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.

@Rainbow03 this thread is for that sort of thing as well, definitely! And I wish I had any helpful ideas re: the hoarding. It probably depends on what level it’s at and what purpose it serves for him, and whether that’s something he’s able to articulate.

Hoarding is a really tough one whether the person us on the spectrum or not. If he will let you throw things away at all I would consider it a win.

Absolutely. I just need to feel heard sometimes. I just need to come and vent my frustration and have somebody say “god that’s annoying! I have this challenge too!” I feel better. I feel less like I’m going mad. I feel an emotional connection. And often that’s all I am seeking. Sometimes someone will post a ‘solution’. And that may be workable or it may not be. I myself have done that. (Though I feel terribly guilty as I am aware the poster may well not be seeking advice/a solution but perhaps just a hand hold or a place to let off steam). I gave some advice to another poster recently about emotional detachment and I’ve been feeling awful about it ever since as I’m brutally aware they didn’t ask for my advice!! But I just wanted to try and be helpful as they sounded in so much pain with everything. I am torn between wanting so much to help if I can but also being aware that advice isn’t always helpful and can make a person feel worse if it comes across in the wrong way. There’s no hard and fast rule is there? I guess we’re all here with good intentions even when we accidentally upset someone. It’s not on purpose and I hope you’ll stay on this thread if you find it a helpful place to be. Xx

Its just not a straight line to leave. If it were easy to solve a problem no one would have problems. “just leave” is sometimes good advice and cuts through the fog. But families can’t be cut like the Gordian Knot with a single blow of a sword. Sometimes they have to be unwound, or untangled.

“Just Leave” is the outcome, I meant it in its most basic form and I don’t think it’s a straight line. Getting to that point is the hard part. Perhaps over time I’ve turned into a black and white thinker, I don’t know. But there are 2 options, stay and leave. If you stay you look at all the barriers stopping you from getting to a point where you stay and are happier and work on them. If you leave, you work on all the barriers stopping you from leaving. I will always advocate leaving but that’s just my opinion. I found out I suffered C-ptsd from my upbringing, it was a huge barrier in my relationship. I’m probably annoying I know. I used to go to work and talk about my relationship and people would say why don’t you leave.

When I first found this thread it became my life line. A place where real people came and shared real life experiences about something I was also going through. People understood, no judgement just a handhold. The support has been amazing.
I could talk about the frustration, the loneliness, the sadness, the anger I felt without being judged.
When you keep all your emotions bottled up it makes you ill, so many on here can attest to that.
If I lived in an ideal world, yes I would leave, but for now, leaving is not an option, for a million reasons.
Finding the good in the situation I'm in is my way of moving forward, easier said than done I admit. Self preservation is my priority for now.

I’ve amazingly benefitted from this thread. Some insights from others have really cut through. I can’t remember a PP’s name but a post about just really needing to speak your truth led me to have a talk with DH about needing to live an authentic life for myself and preferring to break up rather than lose that space if it came to it. And that just felt like 100kgs off, for starters.

Likewise @Bunnyhair ’s inspiring clarity on the actual nervous system impacts on those in her family rang so true for me as well. Sharing those insights led me to make some small changes that are going well for now.

Similarly all the chat around baked in maladaptive coping strategies, the discussion of intent… all have served to make me feel less lonely and isolated. I want to stay and make it work with DH too. We’re trying to find a new normal post this diagnosis.

Also I wanted to share this podcast of a partner of late diagnosed entrepreneur with AuDHD.

https://shows.acast.com/hidden-20/episodes/sam-branson

I worry more about those whose partners are abusive, my posts are directed at those really. People hiding behind their ND and using it as an excuse to bully. I can totally understand why people want to stay and see the good in their ND partners as in all relationships there’s good and bad. You can never make an abusive relationship liveable. That’s what I worry some people are trying to say.

@Rainbow03 i find you outlook refreshing somehow.
For years, I twisted myself into knots because I was struggling around my dh disability (his autism). I felt awful that I couldn’t adapt well enough (see what so many autistic people say) and that all the issues we had/have were all down to me not being good enough.

So yes hearing someone, who is on the spectrum themselves, say it’s ok to say ‘enough is enough’ and leave is a breath of fresh air and something I wish I had read many years ago tbh.

Having said that, yes I’m still married and no I don’t have a plan to leave just yet. Because I physically can’t. I dont have the energy to deal with the upvheal of a divorce. And there is a question to ask on whether the stress im experiencing now is really so much worse than the one I will experience living in poverty with no access to the healthcare I currently rely on.

