Married to someone with Asperger's/ASD/ND: support thread 13

[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.

Tell him he can't borrow your car anymore and stick to it. Why should you put his needs before those of your own DD? What is that teaching her? He just does not care that you and she are inconvenienced. He will always, always try to get what suits him ... because he is the only person who really matters. Take him off your insurance and he will immediately buy his own car.

Autism has nothing to do with this problem. Nothing. He is lazy/cheap/takes advanrage of your car. You let him snd then take out the change in resentment and passive aggressively bitching about him to his children.

the whole interaction was a passive aggressive mess. Stop loaning him your car. Its making you angry and even the fantasy of being lady bountiful and making sure his dd gets to her lesson doesn't make up for the annoyance.

Just refuse. He can pay for a cab or rent a car every weekend its not your problem . Stop letting him use you to solve problems of his own making.

I see where you are coming from. But saying NO is hard. Or at least it is for me.

I read somewhere that some people are givers. They give very easily and often also have a very high tolerance for shitty behaviour. So they are people who give and always find excuses/reasons why their partner behave a certain way too. And it can go in like that fir a very long time.
i think this represent me quite well.

I have the same tendency to say Yes to a demand that is actually really inconvenient fir me because I can see how hard things are fir dh (a recent one fir us was him moving his desk where mine was)
So my empathy for him sort of becomes a hindrance because it’s not ‘compensated’ by his empathy for me (in that case, realising I’d still need a space to put my stuff up and have my laptop on).

So I get where @BustyLaRoux is coming from. Esp as what she saw was his dd suffering from it rather than him iyswim.

But yes, one way to deal with it is to say No. every time. Still hard

I am the NT half of a successful ASC/NT relationship. The 'no' is supremely important for me. I work out a very succinct way of saying why, and then if there's an attempt to continue the discussion (or more likely start an argument) I just say there's nothing to discuss. I did this as recently as yesterday. It sounds harsh but it reduces the amount of friction over time. I would certainly be doing that regarding the car

@pikkumyy77 One can play into the other. My ASC DP has blind spots that some would interpret as selfishness. But not inconveniencing someone is more of an intuitive thing than most people assume.

@BustyLaRoux I am not an expert on autism, but that does not sound like typical autism behaviour to me. I'm sorry. It sounds like manipulative, dishonest behaviour. He knew that you did not wat him to have the car because it is inconvenient. So he lied to you about how long he would need the car for, and then lied to you when you caught him in the lie.

I get it @BustyLaRoux

I watched that bloke’s video and it struck a cord. I can’t fix this and I can’t tolerate living like this. It’s time to sort out my finances and think about ducks. It’s very sad.

im wondering about getting counselling, I’ve dragged DH to marriage counselling which was a waste of time and money, all 4 of them, but for me on my
own. It’s as if I need permission to leave. I really wanted it to work but I am unwell from living this lonely and exasperating life.

my observation isn’t a criticism of busty—its an observation of the cycle she is in. It simply cannot get better if one of them doesn’t change. He can’t—possibly because of ASD. So she either changes or she continues to give/fume/give/complain/give/resent.

I re-read the post @BustyLaRoux after I read your view. It is very, very like what my DP would do, but no way would I think she was lying, because that's completely out of character for her. Just a massive, almost comical, blind spot.

I'm not saying you're wrong but I wouldn't be so definite that you're right either.

@BustyLaRoux @TomPinch

I have been told, many times, when I have come close to leaving on my own, when I am clearly about to explode, by a cheery DW "we're only two hours late, that's not too bad".

She is absolutely oblivious to the effect on those around her.

It is exactly this. And it isn’t a need to be “lady bountiful”. I have a problem saying No to people and do tend to tolerate shitty behaviour when I shouldn’t. Thank you. This is a good description of things!

Actually I don’t think he lied per se. And this is why I think it is typical of autism, or certainly the autism tendencies that I read about on this thread. He just doesn’t register details of things like timings. It’s all superfluous detail to him. So he gave me a time that he thought was about right. Then when I said I’d been told a different time, he did was always does and then assumes (because he is always RIGHT and cannot conceive that he might be mistaken) that he gave me those times. He reinvents the narrative but I genuinely think he doesn’t know he is doing that a lot of the time. Or the detail is so irrelevant to him it just hasn’t registered so he will assume he gave me the correct detail and it must be me who got it wrong. If that makes sense?

And that is what I’ve decided to do. Stay. Rant. Change what I can. Accept what I can’t.

I was quite impressed that he recognises (and admitted!!) that he is aware he sometimes gets defensive when he feels blamed and finds a way to turn the tables on me. I mean, I don’t think he realises he’s doing it in the moment, but I was encouraged that he could recognise that facet of his behaviour. It means there is room for growth and sometimes that’s what keeps me going.

I know I should ban him from using my car. But he is really skint right now (again his own fault for not managing a debt properly). I don’t want to be the asshole. I don’t want conflict. Mainly avoidance of conflict is top of my priorities. Not always. But a lot of the time. I was in a very conflict driven marriage. I also grew up like that and I just have had enough. So I lend him the car. If it had just been him I wouldn’t have lent it and messed up my plans with my DD, but I felt bad for his DD as she would miss her much loved lesson. It was for her. All I wanted was recognition he’s got the times wrong and a decent apology. I was annoyed because I knew EXACTLY how it would play out and of course I was right. I shouldn’t have bitched to his DS @pikkumyy77 you’re right. But it was him who informed me of the correct times of the lesson and I was pretty cross so I guess it just tumbled out. It was unhelpful as DS landed me in it as soon as I was out the door. But the fault is mine and it’s a lesson learnt.

