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.

You can’t keep toxic people in your life and expect it not to poison you. You have to cut it off like you do with gangrene, sacrifice what you loose for what you can save and make your life happy with what you have.

If you haven’t seen the will—and even if you have—don’t count on any money coming to you in the end. Look hard at the remaining “debt” and if there is no legally binding duty stop paying it. Tell him you are just pausing payment, and then sock the money away for yourself. 24,000 a year or whatever he is charging you is worth more now than 50,000 later.

I have almost no contact with my unpleasant father (adoptive). I don't know why I hang on - he'll never be a loving father. Doubt I'm in his will any more, though maybe there's an outside chance.

But it's hard to cut that final, badly frayed thread. It's not really about money - it's about the loss of all hope of a loving family of origin.

⬆️⬆️ this!!

Seriously, he is taking the piss.
And from my family experience of family members being twats, they don’t stop being twats when they die/plan their will.

I wouldn’t plan for him to leave anything to you in the first place.
I appreciate this is a hurtful thought. And would be a shit behaviour from him. But he isn’t giving any vibes that he’ll act any differently tbh

if there isn’t any written agreement surely he just gifted you a lump sum and you’ve paid it back out of being a kind person almost entirely anyway?

Stop paying him. Or pay him £5 or £20 a month if that feels easier on you emotionally. If he takes you to court they’ll think his expectations were completely unreasonable in the first place (who doesn’t write up a contract using legal advice if they’re giving a big serious loan to someone close to them, for the protection of all parties?)

Then if he says bank mortgages would be more expensive- you could say mortgages have been at a historical low for over a decade, and bank mortgages come with clear rules and terms and are written out at first for the customer with key facts with how much you have to pay back over how long, so that you can shop around. Mortgages build in capacity for overpay, payment holidays, debt plans if people need them, and going interest only.

This is a probably legally a gift not a mortgage because there is no supporting paperwork. Really it’s absolutely OK for you to say can’t afford to repay the gift in line with his wishes any longer.

Also you could remind him if he wants to be financially savvy he should also consider looking into inheritance planning so he isn’t just giving money away in tax after he dies. The flow of money here is going the wrong way.

I’ve just discovered that H has aphantasia, which means he cannot see mental images in his mind. So if someone says ‘dog’ he does not get an image of a dog in his mind. My son mentioned his dad told him this.

I’ve just been googling it. It apparently wuite commonly co-occurs with autistic traits.

Its not very well researched but there is research showing people with aphantasia have low empathy in response to verbal accounts, but ‘normal’ empathy in response to visual cues.

I wonder if this helps explain H’s lack of empathy. I can talk to him about how I am feeling till I’m standing in my grave and it doesn’t seem to land with him. But if I cry he suddenly seems to get it and have an empathetic response.

Just thought I’d put this here.

That's interesting. It makes sense that a visual cue suddenly gets through then if he can't conjour up an image that you're upset.

Our therapist said that unless it's within my husband's experience, he simply cannot empathise with it. So unless I'm crying about something that he has gone through and also found upsetting, he will respond with learnt/rote phrases but they're not flowing from a place of compassion and empathy, just a script really.

Just looking at a site for people with Aphantasia where someone has raised this question. They say they empathize but it’s not an emotional response but follows a logical process drawing on various mental toolkits. Some others have responded similarly with on saying they have learnt a logical empathetic response and taken a lot of classes in EQ, emotional intelligence and empathy to get there.

I wish my H had put the work into learning how to compensate for his ‘lack’

The blank face and no response when I am talking about how I feel is really, really distressing.

People with aphantasia also have poor autobiographical memory which is also my H. I always thought he was just jettisoning memories that didn’t suit his narrative of how he wants to see himself, but maybe it’s this. I guess it makes sense that if you can’t visually recall something you are less likely to remember it.

It’s shit to be on the receiving end of though, isn’t it?

My H hasn’t even got as far as ‘the script’ though. If he’d have cared/ understood enough to have realised he needed a rote script response, things would never have got as bad as they have.

That’s so interesting @Flittingaboutagain what your therapist said. Is that an autistic thing? Or an aphantasia one? I’ve wondered for a while why my H can be so supportive and authentic about some things and yet not others. What you say about a script does resonate.

@Flittingaboutagain dh is exactly like that too.

So for the first few years of dcs life, he was always grumpy that the house wasn’t tidy, esp when he was back home from his 2~3 days away with work (which conveniently started just when I gave birth to dc1)
Then I started working at the weekend and he was looking after them on his own for the whole weekend. Cue for a concerned look from him when coming back during the week because he w tu ally had experienced how hard it was.
(he then got grumpy again because too hard/uncertainty/mess etc… coming from looking after the two dcs)

And because he has no experience if being ill, he just can’t comprehend how bad I am etc….

Aphantasia is an interesting question.
I can’t easily picture things in my mind, as in getting images. At best, it’s some sort of vague outline.
But I feel them, deeply.

Very weird when I think about it.

That actually makes me envy you. Even when H has experience of something I have been through, his experience doesn’t translate into understanding me or developing empathy for me. Having it enable him to show concern for me! I can’t even anymore imagine what it would be like to have a partner who did that!

I do think my H is quite extreme in some aspects , after being on here.

@YesThis I resonate with this. My DH gets actively grumpy and/or anxious any time I have an experience you’d think might warrant a sympathetic response. If I’m not emotionally neutral and ready to regulate his emotional state at all times it seems to throw him massively off balance.

I'm really , really low.

