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

@Bluebellforest1 that is sad. Unmumsnetty hugs to you as well and happy birthday! Thank goodness for lovely friends and family. Re: finding endless reasons to be panicked about holiday….ugh! Yes my dad is a panicker and it ruins everything. Yes bad things happen. But probably not. So just get on and enjoy things. Worry about bad things if they happen. But yes, panicking as lunch time has been moved: I hear you!!

Just need to vent. I am so incredibly tired of being the one, only one, to do the mental load, research stuff, plan an execute everything. Right now for three people and two households.

I am spending the week with my widowed dad who is in early stages of dementia but still lives at home. There is a ton of stuff that I need to take care of every time I'm here. He lives five hours away so I can't really pop in regularly and when I go here it's like being thrown into a boot camp.

Yesterday I talked to my husband and he just dumps more things on me to do, while I'm complaining about how overwhelmed I am.
This week I have researched where to send a broken lawn mover, found a place in the next town and took it there, they looked into it, found the problem and said it couldn't be fixed there, so I had to drive there, pick it up and drive to another, more qualified company.
I have researched a plumbing issue, researched garden companies that can come here and take care of a garden that looks like a jungle, found one, called, discussed the issue, gave two workmen a tour of the jungle/garden with instructions what to do, researched another company who can remove huge trees, talked to a neigbour about an urgent repair we need help with.
I have also called a garden center to get help with taking care or three graves, drove there to buy plants, spent a day taking care of phone calls and paperwork. Plus all the usual: Cleaning, laundry, household stuff, grocery shopping, planting new flowers on the patio to make one tiny spot in the garden look decent.
It has been like this for two years, since my mother died and I had to step in and take care of a huge mess on every front.

I just want to scream. Yesterday, while being hysterical, my husband started talking about a detox he wants to do "so when I come back home I need to help him with finding and ordering the products". I automatically answered yes, as I always do, but then I said "why don't you do it" and sent him the links to the detox program and the social media account.
No, he "needed help with that" and "I could show him what products to use".

I also told him that we absolutely need to take the car to be reconditioned on the inside and outside. It looks a complete mess and I am embarrased to drive around in it. My husband takes care of the car since it is in his name - and I do everything else so I have left this particular area to him. His idea of taking care of the car is to refill it with gas and use one of those automatic cleaning programs. (Similar to his idea of cleaning the home is waiving the hoover around in the middle of the floor and that's it.)
He started "oh, but you found a company in your hometown that maybe could.... or the company you found in our town.... maybe you can call them?"

I just exploded and told him that maybe, just maybe, HE could take care of the car cleaning, research and find a reputable company, drop the car off there and pick it up, so this whole project is lifted from my shoulders, since I feel like I am drowning here.

I have no idea how I ended up in this mess. None of it is mine, but I am the one who is in charge of fixing everything and it leaves me absolutely no mental or physical space left for me. I need to get out of this, have no idea how.

You are absolutely right, I am already thinking he didn't quite get the idea from the conversation we had! I'm going to need to have a plan (sell house and set up a new home each, buy me out by releasing equity, or help me by bring a guarantor so I can get a rental in place, or possibly some form of nesting initially) in place to present before our next conversation later in the summer. I doubt he'll book unto therapy and I stood firm on refusing joint counselling, which he suggested, again!

So interesting. Transitions have always been a challenge. I can see them now. When the children were little, it was always so difficult. I don’t know how I did it.

See the problem with him is he doesn't want me to ask what the problem is sometimes. So im meant to know instinctively when not to

It’s interesting re promising the world. Dh is the opposite. Not a word, nothing said about potential plans until everything is set up.
He simply cannot tell me about plans if There’s a bit of doubt so he’d be unable to future fake.

My understanding is that he struggles too much with having to change plans so he’d rather have no plan or ideas of what to do in the future instead. For him to plan, it has to be something that is REALLY important to him, ie his special interest. (And then no change and nothing else can happen)

Can’t you read minds?
dh also expects me to just know….

I'm interested in whether people's husbands want reconciliations/want things to be right/as they were before - and how people here cope with that.