I read your posts about teaching something different to your dcs, about stopping the cycle of abuse/trauma. And I know I failed. At least with dc1.
But I didn’t have the self awareness and knowledge to actually see the trauma I had experienced as a child, to see how it affected the way I relate to dh and how I accepted stuff many people wouldn’t accept. I did my best with the knowledge I had. Just like I do now re deciding to stay or leave.

fwiw dh doesn’t have a lot of the behaviours described on the most recent posts.
We've managed to create a situation where we are feeding each others resentment and anger. And this hasn’t helped the situation either.
Which means that in some ways, some of my needs aren’t met (being seen, cared about/respected) but I wouldn’t describe our situation as abuse of swim.

@SpecialMangeTout no no no you haven’t failed, it’s not that black and white lol, I know I sound it. There is no end to these things, there’s always time for learning and teaching. I felt like I failed my first child. There were a few occasions I let him off stuff that I really shouldn’t have. What’s done is done, it’s either a death sentence or a chance. I’d take a chance any day. My daughter has trauma. She grew in me and for 3 years with my overactive nervous system. I can’t change that. How can we have known something we never knew. I went through about 2 years of terrible anger. Towards my ex towards my mum, I hated her for ruining my life. But all it did was keep me down. Like your partner and my partner all we did was keep pulling each other down. Sometimes there is just too much weight and we just have to let go. Someone sent me a quote once that said holding on sometimes causes more damage than letting go.

I sometimes think that when we live in fear or anxiety the thought of something on the other side just feels so enormous. But that’s because we are in a heightened state thinking about it. The reality is that on the other side you don’t have all the cortisol and the adrenaline. You are more capable than you think you are when the nervous system is less triggered. In survival mode everything is hard and catastrophic. Outside of having to live on eggshells and mind reading and having to keep everyone calm (even if the other person isn’t doing it on purpose) it frees up parts of the brain which kick in and you feel you can things you thought you couldn’t. It’s getting there, that’s the really hard part.

I know where you are coming from but…..

I have moderate ME. I’m not able to work. I’m not able to look after myself (aka cook, clean the house etc…) by myself.
I agree that sometimes things look so big because our heightened situation. But in my case, I’m talking about living on £800 a month and not being able to afford the therapies that allow me to have some semblance of life (aka Id be back to severe/bedbound rather than moderate). And still needing to pay for a cleaner at the very least.

Ive lived before in a situation where I was struggling money wise. I know the stress and heightened cortisone from that. The sleepless nights. The anxiety.

I also know how it feels to be bedbound, unable to stand for more than a few minutes at a time. The issues re feeding myself, cleaning etc… I know because dh left me many times on my own (and eg I ended up losing about 3kg in a week from not being able to eat properly)

So yes I’ll stand by what I said re not being sure the situation would be better, stress wise. Esp as my health is sure going to tank during the separation process.

@SpecialMangeTout I have M.E also, diagnosed about 5 years ago. I have read a lot about it. How it’s connected to the freeze response and how it’s connected to our nervous system. Having M.E scares the crap out of me honestly. The more I worry about how it’s going to affect me the worse I feel. It’s difficult.

ME is very complex and is a neurological illness.
But yes there is a strong involvement of the vagus nerve which means any stress/emotional toll can send you in a crash.
Thats why counselling can be a hard for me too (1 hour emotional session = a week+ in a crash).

There are a few things you can do but mainly it’s about pacing, aka not going out of your energy enveloppe. Very hard to do if you live on your own and preparing two meals in the day takes you out of it.

So yes there is (a very healthy?) fear there.
There is also the knowledge that having someone who is shouldering the cooking and cleaning puts me in a privileged position vs those who live on their own. (And the cost living on your own has)

@SpecialMangeTout I don’t have any answers. I live in hope that I can control it enough to be able to give my children a good enough life. The one year old is hard work lol. But she effects me less then say a visit to my in-laws. They trigger me because they aren’t nice really. I avoid them as much as possible! It’s not possible for me to not push myself, but it also makes me do things which helps me mentally. If I had stayed with my ex I don’t think I’d be here now.

Life is always going to be incredibly complex - the choices we make are often about managing risk and choosing the lesser of a number of evils and finding a way to feel good about those choices.

@Rainbow03 I totally get where you’re coming from about the freedom of leaving - a huge weight lifted from me (eventually! After about 3 years, once the horrific guilt cleared and I began to trust that they wouldn’t exact some hideous revenge / karma wouldn’t bite me) when I cut contact with exceptionally difficult family members. But I had to do that in my own time, and it took as long as it was going to take. And, crucially, I wasn’t financially tied to them in any way, or interdependent with them on a day-to-day basis. Which made it much easier than it is for a lot of other people.

But people were telling me for YEARS to cut them off, and I cut those people off instead because it was easier than extricating myself from the grip of the people who had such an enormous and inexplicable emotional hold over me.

And I know the frustration of seeing friends in crappy relationships who doesn’t feel in a position to leave. When I can see so clearly how awesome they are, and have such a clear vision of the life they could have on the other side. But I also don’t know the full picture of what keeps them there. All I know is my experience, and I’m mapping it onto theirs.

