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).

We can't always leave. Financially trapped, trapped by failing health in a country that no longer has a functioning health service or support system.

I'm trapped because I stayed because I loved my DH and I waited for change and I kept the faith.

I was wrong. I should have gone. I should have put my own needs first not his.

Yet here you all are telling us we don't matter and we're wrong about everything even our own lives.

I want to thank you for helping to show me that it was always a wasted effort when someone else can only see their own agenda and mine doesn't matter or exist. My feelings do not matter, a pattern so many of us here live with day in and day out.

Thank you for making this thread all about your own agenda and not about the people supporting each other here.

@SquirrelSoShiny i have the same thing at home. And the dcs, NT or not, have learnt from that too.
He also seems to be good at deciding what I will do.

I’ve taken to pull him up on it as often as I can when he ‘assumes’ I will be doing X wo asking me first.
im also telling him NO (as in no, I’m not doing X which often means he can’t do what he had intended to do in the first place).

It seems to work atm, it it hasn’t always been the case….

Just been reading a thread on psychology/relationship. The bottom line was that more or less all couples issues were coming from ONE problem: communication issues.
For us as a couple, I think that’s a fair point, regardless of the ND.

Absolutely you can leave. Anyone can. You might not like the options but you can always leave.

I'm also getting really bloody tired of MN kneejerk deleting posts that are labelled ableist / disablist even though many of us are fucking disabled ourselves! No one disabled group owns the word disabled.

I used Stockholm Syndrome as a useful shorthand - a trope people understand- which is when we essentially fall in love with people who are harming us (not always intentionally) and worrying more about their wellbeing than our own. Some of us do feel captive now - we love our partners, we have ND children who need stability, we have financial and health constraints. Leaving is not easy.

If that doesn't sum up our experiences on this thread I don't know what does.

The PP said it was like, the difference is it feels like rather than it factually is.

worrying more about their wellbeing than our own.

This is not autism.

@surreality your post was really moving. It is so difficult to be married to someone and see so much goodness in them and yet there just be this vast chasm that's invisible but underpins everything. Emotional reciprocity was the term I needed and found on this thread for what is missing.

In my head it wasn't enough of a reason to leave but then I never had emotional reciprocity as a child either so I was primed for this life really. It felt normal to me.

You were brave. Stay with us here. We're here for you and to be honest your courage inspires me.

Of course it's not it's about me and I'm not autistic. WTF are you talking about?

Why are you making this thread about you, your agenda and your misreading?

Does it bother you that I am clearly very upset right now? Does that register with you at all? Or are you literally so focused on your agenda that you cannot actually see the pain on this thread?

Because funnily enough that feels so much like the marriages on this thread that I almost see the funny side.

No. It won't be this way forever.

My health is shit (hence the care component) and it was beyond-words hard to leave, but step by step it happened.

There -is- support here, and probably on Relationships too, for leaving.

@medicatedgift your autism is your autism, please don't generalise.

@SquirrelSoShiny

you've had a very difficult epiphany today.

Ignore the unconstructive posts. Concentrate on the constructive ones.

Thank you @ReleaseTheDucksOfWar I'm trying.

Ironically I don't get any benefits etc because my husband is a high earner and my ADHD makes it nearly impossible to do paperwork. He won't help me with it either of course. Not on his interests list.

psychcentral.com/autism/autism-and-empathy

empathy and emotional reciprocity are not the same thing.

DSM5 Criteria for ASD

grasp.org/blog/autism-spectrum-info/

"1. Deficits in social-emotional reciprocity

1. Deficits in nonverbal communicative behaviors used for social interaction
2. Deficits in developing, maintaining, and understanding relationships

A. Persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction across multiple contexts. (Diagnosis requires person meets all three criteria.)"

Bump

But you could have a "policy" to repeat it :)

Bump again

I'll try but my ADHD fucks me up finding things 😂 you keep fighting the good fight for us!

There was a thread recently (nothing to with ASD) where people were discussing how hard it is for women to leave. That actually the current financial situation makes it near impossible unless you are talking about abuse etc….

www.mumsnet.com/talk/relationships/4672879-can-we-just-be-honest-and-say-many-women-are-trapped?page=2&reply=121477883

One thing that came up for me is that it’s not as easy as ‘choices you might not like’ but how it would also affect your dcs (eg living in poverty) etc….
Leaving, despite what MN says, isn’t a bed of roses. And you don’t always fall back in your feet. I know there is no way I could (unable to work blablabla)

Nice to see the DSM being trotted out.

Everybody who knows a thing or two about autism knows that the DSM uses language that is confusing, ableist, and pathology-based. I could spend all day posting about why, but I have two small children that want me to build a Playmobil zoo so maybe another day, I do have a MA in Autism Studies after all. And I'm, y'know, actually autistic.

Don't mind me, just quietly here with my broken lil autistic brain reading your comments and wondering if I could incorporate them somehow into my PhD thesis.

Yes ironically it's very ableist to pretend people can just up and leave. See how anyone can throw that word around Medicated?

Perhaps I should just instruct my body to work properly or instruct Tory Britain to give us back a functional health service, benefits system and rental sector.

But to quote Bojo 'Alas.'

Yeah. Alas indeed.

What else apart from the DSM do you use to diagnose autism??

Sorry yes I know about the autistic view that most practitioners who are supporting autistic people are actually ableist and have no idea about what is good or suitable for autistic people.

But I’m at loss about diagnosis tbh.

You don't use anything else, presently. You focus on the difficulties.

I expect this to change in time.