Married to someone with Asperger’s/ASD/ND: support thread 16

[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/5299389-married-to-someone-with-aspergersasdnd-support-thread-15?page=1

Oh wouldn’t that be lovely 🩷. We could all drink tea from water boiled in your pink kettle!

I still need to have the conversation with H, and DD doesn't know anything. Haven't dared to approach any letting agents yet, although spending a lot of time on Rightmove looking 😊

That’s great! Rightmoving is a perfectly legitimate pursuit!!
How do you think DD will take the news?

Well if anyone is South West England way do let me know. 🥰

DS has day off school and DH has taken day off to be with him. Original idea was Thorpe Park (I hate rollercoasters, rest of the family loves them) but DH has just had a minor op and neck is still recovering, which put that option out. I hope they have a nice time together.

If that’s ok, I’d like to keep a record with you lot of what I’m doing re leaving (sort of keeping me accountable really).

Ive made a list with AI (great tool to preserve energy!) which includes booking a lawyer (it will be a complicated divorce seeing I’m disabled, there are inheritance on both sides etc) sorting out a realistic budget as well as manageable to me recipes and applying for British citizenship.

Going away next week to see my parents and have a break so my aim before leaving is to have a nice list to work from.
If you have any other recommendations on what’s helpful to think about before hand , I’m all ears :)

@BustyLaRoux , I’m probably as far as you can be from you, right in the NE 😁😁

Not sure, probably mixed feelings of not wanting things to change, not wanting to move but maybe, just maybe some relief in that it will mean a calmer and more predictable time spent with me. She finds H a lot fun but also describes him as grumpy, angry and on one occasion she compared him to being as mature as a 5 year old 😆

Hope they have a nice time!

They've gone for lunch and to a museum. DH wanted to see if they could go to the coast but DS was surprisingly reluctant, I think mainly because he couldn't be bothered with the journey.

That is a great idea!

It will help you feel like you are doing something and taking steps whilst you work your way out 🫂

Well if either of us happens to be passing through….. I can bring gin and biscuits if I’m up that way!!! (Pink gin, obvs!) xx

This is wonderful to hear! I think posting your list on here is a great idea!!!

Is your plan to initially rent somewhere? Or will you hang on in the family home and wait for it to be sold or one of you to buy the other out? I guess depending on which of these options you’re going for, that will affect what things need to go on your list.

I forget how old your DC are. I suppose talking to them will need to happen.

The recipes are such a good idea!

I like to escape with a book. I had one on the go as I was leaving and although it was good, it was too heavy for me. I got a recommendation for a nice easy funny book. It was nice to have a place to retreat to which required little brain power for those times when I could easily get caught up in the enormity of what was happening.

I also ensured I kept up my exercise as it’s easy to let it slip when there’s a lot on. But it really helps my mental health. I don’t know if your illness prevents you from exercising. But even if you can fit in a ten minute walk once a day, or a ten minute breathing exercise then it’s really worth it. I know that’s not really an item for the list, but it’s a help.

If you are going to move out, then getting a Rightmove list together is helpful as motivation.

Obviously you’ll need to add a pink kettle to your list!!! 💕

I’m banking on staying in the house 1- because his pension pot is about the value as the house and 2- he has an inheritance big enough he can buy (a much bigger) house so he won’t be homeless.
But obviously need to see what the lawyer says first.

If not possible, then yes Right Move etc…. And I’ll have to investigate more what’s available for disabled people (there are mortgages, part ownership etc…. But I’ll need to dig out more). Council housing is out (single person, disabled … the average waiting time is ... 47 years 😲😲)

Dcs are both at Uni. In a year’s time, dc1 will be finishing his master. So much less of a worry than if they were little.

I like the pink thread!!

Much much easier from a practical and physical point of view if you can stay in your home. Do you think the difficulty will be getting DH to actually move out? Will he drag his feet or worse, refuse?! How has he taken the news?

Oh god, I’m not telling him!!!

