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

Gosh your DS sounds very well tuned. Kudos to him for being so reflective. I wouldn’t expect a lot of adults to be able to understand themselves that well.

Your OH does sound like he has had a lot on his plate. Amazing that he has stepped up and addressed the ADHD because you stepped back. I‘m not familiar with Nash (*scurries off to the internet to look it up….) is it like the old “if you always do what you’ve always done, then don’t expect anything to be different” adage.??

And yes, feelings = facts. God this is one of the truest statements ever when dealing with a couple of the autistic people in my life! DP and I had strong words last night because of this. He kept saying something I had done had caused him to be sad. But he’d made an (incorrect) assumption about why I’d done it. When I tried to explain he’d misinterpreted the meaning behind it, he just kept reiterating that he was sad and these were his feelings (facts!) and I should spend time thinking about how he felt. (The thing I’d done was a choice I’d made about an activity I was doing. He’d got the wrong end of the stick and this made him feel insecure although he wasn’t able to articulate this!). He wasn’t able to express anything other than the fact that he was sad. I asked what he thinks I should do differently. What conclusion would he like me to come to. What is the route of this feeling. All he could do was get annoyed and keep telling me he was sad and I should go and think about that. It really was like talking to a toddler!

When you say you’d like your OH to treat himself, do you mean literally with medication for ADHD or therapy? Or do you mean metaphorical treating himself, as in working on himself? My experience of working with children with ADHD (including my own DC) is that medication is one part of the treatment (mine are not affected enough to warrant meds currently), but managing the behaviour and the emotions is the hard work. You say you OH has worked tirelessly to get them medicated (this is a lot of work, I know). Has he been able to recognise and deliver on the emotional side of things as well? I just wonder whether he is able to intuit that treatment extends to managing emotions, behaviour patterns, triggers, etc as well as medication? Because if he can recognise that in his DC then I guess you have a possible in road/ start of a conversation.

From what you describe (and I’m aware we tend to come on here when things are difficult and less so when things are going well, so of course we all only really get to hear about the negative stuff a lot of the time), I would be really wary of moving in together and tying your finances together. It sounds like a lovely idea in principle (big house, joint project, lots of fun) but the pay off means nowhere to retreat to. Having to navigate his feelings (facts) every day of the year. My experience and that of so many of us on here is that you will need to shrink yourself and your needs in order to accommodate him and his. And it’s irreversible once done.

Christ. Don’t do it. Just don’t.

Sorry to hear about your Dad @ItReallyDoesntMatterAnymore 😞. It must be a rough time you’re going through.

and the rat thing doesn’t sound great either! Yuck! If you can summon the strength and finances to move out then good on you. It’s something I wish I could do sometimes. Now my kids are older (but perhaps not quite old enough) it’s something I sometimes wish I could do! Truth be told I could, if I really really wanted to, looks like I don’t, for the moment anyway..

@ItReallyDoesntMatterAnymore On the rats, have you had your water provider to do a survey of the drains? They should do it for free and 90% of persistent rat infestations are via the drains.

Sorry to disrupt the thread, but I have a question:

what is your ND partner’s attitude towards food?

might seem like an odd question, I’m just curious 😊

@Apex3 - I would say mine likes his food just fine, but then he can be really picky about restaurants depending on his mood ('Everything here is too heavy', 'Everything here is too greasy', 'This is all too bland' or whatever)

ION, I am dreading this week. DS has school tests, he's not in a good place and I think he is going to freeze and fail to write anything in most of them again like at the start of the school year. DH is already in a rage and is going to awful each time DS comes home and says he couldn't do anything. I do hope I'm wrong, but it doesn't help that his first one is English and he just cannot seem to do English writing and he has to do it on Shakespeare as well which is hard for any kid at this stage.

Part of me just wants to leave because of this, particularly because of fucking French, but it wouldn't do any good anyway, DS would still have to live with DH sometimes (I wouldn't deny him access to the kids and have DH cause him anxiety), everything I try to do in response is wrong, we can't seem to communicate about helpding DS. DH sees me as undermining him, but then he's always telling DS what to do without checking with me if I had a plan first when I've often given DS a task to do and then the stuff I can help with gets pushed to the back of the queue, or DH says 'OK, you do your thing then' but I'm upset and DS is upset and we're in no state to be productive.

