Married to someone with Asperger's? Support group here! (Thread 3)

[ChangerOfNameAspieThread]

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.)

Some resources from the threads so far:
www.theneurotypical.com/effects-on-differing-nd-levels.html
www.maxineaston.co.uk/cassandra/
I've probably missed some, but will try to gather them later and put in a comment for the next thread!

Previous threads:
1st thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/3281058-Is-anyone-married-to-someone-with-Aspergers
2nd thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/3325419-married-to-someone-with-asperger-s-support-group-here

Thanks @Moffa for making a backup. I've also got it as a Word file (which I only did because it was easier to make, I wasn't expecting a deletion!).

But, I've had my first ever deletion!

I take solace in the fact that the person who reported me, very likely took a screenshot of it beforehand, so I know it's not really lost ;)

I would like to thank them though, because it has spurred me on to log into the academic library I have access to to have a look at what's there. I'm going to double check the rules before I post anything now - can't be too careful ;) - and see what I can post later.

Blubber I missed your response a few days ago in reply to me asking about you living separately. I'm sorry. While I thought it sounded a good workaround, I hadn't imagined the level of problems involved before it happened.

Many of you seem to echo my thoughts - that our partners are not mean, horrible people. However the effects on us are extreme.

Pina, I think your have summed it up perfectly. It is too late for me but H is pitiful lately. He will come and stand in the same room I am in or sit in the room it am in (which is new).

It’s like he wants to reach out, wants to talk but doesn’t know how - so he just stands there looking at me. Desperate to help in the kitchen but I don’t need it.

Might be heartless but I don’t want to go back, don’t want to let him back in to my plans, the last decade has been very difficult for me. His non participation means I don’t need him at all now.

I went out yesterday, the car has had a warning light on for a week, well two actually, washer fluid and tyre pressure. H got the washer fluid out of the garage days ago and it has been sat by the front door.

When I came home with an empty bottle he asked why I had filled it up, he was going to do it, and the tyres. Err because I drove 150 miles yesterday, one tyre looked visibly flat and I couldn’t see out of the windscreen.

I must admit that it took me ten minutes to open the bonnet 😂😂🤣, the car manual is behind the complicated tv sized screen and it wouldn’t load. Recalibration of the tyre system took another ten minutes.

Thing is that when I met him I did all these things, had a horsebox that I used to check/do quite a bit on myself. It isn’t that I can’t do anything but I purposefully leave these things for H because he does naff all generally.

Parenting is also a massive issue here and yes i do link it with autism, more particularly with Alexithymia. It’s clear he just doesn’t get what’s going on ‘behind the scene’, doesn’t getvthat dc1 is sad or disappointed usually either because dc1 hasn’t said so (amd will say he is ok if asked) or because he can’t see the reason why.
I seem to be spending a lot of time explaining to everyone in the family (or rather H and Dc2) that people are entitled to feel the any they want and no one can police or judge those feelings. Say it’s wrong etc..l

I also think H feels in some ways threatened by dc1, who is NT and (unsurpringly very mature). At least uncomfortable.
H is feeling much more confortable with Dc2 who is so more like him..... (which also means that he says very little....)

Many of you seem to echo my thoughts - that our partners are not mean, horrible people. However the effects on us are extreme.

YY to that 100%.
Also the reason why we are all still here trying to make it work and we haven’t ‘walked away from ASD’ as someone upthread suggested we could do.

"Many of you seem to echo my thoughts - that our partners are not mean, horrible people. However the effects on us are extreme."

This sums it up for me too. And the whole dilemma of our situations: the people we love, or loved are otherwise lovely people!

I read this morning an analogy that hit me over the head which, for me, ties in with this.

It was that when a parent finds out their child is diagnosed with ASC/Aspergers, it's like they were on route to a long-awaited holiday in Italy, but got diverted to Holland. The thinking being that the two are different, but both great, however if you spend your time in Holland wishing you were seeing the colosseum and eating great gelato, you'd miss out on the tulips and canals and windmills. It then goes on to say that the difference for the family of someone with undiagnosed Aspergers - which is where this is relevant for me, because the majority of my relationship has been with someone who was undiagnosed and I relate 100% to this description and see it in the family context too - is that the Italy trip is diverted to Holland. However, once there, the partner with Aspergers denies it's Holland and tells you it's Italy. And so do all the tour guides, shop keepers, strangers you ask for directions. Everybody tells you it's Italy. You try to tell them it's really Holland, but everybody, very confidently and with conviction, tells you you're wrong, it's Italy. In the end, you feel you're losing your mind.

