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.

Yes, and I also don't want to burden people with my trauma as they might have enough on their plate already. Plus friends are not therapists, as I read on MN a few years ago, and can give advice that isn't really helpful or potentially even harmful, even if wellmeant!

Oh yes you are right. Definitely had some harmful advice.

I have in the past too. A while back two fairly new 'mum friends' were discussing some of friend A's husband's behaviours and what I would class as sexual coercion/abuse. Frind B gave friend A advice which was potentially harmful and which minimsed the behaviour, I felt. I didn't know them well enough to put my foot down and call out abuse (I wish I had!).

It’s just rubbish not having family or parents or a partner to speak to.

Very true. But imho better than trying to talking to them and getting slapped down.
I tell myself I'd rather ask for nothing than to ask for something and be refused.
Leads to 'toxic independence'. apparently though.

Everything seems to always lead to something else. I’ve tried not needing anyone and I end up feeling alone and awful. I don’t know what the bloody answer is, but I sure as hell know I haven’t got it currently. My own nervous system is beginning to reject my partner because it doesn’t feel safe around him ( not physically but emotionally). I do know that we are supposed to feel physically and emotionally safe and we shouldn’t shut parts of us down to fit a situation that we want to stay in.

Sometimes I wonder if I am problem or if I just stay in places I don’t belong because I don’t listen to myself because I tell myself I am the problem. I mean how much feelings and emotions is ok and how much isn’t????? I can’t do relationships, they confuse me!!

@KeeponReading similar background here too.
Whats helping me is counselling. In part because I’ve realised that the people pleasing and the hyper vigilance from childhood are the two things that have kept me in this marriage.

The one I’m seeing atm is great. She is ‘trauma aware’ but I agree that means fuck all really (one I saw before was autism aware and has no clue….)
But the current one also works in the NHS with cancer patients and ME patients (which is how I met her first). So her background is dealing with complex and hard cases iyswim.
Basically, I think it’s more about the person themselves than about the training etc…. If you feel the person isn’t a good fir, then change. Don’t carry in out of a feeling if duty or ‘you need to give it time’. In my experience, it doesn’t get better.

That independence is toxic if you are shutting g out potential help. Because yes we’re not supposed to do it all on our own.

But I dependence when it’s actually about protecting yourself. I’m struggling to see how it’s toxic.

Rather the issue is why it’s not safe for you to ask for help.

Hi, I’m new on here, but have read through a good amount of this thread and lurked a few time on previous ones. But am really struggling at the moment with DH, and need to vent. (Sorry it's long).

DH is not diagnosed ASD but has suggested himself that he thinks he is, and I agree. We’ve been together for 10 years and have 6 yo DD. When we got together he was working 5 days a week in an office full of women, and had a few friends (old housemates) that he now lived a long way from and a loose group of hobby (climbing) friends. A year before lockdown he started working from home with one day in the office. Then since lockdown he has been completely wfh. When i was pregnant (with hyperemesis) he was still climbing with his club/ friends as I couldn’t climb, but when DD was a tiny baby the first time he climbed outside after her birth he witnessed an acquaintance (who had a slightly older baby) take a massive fall sustaining a life changing head injury. He didn’t climb outside again after this or very much inside and lost touch with all his climbing partners, and needless to say his feelings around the fall he witnessed have never been discussed. He has also gradually lost contact, beyond facebook, with his old housemates.

When we met I thought he was just an introvert, which was fine (I’m not one for big social events myself), and I’ll admit that I was very disillusioned with men, and had a rapidly ticking biological clock, so DH seemed safe, stable and uncomplicated and we had shared interests.

There has always been a total lack of emotions, and i told myself i could handle it and that it was worth it for stability and a family, but now with WFH and no friends he seems to have lost all his social skills. I try to initiate conversations but it is a one way process and he never asks questions, or shows interest in my interest, and if I try and have a conversation about something he is interested in he is condescending. It is soul destroying.

I’ve had some health problems, so life has been tough. I am going through an early menopause and have had my symptoms dismissed by several doctors over an 8 year period of steadily feeling worse and worse and life was like wading through treacle so I have lost all but my closest friends and lost the routine of going out to socialise. But I finally got diagnosed (private blood test) 18mths ago and started on HRT, and had a year under endocrinology to try and work out why but to no avail, but now that I am on a really high dose of oestrogen and Testosterone I am finally feeling like I want a life again. I’ve also got my libido back but not any sexual attraction towards DH, as there is zero intimacy.

He never hugs me and if I initiate a hug it rapidly descends into him groping me, even in front of DD (which has stopped now as I really put my foot down about that). I could have really done with a hug or two over the last few years.

I just feel so lonely and let down. I have a couple colleagues at work whose wives are going through menopause and these guys are listening to podcasts and reading articles and supporting their partners and when they tell me this I have to fight back the tears. I feel so alone. I’m crying now.

He’s a good dad, hands on, does his share and DD adores him, but he infantilises her, and also gets heavily distracted by his current project/ interest. We have done it all with no family support too, so it has been full on. But i worry with the babying how good a dad he will be going forward and I feel that all the emotional and logistical side of parenting lands on me.

I’ve been considering divorce for a while, and started planning a bit this week, but I’m terrified I’m going to ruin DD childhood. I’m no contact with my mother (she was horrendously emotionally abusive and bullying all my life) and my worst fear is f*cking up and losing my DD.

My DH is totally oblivious to any of my feelings or planning and I feel so guilty for lying and leading him on.

You are not your mother and never can be. So that is first off.

Before you decide to leave take a hard look at your finances and goals for work , retirement, life. If you can afford a little cosy house or flat, and fill it with friends and books and joy, don’t you think your dd would benefit? She will always have to wrestle with the fact that she loves a man who is fundamentally condescending and solipsistic. That is her “internal world model” of a normal father and husband. But if you move out and show her a woman can leas an independent life filled with empathy and curiosity and friends she is less likely to settle for someone as cramped and taciturn as her father.