We had the drains checked during the last infestation and it wasn't the drains. H though he'd found a few openings and have stuffed with wire wool and netting etc but maybe afyer 5 years they've found a weak spot! We think it's following the house extension as we heard them in the walls in the new kitchen and dining area.

I struggle with some textures and also want my food organised on my plate in a certain order. Not to the point that I can't eat out although I might rearrange foods on plate. If eating in other people's houses I would just eat as served.

It's the cooking smell I find really difficult, I have the nose to rival one of a German shepherd dog and will literally feel sick from certain cooking smells.

H on the other hand will eat almost anything.

Both ND

Thanks for replying.

I only ask as my wife, unsurprisingly perhaps, has very fixed ideas about food. She knows if she likes it or doesn’t like it almost before she’s even heard what it is 😂. Seriously though, she tries to tell the kids what they like and don’t like which really pisses me off. I love all food and it’s important to me (I draw the line at sheep brains that I tried in Morocco once - just the texture 🤢) and I encourage the kids to try lots of different things. Hopefully they’ll find their own way in due course

@ItReallyDoesntMatterAnymore im really sorry about your dad. It sounds like he is getting frailer and will need more support going forward. I hope he’ll get over that infection quickly!
Some times, it’s ok to put stuff in the back burner for a bit.

@Apex3 dh doesn’t really have any issue with food. Hell eat all sorts.

@Labrakadabra i would have a look at what you need from a relationship. Forget the fact you care about him, that you have some history together etc… let alone that he is really really keen and is sort marching you towards moving in together wo really asking you if you are happy with that.
But what do you want from that relationship?
Do you want to feel seen and heard? Is emotional intimacy important for you? Etc..
Then look if your DP can realistically fulfill those. Not the it’s ok 80% of the time. Or he makes me laugh. He is helpful etc… But can he fulfill those needs of yours that are essential to you (fwiw Im finding AI/ChatGPT great to brainstorm and find what’s what).
It’s a very clinical approach. But my experience is that it’s very easy to want to ignore those needs in favour of ‘but we have good times 80% of the time’, thinking (or rather hoping) you can ignore those essential needs as a concession. And yet those things I convinced myself I could do wo are the very things that make the situation untenable now.

The way you’ve describe things, the way conversations are going etc… it doesn’t sound to me that he is ticking your ‘essential needs boxes’.
And it’s a shame. And it’s sad. It just mean you are (probably ) incompatible Regardkess of the reason why you are (aka it doesn’t matter idea it’s related to autism)

@Apex3 your question is very timely as I have been pondering this very question myself of late! There are 3 autistic people close to me (DP, dad and SiL).

DP used to be a chef. He loves to cook. He can blow hot and cold with food though. Often he’ll go days without eating much other than kids’ leftovers. Seems not to be bothered about being hungry. Would rather go hungry than eat something sub par. However he also is meticulous about food. Often, if he is making food, the kids won’t eat until gone 8:30pm. They’re starving!!!! He forgets how long everything takes to prepare and he wants to ensure everything is perfect. There is no making do. All the dishes are topped with toasted pine nuts and what have you. He can’t make food (even shoving a simple shop bought pizza in the oven) without faffing with it. I call it “fancifying” the food and tell him to please just stop! We are hungry. We don’t care about those bits. Just get it on the plate. But he wants to attend to the meticulous details. It’s his way of caring I suppose. Or is it his way of controlling? Because he knows we are hungry and we don’t care about the sodding pine nuts, but he needs it to be just right! I often wonder if there is a high occurrence of autism with chefs actually.

