Married to someone with Asperger's/ASD: support thread 9

[Daftasabroom]

New thread.

This thread is for those of us seeking to understand the dynamics of long term relationships with our ND partners. It is a support thread, and a safe space, it does get emotional at times. Avoid sweeping generalisations if possible, try and keep it specific to you and your partner.

Link to old thread

I’m really feeling for you here. This is pretty much what my DP goes through when he thinks about actual and potential friendships. I’m dyspraxic and it sounds like how I feel about driving. Everyone else can manage it. I’ve had 90 lessons and keep bumping into curbs and reverse parking is impossible. People keep asking me ‘why didn’t you learn to drive?’ As if I just didn’t realise it’s important!!! But it’s harder with social stuff because I can get around the driving issue by taking Ubers. It’s not as complex as what you share here. Thank you for sharing.

My DP is really negative about me too. He needs me to listen and support and be ‘on his wavelength.’ What about my wavelength??? He has no clue.

Externalising internal conflict omg yes. DP has a bad day. Our relationship is ‘doomed.’ He has a good day. I’m the ‘best.’ Wow this forum is so cathartic.

@Bunnyhair thank you so much for replying. I really do appreciate it as I’m feeling quite low this evening.

The What’s App idea is a good one and we do a fair amount of this already. I guess it’s just those random issues that crop up and upset me in the moment. Similarly to you there is no good time. He said tonight why am I doing this when he’s tired. If it was the morning it would be that he’s trying to wake up. There’s always an excuse to avoid emotive conversations.

I’m sure you’re right that actually it’s easier to accept it and not expend all this energy trying to fix it. I guess I’m still grieving the relationship I thought we had. Missing the person I married. It’s just so sad isn’t it. We have two beautiful young children too. I didn’t enter into this marriage lightly or have the kids. Now he’s just not the same person.

The therapist says she’s a specialist in ND relationships and I get the impression she knows her stuff. I felt like she’ll be working towards more mutual understanding.

I just look and DH and feel pain rather than love. I’m not really sure how to resolve this. Did you feel you were able to forgive once you accepted your partners limitations? I just worry I’ll never be able to accept it. It doesn’t help that my ex was ASD and hurt me very deeply. It feels like a bit of a cruel joke that DH is also on the spectrum and I’m now dealing with similar problems.

@Dialledin it is really deeply sad. I think there are some things that I will always remain very hurt by - but I don’t dwell on them like I used to. I don’t really think in terms of forgiving, I guess. It’s more a matter of deciding not to throw more good energy after bad, for my own mental survival.

If it becomes clear that it won’t be possible to accept this isn’t going to be the relationship you want, would you consider separating? I think I would have gone nuts if I’d continued to
hope for NT-style affection and reciprocity from my DH. What I will say is that since I’ve let go of those expectations DH is clearly more relaxed and happy and that makes for a less oppressive atmosphere at home. It’s no great romance, though 😂

I’m glad your therapist knows ND couple dynamics. It must feel vulnerable to think of what your DH might be saying to her in his solo session if he is feeling defensive, but presumably she’s heard it all, and understands it’s a complex dynamic. Hopefully you can discover something in this process about your own relational patterns - there will be a reason all of us here keep ending up in relationships with emotionally unavailable, inflexible, highly critical people who struggle with empathy. It was helpful (if painful) for me to acknowledge what I bring to the dynamic as well: a grandiose sense of self-sufficiency, and a tendency to seethe in resentment before trying to address issues directly. Working on those has helped the atmosphere at home a lot.

@Bunnyhair it sounds like you’ve got to a strong place mentally. Hopefully it’s enough for you longer term. I think there can definitely be a way forward for an ND relationship.

I would definitely consider separating. My parents stayed together far longer than they should have done and I won’t do that to my own kids. I need to decide whether I can accept things how they are. Honestly after the way he spoke to me tonight I’m not sure I can.

You know the strangest thing is my DH was giving off all the signs of being emotionally available. I was really careful after my last relationship to find someone who made me feel good. DH even told me he understood that he needed to make me feel safe, underlie and loved. I just feel duped now. He managed three years before the mask dropped. So I’m not sure I do have a pattern of emotionally unavailable men. My ex was but he too put on a good act for the first year. I’m definitely attracted to intelligence and both my ex and DH are smart. I don’t know, maybe there is a pattern.

I know growing up my Mum and Dad always encouraged us to talk about problems and be open. I guess I’ve always expected to do that in relationships. If feels like it goes against my values to not be able to do that. My DH says he feels uncomfortable when he hears my Dad and I talk because it’s deep and meaningful. He doesn’t get why we waste time talking like that. I’m very close with my Dad and it’s therapeutic for us both. Maybe my expectations of DH are too high. I guess I just need to figure out if I can tolerate his he is. It just worries me because I want to model a healthy relationship to the kids and I don’t feel that’s what we have.

