Married to someone with Asperger's/ASC: support thread 7

[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)

This is one source and those autistic people here complaining about its existence should consider whether it would be morally right for their NT partners to follow them into their autistic support fora and moan about “not all neurotypicals”.

People do that all the time.

@bestchristmasever
i was answering to a very specific comment. This one here in full.

This. As an example. I'm physically disabled. There are coping mechanisms I "go off the rails" without. Downtime is incredibly important to enable me to cope with pain.

No one. NO ONE. would describe someone coping with physical disability in this way.

Please don’t make it a general comment about how autistic people have it worse than anyone else. This was not about living with someone who is physically disabled. And how people GENERALLY (not your partner) would react.

@DeepThought42 what a misinformed, disingenuous and ableist post.

inhave no doubt you will deny this, but the simple fact is you do not understand how ableist you are being.

It’s very upsetting for many autistic people (NOT that I’m trying to speak for us all) to see ourselves misrepresented by NT people so often. And when we try to explain why it’s offensive, you state that is is showing “black and white thinking”. That it ableism.

Please don’t make it a general comment about how autistic people have it worse than anyone else

I never said anything like that.

I would challenge ableism, racism, ageism, sexism and any of the other protected characteristics wherever I saw them.

This is an open forum. And I see ableism. As such, I'm challenging it.

Talking about compatibility and assuming that I have been unsupportive and ableist and unable to understand DH needs (which seems to be the gist of a last comments), I’m wondering why DH stayed in the marriage and hasn’t left years ago….

I know this is rhetorical question and none if you can answer that for him
But I am wondering what he is getting out of it - aka what is working well for him that means it’s worth putting up with me, NT.

That’s how it felt to me when you pointed out that no other disability ‘needs’ a support thread for the partners. 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

Reinforced by your comment about pointing out ableism etc… when you see (assuming this was still about my answer).

Could you please clarify what you wanted to say? Because it’s not clear at all to me.

I was answering @DeepThought42

What do you want me to clarify exactly?

I literally did not say any other disability was lesser or that autism was worse.

I was pointed out that there isn't a series of threads on here about "in a relationship with someone with <insert type of physical disability> support here" that's full of misinformation and statements that the disabled person should try harder and do things they're not physically capable of.

And?
what information does it give highlighting that?

@DeepThought42 great post, thank you.

Those sort of threads would be deleted if they were full of the sort of statements and attitudes of this thread. That's the information it gives.

@DeepThought42 Absolutely no-one is denying anyones “own lived experience”. None of us are doing that.

you continue to be disingenuous.

We get it @Deep. I know there are posters here who detest it but the commonality of our experiences blows me away sometimes.

Happy New Year to all of you. Solidarity.

And it had absolutely no relation with my comment about physical disability.
You only repeated what has been said at any times in the last 100 posts.

im curious to know why talking about people with physical disability made you think of that. What was the link??

Because I'm physically disabled and also autistic. And I don't see threads like this about physical disabilities.

I'm not sure what else I can say. I explained that I was physically disabled and that I have a need to recharge for my physical disabilities and that I found posts picking on autism as the reason for someone doing that upsetting because I have never seen a series of threads on here about physically disabled people where those sort of attitudes prevail.

I was actually talking about my own lives experience. It is enlightening that my lived experience is being questioned and shut down.

What you can’t do is tell other people you know that their difficulties as NTs in a relationship with a neurodiverse partner aren’t due to neurodiversity and expect to have any influence on the conversations

yet I don’t do that.

i object to posters self diagnosing their partners as autistic based on incorrect information such as lack of empathy (most recently yesterday)

I object to posters who put ALL the blame on the autistic partner, making themselves blameless victims. I know for a fact (based on other posts) that there is a poster here who has an issue which will undoubtedly impact on their relationship (they openly admit to this issue in another thread)

I object to abusive behaviour being attributed to autism. Autistic or not, if they are abusive, they are abusive and as most of MN would say, LTB.

and btw not all of the posters who complain about their autistic partners here are NT - many have said they have ADHD -so they themselves are ND. So it’s not as simple as “NTs in a relationship with a neurodiverse partner” - you need to refer to non-autistic people in relationships with autistic people specifically. This thread is specifically set up to demonise discuss autistic people.

At least contain your ableism to one disability at a time