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.

Respectfully, I disagree. I think people can be stubborn and difficult and grumpy and hard to get along with, without being abusive. A personality disorder has a certain relational feel to it. A certain vibe. There is a walking on eggshells feel, and a scary sort of seething aggression. Whereas what I sense with my DH is real confusion about the world, and social exhaustion, and constant low level irritability.

He honestly doesn’t understand why cannoli exist. He is sure they are objectively disgusting. It upsets him that they sell them at the local bakery. Why? Why sell something so offensive? It feels to him like some puzzling act of self-sabotage that a bakery would produce a horrible thing. What for?

He genuinely cannot accept that there is a market for cannoli because some people like them. He thinks nobody can possibly like them. If someone says they like them, they must be lying for some reason. And he doesn’t understand why someone would do that, and this feels on some level frightening to him. Why would people lie about pastries? People must be utterly mad and chaotic.

This is how differently he sees the world. You may not see the world this way. But not all autistic people are the same, and not all difficult people are abusive. I do not feel abused. And I think my opinion should count for something.

I want to say as well - nobody on here is saying that ND people want to hurt anyone, or that being abusive is part of being ND. Nobody. What I mainly hear is that there is often a really big confusing clash in ND relationships between two very different operating systems that makes communication and sharing space and understanding one another enormously difficult and just so much more complicated than it would be if both partners had more common ground in terms of sensory / cognitive / social processing.

And sometimes our partners are being petulant little shits and sometimes we are, too. We’re all only human.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I think it is a massive disservice to my DH to say that he is deliberately trying to hurt anyone, or that he is using his ND as ‘cover’ (particularly when most of the time he doesn’t think he’s ND) for sinister motives.

I would really hate it if my DH thought I was using my NT traits as camouflage for some sort of psychological disorder that involves, for example, manipulating people by imposing smalltalk on them, or cutting my hair to give my loved ones a panic attack, or provocatively enjoying cannoli in public or whatever. He finds much of what I do annoying, I’m sure, but he does trust that I’m not mistreating him - we just have some very significant areas of incompatibility.

I’m not saying in all cases or that it is deliberate. There have been a lot of threads where people mention shouting, throwing things and deliberately being spiteful. I don’t believe that’s a ND thing.

Sorry, one more thing. I did have a gander at the support thread for people married to NTs - which is largely satirical - but it makes a lot of points about double empathy etc, and how we allistic people can come across to our ASD partners - clingy, superficial, overwhelmingly talkative, disorganised and unpredictable, illogical and indirect, scornful about their special interests, insistent on diagnosing and pathologising their behaviour in really shaming ways.

And I think it’s really important to recognise that we’re obviously not the only ones having a hard time in our marriages! If I were married to someone who was described in the way I hear NT partners described, I’d struggle with that, too.

When both partners feel misunderstood and pathologists and have very different social needs, things can become very difficult.

Some dynamics are abusive. But some aren’t. They’re just hard.

Bunnyhair you have amazing insight!

@earlycats have you heard of alexithymia at all? My DH cannot see burnout coming nor modify his behaviours because he doesn’t have good interoception from his body signals and struggles to discern his emotional state. https://embrace-autism.com/alexithymia/

I do personally find this a hard thing to work around in a mixed neurotype relationship. I don’t even know how to imagine alexithymia tbh.

I agree @Bunnyhair yet I was also not the one masking. I have complicated feels around this that the thread monitors would not like, tbh.

It’s a people thing. It happens when people are overwhelmed and struggle with emotional regulation. My DC shouts and throws things and bites and makes horrible threats and calls us terrible names. He’s not a little shit with a personality disorder. He’s an PDA child who’s overwhelmed and having a meltdown. Would I put up with this behaviour in a partner? No. But is my son’s behaviour down to his ND? Yes. His NT peers, who can regulate their emotions better, don’t do this.

But it doesn’t mean all ND people do this.

