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)

It means negotiation is impossible.

Yep.
Same here.
Even down to choosing which pizza we were going to eat on MY birthday…..

Add to that some clear demand avoidance and it’s making building something together extremely hard.

The conclusion of that is that, for us, what reduces conflict and makes things easier is to live separate lives under the same roof. He does whatever he wants, following his own schedule. I do the same and hope there isn’t too many clashes happening.
BUT, this is not a marriage or a partnership in my eyes. (And we are heading towards a major clash - one that will probably break us completely as a couple)

I haven’t found any other way to deal with it. If anyone has any ideas, I’ll take that.

In other relationships it would be called coercive control . This is why it’s hard. I’ve realised so much of the relationship is gas
lighty and damaging . They don’t mean it to be and it’s not their fault at all but the experience feels the same

@Furries I found your post respectful and fine. (I hope you see this message).

To give some background, on Mumsnet there are a number of autistic people who know all too well this thread exists and over the years have very, very regularly posted here in a really unpleasant manner, telling us we are wrong and it's so much worse for autistic people. This thread, when I was in the last years of an extraordinarily difficult marriage, was a lifesaver for me. It was a safe space, which is perhaps unwise when it's a public forum, but it was. There are very few places where one can talk about the strains of a NT/ND marriage.

But over the years that sense of safety was destroyed by the individuals who came here and posted at extreme length telling us We Are Wrong and Awful. Like I said upthread, I've literally been repeatedly told by an autistic person who was being aggressive towards several posters to "leave this thread if I don't like what they were saying" as one example.

In counterbalance there have, over the years, also been people (like you) who come with -explanations- rather than berating us, and who I (and I suspect many) people have learned from, in a constructive manner. This has helped both with intellectually understanding and in the sense that some people really are trying to build bridges

On the main threads in Chat and AIBU I see some pretty confident assertions by NT people about autism that are rooted in ignorance and are deeply unhelpful, and because of that can understand why people are beyond fed up of NT people invading threads that aren't meant for them. So I was probably a bit sensitive about it, but I think that the OP's opening paragraph was needlessly unpleasant and that likely it applied to both the 'open' public threads and to this one.

Some have actually said many times, many, they think this thread is disgusting, we are all ablist and that this thread shouldn't exist and they feel sorry for the ND people that we are married to. This is very alienating in the first place, but when these people come to this thread invading it and making demands, such as Oneiros who came here and demanded for 4 pages that we don't even -read- that other thread - well. I reached the end of my patience a while ago, and when Oneiros let rip. Because she and others have destroyed this thread as a safe space by posting endlessly, and then demanding that we don't go anywhere near her thread - the arrogance and unpleasantness and in my eyes sheer (perhaps unconscious) hypocrisy is very strong.

As I say, some autistic people who post here have been very helpful and now and then one or two have said they have learned from this thread about the rubbing points in their own relationships. Certainly some of the things that some autistic posters have said have helped me understand how my autistic son ticks, which has helped me handle things in a different way that makes it easier for him.

I do think that the poster who posted the link meant it well - they said they wouldn't dream of posting on that thread, and that it helped them understand some of the different ways of ticking.

To finish this long post, I hope that you understand why I am fed up that people with an aggressive attitude come here. Equally, I appreciate that you have come in a different spirit and have posted constructively. I would be very glad every autistic person who posted here posted as helpfully.

Ducks.

@ReleaseTheDucksOfWar thank you.

I appreciate DH 's commitment to DIY, the family benefits from it, in a way we wouldn't if he was out cycling.
However as a special interest is enables him to innocently opt out of family life in a way that covers himself in glory. He also started muscling in on the greenhouse and garden which when he was engrossed in the workshop was my demain. It got so bad over the last two years that I stopped making any effort. This year I've gone back to it with the added bonus that my seedlings are succeeding whilst his 'gut instinct and childhood knowledge' isn't getting him very far.
Living in a world where you can do no right absolutely wears you down.

I’ve always associated the ‘opting out’ a patriarcal tactic regardless of ND.

@ReleaseTheDucksOfWar - thank you for your reply, I appreciate it. And I’m glad that my post was taken in the right way.

I can understand your feelings re this space needing to feel like a safe space to discuss feelings that may be difficult to express elsewhere in life. FWIW, I have only read posts from the link onwards - I have no interest/intention of reading back historically, it’s not my place/space to do so. I hope that doesn’t sound rude or uncaring!

