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.

Yeah to be fair that’s pretty much my thought process when things are bad. I will give it some thought - we have some holidays booked later in the summer so I will see how those go. I do feel for his kids though and they need emotional stability- their mum exhibits NPD/BPD symptoms and is highly unstable and their dad meets their physical needs but I think struggles a little with the emotional side. I know it’s not really my problem but they’ve just lost their relatively stable stepdad who tired of their mums antics and now wants them out of the house they currently live in half the time.

Don’t set yourself on fire to keep someone else warm. Every minute you spend in a doomed relationship is a minute wasted, sheered off the rest of your life.

You have lost sight of the fundamental fact: a loving relationship can have conflict and can handle conflict and disagreement. Bit that doesn’t mean one person endlessly generating misery and conflict and the other person managing the situation.

You could be—and should be—in a loving and supportive relationship where your ideas, wants, and gifts are respected.

Thank you @pikkumyy77 I know you are right 😢
I'm sure in common with some in relationships with people like this, I had a bit of a shitty childhood and bad role-modelling for a relationship so there is also some fear that any new relationship would be bad too because I attract the wrong people.

@Feelsodrained i would say with hindsight I wish I’d gotten out. I don’t have any problems with emotional intimacy or physical intimacy with my DP. Apart from he thinks his emotions are more important than mine most of the time! I do find the rigid thinking and irritability difficult though. If you’re considering leaving the relationship now then I would advise doing your future self a favour and getting out while you can!

Thanks @BustyLaRoux. We don’t live together which helps enormously. I spend a lot of my time at his house but I do have my own place to retreat to. I am going to see what happens over the next couple of months and put more boundaries in place to protect myself.

Gosh I wish I had that! Maybe if you keep the boundaries in place you can have the best of both worlds. Xx

We’ll see but it’s at least allowing me to get some perspective. If I lived with him at the moment, I definitely wouldn’t cope. I like my own time and space too so I am happy to not live with a partner. My other thing that I am doing is to make myself mentally and physically stronger (by doing a bit of weight training and running).

@Feelsodrained Sometimes I wish I could have a normal relationship with jokey banter, frequent sex and spontaneous affection

This is so important. Don't lose sight of what you want from a relationship in order to help him or his kids.

Most of us on this thread could give you a hundred reasons not to lose sight of what you actually want from a relationship for the sake of not hurting feelings or seeming uncaring

In some ways it's a shame you don't live together. You're not getting to see the full extent of the impact of who he is and how he copes. Speaking from experience and hopefully not over stepping here but I imagine this him at his absolute best because he has down time to regulate when you're not around.

Yes that is true. And you’re not overstepping- I appreciate all the advice. I am feeling more detached from it after reading this thread because I know it’s not me being weird or unlovable or whatever. It’s not me, it’s him and that makes me feel an awful lot better. I know I have some difficult decisions to make.

He’s also an absolute child around his mum - sulking, the lot. Also, his son is 9 and I can see similar patterns there - getting frustrated when people don’t behave the exact way he wants them to. It’s leaving him without friends though because obviously his peers just think he’s being weird. But I know where he gets it from.

Thank you

The behaviours described in the second paragraph suggests hat he would be very, very difficult to live with. It's a good thing you don't live together or have joint kids, that makes it much easier to break it off (not saying it will be easy, just less tricky than having to find your own accommodation and having to co-parent etc. Best of luck, it is good that you are working on your own physical and mental health too.

Thanks to your support on this thread I felt able to open up to my therapist this week. She was really good at guiding me though my own thoughts and helping me to verbalise my fears about what breaking up would mean. She sent me some resources about green flags in relationships and as we still have 3 sessions to go I'm hopeful she'll guide me further. She put a lot of emphasis on me not rushing this and spending some time preparing myself.

I feel a strange feeling of relief over it being spoken out loud and am hopeful that this means I can start to properly detach myself. From a practical point of view I have no idea how to do this, I have no income which means getting a rental would be tricky (although I think I can claim UC once separated) and can't see how H would agree to move out. When I left my XH I basically fled to a Premier Inn, with just a bag and my passport. Am hoping for a less dramatic scenario this time!

Thing is H sees the house as his, as he lived here first, all the money is 'his' and I am basically some sort of live in housemaid/housewife who cleans, cooks and looks after DD. He's always hinting at me getting a job, easier said than done when I am at home with DD out of school, and always exhausted and burnt out. He can be reasonable but I know he would feel very resentful at having to share equity or having to sell up. I on the other hand would be happy in a small rented flat, if I could secure a contract to let. Can't go and stay with my mum as she is in another country.

