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

Bunnyhair. Probably a good idea for me to stay single too. The problem is a lot of traits are very attractive in ND men. I loved how intelligent & interesting my ex was , also that he didn't see the usual social norms, ie the way society expects women to look etc. I still think he is a nice person on the whole, although selfish. I think we came unstuck about the 3 year mark when the masking stopped completely. I resonate with your comment about being the special interest & also about partners having to sleep a lot when overwhelmed.It's sad to have split up, but I needed a partner & was getting down with having to be a therapist.

@Joy69 I hear you. It is so tough. It’s good that you recognised what you needed.

"it’s because he uses me for nervous system regulation, and if I can’t regulate him, he collapses. And this is inseparable from his autism"

@Bunnyhair absolutely, you've totally nailed it, this is my experience too.

I think this is why some of us end up so ill and burnt out in these relationships. We end up trying to self-regulate (hard with ADHD) AND having to regulate others in the household. It is basically doing the emotional labour of everyone in the household

1000 per cent this.
And then doing all the mental load, all the organizing and planning, all the….

Bit of success last night!

All the DC are here this weekend. We were having a games evening. StepDS flicks something and it hits his sister. Not hard. Not even sure if he flicked it at her on purpose. She starts pretending it really hurt. DP completely flies off the handle again. Starts shouting at poor stepDS who tries to say he didn’t mean to but DP just shouted louder and wouldn’t allow him to speak. This is in front of me and the other 3 DC. Went on for ages. My DS was smiling at my StepDS and I was saying for everyone to just leave the room. DP starts shouting about how my DS can do whatever he likes and there is no consequence whereas his DS gets into trouble. The other DC leave and they’re a bit upset. Step DS is sent to his room.

I say to DP that I’m not sure that shouting like that is appropriate. He disagrees and says at least his DC behave. They know they will be told off if they don’t. Mine just do whatever the Hell they like and nothing happens.

I say no, that’s not true. It’s not that nothing happens. It’s that I deal with them differently. I speak to them calmly and explain why their behaviour has been upsetting or unhelpful and I ask them to have some consideration. I wouldn’t say they are particularly naughty. They’re kids. Normal kids. Just because I don’t shout at them doesn’t mean I don’t do anything. I don’t want to shout at them. Then I said “yknow all that shouting just then, regardless of whether you think it was the right thing to do, it wasn’t very pleasant for the rest of us. My DD found it quite upsetting and it’s spoilt the evening”. He said yes he could see that and was sorry for that. I said perhaps it might have been better to take his DS off and explain that he was annoyed with his behaviour rather than shout like that in front of us all. He said yes, that might have been a better way to handle it.

Amazing!

Then he said he is struggling a bit with his DS and please would I go up and talk to him. So I did. I then told DP that I think his younger sister is getting him into trouble on purpose (probably getting her own back for years of him winding her up!) but actually the last time it happened he hadn’t actually done anything wrong then either. I didn’t say anything at the time as I didn’t want to interfere. But it was rather unfair on him then and now. But not to go and shout at his DD!! Just accept they’re behaving like normal siblings do. And cut them a bit of slack. And shouting at them just isn’t very nice. Yes maybe they behave better than my kids do, but at what price? I was shouted at by my ASD DF all the time as a child and it has affected me in so many ways. Does he really want that for them? Just so they behave? Is it really worth it?

He said he thought he might be struggling a bit with knowing how to parent as they get older. And that actually I was right about the shouting. Then he asked if we could please change the subject. And I was fine with that.

Honestly you’d all be so proud of me!!! Of course I felt like defending my parenting and my DC but I just stayed calm and we had an actual talk. He started off saying he thought the shouting was fine and his DS deserved it and went on the attack about my parenting. But I didn’t react. Just calmly explained I do things differently and suggested the shouting hadn’t been very nice for everyone else. And he could see that once I said it.

This is why I stay. He can reflect. He does take stuff on board. It’s hard work and I have to choose my words and my timing carefully. But he is so much better than he was. He used to shout at the DC all the time!!! He still shouts but much less! And he went up to his DS and apologised to him for shouting and misjudging the situation. And we all reconvened and played more games!!! Success! I know it isn’t perfect and his DS was a bit quiet for some of the evening, which isn’t like him. At least his dad apologised though and at least he knows I am working on the shouting. With some success!

