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.

@Rainbow03 We have rooms full of trashy nasty cupboards full of nasty trash. Much of it never used in the 25 years we've been together.

We have five or six coffee cages, DW insists she is going to buy replacement glass, but never gets round to it and just buys a new instead.

The garden is full of stuff that is too good to throw away or recycle until it literally rots and has to be thrown away.

I can't dispose of my own old stuff as DW will "have it", it then becomes hers and I'm not allowed to touch it.

@Daftasabroom hes got a 10ft shed the garage, his van, most of the loft, a large outside storage box, most of the spare room and almost all the drawers and cupboards in the house. It’s incredibly selfish. I end up getting rid of my stuff to make space. I have nowhere to store the kids stuff I want to. I want it gone. I want to tell him you get rid or you move out with your stuff. I’m pretty sure he values it more than us. He certainly doesn’t think he is taking that mick! It’s the childish look on his face that gets me, you’ve never seen a person so happy to have rubbish.

Yes, the hoarding of stuff...see, now that I've told H I want to separate, he has had some sort of (short lived) epiphany that maybe he hasn't been that easy to live with, and has commented along the lines of how it must have been so stressful for me to live with his 'stuff' everywhere. Yet I know he really can't help it on so many levels, execute function issues, a fear of not knowing where things are meaning if put away he might struggle to find an item again, and a tendency for getting emotionally attached to 'things'.

I have long given up on him being able to live clutter free as long as in this house and although I yearn for my own place, I don't want to add to his guilt and shame over being so disorganised and cluttery, so for now I put up with it. This is also why I can't see how he could ever be the one to move out, his stuff fills an entire 3/4 bedroom house, the loft and two sheds. In the next few weeks I will move into the spare room/offuce, which will be a major operation as it's filled with stuff yet hopefully I will have my own, tidy space for however long we house share. At the moment I co-sleep with DD, have a few things on 'my' bedside table in the main bedroom, a couple of rails of clothing etc. The rest is just taken over my H's stuff on.all available surfaces, including a 'floor-drobe' of clothing on floor, and piles of stuff along the walls and in front of furniture. It's a horrid and I don't think I could sleep in there anyway!

I think my situation with dh is probably, absolutely, most definitely for me, more tolerable. Him having no sentiment towards things or possessions, with no desire or need to hold on to absolutely anything is really sad and quite frankly weird BUT the alternative that you all are living with would tip me over the edge, I think.
I have learned that i need to live in a clean and tidy environment. Mess and clutter stress me out. I barely cope with dh being so unhygienic that the thought of what could be lurking in a cluttered house makes me shudder.
I also think that my 'obsession' with cleaning & tidying is in response to dh's lack of being clean. Quite possibly an acquired control issue as i don't remember always being this way.

I've seen your other thread @Rainbow03 It's so hard but as others say, it is mental illness. My FIL was a hoarder and I strongly suspect H is too. It is linked to OCD which in itself often presents along other ND. I should have known when I saw how my PIL lived. H's house when I met him was busy and cluttered but I blamed it on it being small and having a large dog etc.

We had an extension added to our house 7 years ago, turning a small 2 bed into a rather roomy 3/4 bed with the kitchen I always dreamed of. I thought that would mean less clutter as mire space and storage, I was wrong, it was just more space to fill with stuff. I had imagined dinner parties and gatherings around our lovely new dining area following the extension. It turns out that most of the time I'm too ashamed to ask anyone over as it's constantly cluttered and messy with stuff. I'm in a constant battle to keep the kitchen tidy enough to use, half the dining table is usually covered by H's stuff and you can't see the skirting board anywhere as there is stuff everywhere!

I am not separating from H due to the hoarding, but it certainly plays a part and it is and has added massive stress on me. He has been abusive in many ways which I can't tolerate but the hoarding just adds to this as it's often a cause for sulking or verbally abusive outbursts.

I'm so pleased I found this thread. I'm going to have a trawl through now and get some tips and coping strategies.

@LittleSwede im just so sick of it now. It’s this massive elephant in the room and we all trying to skirt around it. I want it gone!