I don’t know the nuances of their inner life, their health, their relationships, their financial situation, their needs and priorities - in all the infinite ways they differ from mine. And I try to offer my confidence in the other person’s judgement and resourcefulness, and my affection and support. But the rest they need to work out for themselves. My hope is mine - they need their own.

And they often make choices that work out well for them - even if they’re not choices I’d have made. But their concerns (which often turn out to have been very different from mine) are met, and they find a place of stability and contentment.

But this is all just to say I absolutely know the feeling - that is almost evangelical! - of wanting to give other people a shortcut to where I’ve got to. Because their story brings me back into the desperation of my own, and reminds me of all the time I wish I hadn’t wasted. But that is my stuff, and people need to find their own way.

Ultimately there are no shortcuts, and not everyone is heading to where I am, and we’re all on our own journeys - and while we’re encountering some of the same geographical features, we are in different places.

I’m so impressed by how thoughtful and smart and creative everyone is on this thread. And how supportive. And I do think we’ll all find our ways through.

This is where I’m at too. I stay and offload when I need to and I try to find the positive and make improvements where I can.

Finding the good in the situation I'm in is my way of moving forward, easier said than done I admit. Self preservation is my priority for now.

Thats me too!

@Bunnyhair thank you for that very thoughtful post.

I take that approach with my illness and with my mum. I’ve taken the burden of blame away from it though. My mum’s terrible raising of me and my poor decision making relationship wise, not my fault. My illness from staying in bad marriage, not my fault, my ex abusing us, not my fault. I feel lighter. Going forward though it is my responsibility with my new knowledge and it will be my fault. So I remove myself, that’s the personal improvement I’ve learnt for self preservation. With my mum I love her but I’ve removed myself from responsibility. Anything she says, and she says an awful lot of negative things, that doesn’t get through to my inner self anymore because I want to like myself.

I hope you all like yourself too and do nice things. My mother in law likes to comment when I do things for myself, like I’m some terrible selfish women. She can do one also lol!

Hoarding! Aaaasshhhhhhh, ggggrrtrttt.

I was having a good day till I saw this post 😉.

DW will insist on keeping things that we have absolutely no use for, very often until they're moth eaten and rotten. We have Ottoman type chests that are full of things that have never seen the light of day in the 25 years we've been together. We have jigsaw puzzles with missing pieces, I could go on all day.

I'm not suggesting it's an autistic thing at all but there definitely some psychological reason for attaching inappropriate emotional ties to such insignificant things.

P.s. see my post a few weeks back re crockery, we still a pile of over 40 dinner plates cluttering up the kitchen.

+1 to hoarding. All boxes to items even those long since thrown carefully preserved in loft in readiness for Antiques Roadshow in 50 years - not sure it's an ASD thing though. And all our rooms shrunk because of more shelving units which holds all of DHs stuff and stuff piled all over. And he has a room already just for his stuff! And sheds!

I thinks its down to an issue with executive function. Not being able to decide if it’s needed or not so keeping it all. I can see the cogs moving in his head about everything. He is right that everything does have a use but we can’t possibly know what we might need in the future and we can’t keep it all. He thinks differently so I bin it. He isn’t bothered if I bin it because it takes the decision away and he gets anxious trying to make the decision. If it’s sentimental then it’s a no we have to keep it. I put my foot down to things like food. He was hoarding boxes of fudge for example because it had picture on the box and it was a memory. I threw the food away because some of it was years out of date. I know it makes him feel happy to know he has his stuff around him. He has a lot of our space already but I’ve made it clear that he can’t have anymore space as there is 4 of us in the house not just him.

He also bulk buys favourites, he’ll already have 20 but buys more. It drives me bonkers!

I can’t remember what I did yesterday despite writing notes and reminders. I know I drive him bonkers lol

Oh God, @Rainbow03 - your DH sounds like part my DH and part me. I buy useful things in bulk (batteries, kitchen towels, any food our DC with ARFID will eat); he can’t get rid of old junk from 40 years ago because it might come in handy or it would be a fun project to repair one day. He also can’t give away old teddy bears or ‘anything with a face’ (which includes an old broken novelty bottle opener with a cat face on it, a rusty tea strainer in the shape of a monkey, etc). But also doesn’t want them ‘entombed’ in the loft, or in bags or boxes where they can’t see the light 😳

DC also will not part with any object he has ever known. We have about 6 tonnes of special sticks and rocks and seashells. Our house is a fucking overwhelming mess all the time.

(Another thing with a face we can’t get rid of is a revolting old chewed up dog toy we found in the garden of our last house when we moved in, back in 2008. But it’s smiling. So it will be with us for life.)

Could it be a demand avoidance and decision related thing?