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.

Has anyone had any luck with asking their partner to be more friendly towards them and getting some results? How did you word it?

No sorry but I hope you find a way. I explained bluntly how shit the way DH spoke to me made me feel to the point of making me feel ill. Didn’t help. He eventually said he resented me not being ‘myself’ which I took as justification for his verbally aggressive and otherwise withdrawn behaviour plus accusations that ‘I make him depressed’.

The only thing I found that has resolved his behaviour towards me was that I had to change and be ‘nice to him’ again. This is beyond my conscious control because sometimes parenting, work, perimeno, loss, my own emotional state, all the ups and downs of life can and do get way too much for me. I’m just muddling through life like most people are. DH work stress is also a factor for his stress levels. Again that’s out of our hands.

Nothing I did, just some small lucky breaks, means for now it’s easier for me to ‘be nice’. I’m also on HRT and trying to prioritise sleep (hasn’t worked massively well because I wake up with anxiety several times a night) but ‘nice’ is coming more naturally to me and so I get nice back from DH. It’s a relief for the DC too to see us not arguing, even sharing a joke and that helps me focus.

It is awful though because at any time life with elderly parents and teenagers and work means anything can happen to stress me out. At then at my lowest points emotionally i know I will get worse than no support from DH. So it’s left me with a lot of anxiety. I’m just trying to live for now and find what joy I can in it. Easier said than done for me some days. DH is good at living for now if things are good, not looking too far ahead, which seems to be a nice trait of his possible autism. This thread is good too as a place where other people understand the dynamics.

That’s a tough one. We have periods where DP is “up” and he’s chatty and engaged (a bit too chatty while I’m trying to work but never mind!). He is very friendly and joking and laughing.

Then he seems to go through periods where he talks to me like shit. Anything I say is either met with a one word answer, no eye contact, frown. Or even silence. And if I wait a few seconds and realise he isn’t going to reply and I ask again, he gets annoyed and tells me off like a stern teacher telling off a child and tells me I needed to wait for his answer and I didn’t give him time to reply (even though 6 or 7 seconds have passed and he’s not raised an eyebrow, looked up or acknowledged I spoke in any way). Or everything I say is met with a pointed comment even though I’m being perfectly friendly. Example: I say “oh make sure you don’t leave your sunglasses behind, they’re on the windowsill” And he replies “I will NOT be leaving my sunglasses behind as I am NOT a person who loses things!” Said really sternly as if I’d criticised him or made fun of him, when all I said was something meant to be helpful in a nice cheerful voice (also he leaves things behind all the fucking time!!!! Countless hats, his wallet, his phone… 🤷‍♀️).

It’s so hurtful because I wouldn’t dream of speaking to him like that. Recently however I did have a couple of weeks of intensive stress (mainly caused by him but also a work situation) and I admit I was probably a bit less patient than usual and a bit snippy. And he roared at me that I’d been a fucking bitch for two weeks and how everyone has noticed and he was sick of it! And I thought “but this how you speak to me half the time!!!! And if I point it out (nicely, no roaring!) you get angry and tell me I’m being overly sensitive and how stressed you are and why aren’t I being more helpful”

So no, I don’t know how to get him to speak nicely to me. I find the hypocrisy unbearable. It’s fine for him to be stressed and shitty but if my happy friendly patient mask slips then I am roared at and sworn at and blamed.

However I will continue to repeat that I am sad (of course he will say he is more sad as everything has to come back to him!) and that I am not appreciating the way I am being spoken to. I then just act friendly and wait for it to pass, or I ignore him and sleep somewhere else and wait for him to get bored /lonely and reach out by being nice again.

When his anger became intolerable a couple of years ago, he did speak to the doctor and they put him on antidepressants. It does help a bit. I do notice that if he’s forgotten to renew his prescription then his shitty mood and irritability definitely increase. To the point where after two weeks of me saying how upset I am and how I’m just bewildered why he’s being so awful to me, the penny drops and he’ll suddenly remember he’s forgotten his antidepressants for the last three weeks!!! It’s quite noticeable. I have asked him to increase his dose (!!) in the hope it would lessen his stress levels a bit but he won’t. And that’s his choice to make. He also went for anger management sessions but they were an utter waste of time.

