Married to someone with Asperger's/ASD/ND: support thread 12

[Daftasabroom]

New thread.

This thread is for those of us seeking to explore the dynamics of long term relationships with our ND partners. Some of us are ND ourselves, very many of us have ND children. 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.

It's complicated and it's emotional.

The old thread is here.

I feel very sad that a few posters are feeling got at now. It all seems to have gotten a little personal. It’s such an emotional and painful
place to be in at times. To those posters who are autistic and have tried to offer insights I am sure you meant well. To those who have felt angry their safe space had been invaded then I absolutely understand. I don’t think anyone wants to be told they should try harder to understand. Jesus wept, I could not spend more time “understanding” my DP or my dad and I am sick of it. Equally as @Bunnyhair says, Autistic partners can be assholes because they are autistic. A lot of the behaviours which we collectively describe are certainly, in my view, down to autism. It sucks to be told no that’s not autism, they’re just an asshole. As if autistic people shouldn’t be called assholes. Or if you are going to call someone who is autistic an asshole then make sure you don’t accidentally offend the autistic community by ensuring you are clear them being an asshole isn’t related to their autism, as we must not offend!!! So yeah I’ve been on the receipt of that and it is triggering. So it’s understandable why people feel enough is enough. I do feel people have been singled out though and we should be careful not to do that. Including people who have bravely stood up and complained. And now @HowIrresponsible has left and I am sure no one wanted that. But again I am not singling out anyone by saying this so please don’t feel I’m getting at anyone as that would not be my intention. I just can see both sides and I never want anyone to leave feeling like shit.

We need our safe spaces. And it is OK to have some boundaries. And hopefully everyone can respect that.

@BustyLaRoux I agree. It’s an unmonitored public forum so it can’t be my place to vent but no it’s my place to inform but no it’s my place to learn. We all come at it from very different places. Lines are so fine. My ASD partner is a gigantic pain in the arse! We’ve been away camping and I’ve had to re-word every sentence to avoid him thinking I’ve blamed him for anything. He upsets me constantly, being ADHD it’s not hard but he will not re-word anything like I do to accommodate me, he will simply say I’m too this and that. He is too this and that and I understand so I think before I speak. He doesn’t think he needs to accommodate me because he is always right but I know I need to accommodate him despite knowing he is in the wrong! Pain in the arse!

His go to is just oh women are always so emotional about anything and shrug his shoulders…… and carry on being right!!!!arghhhhh

@BustyLaRoux I agree. I think its really sad @HowIrresponsible has left. I get the impression she is in a place I often find myself in and its not nice, to put it mildly. There are not many places for women in that situation to go to. This thread is the place I have to talk about all this and feel heard and understood.

I think its hard to disentangle what is society’s approach to a disability and what is the result of inbuilt misogyny and sexism. In other words there is no general social approach but only gendered and classed instances.

Women are expected to accept and even revel in helping/supporting/scaffolding our partners. She gets no praise for it. Its rather seen as an end in itself. Even more so if they are high earners, famous, high value, a catch.

While for a man to take on the same caregiving role is so rare , so man bites dog, that The least gesture towards caregiving is seen as enormously generous and the “needy” wife is seen as an unfair burden.

So I don’t think we can evven have a generic conversation about the contrast between ASD and other disabilities within marriage without acknowledging the specific ways heterosexual marriage and marriage are different depending on the sex of the caregiver or the sex of the person with the disability.

I think the whole thing most of us are struggling with on this thread is that it is very hard needing care yourself - whether that’s physical or emotional or both - while also being in a heavily caregiving role yourself, where the care you give is largely unacknowledged. There isn’t enough to go around. Everyone needs more than there is available in the system.

I also know plenty of neurodiverse couples who seem happy together. Almost all of these are childfree though. So there are fewer demands on either partner.

I completely agree with that. I am really good friends with a couple (him autistic, her ADHD) and they rub along brilliantly now. They did, however, separate for a few years when their DD was going through the teen years then reconciled once that bit was over.

I finally split with H when my DDs were teens, I just didn't have enough to go round for everyone I don't ever want to reconcile with him, though

I’ve learned a lot from pps with ASD, especially @Mistresstotheworkwife, so I’m really sorry if anyone is feeling upset. I do want to better understand my H as I want to stay. He’s also changing a lot and in therapy which I know few partners are, really.

At the same time I really need the validation of the thread to not feel that I’m insane or being gaslit. I know all the theories around difference etc. but I need a space to acknowledge the practical impacts on me and I’m so grateful to have had that here.

I thought some of the posts on male vs female socialisation have been spot on. I also think perimenopause is important here me at least, since I have so few fucks to give and I’ve finally found my red lines and my voice after all this time, and trying to articulate my needs finally in a way that works.

What drew you all to your partners at the beginning and what is the hardest part
of them that was hidden back then?

For me, his sense of humour, he is very giving and helpful and his hobby (didn’t realise was obsessive), hardest part he feels attacked all the time, very little real empathy and he hoards.

A lot to catch up on here on this thread since I last logged in. Am now slightly confused as to whether I am 'ok' to be it or if I've upset some people by being autistic and probably sometimes trying to explain things from that amgle, rather than NT married to ND. Maybe I should look for a thread on ND to ND relationships.

I've found this thread a supportive place since joining though so am grateful for that, for the many perspectives shared, for having somewhere to vent and feel to feel validated for having these thoughts and feeling. Particularly found it helpful to hear so many others feeling like they maybe should but just couldn't 'LTB' as there's a lot more to it and these relationships have a different dynamic to NT NT ones.