Dad and SiL both v similar with food. Both have a very rigid need to have their three meals a day, to the point where they get quite a lot of food anxiety. My dad cannot do anything spontaneous, because he has planned out all of his meals for the week and taken the things out the freezer and becomes dysregulated if someone tries to disrupt his plans. (Does anyone remember the awful incident with my aunt and uncle and the ham??! 😂) SIL is also always thinking about food planning. It causes so many arguments with my DB. Almost daily there is an argument about dinner. DB is like me (both ADHD). He will think about food when he’s hungry. SIL is the complete opposite and wants to know at breakfast what the lunch and dinner plans are. Neither is right or wrong really but these very different mentalities are at complete odds. Because she is autistic, obviously she firmly believes her way is the correct way and she gets quite angry that he isn’t doing what she needs (ie getting on board with the food planning discussions). I have tried to broach with her (why is your way better than his? Can’t they have equal value? But of course she just explains why she is right and he is wrong). I do get where she’s coming from insofar as they have a child to feed, but where DB would be happy to cobble something together from bits in the fridge, SIL wants to know well in advance what the dinner is and how the associated tasks will be shared out. Winging it is not something she can really comprehend that well and it makes her anxious (same as dad with his anxiety around food planing). For example if me, DB and SIL went out the house at 11am to wander round and look at the shops, SIL would be asking (as we walk out the front door) what we’re going to do about lunch. Me and DB would probably shrug and say dunno, will think about it at lunchtime (or most likely forget we’re hungry and realise at 2pm we haven’t eaten anything for hours and find a cafe or pub to eat in). She would start to get anxious and say but what are we going to do?! Shall we look at places? She knows of this place or that place. But they might get busy. Should we book ahead…? What if we can’t get in anywhere?.. We could end up hungry! (God forbid!!!) It’s all quite anxiety inducing the idea of missing a meal. It’s compounded by the fact she has put on a bit of weight (she’s not big but is very sensitive about it) and if either of us made any indication we thought she was obsessing about lunch a bit more than really necessary, she would get very offended and say “you think I’m a fat pig, don’t you?” We’re all going on holiday soon and I am a bit worried about the amount of food planning discussions I’m going to be required to take part in, especially as I know DB and SIL argue about this a lot and I am very much a let’s see how things pan out. Vague plan is fine. Planning every meal ahead of time would spoil my holiday a bit. And I certainly don’t want to argue with anyone about it. Equally I don’t want to spend half my holiday talking about it!

In terms of what they will eat, all of them eat well. Dad is obsessed with having meat at every meal though. He also eats in quite a disgusting way. He sort of sucks the food off his fork rather than putting the fork in his mouth. Difficult to describe. Really unpleasant to watch/listen to! DP’s son (also autistic) has some food habits. He is extremely picky. Has to pick through and examine his food when he eats it. Has his face almost in the food and sifts through it like a monkey picking out the bits he wants. Then holding the fork up to examine what’s on it, sometimes sniffing it. I can’t bear to be around it. It’s odd behaviour and off putting when you’re trying to eat.

For all my whingeing about DP, he is actually being pretty decent. He is trying so hard to take on board the things I’m saying.

My current focus is that when I pull him up on a behaviour, he tells me his feeling. I am trying to get him to understand that the feeling is fine, understandable, we all have feelings. Some are based on misunderstandings which can be cleared up. Some feelings are rational. Some are not. But when I want to talk to him about his BEHAVIOUR, he seems to confuse this with his FEELING. I am currently a broken record “no, that’s a feeling. I am talking about your behaviour!”

If I say he’s behaving in an angry aggressive way, he will usually respond with “I’m just frustrated”. We then end up talking about why he is frustrated and the conversation turns to him being wronged. On the surface this looks like DARVO. But I think actually his brain finds it hard to tell the difference between his BEHAVIOUR (which is what I am experiencing) and his FEELING (which is what he is experiencing). They are of course linked and the inability to feel natural empathy means he focuses on the feeling, as that’s the bit which is affecting him!

I used to think he was trying to excuse his behaviour. So when I said “you’re behaving aggressively” or whatever, and he replied I’m just frustrated” what he meant was that he was frustrated so obviously that’s why he’s behaving aggressively. As if “oh that’s OK then, it’s fine to act like that as long as you’re stressed/frustrated/sad* (whichever base emotion he is experiencing) that makes it OK”. And this would upset me. I’d think he was excusing his horrible behaviour.

But I realise that’s not what he’s doing. He struggles to separate out the feeling from the behaviour. He thinks he’s explaining that his behaviour is frustration not aggression. I am now explaining that frustration is the feeling but aggression is what is coming out of him. And that’s what I’m experiencing.

I think this revelation has really helped us move on a bit. I notice with my other autistic relatives they do something similar when someone complains about their not very nice behaviour. They respond by telling you how they feel (feelings = facts). As far as they are concerned the feeling is always justified and rational and usually the partner’s fault. Hence a convo which started life as one of us highlighting a behaviour and how that’s made us feel, very quickly becomes a convo about THEIR feeling and why this is our fault!! Perhaps this is why we get so much DARVO or defence by way of attack.

