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)

@DeepThought42 I think the generational thing is really significant. There was a thread recently regarding someone's mother, I'd guess 60s or 70s, and whether her poor behaviour was linked to autism. She was undiagnosed so for many there could obviously be no connection. I can't judge whether there was or wasn't a connection to autism but again I wonder how much societal expectations are yet another layer in the way some, particularly older people who would never have been diagnosed, behave.

I know that the elder women in my family were appalling badly treated and the creation of the welfare state and the contraceptive pill changed this significantly.

I wonder whether for previous generations the stricter societal expectations provided a blue print for masking and behaviour? I have absolutely no doubt that this would not have been restricted to ASC people. Looks a PhD in the making.

Surely its OK to talk about how tough things can be in a ND and NT relationship without blaming the ND person? It's OK for the ND person to seek assurance and mutual understanding from others.

There are whole charities set up to support family members and partners who care for loved one with physical disabilities or mental health challenges.

Those charities don't blame the disabled person but they don't recognise it is tough on both people

When a NT person loves a ND person...it is not about expectation of change or blame, but its not ableist to say its tough sometimes to understand and to share similarities and stories anonymously gain better understanding and also to vent.

So to see this thread hijacked on a regular basis by just this sort of behaviour is such a shame.

I think what I object to most is that the hijackers come to a (heavily moderated) thread that is not meant for them, speak with such hate themselves, refuse to consider that the people posting here are often posting from considerable distress and take, well, 0 responsibility for themselves or look in the mirror. I do think that mostly ignoring them is best, but at the point where they began to drown the voices of the genuine posters here I lost my temper.

Again, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart, I have a lot of respect and a lot of time for autistic people who come here and try to communicate, even when this is a hard thread to read. It can't be easy, not at all, to put it mildly. I have no patience, any more, for people who stampede in with ironclad boots trying to smash into the mud the very real efforts that loving people make to reach a workable relationship with their partners. They want to talk about bullying, the 3 or so individuals who fit this bill are the bullies in my view, screaming and shouting at so many posts. I have no time for these few, any more.

Mumsnet told me that they cannot ask posters to step away from a thread, and I rather lost my temper. Was it a good thing? I don't know. I wasn't being pleasant, but the thread really is in danger of being lost and it's been a huge source of support to many people who really are trying their best.

I wonder whether for previous generations the stricter societal expectations provided a blue print for masking and behaviour?

Yes.

Women were kept powerless politically, in the business realm, religiously (a powerful force then) and in most other spheres.

I think that in previous generations (pre-1960) many women learned to survive by indirect communication, passive-aggressiveness, masking their own genuine desires (because if you wanted to join the military, work in a big business or even sign your own mortgage right up until the 1980's!) you couldn't. I remember being told by relatives to eat less than the men at the table and some idiots even told me never to show anger to a man. Fortunately my mum was a lot more sensible than that!

People who are powerless tend to either knuckle under or develop (i think) other ways of nudging people to what they want, such as passive-aggressiveness and emotional manipulation. I think that's a human trait, and doesn't have anything to do with autism!

I'm in my 50s. I was physically punished if I didn't conform. Force fed. Hit. Both at home and at school. There was no understanding.

That sounds like very harsh parenting as well as harsh schooling, @bestchristmasever

Deaf children used to have their hands tied behind their backs for trying to use sign language :( way to go to stop people being able to communicate :/

It was. But there was no understanding at all. And my parents took advice from medical and educational professionals and did as advised

Brutalizing and traumatizing :/

May I ask, did they do it out of love, however mistakenly? Following terrible advice because they thought it was 'the right thing to do'?

That's why I mask. And I assume it is similar for others of my age or thereabouts.

It's not only why I mask. But it's a big part of it.

A big part of why I mask as I do and why I panic when I can't mask and why I meltdown if my masking fails.

Some posters on this thread have said say if only their partner hadn't masked them they would have known more what they were really like. And I get that - honestly I do. But it was and is literally a survival mechanism for me.