It ends there, but for me I would go on to say that when I couldn't understand why I couldn't see it was Italy, when everybody else could and was telling me it was, especially my partner, I started doubting everything I thought. If I couldn't recognise something so basic, there must be a major fault in my own thinking. It took a LONG time with a one-on-one therapist to realise that I was really in Holland. And the sad thing about this is, that had people agreed with me that I was in Holland, not said I was in Italy, there was a chance that I could have really appreciated Holland. It's hard to appreciate and learn more about canals and windmills and tulips when you're being told they're not there. And this is why there is a problem for my (and only my, obviously I'm ONLY talking about my situation, not saying it's the same in every household with an Aspergers parent...) children, because they are growing up being told they're in Italy too, with me trying to point out that they're right, we're in Holland, but not in a way that provides more conflict with their father. I need them to see that Holland exists, what they see and feel is right, but that their father, as lovely as he truly is, sees Italy when he looks around. I am doing my best but I have very real concerns, which I've seen echoed elsewhere, that this can really cause problems for children later on. The psychologist I've approached about it (but who didn't have space to take us on, rather annoyingly) has agreed with me. Obviously, again, she was only talking about my family situation, nobody else's.

I found this analogy in a book called Aspergers Syndrome and Adults..Is Anybody Listening? I'll read some more before I recommend it or not, but it really struck home.

I seem to be spending a lot of time explaining to everyone in the family (or rather H and Dc2) that people are entitled to feel the any they want and no one can police or judge those feelings. Say it’s wrong etc..

Yes, Queenie here too! I find it exhausting sometimes.

Hello everyone, sending you lots of love and thank you for all your insights, which are helping me so, so much. 💐 I’ve been reading the thread all week but having such a bad time of it right now, I can’t seem to even string a sentence together.

@changer oh the Holland/Italy thing is the perfect description of exactly what I’m living right now.

@pina DP does the same in terms of trying to reach out. But I make the same mistake each time of trying to talk to him when he does this, which quickly unravels and ends up with me in tears and upset again. He is adamant that he hasn’t done anything in the relationship to get us to this point, but if I even gently try and explain how I’m feeling - after years and years of the same - or point out that not speaking to me, AT ALL for days and days (possibly weeks now actually), despite me trying, does nothing but indicate to me that we haven’t got a relationship - he sees it only as me attacking him. And so things go on. We eat meals in total silence. I get his back to me in bed. And if I cry, I’m either left to cry alone, or he gets angry fast that I’m ruining his day again etc etc.

I can’t seem to find a breakthrough point. Does anyone have any tips of how to crawl out of this cycle when you get stuck in it.

Sorry @box, it was you, not Pina who posted about the reaching out by standing in the same room. This has such an effect on me as I can SEE he is trying, but it is in such a small, small way that, that alone can’t fix the hurt that has happened around here in the last few months. He seem so childlike when he does this and it makes me sad that he’s unable to do more...and that I’m causing him pain by constantly wanting even a conversation.

Told me Aspergers was all in my head and again, that the problems we have lie with/ are caused by me and DD.

@Peachy2019 my heart goes out to you. I went through years and years of that and I have got out of the cycle now, but the memory of it is just like yesterday. It still happens now but I don't have the energy left to get sucked into it - which is both positive (I don't get sucked in) and negative (I don't actually have the energy!).

You need to start seeing Holland and forget trying to convince him he's not in Italy. I could only manage that through therapy, because the onslaught, the denial of my reality was constant. It still is, but I guess now I say outright, "You can't see what I'm saying because you have Aspergers."

There's a second part to this, but I'm now nervous about deletions, so I'll put it in a second message so if it gets deleted, only some is lost!

Pt2
However, something I came across that helped a bit was to understand the defensiveness. I read - and now I need to police how I state this because I don't know if it's true, it's just what I read (I think it was by Simon Baron-Cohen, who is THE expert in this) - that when people with Aspergers, undiagnosed in particular, grow up, they constantly feel under attack because they see the world differently. Their reality is constantly denied. Maybe it's not like that for everybody, but this is just what I read. So with my situation, DH sees everything coming towards him as an attack. I mean literally everything I say, even compliments, or neutral things like "It's cloudy today". It's like he's primed for attack. So I need to try and tackle the defences before I enter a discussion. And then, when I'm in that discussion, I am very, very gentle and EXTREMELY careful about how I phrase things (just like I"m trying to be now!).

