Married to someone with Asperger's/ASD: support thread 8

[Daftasabroom]

New thread.

This thread is for partners seeking to understand the dynamics of mixed NT/ND partnerships. 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)

Link to previous thread

So, eldest is going to a new school this term, he is obviously a little nervous. I have been online, reading all the info I can find, talking to him, listening to him, basically trying to help him be excited.
Dh on the other hand is so uninterested it makes me want to cry. I was trying to tell him about how good I think it'll be for ds, and as I was speaking he was calling someone else. He hasn't looked at any of the school stuff I have deliberately left on the table. He hasn't talked to ds, other than to say " Oh that looks good"
He is generally uninterested in anything that doesn't involve him. I'm just sad and disappointed this morning. Again😔

I am new here and I am barely hanging on. I have not posted on this topic before but having so many Aha moments reading these messages I am all but certain DH is autistic. No friends, zealous about his special hobbies, no eye contact with people other than me (is that normal?) and sometimes not me either, self-employed because by his own admission he’s unemployable (can’t work in a team of any description, does things his own way, fundamental disdain for authority), fiercely intelligent despite never opening a book, watching endless hours of YouTube clips about the same topics over and over, we finally discovered he needs to sleep alone or gets really grumpy/ill/depressed, is exceedingly black and white, copies my emotional or physical energy sometimes I’ve realised, sleeps a LOT, gets obsessional about his work/hobbies, has battled with his mental health, had counselling but left out huge important things with his counsellor (like spending addiction), masks/camouflaging is his norm, needs to be prompted with our teens to engage… I can’t even keep going I’d be here all day.

I’ve always known he was quite different to other people. I fell hard and fast for him. I was his special project and the subject of his hyper focus twice; when we first met and more recently when I hesitated to reconcile after he had a bad period and was extremely difficult to live with (and then walked out when I kept calling it out).
We’ve had a marriage of two halves. When it was just us two (even now when we go away together things are very different, he’s calmer and more present), but we have had a very difficult marriage since the kids got older and less dependent (he was very hands on with all the practicalities and a brilliant Dad when they were small but seems not to know how to spend time with them now they’re teens and have their own interests and hobbies). He learned some communication techniques from his counsellor (he went because our marriage collapsed two years ago, he walked out then wanted to come home but I had to insist he got some counselling as he had no one to talk to.
He corrected for a while, did what his counsellor told him (be quick to say sorry, start off with “I” sentences not “you” sentences etc) and it did give me hope but things are sliding back again. I feel anxious around him a lot of the time. Driving home from work my belly does flips - even if there is no reason. The house feels calm and comfortable when he’s out and I feel (recognising this is ME not him) weirdly muted, constrained and dampened down when he’s home; the music goes off, the comedy on the tv goes off, the banter with the kids stops.. there’s just a different atmosphere.
When he went through counselling, for a while things looked a bit more hopeful but he’s slid back into old ways of communicating (or not) and I’m just bereft. We had a blow up tonight and he was pretty nasty to me, in front of the kids (they were the subject of the blow up, a difference of opinion on parenting) and when I called it out (I text him so the kids didn’t hear, which I rarely do when we row, it’s usually just days of awkward silence from him avoiding me and I just suffer) and his reply was that I was entirely in the wrong and “should know how (I) can be at certain times of the month” … I had no words. Period shaming, gaslighting, general ignorance, autistic bluntness.. I genuinely don’t know anymore.
I have given two decades of my life. I have given this my absolute all. I have forgiven countless moments of hurt, deception, mistreatment, financial and emotional abuse - all because I love him and want our marriage to last. And truthfully my biggest reason was the textbook ‘stay for the kids then reassess’ but I am starting to lose hope.
I only have a few years before I’m 50. The thought of staying on this daily rollercoaster hoping one day it will just stop and come to a halt and turning 50 realising this is it for the rest of my married life, makes me burst with sadness. I’ve tried every which way to just be okay with the differences in us, but what was cute ‘chalk and cheese’ when we were young, is now ‘we literally have nothing in common, we’re living increasingly separate lives, and you’re happy but I am not’ moments in me.
Reading all your messages makes me realise this isn’t something that can be fixed, or counselled out or healed. He is who he is and has many wonderful characteristics but my issue is: the things that are so important to me - that at times he seems to have been able to give (though now looks like play acting on his part to keep it together) - he cannot seem to sustain. At least not consistently. I feel like a puppet master sometimes; having to dictate every part of our life together. Sometimes it’s like he’s genuinely content with no affection or connection and cannot understand why I feel lonely. He just says I need to go and find my own interests (I already have many, very other aspect of my life is full and generally fulfilling).
I know I don’t even need to list all the needs I have that aren’t being met because I have read most of you feel the same sense of grief and loss. I wish someone could show me a sliding doors moment; here is life if you stay and keep trying to adapt .. and here is life if you rip your family apart in an attempt to find whatever is missing.
Is there a way to learn to be okay with such separate lives?

