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).

@HypocrisyHere so we’ve said the same thing…. 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

I felt very trapped @SquirrelSoShiny

Financial and because I wanted so badly for the children to grow up with stability. HIs reality became the dominant one though and I learned to be quiet and not speak.

@Surreality22
He's packing today and I'm in tears. I just hope he'll be ok I worry about him. He seems ok now but at the time we first decided to separate he cried for about a week and said he can't cope without me. And I do think he'll struggle. He's going back to live with his mother and I know that he struggles having her around too. I hope he will be well. We've had some good times among the bad, he was an amazing sense of humour and is so smart, has a great job and intellect. Just the lack of emotional intelligence that was missing, he inability to see things from my POV and react appropriately. It's sad.

It's very, very sad. Your love and care shine though, and it's obvious he cared for you too. Just the difference meant the relationship could not grow

take care of yourself.

I'm starting to hate the word "ablist". It's often used as a hammer to hit other people over the head with to force their views down other peoples' necks.

And I'm on Care component of the old DLA for life (or however long the Powers That Be decide 'life' is for).

No we’re not. You stated that only autistic posters had used abnormal to describe themselves - I clarified that it was non-autistic posters who used the phrase first.

Someone living in a marriage they aren't happy in due to the perceived ASD of their partner is not held against their will by a kidnapper. And making that comparison is ableist. And nasty.

I’ve been in and out of these threads for years and am a serial name changer. I avoided them for a while as they were just too painful and raw, although it was affirming to read that other people were experiencing the same as me, when say to say I questioned my sanity with the loneliness and lack of reciprocity. I’m now divorced but we still have contact for the children , all of whom are ND.

I suddenly get the “plopping.” The ramming of an agenda. The invalidation of another person’s lives experience. And the victim blaming. I absolutely was a victim of my former husband’s behaviour and choices and those choices and behaviour were driven by his autism.

I was a victim of my former husbands behaviour and choices. And those choices and behaviours were driven by the fact he was NT.

And?

Anyone had an affair?

Did it help, confirm the emptiness, highlight different types of relationship?

Obviously not perfect but does fill a massive emotional hole.

Not me. I really wanted the marriage to work :( No way was I going in for an affair. Though I could see the attraction of the emotional reciprocity. (great phrase, that)

In one of those moments you literally couldn't make up my husband has just walked into the room and plainly told me that what I want doesn't matter. He has made a plan with DC with no communication with me whatsoever. When I queried this they BOTH told me that what I want doesn't matter.

In other words even my own child is now joining Team You Don't Matter Mum. We make plans without you. He then came in and pompously justified his position and I told him to go away. Because I just realised he never really discusses plans he just takes unilateral action and I either fall into line or I... be alone.

I think he's just ended our marriage he just doesn't know it yet. I'm not being alone anymore. I'm done. I'm fucking done. I've been more alone since the day I married him than I ever was as a single woman and that is absolutely tragic. Let him be the lonely one. I'm tired of being the bad guy for saying, it's not OK for you to ignore me. It's not OK for you to not care about what I need. It's not OK for you not to communicate with me on anything other than what interests you.

It's like that article posted upthread playing out in real time. The one by the therapist about seeing these women coming to her just lost and erased.

I am really trying to sit on my impulsivity here. But fuck me, it is really fucking hard. This time last year I nearly left but I stayed. I can't keep making this same mistake. I don't believe he will ever have the insight to change.

Did you leave? I really need to know that I am going to have a life after this.

Take several deep breaths, go for a walk. Start making plans (feverishly at first, then calmer) and take it steadily.

You're right - if someone tells you that what you want doesn't matter, the relationship is entirely dead.

Yes.

Eventually.

I was trapped financially and someone stepped in and made it possible for me to say "it's over", though it was utterly dead before then.

I won't lie - the separation period was dreadful. He behaved in a way that began to create alienation in my children, I'm not sure it was deliberate but that was the effect. That's now reversing - with my younger son it's taking time, but the bonding is really happening well now. Thank God.

It took nine months before I even began to come to life again and it's now 3 1/2 years and I'm still not there. Someone made a comment the other day in passing "you need to choose for yourself" (in context she meant "you need to choose for your needs") and it was like coming up against a foreign concept :p My self-esteem was shaky before the marriage but after years of the marriage it's non-existent, and my sense of self is ... erased. It's uncomfortable.

But, I'm in a part-time relationship with a kind and responsive man and in time the green shoots will pierce the wall of erasure and grow, I think.

Being able to breath freely is wonderful.

It will come, in time offers an unMumsnetty hug You can do this. And you're right to do this.

@SquirrelSoShiny my ex did a similar thing. He marched into my office and gave me a list of HIS reasons why we shouldn’t split up. Things which featured highly were pensions and the equity in the house. I asked him what about my feelings and the fact that I felt like I was buried alive. And his incredibly controlling behaviour especially to do with finances. He offered to transfer £10k to me (of OUR savings which I couldn’t access) and then said “my door is open.” And walked out.

im a couple of years out of it now, have a lovely new partner and am the mistress of my own destiny. My ex is still astounded that I could be “so selfish” as to end our marriage.

@SquirrelSoShiny I hear you, and it's a very interesting thought.

No I haven't but I'm reaching that point and that is not who I want to be. Because I'm sitting here alone crying and how is it even possible to be so emotionally invisible? And that emotional invisibility will never change no matter how much I want it to. No matter that my husband can be kind and loving in his own way but this one thing will never change, it cannot be changed, I think it is hardwired into him. And the loneliness is killing me.

If he was a different sort of person I would say let's open up our relationship now it's the only way.

My friend did have an affair. It helped her a lot. It helped her redefine herself after decades of tending to her autistic husband and adult autistic children. Her marriage continues but she is rebuilding herself and getting ready to go. It reminded her that she was a person and allowed to be one.

This is just asshole behaviour, not autistic behaviour.

Thank you all you made me cry again just for seeing me and making me feel seen and not like I'm going mad. Because you get it. You really, really get it.

It's so much harder now because honestly I stayed too long and my health is fractured at the minute and I feel so trapped but it will not always be this way.

It's only nasty if you ignore the deep love we have for our partners. So while Stockholm Syndrome is specific to people who have been kidnapped the underlying connection between people who feel trapped in a difficult relationship is well worth exploring.

You can leave. Someone who is being held against their will can't.

Yip. As @jamoncrumpets says. That's asshole not autism.

And that's why this thread shouldn't exist.

It perpetuates out of date tropes that autism = bad bad horrible cold people with no regard for others.

Not true at all.

I absolutely agree that the thread is full of out dated tropes that are inaccurate