Welcome newcatmam

Hi everyone, I've just caught up on the new thread. I totally get it with the clutter, I've probably talked about it before, it's been getting me down for 15 years. At first I thought it was just a sentimentality thing, but I started to go through some of it when we moved into our last house and realised that most of it is old crap he doesn't even want, but that he simply can't be arsed to go through it. We have boxes in our basement which have moved from his mum's house, to his house, to my sister's loft, to our old house and now here. Some have not been opened in all that time - over 20 years! We have shelves in our lounge the are full of airport books he insists on keeping and a selection that he's asked for, but never read. He's still an avid reader, but spends all this time reading neverending online novels these days. At least those aren't cluttering up my shelves I suppose! His office is full of crap, disorganised and spilling out on to the (tiny) landing, his desk is covered in crap and disgusting. I don't know how he can work in there and he insists on having the door open all the time. MIL is just as bad and will get around it by passing her crap on to H because she knows he won't get rid! Thankfully we don't see them much anymore.

I've never been quiet about it, but I don't have time to start wading through it so I just have to cope as best I can. A few years ago I quietly started throwing stuff away, mostly old everyday clothes and things in the loft, stuff he'll never wear again and likely will never go through everything to notice it's missing if he even remembers he owned it. It was so much easier when he wasn't WFH, if he sees a black bag to go to the tip he'll start interrogating me about what's in it and it's not even his stuff! He used to try and turn it around on me, but I've always been quite good at getting rid of stuff because when I was little there was a load of toys and stuff kept in my room which I could use, but wasn't allowed to move or get rid of because it wasn't 'mine' (youngest child problems!). I struggled to keep it tidy and would get in trouble, once I only had 'my' stuff and could do what I wanted I got way better at managing my belongings. Since my ADHD diagnosis I recognise that I have a low clutter threshold so having too much stuff is really difficult for me to manage and visual clutter really gets me down. The hardest thing is that H seems to have an aversion to clear surfaces, so if I do manage to clear the kitchen island or the dining table, he will immediately fill the space. The tiles for the floor in my ensuite, (which he insisted on doing himself and is now over a year behind schedule) are currently residing on the dining table, which he brought for his first house and has always been too big. I plan to use it as his funeral pyre because apparently that is the only way I will ever be shot of it!

Sorry for cluttering up the thread with my essay!

Dining table as funeral pyre 😂
God it’s awful though, the feeling of being suffocated and squeezed out of any living space by someone else’s exponentially expanding hoard of shite. It always feels like a metaphor, to me, for the way DH’s anxiety and obsessions hoover up all the space and light and air in our lives.

@BustyLaRoux don't feel ashamed, it's rough out there! The way some MNers throw LTBs around, you'd think it was the 00s! The fact is that the practicalities make it impossible fo a lot of us. You feel like you're making excuses, but the market is so tight that landlords and agents can easily discriminate and take the piss and where I am you basically have to be homeless just to get on the list for a council house. So the choice is: stay with an asshole, try to make the best of it and work towards leaving or make your kids homeless. And some people think that the patriarchy is a myth!

You are so brave, you're on the path and I really hope he doesn't 'punish' you for trying to leave.

@Bunnyhair that's exactly it! It's the same with everything, when I lost my dad very suddenly in his mid-50s, the way H carried on... At one point he actually said to me "I feel like I'm more upset about it than you are" of course he wasn't, but his grief was more important than mine, I felt I there was no space for me to grieve. He wants me and the kids in his life, but there's no space for us.

@MissionBiscuits this is something I really can’t bear. You’re grieving? I’m grieving MORE. You’re ill? I’m MORE ill. You’re stressed? Well clearly you can’t be THAT stressed as you’re still working and cooking and cleaning and taking DC to things, whereas I’m having a total nervous breakdown here! You’re tired? I’m exhausted! You need some space for your stuff? What about my stuff? What about me me me me me?

See also: you got yourself a memory foam pillow? Why didn’t you get me a memory foam pillow? How come you got a new toothbrush and I’m stuck with my old one?

Like I am simultaneously a sibling he has to compete with, and a mother figure, solely responsible for anticipating and meeting his every want and need.

My partner (early days) suspects he has autism and ADHD would be high functioning (good job, capable day to day). He's impatient though and reacts quite strongly to small things in the environment 'going wrong' eg google maps not working, or if I'm running late and dinner is on, etc

His tone can be impatient/frustrated.. He also can struggle in supermarkets or other areas where in the past he's expected me to follow 'his route' ie his way of navigating the space

I grew up with my dad who I suspect has autism, but my dad would constantly fly off the handle as a kid and I grew up anxious and afraid. Because of this I keep getting triggered by this new man, not feeling safe etc. Not sure what to do with this as he is otherwise a lovely guy

In five years' time, ten years' time, how will you find living with his impatience and his tone of voice?

