Married to someone with Aspergers: support thread 4 (replacement one)

[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. Otherwise the thread can be deleted, like Support Thread 4 The Original.

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
3rd thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/a3463341-Married-to-someone-with-Aspergers-Support-group-here-Thread-3

It's a lot to process. For example today he was talking in depth about us and dropped some bombshells but added "he was feeling really autistic today". I don't even know what that means.

@Eesha What bombshells? Can you ask him what he means by that statement?

@Apple222 just that he really wants children / to get married whereas I'm mid 40s and am bringing up toddlers on my own. He still wants us to stay together but I'm just wondering whether that's the right way. He's just had a lot on his plate with medical stuff which he just told me but I never knew, he kept everything hidden

@Eesha I would say this even if he didn’t have ASD.... if he really wants children and you don’t, it is a breeding ground for issues later on. This doesn’t sound what you want at all! He may say he wants you to stay together in spite of this but you don’t want to be with someone who may possibly put you under pressure to have more children in the future or be resentful that you won’t / can’t.

Perhaps you are just in different places in your life. He’s ‘starting out’ on the relationships / baby thing, while you have been through all that?

@Daftasabroom I agree regarding behaviours becoming entrenched and, unfortunately, unchallenged over many years.

My DH would probably go through life quite well if he wasn’t in a relationship or in a job which demands that he interacts with other people. Put a relationship and job into the mix and it’s a nightmare. He just cannot seem to understand that every situation isn’t only about him and his needs.

If I say ‘XYZ is hurtful’ he will say ‘Well you do ABC which is hurtful to me!’ He cannot cope with being challenged or take responsibility for his behaviour at all and it’s getting worse.

Someone on another thread posted something that was almost a catchphrase for my ex-H.

They would just say "well that isn't how it was meant".

That happened so often for small hurtful things and big.

One time I was 14 weeks preg, severely ill and said to him that I -had- to go to hospital. He didn't want to take me. In the end he did, I was going into sepsis, son had only a 5% chance of survival.

He couldn't understand why I was upset and very worried that he wouldn't take me to hospital when I asked the first 15 times. I said that it made me feel that if something was urgent, then he wouldn't be there and deal with it. Answer? "that wasn't how it was meant" and he couldnt understand why it would affect the level of trust between us.

Sigh.

SeaEagleFeather. That’s bizarre. So he didn’t see refusing to take you to hospital as having consequences for you or your relationship?

Why didn’t he want to take you? Could he explain that? My DH would say something like ‘There goes my plans for this evening‘ and would huff and puff as though I was intentionally depriving him of his ‘me’ time...

Sad isn’t it? Difficult to forgive.

@SeaEagleFeather Above!

He doesnt like medical stuff, at all. And thinks I make a fuss, refuses to accept diagnoses even when the doctor's telling him.

He just shuts his eyes to any demands at all, and shuts them even tighter to the idea that someone else might have a problem with this, or with having to fight to go to hospital when it was so necessary. We went to marriage counselling and I said this was a real problem for me, and he said "but I took you eventually". Yes, and when I had a temp for 40.4 when pregnant and very ill, it took 15 minutes begging.

Just doesn't get it.

That’s awful @SeaEagleFeather. Demand avoidance...I know it well. It feels very controlling doesn’t it? It may feel uncomfortable for them but actually they get their needs met so it is hard to have any sympathy. I don’t know how anyone can justify not taking their partner to hospital even for something minor let alone for your circumstances.

The only positive way to interpret it is he was desperately worried about you and therefore paralysed by it. But still the outcome for you is damaging. I’m so sorry.

it came good in the end. it was almost impossible to get down teh stairs and I crawled to the car, but they saved the baby. He's currently a little demon. Has, funnily enough, some real challenges with social interactions sighs but he's lovely. He didn't hug me until he was 2 1/2 though ...

Regarding your husband, does he accept he has ASD? I think without that, there is very little hope in the long term.

@SeaEagleFeather Sometimes accepts it, sometimes thinks the diagnosis was wrong (mainly when things are going well and there haven’t been too many challenges).

I don’t think he realises the impact of it on me though. None of us can truly see ourselves as others see us and the ASD must get in the way of that too 🙁. As with many people he can hide it in many situations so people don’t realise. However if situations get demanding or complicated then that’s when problems occur.

I am glad your little one is safely here with you.

Long term the issues drain you dry and then beyond. A friendly acquaintance who's been married 40 years to someone with ASD gets a great deal of emotional support from her sisters and says "you have to hold yourself full".

Without her sisters she'd be lost.

When she went for marraige counselling, one of the things she learned was not to take responsiblity for his socially-inept behaviour. The marriage does work, but it's hard for her. Her husband accepts the diagnosis though.

Tbh, I'm at the end of my tolerance.
45 years "helping" DH to cope with life and 25 years "helping" DS to cope.

Have had enough, now. DD and I have suffered SO much abuse, and we have had enough

So tired of it all.

Holding yourself full is good advice. As is not taking responsibility for them or their behaviour. I make sure I find ways to look after myself and meet my own needs now regardless of what he is doing.