Honestly @Questions99? Every word of your post rings true and I don't have any answers for you. But you will find understanding here.

Yes to evreything. The baby vs teen thing. And stomach flips. I couldnt survive it any more.

@Questions99 The constant push-pull of so many situations is exhausting. Trying to figure out which one is stronger but, truthfully, neither option feels right.

Weighing up who’s needs should be met first whilst putting my own last. Not in a martyrdom manner but because I advocate for the children (not alone on that as sometimes DH needs to do it) and balancing the, potential, outcomes.

DH is still trying to recalibrate after the explosion earlier this year but it feels like we’re slamming into every hurdle despite our best efforts to prepare for them.

I am struggling with the extent to which I feel I’ve switched off and am in a marriage of convenience or if I just need more time to get over the fallout from his hypomania (I believe I’ve got that right as he’s bipolar 2 so not full on mania).

We have separated before but what brought us back together was family and being parents. We co-parented successfully and with time and space found our way back. But the children are young adults now and starting their own lives (albeit faltering - for 2 of them - due to their own issues) and it’s about our lives together. And that brings the loneliness to the fore. Especially as he’s embracing an alternative lifestyle that doesn’t appeal at all to me.

Hi @Questions99 Is there a way to learn to be okay with such separate lives?

Until relatively recently I tried so hard to find the middle ground where we could be happy together. Someone told me to change my expectations. The only reason we're still together is because I almost totally gave DW the space to live according to her rules at her pace. She cannot compromise without without meltdown or shutdown. So I've traded almost all our relationship for a more peaceful existence.

I've learned to have largely separate lives, I haven't learned to be okay with that.

I am really struggling to stay in the game. He’s stonewalling (after a particularly nasty comments he made at the end of an argument about and in front of our kids on Sunday night). I think his mental health is declining (two + years ago he had a breakdown and we’ve been piecing our marriage back since) and I am being dragged down with it. After we split for a few weeks he got into counselling but I think it just taught him how to pretend a bit more effectively and the mask is slipping off again. For the first 24 hours of stonewalling I can remain pretty resilient and put on a show for the kids, work, friends but it’s day 2 my head is pounding, I’m supposed to work in a demanding job with meeting after meeting, he is blanking my texts asking to talk and taken himself off out for the day leaving me to just disintegrate. He ate the dinner I made last night with a muttered ‘thanks’ before disappearing. Opportunities we have to talk without the kids around are rare but he’s avoiding the few we have. I’m writing an email to him but it’s growing and growing from ‘can we please sort this out and stop the bad atmosphere’ into everything wrong with our marriage and my sense of doom and begging him to get assessed. I don’t know how much or how little to say to him if he’s (presumably hiding because he feels overwhelmed as opposed to just being a d*ck). I also don’t know how to bring up my suspicions about autism. I also don’t know whether to put all my chips on the table and say Enough and then have to walk through the consequences which I’ve cowardly run from for years. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know who in my world would even begin to understand. I don’t know if I can cope.

@Questions99 Your distress is palpable and you have tried so hard, and are still trying.

Going to do something that I probably shouldn't, and give direct advice.

Call time on this marriage.

It's not going to get better, lovey. And staying will carry on wearing you down.

No blame on either side, both of you have different needs. But you're in the soup pot atm and it's simmering away around you, and when you're in the middle of the soup you can't see from an outside perspective. This isn't working and it really sounds like it can't ever work.

Separating is very, very hard but when one is as deeply unhappy in a marriage as you are with no hope of the dynamics between you changing, things aren't going to get better together. Apart, both of you have time to breath and you can slowly become yourself again.