I’ve been interested in reading your account of couples counselling.

I have also been to counselling with my DP with a therapist who specialises in ND couples and codependency.

It has seemed to make DP worse. Eg when I thought I could mention things that upset me DP’s rejection sensitivity put him into a shame spiral and he became defensive and determined to prove me wrong.

And when we discussed my faults and issues in therapy, which I’m alive to and happy to admit, and see as flexible rather than fixed, DP started keeping score. It was like my behaviours were a new set of little toy cars or Pokémon cards for him to collect and line up and categorise

‘You’re doing that because you’re codependent’ he would say quite gleefully when I offered to help him with something. ‘You’re not being helpful you’re trying to get validation!’

After the therapist told us I struggle to listen to DP because I have compassion fatigue, DP did not see his part in causing the fatigue. But he has kept pointing out the occasions when I don’t listen. I ask him does he know why I struggle to listen, what caused this? But he doesn’t seem to realise his part in anything. Just kept filling in his ‘what is wrong with her’ bingo card.

I went to the last session on my own instead and will probably continue to. DP can go on his own too, I think. I don’t really mind what he says about me when I am not there. The therapist has watched us interact for quite a while now and told me he has shame, RSD and narcissistic traits. So she’ll take what he says about me and try and get him to examine why he’s saying it.

He’ll probably monologue about me and then dismiss all his behaviours as part of his autism and therefore sth he can’t be ‘blamed’ for. I’d be wildly excited if he came back from a session saying I’m sorry I did x it must be so hard for you.’ But I doubt that will happen.

I’m going to use the therapy to understand why I am in this relationship at all and whether/how to get out.

“You know the strangest thing is my DH was giving off all the signs of being emotionally available. I was really careful after my last relationship to find someone who made me feel good. DH even told me he understood that he needed to make me feel safe, underlie and loved. I just feel duped now. He managed three years before the mask dropped.”

This bit OMG yes. ‘I feel so safe with you’ is one of the 1st things DP ever said to me. I think it was on our first or second date. He was also really compassionate and interested in me. He displayed a lot of empathy. I think it was hyperfocus and then after a year or so the dopamine wore off. Now he seems to get the brain boost he needs from arguing with me. He has ADHD as well as autism and this dynamic of seeking conflict as a self soothing mechanism is observed in a lot of the ADHD books and forums. DP doesn’t recognise it in himself.

Out of interest was your DP involved in any conflicts when you met? Mine was in a long running battle about money with his ex wife. (I was the perfect ‘not her’.) When it all settled down with the exw our conflicts started up. I mentioned this timeline in our therapy and he seemed baffled. My dad is high-conflict too so I see what I fell for there. My mum is actually pleased when Dad is involved with a dispute with the council about bin bags or whatever because it makes her life easier.

@organictomatoes your experience of couples counselling sounds so frustrating. I recognise all the keeping score stuff, and the needing to counter any ‘grievance’ with one of his own. In my case, I realised eventually that this was just not going to change. He’s not going to stop being autistic; he’s not going to stop having RSD.

I think it was easier for me to accept this when our DS was diagnosed with ASD/PDA. From early toddlerhood he had all of DH’s traits: utterly obsessive, totally unable to comply with requests or do things for himself even when he has the physical and cognitive ability to, very resistant to leaving the house, huge difficulties with transitions & inertia, hyperlexia but very slow receptive language processing, furious if I change my appearance in any way, etc etc. it was so clear that these things are innate, and built into the bedrock of his functioning.

Like my DH, he is also very ‘high-masking’, and his friends and teachers find him utterly charming and sociable, generous to a fault. He’s very popular and can get on well with all sorts: boys, girls, sporty kids, nerdy kids. It is fascinating to watch him with his friends and listen to him talk about friendship dynamics - for a 7 year old he has a very sophisticated grasp of who likes whom and who feels what in what situation. And it’s not really masking, or deception - being socially interested and skilled is also a huge part of who he is, and he’s always clamouring to see his buddies. But it absolutely wears him out, and when he’s at home, he kind of reverts to being an overtired baby, needs constant undivided attention and everything done for him, does loads of stimming, and if anything feels ‘unfair’ he has to ‘equalise’ - which often involves violence that is becoming quite scary as he gets bigger. (DH has never been violent btw)

One of the reasons I stay with DH is that he absolutely gets how to work with DS - he can understand why DS does things that I can’t relate to at all. He has been an incredibly attentive father, and I think it feels meaningful to him to give DS the childhood he didn’t have. I would struggle to raise DS without DH’s insights and patience.i have some hope that DD will have a lesser burden of shame than DH as he grows up, and that this will help him be a more responsive friend or partner.

