Married to someone with Asperger's/ASC: support thread 6

[Daftasabroom]

New thread, and as previously:

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).

DH and I have been together 17 years. This year I told him that I wasn’t happy in the relationship and we began marriage counselling.

Through the counselling it became clearer that DH is autistic. He has said he doesn’t have a need or want to connect with people on an emotional level. He’s highly intelligent and very successful at work and he works all the time. He is looking into getting a diagnosis. He is very inflexible, doesn’t like change in his routines, eats the same things on the same days etr.

I grew up severely emotionally neglected and have struggled with feeling alone, detached and empty in life. With help from counselling I’m beginning to tune in with myself and recognise my needs and I’ve realised that emotional connection is really important to me and that this has been absent in my marriage (and other relationships).

I have felt that our marriage is like we are two separate people living under one roof. Deep down I’ve always had a nagging feeling that the relationship isn’t what I wanted but then other things work so well.

Recently I’ve had some ill health and yesterday was feeling unwell. There was a complete lack of empathy and care from DH. I ended up going to A&E and stayed for 9 hrs. It was 4:30am when I got discharged and DH told me to get a taxi home. He didn’t seem concerned about my safety at all and I felt completely alone and disappointed he didn’t come and get me. Is it unreasonable to want your DH to collect you even if it’s In the early hours of the morning?
Feeling so conflicted and sad right now.

Welcome @Iamnotaloggrip and @Lavanderrose.

@Iamnotaloggrip , I don’t really have advice but just wanted to sympathise. It does sound very wearing. I have experienced some similar overreactions from my H, but not very often.

In my own case, I have found out if I tell my H I mind something he does and he doesn’t take notice (or in his case, says he will change it but doesn’t try to), that thing does not improve. Strangely, since I said I wanted to divorce, he seems to be making an effort to be considerate sometimes and to think before he acts or speaks. Maybe that just got the message through that I really didn’t like the way he treated me. We had already had many discussions and also counselling.

So I think the only thing that might possibly have helped is if I had set firm boundaries early on, such as by walking off if he acted a particular way, and if that didn’t help, saying that I would leave him if it continued and then going away for a week and seeing what happened. Possibly the message would have got through at that point.

To do that, though, you have to be prepared to break up with the person if they don’t act differently, and I wasn’t then. By the time I was, I felt all the trust had gone and I didn’t want to try any longer.

How would I try to cope in your situation? I might go to counselling and discuss possible strategies with the counsellor? Also with close friends if possible.

When your DS shows similar behaviour, would it be possible to point out to your husband later how it is like something he has done?

All best wishes.

@Lavanderrose, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect your DH to collect you even in the early hours of the morning. I would do that for a partner. I’m not sure whether everyone would, I suppose.

Strangely enough, although my H is like yours in not wanting emotional connection, he has always been caring and helpful if I had a physical ailment. He has taken me to A&E in the past and collected me (sometimes stayed with me as well). I’m sure he would have collected me at 4.30 am.

It sounds very hard not to have any empathy or care when you were ill.

@Lavanderrose I can identify with a lot of your post.

Me too. DH v successful. Works all the time. I have often thought it’s a way to avoid having to give any time to personal relationships which he finds is a waste of time. He is also very distant with his whole family, is really quite rude and blunt to them when we visit (which is never for long and always very rushed). That said he’s very steady, always does what he says and is like a machine in terms of relentless output. I find him as astonishing in admiration as I find him frustrating in his lack of interest in me and our children. Financially he provides well but I feel very lonely.

He also has outbursts about anything and everything.

There is a pedantic focus on minutiae. Even things like a getting the wrong spoon for serving the vegetables at lunch can cause visible irritation and snappiness. There is always a right way to do things (as per his opinion) and god forbid we should get it wrong. It means being constantly criticised and walking on eggshells just waiting for the next mini tornado to explain why I’ve got it wrong. Again.

I also just feel unseen. Like I don’t exist. He comes home from work, we don’t eat together as he’s so late. We can literally just say hello and then goodnight and that’s it some evenings. He continues on in front of his computer, eating and working.

my mum is dying and will go I think in the next couple of months and he is very obviously tired of my grief. I cry alone because there’s no point to be around him. He seems unable to comfort me. He’s never here much anyway.

DD has ASD and exhibits similar outbursts. She’s never had a friend. Life is very very wobbly at 14.

