How do I get him to consider he has aspergers?

[Birdybirdie]

It is likely that DH has aspergers and/or ADHD and it is the cause of many issues within our relationship and family life.
I have brought this up with him, but he is completely offended whenever I mention it, or laughs at me as if I'm crazy.
One of his defences is always "you are the only one who thinks I have it,so it's you with the problem."
Only this isn't true. I have not told him this.
However, a professional I work with told me she suspected he had it on meeting him; my own mother thinks he has it, but most poignantly, a mutual friend I have never told my concerns to randomly blurted out one day "has it ever occured to you that he has aspergers?" She was friends with him before she was friends with me.
This offered me a great deal of relief after suspecting aspergers for many years. However, getting DH to take my concerns seriously is impossible and I am walking a fine line between speaking to him honestly about this and completely upsetting and insulting him by bringing it up.
He also turns the tables on me a lot, listing my own problems and convinces himself that I am more autistic than he is. I probably have a few traits, but know my issues boil down to anxiety and a high sensitivity to noise that I've had since being brought up by shouty alcoholics. I also struggle to control my emotions. But I don't have aspergers or autism.
I have done online tests with him which he says are "nonsense." I have also spoken to his sister about the probability of him having it and she was also completely offended that I would say such a thing. I know his father thinks he's a bit different and I question if he knows, deep down but the whole family are a little delusional anyway.
I know eventually, I will probably have to leave him, but we would still have 2 DCs who will require his love and parenting. I wish he would consider aspergers a possibility, but it's like knocking at a brick wall.
Any ideas?

P.S. @BlankTimes

Thank you for this article! It’s really excellent & certainly deepened my understanding. Peace.

neuroclastic.com/2019/05/04/its-a-spectrum-doesnt-mean-what-you-think/

The word ‘mild’ and ‘milder’ is certainly used a lot here to describe the formerly described Asperger’s Syndrome:

you REALLY need to read the link earlier. Written by someone you would call 'mild' explaining why that is unhelpful and frustrating to people at both 'ends' of the spectrum.

here it is again
It;s a spectrum doesn't mean what you think

I've already written that I found that article very helpful, which I did! I read it all and all the comments. The first comment is very interesting, if you have the time to read it..

It's also worth remembering that it was written by one person with autism and was even disputed by a parent of three children with autism in the comments (she uses three different labels instead of mild-moderate-severe).

My aforementioned friend is one person with autism who uses 'mild' to describe her 'Asperger's' (as SHE likes to call it). Is my friend's view of her own life less apt that a person who writes a subjective post on the internet?

I completely take this on board and I won't be using the term 'mild' again myself and I certainly won't be entertaining this idea that 'we're all on the spectrum. I have learned from this but I think we need to accept that it can be a semantical nightmare and it can also be subjective.

P.S. That article was offered BEFORE I wrote what you quoted of me above.

Eeek, sorry I mean AFTER. That article was offered AFTER. I wrote what you quoted before reading that article and if you read my recent posts, you'll see how grateful I was for that article!

Nogoodwithgoodbyes

apologies, the thread hadn't refreshed and there were more answers that I hadn't seen.

The article was posted at the beginning of the thread and then again after you wrote about mild autism.

@ittakes2

What we have done in our family is get counselling and therapy on social skills and autistic behaviours that affect relationships such as seeing shades of grey rather than seeing things as black and white.

Can you tell me more about this? I feel it is something that would benefit my dd.
And do you have a link to the infant socialisation thing you were talking about, or more details?

I didn't see it at the beginning of the thread but as I said, I found it useful to read a person with autism's subjective view of autism. I also find it useful to talk to lots of people with autism and how they view it too.

I know quite a few people with autism. For some, diagnosis was a relief, it explained why they had struggled with x or y all their lives.

For others they weren't bothered about a diagnosis, but they were looking at how it might impact their lives (eg reading books about being married ot someone with autism, and understanding how it effects their relationship etc)

But I know others who are very obviously on the spectrum, but happy and not interested in getting diagnosed.

