Help me communicate one thing with PDA partner

[Bunnyhair]

Edited to add: apologies for massive post!

I’m looking for advice from PDA and/or autistic people, or people in relationships with PDA / autistic people. Please don’t comment if you have no understanding of PDA, or have strong ideas about people using autism as an ‘excuse’.

I need help communicating something important in our relationship to my DH who is extremely sensitive to perceived criticism. I want him to stop offering to do things he will not do.

Background: my DH and DC are PDA. I didn’t realise DH was PDA until our DC was diagnosed. There was a lot that puzzled me about his behaviour but I could see that he had good intentions. Seeing what our DC has struggled with since birth, and his huge distress and frustration when he can’t do things he wants to be able to do, helps me understand what is going on fundamentally with my DH that he has been trying to work around for 40-odd years.

Life is extremely complex at home (to say the least) and I bear all the mental and practical load for everything. DH works at a job he dislikes to support us financially, as I can only work very limited hours around DC’s needs. Work takes all of his spoons. He needs to recharge in the evenings with his special interests, and often comes to bed late and sleeps late in the mornings.

The issue troubling me today is that DH said last night, ‘please don’t do any cleaning up, I’ll do it before I go to bed.’ I expressed thanks for this, though I knew he would not do it, and I’d come down in the morning to a mess. Which is exactly what happened. It happens a lot.

This gets to the core of an issue that is causing a lot of resentment for me.

There is seemingly no gentle enough way of saying, ‘thank you for offering to clean up - it means a lot to me that you recognise it needs doing, and that you don’t expect me to do it all myself. But I am going to do it, because it’s important to me that it gets done in a particular timeframe.’ Even this feels to him like an attack and makes him angry and defensive.

I have tried saying, ‘oh don’t worry, I’ll do it, it’s no trouble,’ but that doesn’t sit well with me and feels dishonest. I don’t want to give the impression that I want to do all of everything in the house single-handedly, that I somehow enjoy it. I don’t.

I have tried waiting until he gets up in the morning (invariably 2 hours after DC and I do) and saying, in the warmest tone I can muster, hey thanks for volunteering to clean up last night - it would be great if you could sort the kitchen. But this is both a demand and a reminder of something he hasn’t done, which can feel to him like a violent character assassination.

If he sees or hears me doing the washing up and remembers that he’d offered to do it, even THAT feels like an attack to him and he’ll have a go at me for not trusting him to do it when he’d said he would.

All I want is for him not to offer.

I want him to be able to sit with whatever discomfort it causes him that he can’t do this stuff, rather than making it my issue to manage, or requiring me to collude in the pretence that he can.

I don’t want to sneak around quietly doing the dishes and letting him take credit, like he’s Santa Claus. I want us to be able to be clear and honest about who does what and why. With no judgement! But with due acknowledgement and appreciation for what each of us does.

I have tried and tried for years, since learning about PDA, to say, I get it that you have executive function issues. I get it that you literally cannot do something if it feels like a demand or an expectation. What bothers me is not so much that you don’t do the thing, but that you insist that you will, and often insist that I don’t crack on and do it myself (presumably because seeing me do something you know you should be doing feels like a criticism / indirect demand?) - and then become extremely indignant and offended if I remind you even in the gentlest manner.

He is 100% not doing this on purpose. He wants to be able to do the things. But he can’t. And he can’t accept this about himself.

But I just want the fucking dishes done. I don’t want the extra emotional labour of relieving him of his guilt about not doing the dishes.

Can anyone suggest to me how I might communicate this to him in a way that won’t get his hackles up? Or do I just need to accept that this is another thing he can’t do, and work on letting it go?

It doesn’t come across in this post but we have a good relationship in so many ways. He supports me to pursue my interests and friendships and is loyal to a fault and extremely funny and an enormously loving and dedicated father. But daily life is a massive struggle and we are all on our knees with exhaustion.

Sorry, the above was to the teacher

@bigarse1 it feels so good to be understood! Thank you. And I can only imagine how complex life is balancing the needs of 3 PDA kids and 1 PDA adult… and your own (!) I salute you.

ADHD and chaos here too and we thank each other a lot. But I agree that giving out thanks for a job not yet done means he has had the thanks and not actually done anything to get the thanks. It's not PA to only thank when someone has actually done the thing.

There's an element of recovery language in it (or Yoda) 'trying is lying' is recovery and Yoda is 'do, or do not do, there is no try'.

In our house one trick that worked was, "the story I'm telling myself". It may not work in ASD, it does in ADHD. In this case it would be him: "I'll do the dishes tomorrow" you; "the story I'm telling myself is you really want to but won't". It works because the other person hears that you are describing the inside of your head, not the world. They can describe the inside of their head as well. You have to agree in advance to try using it as a communication tool. I think it was Brene Brown who invented it. It's important that you are allowed your truth. That's the issue. You can't do the work and give the credit to the other person. That's soul-destroying.