Bloody Hell @BustyLaRoux that's amazing! I can only imagine that!

I have had some startling changes from H lately, which have surprised me as I am not sure where they came from. He had been horrible to DS2 again for his incontinence, shouting at him in a really shaming way. I'd tried to speak to him about how this is not appropriate or the way to handle it and explain, yet again, how DS2 is not doing this on purpose but cannot help it. He started off on his usual rebutting of everything I say and then started on verbally attacking me ( his normal two stage tactic). And so I pointed out to him, ' See what is happening. You started by rebutting me and now you are attacking me. This is why all our conversations end up in conflict.' And he said. ' Right, Sorry', He said it angrily whilst walking off, but that is still a massive development on what normally happens (escalates into a huge row). For my H, that is actually progress!

And today DS1 was really upset when I got back from a run and refusing to go to his class. I got back and H was immediately shouting that DS1 was out of control. I went and spoke to DS1 who was very upset, was able to explain very clearly the sequence of events and I could understand why he was upset ( H had co-escalated him, instead of co-regulating). I went to speak to H who instantly got angry with me for agreeing with DS1 that he didn't need to go to his class, but I stayed calm and explained my reasoning and he actually seemed to listen and calmed down. Normally this would be a huge row.

I am not sure why this has happened. I have had two conversations with him about his impact on me and how I need him to listen to me and practice seeing things from my and the kids point of view. I hadn't expected these to make a difference as I have said all this a 1000 times before but maybe they have.

I've thanked him for listening and said I think we can really start to improve things if we continue like this.

Probably going to get my hopes dashed, but feeling a little hopeful for the first time in seven years.

Oh wow, I know you don’t want to jinx it! But that is real progress isn’t it? It’s just so hard for them in the throes of anger to stop and see it from someone else’s point of view. But with patience and support it is possible!!! I do really feel for your poor DS2 though. I can only imagine the stress and anxiety will make his incontinence even worse! Poor thing.

Yes, poor DS2 : ( He's on the waiting list for the incontinence clinic but its two years!

I think I have also written about problems with DS1 eating (he doesn't eat well and is very small). I've explained to H again and again that creating feelings of unhappiness and stress around food will make DS1 less likely to eat not more but H just says ' we have to make him eat!' and continues with his angry bull in a china shop approach. The other day DS1 said to me that he has noticed his feelings affect whether he eats and that he does not want to eat when he is sad. I told H this and told him this is why we need to stop creating anxiety around meal times. And, remarkably, H did not argue, he just said ' Ok then.' So I am really, really hoping that has penetrated. Meal times were happy times in my childhood and poor DS1 does not have that.

But yes @BustyLaRoux your stories of how you have managed to slowly improve things and reduce shouting have helped and I suppose I am now hoping that maybe this can happen with us too.

Well that died a remarkably rapid death. Just had to go downstairs as DS2 was screaming and yelling. H was holding him on this lap whilst trying to force food into DS2s mouth.

Cue long and difficulty conversation between H and me. He insists he has to do this as ( cue ridiculous but typical defensive hyperbole from H) 'they don't eat anything, they won't eat and they will starve'. I asked him to challenge this thought (there are meals they both eat happily). But he wouldn't, just said they won't eat if he doesn't make them as there is nothing they like.

I tried asking him what meal times felt like for him as a child, and then how they felt to our kids. He couldn't really do this so I suggested out kids must sit down at meal times adn feel really anxious about whether or not they will like the food, what will happen if they don't, will they get shouted at, will they be shamed, will their parents start to argue? I told him Ds1 described himself as a 'shitbag' to me the other day, because he doesn't eat. I told him that is how we are making him feel. H instantly said he has never called DS1 that. I explained that his behaviour at mealtimes has made DS 1 absorb that message about himself. He then claimed he never behaves like that and does not shout or get angry or shame the kids ( !!!!!!!!!!).
I told him we needed to take a positive but slower approach, so that the kids feel comfortable telling us if they do not like food, and we get feedback so we can increase the meals they do like and they feel confident to try new food, and so that food is just associated with positive feelings and memories, and happy family together times. But he just argued against me with his ' we have to force them to eat food they do not like or they will starve' approach.

And they I started to get upset so I told him we had to stop speaking as I couldn't cope anymore.