Totally agree with you. It’s quite damaging to autistic people to have peoples’ poor behaviour blamed on autism. If he’s driving around drunk it sounds like he’s an alcoholic.

Yes it’s this! I don’t think he lied. Comical
blind spot, as you say. It’s more that having made an error (which we all do!) I KNEW how he would react. He wouldn’t say “oh shit, my bad, I’m
really sorry!” Like I would have done. He would find a way to (a) make it someone else’s fault, (b) tell me he had told me the correct time all along, (c) turn the tables to find some aspect of my behaviour unacceptable and bang on about that in quite an obsessive way to take the focus off himself and his mistake.

I find that things are more annoying when you can predict how something is going to play out!!! Know what I mean? And it’s this pathological need to not be blamed for anything which I attribute to his autism, rightly or wrongly.

Sorry perhaps I wasn’t clear. I am aware him driving over the limit is unacceptable but I am not in any way attributing that to autism.

The behaviour I am attributing to autism is his need to avoid being blamed and assumption that he must have given me the correct information and I have misremembered (as he is always right and therefore I must always be the one who is wrong in his mind). The using my car, the drunk driving etc is nothing to do with autism. Apologies if it came across that way.

I don’t know how to give it a name but I think the issues lies in not being able to place themselves into the situation emotionally. So when you get angry they aren’t really sure what you are angry about as they don’t see themselves in the situation if that makes sense. My oldest ADHD daughter for example will snatch something making the other person react and then she gets upset when she is in trouble or doesn’t understand why the other person reacts. She then gets defensive because she can’t see what she has done wrong. She’s just going about her life getting outcomes she needs not realising she’s in a bigger picture with many people who also have needs. I need I get simple. Not intentional but logical. ( sometimes that includes, lying, cheating, forcing, manipulating) they all just tools from the toolbox to get the outcome as she doesn’t use emotion in the calculation.

My DP is ASD and he is the polar opposite of my daughter, perhaps it’s a learned behaviour. He has become completely self sufficient, won’t ask anyone to do anything for him. He is extremely empathetic and is a terrible people pleaser. It can present so different. My daughter appears to have no empathy and laughs at people and wants to do what she wants whatever the other person thinks about it. Its not particularly pleasant at the moment!

I do know what you mean @Rainbow03 . To him he was “only” 20 mins late. But actually he’d said 3:00 or 3:15 at the latest, so it was more like 35 mins late. And I was already an hour and a half later than I wanted to be as the traffic gets worse throughout the afternoon. But to him he can’t see it as two hours’ delay. It’s just 20 mins and what’s the big deal?! And anyway he can’t possibly be in the wrong as it was the venue that was running late and he must have given me the correct times and I’ve just misremembered etc etc! He thinks I’m making a huge fuss as he doesn’t see it from my point of view as that would require empathy which he doesn’t really have….

Yep flogging a dead horse unfortunately. We don’t exist on this level.

Obviously we exist and we are so worthy even if another can’t see this.

@Seriesthree you've clearly done your absolute best and it's not working.

When you start getting ill from living in an untenable position, it's time to get out because if you do what you always did, you'll get what you always got, and your health issues will only deteriorate.

You have permission to leave, you have permission to ensure your own survival and moving to a position where you can thrive. You have done your best, but in a marriage (which is made from -two- people not one), if a bridge between you can't be built then it's okay to acknowledge facts and take action.

That's interesting. I'd see that sort of casual ignoring of superfluous details to be more of an ADHD thing. DH can only think in chunks of 30 minutes. At best. As a result he mostly overestimates how long things take - eg a trip to Homebase that should take say 30-40 minutes, is impossible for him to register it as such and he'll expect it to take an hour. Even though Homebase is a 5 minute drive, and all he's buying is 2 tins of the same paint he bought yesterday because he didn't buy enough. Simimlarly, he cannot conceive of doing a quick additional thing between activities if there's less than about an hour to do it. eg finishes work at 13:00, has to get home and then pick up DD for 15:00. He MIGHT be able to stop to do some basic shopping between 13:00 and 15:00 but, for example, the concept of driving home (30 minutes), taking the dog for a walk, then going to pick up DD (5 minute drive) is completely beyond him.

Ditto, DS will turn up 50 minutes early for his activity because he will decide to take the bus. But there's only one bus and it arrives early. This is because he doesn't want to take the train for whatever reason (it gets him there dead on time) and he doesn't want me to drive him. Those 50 minutes hanging about are meaningless to him.

So I do get it, I really do! My earlier post was not meant to be judgemental. I'm sorry if it came across that way. I do think, as we've discussed elsewhere on this thread though, that a lot of ND people can also be very selfish and self absorbed because they hvaen't learnt, or been taught, any differently.

I think the thing is that once you agreed to give him the car, most likely in his head, he immediately stopped considering the compromise you'd already made. So you're frustrated because you'd ALREADY compromised by agreeing to leave later so that he could have the car. In HIS head, he was just a few minutes late so what's the big deal.

Understanding the behaviour won’t stop the way we feel. We are born pre programmed to feel (some more so than others). In my own life the only way I can feel better is to remove myself from the things that make me feel bad, no matter how much I understand. Unfortunately that has included family members and my ex husband. Your reaction is completely natural @BustyLaRoux and it will happen again and again and again because it’s the natural reaction. Understanding the thought process behind their behaviour won’t stop a process of emotion and reaction in your head. Unless you can stop feeling which I don’t think is a good thing. What we feel is who we are
and we aren’t like some people and they aren’t like us and that’s fine.