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

So my ND partner has now told me he feels jealous of the joy I obviously feel for certain things.

He said he never feels joy for anything.

Wonder if that's why he says he doesn't love me.

As a mental health professional I just want to jump in here. Underneath someone with a personality disorder is also someone very vulnerable. They are also masking if you like and it is largely subconscious. Their mask is generally considered a range of coping strategies to protect them from feeling intense shame, fear and sadness, most commonly. Such strategies can be extremely effective in the short term and helpful in survival but often need adapting in adulthood and later life.

Personality disorders are increasingly understood as responses to trauma (in utero and from birth, as well as in early life and formative experiences). They are not something you are born with, unlike a ND. But like a ND, can be experienced as very confusing and upsetting for the person and their loved ones who may just think "this is just me" rather than "what support might help me to thrive?"

I’ve know experience in personality disorders so I hope I didn’t cause any offence. I know I was told that ADHD has very similar effects to BPD. If I remember correctly the difference being sensory issues and self soothing behaviours like repetition. I did think I had BPD for a while before I was told ADHD. I’ve sensory overwhelm with noise and I dislike shoes lol and I’ve big problems with trousers 😆

I may be mistaken but don’t they appear later in adolescence whereas ND appears much younger?

@Krumpets every sympathy. It's so, so hard.

and agreed, @Rainbow03's insights and her way of conveying her thought processes are really helpful.

I think you gain a lot of insight about our adult partners when you raising ND children. The black and white thinking is bloody impossible. The endless what appears pointless efforts in trying to explain that perhaps there is more to it, let’s think outside of the box. The self preservation that feels beyond reach at times. We know our children are good people and if they could just expand their minds they would be able to live a much more colourful life and this self hate would disappear. But I’m not
going to lie as I’ve pulled out my own hair and had many a night crying over the worry about how their life will pan out. What behaviours and coping mechanisms are they developing, what is this little brain connecting (wrongly but they can’t reach this). I am worried about my daughter. She can only class people as friend or enemy. Anyone who challenges her or who doesn’t operate how she likes (Which is let me do what I want, even though I’m 8) is enemy…and that’s practically everyone. It’s like a war zone.

The only thing I'd say @Rainbow03 is that my oldest is now 16 and there has been a genuine change in his thinking from very black/white to seeing shades of grey. He has to consciously think through the shades-of-grey thing, but early work saying in essence there's some good, some bad in everyone has laid down the framework to allow his thinking to evolve.

He's just one kid with autism. Yours may be different. But at least in some cases it's possible for a more complex and nuanced understanding to develop. Admittedly he also has an outstanding support worker who Im certain has helped him develop.

I will say though @Krumpets post and your sentence The self preservation that feels beyond reach at times. was much too familiar.

@DucklingSwimmingInstructress we have only just got the go ahead from the school to get a referral to SEN and CAMHS. The school is almost certain it’s ADHD. We definitely need help because she thinks we are the enemy, she needs someone outside to help her get passed the fight/flight mode. I imagine early intervention helps enormously. I know it’s bloody hard to retrain an adult brain that’s for sure.

Rainbow I am so sorry, this is so hard, it’s really difficult to cope as a parent when your child believes in worrying things very passionately that aren’t true. Do you think PDA traits might be involved for your DD? It sounds like a very high burden of anxiety she has.

(I am not trying to diagnose just to suggest anything to look into, that might lead to better support. Sorry if you’ve already done all of that)

@ThischarmingHam I definitely think she has PDA. That’s why I personally think that anyone that makes demands of her are enemies. I just can’t let her live the life she wants as she has the life experience and intelligence of a child. For example she thinks she can take medicine when she wants. She’ll see no issue climbing to her vitamins. But then she has no idea how many or when to stop. She can’t fathom the idea that she needs to ask. She can’t process the word No so will go ahead and do what she likes to avoid the No. She steals from her friends and doesn’t see this as an issue. Then she acts defensive when they don’t want to play. She controls every situation I suspect in order to control her inner self. It’s very difficult to manage.

Rainbow I absolutely hear you.
PDA society signpost to local groups that could be an IRL support if you don’t already have that.

@ThischarmingHam thanks. I’m more pissed at the moment with some of the people I have in my life. I’ve a lot of black and white thinkers around me. They don’t have the capacity to see her for a deeply struggling child. There are a few in particular who have suggested it’s my parenting, I haven’t loved her or raised her properly. It does get me down and it’s very isolating. I’ve not raised her any different to any other loving mum. I’ve done a huge amount of difficult work on myself. I’ve been called selfish and self obsessed for this. But how can I be a good parent if I let my own trauma loose on my children. I’m surrounded by avoiders and I definitely feel it. Sometimes I just wish I had someone in the deep end with me.

I know what can happen in these situations because I’ve been on the receiving end. You blame externally for internal feelings. You punish what makes you feel things you don’t like or can’t control. I worry for her because she pushes people away wrongly thinking they are the cause of feelings that she can’t deal with.

