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

@VoltaireMittyDream you could have described my dh there. Apart from the not helping re tidying up/housework. His mum was very set in teaching him that he has to do it! So it stuck.

@Echobelly do you think his ‘it’s fine to make mistakes’ is an attempt from your dh to soften his approach?

Im really happy for you to see things were ok when you came back.

It was a big relief - I knew from the way DH greeted me it was probably OK because there's a certain flat way he says 'Hi' when he's about to tell me that things went south.

The thing about mistakes was in response to DS saying he was a bit worried about his workings in case he was wrong, but I thought mentioning being angry about carelessness undermined the message a bit!

I want to understand the avoidance a little. Do they avoid in order to avoid the feelings they feel when in a situation because they don’t know how to calm or reassure themselves if it goes wrong or it’s too hard or they don’t understand. So in a way they are protecting themselves from potential horrible feelings? Do they avoid emotional occasions because they don’t know how to behave, or it’s too overwhelming or they don’t know what to say as they can’t read the situation? Is avoiding just a learned behaviour that’s works for them. (But it’s horrible for everyone else)

I think if we knew exactly why other people did what they did life would be a lot simpler.

For my DH he has classic demand avoidance - when there is an expectation of him, from anyone or anything, he has a reflexive response to not to it. It’s almost like a phobia. Like someone else might jump back and run away from a spider, my DH has a similar visceral response to anyone asking or even tacitly expecting anything of him.

As for emotional avoidance, my DH experiences other people’s expression of emotion as almost physically uncomfortable. Like a bad smell. He just wants to get away from it. I don’t think it’s any deeper than that.

@VoltaireMittyDream Good grief, you articulate what my DH is like much better than I have been able to! Reading your posts made me suspect him of bigamy (not really, obviously, but your DH sounds so much like mine). Agree with you re the 'why do they do that?' question- the behaviours are reflexive, not reasoned.

So he doesn’t like other people having emotions? Does he have them himself and want support or just doesn’t need much emotional support? Are other people’s emotions a little disgusting?

I couldn't answer for him. All people are different; all autistic people will have different experiences.

My hunch, from observing him, is that someone crying / expressing a need for support feels a bit to him like it might feel to me if someone flashed me on public transport. It feels like an intrusive ambush. Something he doesn't want or need to see, being foisted on him against his will.

He likes to live in a little bubble that is just him - just his interests, his feelings, his preferences. Other people's stuff (needs, opinions, emotions, topics of conversation, sounds, cooking smells, etc) feels generally invasive.

He doesn't see himself as needing a lot of emotional support - but he does endlessly vent and complain and infodump. He never wants to be comforted or helped, however. He just wants people to listen to him think out loud. A lot. Without contributing any of their own perspective.

I totally empathise - we hear so much about how we need to make life easier for ASD people because the world is not made to suit them. But as a partner it is so effing tiring feeling like you are the one doing so much of the compromising. And they - particularly if there is no acknowledgment of ASD - dont see why they have to compromise at all. I am the e.g. the one who is too loud, too energetic, too unpunctual, too whatever. And any suggestion that his parameters that I am having to adjust to - are maybe not in most people's range of norm, is dismissed outright

I think something that always strikes me about this rhetoric is is that the world wasn’t built for anyone - the world as it is was built primarily around capitalism. Which disadvantages anyone who’s not able to be economically productive and/or exploit the labour of others. It sucks. Most of us understand that this is the system we’re stuck living in at the moment, and unless we’re rich we’ll need to compromise on quite a lot in order to get by.

(Just ask any of the disabled people and carers on this thread how much compromise they’re having to do, being unable to work to earn money!)

But my DH seems genuinely affronted that he should be asked to do something he wouldn’t choose to do with his time in order to get money. He almost takes it personally, like it’s a specific misfortune that has only befallen him.

DH can get disproportionately angry that the bin isn’t bigger because it exerts a demand to be changed more often than he likes.

He feels aggrieved that his facial hair grows even though he doesn’t want a beard, and so he has to do something about it.

There’s just no end to what doesn’t suit DH about the world - not all of which is caused by an ableist society oppressing him because he’s different and everyone’s a bully.