It doesn't always work, but being aware of the defences and making him aware of them when they come up against the neutral or positive things (in a non confrontational way) has helped.

I also point out when things are Aspergers. So, "You think that A shouldn't be upset because you're looking through Aspergers glasses." I can't say I'm always calm, because there are times when it's very frustrating, but he's never been told WHERE the differences are in his thinking and others, so he doesn't see WHERE there could be. But, going back to the analogy, what this does is essentially point out to him that there's a windmill in front of him, not the colosseum. He often doesn't see it, but it highlights that we're seeing very different things. And that helps somewhat.

Thank you @changer and thank you for the two part consideration. I’m a bit clueless about this deletion thing but understanding it’s to avoid generalising / causing offence? If that’s correct, I think you’re doing a stellar job of empathising with others and offering help and possible solutions to those in a similar situation, so hope very much it’s not misconstrued.

I agree I could do to work harder on minimising the defensiveness. It catches me my surprise though even after all these years and I seem to make it worse. A typical interaction that happened recently:

ME: “You’ve had your haircut - that looks nice”

DP: tuts and rolls eyes and said in a nasty tone “Well of course I’ve had my hair cut, doesn’t take a genius to figure that out.”

ME: “Oh, (maybe I’ll even add a sorry here) I was just saying it looks nice.” poss said with an ever so slight sadness to my voice but nothing more than that

DP: “Ohh ok, Here we go again. Going off on one. You’re so argumentative. How do you expect me to respond when you’re stating the obvious. If you can’t have a proper conversation, don’t bother. In fact I don’t know why I even bother coming home.”
leave the room and slams the door

If we do get to the point of even talking about it later it somehow turns into my fault as in I started an argument the second he walks through the door, and now lying about him slamming the door. The result is me trying to figure out how that conversation about a hair cut could have gone differently but because it’s SUCH a tiny thing, and because that could happen daily, I’M so exhausted and wretched with trying to wrap my head around it.

Hi everyone, I have NC'd and it took me ages to find this thread again. Just placemarking for now and will catch up later. DH went for an assessment 2 weeks ago so fingers crossed about the results. Did anything change for you once your DH received a diagnosis? Did you share it with anyone?

Hi everyone! Hope you’re all having a nice weekend! H works all weekend so it’s just a normal day here!

I’ve been thinking (the I can’t sleep & I’ve got stress eczema on my hands kind of of thinking.)

I believe my FIL is also HFA. He is a carbon copy of my H, just older. My MIL died 8 years ago. She told me she thought H had aspergers once during a small disagreement between them. I didn’t pay it too much attention as I didn’t know what it was and also she was known for being a bit of a bitch. She was quite rude & demanding. She had been battling terminal cancer for years. Her family barely noticed. Again I thought it was because she was a bit ‘toxic’ which was how she was portrayed. Certainly my H was not bothered by her terminal diagnosis and never shed a single tear when she died.

It’s REALLY occurring to me now (and upsetting me) that she probably had a terminal illness AND a lifetime of total emotional neglect and abuse. I know she tried to leave once when her kids were young but came back after a few months. Her sister talks of her as though she was the life & soul of the party, dancing on tables in her youth etc, but that wasn’t the woman I met. What really makes me think is that my FIL is an awful man but H thinks he is a hero, and he was not interested in the slightest in his mother who doted on him. She said the best thing in her life had been her children.

My FIL met a lovely lady a while after MIL died. They were together a while living separately and then decided to move in together. She moved out 2 weeks later as she didn’t like the way he treated her. Now I think he probably was just filling MIL’s role in his life and didn’t realise it wasn’t normal to treat someone like that - and someone not used to it would fight back & walk out immediately.

@peachy we have conversations like that too. It’s so exhausting.

Peachy this is kind of the crux - in my eyes.

You have to watch your phrasing, your tone of voice, when you raise issues, in order to maximize the chance of him hearing you. This is outside the micro interactions that are unsatisfying. And unless he accepts a) he sees things differently to you and then b) makes concerted efforts to understand how you see things - similar to the effort and energy you're putting in, then you're left with two options.