@Apex3 sorry for not replying to this for ages, I didn't have the bandwidth until now.

It's interesting to see this. I can identify with some of these, but not all - to varying degrees.

1. This is an interesting one for me because I've noticed that my friend and I who are both autistic have this compulsion to 'explain' or interact with jokes, even if we know they are jokes. I actually love stand up and understand most of the time when people are joking, though not as readily as others. But sometimes someone will say something that will make me go "well actually...". I don't know why, and I catch myself doing this regardless of whether I know a situation is light-hearted or otherwise. There's just this need to clarify/explain/think through sometimes that others find completely unnecessary but that will consume my brain for a little bit until I've got it out. My friend is similar. Occasionally you do go into that spiral of simply not getting figurative language. this was a very good example of that. I know I'm privileged in that I am able to live reasonably normally and taking things literally only in a way that can be exhausting for others rather than debilitating, but it can be really frustrating on both sides.

1. That sounds like it would be very difficult and I'm sorry you feel like you can't speak up in your own home. I worry about this; I've learned to try and not take things personally as I get older, but it can be hard. I can't speak for your wife because I don't know her, but for me a lot of this is a response to the constant character assassination I went through as a child. When you're ND but people can't tell at first glance, everything becomes something wrong with you. "Why don't you understand? Why can't you just do/act/be"... habitually I link a criticism of something I do with who I am because of that. It's been really hard to let that go.

1. I love touch except when I want to go to sleep. I hate the bit of spooning where your legs are touching, my lower body needs to be free. People are sometimes surprised I like hugs because apparently I give off a vibe that I don't. Not sure what to do about that 😅.

1. Yep, this is a problem for me also. It used to cause a lot of issues in my relationship because he wanted to just get on with it and I couldn't because reasons. This has gotten much better after DH became more familiar with autism and I became better at articulating my distress. "I'm overwhelmed right now" is something I can use and DH will drop it or continue on his own without all of the surrounding drama and it gives me space to calm down and get back to it, or get used to an idea. I can be flexible in some ways, but any unexpected change to my space (desk, bedroom, a new phone etc) really needs time and effort, I think it's my anchor. I also don't like feeling trapped in a situation. Some types of change are easier than others to manage.

1. I like my own space, but DH does as well so this is not often an issue. We sleep in the same bed, though sometimes I'll go sleep on my own if I'm struggling with insomnia or anxiety.

1. This can be such an issue and it is frustrating on both ends. We don't have children so our situations are different, but all I can say is that it's more a case of it did not occur to me at all to mention it. Again, I can only speak for myself here, but things like that - they just don't feature in my thought process at all. It upsets me when DH gets upset about that stuff because he thinks I do this on purpose somehow. Little things like getting cutlery only for myself for example. I just didn't think that he might need some. In hindsight, of course it makes sense that he would want some, but in the moment I just didn't consider it. Not out of malice or any intent, my brain just did not process it. I can of course learn if it's pointed out to me. I will get cutlery for the both of us, because I play a learned cue in my brain "when you get cutlery or a drink for yourself, ask others if they also need some."

Another example would be recently where DH was upset I didn't mention something when he asked me about something else. Let's say he told me he fancies dessert and whether we have any. I say no, and then later he is annoyed because I didn't tell him that the ice cream van was outside when he asked that. But my brain is not automatically going to make the correlation between DH saying he wants dessert and asking me if we have any, and the ice cream van (that he can also hear in theory) being a potential solution to his problem. After all, he didn't ask me about the ice cream van. This is where you get a lot of that deliberately obtuse stuff where it can suck because I feel inadequate for not having made that connection, and he feels I somehow didn't tell him on purpose, or that I just didn't care about what he might want. Not something that happens a lot in our case, but it does happen. I need to manually input all those cues in my brain. To do that, I need to have been in that situation before. So next time, I will tell him about the ice cream van.

This is a super long post and I'm not sure why I made it; I feel perhaps a little sad that it can be hard reading about spouses that seem simply unwilling to do the bare minimum to have relationships with their loved ones, making it seem every interaction with someone ND is a miserable experience. It was quite hurtful to read the things in that linked article about how people with ASD or Aspergers are incapable of empathy and forever stuck without any ability to learn or grow - I would be devastated if that's how people viewed me. But I also know ASD stuff can be really frustrating and difficult to deal with, I'm no angel for sure.