On another note I might name change and ask MN to delete some of my entries as they are a bit outing in the unlikely event that H should stumble upon this thread. No needto add fuel to the fire!

@LittleSwede i find your posts helpful and respectful, and I can see you are using the thread for support, offering others support, and engaging in a wholehearted way.

I think the posts that upset me are the ones that have an agenda to them - to ‘fix’ the way we feel about our personal situations by explaining either that nothing we’re upset about is actually upsetting; or that however we may feel our partners have it way way worse so we should shut the fuck up and devote ourselves to looking after them without a thought for our own needs, which are burdensome and confusing anyway; or that we’re just a bunch of dumb women who’ve married abusive men and it really is that simple, and we should ‘just leave!’ (regardless of children, finances, logistics, our own mixed feelings, etc.)

As many of us have said, it’s not that posters are autistic that’s the issue - it’s that some autistic posters, with no skin in the game (i.e. not seeking support in their own relationships with ASD partners) come in with an aggressive agenda and a really patronising tone. You can’t tell who’s who on the internet, of course, but there is often a distinctly mansplainy and faintly misogynistic feel to these posts. That’s how I experience it anyway.

Thanks @Bunnyhair I get what you mean about some people coming on with an agenda whereas I feel that most of the frequent autistic posters on this thread are open to looking at things from different angles.

I have name changed but can't use new name on this thread so will just be cautious to not be too outing.

MN puts the name youve first used in the thread automatically. But you can change it to your new name if you want. (You just need to think about typing it every time so it doesn't default to the old one)

I think the “just leave” comments are not meant as an insult—I know mine wasn’t—but are integrally related to the question of whether the dh/dp has the capacity for change. If the behavior is severe enough and the man can’t change as he has no insight into the problem and no inclination to change then leaving, although the last resort, is really necessary.

Everyone who posts here has given enormous love and devotion to their partners, spent hours doing for them and trying to be in an intimate relationship with them. No one can say you have not given enough or cared enough.

But some stories are very much the frog in hot water story—sometimes when we write down our everyday it is only then that we see that it is horrible. That the hope that this time we will be skillful or successful enough to head off the meltdown won’t be fulfilled. Submitting and even fighting are all parts of the cycle of abuse, or the cycle of dysfunction if ghat word is too scary.

Sometimes that needs to be said. Because in the moment we are battling to return to status wuo and all our energies are focused on that. But status quo is an illusion. Our health, the ability of our partner to care for us, can all degrade over time. This cycle can’t endure forever. Entropy will make our fragile peace slip away.

@pikkumyy77 yes to all of that, in my case it's certainly been a boiling frog story and I can see it much clearer now. ND is no excuse for some of the behaviour I've been subjected to and I am not tolerating it for much longer.

Absolutely. I feel like it’s all good when posters of any neuro-orientation are participating in good faith for the reasons the thread exists - seeking and offering support for issues that arise in their relationships with ASD partners. ❤️

@pikkumyy77 and ‘just leave’ can absolutely be expressed in that way that gives permission. But sometimes it’s said in a very black & white & judgemental ‘I don’t get it - if it’s not working, you’re stupid to stay’ kind of way that doesn’t acknowledge any of the emotional / psychological / logistical complexity

(I also want to add that when I used the term ‘mansplainy’ I wasn’t implying that male posters in relationship with ASD partners aren’t welcome. Just that the patronising assumption that none of us know anything and need to be re-educated from first principles is unhelpful. It was the wrong term to use, apologies.)

I have an older brother so i have a lifelong hatred of being mansplained to or treated as though I haven’t put a lot of thought into whatever I am doing.

we’re just a bunch of dumb women who’ve married abusive men and it really is that simple, and we should ‘just leave!’ (regardless of children, finances, logistics, our own mixed feelings, etc.)

^ I am grateful to have only noticed this sort of reply once or twice because that is just so unhelpful.

Also, I just tried it out and couldn't name change as the keyboard didn't appear.

It was absolutely the right term to use. Mansplaining does not mean a man said something, it refers specifically to a man assuming women don’t understand something, when there is no evidence they don’t understand it, and he then proceeds, unasked, to ‘explain’ it to them.

That is very much what has happened here.

I'm happy for anyone to post if, as @Bunnyhair says, everyone's.... helpful and respectful, and.... using the thread for support, offering others support, and engaging in a wholehearted way

I'd been single for a long time, I wanted a partner to have a family with but my job made it hard to meet people. I was very impressed by how intelligent and knowledgeable he was and loved dancing with him.

I still enjoy occasional deep discussions with him and I like the way he can get straight to the heart of a logic/science based problem.

Unfortunately we don't dance anymore as he's a perfectionist and feels he wouldn't be up to his prior standard - whereas I'd just want to enjoy the dancing.

The hardest bit is his lack of people skills. His authoritarian, black and white attitude to parenting, his lack of awareness of his impact on others and his defensiveness if I try to gently offer an alternative view.

Obviously we had no way of knowing what his parenting would be like until we had kids and I thought he'd gain more self-awareness over time.

@LoveFoolMe Someone in my family told me that it is my fault that my oldest is struggling because I picked an an abusive man with suspected ADHD as her father, I should have picked better. The guilt I feel is awful. If only we knew. I wonder if people really are more discerning in picking partners or if a lot of it is luck and finding out when you in the shit? I also thought being a parent might have made him more self aware but it didn‘t, the lack of empathy and the inability to see the child as not him and not put all his views on her he can’t do. I think leaving him may have made it worse because now he gets large amounts of time to mould her and I can feel her slipping away with her views. Only this week she said her dad’s family holiday is better because it costs more, more expensive means better. That’s not a view I have.