1. Accept this is how it's always going to be and try and be heard and understood elsewhere.
2. End the relationship.

You do have the third option of continuing trying to get him to understand you and your way of looking at things, but ultimately, whatever method (you alone, books, therapist etc) you adopt, if he does not accept that he also needs to understand you and be internally motivated to do that, you end up at these two options.

And that's the bit we lack so far on this thread (and the books and sites): how do you motivate someone who claims to love you, to want to understand you to the extent where they'll make significant efforts to actually do it.

Sorry, that's not uplifting.

And thank you for your kind words.

Well, I had to go to a work training event today. DD is unwell, DH went for a bike ride when she got up ‘because that is what normal people do’, (his words) leaving her on her own to make/eat breakfast.

Fine she can manage that but it is the weekend and my ‘what normal people do’ is spending time with DC and not leaving them alone while you go on a two hour bike ride.

Then she walked into town for some fresh air, phoned me six times because she was lonely.

When I got back at 3:30 she was just back in bed after taking a paracetamol, her first words “mum, I am starving can I have some lunch”.

H’s defensive response .... ‘why didn’t you say you wanted feeding’?

An only child who is not quite well after spending a day in hospital earlier in the week (of course he didn’t attend) and he doesn’t realise that she needs company, food and affection.

As I suspected, he has chosen to spend all day in his office working on his work leaving her entirely alone.

My counsellor said it was clear that I overcompensated constantly with DD for his behaviour.

I have no words this afternoon.

@flatpackbox

My H works every weekend. I used to challenge it. Now I find it a blessed relief.

Sorry your daughter has had a rough day xx

Thanks Moffa, yes I am used to it and accept it.

But I always feel very sad for DD. I had arranged for her to visit a friend but she was feeling up to it.

I echo the thanks to Changer for compiling the resources

Personally I’d have much preferred if @MNHQ had posted on here with a gentle remained not to make generalisations and pointing out why X sentence was problematic, without deleting the post. Chances are deleted posters would have apologised and said “I didn’t mean to generalise/be definitive/whatever, I retract that and wire it like this”. Deletion denies us the opportunity to discuss, respectfully disagree if we wish and frame things differently if need be.

I’m sorry @flatbox the overcompensating I get totally. @moffa it’s interesting to see the family in a different light too. It can be a confusing and hidden dynamic I find, it’s only when you get closer that things like your MILs life might be very different from how it seemed. I wonder what your SIL thinks, good to have a good link with his family.

Thanks @thisway I was trying not to generalize but maybe I wasn’t phrasing it well. I want the world to be a better place for those with ASD, including my son, and DP. I also want my own life to be better!

@changerofname I’m exhausted from having to present things in just such a way in order to even be heard, you are right there are few options going forward. I agree!

This is just a get it off my chest moment, as I’ve rarely found a place I can admit these, but some of the things I have found difficult in the last years...

• DP is only comfortable with me doing the garden. He needs to control everything within the house, and procrastinates. Example: it took 4 years to persuade him to get curtains for downstairs. We do have a large front garden, but I still wanted curtains. It had to be the right shade, and he couldn’t see that privacy was an issue for me. On the other hand they were very nice curtains and he does have good taste!
• He sees me arranging anything with him as an attack / control. He will sometimes go out to dinner with me, or cinema, but usually he likes to go out to specific events where he feels very confident, or work colleagues and does not want me there. He once said why should we go out, we see each other all the time. He does not holiday with me, and will spend events with me but only some of them. I’m usually the one without their partner.
• we have no mutual friendship or social group. He has zero interest in mine, and defensive about me with people he knows.
• we used to have big rows about things like the economy or science or politics - as he would get irate if I had a different opinion and I couldn’t understand why he would always dismiss my view, and so I didn’t handle it well and should have just backed off.
• I find it hard to trust him as although he cares deeply about me, he can flip very easily and not be loyal. If I get comfortable it’s then that he backs off and is often emotionally unavailable. He has very shaky boundaries. He lives in the moment so will think nothing of telling someone that our relationship is over for him, but change his mind or not tell me, but leave that impression, so I find myself blindsighted quite a bit!
• talking to DP can be very frustrating as he is very evasive, he won’t be pinned down to anything emotionally.
• can be such good company, and very reliable in a practical sense. Great at his job and doesn’t bring stress home. Very loving to DS. We’ve loads of shared interests except he doesn’t want to do them with me.
• we have great chemistry, and intimacy, yet DP is cold in between which makes me feel vulnerable.

