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.

I do think people seem to blur the lines a lot. There are as many arseholes with autism as there are without. A lot of what people describe is a personality and not the autism. It’s crap but there are a lot of crap parents and that’s just down to them being crap. My mum and my partner have autism. They are so helpful and they deeply try. They aren’t doing it conveniently but they aren’t selfish controlling bullies.

I think some on this thread are getting caught up with the autism when perhaps their parents are just not nice people.

My dad is ASD and I am afraid it makes him very difficult to have a relationship with. He cannot see past his own needs. He lacks basic social niceties. He is blunt, often rude. People are visibly upset or taken aback but he can’t read social cues or interpret people’s reactions so he doesn’t realise and therefore is unable to learn. He has rigid plans which he must stick to all costs and he becomes easily frustrated when these are threatened. He reacts angrily when he feels frustration and irritably lashes out verbally at people. To him, the plans are under threat or being questioned and he cannot deal with that and doesn’t see why he should need to explain himself. He has not been a good father simply because he is unable to emotionally care for his children. He has never been able to put our needs above his own. I don’t think he understands that that’s a thing parents do. He performs roles as tick box exercises. Christmas, birthdays. There isn’t an enjoyment factor in doing so. He is just ticking a box. Same as when he asks me how I am. He is doing that because I told him off for never asking me. So he asks but he isn’t bothered about my answer and will routinely butt over the top of me to talk about himself.

Do I think he is like this because he is autistic? Yes I’m afraid I do. Do I think he is representative of all autistic people? No, of course not. Do I think he is an unpleasant person? I do, but only because that’s my experience. He isn’t pleasant to be around a lot of the time because he is so utterly self focused. He seems not to care about me. I know that probably isn’t correct. He does care in his own way. But it’s not been enough. It woefully short of what a parent should provide. I often wish he’d never had children. He doesn’t mean to be unpleasant but unfortunately my experience of him shouting and demanding and making everything about himself is what I know. It’s hard to say what he would be like if he wasn’t autistic. It’s so much a part of him that I can’t draw a line between autism and personality.

My DP is also autistic and they do share some traits. But he is different in many ways also. He is able to be emotionally warm and generous. He is thoughtful. He can reflect. The latter isn’t easy for him. He is defensive and often aggressive in nature, but he can do it and he does want to be a better version of himself. Someone who listens more and who says sorry when they need to. (Which many of us could also do better at! I know I could!!) Unfortunately my dad just doesn’t possess those skills. He pushes everyone away without even knowing he has. I would be sad for him but he doesn’t have the awareness to know how people feel or that they have distanced themselves from him so it’s water off a ducks back to him.

So I experience different things through being close to people with autism. I do absolutely attribute the things I’ve described in my dad to autism. My DP less so. I think with him I am learning to distinguish between what is his condition and what is his personality.

I often wonder if the way I feel or describe things is offensive. My SIL gets annoyed with me and says I should be more forgiving of my dad. None of it is his fault etc etc. I just have nothing left to give though. Forgiving is a form of giving. And I haven’t got any fucks left to give. Is that wrong of me? I don’t even know. I don’t really appreciate being told how I should experience and feel from someone who’s not lived in my shoes. Easy for her to say that. Not easy for me. I do know that I am quite tired of always having to put my own needs to the back of the queue though. Relationships shouldn’t be like that. My experience of autistic people I’m close to is that their needs are dominant. I’m sure that isn’t the case for a lot of autistic people though. A lot of partners on here seem to find similar. So it is a common thread, but as I say certainly not the case for all.

@BustyLaRoux just don’t stay with him. Stop using his ND as an excuse to stay and put up with it. Who cares what other people think. If they are humans who happened to be autistic and really shit then leave. You’d do the same with anyone. If they are depressed and really shit you’d leave. If they suffer anxiety and that makes them shit you leave. You don’t owe people your empathy, you give empathy to people you want to. You don’t have to give your dad empathy. Being autistic doesn’t mean you have to like them because they can’t help it. My ex couldn’t help being an abusive arse, his dad was an abusive arse. But I still left him despite understanding he has issues he can’t really help. No way I would keep people now in my life that don’t treat me the way I want to, ND or not. If my current partner who is autistic suddenly can’t help but shout and control me, he’d be gone. My kids won’t witness that
and neither will I. Selfish in a way but it’s my life and I control who’s in it.

I should say the difference being this is the second time around. We are both autistic (I suffer more self hate than he does). I made it clear when we met what I don’t like and he’s understanding. I’ve set the rules from the very beginning so I think this helps. I think it could be much more difficult when in the midst of an existing relationship. I had to leave my marriage and start completely over with this mindset.