I was bullied at school. At home. There was nowhere to be me. Nowhere that was safe. Not even on my own in my bedroom because I wasn't allowed to wear the clothes that suited me from a sensory perspective. I couldn't control any of the things that made me melt down. I couldn't refuse food because my parents were told to force feed me. My earliest memory age about 3 is being force fed bread and butter on the stairs with my father holding me down and my mother forcing white bread and butter into my mouth because I hadn't eaten my dinner (sensory issues around textures of food) and they had been told they had to make me eat.

Bullied at school for being weird and being told it was my fault and that I had to toughen up. No friends and people laughing at me day and daily. Teachers as well as pupils.

You honestly have no idea.

No child should be treated like that. Thank you for having the courage to write that down, it can't have been easy. It does help understand why the driving need to mask, since it was so crucial to surviving. Unfortunately that survival mechanism can lead to later problems, but given the awful experiences you endured without a safe place to go to, I can understand -why- it developed. I

Sorry I missed this. Yes. It's what they were told to do.

Many of the posters on this thread seem to be in long marriages that are falling apart so I'd guess are around about my age.

There was simply NO understanding of autism. The "advice" from professionals was to make the autistic person fit in. Make them by fair means or foul.

Especially those of us who weren't impaired enough to be in institutions. Which is what happened then. I was threatened with being sent away to a home if I didn't "behave".

I am academically able and I could mask and present as "normal" (ish) - or at least normal enough that it was thought that if I just tried harder I could BE "normal".

Do you honestly think you could sit at a meal and choke down something that made you want to vomit whilst simultaneously feeling like a million wasps were stinging you and your skin was on fire and making small talk with your family members? Because I did that every Sunday for years and was punished for not being civil or polite enough and not engaging with the relatives.

I think my dad is undiagnosed.

My life is good now - honestly. My partner is great, im content with my lot in life, I have a good job, my kids are great and the one with ASD has had a completely different experience of being autistic than I had because I was determined it would be different for them - and also, times have moved on and things have changed (thank goodness). We aren't there yet, but we are definitely getting there.

I have a partner and we are good together. He's not on the spectrum but he has transformed how I see myself and how I feel because of who he is. I never have to apologise (he has banned me from saying "I'm sorry" when I can't do something due to either my physical disabilities or my autism) and he is patient and understanding. And he thinks I am of him too fwiw. It's balanced. Don't be thinking he's got some kind of rescue syndrome that he's with the poor cripple, coz that's not at all the case. 😁. We laugh all the time. He accepts me, quirks and all - and I accept him in the same way.

But I had a bad marriage. It was a disaster. We were not at all compatible. He wasn't ASD but he couldn't accept me as I am. Or was then. And I got more and more rigid and more stressed which led to more meltdowns and stimming and being "weird" which he couldn't cope with and got angry about which led to me being more ASD in my presentation and less able to mask and more panic attacks and it became a massive big feedback loop and just a disaster.

But that wasn't my ASD. Not the way it gets described here. It was just a basic incompatibility between us. Yes the ASD played a part, because I couldn't understand him but so did him being NT and not understanding me.

Sorry my posts are so long. I'm just trying to explain and it's hard to summarise.

your posts can't be easy to write, and must have been infinitely hard to live through but I am glad you've had the courage. I'm very glad you found a good person and partner now who accepts you as you are.

Got to go out now, or I'd write more. Also, PM'd you

Thank you @bestchristmasever your posts are very insightful and brave.

Yes re-iterating what others have said, many thanks @bestchristmasever and @BadNomad for such insightful posts. I've learned more in two days on this thread than I did in 11 years of marriage! I wish you both well.

My older is struggling very badly too and even with the help he's getting it's not enough. Not enough.

The social model of disability @DeepThought42 completely refutes that disabled people (in this case autistic people) struggle 'due to their neurodiversity'

Bit of reading about the social model here:

www.scope.org.uk/about-us/social-model-of-disability/

the-art-of-autism.com/what-is-autism/

Major takeaway is this: 'It states that people have impairments but that the oppression, exclusion and discrimination people with impairments face is not an inevitable consequence of having an impairment, but is caused instead by the way society is run and organised'

A truly deep dive would take months to read and digest. But it's not some two-bit theory dreamt up by fantasists, it's a very real and increasingly adopted movement. Charities are slowly adapting their policies to be more like the social model.

Offering alternative views isn't derailment.