Married to someone with Asperger's/ASD: support thread 11

[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.

I was thinking of chengeing the thread Aspergers/ASD to ND, which I think might be more appropriate and inculsive, but I've left it as it is as I suspect many people find us by searching for Aspergers and/or ASD.

It's complicated and it's emotional.

The old thread is here

I think that's a very healthy attitude to be honest. I hope the outcome is whatever you need. In the short term, we simply have to assert some boundaries. We exist too.

The silent treatment ended our marriage.

There was a river of problems before that, severe problems, but it was the silent treatment did it.

This has been eye opening. I'm with someone who I suspect is on the spectrum and we are eight months in now. He definitely has the traits and, as we get to know one another, I'm starting to question my response to things. In many ways he's wonderful and has been expressive about how he feels, thoughtful and kind. What I'm struggling with is the poor communication when I have an issue. He shuts down or denies there is a problem, often feeling like he's being attacked I think. This results in me in a tail spin and him either trying to change the subject or awkwardness between us. It's early doors still and I'm going to keep reading this thread with interest

I ate soup today out of a saucepan.

DH said quite forcefully “you’re going to get a bowl to eat that out of aren’t you?” when I put it down on the table.

And I felt another disapproving command coming on from him.

When I sense this I freeze and go into combat mode. Hackles rise up, here we go again…

So I unleashed all the reasons why I would be eating the soup out of the saucepan and he knew better than to challenge me again.

I am very feisty these days with DH. Sadly it’s the only way.

So I empathise with poster about opening your lovely back doors.

And as for leaving restaurants without saying anything. DH just leaves without a backward glance. Heads straight for the door by himself even when the kids were little and waits outside.

Just why?? Why?

Weve posted about this before but it falls into the same category: walking a few paces ahead of you.

Literally, why can you not walk beside me???

So yes all of these things mount up. So there can be no tenderness or shared space.

I notice also a distinct lack of planning for the future. It’s not possible to plan for a shared future. Just today and tomorrow exists… there are no shared future goals it seems.

To the poster who is 8 months in. There is only pain and heartbreak further down the line. I can’t say this forcefully enough: especially if you have kids.

Interesting article on mixed neurotype relationships in the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/jun/03/i-can-only-love-100-or-0-chris-packham-on-navigating-a-neurodiverse-relationship

Wow!
Insightful. Thank you for posting.
I definitely see some of this in DH.

@howdydo22 it is very difficult having a relationship with someone who always thinks they’re being attacked. Your feelings are invalidated as any feeling you have (confusion, annoyance, pain, upset, etc) will be perceived as a criticism of them. Doesn’t matter how you word it. They will view it through the criticism lens and think they’re being criticised. So you will try to start a conversation about how you’re feeling but very quickly it will turn to a concern about how HE is now feeling as you’re blaming him and criticising him and that’s made him annoyed/sad. Basically you will end up not being able to discuss your feelings as it will cause him to react badly and believe your intention is to blame him. And being blamed will make him upset. So you come to learn that your feelings just upset him, so you end up repressing them. Always. To the point where I can’t even say “please can you not drive my car when you’ve been drinking?” as this is a criticism. I am not allowed valid requests as they are also criticisms.

The flip side of this is that I am constantly criticised by him (because he can only see negatives. Hence always viewing everything I’m saying as a criticism. That’s how HE thinks so it surely MUST BE what I think as well). He constantly looks to find fault. And he also tells me I am obsessed with criticism. Because that’s all he knows! So he assumes I’m the one doing it. He can’t see it’s his lens/perception which makes him think that.

It is really hard to be with someone like this. The criticism and the fact I am not allowed to have feelings or make valid requests. Everything is about keeping him happy so that he doesn’t go into one of his moods. It’s exhausting!

Yeah I think rejection sensitivity is really hard. It can be part of ASD but isn’t always and can be part of other profiles like ADHD.

My DH simply can’t process my issues in the relationship since my feelings are an implicit criticism and that sends him down a negative shame spiral (which I am sure is magnified by being late diagnosed). Yet my DH is incredibly responsive to my other feelings, so I’ve ended up totally confused and feeling quite gaslit at times when it seems ok to seek support for some things but not others.

This has impacted trust hugely and we can’t really ever ‘work on’ our relationship because DH can’t cope with the distressing feelings brought up.

