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

@classicslove , that’s lovely to hear! Both that you are coping well with the chemo and to have found your old YOU

Also a big sign of hope that we can find our ME again (hopefully, not in the same circumstances)

Checking in all. I've been in ostrich mode for the last month but we just had a row over him throwing out my prescription medication. He was such a prick. It is literally impossible for him to honestly and sincerely admit that he was in the wrong about something unless I go batshit crazy enough to pierce his 'fog' of certainty of his own rightness. But then he's the poor victim of an injustice and I'm the crazy harpy wife.

Except HE. THREW. OUT. MY. PRESCRIPTION. MEDICATION. I am not the bad guy here. All he had to do was say shit, sorry Squirel.

Instead according to his completely fabricated 'rule' he was entirely justified in doing so. And it becomes the hill to die on even though he is completely and utterly in the wrong.

I live in denial for weeks or months and then something always happens that shows me how disordered his thinking is and how impossible it is for him to change.

Just to say that I can totally relate to ostrich mode @SquirrelSoShiny. I have been doing it for years. I think because dh works away a lot and I don't have to deal with stuff on a daily basis. I'm only gradually beginning to look up and realising how unhappy I actually am.
I am thinking back through our life and I have become so resentful about so many things.
I'm at the point where I don't care where his behaviour comes from, it's who he is, who he always been and it's not going to change. I'm tired.
What will life be like when the kids are gone, when he retires? When it's just me and him😵‍💫
PS: Sorry to hear he threw out your meds Squirrel😖

I have my Fantasy Plan which involves me living in another country sans dh🤫
I have a few years before I can actually do this but it is 100% my plan. I honestly don't think dh would be that bothered either.

Argh.

I am so fed up with the lack of care in our relationship. He basically speaks to me like dirt on his shoe. Anything that is wrong in our house is my fault, never his. Even when it is his fault. or no one’s ‘fault’.

I just feel so low. What kind of role model is this for a healthy relationship.

It's not and it's the lack of role model thing that worries me the most with DC watching, as well as the 3 or 4 times a year I lose the plot (like the binning my medication incident).

@BlueTick it was too late for the medication. It's not one I need every day but when I need it I need it. He was clearing out the fridge and just threw out a pile of stuff that was unimportant to him (my meds included) but kept anything he liked even when we had three of them

If he was someone capable of having a normal conversation of disagreement it could be talked about but suddenly he becomes the victim. I see a lot of DARVO in him at moments where he is just objectively in the wrong, like when he threw out my medication. He then just denies and attacks and it's the gaslighting that eventually makes me explode. Like him insisting my new, unopened medication was out of date ... when it's new and unopened 🙄

Interestingly I see the same DARVO / gaslighting tendencies in some hostile posters on MN. In those moments the disordered thinking becomes so visible it almost takes my breath away. It's a common pattern.

Mine smirks when confronted with the truth/evidence that I’m not the guilty party, or makes it out to have been a joke. Or gaslights me that he said it. Or starts mentioning other things that he can try to pin on me to change the subject and ‘win’.

my mental health is in tatters.

I don't know whether I 'have it better' than some posters but because dh works away I don't have to constantly deal with him. It also means though that I just keep kicking the can down the road regarding us.
What has become apparent though is that I much prefer the family dynamics when he us not here.
The kids and I have a really close, easy relationship. I'm active and interested in them and their lives. Even though they are mid/late teens they still want to do things with me.
When dh is home I try and facilitate a family atmosphere so he can spend time with them.
When he's gone we will sometimes eat in front of the TV or eat at different times. When he's home we all eat at the table so he can join in the conversation. He eats then leaves the table anyway. I see so many missed opportunities for him to connect, he obviously doesn't feel the need. Yet he would spend hours at the table IF he was telling us about his job.
Once the kids have left home I think dh and I will come to a natural end. We have nothing in common to keep us together. I would rather be alone with possibilities that together with the loneliness.

Yes to legitimising. like we all became part of his mask.