Speaking from my own experience, the children are also massively happier now their parents are apart. Don't know how it would be for you, but when one parent is deeply unhappy, perhaps both, it does very significantly impact on the quality of the children's lives.

@Daftasabroom and @BlueTick do you think your respective partners know what you're doing and how much this hurts and affects you? Or do you think they don't care and are just happy they get what they want?

@MichelleScarn with my ex-H, it was neither exactly. He was simply unable, and I mean that word, to understand that someone might have different needs to them. His mind ran on traintracks really, and he couldn't perceive that others might have wider perceptions and different needs. There is a lack of vision and a lack of understanding that the world is wider than only how he perceives it, and others really do think, and perceive, differently to him.

So he couldn't understand that his way of doing things was never going to work in a relationship that I wanted to be based on listening, working ~together~, negotiation and ongoing development. He was content with how he saw things and unable to see further.

He can think calmly and clearly even in a crisis eg a serious garden fire that needed fire brigade attention. Of course, the fact that he'd absolutely insisted on lighting the outside fire pot next to the wood store after 2 months of mostly over 34 degree heat had nothing to do with the fire actually starting, in his view ... However, I panicked after calling the fire brigade, whereas he got the garden hose out and on the fire.

What I meant to saw was that I don't think he saw how desperately and increasingly unhappy I was, because it didn't compute. He couldn't place himself in my shoes, and simply thought I was irrational and he was very patient for putting up with me. So it wasn't a matter of him knowing what he was doing and how much it hurt me, nor a matter of not caring, as such. He simply didn't perceive that his actions had an effect on me, and that my state of mind might have anything to do with how he was acting.

What decided it got me was that not only didn’t h know or understand, he didn’t want to. No point trying to communicate with someone who thinks your ridiculous for having your own needs.

I agree about the inability to see or feel anything outside themselves. Dh is a good man. He is also very limited. There lies the years of conflicting emotions for me. He doesn't do anything deliberately, it's just who he is. He wants me to be happy, he just doesn't want any involvement in the process. He wants the kids to be happy, just as long as it doesn't involve him in the process.
When our family was much younger I realise I just told dh what to do with the kids. I was the one making all the decisions, all the time, about everything. Now we have 2 teens with their own opinions, views and ideas. I don't have to micomanage their lives but I'm still involved and interested. Dh is not, at all. He is not interested in their interests, he doesn't know their opinions and doesn't really care about their views. As long as they are happy though. 😔
I go to the movies with my kids, I watch TV with them, discuss news items. I listen to them babble on about their lives. Am I always interested in what they are interested in? No, but I'm interested in them, as people.
Dh never does anything that doesn't interest him which means he doesn't actually know his kids anymore.
We have had a few big changes over the years that I feel have just about coped with. I have been hanging on by a thread at some points though. I have always criticised myself about ' Not being strong enough ' Now I'm starting to accept that dh just wasn't there for me when I needed support.
His physical presence is in our lives, but he adds no emotional value whatsoever.

These are some very powerful posts. I'm in ostrich mode at the minute.

@Ohdostopwafflinggeremy that sounds exactly how things are at home.
im ‘lucky’ in that the dcs have interests that interest him so at least they have that in common and they can relate to each other that way.

However, dc1 is NT. Very different in his approach and DH can’t cope with that (esp the ‘small talk’ and the ability to talk about anything and everything).
dc2 has ASD and things are much easier fir DH. To start with, neither of them talk much!

But the hurt..
The hurt at not getting the support I needed for things that didn’t even affected him (like asking work fir a specific document for me).
The hurt of not being heard.
The hurt of feeling I don’t exist (no dcs at home at the mo, if I don’t start the conversation, he can stay silent for the whole meal. Silent in the evening. Silent when working. Silent of most of the day at the WE too).

This is where my battle is right now. What will it take (because I’m an anxiously attached type) to push me to end the marriage? I ended up in A&E on the verge of a stroke (in my mid forties) because of the stress. He left and after a few days wanted to come back. I was advised by medics, women’s aid and the police financial abuse trauma team to be very wary.

I delayed his return for 12 weeks in total but the whole time he love-bombed me. It was just how it was when we first met. Flowers, meals, turning up to do diy, taking the kids to the park or cinema, there as much as he could be wanting sexual attention.. it was overwhelming and confusing and ultimately I took the enormous risk of trusting he was able to sustain this change.

