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.

@MySocksAreDotty I can see this behaviour in my daughter also. If it’s not prefect it gets screwed up. She can’t just cross out and carry on, it’s all so life and death big fight flight activation. It’s the same with every single task. I think she is just waiting to fail and failure is massive to her. Failing is how we grow and learn though. We had an argument this morning. She will often ask for something right at the wrong time. Like this morning we are late for school, baby in the push chair and we out the door and she then shouts I want my scooter. I reply I’m sorry it’s just too late to go looking in the shed. Perhaps next time asking for it earlier would be a way forward. But no, she explodes into an argument which continues the whole walk to school. How can be anything be her fault, it’s all my fault, I hate her, I don’t want her to ever have her scooter…on and on. Anyone else just takes the “failure” as a learning experience to next time do different. She sees no fault therefor doesn’t learn. It’s the same with everything. It’s often not even failing she just won’t respect any of the house rules so obviously she will get told about it but won’t put the fact that she in trouble down to ignoring rules it’s because I hate her. It’s so challenging.

I can well imagine. Feeling there is just no respite.

I think anything you can carve out for yourself is good idea. Human connection is so important. Someone mentioned pockets of time before and I really try to live by that.

@ThischarmingHam ueah the drinking makes everything magnified. He’s at his worst when he’s drunk. He is borderline alcoholic I think. He’s just poured a glass of wine at 10am!!! Ugh. His favourite pre dinner drink if we go out is 4.6 units and I am always on high alert when he orders one. Last time I gave him the raised eyebrow look and he promised he would behave impeccably or else I would ban him from ordering one ever again!!!

@MySocksAreDotty i don’t think he is AuDHD but that’s useful advice about resources to cope with perfectionism. He sets the standard so high I believe it becomes his tool for task avoidance. So for example he won’t buy a drill as he says he needs to properly research it and he will only buy this brand or this brand and everything else is rubbish. And that it will be expensive so he wants to make sure he gets the absolute best for the money and needs to spend time doing the proper research. Fine. But then two years go by. He hasn’t bought a drill. The pictures haven’t been put up. He hasn’t researched it because he knows it’s a boring job and will take time. But it’s almost like he sets the highest standard of drill purchase as a method of task avoidance so he doesn’t have to put the pictures up. I end up buying him a perfectly usable mid range drill as a gift. Which he ends up being really pleased with. And the pictures get put up. But he would never think to go down that route himself. It’s too simple. He prefers to make things overly complicated instead. We laugh and joke about this aspect of his personality. He is aware of it. I’m not sure he’s put two and two together and realises he uses this as task avoidance though.

@Rainbow03 my DD (ADHD) used to be like this. Age has improved her coping ability. But she is still like this to some degree. I see that she just doesn’t know how to cope with disappointment. She has no resilience skills when it comes to managing small disappointments. And all her emotions are felt 1000%! So a small disappointment that most people would shrug off becomes this huge thing she cannot cope with and her frustration turns to anger which needs a focus so ends up directed at me as I am her safe adult.

We have spent a lot of time working on dealing with frustration and disappointment. I can’t always fix her problems and nor should I. Sometimes just “gosh yes, that’s really annoying. I can see how disappointed you are”. And if she flies off the handle at me I don’t react. I don’t tell her off for the things she says as that just makes everything worse. A bit like she is testing me to see if I will reject her (confirm her suspicions that she is a bad child). But I don’t react. I just say nothing or I say that I know she doesn’t mean that. (I hate you, you’re the worst mum, etc). Of course she says she absolutely means it. But without anyone to spar with she is much more able to calm down. If I engage in sparring/telling off/trying to fix her problems (none of my suggestions are good enough and that only makes her more angry), then it fuels the fire. The less said the better. Some affirmation of her feelings and confirmation that I still love her by not reacting to her testing me is the quickest way for her to calm down. And once she has we can look for a solution for next time a similar situation arises. It’s made a real difference to her behaviour but I also think maturity has played a part too. I used to try and reason with her and tell her off for being awful to me but this was the worst way of dealing with her. I’ve had to really try and recall what it was like to be a child with ADHD and all my emotions being so big and me being so vile to my poor mum.

@BustyLaRoux thanks for the advice. I totally need to behave like you suggest. I just can’t always control my own ADHD and we are as bad as each other. But then I know I’m the adult (although emotionally I’m so not). I then feel bloody awful as a mum. So she feeling like a bad child and I’m feeling like a bad mum. There is no one to turn to in my life for calm advice. I need a chaperone!

That is very hard. Having to give so much to your children and having to manage a grown adult too. I hope you can make connections at the support group you mentioned. Its really important to have these.

As well as trying to maintain the other friendships you mentioned, even if you only meet irregularly.