But it’s given me a very clear picture of why DH was this gregarious, massively popular, hugely sociable person when I met him - emotionally available to the max, like you describe your DH, @Dialledin - a total catch. I couldn’t believe my luck that I’d met this amazing man who seemed to adore me. And then when we married after a whirlwind romance, he suddenly stopped wanting to leave the house or interact with me very much at all.

That’s when I could have left - but instead I spent the next 8 years trying to figure out and make things work and find the version of him I had thought I was marrying. And time was running out to have a family, and broodiness took over, and now here we are.

I’d like things to have been different - but they’re not, and I’m 46,, and I’ve been put off relationships for life now so it’s not like if we split up I’d be looking to meet someone new 😂.

So what I’ve focussed on is trying to ensure what contact we have feels as good as possible. We hug every time we see each other - and DH likes that. We hug when we’ve had harsh words rather than trying to resolve anything verbally. We hug when DS has been difficult. I take time for exercise and socialising without guilt. I have acupuncture and the occasional massage so that I get some experience of being cared for.

I’m making a living will so I don’t have to rely on DH to make choices he won’t be able to if I have a stroke, etc. I will go into a home rather than be looked after by DH if I need support when I’m older (having seen how his family neglected his mum when she was dying). I have made plans around the knowledge of what he can’t do, and it helps me feel less helpless, and able to focus on now.

Like I say, it ain’t romance. But I’m making as many active choices as I can within the situation that is, and that does help.

I am at the point of accepting my husband will never change and I will either have to divorce or have my needs met outside the marriage.

Did any of you ever contemplate having an affair? Asking for a friend of course...

No. I’d rather leave him. I’ve stayed because I made marriage vows, so the idea of breaking them doesn’t sit well with me. It’s all or nothing for me. Also, he breaks his vows to love and cherish m, expecting that his faithfulness somehow makes up for those. It doesn’t. I don’t say this to judge women who do have affairs, but it’s always messy. My life is messy enough.

In the early days I considered it. But I concluded I don’t have the energy for an affair - it just sounds like more logistics and planning and work to me. I feel like the last thing I need in my life is another man.

I wish we could all go to the pub together!

@PictureFrameWindow God yes. I am trying to move my school SEND parents’ crowd on to pub meets, as it’s just so fucking nice and sane-making to hang out with people who get it.

I am so conflicted in my feelings towards my ex - I am so frustrated by his behaviour but feel sorry for him that he genuinely doesn't seem to be aware/ able to control it.

We spit up rather than an affair. It has made coparenting much easier than if I'd have cheated and he would have definitely found out as I am an idiot and scatty.

My honest opinion is that you are better off leaving than having an affair.

The only need you will get met is sexual. If you have a need for a close emotional relationship, you need to leave and form a new full relationship. An affair is a convenience for both parties, someone on MN once described it as a pseudo relationship.

I think we all have enough pseudo relationship in our marriages without creating a second one to fuck with our heads and hearts even more.

@Dialledin

I hear completely what you say about grieving the marriage and husband you thought you had. I've been through that process too and I still get intense pangs for what could have been. Its very painful and very difficult.

You mentioned counselling for H alone. My H did this for a bit and yes, he entirely used it to shore up his own narrative and then beat me over the head with. It was disastrous. That was just a general counsellor though, not relationship and not ND specialist ( he did not have a diagnosis then).

@organictomatoes
Your description of how your H used counselling! It rang so true. That is exactly how H would have used it - its how he has used any type of support we had! Its actually made me glad we did not go down the couple counselling route after the first session! I think it would have finished me off!

Can I just post this here? My heart is absolutely breaking.

I mentioned to my ten year old that I might be going to an event one saturday and he looked really sad and asked me not to go. When I asked why he said, ' 'because Daddy is mean when you are not here'. I went away for three days last year and for months before hand my kids were asking me not to go because of how their Dad is when he is alone with them. When I mentioned what they were saying to H he accused me of 'being horrible' to him ( because obviously the person to centre here is him, not his kids). There have been plenty of times when I am out when I get texts from DS1 begging me to come home. DS1 hates accompanying his Dad when he takes DS2 to his swim class as his Dad reads a book to him that he is not interested in. H will be interested in this book and that is all that matters to him.

Our youngest (DS2) has incontinence issues which he asks me to hide from his Dad as his Dad shouts at him. His Dad has actually invented a stupid incentive scheme, which is just praise for being clean 100% of the time over a certain period, which of course ds2 cannot keep to as he is not deliberately soiling himself. So DS2 asks me to lie to his Dad when he does soil himself.