Talking about communication, I’m feeling so frustrated right now.

dh has wanted to move his desk into what was my office. Granted since I had to stop work, it wasn’t used that much and he is wfh. But it’s the way he went on about it. Like if it was a due, not a question.
And then, he got grumpy because I asked him to move some of his stuff so I could put my computer down somewhere (we sort of swapped spaces). 🙄🙄
I pulled him up on it. dh agreed that actually he hadn’t thought at all about either the impact on me (another step into the ‘you're disabled now and you’re never going to work and have your own business ever again’) nor about where practically i would put my stuff. He just fluffed at my request instead. (And never said sorry either).
That was a few days ago.
Today … well we just had a Remake with him wanting to move bookcases because it works better for him but again no thought about where it would go. Nope. It’s like things are supposed to disappear just for him. The bin would work well (because he doesn’t see the point - I’m not going to start working again so 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️)

Im angry and frustrated. And yet still trying to give the benefit of the doubt, to try and understand, not take it personally.
And I’m struggling. Because really it’s like I’m a non entity for him.

Hi @Mistresstotheworkwife, thanks so much for your detailed response! Such an interesting read and a real insight into the ND mind.

ive learnt a lot from reading your and @Rainbow03 posts, and I find myself wishing that my wife could or would communicate like you two do. To be honest this is a bit in the past now as I’ve given up on the marriage some time ago, but there was a time when I did want to try, did want to understand and did want to attempt to make things better between us.

but the issue here is that my wife resolutely refuses to believe she might have ASD, won’t even hear of it spoken, much less talked about. In fact
one of her stock answers, if I do try and talk about it is ‘you’re the one with autism!’ Yes, ok.

so faced with that absolute denial, I’ve not been able to build any bridges, and how her mind works and what she is thinking I’ve had to learn from Google and books 🤦‍♂️. 95% of what I now think I understand, I’ve had to piece together for myself - so your post is very valuable, thank you very much

ps re cutlery yes same here ☺️, if she makes a tea she’ll make one for herself, two minutes later I’ll make one for myself. Tbf if I’m making i’ll shout to her ‘do you want a tea?’ - usually some small thinking time from her, then the answer yes or no

The tea/cutlery things really gets me down.

Logically I know it's not a symbol of how little I factor into my husband's mind, but emotionally it feels as though I don't exist or he doesn't care enough to put strategies in place to remember we've talked a hundred thousand times about the "rule" of offering me a hot drink if he has to walk right past me to make one/get my cutlery too if he's setting the table. I get it's not automatic for him. But why doesn't he care enough to use compensatory strategies?

Thank you for sharing @Mistresstotheworkwife (I love Hannah Gadsby too!)

Sorry @Mistresstotheworkwife i only just realised that you linked Hannah Gadsby (thought it was an MN advert or something 🤦‍♂️)

that is both fascinating and hilarious at the same time

’No Hannah, you’re not related to the box. I’m surprised you had to ask that’ 🤣

Thank you everyone for your replies and understanding. It helps on the hard days just to put it somewhere and not get judged.

Yes to the war zone @Rainbow03 ! It's like there's secret land mines everywhere I step. Just when I think I've got both their triggers sorted a new thing pops up...

Also their dad still seems to rely on me as some kind of counsellor. Something that happened TO ME many years ago has got him all het up and he expects me to talk him through it. I've refused. I've enough on my plate with the dc. I hate how he's co-opting my grief over it, when at the time he could barely care less and told me basically to just get over it. He's not my job to manage any more but he has nobody else.

Wish me luck everyone - to avoid an absolute blow up (can’t do before bed or I don’t sleep and it takes me 2 days to recover) and can’t do before work as I can’t do my (with people) job properly if I’m in a state - I’ve emailed DH to ask if it’s possible to acknowledge me when he gets home / I get home from being out all day and to connect somehow. I’ve phrased it as what can we do together about this and to ask if me making eye contact with him makes me seem aggressive (he always says ‘ are you ok? Is there an issue?’/

I got home last night at 9:30pm from work - I said hello and was about to ask how his day went, and he just said a very curt ‘hi’ and left the room and started working on his computer in the living room. I felt so hurt and it’s like this alkl the time. I talk to him and he won’t look at me or respond in any way UNLESS it’s me asking about his work - then he’ll hold forte and talk and talk.

It’s so dehumanising.

I fear his response will be a list of everything I do wrong.

We’ll see.

@CinnamonTart i have the same…

Recently though, I started to match his energy. Not talking, not asking how things were, minimum answers (I’m not walking out of the room as he does. It’s a step too far). And organising my day to please myself rather always double checking with him first.

Result: he got really grumpy because he had planned for me to be there and I wasn’t! But he never told me he’d be at home (he normally isn’t) and didn’t take well to the ‘I didn’t know you’d be here’.

So yes, no communication, but still expecting me to be around and just somehow ‘know’ what his plans are.

Hi All,

New thread here https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/relationships/5121753-married-to-someone-with-aspergersasdnd-support-thread-12

My mum used to do this I used to come home from school and get glared at and ignored I don’t think it was my job at the age of 13 to explain to her that she should say hello to me when I came in . I always used to say hello to her and chat to her when visiting as an adult then I got fed up and stopped to see his long it took her to speak to me, the record is 5 hours and that was a rude comment

Hope it was better than you feared....See you over on the new thread