Married to someone with Asperger's/ASD: support thread 10

[Daftasabroom]

New thread.

This thread is for those of us seeking to explore 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.

ND people are more than welcome, some of us are in ND:ND relationships.

It's complicated and it's emotional.

@BustyLaRoux that happens here a lot too. I’m then convicted as the worst person imaginable, for something I haven’t ever said, meant or done!

I felt gaslighted in my ex relationship. He was add. But he wouldn't seek support. He was unresponsive, didn't talk, no touches, no kisses, i instigated everything.i did all housework, i did all diy, emotional labour, invisible labour,etc. he would cut lawn once a month (excuse to get away from everyone tbh) and emptied bin once a day .thats all i expected in the end. It was demoralizing, lonely , heartbreaking. I needed touch. Im very tactile. I ended it after 25 year, thing is, he never objected. Mono til the end

@narwhalsarereal can I ask how your DP decided he is ASD?

im wondering if he hasn’t been watching some videos of autistic men describing how life is for them. Some of them are SO entitled!
But your description reminded of a couple of posts earlier on in this thread where the autistic partner is using all the ‘psychobable’ to ‘attack’ their DP and basically shut them down.

Having said that, I think the bottom line is … if you’re unhappy then the answer is to leave. Your DP being autistic doesn’t mean you can’t leave or have to accept anything and everything.

@Loubelle70 me too! But only 18 years for me. Ironically, all he was worried about was being able to pay the bills? It just confirmed my need to leave. However, I couldn’t have done it sooner because I needed to know the children were able to look after themselves and able to contact me independently if they needed to.

I feel sad for what our relationship could have been but equally, my mental health and self worth are improving every day. I have always been a glass half full but my relationship really dragged me down and I found I was really struggling to be the mum I wanted to be.

The wording of the adversarial dynamic is really interesting as I have been trying to make sense of things like this. Why me asking for help on something is often met with a no or some sort of defence. We had an argument due to the cleanliness of the bathroom for instance as he cleans it (he is better so we leave that him) and I simply asked if he could clean it. It was met with a I think it’s fine. And then a polite back and forth with me concluding well it’s been 2 weeks so could you just do it. Followed then by a debate on whether it had been two weeks..
I snapped eventually saying I wish I was married to someone who would just say yes that’s fine.
then this turned into an argument of why do I have to be right on when to clean the bathroom.
Exhausting! Not sure how I can say I am right but there were bits of fluff and dirt everywhere.
the irony is when I met him he was so tidy his mates took the Mickey out of how clean he was..
Then today he said he can’t find something - he left it somewhere and I know I moved it so I tell him where I moved it to and he carries on looking around original place. I had to forcibly repeat myself to get him to look where I had moved it to get him to believe me.
He then looked sheepish when he found it where I had told him!

I feel I’m going mad and question myself all the time!

I think one reason so many of us on this thread struggle and can relate to the idea of adversarial dynamic is because of PDA.

It’s the demand avoidance that makes things shit for me more than anything else. Most other stuff I can accept and mitigate. The PDA drives me crazy and, as a result, I can also see myself getting less compassionate too.

@GlossyChipmonk the point a lot of us make in this thread is that our (middle aged, never recognised as autistic) partners were shamed, all their lives, for being different and not knowing why. And it is the lasting impact of this shame that is the root of so much of what is most difficult and painful in our relationships. And why we are doing all we can to make this different for our own autistic children.

I wish my partner didn’t feel ashamed. I do all I can not to provoke any feeling of shame in him and to make him feel comfortable and loved, and to enable him to do what he needs to make him feel OK. But a lifetime of being made to feel he’s got things wrong makes him extremely sensitive, and means I often can’t express my own needs or feelings, or work through a conflict with goodwill and collaboration, because any difference between us feels to him like an attack, and he goes on the offensive. This is a relational trauma response - in anyone, regardless of neurotype.

I definitely feel I am becoming super-sensitised, things that didn't bother me much in the past now infuriate me.

SpecialMangeTout I really struggle with the PDA as well. I just find it so….childish!! I realise that may be unfair of me. But my DP actually prides himself on it. Boasts about he won’t do as he’s told and if someone tells him to do something he will immediately do the opposite. 🤦‍♀️ As if that’s a GOOD trait somehow. But it extends to if he is ASKED to do something. Nicely. Politely. Often met with a sigh or abject refusal. I think the reaction is a combination of feeling that I’m suggesting he is somehow at fault because I have had to ask him (rather than him realising what needs to be done and doing it) and the PDA of not wanting someone else to control him. Although other times I will ask him to do something and he’ll say yeah sure and there is no issue. It’s quite hard to predict which reaction I will get! But yeah the PDA seems to me to be childish refusal to feel controlled and some misplaced pride in doing the opposite of what he’s asked/told. I know that’s unfair. He probably can’t help it. But I don’t see it as a positive trait at all. It’s adversarial, unnecessary and unhelpful! It doesn’t lend itself to a harmonious existence. And is something alien to me. If someone asks me to do something and I can see it needs doing, I have zero problem with saying yep fine. I’ll do that.