With your dad you need to set very clear expectations with the knowledge they can’t be any different. It’s nothing you’ve done. With my own mum I’ve stopped hoping and have removed emotional attachment to the hope she’d be different, she isn’t. I don’t go looking for different answers or expect her to respond in the way I’d like. Get what you need from elsewhere. That’s why I chose a partner who could offer me some of what I need. It’s how we choose all relationships, you need to get something out of the relationship. My friends offer me something else. They will get from me whatever it is that they need. It’s never going to work if there isn’t a balance in needs. If friends or family don’t give and only take then they need to be gone.

It sounds like a much healthier dynamic, it is nice to hear that this is possible.

It's proving almost impossible to try and re-set the boundaries after several years together, despite my H now trying I cannot move past his previous verging on abusive behaviour and I don't trust him to not blow up again at some point (not to mention the constant irritation/passive aggressiveness he 'emits' and the scowl-face I am currently living with!). My therapist managed to lead me to this realisation and it's a deal breaker for me. If I was ever to enter another relationship I would be extremely clear on what I am like (don't make me mask or fawn or I am done) and what i can and cannot deal with and compromise on.

@LittleSwede its really very simple. We can’t control how others behave. We set our boundaries and if they are crossed then that’s it. I think we outgrow people. When I met my husband my boundaries were non existent. There was no way we could have come together and accommodated these new boundaries I learnt. It’s not his responsibility to accept them and change, it’s my responsibility to enforce them and leave, so I did. He wasn’t the one changing the rules in the relationship, I was. It’s life changing when you realise it’s ok to do that.

Hello again everyone. I stepped away from all you wonderful people for a while, nothing personal though🥰 just needed time and space to sort my own thoughts out.
That you @Daftasabroom . I was that newbie about a year ago. I was struggling to differentiate between dh's (diagnosed) adhd traits and his personality traits.
I found this thread and finally a lot of my life started making sense. I am so thankful for the understanding and advice on here.
I realised I was obsessively ruminating about every instance in our 27 year marriage, trying to work out whether dh was being an ass or totally unaware.
Did he intend to hurt, disregard, disappoint, dismiss me and our children.
I have decided that it doesn't really matter now.
I have spent 27years building this life and, for me, the benefits of staying outweigh the upheaval of leaving.
I am trying to make peace with the past, especially the sadness and guilt I have for not seeing how my beautiful children have been affected by their fathers lack of interest in them.
I have talked at length with them and they are much more enlightened than I am. They have accepted their father for who he is and in no way blame me or hold me accountable for him.
I am in no way OK with things but I am trying to find myself again. The me I seem to have lost along the way.
I have learned and keep learning from the wonderful people on here how best to navigate being in a Diverse relationship.
Off to enjoy a beautiful day in my garden 🌺🌼🌸🏵

Hmmm. @Rainbow03 I don't know, I think I'm an internal optimist but my parents were never really there for me emotionally either. But for rather different reasons.

My youngest brother was very ill from the age of six until his death at 20. He'd spend months at time in hospital, and when he was home he would have multiple violent psychotic episodes (daily) suicide attempts (I physically stopped him jumping out of a window when I was thirteen). Me and my other brother just weren't a priority for our parents (understandably).

Add my Dad (born in1930s) came from a single parent family with no father figure to learn how to parent from, and my mum was adopted and abused with extreme RSD and probable ADHD. I don't think it's possible to separate arsehole from anything else. And to be honest it shouldn't matter - but it does.

DWs childhood was not quite so traumatic, but growing up with undiagnosed AS and in all likelihood ND family - I think discord and strife becomes normalised.

I think part of the reason we are still together is that we both have a high tolerance for disharmony.

So many of our posts are complex, multi dimensional, and often self- contradictory, looking in from one dimensional viewpoint without the wider context is always going to upset someone unable to recognize those nuances.

@Daftasabroom I get it. My marriage was codependent. We were both from dysfunctional families and we came together thinking we could help each other. My ex was abused by his father. My mum was abused by her alcoholic father, her mum fled the abuse but left my mum behind, she is extremely rejection sensitive because of this. So much dysfunction. I suppose it was put up on my shoulders to carry this burden. I have done, I’ve made myself sick with autoimmune conditions carrying it. I reached a point in my life where I have decided to put it all down. To try my hardest to make the buck stop with me in the hope I can break this cycle of dysfunction for my children. I believe I am doing so and it’s what keeps me
going. I am literally the physical shield between all that dysfunction and my children.

I have had to create this world from scratch. I had £150 when I left my husband, 3 years of court battles ahead. I have had to hand pick the people in my life to reflect the life I want. It is extremely hard.

I’m not saying I can stop the ND, my daughter is being assessed. But if I can stop some of the trauma and help her by including healthy people in her life and help to teach her healthy methods and model healthy methods and relationships despite being ND (which we all seem to be) I’ve hopefully managed to achieve a better life for her then that’s enough for me.

It does seem that almost all of us on this thread come from a childhood with some level of dysfunction and emotionally unavailable parents. Like others I too had very low and blurred boundaries, a tendency for people pleasing and 'rescuing' others. Luckily my DM has been very willing to discuss some of this at length with me this last year and although I have been very careful not to blame her for my lack of boundaries (she was conditioned to have low boundaries by a very controlling and highly anxious DGM and then by my ASD DF) it is clear that the buck does have to stop here, for the sake of DD. My DM developed fibromyalgia and has through out many conversations come to the conclusion that she is also ND.

