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.

@SquirrelSoShiny That's awful. I'd be bloody fuming!

I’m new here. I’ve found all the previous posts really helpful, they give vocabulary and resonance to my lived experience.
I’m struggling. I work hard to support my ND sons with little support for myself. Husband also ND is unhappy. He has no respect for me and so I’m losing respect for him. It’s sad bc we have been together for 35 years. I don’t want our children to see a breakdown in our relationship. Don’t know how much more I can take.We have had a good life but at almost 60 I’m just drained and disillusioned.

Like you I've found this thread so helpful and the vocabulary really helps to untangle some of the issues I've struggled with (and I'm autistic myself!). What stood out to me in your post is that you are 60, there could (by that I mean that it's not always this straight forward) more to life than spemding another 20 or so years with a man who you are loosing respect for. If you can't leave, find a way to separate yourself enough to meet your needs. Therapy helped me to do this and to lessen the guilt about separating.

Maybe I'm not the best one to advice as I am leaving/told him we're separating and O know this is not a possibility for many people on this thread. But at the very least, consider how you can get your needs met too. My health is already suffering from years of putting mine last x

Thank you @LittleSwede for your support. I have a lick of autism myself, I’m so literal minded. I don’t think I will ever leave - I strive to make things better and I have good friends. I just seem to have a complicated life and it’s a struggle.
Hope you are all well this evening 🌸

LittleSwede So sorry to hear it with your DD. I have had to learn a whole new side to parenting my ND DC. It’s very very upsetting and hard in the moment accepting that this is how things are.
There’s a MN thread on EBSA, no easy fixes offered but some good support among those going through it and a few nice stories of DC who have found their way through to something better and calmer once older.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5003192-the-ebsa-support-thread-emotionally-based-school-avoidanceabsence?page=1

Thank you, that thread seems like a nice supportive one. Poor DD has struggled with EBSA since Reception really but managed to attend in periods (Y2 and 3) when support was in place. On waiting list for specialist provision but still contemplating elective Home Ed. So sad that there are so many us in this situation. I try to parent as PDA friendly as possible but finding the balance tricky at times when I am less regulated myself x

Feeling a bit better now after a couple of calmer days.

I have often thought ‘low demand’ parenting must have been named ironically (from the parent’s perspective) it’s absolutely punishing and exhausting for the carer. But seems the only way. Hoping more support comes for you.

Same! It hides all the insane observation, anticipation and response that parents need to be able to do it effectively. It should be called shared nervous system parenting of something!

*or

Absolutely! I feel like I've been in a constant hypervigilant state for the last 10 years. It started with Gentle Parenting/Scandinavian with a focus on autonomy etc and evolved into what I now know is called Low Demand or Low Arousal parenting. Must admit that when I hear our next door neighbours shouting at their DC in a more traditional authoritarian style it always makes me flinch a bit! I wouldn't like to be shouted at like that myself and find it hard to relate as so used to our way of living.

@LittleSwede I’m struggling big time with my daughter at the moment. She is only 8 but her behaviour is effecting the whole household and I’m just exhausted with it all. We are awaiting her adhd assessment and just have zero support in the meantime. I hate to say it but she is so difficult to be around. She is extremely negative and causing conflict on everything. Can’t ask her to get ready for school or bed. Have no idea anymore how to actually talk to her. She says mummy I just don’t really care about you or what you want me to do and I don’t like being part of a family. I think that’s the big issue with these conditions. Having absolutely no way to know how to live in a family or be part of a team as they cant consider anyone else. She then gets so down because people don’t warm to her. She has no friends, which is so difficult for me to hear but I can’t blame them because she is awful to them. If she can’t control the situation she doesn’t care, she will
sulk, lie, cheat, whatever to ruin it for those having the fun. I’m so lost parenting her and I feel like such a failure.

Oh @Rainbow03 I'm so sorry to hear that. That sounds absolutely heartbreaking.

