Married to someone with Asperger's/ASD/ND: support thread 15

[BustyLaRoux]

New thread.
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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.
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It's complicated and it's emotional.
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The old thread is here.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/relationships/5245372-married-to-someone-with-aspergersasdnd-support-thread-14?page=39&reply=143014416

@BustyLaRoux I had to buy a new kettle and toaster the other day, I bought grey but thought of you, and one day, one day I’ll buy pink!

Actually I bought some sharp kitchen knifes for myself (yes another story with dh….). They have a pink handle too 😁😁
Very apt as it was about reclaiming some agency.

@DucklingSwimmingInstructress Oh wow do I recognise that behaviour. It happens DC so much where his thoughts and feelings are completely overruled and he is told he feels/thinks the way his father behaves is the correct way’.. if I was to dare point it out I am wrong/ trying to cause trouble/ being mean etc.
It’s very difficult trying to help your DC navigate through this.

Hi everyone, just wanted to say that this chat has been a god send to me. I haven’t found anywhere else on the internet where I can relate as much as here. I struggled for years thinking my husband was ND but only recently with my daughter’s diagnosis has he come to accept that he may be too. Our marriage has been so hard. Very, very one sided, lack of empathy, lack of emotions, difficulties with cognitive function so I have carried most of the load, special interests taking over our lives (including a “special interest” in porn for the first 15 yrs of our relationship which had a devastating effect.)

I tried emotional detachment and it worked for a while but I recently told him I wanted to separate. However he is wearing me down telling me my memories of our relationship are not correct and that despite everything he did he always loved me. My self esteem and self worth are rock bottom so I don’t have the fight in me anymore.

I think a few posts back someone said that they don’t realise the hurt they cause and they don’t do it deliberately but the impact is the same. That resonated with me so much. Anyway, thank you for being here everyone and sharing your stories. It has helped me more than anything else at this difficult time.

🫂

@Jallycat, he may have always loved you (in his way) but the fact of the matter is that his behaviour has broken you. He will never accept this. You can still leave even if he loves you. You have the right to do this and live the rest of your life in your own environment feeling safe and secure and hopefully with a pink kettle! I know that sounds flippant, but you can do this. You decided you need to leave, the only person who gets to choose whether or not you leave is you. Good luck, you can do this.

Thank you so much @Pashazade You are right - he will never accept that it’s his behaviour and lack of emotional connection that has broken me. He’s worn me down so much that we’re going to counselling but the theme of the counselling is how I have been so selfish in not seeing how good he’s been to me. (I know this is wrong but I don’t have the self confidence or value in myself to fight it). His new hyper focus is fixing our marriage which I’m also finding very difficult but I’ve been told by him I should just forget the past and only focus on the future. I’m gradually being swallowed whole by this situation. Genuinely, this thread is the only place where my experiences have been validated!

@Jallycat, you need to stop the counselling, find someone for just you. This is abusive now, he knows you are miserable and unhappy but refuses to acknowledge this. That counts as emotional abuse not “autism and oops he doesn’t know he’s doing it.” Go grey rock and get yourself on the path to leaving.

@Pashazade when you says refuses to acknowledge it, can they actually acknowledge it? Refusal sounds like they know that there is an alternative but can they actually on fathom an alternative? Do they actually live their lives with zero understanding of the alternatives? I wonder what is in the place of alternative, just an empty space.

Oh Christ "forget the past, focus on the future".

Fuck that.

The tone of one's relationship in a long relationship is set by the past. You aren't strangers, starting everything new. Events and the reaction to events have formed and defined the relationship.

It simply isn't possible to throw all that in the bin and start again new.

I hope you can save yourself @jallycat

Don't drown.

Can you move out to get away from him and stop his presence overwhelming you?

@Peppasparty i appreciate the reply - i feel ive been guilty of coedependency in the past so ive made a concerted effort not to be like this in this relationship. I guess im struggling with my partner just shutting me off - no contact at all.

@Crunchingleaf thank you. It's so destructive. Son struggles very badly with being told what he is and how he thinks. I try to respect for his feelings, though he is ND himself and I don't always know how to navigate encouraging him to do something that's necessary when he doesn't want to. But I'm certainly not going to tell him that he enjoys school when he absolutely hates going and that he's happy when he's sad or scared.

I love this!!!

I can second how destructive it is. Sounds like my life. You are left with no clue what feelings are yours, whether they matter. When you don’t recognise your own voice it can lead to so many mental health issues.

I had a terrible abusive relationship and my mum said it’s in the past, just forget about it. So very dangerous advice as you can’t just forget it, sometimes it’s a daily challenge to move past the memories. I can’t decide if she says this because she can’t be bothered to hear about it or because she genuinely doesn’t hold on to anything.

@Jallycat hello! Agree with you/others. We can’t just “forget the past”. It reminds me of when DP is shouting at me and I say I won’t listen to what he has to say if he’s going to shout at me. He then tells me (shouts at me) that I need to LISTEN TO THE MESSAGE! And also IT’S THE WHAT, NOT THE HOW!!!! And I’m like “who are you to tell me that? I can’t listen. I am being shouted at! I’m in flight mode. It’s all very well telling me what you think I should do, but it doesn’t tally with my experience”.

