Married to someone with Asperger's/ASD/ND: support thread 14

[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.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/relationships/5183563-married-to-someone-with-aspergersasdnd-support-thread-13?page=1

I find it hard to know what is my projection and what is the reality of what they are thinking. This happens with my daughter because she doesn’t communicate with me. I’ve heard people say to her “you don’t care do you” and she will finally shout “ok no I don’t care” but I know she does but she can’t outwardly show it. At other times I know she simply doesn’t care.

I get that skipping over things could be because they find the feelings really challenging and maybe spiralling so it hits a wall they’ve built and bounces back. I wonder if ND people unintentionally build subconscious walls in order to survive? I on the other hand have no walls at all. Or can they really not empathise? We with my own ADHD I internalise everyone’s feelings deeply and find it hard to be around people because I can’t not be affected. Some people seem to not be effected by anything.

@Rainbow03 I do get what you mean. I'm quite a sensitive person too, I am sensitive to other peoples emotions, I cry at things, I laugh at things, I get angry, I get sad. For me, that is my normal. I try and accept that dh just doesn't* *have the same emotional responses or reactions to situations as me.
What that means though, is we don't share experiences. I have my experience, he has his. He doesn't share in my excitement or sadness about things, as he doesn't have that level of emotion. We live the same life, parallel, but not together.

@Ohdostopwafflinggeremy I feel rejected. I reach out for connection because I feel unwell and I’m left alone with these scary feelings. It’s not nice.

@Ohdostopwafflinggeremy yep to living parallel life and not having the same experience from it.
A bit like chikdren do parallel play.
Its apparently an autistic love language.

@Rainbow03 im not surprised you’re feeling rejected and unsupported.
I wish I had great words if wisdom but I’ve just accepted that’s how dh is. I’m not expected anything like this anymore. Instead, I have a couple of good friends, a therapist I see regularly and few routines (like journaling) that keep me sane.

🫂🫂🫂

@SpecialMangeTout2 I just read about Parallel Play as a Love Language.
I can see so much of dh's behaviour in it.
I do try and accept that he is absolutely fine just being in the same house as me and needs no other connection, no conversation, only a good morning and a goodnight. This is his default now though. He is seemingly fine with us never having* *a conversation.
I am so incredibly lonely. I am actually less lonely when he is gone, there is no expectation when I'm on my own. When he is home and physically near but has no need to converse, it makes me feel invisible, worthless and insignificant.

I don’t really understand why parallel play is a ‘love language’ though? Acts of service and gifts are doing something for someone. Parallel play seems just a compliment that someone wants to share a space with you?

I think that it’s more that some ND people like to receive love through parallel play? They enjoy having their partner in the room but doing their own thing? I can understand that some people NT or ND might enjoy this. I’m happy to do this but to me I wouldn’t experience this as my partner showing me love or as quality time

Just checking back into this thread under a new name, as DH accidentally found me under my old name, when he was borrowing my phone and a notification popped up.

Fortunately he is profoundly uncurious about my experience and couldn’t be bothered looking up any of my other posts - but he was baffled that I would need support about anything. Surely, he said, I could just talk to him about issues in our marriage?

I have since tried, on a couple of occasions, gently and respectfully, to explain why I feel hurt by something he’s said or done, and I’m reminded why I stopped bothering, as the usual happens: he gets a face of absolute thunderous hatred and says I’m criticising him, he can’t do anything right, I make him feel like shit, and if we’re doing character assassination then he could say a thing or two about my flaws because he is very, VERY patient and puts up with a lot more than most people would in his position.

His current hyperfixation involves poring over the long-range weather forecast and ranting about how its predictions are all wrong - because apparently he knows more about weather patterns in this part of the world than professional meteorologists who presumably have access to an awful lot of data and state of the art equipment. And then he is furious when his weather predictions don’t come true - like someone has broken the laws of physics just to piss him off, or the weather itself is too stupid to understand how the weather should work, and how can you live in a world where this sort of thing happens?

It all feels so very deeply insane sometimes - and nothing I could ever explain to anyone I know IRL.

@SquirrelSoShiny I’m sorry to hear you’re having such an upsetting time.

and re: parallel play being a love language, I think for my DH it’s more that it’s the only mode of contact that he doesn’t find taxing and stressful. He has no mental model for collaboration - thanks to black and white thinking he can only conceive of human interaction as a series of situations where someone has the upper hand and someone has the lower hand. So if he has to do something with another person, it necessarily involves either struggling to impose dominance and authority, or swallowing his pride to allow someone else to ‘win’. Having someone sitting nearby or in the next room and not making any noise or attempting to interact or asking anything of him is the only way he can feel truly peaceful in human company.

He can go out with other people and be very charming, but only if he’s in control: dominating the conversation with his jokes and anecdotes. And even then he will come home exhausted and take to his bed for days feeling unwell.

From comments I’ve come across from some autistic people, they see parallel play as a sign of love: happily sharing THEIR space whilst doing their special interest.
A bit like NT would talk and share emotions/insights.

No it doesn’t make sense to me but then my over sharing of emotions/insights/small talk is also truly baffling to DH I think, 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

@VoltaireMittyDream yes, cooperation with dh, problem solving etc…. often feels like it’s a win or loose situation for him.
And it also feels like he is pushing his way quite strongly’to win’ or he let go. Another position is him ‘letting me decide’ but I’m somehow suppose to know what will work for him and make the right choice for both us. Or he’ll get grumpy, PA etc….
Did I say I avoid any ‘let’s decide together’ situation?

Even if the space is not, in fact, THEIR space, but the family home? How generous!

I really think that's a difference in communication and in experiencing life, rather than anything else. Perhaps a sign of trust, in that they are relaxing enough to do it.