I also don’t think that the poster who included the link did so maliciously. But I do stand by my feeling that it was still wrong. I think most of us on MN know that any post, on any thread, can be read by anyone. But including a big neon sign to direct people somewhere just doesn’t sit right with me.

Anyway, I don’t want to labour the point any more, nor do I want to derail this thread further. I didn’t want to ignore the fact that you’d taken the time to respond to my post.

Happy Easter to all - is it too early to break open the chocolate 🤪

@Furries and @ReleaseTheDucksOfWar
Thanks for the explanations and civil exchange. I love it when people try to understand each other's viewpoints better 😊. A fresh start seems very appropriate for Easter too.... 🐣🐇😊

@Inmyotherlifeiwasan I've posted something similar to the following before.

After we got married I felt I was increasingly being taken for granted, this doubled after DS1 was born. I then felt she was being incredibly passive aggressive, I looked up narcissism. But none of those actually described DW. The closest I could describe DW was passive control.

DS1 was diagnosed ASC when he was about 7. The AS I saw in him was so different to DW I couldn't see that she was AS as well. (Obviously a preteen boy is going to be very different to a 40 something woman, regardless of ND).

As DS1 grew up it was increasingly clear that he and DW shared many many traits. As my knowledge and experience of AS increased, and in no small part forums like this, it's plainly obvious that DW is autistic with pathological demand avoidance.

The differences between DS and DW are of course very different. And the difference between a parent/child relationship is very different to that between life partners. Our expectations of both are very different.

I touched on this a day or two ago but as in so many things having realistic expectations is so very important. @WakingUpDistress I've hugely changed my expectations of DW and our relationship has improved, whether it meets my needs I don't know.

FWIW, I have only read posts from the link onwards - I have no interest/intention of reading back historically, it’s not my place/space to do so. I hope that doesn’t sound rude or uncaring!

no, it doesn't. It sounds perfectly normal.

As a one off, someone posting aggressively and so rudely can be ignored. But unfortunately it hasn't been one off, which you simply wouldn't have known.

Definitely time for chocolate!

I divorced my ND husband, and he absolutely was a perpetrator of coercive control, and it absolutely WAS his fault and he’s 100% autistic.

Now I’m a couple of years out I think that his pattern was;

1. there is a very clear job description for wives and I was tanking on my KPIs as he saw it.

2. the very clear job description for husbands which involved bringing home (some of) the bacon and not letting the kids catch fire, were KPIs he was exceeding on.

3. as a consequence of my poor performance, and his brilliance, this gave him the right to sanction, monitor and manage as he saw fit

4. no amount of evidence that this was utterly destructive and miserable would shake his view

So, as a consequence of his rigid thinking (not his fault, just a part of his ND) he then decided that a particular course of action, which happened to be hugely abusive and destructive, was The Only Way.

He is still astounded that we split up, the narrative he tells is that I’m a gold digging whore, without a shred of evidence. In fact I paid HIM off. But that’s the only way he can rationalise what happened, such is the rigidity of his thinking. It simply could not possibly be true that if all his needs were met, which they were, then I could still be miserable. And I was miserable because he was mostly absent and when he wasn’t, he was telling me where my failings were.

For disclosure my new partner is ND, but we have different expectations of each other. And so are my children.

So did we break up because of his autism? Yes.

Does that make me ablist? No.

Is he an abusive dickhead? Totally.

@Furries forgot to tag you for the above post.

Happy Easter to you too!

I love it when people try to understand each other's viewpoints better

I feel the same, which is why the constructive posts from autistic posters have been so valuable. Have become allergic to people telling us how awful we are though.

Re opting out, I thought DH was unfairly leaving too much to me when he hardly changed any nappies for DD1. It stressed him out and I couldn't understand why until we realised that he's particularly sensitive to smell (as well as sound and some textures).

He wasn't professionally diagnosed as autistic until many years later. But it was having our DD1 that first made me wonder if he was. He would 'opt out' of many aspects of parenting - things that other new dads seemed able to do without much stress. Understanding when he's overwhelmed rather than opting out makes me much more tolerant of what might otherwise seem selfish or antisocial behaviour.

It does still mean more on my shoulders practically. But it's emotionally easier for me when I know it's necessity rather than selfishness.