@Catmaiden I hear you. I go through periods of feeling just like that. I have moved heaven and earth in the past to support my DH. I wouldn’t mind if it were appreciated but it is barely acknowledged (at best) and at times even devalued and abused. So I’m not surprised you are exhausted. There’s no end to it.

@Apple222 I think we definitely have a great connection but I'm assuming he is thinking whether to go out there and try looking for someone to have kids with or see how things go with me. I'm slowly observing the Aspie side as we go along and seeing whether the relationship has legs. He just makes me so happy but after reading this thread, I worry.

Asperger’s interesting diagnosis. { about me not a partner)

I was not diagnosed until age 28 because the doctors could not agree. From what I understand the main diagnosis in children should have 2 components from a list
1- deficits in social interactions

1. Restrictive repetitive patterns on behaviour particularly around a certain activity of interest

I didn’t have any type of developmental delay, I enjoyed most activities, my brother and class mates company, and I was never really frustrated,

Although I enjoyed many activities (tennis, horses, swimming and travelling I had an aptitude for number or maths of any kind. My reacher told the head and rhey sent me for a 3 day evaluation after which I returned to class- it must have bwwn a week or so later rye heaspd brought mt parents in and me too. They believed I had a rare type of Asperger that they has nor seen before called HIP high functioning and I needed a gifted program because of the IQ results and thw first person I knew also liked math and start a club.
I feel lucky to have landed here on the spectrum. I’ve neved had children bur more long term partners, which is nice, the thing I need to work on is mot correcting people. It’s not my job.

Just my experience.

gotham it sounds like for you it's enriched your life, that's a good thing :)

I hope you understand that this thread is specificially for people who've run up, hard, against the profound differences in social interactions and needs that the different sorts of brain wiring produce. This thread is not to diss the good parts of being with someone with autism, but it -is- to be able to meet other people and to talk about the hard parts.

That means it can't always be easy to read. Just a heads up

@SeaEagleFeather I can completely understand and meant to say that people who know me well go batshit crazy watching me count everything around me preferably in units of 5.
Also I didn’t sleep at all last night because I have a mouse (hopefully not rat) in my house so couldn’t sleep.
Of course every instance of ASD is vastly different, one thing that I know changed my life was my Gran lived next door and would spend hours with me (retired) and as this was in the 70’s decades before my diagnosis I think she believed I was an “idiot savant” spent so much time with me teaching me to look playmates in the eyes, smile, but the most important things she taught me were active listening and talking. Firstly listen to what someone was saying or asking you to do, if you couldn’t remember write it down and exchange a pleasantry after and likely they will do the same for you.

The one thing I will say that I PERSONALLY feel is that video games are catastrophic to an ASD person particularly men. Once something like that becomes the fixation activity I do not know it there is a way back to family life

@SeaEagleFeather I can completely understand why and how the families of the ASD member are at the end of their rope. Please let me know if I can assist

Thank you that's lovely of you to offer. We are divorced now but were married a fair time and it's taking a long time to recover from the strain.

Your Gran sounds an absolute gem. All that love, all that time, all that teaching of how people interact.

My older son, whom im sure is autistic to some degree (assessment in november) is utterly obsessed with games :( we all play actually, but he is addicted and the explosions when his time is up are so hard to deal with.

@Catmaiden What are you going to do? What can you do?

@Gothamgirl1970 Your gran sounds lovely. What a beautiful lady ❤️

@SeaEagleFeather I think not taking me to the hospital when I was so ill would have been the final nail in the coffin for any marriage. You are a strong person. That comes across in your posts. I assume though your DH is still in your life because of the DC? How did he cope with divorce?

He got passive aggressive to the point that his best friend reached out to me, said he could see he was being awful and was i ok (!). I couldn't say anything about anything; I ended up literally silenced for the whole time we were together. Everythign I said he argued and challenged until I was empty and there was nothing left.

He also tricked 100,000 out of the kids' grandad. The action is Arseholeness not ASD, I think, but the thoughprocesses remind me somehow of the whole marriage. He wanted something to be true (that the money was a gift not a loan) and so he's convinced himself that's the case and then undermined and gaslighted and lied to me that it was a gift. He had me so confused that it took me time to actually check with Grandpa and Grandpa confirmed that yes it was a loan. But this was typical in the whole marriage.

He told me in marriage counselling that in the first eight years of the marriage that "I didn't think you had to listen to anything you said" as if it was quite normal. He literally said those words.

@SeaEagleFeather Wanting something to be true and then making up a whole story around it is something I can relate to with my DH. I often feel that he is stuck in a much earlier stage of development (early teens?) with lies being commonplace and generally being emotionally immature in his reactions to things. It often feels that everything has to go his way otherwise he can’t cope. He can’t deal with uncertainty and reacts with anger, blaming me because he isn’t in control. I do feel it is all about wanting to have control over every situation, wanting to dictate how things go and what happens in the end. It’s no wonder you felt silenced.

I want to say I hope you feel free of it now but if you are seeing the same traits in your DC then that must be so hard.