A world that was ‘built for him’ would be not unlike being in the womb - quiet, all survival and comfort needs taken care of for him, nobody else around, nothing he needs to do, never needing to leave the comfort of home. A world build to suit him could include only him.

To be honest he just sounds like a man child and there are a lot of men like this whether or not neurodivergent.

Honestly I tend to think of this the other way round.

I see so many threads where very intelligent, resourceful, high achieving women who aren’t conflict averse and don’t normally make stupid decisions are desperately trying to reason with their partner who clearly can’t manage adult life and relationships - and posters pile on the woman for not having ‘trained’ him, or having picked a dud in the first place.

Whereas I see an AuDHD / PDA man who was masking (very well, because he’s highly socially motivated) until his partner committed to the relationship, then went into burnout and stayed there, because even though they would struggle to live on their own, without nervous system and executive function scaffolding, they also can’t cope with the practical and emotional expectations of couple and family life.

I work with a lot of ND people and on the whole I find straightforwardly ASD and ADHD people - male and female - good (if rigid!) at finding workarounds that help them manage time and environment, whereas AuDHD and PDA people struggle a LOT. It’s just the men are more likely to find female partners who step in and fill in the gaps at first, before eventually falling into a total caregiving role.

You don’t get half as many men (though there are some!) who will do this for their ND wife, and there are a lot of AuDHD and PDA women really struggling on their own.

That sounds really hard. What about you and what you need. I know my own mum avoids all occasions where emotion is required including the birth of her grandchildren. She couldn’t get away quick enough.

It’s so hard when it’s your mum. ❤️

because even though they would struggle to live on their own, without nervous system and executive function scaffolding, they also can’t cope with the practical and emotional expectations of couple and family life.

Thats very true @VoltaireMittyDream

I don’t think dh is PDA. He is nowhere near as bad as your dh and doesn’t have as much issues with doing things he is asking himself to do.
But he is demand avoidant as in struggles with any outward demands.
And he is avoidant in his reactions (will say Yes when he means No, not answer at all, stay silent. He can’t even bring himself to ask me anything either so it’s all PA or presented as a done deal instead).

Im realising I’m becoming very knowledgeable in psychology too. How to present things, expressing and setting boundaries, which words to use or not use. Everything but a natural, relaxed communication.

I am starting to think I have picked a partner who is emotionally quite low in intelligence. I have no idea what to expect from someone as growing up I had none. Yesterday our youngest (3) fell down the stairs, I didn’t put the stair gate on so I already was feeling guilty. She was fine but I just sat at the bottom holding her crying as it was the shock. He just said oh well put the stair gate on. I’ve had a really difficult week and I never get anything from him. I thought this was normal.

@Percypigspjs i hope your dd is ok!
I still remember dc1 falling too around that age. And how scared I was! (And we had a stair gate too 🫣🫣)

She is absolutely fine. I just needed a hug but got not nothing and I never do. I find it’s getting hard, he’s always hard and serious never soft and fluffy. I have to elbow him to prompt him to show empathy, for example if she falls and is crying. I physically tell him you need to hug her so she feels better. It’s alien to him. He’s never horrible or manipulative of aggressive or angry or anything like that. He must be able to tell she is sad because she’s crying but it doesn’t prompt him to sooth her. I don’t understand this.

Is your DH ND too @Percypigspjs ? Sorry I’ve forgotten.

He had no diagnoses and no thoughts about it. He used to joke that his friends said he was at school but fully believes it was a joke. I really think he is.

DH is helped DS with maths again and mostly keeping his cool. He told DS at one point that 'you've obviously sat through some lessons on [topic] and not fully understood'.

I made a point to tell DH afterwards that saying that was so much infinitely better than saying 'You've obviously not been paying the slightest bit of attention in lessons', as has often been his wont - and is a) not fair on DS when he may really have been trying and b) just serves to make DH more wound up and angry for not good reason.

That’s a big improvement @Echobelly !!

I find the fact your dh is trying and listening to what you told him quite heartwarming.
I know it isn’t probably making things that much easier fur you. But it’s nice to see theres hope and scope for change even when people are ND.