Apologies for jumping in, I'm new to the thread but saw this post and it resonated with me - so, how do you tell the difference between dickish/abusive behaviour and 'just being autistic?

I wonder whether a lot of my partner's seemingly rude behaviour (ignoring 80% of what I say, disregarding a lot of things I say as rubbish, sulking, monotone/aggressive sounding voice towards all members of the family, not tolerating noise very well) could be to do with the fact he could be ND and if it is, should I make allowances for that?

how do you tell the difference between dickish/abusive behaviour and 'just being autistic?

For my DH, I need to wait until he's calm and then ask why he did something. If he gets defensive I'll leave it until another day.

Eventually we get to the bottom of things and it's often that he doesn't know and understand unwritten social rules that I've just absorbed growing up. He also can't read body language and facial expressions well and doesn't automatically see someone else's point of view (theory of mind) but, with time, can get there and deeply empathise. He just takes longer to get there.

When DH can sense that he's done something seen as 'wrong' from a NT perspective he'll then feel stressed, defensive and angry which exacerbates the situation. I find the best thing for my DH is to back off and then talk about it later.

It must be pretty stressful feeling that you've done something 'wrong' but not knowing what.

All this is time-consuming and draining though so I totally get why lots of partners just want to move on.

Overwhelmed, I think, looks different to simply absenting.

My ex used to absent himself because he felt the absolute entitlement to do so. Because he was Right.

He also got overwhelmed at times and would remove himself from the situation, which is fair enough.

When DH can sense that he's done something seen as 'wrong' from a NT perspective he'll then feel stressed, defensive and angry which exacerbates the situation. I find the best thing for my DH is to back off and then talk about it later.

Is your husband willing to see that you talking about an issue is an attempt to solve things so that you can work together, or does he take it as a criticism? or does it depend on how calm he is?

Nothing ever got resolved with ex-H but I wonder if I'd framed it like this he'd have been able to engage more. Possibly not, but it would have been something to try. It's a tip a couple of people have said on these threads and I wish I'd known it earlier.

Hi. I am the OP of the autistic women's thread. Apologies for the intrusion of me making this comment.

I want to echo what @Furries said. I am sorry if my original post on my thread has offended people here. I want to be clear that @Furries was correct that it was not aimed at people posting on this thread.

The idea for the autistic women's thread arose from a thread about a week ago where an autistic woman asked for some advice and was subjected to some very unpleasant comments. Some of the posts were not badly intended but arose from a simple lack of understanding of how autism impacts every autistic person in very different ways (so people often know one or two autistic people and then assume they can draw conclusions about how other autistic people are or what they can or cannot manage) however, some of the posts to that OP were downright mean and deliberately unpleasant. Several autistic women including me were on that thread and during the discussion I thought how useful it would be for autistic women to have a space on Mumsnet to speak to each other because unfortunately what happened to that OP is extremely common. I had seen three or four threads like that only that week and often it leads to that OP abandoning their thread and not getting support.

Seeing that happen over and over again led to me setting up our new thread. And my comments in the OP were about the people we've seen attack autistic OPs like that. In that context, I do think they were justified. They were not about you because you have not been going on to autistic posters' threads and being horrible to them. I think in fact I mentioned this a few posts into our thread and explained why I'd set it up so had hoped it was clear from that why the OP was phrased as it was and what kind of posters I was worried about coming to wreck it which would I hope have been clear wasn't about people on their own support thread elsewhere.

I have been very pleasantly surprised at the response to the thread I started and it seems to be something that many, many autistic women felt they needed and wanted. We are all gaining a lot from talking.

Again, I apologise for posting here but I think it is important to clear that up but also because I want you to know that the comments made on this thread about that one have unfortunately had a big impact especially on some of the more vulnerable posters on our thread who were very hesitant to post in the first place. It is a huge shame if people are driven away from being able to post honestly for fear of other people examining their comments. We all know anybody can read anything on the internet of course but it would be nice if people would choose not to do that if it's doing harm especially when there's no need to because the thread isn't about a topic that involves them. Linking to our thread and posting about it may not have been badly intentioned but it has made many posting on our thread very upset and damaged what we were trying to create there.