My nephews are both autistic and when they were diagnosed, my SIL began to look at herself and see very similar traits. We all realised pretty quickly that FIL probably was, and MIL, who I never met, also showed a lot of autistic tendencies.

I looked round at dh's family and a lot of pennies dropped if you know what I mean. None of those people have gone off to get a diagnosis (although SIL is thinking about it) but suddenly seeing that in the family, it made me more understanding of some of their 'quirks' and made they way the interact make a lot of sense.

Why not consider completing an online questionnaire together? We found it very helpful and the disparity in scores was really marked.
It prompted discussions like " I didn't know that you noticed registration numbers so often or thought about number patterns through the day...."
We liked the one at psychcentral

although I know I have some traits. I do try to work on myself a lot, I've had CBT, counselling, read a lot of books etc, so I am willing to alter and change
Have you been tested?
Did you do all these things because someone else's friend diagnosed you with something and told you to do them, or because you noticed a problem yourself and wanted to change something?

My dad's wife is convinced he has Asperger's, in her case as a counsellor who has never met my dad said he has it. I don't know if he is autistic or not, but when I brought up this remote diagnosis with him, it was obvious that he was rather upset be the whole thing. He asked me if I thought he had it, and I said it made no difference to me; to me, that's just how my dad is. He seemed quite relieved to hear that I wasn't going to label him.
His wife, who is lovely if a little naive sometimes :) made him sit down with her to look at a book the counsellor gave her, with pictures of faces (like smileys). My dad was supposed to look through it with her and say what emotions the faces showed. He was very unimpressed. He's perfectly capable of recognising emotions and was being made to feel like a child.
I think you need to approach these things really carefully and remember that it's easy to tread on toes.

steppemum - the first website has a test for guidance on whether a person's infant reflexes have gone dormant or not. I am not recommending this company as have never used them but you might find the website helpful. www.inpp.org.uk
I do however recommend the brushing technique they advocate and we saw this man, Bob. www.accesspotential.org. I got his details from the sen mumsnet boards. My son had zero eye contact amongst other things and a borderline ASD diagnosis as a small child and after the brushing (and other therapies but it was clear the brushing was a huge factor) his eye contact is completedly normal and he went to a long awaited ASD assessment for the assessor to acknowledge he had ASD traits previously but these had now gone.
The other social therapy I mentioned was just by a therapist with an interest in ASD and social skills. I can PM you the details if you live in the east of england. But there would be lots of therapists all over the UK who do similar. Maybe check the sen boards.

Hi op, I disagree with the people saying a diagnosis wouldn't help, even though it's true about the lack of support post-diagnosis, that doesn't matter for everyone. For me just understanding that there was a reason I am the way I am, and being able to do my own research on it, helped me to understand why I behaved certain ways and to find ways of coping and adapting when necessary. It also helped me accept myself which was very positive. But I don't think that anything you say or do can make him do it and it sounds like he's very resistant to the idea. If he is autistic, it's likely he has had a feeling of being different for a long time, he might even have a history of people saying mean things to him asking him why he isn't normal etc, that could be partly why he's so resistant to the idea. It can be a touchy subject. And maybe he has some negative stereotypes in his head about what being autistic actually means.

I understand you're worried about leaving him and then him having to take care of the children without you there. Maybe it would be better if you took autism/asd/Asperger's/whatever out of the picture, and tried to talk to him about the actual behaviour you're worried about. Things like not calling the ambulance for example. You can explain what your concern are and hopefully come up with some solutions between you. You don't need to discuss it in the context of being separated if you're not ready to have that conversation yet.

I don’t get why this has turned into a thread about autism. This man is an intolerable prick, autism or no autism.

It could also be that coparenting with someone oblivious to their child's needs and unwilling to change is becoming unbearable and she is pinning her hopes on a diagnosis changing things. It's pretty common to get to a point where you pin your hopes on one thing even if it is flawed thinking.

My husbands first wife convinced him he has aspergers, he didn't get tested. He was socially awkward and told he wasn't capable of social interaction and he was a risk to others, she worked as a support worker with autistic individuals at the time.