I will say it is utterly awful being on the end of someone just being shitty all the time. For no apparent reason. And you wear yourself out by maintaining the happy friendly patient mask in the face of such adversity in the hope your DP will be nice to you. Like I say thankfully it isn’t all the time. But it does seem to be about half the time and it’s exhausting and it destroys me inside. If it were all the time I don’t think I could cope.

@CinnamonTart my DH has a chronic illness so it's a bit different but I let him know he's withdrawn and just tell him I miss him.

But my DH isn't angry, if anything he thinks anger is a 'wrong' emotion and avoids it.

@CinnamonTart Not sure if it is helpful at all but I'll share anyway. I've been having some words with DH over the last year about how he has been treating and me and the effect of it. I worded it very carefully and focused on it being his behavior and words used at times (which may or may not be in his control as he is usually dysregulated when it happens) that was upsetting me. So separating him as a person from his behaviour. Not sure if that is the 'right' thing to do by the way but it if I was to suggest i didn't like 'him' he'd be too upset I think.

The first few times he just got defensive and blamed it on me/stress/everything around him. After a few 'serious' talks (basically me hinting at separating) there seems to be some changes and he hasn't shouted at me for a very long time (he knows I would walk out and leave if he did) now apologies if he gets shirty. Still, he will always blame it on some outside factor and not quite take accountability for it.

@ThischarmingHam It's hard isn't it. Interesting about how your changing your behaviour. having just read 'The ADHD Effect on Marriage' book (quite a lot relevant to ASD too i found) I realised how much anger (even though I am the most not-angry person on the surface!) and resentment I hold against DH and how this is probably somehow making him act defensive and prickly. When I am calm, happy and regulated and 'nice' to him he is much calmer too. Not so easy when peri, permanently sleep deprived and worn out from doing pretty much all the parenting of a highly anxious PDA/ASD child who is currently not in school.

@BustyLaRoux I hear you, it is exhausting! I too have been told off like I am a child. As you say, if it was all the time it would be intolerable.

I have taken the plunge and got myself signed up for a 6 session counselling through our medical insurance, not sure it will help but thinking it help me manage my stress around all of this better and help me make a plan forwards.

LittleSwede I’m also taking the plunge with counselling. I don’t really know to what end. I think being with my ASD DP has dragged up so much trauma from my childhood of having an ASD DF. I feel like some of my responses to my DP are trauma responses rooted in my childhood. I don’t know if I think counselling will help me deal with that in order to better deal with this maybe….

The lengths we go to huh..?

I have been in counselling/ therapy for a few years and haven’t found it the magic bullet I wanted- I feel like I’m splurging cash we don’t have on something that’s of negligible benefit. But maybe I’d feel worse if I wasn’t doing it? Who knows. I haven’t got the energy to stop it and risk feeling worse at the moment.

Maybe I need to swop to a counsellor who works with Probably NT partners of Probably ND people. And parents of ND kids. My counsellor is really nice but always telling me to talk about how I feel and not to talk about DC and DH and what’s going on with them.

The fact is they have become inadvertently in control of my emotional life to a large extent. That seems hard for the counsellor to understand. How I feel mirrors what has been going on. I think it’s just normal for me. DC and DH’s emotions as I read them, like their stress and dysregulation which is stressful for all of us and their attempts to control what I do, rooted in their anxiety, aren’t usually intentionally focused on being awful to me. But the ASD behaviour can often make me feel so bashed around with its constant anxiety and meltdowns, the effect must be similar.
i don’t have much space or energy left to even know what my own feelings are. Even if I acknowledged the rage at the unfairness that I know I do feel sometimes, I can’t change the situation, it will still be my experience forever of parenting. So I feel I just need to look for happiness in the everyday as best I can.

The suggestions to do something for myself that the well meaning counsellor suggests feel really fruitless and like they don’t get my life so I just agree and then don’t do anything. Same as you LittleSwede I have an ASD/PDA DC out of school so there isn’t opportunity to think about doing a nice thing for me.

More positively, I just want to say that I hope everyone on the thread finds something nice in this weekend however small. It’s been really helpful to read all your thoughts, makes me feel less alone, thank you all for writing here.

