Page 4 | Married to someone with Aspergers: support thread 5

Ignoremeiaminvisible · 14/04/2021 17:53

Wanting to make you happy!!!!!!
There are so many things this means and most are NOT love.

If she's happy my life can carry on as normal without any extra stress

Misogynistic crap seen on TV, in films and said by older relations in regard to their wives

Or an empty comment because there is no understanding as to what constitutes happiness

Deflecting blame from themselves 'all I've ever wanted to do is make them happy' meaning even if I have been an insensitive, self absorbed pain in the backside I've only ever done it with good intentions

(God I feel better with that off my chest)

TrueRefuge · 14/04/2021 19:29

I agree with you both!

@MarinaMermaid I can't disagree. It's part of what love is. But real relationships aren't just about love. Love isn't always enough. Having your needs met is a key part of why humans have relationships. I grew up in a house where my emotions weren't understood or really allowed; where I wasn't treated as special, or cherished. Where I was often overlooked for things deemed more valuable. So not having those needs met now is very painful, regardless of whether my partner wants to make me happy or not. I am still working through the process of understanding whether I can be in this relationship long-term if it's never really going to change in any substantial way. It's hard to hear "I'll sit with you if that's what you want, just tell me". I want to be with someone who WANTS to sit with me too. Not someone who just does "because it makes me happy".

@Ignoremeiaminvisible agreed, and in this case I KNOW that he is trying and he has the intention. It's like he just cannot comprehend. If I were happy to go through the rote "tell me you love me once a day, while you stroke my hair. Buy me X present once every three months to show you think of me and appreciate having me in your life", he would do it! One of the problems is I find that set-up so hard. So mechanical. I want him to do it because he FEELS it. And I'm starting to grieve the fact that he just doesn't, in fact feel it, and probably never will.

evelynina · 14/04/2021 21:13

I feel sad today that my OH will never initiate a hug or kiss for my whole life. We have separate beds separate sofas what's the point ?

TrueRefuge · 15/04/2021 08:26

@evelynina I'm sorry, I understand the pain of feeling like you're just coexisting and they'd be perfectly content with that and only spend time with you because you're screaming into their face. And once they've done one shift (one hug, one date night, one nice gesture), it all goes back to normal.

Sorry I'm new to the thread - what's your situation? Is he diagnosed, does he know you feel at the end of your tether? Does he know hugs are important to you?

evelynina · 15/04/2021 23:34

[quote TrueRefuge]@evelynina I'm sorry, I understand the pain of feeling like you're just coexisting and they'd be perfectly content with that and only spend time with you because you're screaming into their face. And once they've done one shift (one hug, one date night, one nice gesture), it all goes back to normal.

Sorry I'm new to the thread - what's your situation? Is he diagnosed, does he know you feel at the end of your tether? Does he know hugs are important to you?[/quote]
He's not formally diagnosed his father is and he is more on the spectrum than OH is. But he admits it and acknowledges he does have ASD.

Yes he does he just can't be bothered or will say a smell is bothering him (I don't smell it's that his sense of smell is more sensitive so if I'm wearing a certain perfume or detergent.)

Daftasabroom · 19/04/2021 13:01

DW is totally content coexisting. It's horrible. The fewer and easier demands placed on her the more content she is. Whether that's me, the kids, events, work, housework, shopping, cooking. I find quite bizarre that she finds the total lack physical and emotional intimacy normal. She simply cannot imagine that anyone could feel differently to her.

Skye99 · 19/04/2021 22:33

Daftasabroom My H also finds that normal.

Original poster

Bluebellforest1 · 20/04/2021 09:49

@Daftasabroom @Skye99 mine too. It’s horrible. Not living at all, just existing.

OP posts:

Daftasabroom · 22/04/2021 17:31

Me: Im going to do some savory tarts and Spanishy salad and tappas.
DW: Don't do the tarts.
Me: but I'd like tart for dinner.
DW: but I only want salad.

She literally cannot comprehend why someone would want something she hadn't thought of.

Skye99 · 22/04/2021 23:05

@Daftasabroom

Me: Im going to do some savory tarts and Spanishy salad and tappas. DW: Don't do the tarts. Me: but I'd like tart for dinner. DW: but I only want salad.

She literally cannot comprehend why someone would want something she hadn't thought of.