It's pop psychology but also unfortunately all too true that sometimes we're drawn to people who have the same flaws as our parents as a partner.

Oh gosh @SofiaJessica4 if you don’t feel safe and relaxed around him, then it truly doesn’t sound like a good match. Take it from all of us, that it’s so much easier to just notice and act onthose red flags earlier than try to separate conjoined lives.

Sending a hug to those navigating hoarding. That’s so hard 💐

He is familiar, and that’s comforting . He is also slightly less toxic than your dad. In that way he is surprisingly delightful, like a less salty family traditional dish made by someone when you are voyaging in a foreign land. But familiarity isn’t a good basis for a relationship. Its the same old toxic stew of selfishness and irritability.

Todays gems ...

DS has a fractured bone in his foot - it’s healing - the advice has been no high impact sports for 3-4 more weeks. Dh says ‘well I disagree - it’s healing, he’s fine, he can do what he likes’. I said it’s how we get DS to a place where he can genuinely use his foot 100% withought fear of refracture / delaying being able to use it normally. DH says ‘doctors are just people and I have a different opinon and he’s fine and can carry on as normal’.

We took a couple out for dinner as a thank you as they had DD stay with them for a week on hols. They asked DH about him and his work etc and then we all moved in to general chit chat for the evening. It was 10pm and DH announced we needed to get them home. Everyone had a full glass of wine. I said maybe after our wine and he said no I want to go now. We all left and parted company and then DH suggested we stopped at the local pub and then went on to say how they took no interest in him and how rude that was. I’m so embarassed!

SofiaJessica4 please don’t stay with anyone who makes you feel unsafe. It doesn’t get better. You just don’t owe him your time. You could be alone and happy, or be with someone else and happy.
Your boundaries are likely to be all kinds of porous if you have trauma from childhood. Now you’re an adult you have the opportunity to consciously protect and respect your own boundaries.

No. Actually he was very understanding about me wanting to leave and said he would support my decision if that’s what I wanted. He wanted me to stay but wouldn’t try and hold me back if I needed to leave. I know some people thought he’s just saying what I want to hear to Hoover me back in. Honestly though he doesn’t have a “side”. He isn’t manipulative in that way. Everything he says is genuine. He is many things but calculating and manipulative he isn’t.

He been pretty well behaved since my attempting to leave. We have been better at communicating. I’ve got stuff off my chest. He has been trying quite hard. I’m sure I will feel like leaving again at some point but I am trying to feel empowered by my decision to stay. It was a conscious decision for my children. Perhaps for me too. Done with my eyes open. I don’t feel stuck anymore. I feel like I chose it. And that’s quite empowering in an odd way.

I found that being with DP and around his autistic DS brought up loads of trauma from my childhood and having an autistic and controlling father. I thought I’d dealt with it and moved on, but suddenly here it all was at the surface. I felt very angry. Angry for the crappy upbringing he’d given me. Angry for the way he still is with my brother and me today. a fry at what he put my poor mum through. And my DP’s behaviour was very similar in many respects. The shouting, the sudden angry outbursts. The refusal to entertain other’s pov. The rigid thinking about how things have to be done. The criticism of everyone else all the time. The hyper sensitivity to perceived criticism. The low frustration tolerance. All very like my dad. And I felt really upset with myself for unwittingly choosing someone so similar to him! But I have chosen to stay after a difficult summer and I am committed to making the best of things and focusing on the many positives and dissimilarities to my dad.

This has been a conscious choice though and a very hard one to make. It isn’t an easy path. If you’re being triggered all the time then that’s not good for your mental well-being. Might be kinder to yourself to leave. If you don’t feel emotionally safe and you stay it will be hard work and you will take a metaphorical battering in all likelihood. If the good parts of him are worth it….. that’s for you to decide. I think most of us wish we’d gotten out early. But for a plethora of complex reasons a lot of us are still here. So I won’t tell you to leave. You need to make the right choice for you. But you’re always welcome here for lots of support and understanding.

@SofiaJessica4 Oh, how i wish I had this forum 27 years ago.
We have all been where you are. Those little quirky annoyances that you can laugh off or ignore don't go away. You tell yourself he has other, really good qualities, justifying all the other stuff.
You say he reacts quite strongly to things. One day you or your children will be those things he reacts to.
Trust those who have gone before.
Walk away.