@BustyLaRouxSo no, I don’t know how to get him to speak nicely to me. I find the hypocrisy unbearable. It’s fine for him to be stressed and shitty but if my happy friendly patient mask slips then I am roared at and sworn at and blamed

I'm sorry to hear that :( I was often good tempered, quite patient, chirpy and never snapped or took out any stress on my partner, but he could spoke to me however he wanted. I remember once deliberately mirroring his behaviour back to him for a few minutes - sullen, frowney, snappy, demeaning and rude, like he was a nuisance,. It's often how he made me feel and I'm sure how he felt about me, even if he wasn't proud of it. He noticed, didn't like it one bit and looked a bit hurt, and I said 'but this is how you often communicate with me just as the norm'.

It made no difference. It's why they settle with women like us in the first place. It's your job to be lovely and pleasant, to make their lives easier, to be a nice additive when required, but they have no plans of returning the favour. Mine was on his best behaviour for a while, and it was just fake. Probably hard work for him to be nice to me for an extended period of time.

@PurpleBugz You bring up a few interesting points in your post.

I think many women (hopefully most of them on here) will realise that there are certain problems are traits that can also be found in men who aren't autistic. Also, no one likes to think that an autistic person has to mask or hide themselves in their relationship all the time. It's hard work and not healthy for them, so maybe this is why these autism / non-autism relationships are doomed to fail.

Some women don't know their partner is autistic though, or how that will affect their relationship, so they don't always go into such relationships with open eyes. Neither do they realise that their partner has been masking for a long time, so never got to see the real person before they settled down with them.

I felt that if you want to share something you share it you don't need to wait to be asked

Most people want balance. It's very tiresome to be around people who want you to circle around them, ask them everything, and then sulk when you don't. I think it's unreasonable, almost petulant, and don't have patience for it. However, it's important that they do know that you're interested in them, their opinions, and this is followed up by actions, such as asking them questions, rather than declaring 'I'm interested in you' and letting that be it.

@ThischarmingHam I’ve had a similar experience with most counsellors.
They want to talk me to talk about my feelings etc… but stay extremely neutral when I mention dh behaviour. Plus it’s not about him, it’s about you etc….

Two things have recently made a huge difference.
One is the psychologist I currently see saying very clearly that dh behaviour is unacceptable and controlling + PA.
The other is an aromatherapist I occasionally see who has a dh on the spectrum. When I opened up about the fact dh is on the spectrum too, she looked at me and said ´I’m sorry. It must be so hard to be that unwell with him on the spectrum. He won’t get it, will he?’
In both cases, it’s the validation that is so helpful. Not just from here (even though it helps immensely) but from people in RL.

I very much feel I need someone hold the mirror back to me and tells me I’m not crazy/over sensitive etc…
A shame that said psychologist is an NHS one so I only have a limited number of sessions with her. She is the first counsellor who acknowledged the impact dh has on me.

Some women don't know their partner is autistic though, or how that will affect their relationship, so they don't always go into such relationships with open eyes. Neither do they realise that their partner has been masking for a long time, so never got to see the real person before they settled down with them.

Yep, that's me!
The fact dh is on the spectrum only came up after dc2 was diagnosed.
I had no clue what autism is before that.
and yes dh masked when we started plus it was a LD relationship.

So there was a mismatch on expectations.
But also not knowing what autism was, I made mistakes that certainly made the situation worse.
The fact he didn’t know he was autistic didn’t help either. Dh doesn’t want to acknowledge his autism - he sees that as being defective. So the fact he hasn’t and isn’t willing to be more introspective and see the impact it has on him/his reactions, isn’t helpful either because he simply doesn’t know what would be helpful to him iyswim

@CatsLikeBoxes I don't know how much of it is a general man thing, or how much of it is a autism thing, but there are men out there who just don't need or even think of relationships in the same way as other people do, and it takes a while to find out.

You might think of a relationship as both of you navigating he world together, going in the same direction, hand-in-hand, being on the same team, one unit. That feeling of togetherness.

However, what they see as relationship is two people who are in the same universe, on separate planets. They will occasionally visit you on your world, and then you will do the same, but you're still separate, doing your own thing. Despite being monogamous, they psychologically don't need or can even imagine feeling part of a single unit, don't naturally consider another person and their inclusion in their decision making, don't really prioritise them when it comes to how they spend their spare time.

I realised my partner was a bit like this too late. That despite being a couple for all these years, he will always primarily think of himself as a single unit first, with me rotating closely, but separately from him.

Avoid. It's just leads to so much loneliness and sadness.

@EarthSight yes, that is it exactly, you've described it so well.