@Bunnyhair if I'm honest I have found the children easier than my husband.
There is something about being married, that person being an equal parent but not being? If that makes sense?
I'm more proactive than I have ever been. I waited over 20 years for a hole to be filled in a wall so I could decorate. Then I had enough, paid someone to do the hole while he wasn't there and me and the kids decorated the hall.
I'm very much a person who just gets on and does it and I find it hard to see him sitting doing nothing but the more I have come to terms with it actually that has freed him to be able to do more or to at least acknowledge that he hasn't? And that kind of takes the sting out of it?

@bigarse1 ah, I had to laugh in recognition at the necessity of waiting until your DH was away to get someone in to fix things. DH cannot bear it if I hire any sort of tradesperson - ‘but we can just do that ourselves!’ Yeah but we won’t though.

To his credit he does thank me after the fact when I’ve e.g. got in an actual roofer to fix the massive fucking leak pouring rain into the front room rather than letting our house full up with mould over the next few decades waiting for DH to feel able to turn his mind to mastering the trades of roofing / plastering / etc so that he could do the whole thing himself and be absolutely sure nobody was ripping him off or doing a sloppy job. 😂

Hi OP. I have a PDA DC, ADHD DC and ASD DH who I believe also has PDA. Your situation sounds very similar to mine. It’s incredibly hard and I think the advice you’ve already received about protecting yourself as much as poss and acknowledging that your feelings absolutely matter is very wise.

Here are some things that have (sometimes!) worked for me.

No praise or thank you’s at all. Any praise before the task sets up demand so you have to respond neutrally to him if he suggests doing anything. Any praise after the task sets up future expectations that then becomes a demand. I tend to focus on acknowledging the completed task indirectly eg “ the kitchen looks good, I might make soup now I’m in the mood for cooking”.

Work with the low demand approach and his need for control and ask him if he can help think of a way to achieve dishes/tidying/task xyz. If he can’t, no problem. If he offers solutions fine, but no praise as above and you allow yourself to ignore his anger if you still do it all. He can’t help his feelings but neither do you have to take responsibility for them.

PDA is absolutely brutal to manage for everyone, not least those who are living with it. It’s taken me years to get my head around DC’s needs but at least I feel they’re now being acknowledged and we can navigate through together as they grow. I think with partners though it’s doubly hard as there is an automatic expectation of being an adult, a DH, a parent. Demand is baked in from the beginning of a relationship with all it entails.

@OldBeyondMyYears I just wanted to also say thank you for taking the time to support your PDA child in class, even though it’s hard. My DC had a terrible time in primary school but now has a teacher who made a point of learning about PDA teaching techniques. That teacher has transformed DC’s life entirely and they now have a brilliant relationship.

Jesus. I'd not come home.

Don't thank him for offering. Why are you tiptoeing around him and his needs? What about yours? Who is meeting yours?

Just smile and nod and day you'd rather they were done before bed so you're attending to it before bed for your own peace of mind.

End of conversation.

If he refuses to seek therapy and participate in his own well-being then you shouldn't be sacrificing your own on his behalf.

You've said your DH copes with demands at work. And surely your child makes demands on your DH all the time - how does he cope with those? What do his family say about how he coped with their demands growing up? In your position, I'd be concerned that he was unwilling/unable to cope with MY demands more than others and I wouldn't put up with that.

Could you divide up some chores for a set amount of time then review? As you say, your DH sounds to be self imposing some of the demands. Once he is setting himself a demand like doing dishes at night he is then immediately starting to stress and avoid the demand he has created. If he could isolate the source of anxiety then maybe he could explore it therapeutically. Is the immediate anxiety around letting you down, the perceived demand around a task that he thinks pleases you and then failing to complete it so triggering a fear response around you leaving.

He needs to want to manage this. If he doesn't he won't. Yes there's an element of lazy many child.

Said as a woman with PDA herself.

You've said your DH copes with demands at work.

Actually the OP said he doesn't cope with various kinds of everyday work demands. He can't cope with WOH, he can't cope with scheduled meetings, he has to take long rest breaks between employment. He can work for himself (up to a point) but he sounds pretty much unmanageable by an employer.

And the OP is trying to manage him at home. I can see she has a problem!

@PaperBauble thank you. It’s so helpful to hear what has helped for others in the same boat - and just to hear from others in the same boat at all! Solidarity. And spot on re: the baked-in expectations of being an adult, husband, parent, etc. It’s a lot to manage for any of us, but 10 x that for PDAers.

@MrsTerryPratchett I love a bit of Yoda wisdom. Thank you.

You probably don't want to hear this, but the problem you have is that your DH has a problem but is unwilling or unable to do any of the work necessary to fix it, and so YOU are left having to handle him with kid gloves while your needs are completely unmet.

I think it is kind of you to be quite happy to take on the practicalities as he is bad at that and you feel he compensates in other ways. But to be tip doing around the fact that he is bad at it is not reasonable and not fair. I think a simple statement of fact, "thank you DH but I'm just going to do it now because we both know I'm better at getting it done.".

