I ever hire a dud or the work isn’t up to scratch it is never, ever forgotten...DH of course is far too busy to ever cross check anything with, and if I ever do the answer is always for me to get yet another quote and not having asked quite the right questions/not being exact enough.

We had a cleaner years ago but DH embarrassed the hell out of me by telling everyone, including his socialist family, how excruciating he found it and he’s so odd with people that I wouldn’t do it again. He’s overly nice with people we’ve had in - he himself can’t enforce a boundary with anyone other than me or people he’s decided are not good people in some way.

DW has this thing for garlic, to the extent of licking the garlic bread wrappers!

Does anyone else have a OH with extreme eating or tastes?

(just saying cos I've tried to kiss goodnight and it wasn't good....)