@YesThis 🫂🫂🫂

I dont have any advice.
But I wish I could scoop you and your dcs up and take you to a nice quiet, relaxing place so you can have a breather.

It’s slow gains. But there is hope. I do believe that. There are times when I do wonder why I’m here. But I know how good we can be and I try to stay positive because change does happen!

Before we were together I remember him shouting at his DS who was about 8 at the time, telling him he would have him sent away to boarding school! I couldn’t stop myself from blurting out “NO!” at him. I immediately felt guilty as it was such a visceral reaction and not my place (!) but I later explained how my own parents had threatened to have me put into care as a child and it was years before I was able to forgive that and move on from it. Apparently shouting that DS would be sent away to boarding school was a common occurrence but after I said that he never said it again. I think he genuinely thought that was how to parent a “naughty” child. Shout at them and threaten them until they behave. It’s how my DF parented me. It was horrific. With my DP it’s not done out of cruelty though. When I explained how it was likely making his DS feel based on my own experience he was perfectly able to see it. But it needs explaining. He doesn’t naturally think about how a behaviour will make someone else feel. The behaviour is a means to an end. To bring about a desired outcome. With a rigid belief that it’s the best way to do that. He loses sight of people’s feelings because he is so focused on achieving the outcome he wants and nothing else matters!

It’s like my DF with the ham! Remember that? My relatives were clearly upset by his horrible rude behaviour, but he was so focused on cooking his ham for the meal he had planned that he (a) didn’t see that they were clearly upset by his behaviour and (b) wouldn’t have cared even if their upset was spelled out to him because he just doesn’t prioritise people’s feelings over achieving the outcome he wants. My DP is different in that he may not realise the effect his behaviour is having on people because he is so focused on the outcome but at least he will stop and re evaluate the situation if explained to him in the right way. And he is then able to see that the outcome doesn’t necessarily trump people’s feelings.

From what you describe YesThis it sounds like your DH is very similar. He doesn’t mean to be cruel. He is trying to bring about the desired outcome in the rigid way he thinks that needs to be done. He isn’t naturally able to think in terms of how his behaviour towards your DC makes them feel because he is too fixated on the outcome. Ironically he isn’t able to see that his behaviour is actually making the outcome harder to achieve!! It does sound like he is starting to accept some of what you’re saying. Maybe he’s not quite at the empathetic stage yet but small gains. At least he is starting to listen to you.

Oh no, YesThis, I’m sorry. I posted before I read your last message. That is truly awful. I reiterate what I was saying that I am learning that for some ASD people, other people’s feelings do not seem to trump the desired outcome. (Not all ASD people before anyone gets offended!). My DP is starting to see that the outcome isn’t more important than people’s feelings and that there can be long term damage done long after the outcome has (or hasn’t!) been achieved. I think it is helpful for him to hear me speak from experience about my childhood. My DF however is utterly incapable of prioritising people’s feelings. I don’t think he has it in him. It’s one of the reasons I keep a bit of distance. I wonder if your DH is more like my DP or like my DF…?

Thanks @Dialledin im sorry to hear you went through this. We are all so accommodative and forgiving.

This relationship only ended 1.5 weeks ago but I know it was for the best. I have had a really challenging week for other reasons and I kept getting these rushes of gratitude that XDP wasn’t around to drag me down and drain my energy and make it all about him.

Two things happened today that felt like signs. I was wondering through our local market in lovely spring sunshine, and kept getting flashbacks to all the adult tantrums XDP had in certain spots (no more of those to deal with yay). Then I bumped into a friend I’d not seen for a while whose DH is very similar to XDP. Only they are married and have kids and share a home (I had at least resisted throwing my lot in with XDP). She looked so worn out and thin and said her back was hurting and she’d been having migraines. She told me about how her DH’s adult tantrums are starting to affect the children. She told me she’s ashamed of talking about it now as fears people will judge her for not ‘just leaving.’ I saw myself in 5 or ten years if I’d not managed to get off the rollercoaster.

I do feel alone and lonely without XDP. But I’d rather be, I think, than having stayed.

I think it will take quite a while to recover as you say but I am pleased the process is starting now.

I think you can get assessed. When I had my ADHD assessment I couldn’t ask my dad to help for various reasons. My mum filled in the family survey but minimised and denied everything. The clinic did computerised tests and the psych spent 4 hours with me and he said it’s really common for parents not to remember/to deny as they don’t want to feel the shame of not having helped their child at the time.