I just don’t agree sorry. Many children hit kick and bite but it’s not acceptable as an adult really. We have a resp

Ooops posted too soon. We have a responsibility as adults to develop ourselves. It’s not on really to be in relationships and completely ignore the feelings and needs of the other person and belittle them even if you don’t understand them. Logic can tell you certain things even if you can’t feel it. Accepting your ND and finding out about yourself and how you respond to others is really the decent thing to do. Not standing by and making each other totally miserable. I don’t really get it. If the other person is telling you continuously then that should be enough.

Just to add its not fair on both partner's

I am not saying kicking and biting are Ok. I’m saying that we can’t pretend that emotional dysregulation and difficulties with theory of mind aren’t part of ND experience for many people. Even if these aren’t issues for you.

Nobody needs to put up with shouting and throwing things etc in a relationship. Whatever the reason. I agree with you there. This doesn’t happen at all in my marriage. Just a lot of moaning 😂

(but I also get that for some people shouting isn’t all that upsetting, and feels ‘fiery’ or passionate or whatever and they give as good as they get, so that might not feel abusive to them either, though it certainly wouldn’t be my cup of tea).

Compatibility seems missing in a lot of relationships, not just in relationship with ND people. A lot of the time people are trying to change themselves and change the other person when they simply aren’t compatible. Perhaps you would thrive with a more compatible person and perhaps your ND partners would thrive with another person. I appreciate for some this is too late. It is ok to not be compatible with no one being at fault and to move on. There was a thread before about some people just bringing out the harder parts in us or making parts of us struggle because we aren’t right for each other. I’m probably waffling now so will stop.

@Bunnyhair emotional dysregulation is a part of my life. But I seek help because I love my partner and it’s not his responsibility to deal with it. I have learned to verbalise things even though I feel extremely uncomfortable doing it because it’s my responsibility, it’s my ND and I want a relationship where we both can be happy. But that it me. I am comfortable with my ND now.

So you don’t get it, but that doesn’t be mean it might not feel different for other people. It doesn’t mean we are doing it wrong.

I think I just get tired of hearing I’m misunderstanding the nature of my 20 year relationship, or that I’m some sort of mug for not blowing up my entire life and financial stability etc in search of a more fulfilling partnership, when I feel like I am doing my best and we are rubbing along pretty admirably, considering all we’re up against.

Great! I commend you! Not everyone can do what you are doing. Not everyone is like you. Not every ND person has the capabilities you do. Argh.

We are all in different life stages and situations. I want to thrive, rubbing along wouldn’t do it for me now. But that is me. It will probably change in time I’m sure. My last relationship was almost 15 years of coasting, this relationship is 4 years and it’s so much different because we are so much more compatible. Its only early years tho.

I understand what you are saying. I did not
seek any help in my 15 year marriage. I didn’t know I was ND, I was over stimulated and dyes regulated and ended up having a nervous breakdown. I was with the wrong person, I was a terrible partner. In the right relationship I’m thriving. I think a lot is down to compatibility. That’s not to say the Non ND is wrong in any way.

"My DH doesn’t consider that he has particular needs or preferences or sensitivities. What he likes is what anyone in their right mind would like. What he finds aversive is what anyone with half a brain would find aversive. People who like football have something fundamentally wrong with them, for example, and are, across the board, twats. No exceptions.

I think the big issue really is theory of mind. If you can work out that people are different from one another without that making either party ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, you’ve got enough theory of mind to allow for some self-awareness and collaboration in relationships. If your default understanding of the world is that you are perceiving things and conducting yourself entirely correctly and everyone else is wildly fucking unreasonable and probably stupid, it makes relationships harder."

This could have been written about my DH! @Bunnyhair @DahliaMacNamara - Is it possible we all have the same husband?? I can't imagine mine has the time for a trigamous (its that a word?) relationship tbh 😆

@Rainbow03 i think the point you are raising is different than actually is it ND or not.
I feel that What you are talking about when talking about compatibility has a lot to do with boundaries and what one feels is acceptable.
That would be true in any relationship.

And whether one decides to accept some ‘difficult’ part in a marriage is ok is a really personal choice.
For some people let’s say (and I’m fully exaggerating there!) shouting and throwing stuff on the floor would be abusive. And for others, a reaction to emotional overwhelm that needs to be supported, just like you’d help someone in a wheelchair reach the top of the cupboard.