DS1 lies to his dad about liking meals his dad makes as his Dad gets angry if he doesn't like it or want to eat it.

DS1 today started saying ' he does not have time' when I asked him to help around the house, as this is what he hears his Dad saying when I ask him about something he is not doing that needs doing. I don't want my kids learning they can transfer work from them to me as I will always pick it up. But that's clearly what they are learning.

I really, really want to get in a position to leave H, but then things like this make me terrified for how that will be like for the kids. DS2 can't hide his incontinence then, they'll spend more time with him, not less. I feel like whatever I do, me and the kids are trapped in a nightmare. I'm just feeling really despondent right now.

@YesThis I am so sorry that your DC feel this way about their Dad.

I am in a similar position. I took my kids out to buy birthday presents for their Dad last year, which we've always done and bough "generic" stuff like sweets and pants and car shampoo. Last year, my eldest (13) has obviously reached the point where they recognise that they should buy presents the person will like rather than "generic" stuff. My heart broke when DC said "I don't know what to get Dad because I don't really know him". Not a lot I can say to that really, as I'm not sure I know him any better than DC does.

I have also had the "don't leave us with Dad" pleas when I've left them for 1-2 nights for work, and more recently to go away with friends. I am 99% sure they're safe with him (it would be entirely through carelessness that anything happened if it did; DH is just not as good at planning ahead as me), but there's just no care there. He'd remember his own coat but not theirs for example. I have had to decide that much like leaving them at nursery was hard because I knew I could do a better job, I also have to leave them with DH for my own sanity.

No idea what the answer is. I am one foot inside the door and one foot outside it.

Thanks for answering @UpsideDownside

Sorry to hear you are going through similar. I don't know what the answer is either. Its just all so awful.

Problems with H are many with kids. He has no idea how to handle them other than being angry and aggressive. He escalates things rather than calms things when they are getting agitated or upset. he can't attune to them or understand their behaviour AT ALL.

I remember once ds2 had to get dressed up for somehting at school. H is really good at making costumes out of stuff around the house. There was H, huge grin on his face, whole body animated and excited, getting the final touches to the outfit, really enjoying himself. And there was DS2 shoulders slumped, head hanging down, huge downturned mouth and just looking miserable. I asked him what was up and he whispered,. 'my friends will laugh at me. I am wearing a blanket.' And he was as H had used one as part of the costume. So I told H that ds2 didn't want to wear the blanket and he was instantly angry about how then it wouldn't be 'authentic' ( dS2 cares not one bit about this) and how I was undermining him (H) and I should be supporting DS2 to wear it. It took me ages to talk him down from it. Christ!

It was the fact he could not read or see ds2 at all. He was so caught up in his own costume project and that was all that mattered. Not how his own child felt at all.

I have also had the "don't leave us with Dad" pleas when I've left them for 1-2 nights for work, and more recently to go away with friends

Its just heartbreaking though isn't it? This is their Dad! The person they should feel safe with and want to spend one on one time with.

I can't understand how H never has a wake up call about his behaviour. How can being told your own kids are miserable about spending time with you not be a huge wake up call that maybe you need to start doing things differently?

That all sounds incredibly hard 💔.

@YesThis this is so hard to balance isn’t it? On one hand, yu can see how much damage your dh is doing to the dcs by staying. And on the other, there is the real risk that they will be as damaged, if not more, if you are leaving.
I dint think it’s dissimilar to what happens in an abusive relationship really.

Do you think your dh would actually either want or be able to cope if he was having the dcs for any length of time?
My dh is very duty bound so would feel like he should and has to because that’s what good fathers do. But your dh might be quite happy to see them just fur the day or half day.

im also wondering if he would be more able to cope if you were separating.
Again, only my experience, but dh visibly relaxed when both dcs went to Uni. I think having no expectation put on him re parenting, a quieter house etc… means he is less stressed and therefore react better to daily ‘stresses’.
im not sure of that would happen with your dh too.

My DP also has counselling. He comes out of the sessions generally totally emboldened by the certainty he has done everything right. It’s usually where he gets to monologue about the harms apparently inflicted on him by his poor ex wife. He had one of those divorces that was entirely someone else’s fault you see. The exw is seemingly ever present in his mind as 1) they have children together and he likes to blame her for kids’ challenging behaviours. He’s utterly gleeful if he ever discovers she messed sth up and 2) he seems to need some sort of enemy at all times. If he and exw are getting on amicably the enemy tends to become me. Why am I still in this relationship? I honestly have no idea. I must hate myself. We’re not married and we don’t live together. It’s like I’m scared of jumping off a slowly sinking ship even though I know I’m going to drown.