I just can't stand my H at all. Kids are 8 and 11. 8 year expressed some interest in running, this was because me and the kids had been out and the 8 year old had led the way running, with me and his brother following him, saying, 'This way! Now this way!;' So really, they were playing.

I am working at home today due to fuck ups at work meaning I am behind on a deadline. H has decided to take them for a one mile run. They are, unsurprisingly, refusing. He is taking an interest they expressed and making it a horrible chore. H then starts shouting and losing his temper at them. I intervene. Now I am the bad person who is undermining him and he is shouting at me. I lose my temper and say that instead of trying to get them to develop as people, he could try looking at himself and look to develop himself. Now he hates me even more saying I am turning on him.

I am fed up that in over a decade he has never learnt how to parent or handle the kids. I'm fed up that despite his diagnosis and knowing he has that aphantasia thing, he has never tried to read up on this and understand how it effects him. It basically validates all the things I have been saying to him about how he behaves and how it affects all of us but I am still the bad guy who ' has a go' and 'gaslights him.'

He makes dinner on a Saturday. He asked me what I wanted. I said I did not know. Then I thought of something and went downstairs and said ' I would like pasta'. He replied to this. He then made a meal that was not pasta and is a meal he likes and I do not,. When I saw what he was cooking I said, ' but I don't like that, I asked for pasta.' Cue rage and shouting and how I never asked for pasta and I am gaslighting him and I am always gaslighting him etc etc. It makes me despise him. Really despise him.

I am just sick of it, Really sick of it. Its everything all the time. Its so psychologically destructive to constantly be accused of gaslighting him and lying simply because I can remember conversations and he cannot.

Could you write down on a post-it note, Pasta

Stick it in the kitchen above the stove or fridge and say ‘I’d like that’.

But it sounds like you’re incompatible overall. I’m very sorry 😞

Its impossible to predict all the ways he doesn't listen or misinterprets. Or has no common sense and does bizarre things you would just not expect people to do (put a child in lined winter corduroy trouser during a heatwave, cycling home in January in Scotland with a child on the back seat wearing no coat or jumper but just a wet t-shirt, for example. And then insisting the blue, shaking child was fine as he had been a windbreak for them on the bike.

I do try to communicate as much as possible via text now though, rather than in person. 🙁

I get that lack of common sense and any sort of judgement. I dread to think what goes on in their father's house - I do know that he tells them not to tell me things that have happened :(

The main problem was marrying such a superficially lovely but fundamentally neither nice nor sensible man.

Even so life is INFINITELY better without him making everything harder and sucking the joy out of life. The children were 12 and 6 when we separated and it's been very very hard for them but I'm a far better mother without him around.

His (long distance) partner's put her foot in it though. Something awful happened and he was extremely unsupportive of her. She contacted me (of all people) and I did what I could. She has, unfortunately, said to him that "Ducks has been much more supportive than you have". He's not going to take his partner telling him that his ex-wife has been more supportive well at all ... I'm waiting for his revenge now.

@YesThis I am really sorry, I completely get what you mean about lack of common sense and doing bizarre things then getting really defensive when you question why they do things. At the end of the day if your H won't take any responsibility to learn and understand his own condition (hopefully OK for me to say this as I do try to understand my own ND and make sure that I manage it it a way that doesn't negative inflict on DD). I do get that with my 'D'H though, he doesn't to think it is necessary for him to do anything about potential ND and the management, even though it is driving me away.

I suspect this is what has stopped me from leaving so far as the thought of DD being solely in H's care for whatever time of the week is quite honestly worrying. He can be very attuned to er needs, until he gets dys-regulated then it is all about him. Can't put it off much longer though.

@YesThis I’m so sorry. I relate to the whole thing about insisting I said things which I didn’t, or insisting he said things which he didn’t, or insisting I didn’t say something when I know I did. And there is NO POSSIBILITY he could be mistaken. None. It has to be me who’s got it wrong. It’s infuriating and I understand how it makes you feel the way you do. I have nothing to offer other than a virtual hug xx

Thanks @DancesWithDucks @BustyLaRoux and @LittleSwede

Also @YesThis is there anyway to address the shouting with him at a time when he isn’t heightened? I have made it very clear to my DP that I do not tolerate shouting. I have childhood trauma relating to being shouted at (which my ASD father continues to do whenever he is displeased). My DP is able to understand that shouting is not an appropriate way to handle any situation but particularly a situation involving me. I’m not saying he doesn’t shout still. But it is far less. And he will often apologise very quickly afterwards and say he knows he shouldn’t have shouted. I have had to be categorical that shouting is damaging and never helpful. It’s starting to infiltrate his thinking. Is there any way you could have a similar conversation along the lines of yes we all get frustrated but he needs to try and find a more productive way to address those feelings when they happen and that it won’t be tolerated. Very clear. If you shout, I will leave the room immediately and not engage in any discussion. If you shout, I will remove the children until you have calmed down. If you shout no one is able to receive your message as it will be lost through being shouted at. It is not helpful and it will not bring about the outcome you want.

I’ve definitely found that a zero tolerance approach to being shouted at is helping.

He claims he doesn’t shout….

Its hard to explain how disconnected from reality he is.

His response is always instant denial and rebuttal.

There’s no getting through to him. He didn’t do these things and I’m just a horrible gaslighter. What he think my motivation is to gaslight him, god knows. He’d probably say because I am horrible.

If I leave the room, he’ll follow me. He’ll literally shout that he is not shouting.