I am really trying to understand where ASD ends (clashing thoughts and behaviours in a marriage resulting from neurodivergence), and where narcissistic behaviour begins.
DH can be very articulate and kind, empathetic etc… until we disagree. Then it’s his way or I am punished until I fold.
(By punished, this is MY experience of his ways of handling disputes; shouting, silence for hours or days, taking no ownership or apologising).
A counsellor pointed out to me that can also simply be someone who is domineering and has under-developed conflict resolution skills!
My DH is undiagnosed ASD and I’m just never quite sure what is going on with him.
I see a lot of crossover and grey areas with emotional abuse - and also times when he is not being abusive at all, we’re just disagreeing and handle it very differently.
Lately I have been pondering the ways ASD simply lacks the negative motives of narcissistic behaviour… but when your mental and emotional capacities are being constantly chucked in the blender (as someone above said!) it can be so hard to tell.
Getting to the root motive also takes a lot of self-awareness and openness which my DH can sometimes seem to have (especially when I comply 🤔 ) because of course what we see someone do, and the things they say, we will not always understand.
I have been reading that ASD adults tend to be terrible liars. Is that ability to pull off a lie or lack of ability to be receptive?
My DH isn’t at all good at lying but it hasn’t stopped him trying when he feels it’s in his best interests.
I wondered if others have similar thoughts about narcissism-meets-ASD and found any helpful insights?
Gaslighting, DARVO etc is narcissistic territory more than ASD surely? (I’m still very much learning!)

@Fidelius The other completely infuriating behaviour is a complete inability to walk withme

Àaaaaaaahhhhhhhh, grrrrrrr. Completely totally and utterly maddening.

DW will charge ahead at a brisk trott, or loiter and drag and then sit down for twenty minutes.

We had an amazing holiday recently, and on one walk it took nearly an hour to do the first 100m.

Same here, dh cannot admit fault, but then he has never done anything wrong🙄
Except: He decided to change our Internet provider without talking to me. Its shit so now he has to go through "all the hassle of changing it back".
He booked the car in for work on the day the kids start back school, didn't put it in the calendar obviously, so now has to fix the "major inconvenience".
Made an appointment for the dog to have tests done, while he was gone, but didn't inform me that she had to fast 24hrs before. So,waste of money & time ( for me obviously)
He never uses the calendar,then just informs me on the day of.
He never says sorry unless it's in a really dramatic " Oh my God, of course I made a huuuuge mistake, why don't you just kill me now" reaction.
It's usually "Oh I forgot" to everything.
@Fidelius dh never walks with me either, always in front. "Can you wait for me" "Oh, I forgot " or "Can you turn the tv volume down(for the millionth time) " Oh. I forgot " or "Can you let me know in advance when you invite people over" "Oh, i forgot "😪

Oh god, the "oh I forgot" excuse. Yeah. After the 6,374th time it is no longer an excuse.

I have been reading that ASD adults tend to be terrible liars. Is that ability to pull off a lie or lack of ability to be receptive?

My ex, and my son, are strange on this. Lie as such ... not exactly. But both of them want reality to work a certain way, and so when they want something to happen a certain way they will claim it -did- happen. Conversely, if they don't want something to have happened, then it won't.

But this is just not the actual fact. He did scrape the car. Son did not clean up when he was asked to and promised to.

So when they say they didn't scrape the car or the work is done when it isn't, well ... they will say it is. But I think it's because they kinda believe it is, despite the evidence of their own senses. Because they -want- a certain situation, they say that that's the way it is.

So both of them can and frequently will say something that's not true, but it's not exactly a deliberate lie. It's just that they kinda believe it themselves, so they can speak convincingly.

Or they will take one aspect of a situation and that aspect will make them look good, or guiltless, whatever is called for, and then they will leave out the whole context which paints a completely different picture ... with my son we have that a LOT at school.

With my son, my now-partner and I are trying to work on the concept of the spirit of the truth, which of course is fairly tricky for someone who's rather literal.

I think that's a very good explanation @ReleaseTheDucksOfWar. It's very important to my husband that he covers himself in glory in every story he ever tells.

I have literally just this moment realised that in all the years I have known him, he has never made a single self-deprecating comment. Which is extraordinary really. And quite abnormal.

Hmm… about the lies, I’m not so sure.

Yes we could see as an inability to accept the reality in front of them.
Bit tbh, as far as I’m concerned, it feels like lies and it look like lies. And it creates the same problems than lies.
When said ‘lies’ end up with me getting inconvenienced, not him, I dont think I can accept it as anything else but a lie.
(inconvenienced being a very broad term from something very simple to things affecting my and our family whole daily life)

I have old journals from the beginning of our relationship. I recently read over some of them and yes dh lied to me for years regarding a family situation that directly affected our lives. Im sure he would never see it as lying but he basically told me what I wanted to hear over and over for years.