@Bunnyhair yes 100%. PDA is an absolute nightmare, for those who have it, it's incredibly limiting.

I see every day the effect that anxiety has on DW, and as a consequence on those closest to her. She recently told the DCs that she finds it easier when they're not at home. I think she would be most happy on her own but with everyone close by just for when she needs them.

Daftasabroom really sorry. That’s very hard for the kids to hear.

This post from Dahlia a few pages back I found really interesting:

I wonder if I'm attracted to people with ASD traits because I have them myself? I know I find many people with these kind of characteristics easier to click with than those who are more conventional.

I wonder if I am attracted or comfortable around ASD people because their straightforwardness reminds me of my close family members and that fact also makes me wonder about my own neurotype. I know so many people that I know or suspect to have ASD, now that I know a little bit more about it.

then this turned into an argument of why do I have to be right on when to clean the bathroom

Yes, this is one of the phrases I get, the accusation that I always have to be right. 🙄. Oh the irony! The lack of self reflection!

Like pp, I would be suspicious he does not have ASD but has found a way to manipulate you.

Spent miserable day yesterday. We’ve come away. DP was rushing round getting everything ready. Seems to need to bring entire contents of the kitchen with us!!! Is in his special place and is being typically snappy and short with me. I kept asking if he could just speak nicely to me please. In response to this I got an 8 minute tirade of criticisms levelled at me. Most of which didn’t make sense - apparently I just need to “believe in my own existence”, then he started waffling on about agnostic behaviour (suspect it was the wrong choice of word, hey ho, made no sense anyway!) and I need to stop living in my own bubble. I have no idea what any of this actually meant though! At the end of about 6 or 7 mins (I recorded him), I said ok fine, but you realise all I did was ask you to speak nicely to me. That’s all. And what I got in return was several minutes of criticisms. One after the other. You say I don’t listen to you, but how are you listening to me? I only asked you to speak nicely to me. Did you listen to that???

Then the shouting started. How it’s fine. He would be nice. Fine. Forget it. There’s no fucking talking to me!!!!

I said but why are you shouting at me? (We were in the car, otherwise I would have walked away). Cue more shouting. How he is just fucking frustrated and if he is going to be agree to be nice then I have to agree to act like a fucking grown up!!!! I said I don’t really know what you mean. Is this another criticism of me? And I don’t know why you’re shouting.

So of course that meant…..MORE SHOUTING!!!! About how he had agreed to be nice and I couldn’t even agree one fucking thing for him. How we were supposed to exchange things and he’d agreed to be nice and I just couldn’t agree one single thing in exchange!!!!!

I said: but you’re not being nice are you? You’re shouting and swearing at me. So you’re not being nice to me at all.

We arrived at our destination and he got out the car slamming the doors and moaning loudly about how I make everything about me and here we fucking go again.

All I wanted was for him to stop snapping at me.

Sigh.

Any of this sound familiar…?

@BustyLaRoux very familiar.

It’s non sensical, aggressive and bewildering. I don’t understand what he’s talking about. It just goes on and on and on. I don’t dare talk over him to ask what he means as that would be interrupting him and this is a cardinal sin obviously (though of course not when he does it, which is every time I begin to speak!). The only thing I could pick out was that I don’t listen to him. So when I ask him to speak nicely this is obviously taken as a huge criticism and instead of listening to me (oh the irony of then complaining I am the one who never listens!!!) and saying “sorry, was I being a bit snappy?” he then proceeds to defend himself of this completely unjust criticism by instead levelling several minutes of various criticisms back at me. However in doing so he is (a) still not speaking nicely to me and therefore demonstrating a complete lack of listening to me!!! And (b) demonstrating a lack of any iota of self awareness by criticising me for not listening to him!!! The irony that this barrage of criticism is his response to me asking something of him. He cannot listen to my needs. Only shout his own at me. He cannot speak nicely to me because his communication style is to be short tempered, snappy, shouty and highly critical. He doesn’t see any problem with that. It’s always me who has the problem apparently as I don’t “believe in my own existence!!!” Whatever the fuck that means…..

I think I will just avoid any form of conversation which might “turn him”. If he criticises me I will just say oh ok sorry. I won’t try and ask anything of him. I will just detach. I don’t know how else to protect myself. He says I go on about my feelings all the time and he never does. This couldn’t be further from the truth though. I bottle everything up. I dare not tell him my real feelings as that would (obvs) be taken as criticism. I’m not allowed feelings. Feelings are criticisms. I can’t be upset or annoyed. I have to be level and smiling and offering to help him at all times. Conversely he is moody and put upon and I don’t help him enough. I don’t listen. I make everything about me. I need to ask him
more if he is OK.

