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

[BustyLaRoux]

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.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/relationships/5299389-married-to-someone-with-aspergersasdnd-support-thread-15?page=1

I think one of them is albeit undiagnosed but the other is just strange but I know it’s not my fault took me about 20 years to figure it out though but I live a considerable distance away and am very happy

Great new Shortbread re your life now. Continue to live well without them present in your day to day life. It’s possible too that both of them have some untreated and untreatable personality disorder/s which have nothing whatsoever to do with nd.

What if anything do you know about their childhood because that often gives clues.

I live physically very close, like 10-15 mins drive away. That’s part of what gets me, I’m so close but also a million miles away as I’m invisible, as are my kids and just us in general really. I would be happier with distance as at least that would excuse the lack of visits.

Actually it does sound like ND traits. It can come across as uncaring and self absorbed but it's caused by the ND. If it were this in isolation, you might have a point but it isn't.

Did you read the ops other post?. Selfish and self absorbed parents can be linked to they having personality disorders which are not linked to any sort of nd. Their lack of concern for the op is not nd and even if it was it’s no excuse or justification for ops childhood. They had a choice when it came to her and they chose the same old.

@Shortbread49 im really happy for you re now being happy and live a full life. It’s no mean feat in itself.

And I can see how their reaction to being snatched by a man was anger. I’m pretty sure my FIL (also autistic) would have reacted like this. A mixture of autism (can’t put himself in someone else shoes and see how frightening it must have been for you) and the idea, very prevalent then, that if something happened, it had to be the girl/woman’s fault. Thank god things have changed from then.

Do you feel that being confident one or both of them were ND and would be helpful to feel at peace?

Getting some peace around how your parents behaved and still do is so hard.

PersonaLly, I’ve never found that having some distance etc… was THE solution (I couldn’t have put physically more distance between me and my parents for many years). It helped me having some boundaries I’d have found harder to have otherwise. But it didn’t help the healing iyswim.

Whats helping me is therapy, EMRD, and understanding why they behave in a certain way/how I can respond etc….

I don’t think NT or ND has much impact on how you deal with your own feelings about your upbringing. But I think it impacts the understanding of why, how to best react to hurtful behaviour. With the risk we’ve talked about before - that it brings the ‘oh poor them, they can’t help it and as an NT, it’s up to you to accommodate’ attitude.

I feel I could get peace if I knew that they are ND, I could make allowances for this. If they are personality disordered then I would just stay away, they too far gone. One feels a lot more deliberate. Being ND feels less deliberate, which although doesn’t feel much different for me the intention matters. To deliberately hurt someone seems worse. To not be able to connect because of a disability I can understand.

I think whether or not you can attach a label to them, their behaviour still upset you and you have to accept it was their behaviour not yours , and they were the adults who should have been setting and example to a child. You cannot alter someone else’s behaviour that is their responsibility , and if it is too difficult for you you might need to step back regardless of whether it is a partner or parents . You can’t spend time worrying d out someone else’s behaviour to the effect it impacts your life and happiness

Is it not wrong to blame someone who is disabled for their impact on you? Is it not the same as blaming someone in a wheelchair for not walking with you. Oh I don’t know, can you hate autistic people for being selfish when it’s the disabling part of it. Is it wrong to ask them to fake being interested even if they aren’t. They just shouldn’t be parents in my opinion, it’s not fair.

I don’t mean all nd people shouldn’t be parents.

I think that now when there is so much talk about neurodiversity, that ND people should reflect on how this may affect their parenting. If they like routine and calm, how will they react to changeability and noise and the need to provide stimulating new experiences? If they struggle to apprehend that the minds and emotions of other people, especially very small other people, will be very different, can they grasp safeguarding sufficiently. If they dislike being touched themselves, will they be able to communicate with infants through touch?

So I wrote an extremely long answer so I’ve tried to condense that a bit 😁😁

@Percypigspjs the dilemma of blaming autistic people vs feeling you should give them so leeway because autism=disability is something I’ve struggled with a lot. I feel it also applies to other things than ND like cPTSD, childhood trauma etc….

My own conclusion is that blame has never helped anyone. I feel blame removes agency. It takes away MY agency by putting me at the place of the helpless victim. And it puts all the focus on what’s missing wo helping me heal iyswim.
As @Shortbread49 said, you can only change yourself. I feel that what works best is concentrate on myself. On healing from trauma, putting boubdaries etc….