@EarthSight I really agree with you completely about feeling like you're on the receiving end of everyone else's dysregulated feelings. That's certainly a big reason I detached from DH. I noticed that I often feel victimised nearly since I don't feel I have space to even gave feelings. I'm not sure this helps!

I also loved your planetary analogy. I miss being on a team so much. Just when there's something difficult to go through, that's when DH will get overwhelmed and need to withdraw and that makes me feel so lonely and like I bear ultimate responsibility in the end (though he doesn't agree when I express this).

It was lovely and sunny in our garden earlier, I enjoyed a glass of wine in the sunshine with DH which was nice. Prior to that we managed to convince DD to come out for breakfast and thanks to the free WiFi she was able to play Roblox on her tablet whilst we waited for the food. She enjoyed her breakfast too which was great and although it was a short outing it felt good to leave the house for a bit.

Hope you find something nice this weekend too.

@SpecialMangeTout and @ThischarmingHam Thanks for sharing your experiences with counselling. It is really helpful but also confirms why I have been so hesitant about it. I have procrastinated so much over to go ahead with it or not but as it's included in our monthly subscription to a semi-private it's not costing anything extra so I thought maybe I should at least explore it. I promised DH to try it out as as I turned down his suggestion of relationship counselling together (I have reasons for this) he has been having some bereavement therapy which he has found good.

@BustyLaRoux Hope counselling is helpful for you, like you I also have some past trauma that I think is being triggered. Apparently EMDR therapy is really good but I haven't tried this.

Oh what’s that?

I’m not sure if people have posted already - but it might be helpful if anyone knows of a counsellor who works with NT / ND marriages and could list below with location etc?

My psychologist wants me to do EMDR. It’s usually used in case of trauma/PTSD.
It’s about stimulating right/left side of the brain (originally from eye movement hence the Eye Movement) to help processing memories/feelings/trauma.

Supposed to do that in a month or so, so if I can report back of how it goes if you want.

DP is away this weekend with his DC. It’s been nice and quiet. The house is so tidy. They are loud and messy and I really struggle with it to be honest so I relish the peace when they go away.

Today I got up really early and did some weight lifting. Exercise really helps with my mental health so I try to make time for it when I can. Then I took my DD to the shops to pick out some birthday presents. Now we’re going to make milkshakes and watch a movie. A lovely lovely day ☺️

Does anyone else find their ASD partners/husbands/wives are obsessed with money: The cost of things. Getting the best deal. What they earn. What people have paid for things. Which things they’ve paid for. That kind of thing? My DP talks to people about money all the time. He often tells people (boasts) about what he earns. He won’t say “we went on holiday” or “we went out to dinner” he phrases it as “I took Busty on holiday” etc thereby emphasising that he paid. Equally if I happened to pay for dinner then he would say “Busty took me for dinner”. I suppose even though we live together and our finances are fairly separate that makes sense perhaps, but he also refers to family holidays with his ex/mother of his DC. And they had joint finances and still he will say “I took ex on holiday”. It’s just a subtle way of asserting that he paid. Most people would just say they went on holiday together. He also will insert the cost into the sentence. So “I took ex on holiday” becomes “I took ex on a £5,000 holiday to [country]”. It’s always struck me as such a weird way to phrase things.

I notice that my ASD DF and my ASD SDS also have an obsession with the cost of things. Me and the DC have just had our annual bet on the horsies and it’s all a bit of fun. (No judgement please!). We didn’t win anything. And that’s fine. It’s not about winning any money. It’s exciting and it’s once a year. Whereas when we have my SDS here he will restate over and over how much he could win and what everyone else would stand to win with their £2 bet, etc. If he wins he goes on and on utterly delighted with how much he won. It’s not about enjoying the activity. Only about how much money he could make.

DF always always always states the price of everything. If he has been out for dinner the only comment he will make is that the food was cheap. Not it was tasty, or the atmosphere was nice etc. Always the value. It’s the only measure of how he evaluates a meal. And he will always state this every single time. I even said can you not find something else to remark on? He often asks me what I’ve paid for things (my holiday, my phone, etc). I have to say it’s not his business and he shouldn’t ask or that I can’t remember. I find it very intrusive.

Does anyone else find this borderline obsession with money/cost/value is a thing?

@BustyLaRoux yes absolutely. DW can easily spend days trying to save £25 off insurance or anything.