Busty I wish you very well and feel that being able to make difficult decisions consciously with our eyes open, examining them from all angles, is something to be really proud of. Absolutely no shame.

Especially if we grow up with divorce or separation ourselves as children I feel it’s so rare to grow up.with that core confident sense of ‘it will be OK’ after a relationship split. Because we’ve seen and felt so much adult parental uncertainty and felt a lot of anger and sadness and powerlessness as kids ourselves. It’s part of our story, part of us. I’ve spent years and thousands of pounds on therapy and I still feel the same, it’s etched into me so deeply.

And, unless we are very well supported socially and very financially well off, then household separation with kids can for us fall somewhere on the scale between ‘very hard’ and ‘objectively not possible on a practical level’. After a lifetime of constant stress and vigilance your health also goes eventually as so many of us have found which can also be a decisive factor. And upheaval just is challenging for any kids, it would be even for NT kids. As research has shown, that’s another thing to weigh up.

I accept that I have my own take on this as my (I suspect) ND and each traumatised themselves parents split and then carried on punishing each other financially and emotionally afterwards, which of course then ultimately punished me and my siblings. It overshadowed our lives growing up. But also it’s part of accepting myself, to accept that that my life experiences shaped my core.

Combinations of objective and subjective factors can tip very carefully weighted decisions in directions that we don’t expect or feel happy about. Bur it’s so important to go through the careful process of weighing up, because we have to live with our decisions. And it’s an ongoing process, things change all the time. I expect that leaving will be still at the back of your mind for a long time to come and the weighing up of things may or may not look different in future. That’s both a blessing and a curse of living in this situation. So look after yourself, and keep listening to yourself.

Supermarket routes! This brings back a memory. My dad wrote a computer programme so that every item he bought had a code and when he entered the code the computer would arrange all the items into a list in order of the route he would always take around the supermarket. So he didn’t have to flip over pages back and forth and could cross off each item one by one working down the list (how did we not suspect autism back then??!).

One evening (always did shopping in the evening as quieter then), we got to the bakery counter and the bakery assistant was on his break. My dad had selected his usual loaf and wanted someone to slice it. He calls over the assistant from the deli:

dad: excuse me, can you slice my loaf please?

assistant: sorry, no. I don’t work on the bakery. I’m not trained to use that machine.

dad: well where is the person who works on the bakery?

assistant: he’s just on his break. He won’t be long.

dad: well can you call him down?

assistant: err, he’ll be down in five minutes sir.

dad: but I want my loaf sliced now!

Me: I’m sure we could just come back in five minutes.

dad: no, I don’t want to come back. I’m working through my route and I’m at the bakery now and I want my loaf sliced now. I don’t want to come back and mess up my route.

me: well this chap likely isn’t being paid for his break and we are not calling him down to come and slice your bloody loaf. I will come back in five minutes and get it sliced ok?

dad: why can’t he just come now?

me: because you’re not being reasonable

dad: why don’t they have more staff on the bakery then?

me: because you choose to do your shopping on a Friday night when it’s quiet so they don’t need to hire additional staff on the off chance someone might want their loaf sliced at precisely 8:37pm!!

dad: (hands me the loaf and reassumes his route whilst shaking his head and grumbling about the staff)….

Genuinely believes his rigid needs need to be prioritised by everyone else and cannot comprehend that he isn’t being reasonable. Can’t see that this chap’s entitlement to his UNPAID break trumps his need to have his load sliced at precisely this moment. Can’t compromise. Can’t change his route as that would mess up his list order and he might have to TURN A PAGE! This programme he wrote was done to make his life easier, but it just made everything more complicated. As always.

I cannot describe my pleasure when invariably the supermarket would reorganise all the shelves and all the items get moved about! Used to drive him potty!!! 🤣

Thank you so much @ThischarmingHam for writing this. This is very much how I feel. I carry much more baggage than I realised from my childhood. Really genuinely thought I’d come out relatively unscathed. My exH used to say how surprising it was, given our parents’ relationship and the behaviour of my dad, my brother and I are as normal as we are. But I think in truth both of us have been emotionally scarred by the whole experience. My brother often says he feels completely alone, except for me. He struggles with empathy. He struggles with affection. His wife finds it very hard. I see now how this upbringing of ours has really affected our adult relationships and our decisions and choices. The choice I have had to make now is entirely about the upbringing I had and the sudden abandonment by our mum and the way my dad handled that. I’ve also paid a fortune in therapy and I’m not sure it’s “fixed me” at all.