Rejection sensitivity can be attachment issues and trauma also. I have it and it’s one of those I wonder if I’m ND or was it just my upbringing issues. It’s an awful. I don’t know what’s a typical ND response but I go very withdrawn and want to crawl in a hole.

Absolutely, and often ND people have trauma as well as attachment issues and it's hard to know what's because of what. Like you I wamt to withdraw crawl into a hole. H definitely has massive RSD issues although he won't acknowledge it. I can kind of feel wjen I get it myself now and am able to remind myself that it will pass and it's kind of ok to get this massive overreaction to a seemingly small thing. Whereas I used to feel shame over reacting so strongly (usually involving tears).

That is an interesting article @MySocksAreDotty Chris Packham was very open about this in a documentary I watched a couple of years ago and he said he and Charlotte can't live together and it showed him in his house in the forest, surrounded by dogs. He has a very good strong bond with a 'stepdaughter' (not gis biological child) from a previous relationship, she's on Springwatch with him sometimes.

Interestingly Rich (from the second couple) is probably autistic, they have hinted at this in their Instagram (I follow them) and his autistic teenage son is often featured in Rich's own Instagram content. I like them, they have written a book amd have created an app to help ADHDers with everyday tasks.

Rejection sensitivity is a big issue for us - not even just when I mention something I feel needs attention in our relationship, but when I have a different opinion on something, DH seems to hear it as an attack on his character and values. But it doesn’t make him behave like someone who feels sad to have been rejected - it makes him furious.

I think this is black & white thinking more than anything, or as Chris Packham puts it in that article, a 0% or 100% mentality. We are married, which to DH’s mind means I should agree with 100% of everything he says or thinks or feels or does. I should ‘have his back’ which means I should share his opinions.

If I have a different opinion on something, it means I don’t 100% agree, so I may as well agree 0%. And because difference of opinion can only ever mean one party is wrong, and conflict can only ever mean one person is bad - and DH knows he is neither wrong nor bad - I must be wrong or bad.

It can throw him into a real tailspin, feeling really confused and anxious that he has married a wrong and bad person, that we are wrong for each other, that he made the wrong decision in being with me.

All because I enjoyed Succession and he didn’t. Seriously.

(It often happens when I enjoy something he doesn’t - he works very hard to convince me of all the ways something that brings me pleasure is actually worthless - and it genuinely seems to come from a place of wanting to save me from being cheated or scammed or made a fool of. The idea I might erroneously enjoy something he knows to be objectively inferior is really upsetting to him.)

Sorry to hear do many are struggling with partners with hygiene troubles. DD struggles with showering as it's a demand and it makes her very tired. At one point I found some special soap and shampoo that can be wiped/towelled out without an actual wash/shower. Presumably for bedbound patients. Although if partners won't acknowledge their smell they probably wouldn't use these either?

Currently, I've managed to persuade DD that she needs a shower at least every 5 days or her 'flakes' dandruff/cradle cap gets too bad. It's difficult though as I know it's the demand that makes it almost impossible at times, yet she's at a delicate age when I don't want to make her overly conscious about BO and trigger an obsession in the other direction (my DF takes 3 hours to shower). Unlike H who called her stinky! Jokingly but still not ok!

i Find it interesting that some information, like the fact they don’t live together, isn’t in the article.

Im sure I could take a step back, look at dh intentions etc… much more easily if we weren’t living in the same house!!

Mines like this but with sleep. He is a poor sleeper. We discuss going to the doctors about every 3 weeks. He never goes.

He bought a fit bit to ‘collect sleep data’. He’s had it 6 months. It says he gets about 3 hours. He’s collected months worth of data. Still won’t go to gp.

He’s stopped wearing it now as he doesn’t like watches.

So 100 quid to ‘collect data’ which he doesn’t act on. And he’s constantly irritable from lack of sleep.

Ive got severe long Covid.

My Dh used to be a bit like this. Then he started on blood pressure medication. And honestly he became much calmer and is really really looking after me well. The explosions and demand avoidance have stopped.

I looked up his blood pressure medication (Candestartan) and it’s sometimes used off label as an anti depressant.

Would he ever take anti depressants? Would he fuck. And yet he admits he prefers life on his blood pressure meds.

I’ve told him he’s not to ever ever
come off them.