I am trying to coach DP into understanding the difference between behaviour (my experience) and feeling (his experience) and also that sometimes feelings aren’t rational or they’re borne of misunderstandings which can easily be put to bed. Talking is the key. Not using cold or aggressive behaviour to communicate.

Mine’s a great cook. He could be a chef.

V specific about food though. I let him organize the food. It’s always good, but he chooses it and does the cooking.

Now of course, he gets to dazzle in the kitchen and he’s then used every item in there. I get to clean up.

He has on two occasions got very silly about food. Once I cooked for him: He said there was too much lemon in the pasta. I said that’s not what you say when someone cooked for you. He stormed out and went home.,

Another time he cooked a vegetarian meal and I said ‘it’s lovely but would you mind if I fried some chicken to go with it? I have bouts of anemia and sometimes crave meat. He went to his office to do sulking for a couple of hours.

This was years ago though. We’ve settled, really, on him cooking most of the time. I have some dietary requirements related to health conditions and he always takes them into account and really does cook ‘for’ me. Definitely it’s an area of autonomy for him tho. I’d say in general he’s domineering about food.

Wow so perceptive! It all seems very DARVO but I think what we are both dealing with here is emotional immaturity. Feelings are facts. Behavior is character.

I can’t see this is a core autism/ADHD trait in either of our DPs tho. I’m ADHD. My child is ASD. Neither of us do this. We know that a feeling is a feeling. We know to observe and question feelings before we respond. Yes my kid knows this because I taught him. But here’s the thing, I learned it myself as neither of my parents taught me. OH plays the difficult upbringing card a lot. I do think, at 40, he needs to stop that.

@Labrakadabra if you can't resolve disagreemnents at this stage, before you are even moving in, DONT DO IT. ND or NT doesn't matter.

What you described there was a huge amount of him going off in a very strange tangent, telling you what you were and weren't doing. That is a terrible sign for a long term relationship.

Honestly, look up the https://www.gottman.com/blog/the-four-horsemen-recognizing-criticism-contempt-defensiveness-and-stonewalling/

@Labrakadabra it all sounds quite exhausting. If you really want this relationship, just dont move in together for a while. How do you think things will improve if you lived together? It sounds like you'll be trapped.

Someone upthread mentioned thinking carefully about your needs and whether your partner can fulfill them. He sounds a bit like your project that you are frustrated with. That doesnt feel like grounds to move in with someone yet.

Ah OK - good luck with sorting it - like you say, if it pushes your OH to want to move, it might end up being the catalyst for you to extricate yourself from the situation - good luck with that too!

Haha @BustyLaRoux - your description of the food dynamic in your family sounds VERY familiar - I'm the one who has to plan meals and gets anxious about it (my mum has this too, worse than me, I'd say - but I would, wouldn't I ....) - DH and DS (suspected AuDHD) are the absolute opposite- cannot plan ahead for food - often don't eat until mid afternoon- can only think about what they want to eat when they're actually hungry. If I say "what shall we have for tea?" I get "I'm not hungry" - yes, but you will be at some point and I like to get organised (maybe get something out of the freezer, or pick something up from the shop when out) - it's a difficult dynamic sometimes.

Just read the article in the link, really useful thanks. Contempt being the single greatest predictor of divorce. Yup, can see that.

I get it. I do have two DC to feed so I do a weekly shop and I have a broad but flexible plan about what we will eat on which days. I’m not tied to it though. My dad’s anxiety and rigidity around food planning is actually really prohibiting. He cannot change his food plans. It’s all written up on a board in his kitchen (I’m not even joking) and there is absolutely no way he can conceive of deciding to eat in the pub one evening unless this was a prepared event. He was really nasty to my aunt and uncle in such a situation about a year ago, culminating in him shouting “but I have a HAM!!!!” at them and marching them out the pub midway through their drinks. All very unpleasant. But all very normal and justified to him because his food plans were under threat and this causes quite an extreme reaction. SIL is nowhere near this bad, but the constant attention to food planning is a lot. I am sure she has a higher degree of flexibility than my dad, but it’s like food planning is constantly on her mind. And until it’s agreed she gets quite panicky. Being autistic she cannot understand a different point of view. She will pester until the plans are in place and then she can relax. But this does mean trying to relax on holiday will be difficult as she will want to know at breakfast what the plan for dinner is. And me and DB will likely not be of a mind to want to engage with that. I‘m sort of in between. A vague “shall we cook or eat out tonight?” chat is fine. Planning what and where at every breakfast will piss me off though! 😁