I know I sound unsympathetic but I am so tired of men with disabilities or mental health problems making them someone else's problem to manage.

Just to try clarify, my point is that it's totally fine for you to be supportive and helpful in regards to his PDA. But it's NOT okay for you to ALSO have to manage his emotions and the difficult he feels about his PDA, particularly as he's unwilling to do anything to help himself.

What kind of work does he do from home? He works for himself, at a job he doesn't like, and it exhausts him. Understood. But the work must surely make demands on him (what kind of work doesn't?) and he somehow copes. Why can't he use the same kind of coping mechanisms at home, in his relationship with you?

@MimiGC he’s a computer programmer. By time he‘s done all that coping at work he is utterly spent. The same way my DC is a model pupil at school, an utter perfectionist, a total stickler for the rules, friendly and generous to everyone even the most difficult kids - and the minute he gets in the car on the way home he can no longer cope at all. DH is masking at work, and you can only do that for so long.

What helped me understand PDA is this remarkable video of a young man explaining what his life is like.

I think the low demand approach sounds best but doesn’t answer the OP’s deep need for respite and care.

Does OP have any experience of her dh managing to offer to do something for her and carrying through to completion without sulking/avoiding/resenting? I would start looking for situations which he can, historically, handle and try to figure out how to expand on them.

I also would drop the thanks and only appreciate a job after its done. And I wouldn’t allow changes in routine or spontaneous offers of help since, however sincere at the start, they produce an instant internal backlash.

It’s tricky, as what works for one person with PDA, won’t necessarily work for another. I have PDA (and one of my DC also has PDA). My DC works best when they have an element of choice (eg, could you tidy x or do y). I don’t at all - choice still feels like a demand and paralyses me (poor executive function.) What works for me (and my partner) is knowing that my immediate ‘no’ isn’t going to stick. Any form of demand, request is always met with a hard no. Then I’ll work through in my head and suggest a solution - sometimes working with DP to tackle whatever it is (using your washing up example, I’ll wash, if you can dry. Or - as is more often with washing up - I’ll say, if I do the plates, can you do the pans, but actually, once I’ve actually started I’ll do it all).
Saying ‘no’ immediately helps the instant feeling of overload and takes the pressure off. Working through the options my head makes me feel like I’m back in control, and then working together together to do the thing, helps organise me so I stay on track to complete the job (also have ADHD and Dyspraxia).
working out that this approach works for me, isn’t something I realised without help. I’ve had years of CBT, and cant see a time when I would stop, tbh, and it really helps me break down and process my reactions, and then work out how I can manage them. And cope with the practicalities of daily life - and share the load with DP.
OP, would your DH be open to CBT? It’s not a quick fix, and your DH would need to be committed, but it can be life changing. Aside from the practical tools it gives you, I’ve always found it helped me decompress and minimise burnout.

And spot on re: the baked-in expectations of being an adult, husband, parent, etc. It’s a lot to manage for any of us, but 10 x that for PDAers.

But many of these expectations are not just imposed by society for the sake of conformity, many of them are "baked in" because they are the necessary functions for being an adult, husband, parent etc. in our society (not surrounded by flunkeys) People can get round not doing some of them but I don't really see how your DH can operate as an adult, husband, or parent without so many of them, except by draining you.

There are limits to how much you can do to manage his emotions and if he can't take more responsibility for managing himself then that could be pretty toxic to your relationship and to your own health long term.

Do you have to assume that PDA is, essentially, terminal? I mean I grasp the diagnosis but people retrain their body/brain all the time—thats what CBT, yoga, and meditation do. Is it impossible for OP’s husband to consider working directly on managing his own emotional regulation “Im feeling bad about not doing the dishes but its my problem to solve? I wont die of feeling bad. I can manage.”

I was struck by your comments on how much more intuitive your DH is with your child, OP. Could life be a little less stressful for you if you were able to go out to work a bit more? You'd be around enough to avoid the 'nobody bathed and no cats were fed' scenario, but you'd have a break. Also, maybe your DH would feel he was 'providing' by doing more dad stuff.

He would come down and wash a mug for himself and drink his tea and scroll on his phone until it was time to start work. Times when I’ve gone away for a night or two I come home and all the cupboard doors are open and every single dish is dirty and there are dirty clothes all over the floor and nobody has bathed and the cats haven’t been fed.

This is just awful. Special needs or not. It's neglectful. You sound so kind and so understanding but ultimately, enabling.
Lay it on the line then let him sulk / process / demand avoid.
I am autistic with very challenging PDA and my wife has ADHD. Both children both also. I can't imagine our home running like yours.
Your gentle kindness is not helping anyone. He's behaving irresponsibly and needs to do a lot better. Offering to help then not helping and then acting wounded, hard done by and offended when called out is not acceptable.
I'd simply show him this thread. 🤷🏻‍♀️