Ducks in a row first!

Good idea! Quack quack!

Is it possible to post here about my autistic stepson?

Of course. I also have one of those. Well my DP’s son with whom I lived for years. It did not do my MH any good at all. So yes, please do post here if it would be helpful xx

Yep, no issue at all @PollyHutchen. Many of us are also dealing with chikdren or step children on the spectrum too.

Whats going on?

We have a friend of oldest's staying this weekend who is very shy and I also suspect autistic. DS very sensibly suggested we give her the option of whether she wanted to join us for Friday night shabbat before dinner, as he quite rightly thought maybe she'd feel self conscious about it (some non Jewish friends find it interesting, others find it awkward), and she opted not to join us, but to come down for dinner.

DH can be very enthusiastic and bouncy with kids' friends and I'm glad he intuited this is one who needs a bit of space and probably doesn't want to talk too much to people she doesn't know.

For anyone applying for DLA it REALLY pays off to get help from a disability organisation. Disability North in the NE used to be very good, if they are still going.

Hi, as well as a daughter, X, in her late twenties I have a neurodivergent adult stepson, in late thirties, who has been part of my life for thirty years. Recently he has seemed more, for want of a better word, normal. He has had a partner for the last couple of years and now they have a baby. There was the idea we might help with this baby. They live two miles away. His Dad and I were visiting/being visited regularly pre baby and we made three short visits to them bringing food etc in the weeks after the birth.

After a gap of some weeks I said, via WhatsApp, we would like to go over briefly again and see the little one - then a couple of months old - again. Stepson I was 'putting pressure' on him and his partner.and they couldn't possibly commit to a time what with the baby not being in a routine. I replied saying okay, but also reminding him that when X was a newborn, his coming to us on the usual days and weekends and holidays wasn't 'pressure', but part of our life as a family.

He had a meltdown on WhatsApp saying I had never been there for him. He told me that 'I was not a child' and he 'owed me nothing.' He also said - and this has to be some kind of false memory - that when he was 8, I had sworn at him telling him he was a bastard because he'd been illegitimate.

His Dad is horrified and has tried talking to him, pointing out the various reasons why this 'memory' is so, so unlikely - and saying that he needs to talk to me.

My stepson said he'd 'think about this' bu has not done this and we can see no way forward...

How strange about the false memory @PollyHutchen. I think a big theme on these threads has been that having kids added huge amounts of extra pressure to the ND spouse specifically since babies being a much sensory stimulus, change and the expectation to put their needs first. He may be having a very hard time and just reacting towards you?

I think you are very likely to be write @NoviceVillager . The trouble is though it is something he is 'just' doing, it feels terrifically unjust.

I did my utmost to be a good step-parent - the normal domestic slog of cooking and cleaning up and driving about. There were plenty of good times. In the less good times I did my best to be flexible and tolerant. I left a lot of the difficult stuff to his Dad, but my stepson seems to have picked on a couple of incidents when he was quite young when I got quite 'normally' cross - and used them to create a narrative of my being a harsh and abusive stepmother. The fact that he appears to have shared this narrative with his partner, has put me in a difficult position.

(My partner is a loving parent, and if I had ever been anywhere near the sort of person my stepson is describing, our relationship/marriage would not have survived for three decades.)

I had a father, who now would probably be described as someone with high-functioning autism. He had meltdowns in which he hit me repeatedly round my head, culminating in a truly terrible assault when I was 17.

I am reacting inwardly to my stepson's verbal onslaught, very much as if my father has come back to life. I just want to protect myself, and do not feel my relationship with my stepson will ever be the same.

Unless he gives me a real fulsome apology in which he shows insight into his own motivations. Which at present seems rather unlikely.

I just feel as if I spent 30 years of my life helping to care for someone - and to an extent setting aside my own longer term interests - who is behaving towards me with incredible animosity.

And it's not possible for me to see the baby. I last saw the baby when they were six weeks old. That was three months ago.