@BustyLaRoux That incident with your partner sounds horrendous. If you are on a boat, you can't even walk away!

@SheSlays

I am going to say what I really think. Based on my experience, don't marry your DP. If you haven't got a way to manage or resolve conflict, don't marry ( I would say this to a NT-NT couple too). Inability to handle conflict and disagreement is the key indicator of relationship failure. Read Seven Principles of a successful marriage by Gottman. Its all based on proper research. Gottman can watch a 15 minute video of a couple, including loved up newly weds, talking about something they disagree about and he can predict with 80% accuracy whether or not that relationship will succeed. This research has been replicated by others who have learnt his method.

That book helped me to see why my marriage had failed and why I had stayed too long. In the book you do exercises to assess your relationship. The only exercise we scored highly on was friendship. My H was my favourite person to be with. He adored me, he made me feel beautiful in his eyes, we laughed a lot, we enjoyed a lot together, he made me feel loved and cherished. I remember on my honeymoon thinking that I just could not imagine anyone having ever loved someone as much as I loved him.

I don't feel like that now.

All those unresolved disagreements have ended up like open wounds on my psyche.

And if you do marry, for the love of God, do not have children.

If any relationship has cracks those are widened open upon having children. I did not know (nor did he) that my H had autism till we had kids but having children really brought all his autistic way of thinking and behaving to the fore. Before those only materialised occasionally, now its all the time. He has been almost completely unable to rise to the demands and expectations and team work and partnership, and planning and organisation and mind sight and attunement and responsiveness and emotional regulation that is required as a partner with children and as a parent with children. In all honesty, I find the guilt of having chosen him as a Father for my children overwhelming.

I was thinking the other day, in other families, having children must make you love your partner more, as you see how caring and compassionate and attuned and meeting the needs of their child they are. My experience is the opposite.

Sorry to be bleak, but that's my experience. LIke you, I suspect my father had autism too and that made me not have the awareness I should have had that this was not the great relationship I thought it was.

So based on my experience, buy the book, and don't marry if you have not found a way to deal with conflict and disagreement constructively. I mean really, the fact that me and my partner (as he was before we married) could not do that should have been my red flag that the relationship was not going to work out. But I didn't have that knowledge then. I have lived the truth of it now.

Dear Busty: I should nit have been so rude! I do apologize. The situation you described seems really dire, to me. I don’t think any amount of carrying my handbag when he wants to be the good husband would make me willing to accept the shouting, cursing, abandonment during drinking bouts, or inability to apologize and do better.

He is an abusive alcoholic with some other problems that leads him to charm and cosset you some of the time—isn’t that called breadcrumbing?—while absolutely losing his shit and putting you in scary/compromising positions when you have “dine something wrong/triggered him” or when he is drunk as he is a mean drunk.

Alcohol gives him the perfect excuse as he and you can pretend this is “not the real him.” But it is. That is the problem. And if he is starting at 20:30 in the morning there will be fewer and fewer lovely moments where he manages to pretend to care for you in the way you deserve and (naturally) want.

Have you read “Too good to leave/too bad to stay” ? I think it might speak to you.

I know its not an easy decision but I think you were very frightened by this incident and, frankly, I think you were right to be.

I

Absolutely echo this! I am ADHD / have ADHD (whatever is the right term) and I am still trying to master my own emotions! It really helped me to force myself to remember me as a child. I can see myself in my DD’s little face and really feel her internal struggle. I know she’s in panic mode. I know she doesn’t want to be reacting this way. Sometimes I just hold out my arm and look the other way. She’ll say something like “I don’t want a stupid cuddle with you!!”. And then ten seconds later she’ll come in for a cuddle. She hates herself for saying what she said. And she needs me to comfort her but she doesn’t want to lose face (which is why I don’t say anything and I look the other way).

@pikkumyy77 I didn’t think you were rude at all! I thought you were accurate really. I think you speak the truth (apart from the bit about me being frightened. I was more stressed and overwhelmed rather than scared but I take your points). I will look that book up. It does sound like something that might speak to me. I think I was treated so badly in my marriage that I’ve sought someone who does the opposite. Who looks after me. Who tells me what a great person I am and who admires my career (rather than scoffs at what a joke job I have like a certain exDH!). I spend 75% of my time being very happy. And it’s such an improvement on where I was that I am pathetically grateful. It’s pathetic. I know 😕

So I tried to talk to DP about the other day. It didn’t go well.

He said we were both to blame. And that he didn’t want to talk about it.

I said I think we need a third party to help us navigate this if that’s the position you’re going to take.

stupidly I tried to explain what I thought had happened. That he felt annoyed at himself. That he cannot cope when I’m annoyed at him and he flips out at me if and when I do. I was trying to give him a kind ear so he could explain what was going on for him.

