Thank you bows we have ducklings! hence the name ...
I wonder how you escaped. It may be too personal to share but I wonder if you met someone else?
No and yes.
I escaped because an old family friend stepped in and said he'd make sure I wasn't homeless. As it turns out he's been very, very generous - I appreciate him til the end of my days, as I say.
I had made a friend online actually whom I was close to, but with absolutely -no- funny business going on. There was attraction, which I think was partly desperation, but 1) I REALLY REALLY wanted the marriage to work and 2) I'm not interested in cheating and 3) I can control myself! so the attraction was very much on the back burner and not fed, and starved. But I got warmth from the friendship, and he actually thought I was worth talking to which right then meant the world. He is also a decent man and never once tried to push me into something that I didn't want to do, which meant I could trust him.
Now, 3 years after the breakdown of the marriage, we are companions. He doesn't live here permanently. But he's also very good with my children and frankly he knows that they are the priority of my life until they are grown and can look after themselves well, and he accepts that. It can't be easy for him.
The catalyst for the end of the marriage was an extreme piece of ignoring. He'd shut down everything I had to say until I honestly felt silenced and could not talk. He would laugh and joke with the kids, but not me and I was feeling like he was taking them over. As with so many of us, if anything went wrong it was my problem and why was I making a fuss?
But the final straw was when I got a compliment about something I'd done from three men I'd never met before or since and he didn't look at me or speak to me for a week except over the very basics for the children. That's abusive, not autism, but I just didn't care at that point. It was the culmination of years of ignoring anything I had to say, and that it had come this time because of a random compliment didn't matter.
it fucks me right off when people say "have you considered you might not be easy to live with" because like so many people married to autistic people, I've considered this at extreme length. It's got some truth in it. But I fail to see how it can in any way be my fault if I'm left on the floor while developing sepsis, or he rides 1 foot from the bumper of the car in front at 160kpm on the autobahn, or he doesn't speak to me because I received a compliment from someone else.
"You should adapt more" makes very angry. I have no patience now with the arrogance of people who have not walked in our shoes, or who have had a much less heavy time of it and think -their- experience of being married to someone with autism is the same as everyone else's. If someone has a lighter experience of it, thank God for them, and I have no problems at all with someone in that situation who has the perception and humility to realise not everyone's experience is the same.
It's the thing that I struggle with with some of the autistic people who come here saying we are all terrible people because we should consider their struggles, without ever considering that some of us did nothing but try to consider their struggles and help their husband/wife with social and organisational matters.
On the other hand I have a very great deal of respect for the autistic people who come here, and there are some, and find the thread helps them understand 'the other side' and it can even help them deal with the complicated world of the NT's. Actually, as well as respecting their open mindedness and willingness to try to understand, it -helps- me personally because it feels like our efforts to communicate can, sometimes, get through. I appreciate that a lot.