I also feel strongly that ND (or trauma) is a reason. It’s never an excuse. That knowledge can help making more compassionate decisions. But it’s never making it ok for continuing with a situation that is hurtful for you ‘because disability’.
So let’s say if a marriage for you means emotional intimacy and wo it it’s a marriage, then staying in a relationship with no intimacy doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t matter if the other person can’t due to ND, it’s a disability etc…. It’s a mismatch between your needs and theirs/thercabilities. It’s incompatibility. That’s it. Why carrying on when it’s likely to hurt both parties?
ND/disability does mean you should accommodate within your own bandwidth. Eg You can listen to music either headphones if your ND partner/parent struggle with noise/certain music.

When it comes to parents, it’s even more difficult I think.
I feel the best thing you can do is to have counselling and come to terms with (I dint like the word healing for that) the fact you’ve been hurt. Because it doesn’t matter if it’s disability/trauma/illness, you’ve still been hurt. It’s important to realise@Percypigspjs the dilemma of blaming autistic people vs feeling you should give them so leeway because autism=disability is something I’ve struggled with a lot. I feel it also applies to other things than ND like cPTSD, childhood trauma etc….

My own conclusion is that blame has never helped anyone. I feel blame removes agency. It takes away MY agency by putting me at the place of the helpless victim. And it puts all the focus on what’s missing wo helping me heal iyswim.
As @Shortbread49 said, you can only change yourself. I feel that what works best is concentrate on myself. On healing from trauma, putting boubdaries etc….

I also feel strongly that ND (or trauma) is a reason. It’s never an excuse. It’s never making it ok for continuing with a situation that is hurtful for you ‘because disability’.
So let’s say if a marriage for you means emotional intimacy and wo it it’s a marriage, then staying in a relationship with no intimacy doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t matter if the other person can’t due to ND, it’s a disability etc…. It’s a mismatch between your needs and theirs/thercabilities. It’s incompatibility. That’s it. Why carrying on when it’s likely to hurt both parties?
ND/disability does mean you should accommodate within your own bandwidth. Eg You can listen to music either headphones if your ND partner/parent struggle with noise/certain music.

When it comes to parents, it’s even more difficult I think.
I feel the best thing you can do is to have counselling and come to terms with (I dint like the word healing for that) the fact you’ve been hurt. Because it doesn’t matter if it’s disability/trauma/illness, you’ve still been hurt. It’s important to acknowledge that.
And to decide how to behave/how often to see them etc… so that it works for YOU. Not according to what you’re supposed to do (eg a good daughter still sees her parents), Not according to some rule book that says NT should always accommodate for ND struggles. But depending on what you can do, with your own life issues, bandwidth, limitations etc…. that.
And to decide how to behave/how often to see them etc… so that it works for YOU. Not according to what you’re supposed to do (eg a good daughter still sees her parents), Not according to some rule book that says NT should always accommodate for ND struggles. But depending on what you can do, with your own life issues, bandwidth, limitations etc….

God. That was still really long wasn’t it 🫣🫣

And yet, many ND parents are managing all of that within their own limitations.
I know some ND mothers that are amazing.

And we all have our own limitations. No one is coming into parenting as a perfect person that will be able to deal with all of the above perfectly.
What makes the difference, I feel, is the awareness of it all. Regardless of ND or NT, denying or not realising how some of your reactions are hurtful is what creates the most problem.

Sorry about my long answer above, it seems I’ve somehow managed to to duplicate some paragraphs…. 🫣🫣

I think this is very true. There are a lot of things I struggle with myself, but I do them because I love the other person. I may struggle with noise and personal touch etc but I love the other person more. I love my children and would never be able to go without seeing them for months and months or have no interest. I think there has got to be more because the complete lack of interest or worry I can’t understand

Do you think the problem is that ND people can view relationships differently (I guess that can go for everyone really). We get into relationships thinking that the other person loosely wants the same out of the relationship when in actual fact we can view them very differently. I know my daughter gets lessons about relationships and how to have healthy ones and that there is give and take and empathy etc. It’s only as time goes by that you realise you don’t view the relationship the same way, the other person has no intention or ability to give the emotional support you can give and is kind of needed. The other person has no idea that this is happening as they never went into the relationship in the first place with these set of rules.