My stepson who is a new dad had an absolutely spectacular meltdown over me - lots of rage about how I'd harmed him terribly. I was simultaneously too cold and absent, but also too emotional and needy.

The nothing for months. And now he's been in touch with my husband saying that he does want me to be involved with the grandchild.

He is coming round next weekend. And I'm just thinking WTF.....?

I lost the thread for a bit.

I just wanted to ask a question. When you do something with an asd person and it’s an interest of theirs they seem really happy, happy you are their doing the things with them, really connected. When you doing something that interests you and not them then they are nowhere. How can they seem to love your company one minute and gone the next. Is it my company or just the interest that keeps them connected to you? For me yes I love doing things I love to do but I also like doing things that aren’t necessarily my interest because I love doing it with that person.

So it isn't just him then?!

He expects me just to know 🤦🏼‍♀️

@Percypigspjs i don’t think dh is able to get involved in something he isn’t interested in. That includes work too.
And yes that’s regardless of the person themselves.

Is it my company or just the interest that keeps them connected to you?
I’m not sure. I know that, now I can’t do any of the activities that used to connect me and dh, Theres not a lot nothing left that connects us. Bar the dcs and living in the same house.

That’s the thing isn’t it. What connects you isn’t a deep emotional connection, it’s literally the activity or the product or financials. They can find someone else to do the activity with and not give you a second’s thought. What does that say we are? When we are no longer useful what are we to them. My happiness, my feelings, my self esteem are nothing to them

Mine does say he has an emotional connection to me.

However has anyone else found they dont care about the things they find difficult anymore.

Mine has a habit of announcing "you know I find this difficult, we've had the conversation." He just expects me to bow to him all the time.

Today I just said, you find everything difficult. He has so many things he finds stressful and difficult that I no longer care. He can just find it difficult then.

Yes agree. There is only so much patience one can have. The expectation that you will take away or deal with anything they find difficult. DP is not like this to be fair. But I know some who are. They’re almost indignant. It’s so egocentric and helpless. Like, we all have things we find difficult! Generally we try to overcome them rather than throwing hands up in the air every time and saying nope, I can’t. Try. At least try!

My DP is like that.

He has the expectation that I will take away, deal with or stop doing anything he finds difficult.
He is utterly inindignant. He is Very egocentric and helpless.

I used to actively avoid the things he found difficult and take steps not to do it. However, after two and a half years, i've discovered that absolutely everything upsets him, everything triggers him, everything wines him up.And he finds everything difficult. So what am I supposed to do in that case. If you find something difficult, he can just find it difficult.I don't care anymore.

Don’t blame you. Finding something difficult is not an excuse for making someone else do everything. I’d be tempted next time he exclaims “you know I find this difficult!!!!” to reply “yes I do, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try!”

My DH finds anything tech related difficult, and gets defensive, and insists he cant do it "because he didnt grow up with it" To a degree I sympathise, but I didn't grow up with it either.

We have 2 kids, that have almost gone through school, one is at uni, we have our own business, I feel like the mental load for me is massive when he cant/won't engage with reading emails, learning to use apps, doing things online. It's all very well for him to effectively opt out, but one of us needs to fill in and submit school applications, pay for trips, liase with the accountant, do invoices, submit a vat return, sign a tenancy agreement etc etc

He gets overwhelmed with actual shopping (again, fair enough) ....but won't ever use online shopping fir anything other than buying stuff for his own hobbies. He wouldn't think to buy me or the kids, something for Christmas or birthday unless I send the specific ljnk

What I actually said to him was,

"Is there anything you don't find difficult?"

He was silent.

Did I do good?