I can see there's a lot of anger here about autistic people having by the sound of it previously come to your thread and made unpleasant comments to you. Obviously thaz is not ok. It is disappointing to me though that that would be used as a justification for it to be ok to then behave in a way that stops our thread from functioning as it should and people being able to engage in it. Please remember that these are people who have been attacked for their disability many, many times so are very sensitive to this and to then finally think they'd found a friendly and safe space to open up, it is a huge blow to have that feeling of safety taken away again. Autistic people shouldn't have attacked your thread previously whatever they thought about it but we are not a homogeneous group and as far as I know there's no evidence that the people seeking support from our thread are posters who have done that. It seems unfair for our group to be punished in some kind or tit for tat when our thread is nothing to do with this one. We just want to be left in peace and feel safe to talk without being analysed or judged or anything we say being potentially miscontrued as typical of other autistic people and that's a very sensitive issue for many after a lifetime of such experiences.

My view is that everybody should be able to find others to give them the support they need. You have that here as you should. There are many ND/NT relationships in my family. Some good, some not. Anybody with relationship issues should be allowed to connect for support obviously, as should a group of people with a disability, or any group. Please let us have that too and don't treat our thread as reading material for non-autistic people. As Mumsnet have said of course we cannot stop you but please understand the impact that's having, for the reasons I've explained. It's so upsetting to see the distress all of this has caused when our thread was initially such a positive space and I can see it has been disruptive here too which is also not ok, however it is fair to note it was some pretty thoughtless and awful comments about our thread here that created this issue so there is some responsibility for that which should be taken if people are being reasonable.

It seems to me that now the link to our thread has been removed the easiest way to make everyone happy would be if everyone leaves everyone else's threads alone if they aren't aimed at them. So with that in mind I'll trundle off now but hope this post is taken in the spirit intended and doesn't cause more problems as that is not my intention, rather in the hope of a little more mutual understanding and to give the background to my wording in my OP and also to why it is such a big issue to have people on our thread feeling it's being analysed and discussed by others in a way that would for most threads not be much of an issue. I hope you can continue to support each other and we can be allowed the space to be able to do the same without being analysed by others.

Sorry if the posted is unwelcome. I won't be back, don't worry.

This for sure is an issue for us, overwhelmed, defensive and angry. I have learned over time to do the same, walk away, revisit it later when he has calmed down. Like you say it is time consuming and draining, it is a lot of extra work and sometimes you do wonder is this actually worth it?

I can't imagine what it would be like to be part of a couple where you can just talk things through calmly, like adults. I have found myself saying, I'm not your mum you're not in trouble, I'm not telling you off, I'm just trying to figure out where you were coming from so we can resolve it and move on.

Usually we rub along OK together but we are going through a bit of an issue right now and I can't be arsed to be the adult and resolve it so I know this will rumble on until I make the first move but tbh I'm tired of it. We met when we were teens, we have teens now and I feel in lots of ways he has never matured from how he was when we met, he really lacks emotional maturity. I don't know, I'm usually pretty positive about our relationship as a whole but today I'm fucked off and I just wish that for once he would come to me.

Overwhelmed, I think, looks different to simply absenting.

I think it does and it doesn’t.
DH very clearly used the ‘Thats what is supposed to happen. Women look after children’ as a way out from his overwhelmed. He could have chosen to do it another way. Or simply stated he was overwhelmed and asked for support. Which he would have received.
Instead he got a job that took him away from home half if the week. Then decided that he HAD TO keep up with his special interests and left me to it. And that was supposed to be all ok because that’s what women do…… He even told me he thought that’s what I wanted anyway, like all women. Bearing in mind his mum has always worked. And he knew I have NEVER wanted to be a SAHM.

We had overwhelm leading to what way out do I have leading to ‘ofc WakingUp will deal with that because she is a woman and that’s what women do’ leading to why is WakingUp telling me to be involved with the dcs aka resentment.

So I think there can be a nice mix in between…. And the rigidity in thinking makes it harder to deal with it.

@Nepmarthiturn as the OP I have no problem with anyone posting on this thread with good will. Personally I think the more we discuss the things we find difficult or challenging and the better we are able to understand each other the better all our lives should be.

E.g DW got back from a family social event, two nights away, yesterday p.m. The combination of a three hour drive, hungriness, and a two day family social wasn't great. DS2 unfairly came in for some real stick. It's taken me years to understand that this a key autistic thing and that I just need to give her space. Some of the ND posts in a range of forums, including your own posts, have helped me understand DW and temper my expectations and improved our relationship accordingly.