Phew! That feels a bit better.

pina, and that is what made me finally give up.

At 12 DD is old enough to know what isn’t right. Phoned me up in tears because she had walked into town and it was full of people together, she felt sad and alone. Poor thing.

Old enough to realise but young enough to need taking care of, especially when she is feeling poorly.

H can’t meet anyone’s emotional needs, I have to arrange to take her somewhere when I have to work to know she is ok. Of course she can make herself lunch but she needed to be looked after today. Even she realises that being home alone is better than being at home with H which is sad.

She isn’t particularly fond of being home alone anyway.

@changer not uplifting but realistic! I’m going to think hard about my options as the one I really want would make him an entirely different person. I have to let that ideal go as it just feeds my crushing disappointment. Not helpful. The relationship I want is all in my head but accepting that means grieving a bit for the life and home I’m never going to have. How did I even get here?

@pina getting things off your chest feels good doesn’t it!! Just to speak out the stuff instead of it burning away in your brain. I empathise with going to social things on your own. That’s me too. I’ve realised I really observe other couples in social situations now too. My whole gauge of what a happy relationship is feels skewed so sometimes after spending the evening around couples that laugh together and really enjoy each other’s company, I feel it all the more. I COULD have that if I left and that’s a scary thought to be toying with as I always thought I had enough love for him to make it work. I’m dipping my toes in those thoughts more and more.

I get the stuff about trust. Although I doubt my DP would ever cheat on me (he has a strong moral code there) he can leave me emotionally in the lurch and I never feel he has my back. He’ll stick up for strangers that he thinks I’ve ‘wronged’ rather than take my side on something.

@box Same situ here with a DD (slightly older). Even though my relationship with DP causes me grief, it’s the issues with her that will no doubt see me leaving. I can see I’m confusing DD with my mixed messages (peace keeping but yet wanting her to LIVE A FABULOUS, FULL LIFE) and she’ll never understand 100% unless I can be honest with her about AS. Which I can’t unless he is diagnosed.

I get the stuff about trust. Although I doubt my DP would ever cheat on me (he has a strong moral code there) he can leave me emotionally in the lurch and I never feel he has my back. He’ll stick up for strangers that he thinks I’ve ‘wronged’ rather than take my side on something.

Omg Peachy exactly the same here. It is not every time, he’s certainly had my back on a few big things, but I’ve realised he either has to see physical proof of how they have wronged me, rather then going by my word alone, or it has to be on a matter he has personally experienced. Otherwise it’s just too abstract for him to grasp. I had a revelation about this a few years ago, said this to him and he completely agreed and was relieved I got it. Since then I’ve taken it less personally, and he’s learned to (usually!!) acknowledge my viewpoint and feelings and sympathise even if he doesn’t understand it.

This is my own theory as to why he does this. It’s the way his brain works - like an engineer, he’s looking for what went wrong and as he only knows me and not the other or their side, he looks for the ‘fault’ in me. It’s about control - I don’t mean abusively, but about feeling secure by identifying why something has gone wrong. Does that resonate with any of you?

Pina that’s a list alright. So glad you got it out your system x

thisway my DCs found bits of this book helpful

wordery.com/the-asperkids-secret-book-of-social-rules-brian-bojanowski-9781849059152

It says that in day to day conversation it is more important to be nice than to be right. DC checked this out with me saying, “Really? NT people prefer to feel happy but be wrong???”

The book advises not to correct an adult unless it is an emergency i.e. the building is on fire.

Anyway thisway my ASD D.C. would believe that your DH is being loving and supportive by thinking about what you may have done wrong. She would think that was more helpful than him just saying “Oh poor you. That sounds awful.”

The book advises not to correct an adult unless it is an emergency i.e. the building is on fire.

Sorry but what's the point of that? The adult continues sharing incorrect information and the child feels they aren't valued enough to actually have a voice

(As I said before, feel free to ignore me. I lurk to see if there's anything useful DP and I can apply to us and I mean no offence, however I am curious about certain things. No one is obliged to answer me)

Sorry Seline. I should have said this is in the context of school or a club. Basically the advice is that continually correcting an adult (if you are a kid) is likely to annoy them. Not in a family context.