@Sweetandsaltycaroline i get it. Some of it is difficult. I hate setting up a new broadband provider for example. I don’t understand the terminology, and am often lost when things aren’t working properly. But I try! I think to just resign oneself to not doing anything tech related in any way (most people in their 80s can read and send an email and they certainly didn’t grow up with any tech!) is a cop out. As you say he can do it if it relates to his hobby. There is a difference between finding a few things challenging and your partner dealing with those (and vice versa, so it’s reciprocal), but to just decide to opt out of multiple things with an indignant “oh I can’t do that! You know this!” ends up becoming learned helplessness. I see this with my dad. The things he decides he can’t do (when we know he can!) just because it’s easier to get someone else to do them for him. I’ve always wondered if this learned helplessness and getting people to do things for him makes him feel
specisl and wanted. He’s always asking people for help. He has no shame. Will constantly ask people to really put themselves out for him. Even though he could do it if he wanted to. I think it makes him feel valued and loved. It’s like he is using practical tasks to engineer a feeling of being wanted and cared for. Just my theory. I have another autistic person in the family (not DP) who does the same. Insists on someone helping (when they aren’t really in a place to be able to) and gets very stroppy and emotional and demands “why won’t you help me??!” Again I think there is more to it: if you help me it gives me a sense of love and validation.

Just a theory!

Ugh, DH just strolled happily out of the bedroom and 30 seconds later I hear him say 'well fuck off both of you, it isn't happening now...' (?) as DS leaves for school (I do get to shout out goodbye and I love you to him at least through the window). Presumably some tiny thing has sent DH into a tailspin and I guess I'll find out what when I go downstairs. Ugh.

Honestly just ignore him.

I've begun to set boundaries in the relationship. Im not being held to ransom anymore.

He did that in the morning saying, you know, I find this difficult, and so I said you find everything difficult. That completely shut him down. And he was ever so nice to me after that when we were getting ready.

Im going to start setting a boundary and refusing to take on the role of accommodating his every need.

By saying "you find everything difficult," I acknowledged his struggles while also refusing to be drawn into a dynamic where I'm responsible for managing his difficulties.

I acknowledged his experience without taking on the burden of fixing what it was or accommodating him.

When he announces to me but he finds something difficult.Well, he's just gonna have to find it difficult because i'm not doing anything about it.

Quite honestly, I d ignore your husband's passive aggressive nonsense. I wouldn't dignify "fuck off both of you" with a response.

I’ve found this thread again. I’ve skimmed back but need to catch up properly. I’m back in the same place of burnout. I have Hashimotos thyroid issue which is autoimmune and not helped by stress. I’m able to cope carrying DH and DS through but when my energy crashes I stop functioning.

I’m seriously fed up of living like this though. It’s exhausting. DS is diagnosed with various ND things. DH isn’t but both DS and DH are similar in that they function like little trains on single tracks. They’re linear in focus and blinkered to anything else. I’m doing all the rest of the life admin, life work and it’s lonely and relentless. I’m looking at what I can outsource but currently even that’s a challenge. Everything is digital from ordering meal boxes to getting laundry services. I hate digital mediums and have just spent an hour trying to work out why I couldn’t post on mumsnet and wipe cookies from my phone etc. I’ve managed it and I’m a technophobe so I agree with the digital comments. Why are some people just unable to function domestically? Their inability to do so is keeping me trapped, miserable and exhausted. It’s like only I have the domestic services software in my brain. I can’t explain myself very well as I’m in overwhelm but I’m glad I’ve found this thread again. Thanks for letting me offload and any tips on which part of the domestic load to outsource and how would be much appreciated. Thanks

Yeah don’t respond. I often find that this is a tactic so that he can deflect the fact he feels less as he can’t do something. If he sets up an argument then you are no longer discussing what he can’t do but instead focused on the reaction which he is in control of. Also it’s a protective mechanism because learning something is very overwhelming and stressful for them. I find that we become absorbed into their coping strategies, we are far too enmeshed in their way of being. I also think a lot of the time they don’t even see us. They see the world through themselves and we are a used by them to deal with life. The lack of empathy over our perspective of this is never taken into account. They feel something, we are just expected to behave the way they need. It’s a really challenging way to be in a relationship as we have our own feelings and needs but these are never seen.

@Echobelly the swearing stuff at the kids would really make me think
twice about this man. Its abusive to both of you.

“Gosh that sounds difficult”

that would be amazing if he said something as simple as that. Rather than telling me why I’m wrong to feel how I am, and here’s the solution, etc.