I agree, ND or NT, Theres this feeling that what we expect from a relationship is the same for everyone. And in reality, we don’t. (And we shouldn’t because all have different temperaments, abilities and history.)

It’s not about give and take as such. But about what give and take means.
It’s not just about ‘having empathy’, it’s how does it look like for you? Because the reality is that you might be empathic and caring but if your expectation is to be there to listen to the other person when they actually expect a hug with a cup of tea, it’s not going to work.

Lots to catch up on on here, but regarding the discussions around parents I do wonder if it's also possibly heavy masking, and possible trauma in childhood from growing up undiagnosed, which has led to some parents becoming avoidant and seemingly not that empathetic? Might that apply to your DM @Percypigspjs ? There are so many crossovers with ND and NPD in terms of behaviour but I can see why you feel the need to 'know' which one it is.

Yes, and often ND parents are able to understand their ND kids better too and will be able to relate to their strugges.

Being aware of how our own behaviour affects our children is something both ND and NT parents are truly important, as you say.

Perhaps I'm an unusually 'cuddly' autistic mother, but I happily spent years with DD glued to me, and we co-slept for years as she needed me close, no problem with physical closeness when it comes to her. Other people, on the other hand, I'm not really a huggy person, and need space. I'm awkward when it comes to any greeting hugs/prefer a handshake! It's different with your child I think.

I don’t know, I think you can work with either a hug or a cup of tea or an ear, the fact is the person is physically present even if not exactly what you need. It shows you that they see you even if not quite getting it exactly right, I could work with this. In fact my H is like this, he often misses the mark but he tries and that is what matters. To completely avoid is something very different. That’s really verging on neglect and abuse. I think if you expect to completely avoid all emotional needs and disappear or expect a relationship with someone who you show no interest in but they drop what they holding the minute you decide you want to do something you have to be very lacking to think it’s acceptable. Thats a very disordered and very selfish way to think about another human. I guess they have relationships with people who simply can accept this or they train them or gaslight and wear them down.

Things have been hard here, DD has had some sort of MH crisis for about 3 weeks now (I think she had been building up towards this through the summer if I am to reflect on her behaviours) and I got scarily close to burnout last week. H has really stepped up through this though, and we have been tag-teaming to see DD through this crisis. He's been having therapy since the summer and has also read a lot of psychology/MH/ self-help books and seems to be able to apply this to support DD. He has really surprised me by remaining consistently calm and putting his own needs aside while this has been going on.

DD is a bit better but every day has it's ups and downs and for the first time in years I felt like I was well and truly out if my depth in terms of how to help her. None of the usual ASD strategies worked and she was just an exhausted ball of trantic fear and worry for about a week.

And if course I'm now worrying in case it was me being so deeply unhappy with H in the summer which may have somehow caused it. Preteen hormones are probably a cause too. Being out of school for 18 months is perhaps most likely as she's been stuck at home with me a lot.

Of course I now feel that the last thing she needs is some upheaval at home so I need to do some thinking about that.

Just started practicing Commitment and Acceptance Therapy, which might help. Think it got me out of the near burnout stage.

Good luck @ItReallyDoesntMatterAnymore - and I hope things improve for DD soon. And good news about DH - I wish mine would read stuff, or at least see through reading stuff about behaviours - he occasionally starts something, but doesn't finish. I kind of don't understand his lack of curiosity about it, in his position I'd want to be reading up all about it.

DH has new medication to try for ADHD - similar drug to what DS has; he's going to try them tomorrow.

He's had a couple of job interviews and is on to 3rd stage a ridiculously multiple-stage process one on Friday. A bit apprehensive about that one - he has reservations, it's a multiple timezone business which will involved some evening working, and it's US-run so likely to have high expectations of availability. I'm toying with telling him not to take it if they offer - no job he's had concerns about at the start has ever turned out well.

But at least the job market seems a bit less moribund then last year when it was absolute tumbleweed for 6 months.

@Echobelly just to give a glimmer of ok on the job front, my DH works for an American Tech firm after years of being in finance and they are the best employers he’s had in a long time, very flexible, yes some evenings end up happening but it’s not a regular thing. So it doesn’t always equate to being a bad idea because it’s an American firm, although yes he’s had some bad ones too! Also the ADHD drugs are a bit trial and error, I vetoed one because whilst focus was amazing he turned into a nasty arse and I wasn’t living with that!