Thanks, I’m so deflated this week having taken her to school crying and she needing the calm down room because of just getting ready for school. She knows she needs to go and the time that it happens but she can’t deal with the process. I ask her repeatedly nicely to get ready and she ignores me to the point that I raise my voice to get some action from her and then all hell breaks loose. Everything is laid out ready, it feels so simple but it’s impossible. Then we get the I hate yous etc etc. Repeat for bedtime or any time we need her action to do something. I have M.E and this is just killing me.

That sounds utterly exhausting - wearing down to your soul.

Do you have family support workers service? I had one some years back. She came once a week and it was nice just to have someone to chat to openly for an hour once a week. They are meant to give strategies and stuff and I personally didn't found those too helpful but it was nice to have someone to chat to openly about everything that was going on in my life.

Nope I feel so alone. My mum can feel empathy for my daughter but not for me but she doesn’t have to live like it constantly. My partner has just about had enough of her behaviour (I don’t condone it but I don’t blame him), it has such a knock on effect because I’m exhausted with it. He is autistic so he struggles to understand what she is doing but to be fair he has tried in the past. His parents, well his mum never liked me from the beginning. Her son belonged to him so she revels in it. Basically she thinks I’m faulty and my daughter is just further proof to this. I’m fed up with having no support structure. Whole family of ND people why can’t extend any support.

This whole black and white thinking is so difficult to live with. They all struggle with the concept that you can behave badly at times as we all do and still be good. They all think they better than everyone else because they perceive what’s good and bad then categorise you. I don’t live exactly like them which means I’m bad, there is zero grey. What I need is support and the thought that just because I’m struggling doesn’t mean you avoid me because struggling is bad so therefore I am. Also they don’t want to help unless it somehow benefits them. Helping requires putting your needs aside for a bit and they can’t do that. What my family do is basically neglect and is soul destroying.

@Rainbow03 I totally hear you, it's heartbreaking and oh so lonely. Your DD sounds very similar to my DD in many ways. Big hug x

Is your DD getting adequate support at school? It extra hard when there is such limited support network too. We don't have anyone except my DM and she's in another country so get how frustrating it is. My DD really struggles to understand that I have needs to and as she's going through a velcro stage (school anxiety and probably picking up on tension with me and H, even though we haven't spoken about the separation to her yet) me needing a walk by myself is an alien concept for her and she feels abandoned. I spoke about the invisible string thing (we read the book when she was younger) to remind her but she still wants me near her almost all the time.

I am probably having an operation to remove a couple of wisdom teeth at a hospital soon (I posted about the nasty infection a couple of months ago and my subsequent crush/trauma bond?! on dentist) and now really worrying about how to care for DD after and if H will be able to look after her, and me possibly, after the op. Never had GA before and keep thinking something will go wrong and DD will be left with H!!

My daughter isn’t velco 😢 she pretty much hates me and sees me as an enemy to her autonomy. She wants to do precisely what she wants to do but she is 8 and it’s not possible.

omg I went to the dentist after leaving my abusive marriage and he was so nice to me I also got a crush lol…he was very handsome which didn’t help.

Oh mine hates me too and everything I do is annoying but she still wants me all the time, despite me being such a terrible person! Honestly, the way I talk, how I do things, the clothes I wear, music I like, is all wrong!

It’s just so sad to hear isn’t it. The worst she says is why can’t you just be a proper mum like everyone else. It makes me feel awful.

I think that is it, I am vulnerable and my dentist is so, so lovely and although that warm, butterfly feeling used to be just a pleasant distraction for the 8-9 years I've been his patient, it suddenly ramped up 10fold this summer!

It just goes to show how when we are vulnerable we are very open to those who maybe don’t have the best intentions. We get drawn to people who are nice to us before we know anything about them really. I was drawn to my ex and his love bombing because I was extremely vulnerable. I got in too quick too deep before I realised that it wasn’t quite right.

It is and it really hurts, even though I know that she's probably releasing some of her frustrations about everything else in the world on me. DD is definitely in pre-puberty so a lot of hormones going on too!