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 it’s simply that ASD is Autistic Spectrum Disorder.
No one is a disorder. You have a disorder so you have ASD.

whereas you are autistic, just like you are blind. It’s part of who you are.

The confusion imo comes from the fact, in written form (esp on SM like NN), we use short cuts instead of the whole word so type ASD as a proxy for autistic.

Thank you for understanding. 😊 I feel like I’m losing myself in this relationship. He wants me to be the person I was on his boat last summer, but I can’t be, because he’s not that guy anymore. I’ve had months of affection being reduced when he’s hurting due to memories of things I did before I was with him; hurting due to an argument we had last October; hurting due to whatever…. But there’s never an acknowledgment of his contribution to the problem. So I feel like I’m reducing myself and talking less, so that I have less chance of upsetting him, but that doesn’t work because he misses the positive, bubble, flirty person he first met.
i’m wondering if he’s trying to control me as a subconscious reaction to his insecurities. I really don’t know.
I woke to 4 missed calls from him then spoke to him for 15 mins - we’d normally spend at least an hour on the phone when waking up in separate homes. He wondered why I was quiet and not chatty: I explained because of his unkind attitude yesterday when I asked for 5 mins help. He just didn’t get it, and thought I had no reason not to be normal with him. There hasn’t been anymore communication today whereas we’d usually be messaging at least every hour or so. I feel so, so sad, but I can’t carry on as I am, but I also don’t want to break up. However, I’m fully aware it takes two to actually work at a relationship.

Something I’ve learnt from these threads.

What matters are your needs. Are your needs met in the relationship?
It sounds like they’re not @Eclipseboatwoman48.
And regardless of the reason why your DP can’t meet them, the reality is that you shouldn’t have to make yourself a different person to get those needs met
eg be the bubbly person you were 10 months ago and ignore any hurt your DP might do to you in hope for communication and care.

If you were doing that, you’d be disappearing and hurting yourself iyswim.

Love, I find can be a very bad counsel.

A full, rounded, person has spring ng, summer, fall and winter seasons. They have sunny days snd rainy days. If your partner demands that you always, without fail and on demand, give them spring or summer, give them “the girl friend experience “ then they are going to neglect and punish you for deviating from their ideal.

Actually yea this makes perfect sense! (Although I prone to say “I am ADHD” which is also disorder….. I wonder if the word “disorder” is the problem. Because although arguably I am scatty and emotional and am often late and all the rest of it, I don’t feel like I have a disorder. It’s just who I am! It feels quite normal to me.

Speaking only for myself, I have ADHD and I have always experienced it as a disorder, and a collection of deficits rather than just neutral differences. I’ve never felt like it makes me more creative / sparkly / quirky / adorkable / passionate / whatever than other people. It makes me a fucking mess much of the time, and frequently a pain in the arse for other people to deal with, not to mention consistently low key annoying. I wish my memory and sense of time were more reliable, and I wish I could organise my environment in a more straightforward way. I feel like I have a kind of slow motion dementia, and the basic life skills of a ten-year-old.

I may be particularly badly afflicted - the ADHDers of Instagram all seem to be having a whale of a time living their best lives and generally being fabulous. But I get a bit grumpy when I feel pressure to be only positive or neutral about it. It feels like having other people’s RSD forced on me and being made to take it on as my own.

I’m OK with ADHD being a disorder in the same way I’m OK with my hypermobility being a disorder. It’s part of me, sure - but I don’t need to love it any more than I love having my knees randomly dislocate when I’m walking down the street. And it affects other people more than my wobbly joints do, as well.

@Eclipseboatwoman48 this isn't a criticism at all, but I'm struck by how you seem to be in as difficult and painful a position as those of us many decades into relationships, when you should be in the honeymoon phase...

If seems this is your man at his absolute best I'm afraid. There is no evidence he has any intention or ability to change and no one ever changes "back" into who they were the first four months of a relationship.

I think the bottom line for me is that if I treat or talk to / or don’t respond to DH the way I do him - the whole thing breaks down and I’m the bag guy.

ie I have to be bubbly and friendly at all times. If I mirror him and are towards him as he is towards me - it goes badly wrong between us.

Anyone else?

Four months of honeymoon period then it was over… but all down to my hormones! At all times of the month…. 😢
He frequently states that no one has loved him like I do, supported him like I do, but then gets nit-picky over a word I use whereas he’d choose a different word, and we have to lose an hour discussing my word choice because he didn’t like it…. He was feeling ‘low’ one day - I was being supportive and during the conversation asked him if he knew what was making him feel ‘depressed’ - he went mad cus he’s not depressed, just a bit down, despite me saying I’d just used a different word, a similar word, I didn’t mean anything negative by it, but was just concerned to get to the root of the issue. My concern was ignored in favour of nit-picking over my accidental use of the wrong word. It’s was exhausting and resulted in me feeling that I was the bad guy, when I had genuinely just been trying to be a loving, supportive partner. But my loving heart is so often ignored. 🤷‍♀️

Yes, this exactly! I gently point out sometimes if he’s become a bit snappy - he’s admitted he’s always been a bit like this when tired - who isn’t? - and it’s often a sign his ADHD meds have worn off. But he denies he’s just snapped at me, and immediately hits back with a time I snapped at him. It’s so tit-for-tat! And like you said, if I don’t maintain my 100% loving stance, he takes it personally as rejection, yet won’t consider the times he’s not been great towards me. He deflects over everything - does your DP do this?

Before we were together, he maintained he wanted all of me, to support and love through the difficult times as well as the good. But his support and love seems in short supply on the autumn and winter days now, even though he’s often/usually contributed towards those, and it’s not just me ‘being hormonal’. My hormones are regularly weaponised against me, despite me doing everything I can, and despite seeing clear improvement since starting HRT.