When I met H I was still traumatised by leaving my EXH and H was struggling with a difficult and dysfunctional family situation with an abusive brother/my late BIL (whom I think was actually ND and developed severe MH due to not being understood and dxd as a child). Late FIL and MIL very kind and loving in their ways but almost certainly ND and not at all able to regulate their emotions, thus H thinking it quite normal to hurl things and grunt/swear when things not going his way. Poor H lost both parent and his brother since we've been married which is one of the reasons I've stayed, I feel so sorry for him and some of his behaviours are probably due to unprocessed grief. But, it does not make it ok to behave like he has. I have supported him though all this and now I need to look after myself.

I agree so much that the complexity here also arises from maladaptive coping and trauma in some cases arising from generations of undiagnosed ND. That’s not to impugn autistic traits (for the thread monitors) but to self understand how we got here and how we change things for our ND kids.

@DrawersOnTheDoors absolutely. I think it takes great courage to look in the mirror and to see how your own behaviours have also added to the dynamic. To accept the mistakes you’ve made without judgement because how can you know something before you know it. I do believe that with this knowledge you absolutely have to act.

My trauma, my need to please and my hatred of rejection led me down a dysfunctional path. It was absolutely not my fault I was like this but I won’t pass this on either. So there is a decision to be made. It’s what sets me apart from my mum. We need to be better than those before us. I know it’s extremely hard.

Yes this is what I’ve done with my dad. I have low expectations. I put boundaries in place in terms of how much contact I am willing to have. If he fires off at me I do get up and leave and I don’t respond to his nasty text messages blaming me etc.

Sorry I’m not sure if you’re talking about my DP or my dad here. If the former I don’t stay because he is ND. It is complicated as to why I stay. The benefits of staying outweigh the benefits of leaving I guess. He also has many good qualities. My dad has some good qualities but less and less as he gets older and more demanding. I don’t cut him off completely even though I think mentally I’d be better if I did. I am kind of past caring now. He’s old and won’t be around forever and he can’t reflect on why people walk away as reflection isn’t a skill he possesses. It’s too late. I hate the way he treats people but I can see he tries to be kind. More because he thinks he should than because it comes naturally but he is kind to my children and has never shouted at them so I am grateful for that.

@BustyLaRoux implies to both really or anyone who doesn’t make your life happy. Someone once said to me even a small amount of shit added to your tea still makes it undrinkable. Some of us have just been conditioned to drink shit tea.

Rainbow03 · Today 10:23
@BustyLaRoux just don’t stay with him.

Ok I have to take issue with this.

"Just don't stay with him". Very easy words but VERY VERY hard to do when it's your own father and your own husband.

"Just" doesn't come into it.

Many - most - people on this thread have child-related, physical or financial reasons they are trapped.

A lot of people on Mumsnet say 'just leave' and it is often downright cruel. Situations are complex, people have sometimes very significant vulnerabilities themselves and while leaving is clearly the right thing to do for the person, 'just leave' reads as facile and unkind.

Outstanding post. Learning to recognise what behaviour is and isn't part of autism is a process and it's not easy when people only just realise that autism could be or is a significant factor in the relationship.

@DancesWithDucks Im not intending to sound cruel. Some of us have been in this situation and found a way out from the ties that bind us. What’s the correct response to tell someone? I’m sorry you’re trapped but there’s no hope. There is hope.

For me, I'm out now and my life is very slowly improving. It'll never be as it was before the marriage, but it's infinitely better.

It's really hard when you're in it but agreed, often there is hope .. although if things go too far you lose it. But there are people who literally cannot leave for one reason or another - protecting the children is another one, if you have a partner who has no perception of danger.

Perhaps acknowledging that there are serious complexities makes it sound less bald than 'just leave'. I mean, you're right, it often is the solution. But 'just leave' (as others, here on this thread and elsewhere on Mumsnet post) can make people feel worse, as it feels like an impossible mountain to climb. Partly it's the word 'just' ... It gets used for 'just nipping to the shops' as well as 'leave your partner', and it can sometimes make it sound like giant life-decisions are easy.

(In fact the ending of my marriage, it kinda was easy - I was completely beaten down, but after a particularly awful week he said 'we need to talk' and when I opened my mouth the words 'it's over' came out - took me totally by surprise).

Thank you for your response by the way - my post was rather critical and I appreciate that you replied constructively.

@DancesWithDucks you would never tell someone suffering from abuse to stay for the children. I hope people don’t. I personally spent years at court finding ways to protect our child physically. There is a tremendous amounts of emotional and mental damage staying, even if it feels like the right thing to do. I appreciate leaving feels impossible. Sometimes the thought is worse then the physical act of doing it.