Looking back now I felt social pride that our challenging marriage was reconciled where so many others fail, that I had been so gracious and forgiving to try again. What an absolute fool.

So I feel like I have made my bed. I will never again have so much support and momentum as I did two years ago, to end things. And I caved. He’s also not at the stage of being abusive (though it is ramping up that way) so the fire-power and support I’d need to break up our family feels unattainable.

I woke up this morning, feeling so afraid of this relationship, not knowing what to do in the next hour, let alone the next day or weeks ahead. It consumes me. I can barely work. I just burst into tears at the dentists (not normal for me!). It’s draining me of all joy and life.

Meanwhile he has, once again, taken himself out for the day, ignored me and the housework and seems absolutely oblivious to the fact I am lying in a dark room feeling desperately confused and wounded by him.

I am releasing I am clinging on to the marriage - whilst wanting to get out of the relationship. It is like marriage is a box - and the relationship is what inside. When what’s inside starts to rot and die, the box becomes redundant. I’m probably being melodramatic.

That’s why the feeling of being trapped is so visceral. It’s impossible.

My decision is to text him - I don’t know when, I don’t feel ready because I don’t even want to discuss it with him anymore. He doesn’t listen and I don’t think by his actions since Sunday night that that he cares. Is it possible he simply doesn’t have capacity to believe he has hurt me so badly or empathise with my pain?

Someone here shared their blog “pushing boulders” and has a blog called “Autism or Arseholism” and I’ve read it so many times and I still can’t figure DH out.

I will text to say this relationship must change, or end. It’s making me ill (again). Then I will email him what has to change and leave it with him. I expect he will completely ignore me and carry on. I know he doesn’t want this marriage to end - so why isn’t he able or willing to make it work? It makes no sense to me.

Who here has gone through with separating? How is life on the other side? I imagine I’d find it full of horrendous regret. I imagine I’d get there and realise I just needed to understand him more, give him more space, want less and sacrifice some of my needs in the name of keeping a family together, that I’d suffer financially, that my kids would reject me…. The list of reasons goes on and on. I need someone to tell me it’s not like that, there it is the BEST decision overall, no matter how hard. Is there life after this?

I can relate alot to the other posters here. I have been married for 20+years and have always know my relationship was not the same as my friends. I often feel alone and emotionally unsupported. I feel controlled and treated like a child- I earn more than twice as much as my partner yet he insists that I go through the credit card and bank statements every month so that he can categorise all of our/my spending into a spreadsheet and I have been doing this for 20 years because it was easier than arguing with him. I have only just got my own credit card which I don't need to itemise- but for the last 3 years I was being given £100 a month into a separate account to 'spend' on myself- and I managed to negotiate this upto £250 recently (I'm embarrased to say this out loud as it sounds so controlling and coercive but I now believe its due to the ASD and needing to control things). I often go places on my own or with friends or my daughter as he doesn't like crowds or spending money. For a long time I thought I could just carry on like this with us living separate lives but sharing a home and chores but I want more out of life and am not happy suppressing my emotions and getting nothing back- I want to be loved and adored and need a partner who is fun and likes doing things with me. I have started to speak to a few friends about it which means that I am moving closer to separating- they are not surprised and they think I will be happier without him but I know this will come as such a shock to him- he is quite a bit older than me and has spent his whole life saving money for retirement so will be traumatised by having to start again financially- but I have another 20+ years of working so I want to be living a full life and not stuck with him! the final straw was at the funeral of a very good friend's child- everyone was devastated and hugging and supporting each other- he didn't even want to come as he 'didn't really know the child' and can't understand how others might need emotional support. He couldn't even hug me when I was sobbing and when I asked 'do you have anything to say?' he just stares blankly and says no. He has not been a great dad over the years either- the kids just made a mess and cost money in his view, and my daughter and him do not have a great relationship now as he tries to control her and she won't let him. He has his own special interests and hobbies which are all solitary, as is his job. I am very sociable and prefer to stay at work late to avoid going home if it is just the 2 of us. There is so much more to say but I do feel I want to separate but am also worried that life is not going to be better once I have and I may regret the loss of stability, as he has always been stable at least.

Yes yes to all above!

Anyone have a link to the Boulders blog? I was sad to lose it.

I have zero regret starting separation. The money stuff is scary but not as scary as staying married became.

@Fidelius , I can see our very own moderators have stricken again…