Yes definitely easier. He does mention living together sometimes but I’ve said that I think it would be too disruptive for his kids and he can’t really argue with that at the moment. I have also said to him that I am hanging on to my house if it ever happened, I will never sell it and invest it into his. And of course living together would be in his house, decorated and arranged to his tastes and I’d be a spare part. At the moment I’d never do it and things would have to massively improve for at least a year before I’d consider it.

i saw him last night and things were okay although there was a low level tetchiness there that I could sense. I did manage to make him laugh a few times so that lightened things up a little but still a bit ugh. I don’t have the mental energy to do a breakup at the moment but I’m keeping my guard up. He was standing by the window in the morning and i walked past and gave him a quick cuddle and thought how nice it would be if he sometimes did that to me.

I’ve also not mentioned but I think both my parents are autistic too although with both of them it’s high functioning and expressed as being self centred, emotionally unavailable, and narcissistic. In my mums case it was extreme passive aggressive sulking, in my dad’s case being violent. But there are autistic traits like special interests and rigid thinking. So i have a lifetime of normalising behaviour like that. Although my DP is not a narc and nor is he violent. Just moody and rigid and uptight and unemotional.

Surely if you’re married you’d be entitled to some of the equity given that you are the primary carer for your DD and you earn less than him. Go to see a solicitor and take him to court if you need to. You would definitely be entitled to enough to meet your housing needs (I don’t know what’s available obviously but I can’t see him being allowed to keep it all).

Good luck with detaching. I wonder if these men ever look back and realise what an amazing person they have lost. Hopefully you can build a happy life away from him.

That’s such great progress @LittleSwede 💐

Thanks you, you are so right and eventually I would need to do make sure I get my fair share. I do however suspect that this might take some time and unless he chose to move out, we could be stuck under same roof for a long time which could be very hard. The idea of a calm little place for me and DD to move into is my dream at the moment.

@working4ever thank you, this is exactly it, he will feel hard done by and it will be miserable. He would also struggle massively to move out as extremely attached to the house and it's packed full of mostly his stuff. He bought this house with his EXGF and she ended up moving out as he wouldn't and he got to keep their dog too. The only reason I might consider staying in house (if he moved out) would be if it was better for DD. I have nowhere to go as no family in this country but as my therapist has already mentioned Women's Aid I might contact and see what options are.

That said, he does have a reasonable side and maybe, just maybe will agree to some sort of amicable thing. Will take my time as therapist said but make small steps.

I’ve also not mentioned but I think both my parents are autistic too although with both of them it’s high functioning and expressed as being self centred, emotionally unavailable, and narcissistic. In my mums case it was extreme passive aggressive sulking, in my dad’s case being violent

THESE ARE NOT AUTISTIC TRAITS FFS.

if they display these horrible characteristics then that’s because they are psychopaths or narcs or that’s just who they are. They may well be autistic - who knows - but please stop attributing these personality defects to autism. It’s grossly unfair.

Oh dear.

Yes I know they are not and I never said they were typical autistic traits. I don’t think my parents are psychopaths and I have looked for a long time for explanations for their behaviour but I don’t think they were at all suited to bringing up young children.

@StopHateAgainstAutisticPeople As ever your post is overly aggressive. You also seem to have missed the nuance in the bold quote. "Expressed as" is very different to claiming these behaviours as traits.

Very few of us start our journeys with these people we care so very much about with a deep understanding of autism and how autistic traits manifest in such a miriad of different ways.

Many comments, particularly from newer posters, are emotionally very raw, and often express challenging behaviours and emotions with deep and complex causes in simplistic and on a occasion clumsy language.

The bold you quoted is extremely typical in an early post, and one of the significant aims, and I hope achievements of these threads, is to give people the space to explore beyond the choppy surface of our relationships without being invalidated.

Time and again your posts typify the lack of understanding, the defensiveness, prejudiced misinterpretation and narrow mindedness some of us see so often in the people we care most about.

Maybe a better user name would be "Helpingothersunderstandautism"

Thank you @Daftasabroom
Maybe on reflection I shouldn’t have said “expressed as” but I do think the sulking and the rage outbursts actually were/are symptoms of autism. As was the lack of empathy and inability to see things from others’ point of view. And I love my parents but neither of them could meet my emotional needs and I have accepted that now. However it has shaped who I gravitate towards - I think maybe someone who hadn’t had the experience I have had would never have entered a relationship with my DP for instance.