Fast forward to now, he isn't autistic. He isn't socially awkward, he was being controlled.

If he wants to take the test then great, if not then don't force him.

My XP was undiagnosed HFA. He'd only had one girlfriend before me. At first he was just 'eccentric' but, having previously been married to an ASD man, and having one child who's ADHD, I thought he was on the spectrum and mentioned it to him. His whole family were very 'oh no, of course he's not, he's just...ummm....' including his sister.

He did an online test because he was interested (and, I think, wanted to 'prove me wrong') and scored pretty much off the chart. It helped him realise that some of his behaviours could be seen as odd by others, when he'd previously been firmly convinced that he was right and everyone else in the world was wrong.

We split up anyway. Age (he was over 50) was making some of his behaviours more extreme and it was more than I could live with.

So would your DP consider being tested to 'prove you wrong?' As many others have said, it won't change anything at all though.

I think OP has gone, but for me the main thing is that her DP is an independent adult. If he doesn't want to accept he has aspergers/autism, and doesn't want to be tested for it, it is his choice. Unless you are psychotic and need to be sectioned, people have free will around this.

It doesn't deny the reality that some people find adult diagnosis helpful and some do not. Its still their choice to pursue it or not. Its OK to suggest it, but to insist that someone pursues such a path is not really fair. I can speak about this a little from experience with an older teenager, who did not want to hear anything about the issue. I explained it a couple of times, but he wasn't interested, just like OP's DP. So I have had to leave him to decide for himself. I think he will not pursue it. Though who knows, he might read about it later on.

Re. Aspergers v. Autism, the only thing I would add is that though Aspergers is an autistic condition, I do understand how naming it the old fashioned way can clarify how the autism manifests. My personal opinion, is that there are different kinds of autism, or at least how they manifest. I would say 'Pathological or Compulsive Demand Avoidance' autism has some similarities but also some significant differences to, say 'Aspergers'. Even though they both come under the autism umbrella.

Nothing else to add. Agree with what a couple of previous posters who have said OP can't change him, and to keep trying to, is not fair on either of you, for reasons they explain very eloquently.

I haven’t read the whole thread but sympathise with your situation op. I separated four years ago from h who was diagnosed 12 months earlier. We have four children. It is not easy. The diagnosis confirmed what he thought and in our case (am not in any way saying this for or against seeking diagnosis - this is my experience) was the final straw for our marriage. We had two years of relationship counselling and had worked very hard at accommodating each other and trying to apply ways of working to common aims but with different view-points. He said to me that people in his situation have a choice whether to try to ‘learn’ social and other rules to ‘fit in’ and make life easier for those close to them, or to accept that they are ‘different’. His diagnosis helped him to see that he wanted to be him and did not want to try to adapt. At this point, in a very honest and frank conversation, we agreed it would be better for both of us to end the marriage.

Since then we have struggled to live our separate lives as the children go between the two households in a 50:50 shared care arrangement and there are a constant stream of differences’ to iron out, not to mention decisions we had to make about the marital home, finances etc.

One thing I can say which might offer reassurance in regards to the children’s care - he always defers to me on matters of health and to a lesser extent psychological well-being so, if one of the children is ill he wouldn’t just ignore the symptoms if they were serious, he would consult me early on.

I think it will take you a long time to come to terms with how being on the other side of this has made you feel, and can only suggest that you continue to think of you and the kids and be as kind as you can to him without compromising your well-being. I’ve had times when it has been impossible, but times when he shows kindness. He bought me a fish-shaped ice cube tray from Ikea once to cheer me up! Unfortunately one of the most difficult things is that people (ie friends in RL and family) never ‘get’ the ‘stuck’ nature of just about everything surrounding dialogue with people in this kind of situation. I was constantly urged to ‘just tell him x y z’ but of course, you never quite can. I often likened it to being on a witness stand - I’d need forensics arguments pre-prepared, researched, presented in a spreadsheet and even then... my view just wasn’t really a thing. It is a horrendously painful situation to be in. My mental health has suffered. My career. My finances. But. I will get back to being me.