This is the same. Who is he to tell you to forget the past? You can’t just wipe it away. We are products of the baggage we carry. And your marriage has been difficult. You can’t just pretend like that hasn’t been the case. It would be nice and easy for him not to have to deal with that. But an emotionally mature person would want to address it with you, not just demand that you forget it all because that’s easier for them! It’s actually quite insulting when you think about it. But comes from a lack of empathy and being emotionally immature and self focused. What about you? Your needs?

You know what the right thing to do is. You can spin it out a bit longer and continue being miserable or you can get out now. I don’t think the counselling is likely to help. From my own experience and a lot of reported experiences on here, the autistic partner tends to make them/their needs the focus and rewrite the narrative. It’s frustrating. When we had counselling I would raise again and again that he shouted at me or got upset over innocuous every chit chat which he perceived to be some veiled criticism of sorts. What really needed addressing was his inability to regulate his angry emotional response and his perception that he was being criticised all the time. But he managed to make it sound very plausible that if only I could communicate better then none of this would be happening. Victim blaming basically. I did amend my communication style. He still got angry and found criticism where there was none. I wasn’t the problem (not saying I’m perfect!), it’s his perception which is the issue. It’s very skewed. But of course he would argue that’s not the case. And how is the counsellor to know the truth? They don’t have cameras and mics on us? And actually we were trying to make our relationship better, not ask for someone to adjudicate. I felt he sabotaged the sessions and avoided the issues which were pertinent to me. Sounds like your DH is doing the same. It’s not intentional on their part. What they report is happening is real to them. But in the end it doesn’t matter. Your needs are not being met and your voice is not being heard. And you absolutely do not have to put up with it anymore. He won’t change. He can’t. Xx

The problem with large differences with empathy is that if one person has little it doesn’t stop the other persons feeling. You either learn to ignore it, push it away, stop speaking your pain. The other person is under the belief that you’ve changed or learned or understood, when in reality it’s never gone away and it will one day pile so high that you will explode or drown in pain. We don’t stop feeling just because they don’t have the ability to empathise the other end, we just stop acknowledging ourselves.

God, @Peppasparty , that summed ot up so well. I stopped speaking .... at all, in the end. Still nowhere near recovered. It has the strange effect of being silent, but also at times too self-focussed because the pain draws one's attention all the time. You can experience peace if you're in constant pain. Admittedly some of it comes from before the marriage, but the marriage made it much worse.

I haven't been able to move on from the physical terror at some points (for the children as he sees no danger, from his driving, from his delaying going to hospital when I had sepsis). The effects of the stonewalling is as bad.

I've had some extremely difficult periods in my life and that marriage was certainly one of them.

Moral of the story - get out when you realise it's a blight not a blessing.

I will say he was and is capable of some empathy. Just that he doesn't show it to his nearest.

I'll also say that feeling empathy without taking action (where appropriate) is worthless.

I think that the point is that we often stop acknowledging the pain to ourselves because we are so used to it not being responded to. When we stop acknowledging it we don’t do anything to help our bodies to return to a peaceful state. We unknowingly live in a body full of unspent upset. My childhood caused a lot of upset mentally. I took that into a long term relationship. I was so used to ignoring my feelings that it wasn’t until I became quite unwell that I realised I was being abused. It’s hard to leave something when you are conditioned to look away from your own feelings. That’s why I am torn with my mum. She has a disability but her disability caused me a life of hell because she taught me to look ahead and not within.

@Peppasparty yep that’s me too. Having learnt to ignore how I feel as a child, I carried that into my relationship and my health.

Fwiw I think you CAN reduce the hurt and pain. It happens when you’ve detached so much that their reactions don’t matter that much…. And no I dint recommend that either but if I’m honest, it does make life much easier. Less hurt, parallel lives that work for them…
Still about survival strategies rather living well.

@Jellycatso sorry to hear what you’re going through. It doesn’t sound like your partner is open to change at the moment and is just trying to ‘fix’ you.

I know you feel low and I’m not sure if it matters, but I think you’re a valuable person. I believe you deserve to live a life of inner peace. Please don’t be worn down if you want to separate 💐.

I posted earlier about my autistic partner and I having issues due to time spent together. I have kids and he wants a full time partner. I reached out to have a conversation but he has not replied. Im really struggling with the idea that we may not speak again. Its like he's just disconnected from me. I know he's mentioned before that he just disappears/doesn't answer mails when things feel overwhelming. Do I just leave it?

What do you want long term from him?

Can you live with the way things are? The different forms of interaction?

He may be doing the best he can. But I cant see that chasing him will help, tbh. He may need time and be ready to speak to you on his own timeframe; or he may have decided to withdraw, in which case he won't welcome contact.

There's going to be a big long term problem though as you want different things. Please don't compromise yourself too far.