Service animal. I just need to believe that this is my reason for existence. Clearly. 😞

Yes @BustyLaRoux all of that is completely familiar. I’m so sorry, it hurts like hell.

All of it resonated, the lack of self-awareness, the criticism as self-defense, the failure to engage in a normal communication to resolve a minor issue, the escalation rather than de-escalation, the bloody injustice of it, the impossibility of ever getting through to him. All of it.

This in particular. I’m not allowed feelings. Feelings are criticisms. I can’t be upset or annoyed. I have to be level and smiling

My H actually said to me once, ‘everything would be alright if you would just be happy.’

Which said it all about what I am to him. No interest in why I am unhappy. Or what he could do about that.

He says I go on about my feelings all the time and he never does. This too. My H has no idea he expresses his feelings loudly nigh on every day through his angry, aggressive behaviour.

He says I go on about my feelings all the time and he never does.

And also that,that dismissal of your feelings within that sentence. Turning your need to be heard and understood against you, whilst completely dismissing the content of what you said. It feels so cruel to be on the receiving end of that. It’s such a clear statement of how little we exist as people to our partners, and such a clear statement of the impossibility of that ever changing.

@Bustylaroux

I think I will just avoid any form of conversation which might “turn him”. If he criticises me I will just say oh ok sorry. I won’t try and ask anything of him. I will just detach

Sorry, but I don’t think this will work. It’s just a slow psychological self-annihilation.

I know. What else is there to be done though?? I am the service animal. He supports me through acts of service. He is very good at that. Often stuff I haven’t asked (and don’t want or need!) but I appreciate the sentiment and I try to ensure I acknowledge and thank and reciprocal where I can. He tells me that I am the laziest person he’s ever met (nice!). I’m not actually. I just allow him to do these things for me as it makes him feel good about himself. That’s his role. To provide in a practical sense.

My role, I think, is to be emotional support. Emotional punchbag. Unflappable. Kind. Curious about his needs. Always listening. Always empathetic. And of course to have zero emotional needs of my own.

Now of course that’s impossible. But I think this is what he would like. So I will smile and be as close to this as a I can be because the alternative is to be shouted at, bullied and criticised. And I would rather have the former than the latter I suppose.

FML!!

At least I am seen on here. Although I am sad for all of us struggling with this, I am comforted to know there are people who genuinely understand everything I am saying. It means I am not mad.

I'm a long term lurker who was on the original threads but got bored with the 'invaders' and their lectures, and so I retreated.

I've been married a very long time and have young adult dc, three with a diagnosis and one considering pursuing it. For a long time I couldn't see that my gentle, thoughtful children with ASD could have anything in common with their explosive difficult dad, but I've come to realise that it's all part and parcel, and about how he learned to cope with his feelings and experiences as an undiagnosed autistic person.

I mentally and emotionally detached from H a few years ago, and we (although he doesn't seem to realise it) now live like housemates. I now just nurture my family, friends and pets relationships instead. I'm always fascinated though, when I see couples having a nice chat. That would just never happen here.

Mentally detaching has done me the power of good. I recognise the shouting and invalidating and the sheer wall of noise that some of you describe, the relentlessness of it. I still get that horrible sinking feeling when he starts roaring. Yesterday he found an Easter egg on a chair and I said, oh it's for the grandchildren's egg hunt. He shouted for five minutes about my disrespect, my 'tone', the way I speak to him, my 'backchat' and stormed off upstairs for an hour. There was no argument beforehand, no snappiness or atmosphere. Its just like having a hormonal fifteen year old son as a husband. He's unable to check himself or rein himself in. I have to mask all day long but he can just be himself...

It's actually destroyed any hope of making a success of us as a couple, but again, he doesn't realise and quite enjoys the lack of demands (as he sees it). I'm not leaving - I love my house and the garden, and it's my children's home, even the ones don't live here.

Anyway, I just wanted to send solidarity to you all, and say that I recognise your lives, as I'm living it too x

@PollyTwoBlankets wholeheartedly agreeing with you there.
Both with the loving as housemates, detaching etc… and the sinking feeling when dh starts being grumpy (no roaring here - just talking/swearing(?) under his breath but the strength of the anger is palpable iyswim). And All of the rest of it.

For me, I couldn't find a way to make it work otherwise. It was destroying me, trying to find the right combination of words, to hit on the formula that would make him be reasonable with me. It was the realisation that there was never going to be a compromise because he literally didn't care about working with me. He would shout, 'team work? With you? Why would I ever work as a team with you?' which says it all really.

No one understood when I tried to tell them, and when I posted years ago on here about him, I had hundreds of people telling me it was some of the worst abuse they have ever heard and to leave him. Of course now I recognise the adversarial side of him is the ASD and I understand, but I don't trust and I don't forgive.

I can see the funny side - when he was bellowing about my tone yesterday, I shrugged and left the room, so he was left pretending I had called him a name, as I wouldn't engage. I mean, your argument is pretty poor when you have to make up what you are angry about...