Happy Mothering Sunday to all of us on here stuck mothering our partners.

Can’t really face the MN threads today where women in more trad set-ups go bananas because their DH hasn’t adequately lavished them with gifts and acts of service, or wants to spend time with his own mother. It would never occur to my DH to do anything for his own mother either. 😂

Meanwhile my PDA child did not make me a Mother’s Day card at school, when all the other kids did, because he ‘didn’t want to’. DH says, ‘but you know he loves you. I don’t see what the problem is.’

And I know it’s a demand avoidance thing. But fuck me it feels shit that all I am to anyone close to me is a great big onerous demand made flesh.

Thanks so much for this! That’s exactly what we need but never get. It’s the relentlessness of no break.

Thanks @BustyLaRoux i think H is somewhere between you DF and DH. He wouldn’t go as far as the ham thing but is pretty inflexible. Another row this morning about the eating thing. He’s really, really stuck on that.

I’m just done, but then I don’t see a way to be done. There’s just carrying on.

She told me she’s ashamed of talking about it now as fears people will judge her for not ‘just leaving.

This is me. Irritates me when we are scolded for not understanding how hard life is for ASD partner due to their need to mask.

Firstly, my H does not mask.
Secondly, its me who bloody masks. The disconnect between the ‘me’ I put on to face the outside world with, and the ‘me’ I actually am, the life I actually lead, is getting increasingly hard to cope with psychologically.

so well done for escaping @organictomatoes . I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy. I can’t believe this is actually my life!

Yes @Bunnyhair Happy Mother’s Day 😐

Told my kids to make me a card and they did with lots of lovely messages, and a picture of me and them together in a heart with the words ‘we love each other’. The eldest signed off with ‘all the love in my heart’ and youngest with ‘I love you so much’. Youngest gave me a necklace of his as a present, and eldest gave me a tenner!

YesThis I am so sorry. Even if he’s not quite down the ham end it sounds bleak and awful for you and your DC. I wouldn’t blame you for calling it a day. Your DC sound lovely! Happy Mothers Day.

Happy Mothers Day for everyone on here who is a mother and who is struggling with less than zero support and a life they didn’t imagine. ❤

@YesThis an ASD marriage hack that has helped me when my DH is really stuck on something is I take it over as ‘my job’ - because once something is ‘not his job’ it just disappears from his consciousness, however much it mattered to him before.

Is that something that might work with your DH and the food stuff? Sure, it makes more work for you, but it does sound like he needs to be effectively banned from involvement with feeding the kids if he really can’t refrain from force feeding and can’t retain from one conversation to the next what you’ e tried to communicate to him about the effects on the DC.

Disappointing Mother’s Day.

DH got me a card but that’s it. Like it appears on the table and I open it whenever but there’s no hug, no moment, no expression of anything. Just a card with a few words.

The kids didn’t do much either but then they take their cue from him which is that I’m not worth celebrating because no day is ever worth celebrating for anyone.

I had a big meltdown and kids went off and came back with a cake and a plant from the shops. That made me feel quite a bit better then.

It’s just so bloody hard always squashing down your hopes and expectations of being made to feel just a teeny tiny bit special on one day in the year.

I lost my own DM three months ago and it was an emotional day.

I told DH how painful it is to be around him but never have any emotional support.

Silence ensued. He then went upstairs and hoovered the loft room at length. Yes it was dusty, yes it needed doing. But acts of service cannot replace 10 mins of chatting and connecting and holding someone on the sofa while they quietly sob with grief. That’s all I needed. But it’s never ever available with DH. Never.

So bloody painful. I had to eat lunch in another room. Couldn’t sit opposite him in such a vulnerable state and have his implacable self invalidate me further as I tried to calm myself down. Tears can be pouring down my cheeks but hit just carries on with whatever he’s doing. So so so invalidating. Makes me feel like shit.

Fucking life. At times.

@BlueTick im so sorry to hear about the loss of your mum. What a difficult day for you. It’s atrocious your DH couldn’t pull something out of the bag for this Mothers Day in particular. The sloping off to go and do a task when things get emotive is something I can identify. It’s horrible because not only has he upset you, he’s then abandoned you when you need him. It makes it all feel so much worse. Sending you a virtual hug.