All he did was keep checking the time. Then when I finished and invited him to speak he told me I had gone against his express wishes not to speak about it (as I always do!!! Pushing ahead with my own agenda as I always do!!!) and had spoken for 9 whole minutes despite him being categorically clear that he didn’t want to discuss it now while we were on holiday still.

i said ok but you also said “fine, let’s do this” when I started to speak and I took that to mean you were OK to talk about it. To which he replied “oh so it’s MY Fault then????!” 😩

”no, it’s not about fault” (as I seem to say at least three times a week!) I’m saying perhaps you weren’t as clear as you think and maybe we have different perceptions. I thought you were OK to talk about it.

He maintains not. Says I need to apologise to him for ruining the end of our holiday by bringing this up when he was clear he didn’t want to discuss it now. How I can never ever apologise. How I’m defensive and aggressive. How I force him to my will time and time again. Ignore his wishes all the time. Impress how everything is his fault all the time but cannot ever accept responsibility for my own actions. How he only called me a cunt because I made such an unhelpful comment and I should apologise for that.

Now he’s stormed off in the car and is barely speaking to me. He thinks he is owed an apology.

God, I think I might be done. I don’t know if I can move past this one. I’m such a forgiving person. I don’t know how he can think I owe him an apology. This is what abusers do isn’t it? They excuse their behaviour by transferring blame and making out they’re the victim. It’s like a slow car crash.

I need out.

@BustyLaRoux its bad enough trying to navigate the relationship with my own child with ADHD when I have ADHD. I cannot imagine having an intimate relationship like the one I have with my daughter. I’m in it and trying because she’s my daughter but I don’t think I could tolerate it from an adult. Children’s needs come before adults, other adult doesn’t come before the other adult. I know you said to me about not getting drawn into arguments and to ignore the behaviour. I can only assume that’s how you need to respond to him, which is not really possible in adult relationships.

@BustyLaRoux Its dementing to keep on having to have such insane, counter reality conversations with someone who thinks they are sane and right.

You are completely justified to want out.

Busty

Just want to say that I appreciate everyone’s posts so much. we are all in these crazy situations and stretched so thin with the daily stresses yet we’re still posting here when we can and being supportive. Just speaking as a random person on the internet, it means a lot.

Yeah mainly I just avoid conflict. If he makes a comment I ignore it. I let him burn himself out. Say nothing. Smile. Walk away. I used to never be able to back away from a conflict! Ha to be my younger self. I had so many arguments with my exDH. We can still wind each other up to be fair! But with DP we both avoid conflict. At least he starts it then just wants to have his say a few times and then shout me down if I speak. So I walk away and let him shout his parting words after me (all while telling me I have to have the last word at all times!) Irony isn’t something that he really gets. Shame really, as he creates quite a lot of it and it would be amusing if it wasn’t my life. I do try to find the humour where I can because sometimes that’s all that gets me through. That a good vent and some nice people to validate me and tell me I’m not the crazy one.

I think I need to plan my slow exit…..

I started writing an ironic message about how sorry I am and how difficult it must be to live with me. It was dripping with sarcasm and amused me greatly as I know it would go over his head. I couldn’t send it though as I couldn’t bring myself to lend any weight to his self image as the victim. Instead I sent a “sorry for bringing up the other day. Genuinely I thought you were OK with us discussing it but I should have left it. Sorry”. If kind of stuck in my throat to be apologising to him after everything he’s done, but actually I was sorry for bringing it up. He has been out while I went for a nice massage and popped back to the villa and left some treats for me! I guess this is his way of apologising. Gestures. He does a lot via gestures.

I still need to leave though. I can see that.

Yes!!!!! You’ve made me cry a bit now. I am so grateful to you all. I feel seen and understood. It matters so much. I can feel everyone rooting for me. And I want so much to send sympathy, support, understanding to anyone else who is living in these unbearable situations. I’ve learned so much from people on here and really questioned some of my own views. Thank you all. Your kindness is so very much appreciated!!

It feels like arguing with a mad person some of the time. I don’t mean that to sound disrespectful to anyone autistic. Genuinely though in my case I seem to have these word salad conversations that bear little resemblance to reality and I often wonder if he really has all his faculties.

Me too.

I find this so triggering. My ex tried to use his
ADHD (undiagnosed) in court. It didn’t work but the audacity and the disrespect to ND people. Sorry I lost my temper, threw things and scared you but I’m ADHD I just can’t help it….bollocks!

I’ve/I am ADHD and I’ve never lost my temper or sworn and shouted at anyone (just the washing machine). 🙈

I have. But it’s not who I am anymore. And never do I use my ADHD as my reason. It would feel disrespectful to other people with ADHD.