I love them both. But it’s very very hard at times to feel fulfilled and happy, nurtured, contented. Always I feel unease. Worry. And a sense of being transparent. Like I’m not really here.

@1984Yes ….but I feel very lonely.

I can relate to the relationship loneliness. My DH doesn’t understand the need for connective type chat/small talk. He likes deep, intense debates (preferably science or politics) or silence.

Noise-cancelling headphones have really helped him - they cut out household/kids’/commuting noises so that he can focus. They make me feel cut off from him but that’s what he needs. Isolation without aural sensory overload.

Meanwhile I get my ‘social fix’ from my friends. I make sure to spend plenty of time with them. They provide the social support and types of conversation that he can’t. Once in a while I’ll have a in depth discussion with DH about something and come away tired but once again impressed at his intellect and fascinating insights and reminded why I fell in love with him in the first place.

Hope you can find the social support and any sense of connection you need. 🤞🏻

@LoveFoolMe

thank you. I did get a lot out of having good friends but I’ve been struck with exhaustion due to the grief of my mother’s illness and haven’t seen anyone for over a year now. I’d love to go back to being that person but ill health struck me too, a chronic condition and this plus my ASD teenage daughter has been too much to bear. I don’t have the energy or time for friends and I miss them dearly.

I hope when one day I finally recover my strength, health and energy they still want to know me!

it’s like life is on hold at the moment.

I agree my husband is just the same. Intense conversations about politics or finance and always his views are unique but yes they are tiring.

I miss humour too. He doesn’t laugh much. Fortunately my DD has a great sense of humour so I get something at least there.

But I never really got to get in a mums group where they go out at night for fun things.

I’m certain if I’d married someone NT I would have and I miss those nights of fun and camaraderie.

Do your children have ASD?

I’ve found this is the hardest thing of all and I had to give up work to look after them both.

that has been the main point of draining energy in my life. Nothing ever goes very well for them at school and I have endless support sessions trying to put them back together after the latest setback or rejection at school.

So many many tears. I wish school was easier.

I'm struggling atm. My husband will never get any diagnosis and doesn't see his own oddities. I see so many good qualities in him but there are occasionally moments where I feel like I've married an alien. It's lonely. Really fkn lonely at those moments. Just wondering what life would have been like if I'd married someone else. Or married no one.

And I have ADHD. I'm ND myself and have very specific difficulties. But ultimately I am becoming chronically lonely in this relationship and I don't think it can ever get better. It's impacting on my health now. Really, seriously impacting. I have gone to such incredible lengths to preserve my marriage and family life but I'm starting to have moments where it all feels unfixable.

@SquirrelSoShiny another post I could have written.

@1984Yes my ASC DS has an incredible sense of humour, he says so much with very few words. He's also a very good mimic and could sing one song to the tune of another at age 5!

@SquirrelSoShiny me too. I feel so lonely and like it can’t be fixed.

the thought of if I’d married someone else haunts me. I think of it every day. Because I’ve done 20 years of this.

I found this letter online and it describes what has happened to me. www.goodtherapy.org/blog/married-with-undiagnosed-autism-why-women-who-leave-lose-twice-0420164/amp/

he does manage a card for my birthday but that’s it. And the children have learnt also that my birthday isn’t to be celebrated also. They don’t bother.

@SquirrelSoShiny and I have ADHD too. I think the combination of ADHD emotional over sensitivity and impulsiveness is not a good match with someone who has little awareness of the emotional needs and feelings of others and exhibits rigid behaviour.

How the f**k did we get to here?

We're clearly co-dependent.

@1984Yes Oh no, that sounds really tough 😟. Spending time with my friends is my lifeline, I'm so sorry you can't see any friends at the moment.

@1984Yes "....Do your children have ASD?"

DD1 is very similar to my DH but doesn't want to look into a diagnosis. She's very intense and has all-or-nothing thinking but who knows whether that's brain-wiring, character or being a teenager.

DD2 is much more socially confident and relaxed. I worry that she's got used to fitting around her sister so I try to encourage her to work out her own needs and feelings.

@SquirrelSoShiny Thank you for sharing. I am feeling just the same right now.

Some day I will share my story. So far it has felt too difficult and too painful to tell, and it feels as if there is no way out.

@Daftasabroom your comments this afternoon resonate.

I am visualising standing in a circle, holding hands with you, Squirrel and others who have posted regularly here.

May we form a band of strength to get us through this difficult time, however long it may last.