He still went on with the maths waaaay too long at the weekend, but he managed never to really lose it with DS. He still occasionally does this annoying thing where he says things DS like 'I know you get it wrong because you guessed', which I really hate. On bad days he does it to me too 'You did this because you were thinking that' and I'm know that I didn't think 'that' at all because I was the one doing the thinking. And when I say so and often explain to him what I know I was thinking, he'll be all 'no you weren't'. I don't know if the idea is to make the other person think 'Oh no, he saw right through me', but I can safely say that in my case, he has not once been correct in his assumption.

I need to talk to him about it, I bet his parents did that to him and I bet he didn't like being on the receiving end of that gaslighting any more than anyone else does.

@Echobelly
My DH does that exact same thing and I thought it was just him. He did it the other night, where he said, “Don’t look at me like I’m stupid” over something too long and boring to explain, and I wasn’t remotely thinking that he was stupid, but he KNOWS what you’re thinking so it’s pointless even discussing it. It’s gaslighting, isn’t it? I’d never seen it that way till you described it.

Been absent for a while as so much going on and needed headspace. Some of it good, “ducks in a row” type stuff (even though I’ll probably stay). Hope you’re all doing ok.

Hi, I posted before - possibly with a different username - re my ND stepson, who is a newish Dad, having spectacular meltdown and suddenly accusing me of having harmed him as a child by a mixture of coldness, anger and making age-inappropriate disclosures.

(This is not at all how partner and I remember things, though he was a challenging child and though I was generally patient there were occasions when I showed annoyance. But these occasional incidents have been inflated and all the normal family times we spent together seem to have been forgottenThe inappropriate disclosure thing really does seem to be some kind of 'false' memory, which somewhere got embedded.)

At the same time having delivered this broadside, he wanted me and my partner to continue to be involved with the new baby. (Despite the fact he'd shared all this with his girlfriend, who witnessed domestic abuse as a child and is, understandably, rather wary in the circumstances)

This is more of an update really. This was all six months and my partner has made a number of calm, carefully spaced attempts to talk to him. He's said my stepson needs to get in touch with me. (I've not contacted him since he said all this stuff via WhatsApp) He has pointed out the real improbability of the inappropriate disclosures. (Even if things had happened as he'd described and he'd been too traumatised to speak at the time, his Mum would have picked up that he was upset, his sister who he reckons was there would have spilled the beans and that my parter - also allegedly there - would have been horrified, and the matter would have been dealt with promptly. Probably as a relationship ending matter.)

The last attempt to encourage my stepson to reflect has led to a huffy WhatsApp saying he doesn't feel it helps him to be put under pressure in this way - when he has so much to do. (He works from home in his own recently started one-man business that as yet has few clients. It is his partner's maternity pay from a corporate job that is bringing the bulk of their income) He is still 'thinking' about getting in touch with me, but in the meantime feels aggrieved and hurt that we are not being proper grandparents and coming round to see the baby.

I am left realising that his neurodiversity is more profound than I realised. It was hard when he was young to separate out what was childishness, what was teenage and angst aggravated by conflict with his Mum and a rather rigid old-fashioned school. There was also much less general understanding re autism 20-30 years back. He'd seemed calmer after adolescence and university, and - apparently - more self-aware. We also were more aware of areas where he struggled. But I think this 'calmness' was more to do with him removing himself from the social pressures associated with secondary school and university and carving out a life where he did casual, irregular forms of work and could more do

I think for me the difficulty is that I don't think a relationship with him is possible any more. It's as if we got by somehow when he was a single man. But there's something about his new life, which means nothing adds up any more. (His girlfriend seems okay, though I am not quite sure how much she understands what she's got into. And he will be being his best self with her at present, I think. He really does care for her. And the baby is - from what I remember from the three times I saw her, lovely.)

But self-protection and self-respect require me to keep away. It's sad. My husband is sad and disappointed too. He doesn't feel able to go on as things were, and that it's better to remove himself. Because his son wants a relationship with him under condition that his Dad never talks to him honestly, and that his Dad needs to consent to his son's belief that he has a father who was complicity in having been mistreated by me.

Total car crash.