😮

HelpWendy · 26/04/2021 03:18

I am 95% certain my husband of 6 years is on thr spectrum. As in high functioning autistic or what was known as aspergers. I have only in the last nine months become so sure of it. For the first 4/5 years I thouhjt i was slowly going crazy. Very soon affter i married i very quickly began to see something was off and not normal. He is a very good man but i started to struggle to make sense of life with him. I am a shell of myself. I live daily and mostly nighting in a spiral of fear, doubt, guilt and sometimes clarity that it is the only explation. I coukd go into all the details and examples but i would be preaching to the converted. I know no more of him than the day i married him. I niavely assumed that with time we would get to know eachother more and more like is any 'normal' relationship. But im realising now that instead of calm rivers run deep, there is nothing to know. I have critically called myself neurotic for the last few years but i realise now that i have been tryibg to reason everything, to find a way to make sense of things and hopefully i way of figuring things out or learning to cope better. But I cant, I am lost, I have support but no one really gets it. I am not surviving as a person. I have two ylung kods and he is a good person but I am crumbling or maybe gasping for air (life) is a better way of putting it. I cant continue like this. The only way of loving is to break to my family and coming out the baddie as he is such a gentle soul. Please help me, how do i take steps. I feel like i want to write a letter to the world, telling everyone that i am not crazy, this is real. He ia going through a drawn out process of an assessment.

HelpWendy · 26/04/2021 03:19

Typing on my phone in the middle of the night, sorry for all the typos.

HelpWendy · 26/04/2021 03:22

I cant believe the only way out is to break up my family. I never fathomed a life like that for my children. My heart is broken.

Newusertothis · 26/04/2021 07:25

Hope you are ok @HelpWendy has he admitted he may me autistic?
could you give some examples?
im still unsure if my ex is the same

Skye99 · 26/04/2021 09:01

Hi HelpWendy. I share your feelings. I don’t know much more than you though about taking steps, as I am at the same point. I also feel heartbroken and that I really wanted not to break up my family, but it may be the best way forward. (In one way it’s already broken, because the marriage is broken, and not mainly by me.) I also feel I can’t continue like this.

It took me a lot longer than you to see how things are, though. I couldn’t even put the problems into words properly till recently.

How about gathering some information initially? You don’t have to act on it. Look on the Citizens’ Advice Bureau website and get an appointment with a solicitor? Some do a first 30-minute appointment free. Find out what your financial situation would be likely to be.

I haven’t done those things yet but I need to. I find it frightening. I don’t have good health.

It’s good you have some support. If you needed it, in some places counselling is available for a donation because volunteers will do it, sometimes to get experience towards professional qualifications. (Try Googling ‘counselling donation’ or ‘voluntary counselling’ and the name of your nearest town.)

Even if you do look like the baddie, it’s important to do the best thing overall for yourself and your children. You said no one really gets it. I found that too, but people here probably will.

Sending all good wishes.

Daftasabroom · 26/04/2021 09:04

@HelpWendy I feel for you. I've tried so hard over 20+ years to explain what I see in DW. Phrases like the closer I try to get the further away she is. Or, it's like a sheet of glass between DW and the world but the closer you look the thicker it seems to be. There's a theme here...

I'd completely echo your still waters sentiment. I thought we were going to spend our lives getting to know each other, but although I can predict 100% how DW will behave or what she will say in any situation I don't really know any more than after our fix six months together.

Skye99 · 26/04/2021 09:21

Hello TrueRefuge. I was very interested in your post but didn’t have time to comment when i read it. Some of what you say sounds familiar. I think my H has attachment issues too.

If your H really wants to make you happy, and is practically supportive, I’d think there must be some care for you there, even if he isn’t aware of feeling it.

I think the pandemic has made things worse in my marriage, but maybe it just speeded up the process.

BunsyGirl · 26/04/2021 19:39

Does anyone have experience of an elderly person with undiagnosed Aspergers/autism? I am sure that this applies to my father. His behaviour has deteriorated over the past 12 months and I’m not sure how to deal with it, other than cutting him completely out of my life, as he’s making it so miserable. But he has no other family apart from my brother who is not interested and no friends whatsoever so I feel guilty about cutting him off.

Skye99 · 26/04/2021 21:30

Hi BunsyGirl Could there be anything else involved in the deterioration of his behaviour, like dementia? Even untreated UTIs can make a difference. Have you tried talking to his GP about the change?