Leave if/when you can. You will always be her rock and divorce will just be her new normal.

Great advice and beautifully put.

Also by experience, it’s easier to leave when you’re young than when you’re in your 50+yo and heading towards retirement.

Agreed. Beautifully explained 💕

Thanks for your reply.

I have a lot to think about. I've been doing a lot of number crunching, and think I need to arrange a meeting with my boss to look at the possibility of increasing my part time hours, I have also put the work wellbeing team phone number in my phone, as i think a bit of counselling might do me good.

It's so much to think about, and sad too.

Is anyone else coping with a partner who gets depressed (as well as dealing with the rigid challenges of autism)?

When he's feeling down all I can do is listen and wait for the 'storm' to pass. He won't consider antidepressants and thinks counselling is useless.

I know it's horrible for him and I really want to support him but it's also tough on the kids and me.

@LoveFoolMe im sorry dint really have experience of autism+depression.

Im going to say there isn’t anything else you can do bar listening.
But I think that you need to be very careful and look after yourself. And be clear about boundaries. He might not want AD or counselling but if it means you agd tte dcs are suffering as a result, then it’s not ok.

Reading a blog on empathy whilst wondering if you can learn empathy and where do people with autism fit within that.

I’ve always been aware that dh has emotional empathy - he can feel my own feelings (esp the negative ones like stress, anger etc….)
I've always found that the cognitive empathy (putting yourself in other people’s shoes) is much harder for him. I assumed it was because of autism and something that can’t be changed iyswim.

However, came across a discussion (on AI of all things….) where it was pointed out that cognitive empathy is about learning emotional patterns, their causes and implications. Which you can obviously learn. (The discussion was about how AI can learn empathy and the question of whether you can AI is empathic itself….)
It reminded me that I know a few autistic people who are amazing at emotionally supporting people, because they’ve learnt those patterns.

So it can be changed….

Probably a jumble of thoughts and not sure it helps with our DH 😁.
I suppose I like the idea it can be learnt because it leave a door open for hope.

The Blog on empathy

Thanks for that link! Very useful!

I know in my daughter’s case she has plenty of empathy but not when triggered. I think there is a survival reason for this, can’t remember the right names. So when she feels threatened (which is all the time lately) empathy goes out the window until she has calmed down and then she is sorry. It’s like one has to turn off for the other to turn on. I also think that her feelings are just more important. To be fair we are all concerned about her feelings and making sure she is regulated. I wonder if they grow up taking on board that how they feel is more important so they aren’t as empathetic to others.

I think anyone who is becoming too dysregulated can’t do empathy. I know I can’t and im NT.

It also seems like autistic people get more easily dysregulated. Which makes sense to me if you are hypersensitive (to light, smells etc…) and struggle to make sense of what’s going on and … and ….

When DH isn’t as dysregulated, he can show care and empathy much more easily (and as a result is much easier to live with!).

I suspect my H was suffering with depression after two bereavements in his close family, I gently suggested ADs or therapy and he refused either. He became aggressive, gloomy and snappy. Eventually had some bereavement therapy a year ago after a third bereavement, seems to gave helped a bit and he is also doing things like yoga, breathing exercises and lots of walks in fresh air. I wish I had put more pressure on him to do something much much earlier as I hold resentment against him for the way he treated me and DD over the years. If you can get therapy for yourself and look after your own needs, it's so easy to let your own self become small and downtrodden.

@DyddEira welcome.

I wanted to pick up on one small thing you said

He’s a good dad, hands on, does his share and DD adores him, but he infantilises her, and also gets heavily distracted by his current project/ interest

At this point in life Im starting to think that "my child adores his/her parent" is almost a warning sign. Ideally children enjoy their parents' company but almost take them for granted - that's right and proper as a small child, it shows unconscious trust in the parent and in the parent's good attunement to the child's needs. The infantilization is not a good - a parent should be helping a child to become age-appropriately independent - and a strong on/off focus on the child, pushing her away if the parent is absorbed in their own interest, is also not good. It depends on how far the absorption in the project goes - a kid has to learn they don't always come first in life, but it's a balance. "I'm busy for ten minutes but Ill be there after that" is very different from not paying any attention for hours.

(nb, im not a child psychologist but have picked a few things up)

I may be off the mark here, I hope so!

That does make sense, I've never actually thought about how being NT doesn't always mean not getting dysregulated. We hear so much about it in terms of being ND I suppose. I used to always hide being dysregulated (masking?) and looked as if I was always in control of my emotions, which in hindsight must have looked odd. Could also be a cultural thing as in my home country people can act a bit reserved and not overly expressive with their emotions.

I thought this book 'Autism and the Predictive Brain' looked really interesting. The central idea is that the brain doesn't receive and then process sensory information but rather predicts what will happen and then checks it. ASD ppl have trouble with this prediction particularly updating their mental models to accommodate conflicting or unclear info.

A summary is here LinkedIn

Now, can anyone share any thoughts on what this type of behaviour is from my H? We were just taking the Christmas decorations down from the loft and as usual he grunts and groans whilst doing it, swearing under his breath and slamming boxes around. At one point as I reached for a box to take through the hatch, he hurled a Christmas tree (in a box) in my direction and when I cried 'ouch' he just snarled that I need to let him know I'm there and he didn't realise it would hit me. I was not hurt but I can't help but feel affected by his aggressive demeanour.

Later I asked what he thinks might mean he gets like this when he is doing jobs like this or DIY and he just replied that it's hard work and sort of shut me down.

Is this linked to ND or just him being a bit of a stressy grump?