I feel like can't meal plan bc DH can have very specific feelings about what he eats and any given time and he might come in and go 'No that's too carby/greasy/spicy' if that happens not to be what he's in the mood for.

While I'm hear, appreciate help with framing something. We had a godawful day yesterday, DH utterly exploded at DS because DS was doing the thing he does of getting stuck, freezing and not asking for help - repeatedly. I think it's an ADHD/anxiety thing. DH frames it as an obedience thing 'I have told you time and again and you keep doing it, you are disobeying me' I agree it's very frustrating, but I don't think it's obedience.

DH is now saying, rightly, we must present a united front. But apparently only a united front of his views. DS is given to freezing and not responding in tests. DH wants us to tell DS that he is 'required' write something and not to do so is disobeying us and his teachers.

I think that framing anxiety as disobedience is a recipe for DH to work himself into more and more anger, and DS to more and more anxiety. You can't stop someone's anxiety behaviour by saying 'You're disobeying me when you do that' and they know you will get mad if you repeat it. Because anxiety doesn't make sense. I've had anxiety issues... if someone had got angry with me because of them and then demanded that if I did it again they'd see it as disobedience, I would be ten times as anxious!

@Echobelly one of the reasons I dip into this thread is because of the dynamic between my DC and his father. I can really empathise where your situation and honestly feel it.
Ex absolutely can not meet DC where DC is at. Ex has a very fixed idea of how DC should behave and think and can’t move past what he believes DC should do because it’s the ‘correct way’.
I ‘go against’ ex and therefore am responsible for all issues ex has with DC. It’s incredibly damaging to DC because DC is terrified of his fathers rage.

I completely agree with you @Echobelly and it’s so sad the way ND based behaviours are often viewed as disobedience. I have had to be very firm with my DS’s school that he is not to be punished or reprimanded for not having a pen or getting distracted from the task. Things are a lot better now they have accepted that. He is of course to be reprimanded when he is being disobedient. I have absolutely no problem with that and support the school and teachers 100%.
Freeze is a perfectly normal human physical and emotional reaction to danger. If your DS views the demands of exams as danger then it is absolutely understandable that he might freeze. What a shame then that this lack of empathy and rigid “I am right” behaviours associated with your DH’s autism mean that he cannot use his own experience to understand what is happening for your DS! Like a double whammy of ND right there. Firstly in your DS’s reactions and then in your DH’s position on it. Although to be fair anxiety is not limited to people who are ND. I’m sure there are plenty of NT people who quiver at the thought of exams. They’re pretty stressful!!
In terms of moving this on, does your DS have any accommodations / reasonable adjustments made for him at school? Can he do his exam in a different room? Is he allowed more time?
Also if the school are supportive of his anxiety and understand this is a thing for him, could they be the ones to speak to your DH about exam stress and his shut down response. If he sees that they take this seriously, might he be inclined to consider a different view point? Sometimes a third party view is helpful if our DP/Hs have taken a firm oppositional stance on an issue at home.
Failing that I remember a time long ago when DP’s son had refused to do all and any work. DP would shout and bully him into doing it. Hours sometimes spent shouting and demanding he do it. Usually DP would “win” and seemed very proud that his method was the only one that worked. For him the objective was to get DS to do the work. And as far as he was concerned he had achieved that. It was only when I said “yes, but at what cost?” that he went away and thought about that. Yes you can bully someone into compliance and you will have “won” the battle, but you will absolutely lose the war going at it like that. The emotional impact of bullying someone to override their natural freeze will cause a huge amount of trauma later in life. Your DH is damaging your future adult DS with this mentality. I was able to make that point with DP and he never ever did it again. We tried completely different tactics and it has been much more successful. Whether making this point with your DH….. I don’t know. Maybe it will hit home.? Xx