If you are the only person involved in his life, but you need to protect yourself, would it be possible to keep more of a distance but still be available in case practical help is needed later, such as organising carers? (I don’t know if he needs practical help now or not.) If you are the only person he has, it seems like it would be a big loss to him if you went completely.

BunsyGirl · 27/04/2021 15:32

@Skye99 I don’t think there is dementia although he has become aggressive towards me over the past couple of years. However, my mum used to say that he was aggressive to her and she died almost nine years ago. I feel very guilty about this now as we didn’t take her too seriously as they were always arguing, but now I can see his behaviour is disgraceful at times. TBH, my dad has always been a bit “different” and I have struggled with him since my teenage years, but it’s got much worse over the last 12 months as he’s become obsessed with Covid and can’t talk about anything else. One of the things that really used to freak me out as a teenager was him staring at me for long periods of time. He still does this. I can’t stand it and when I tell him not to do it, he makes out that it is me with a problem. In fact, he does that for everything. I have tried to get him to go to his GP but he refuses. I have been so patient over the past nine years, he lived with us for 18 months and has been on loads of holidays with us. For context he has been away with my brother once and my auntie and uncle once and each of them have refused to go away with him again. My brother has only seen him twice in the last three years and has basically left me to deal with him. I just can’t take it anymore. My dad is hopeless with money and has spent every penny of the tens of thousands my mum saved for their retirement, so we are now having to pay for the maintenance of his house and car.

Skye99 · 28/04/2021 02:20

@BunsyGirl It does sound very difficult. If it was me I would get up and go out if he stared at me. (This can be done in 3 stages: 1. Do you realise you are staring fixedly at me? 2. If you keep staring at me I will go out. 3. Go out.) But I probably wouldn’t leave his life completely. You don’t have to see him much necessarily.

HelpWendy · 29/04/2021 11:22

@Newusertothis - Hi there. HE hasn't admitted it per say. I gently raised it as a possibility and every now and then he will say that it could be the case and it could explain so much for him. Examples would be, no imagination, no desire to talk about the future, seeing marriage as more of an arrangement (his words), no need to have casual conversation unless it is about something in the news or something factual, unable to assert himself in a conversation or flow in a conversation, he is either a deer in he headlights or you can see he is trying to find the thing to say that you want to hear. He is a really kind man, but seems to be such a different wavelenght that I cannot get my head around it. Everything is very courteous, polite and surface. Which makes me feel crazy most of the time.

HelpWendy · 29/04/2021 11:28

@Skye99 Thank you

It is so interesting to hear the experiences of others.

I feel the same re breaking up a marriage, in a way I am not heartbroken yet as I don't think for whatever reason the penny has dropped for me. It's like living with a fantasy future. But yes, me too, I feel stuck at this point. He doesn't seem to need me to enjoy live, or over relies on my to produce the goods when it comes to thinking about the family and creating any joy for us. Not in a mean way, it just isn't on his radar.

We have been doing marriage counselling for almost a year now. And I have been seeing a therapist to try to figure my own direction out. I just feel such guilt and confusion and I have no idea how to get past that. He does his best but it is like the simple life on steriods or as someone described it 'Planet Flat'.

It took me a lot longer than you to see how things are, though. I couldn’t even put the problems into words properly till recently.

How about gathering some information initially? You don’t have to act on it. Look on the Citizens’ Advice Bureau website and get an appointment with a solicitor? Some do a first 30-minute appointment free. Find out what your financial situation would be likely to be.

I haven’t done those things yet but I need to. I find it frightening. I don’t have good health.

It’s good you have some support. If you needed it, in some places counselling is available for a donation because volunteers will do it, sometimes to get experience towards professional qualifications. (Try Googling ‘counselling donation’ or ‘voluntary counselling’ and the name of your nearest town.)

Even if you do look like the baddie, it’s important to do the best thing overall for yourself and your children. You said no one really gets it. I found that too, but people here probably will.

Sending all good wishes.

HelpWendy · 29/04/2021 11:31

@Daftasabroom

This is it exactly.

How have you coped for so long? Life is so dead and flat it doesn't make sense to me anymore. I thought it was me for a long time, but he has admitted that he is somewhat happy to go through the motions of life with me, wishes he could want or see more but doesn't.

19thNamechange · 29/04/2021 11:35

Following this thread with interest as I am beginning to think my OH has Aspergers.