@Bunnyhair this bit of your post really resonates:
But it doesn’t make him behave like someone who feels sad to have been rejected - it makes him furious.
Because he doesn’t seem to feel shame. If “criticised” it makes him angry and defensive. He doesn’t wonder if he’s wrong and feel shame. (That’s the type of RSD I experience!). He just gets annoyed and upset that he is wrongly being criticised. Even when he isn’t.

I find dealing with the RSD so tough. I have found I have to approach things in a "we" type way. Something like "we seem to be doing this in a way thats not working and its making us miserable- maybe we could x, y, z or do you think we could try x, y z and see if that makes life a bit easier for both of us, cause I can see you're really struggling with that and that must be really hard"

Feels like massively over-egging and it doesn't always work but it seems like actively not pointing any fingers is the only way.

It is also bad with him and the kids, he will say (to a 14 yr old who is busy doing something) "will you come to the supermarket with me?" (for no other reason than he hates doing things on his own) and when 14 y o says no DH takes it so personally like a massive rejection "he always says no, he hates me, he is lazy, he never wants to do anything" etc etc.

FFS!

It’s so interesting how this can go. Because I do also know a lot of autistic people (often but not always women) for whom RSD presents in this other way - if there’s conflict I must be wrong, I must be bad. I need to change.

I think this is what happens for ND people who get stuck in outright abusive, coercive relationships - there is a tendency to assume that because their partner, by definition, cares about them (after all, that’s the black & white ‘rule’ of being a partner), that anything he does is therefore right and justified. Just by virtue of occupying the role of partner.

Rule = partner is someone who cares about you
Event = partner behaves in uncaring way
Conclusion = either there is an error in my perception of partner behaviour, or I have caused an error in partner functionality

If your worldview dictates that any bad relational situation boils down to one person being right and the other wrong, you only really have the choice in any conflict of being dominant or submissive. And some people will seek the certainty of a partner who will routinely dominate (meaning they are told the right things to do and think so they don’t have to face the anxiety of indecision and ambiguity) while others seek someone who will routinely submit (so that their own rigid thinking is never challenged).

And then there are all of us in the middle, trying to hold open the possibility of people just being different from one another in all sorts of ways without necessarily being bad or wrong - that it doesn’t need to be a zero sum game, and we can compromise and negotiate and work things out together. Stuff that is completely intuitive for lots of couples.

Yes, the bending over backwards to take joint responsibility for everything aa an entirely neutral shared problem, when sometimes you’d like to be able to lightheartedly but directly say, ‘ffs darling, I love you madly, but could you please not leave your discarded pants on the kitchen floor?’ without it causing WWIII

@Bunnyhair That is definitely how RSD is for me, I immediately think it is MY fault somehow and I am overwhelmed with shame, guilt and pure mortification over something that feels like it is MY fault or doing. I literally go red-faced I feel so embarrassed. Quite often it is not actually my fault but it feels like it. And due to my clumsy way of wording things and perceiving the world differently to others (before I realised I am autistic), I may have offended someone and I feel absolutely awful about it. Unlike H, who somehow manages to place all the blame on the other person as he feels injured by the rejection! We are clearly not compatible, based on how our RSD works alone. In past abusive marriage it took me many years to realise it wasn't my fault, I always took the blame for his behaviour and felt responsible for it.

I think it depends on the fight flight behaviour that’s been adopted . My ex was fight and mine is fawn. Different behaviours but same issue. My ex projected externally and I project internally. We both had a fear and a dislike of ourselves at the core. External is edging towards abuse even if unintentional.

H was so very offended when I expressed a dislike over Boris Johnson, I hadn't realised he saw BJ as some sort of hero (see what I married!?!) and took a major offence at me not liking the guy. He even defended him having god know's how many kids with how many women😂He has since changed his mind about BJ but there's still discord over me not like him!

@LittleSwede oh me and my ex had mismatched RSD. It was a horrible ride to the bottom for us both. But he was violent.

It is so hard, isn’t it? I used to have this to some extent. But there was often a nugget deep down somewhere of, ‘but hang on, I’ve gone over this and over this, and I can’t see how it’s wildly unreasonable to have this particular boundary or opinion, and I do stand by what I said’. But this usually manifested as seething resentment and passive aggression, until I gradually worked up the ability to express myself calmly and directly.

A very big development for me was being able to withstand other people’s strong negative emotions. Recognising that if someone is angry, I don’t automatically have to appease them by obliterating myself (and also desperately hate them forever and wish them ill)