I love my husband, and he is a good husband and father.

Blinking ‘eck though, sometimes I feel so sad and lonely. He is an island. I’m on the beach, by myself holding my little bucket and spade.

www.goodtherapy.org/blog/married-with-undiagnosed-autism-why-women-who-leave-lose-twice-0420164/amp/

Thank you for that link. I'd read it and it haunted me because it was so so true, even to the alienation with the children.

I'm in a part-time relationship now and the number of flinchings I notice within myself are chilling. I can't even trust his niceness and steadiness because what I thought was steadiness and reticence with ex-H ... turned out to be something entirely different. I'm still not much good at holding a conversation since I was shut down for the entire marriage - he told me in marriage counselling "I didn't think I had to listen to anything you said" and he meant it, even to the necessity of locking the back door and gate at night. I'm not the person I was.

This article describes exactly my fears about the dcs and my feeling that there is somehow a distance between us that shouldn’t be there.

I do think it's really important for us to have careers, interests and friends outside of our relationships wherever possible. I need much more interaction and emotional support than my autistic DH does.

He says he'd be exactly the same even on a desert island. Whereas I'd only survive a desert island if I had some hope of seeing people again.

I think I have found a thread here that is making sense to me.

Please excuse my lack of awareness of terminology, I think I am just starting along this path.

My husband shows many of the traits described: highly intelligent, very focussed on his interests, gets very frustrated when things are not going the way he wants...

I thought he was controlling, he likes to tell me how to do things I have been doing pretty well for the last 40 years or so (pretty irritating to be honest) now I can see it is more than that. And he gets upset/angry when I do get irritated.

He tries to tease me, but fails, in that I get offended/hurt by his clunky attempts. I thought he was being narcissistic, but he just can 'get it'

I am trying to understand and adapt, he seems to perhaps have a little more 'emotional intelligence ' than some partners described on here, and if I can understand more, I will be hurt less.

In some ways we are lucky, 2nd marriage, no children (I did notice that his son from a previous marriage did show some of these traits as well)

I shall be reading the other threads as well. Thank you @Daftasabroom for starting this thread, lots to think about..

It's strange but things haven't been too bad for the last few months. Up until the last week when a number of events, instigated and organised by DW, have meant she's exhausted and stressed, I assume from masking. As usual this means that she seems to go through a kind of series of slow burn meltdowns where I am the butt of constant criticism and insult.

@TimeToLose8 he likes to tell me how to do things we have a saying in the family "don't worry Mum/DW will be along in a minute to tell us what we're doing wrong". Apparently she is only trying to help.

I usually cook and shop anyway but for the last week every aspect of every meal has been criticized or questioned. Coffee has the wrong amount of milk, the salsa rosa is over/under cooked, the sour cream and chive dip has too much/little garlic, the fresh foccocia is not right.

Even ASC DS tried to reassure me that I was only being bullied and picked on because mum was stressed about the event she had organised.

@Daftasabroom

its almost certainly stress related.

DH criticism rises massively when he’s stressed. It’s like the more he can control his environment at home the more in control he will feel of his uncontrollable work life.

of course none of that is true. What will be will be but he doesn’t see it that way.

I don’t know if this would work for you but I find naming the source of the stress pills him up short a little.

I’ll say “the reason you’re ratty with is is because you’re flying out tomorrow to country X and it’s all the pressure you’re feeling that’s making you double down on us”.

”Please can you see this for what it is, you’re stressed about work”:

your cooking sounds amazing by the way. Can you come and live at our house? My cooking is terrible!!

i don’t even know what salsa verde is lol!!

I have just found this thread and will come back to it when I have time to write a long post. My DH was diagnosed with ASD 3 years go and has an ADHD assessment next week. We both have struggles and honestly I suspect ADHD for myself too ever since I've been learning about it. We have 2 children age 3 and 1 and the 3yo is on an SEN register at nursery as it's suspected he has ASD. I'll come back when I've got time to read thread more etc :)

@1984Yes I'll try but she will only complain that's it's me stressing her out!

It was just dips and things for the book club party she had organised. Both DS and DW are quite gregarious. But DW will have a major meltdown if things don't go quite the way she expects, which of course she's useless at communicating, drinks and nibbles don't tend to be too much of a big deal, but big family Christmases with people staying, multiple meals etc are just a nightmare. Christmases staying at others where she has less control are even worse.