Not enough for NT people, but that comes from the profound difference in the two different ways of being.

Wow he gave me a cuddle this morning…I wanted to cry but I knew that would ruin it and I just enjoyed the cuddle (lasted seconds but was still nice). I know in my own ND I desperately try to hold everyone in because when you let it out you acknowledge it and it becomes real and more scary. I often wonder if this is what he is doing, and he’s a man so even more emotional suppression. He wants me to be strong and if I ignore it then it looks like it’s not that bad, but then you end up ignoring the large elephant.

I think that is what is becoming more and more apparent for me @DucklingSwimmingInstructress.The profound differences in our two different ways of being.
I assume we always had these differences, we must have been attracted to these differences at some point. We have managed to live together for nearly 3 decades after all.
The slow realisation though that dh doesn't really participate in our family life and is quite happy with this non-participation role has made me reevaluate our family dynamic.
He can leave for work (out the country for 2 to 3 weeks) without saying bye to his kids. Not contact them while he is away. Come home, but not really converse with us when he is home. That is his way of being and he seems perfectly happy with this.
This way of being doesn't work for me anymore, it just leaves me sad, empty and alone.

I’m starting to think that the issue is that we can’t do things with our partners that we need to do to calm our nervous system. We can’t cry and be held, we can’t rant, we can’t release what we need because they don’t do these things with others, they like to retreat. It’s not that the other person is wrong at all but we can’t get this system balanced within the relationship and this has a massive effect on us. If you both retreat and repair then great but if one needs connection to repair then it’s not going to work. We are left depleted.

@DucklingSwimmingInstructress a way of being is a really way to put things! I’m going to steal that if that’s ok.

I love this explanation!

@pikkumyy77 it’s how I feel currently. I’m awaiting tests and I’m really nervous and my nervous energy is effecting him so he is distancing himself from me. I just want reassurance and I’m wandering around alone in the sea currently. I can’t regulate myself.

The way I look at it is that, if I was to separate, I’d be alone anyway. No one would be there to help me self regulate, give me a hug etc…

So I deal with stress and upset etc… as if I was single. I’m not expecting dh to do it at all. Actually when he does do something nice and caring (and he does sometimes, even if it’s only a cup of tea or asking if I’m better), it feels particularly nice.

My conclusion is that it’s not possible to ever have the reciprocity we would get in an NT marriage. It just cannot happen, even if we bend over backwards and our dh do the same. We’re not going to meet on that level.
So for me the choice is between accepting their disability and having more of a ‘companionship relationship’ or separating.

@Rainbow03 do you know when you’re going to have the tests done?

Waiting like this is sometimes the hardest part of it all.

I’ve had them

I hope the results will come quickly. Any idea of the timeline? I know some of it are quick agd others …. let’s say they can take their time by which time results aren’t always relevant really

I had a very brief empathy breakthrough with DP this weekend that gave me some hope.

Anyone else had ever these brief glimmers of recognition/emotional validation? Do they in time lead to more?

We were out to dinner, kid free, and something came up in conversation. An issue that has affected me a lot over many years, caused entirely by DP, that I’m certain two people in a couple that didn’t have DP in it could resolve constructively in half a day.

It’s something I’ve learned to skirt around. But feeling brave (two wines down lol) I said something brief. Not at all critical. Very much ‘when x happens I feel like this so I wish it didn’t happen anymore.’

Years ago he’d lash out defensively. He has, after I left him over it, promised not to do that and upheld this promise for some time.

Usually, now, he will just go silent.

But this time, he didn’t get emotionally flooded right away. He said ‘that’s made you really sad hasn’t it’ and actually told me, accurately, why the thing made me sad. Then unsurprisingly he went silent. So I got an early night (I don’t comfort him for his all-about-him reactions over something that has actually only hurt me).

But I am pleased, really, about the empathy glimmer. I don’t think that ever happened before.

I have long accepted that anything DP does that affects me can’t be discussed as trying to discuss it makes everything worse and leaves me in the same situation anyway. I have learned to count my blessings and focus on DP’s many good points. He is extremely affectionate, generous and will do anything I ask of him. I have major faults and stuff I can’t bring to the relationship too. But the lack of demonstrable empathy does make me sad. It’s the one huge relationship deficit.

That little glimmer of recognition of my feelings has given me some hope. Maybe just a black swan, snow-in-June freak event, but I started to think we might have some progress. Maybe there will in time be more?

Should I be careful about false hope? Who has been here before? What happened next?

Intent to not do thing is so hard to isolate isn’t it? I don’t know how you tell.

I genuinely can’t learn to drive. The type of ADHD I have genuinely won’t allow it. I’ve had an assessment from a disabled driving charity that confirmed I don’t have anywhere near the required level of executive function in this one area. I imagine a lot of ppl would think I could drive if I just tried harder. I can ride a bike, and a horse. Is it that I can handle a vehicle when I ‘want to?’ I don’t think so.

I guess the thing is that i did get myself comprehensively accessed for road safety. The result was so poor I got a grant for taxis to places not served by public transport. With a lot of these partners and husbands, we are speculating because they don’t know what their deficits caused by disability are themselves.

Gives me sympathy for DP, who is fully diagnosed with all the things that explain his, er, quirks.

@Neurospice that does sound like a promising glimmer and a sign of self-reflection as well as perhaps even taking some accountability over how it's affected you?

In terms of making allowances I wonder if it's easier when someone has a valid diagnosis to explain the quirks. The difference in my case is that although I am currently on the pathway to an almost certain diagnosis (the scoring in the assessments completedso far explainmy own quirks) , DH won't (as yet) persue a diagnosis so his quirks or behaviours may or may not be down to being ND. More on that in a separate post I think.