Some stuff on this thread made me want to scream ‘LTB, fgs don’t continue to live like that!’. But I didn’t because I know that my reaction has more to do with me, my triggers, what I see as unacceptable and often places of struggles in my own marriage.

@SpecialMangeTout I understand what you are saying. I do believe that people need support when they reach overwhelm. But that shouldn’t come at the cost of your own health and sometimes it’s becomes insufferable. I would say my ex was not intentionally abusive whatsoever. I had the deepest of sympathy with him, I always did. Even the court ruled “abusive behaviours” and didn’t say he was abusive. He still reached overwhelm and he shouted and he threw objects. They weren’t at me but I was scared. One hit my daughter unintentionally on the leg and that was the last time I supported him. This is very different to supporting your child throwing things at the wall or biting . This is a grown adult who is strong and it’s scary. I really am for supporting people, I need support myself at times. But there has to be some personal responsibility.

I’m very sorry that happened to you and your daughter, @Rainbow03

@Bunnyhair thank you. It has taken me a long time to unravel the situation. He said he “thought” he had ADHd but was never formally diagnosed. This may be true but I do believe it was me who really was the “issue” I mean that lightly as the relationship was codependent. As I am autistic, diagnosed after in my quest to work out
wtf happened. One of our biggest incompatibility was that I am not a very intimate person, hugs, kissing and all that freaks me out. He was the opposite and he took it as a rejection. He felt more and more shit about himself so he lost it with me. The more he lost it the worse I became because I had no idea what was wrong with me. It was awful. In the end we both hated ourselves and each other tbh because we were so incompatible. He was wrong to behave the way he did, I take no responsibility for his actions. He has always blamed me for his actions.

I loved him just to add despite being rubbish at the intimacy part. But it wasn’t enough because his needs weren’t being met. I would have and did go above and beyond for him. He didn’t fill my needs despite loving me also and going above and beyond. We had totally mis matched needs.

I'm new! Hello! I'm really really struggling. My son is autistic (primary school) and my H has mental health problems and also 99% sure undiagnosed ASD. @earlycats I think it was you talking about intellectual challenges. I'm finding that, as my Hs MH is getting worse, he is getting so rigid, stubborn, and also unable to grasp some really basic everyday stuff. I feel so guilty to say but my respect is waning. I am looking after my kids and also him. He has not asked about me for months yet we have spent so many hours discussing his obsessive tendencies, his tics, his anxieties. If I say the wrong thing ("do you think maybe it's because of this or that") he becomes v snappy.

I don't know if I love him anymore. I do want to leave. I'm desperate to. And keep starting threads or conversations on here about leaving but I'm so scared to. And so so guilty. But i can't even have a conversation with him. He's on his phone or staring through me. Even silly things like the election, I'd love to have an adult conversation with someone about these things but he's so consumed by anxieties and habits, that he just grunts or says something so removed from reality that it's impossible. I don't know what is autism, what is MH, and what is just him being a bit selfish and uncaring towards me (he barely knows what I do as a job these days)

Having my son being diagnosed with autism and seeing his challenges at school has made me understand H more but also means I have less room in my heart for it all. I have a baby and an autistic kid and I work full time and do all the house stuff. I just can't find it in me to spend hours discussing the complexities of H's mind any longer. Also honestly, I think he sees me as less/simpler somehow as I am NT and don't have MH problems but in truth I put on a brave face a lot of the time and i do have my own struggles but there is no room for those at all.

Rant over. Just had to get it out

@WhereTheBubbles Im sorry that sounds really difficult and totally valid by the way. It doesn’t sound intentional on his part but as we keep discussing it doesn’t really make you feel much better. I think it only makes
the decisions harder for those wanting to leave. It’s like it would seem so much easier if they did something wrong and we could feel validated in going.

You do matter btw, how you feel matters a great deal to yourself and your son. It’s not selfish to prioritise yourself now for the sake of your son.