Yes - when I come home it doesn’t occur to DH to say hello or acknowledge my presence. Even if I’ve been away for 2 weeks in another country.

I can come back and say ‘I’m home!’ and he just doesn’t answer and we might easily not speak for another 6 hours. Not because he’s in a mood with me, but because he’s busy with something else and it really annoys him to be interrupted. Yet if I don’t drop everything to make a fuss of him and hear all about his adventures when he comes back from somewhere, I’m being deliberately cold and unfriendly and must be in a mood with him.

The sense I have made of this is that I don’t exist unless / until he wants something from me. There is no genuine interest in me except as a provider of attention or whatever else he might want.

@pikkumyy77 why are the ND partners on this thread always wanting the spring/summer and not the autumn winter? What is it about being ND that causes this?

I think there's perhaps a strong link to preconceptions and rigid thinking. DW has preconceived ideas of how our relationship should be, how the two us should behave etc. Any deviation from those preconceptions tend to result in irritation and frustration. And then, because she has behaved according to her preconceptions yet the situation doesn't match those preconceptions, it is obviously someone else's fault.

So if DW is expecting summer and gets winter there just isn't the flexibility to deal with that. This could be anything from what to have for tea to the general stage of life.

I've told her many times that it would be amazing if the world (and people) worked the way she expects them to, but they don't and that's not mine or anybody else's fault.

@Daftasabroom so could this result in the ND person just completely dismissing you? It’s not a partner but a close family member. If I don’t respond how this person expects then I’m completely ignored. I can’t respond how they want because I’m not them. They are autistic but come across really inflexible and as a result very dismissive and it feels very nasty. The person will only associate with those who think like them or I can see certain family members literally changing themselves so they get some kind of validation from them. Because I have emotions they literally laugh and point at me like I’m a weirdo.

My DD has ADHD and autism and having either seems really hard to cope with. Having crippling anxiety is absolutely awful and rules her life (and by extension mine). I wouldn’t wish this on her if I had had any choice in the matter.

I have wondered if the relationship double standards and sexism/misogyny that I come up against from a presumed autistic DH is a reflection of black and white thinking. But then, so many neurotypical partners don’t have that excuse and are massively sexist in relationships. It’s confusing.

@ThischarmingHam I have big issues with my MIL who is the autistic person I asked the question above about. She absolutely believes that it is my role to change all the babies nappies. She was horrified when I asked if DP could change it in front of her. She is rigid in this. I am absolutely awful and wrong to be asking him this. I think there are old fashioned views in place with her but they are rigid and non negotiable.

Simplefoke this rings a lot of bells for me with older people in the family circle whom I presume to be ND. However, there’s also a high rate of family fall outs around them, so it’s not straightforwardly about birds of a feather flocking together happily.

She is not able to see the other sides to me. She sees me as black or white and because I don’t have her views I’m black and nothing I do can seem to change her view of me. It’s awful.

On your childcare experience - yes, very familiar situation of the rigid assumptions from older ND relatives here too. There’s a lot of narcissistic style scapegoating and golden person-ing going on there as well though. So I wondered if maybe part of it was about the ones with the rigid thinking being offended on behalf of the favoured people that they might have to witness them ‘getting their hands dirty’ i.e contributing to basic care of their own kids, as is normally expected of parents.

I seemed to be also expected to care for small kids without help while at the same time being forced to listen to monologues about the rigid thinkers’ childcare experiences and views. I had to listen with active vallidating comments while looking after small kids at the same time which is really difficult.

More importantly these people haven’t formed good relationships with the younger generation of kids because their priority is being listened to by favoured adults. It’s not about forming any new relationships. They refuse to be led by what a young child might be interested in. If their interests coincide then great but otherwise, forget it. It’s sad.

Oh god @ThischarmingHam so much to
try and understand. It’s a kind of thinking I don’t really understand. I’m always walking onto minefields, I can’t seem to win. I avoid as much as possible now for my own sanity otherwise I end up self analysing and getting confused.

@ThischarmingHam I get that the thing about having to listen to H while looking after the kids. My small children are a handful - and I'm trying to stop them do something and H just keeps talking to me over the noise, rolling his eyes when I can't keep up with what he's saying

I feel like a better mum when he's not around. More relaxed, and just without the additional pressure of him criticising me or him getting stressed by the kids.

Before kids at least we had shared interests and humour, but as he's got older he's become much more insular too so we don't even have that common ground

It’s really difficult. 2 people enter a relationship thinking the other person thinks similar only to find out that one side can’t understand why the other side doesn’t have the same thinking all the time. One side is flexible to an extent and the other side is completely rigid. I guess in “NT”relationships there is a certain meeting in the middle ground. An acceptance that we are different in areas and have to be compassionate and understanding and mailable to an extent when those occasions arise. In my personal situations when these occasions come up I’m completely dismissed and neglected. When I return to the ND’s person thinking space again I’m accepted as if the rejection never took place. It’s destroying.

I’m not sure it’s workable unless the ND person is able to understand their thinking isn’t conducive to a healthy relationship. I think some people have thought this way for so long without management’s it’s just to set. If you aren’t strong in your self esteem and strong in your boundaries unfortunately this type of person will destroy you.

This exactly! DP can’t deviate from what he’s interested in at that minute to show me any love, affection, recognition, yet if I fail to give him a loving hug when I get home, it’s mentioned for weeks, and is obviously a sign I’ve changed towards him.

This is an exactly summary of how it works, for me, at least!
The NT partner seems to have to make all the concessions and compromises, whereas my ND partner feels I should accept him as he is. But all relationships require give and take, a meeting in the middle, as you said, and that’s only possible if both partners are working towards doing that.