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

They're teens, not little ones and we all swear quite a lot around each other but it's still too much.

He'd calmed down by the time I got downstairs. Turned out he wanted to take a photo of the kids, oldest got self conscious and didn't want to, i suspect DS was trying to get out the door DH bloody overreacted... this is the thing that gets me, sometimes he'll start something light hearted, like wanting to take a picture or to explain something to the kids but then takes it really personally of its not the right moment and people don't want to engage. It's like,you can't start something in a lighthearted tone and turn it into a horrible moment because it was the wrong time. Just accept it was the wrong moment and move on.

He did listen, took some accountability, and was visibly upset that he's hurt me, did some blaming on outside factors

The blaming in outside factors- I know it’s a small mercy but at least he didn’t turn it back around into you and blame you.

I suggested that maybe it's not controllable by willpower and 'trying' (as suggested in The ADHD Effect On Marriage book) but that it's too hardwired/imprinted to just change.

This is the holy grail. How do we distinguish between these two? I’ve never read that book - is it worth a go?

Why is it all so flipping hard and not getting any easier to manage. I posted in another post about family life being more like daily strife. I’d lost this thread.

You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. I think it’s very hard to change something that you’ve done for decades. It’s easier to teach different perspectives from young. I think it’s too much to ask really. Well we can ask but that doesn’t automatically mean change. Trauma from masking for so long I think is the major contributor. We all adapt and it must be so difficult adapting to a world you don’t understand and only have your own perspectives to go on.

@Percypigspjs

Yes, you’re right. It’s taken me a heck of a long time to see that. To be honest, I’m not even sure how much you can teach a young dog if part of their system functions differently. I just think as technology and modern life changes and pressures increase on family life and it seems to really expose it if one party isn’t able to function through a normal ish range of abilities.

I think it depends really. I think those whole who have been supported early are at
much more ease with their condition, more accepting of themselves. Which means they face people with a real face and not a mask. They probably get more compatible people in their life.

I may have asked this before but do you think your partners would be more compatible with anyone else? My ex is autistic and I've been really despondent thinking about how happy we were. However it felt like we were happy in a bubble but when reality struck, he couldn't handle it. I was there for him and his family, through health issues, really doing a lot. I've spoken to friends who say that no one would have done this much. But I wonder whether he even thinks anyone would be better for him. From my side, I was extremely happy but im trying to keep in mind that there were flaws.

@Percypigspjs

I’m just not sure. My DS who is diagnosed
needs the same kind of support to function as my DH yet my DH is oblivious to the fact. He just focuses on work and things he’s doing. They’re both very similar and sort of ‘one dimensional’. If that makes sense? It’s being the complete support network that’s tipping me over the edge as I never get to do me. I’m just constantly in survival mode. I need to somehow outsource some areas of family life/responsibility so I can regroup.

@Petra42
Good question. I’m really not sure. I’m currently wondering if the high divorce rate in the UK at least is part fuelled by ND and the fact modern life seems so challenging now.

@Petra42 - no, I think we're pretty well suited in most ways. He needed someone patient and tolerant, I needed unusual and interesting. It's not been a bed of roses but I've never met another guy, and I have plenty of male friends, who's made me think 'I wish I'd ended up with him/someone like him and not DH'

The book is quite good in that it helped me understand H a bit better and the effect our dynamic has had on me and DD. It is, however, a bit American, and I at times thought that in some ways, it might enable someone to continue a relationship with there having been some really unreasonable behaviours in the past.

That said, there is a strong focus on ADHD needing to be 'treated' (and that willpower and trying isn't enough), not just medically but with therapy and coping strategies. The writer emphasised that the very first thing that would need addressing is the short temper and irritability, as that is one of of the most harmful behaviours. There is work to do for both parties and you have to work together. I read the book twice, H never made it beyond page 53 😆

I think my H could do with someone with better boundaries than me. He used to moan about his ex being so bossy and always making him tidy stuff away (because he is very messy, disorganised, and a hoarder. I sometimes wonder if he moaned about it to stop me from making him tidy away. We live in a tip of a house as a result!) and not being attentive enough to him (yeah, that one was probably to ensure I gave him unlimited affection and sex!) And how she never cooked etc. Yet, I don't think he was as unpleasant towards her as he is to me.

My partner has actually told me he doesnt want anyone else. I think if we split he'd stay single.

He'd only had one short term gf 15 years before me and that was it.

No i dont think my or your partner would be happy with anyone else. The behaviour is too extreme for it to be limited only to one person. He will behave like that with anyone.

I sometimes think the relationship we have only works because we will it to, otherwise they ok on their own, doing what they want. Sometimes I feel put up with. Or should I say it works because we put up with it. We get attached, we want the family unit and the family holidays and “the family”. They just go along with it not really bothered because it’s what we want. What they want is something different.

I actually think my OH is autistic. It wouldn’t surprise me given my mum is and me a little spicy also. I feel like he puts up with me and does things because of me rather than because it’s what he wants for his life. He’d much rather do his hobby. He mopes around sometimes looking fed up with family life, unable to find the joy in the kids growing up. I can find joy in pretty much anything, he can’t.

@ItReallyDoesntMatterAnymore

The boundaries thing resonates. I’m needing to rethink mine, or basically learn how to put some in place. My DH used to go on about a work colleague who’s wife gave him a jobs list. I never went there but am now seeing possibly it was a deflection consciously or subconsciously I’m not sure. I think my DP knows he can’t cope with normal life things and uses work as an excuse to bury his head. I think he wants to look ‘normal’ and have a ‘normal’ looking existence to anyone looking in from the outside but the whole dynamic isn’t serving me.

Do you ever feel embarrassed that you do put up with this?

Sometimes I feel embarrassed that my partner knows I tolerate his behavior and I don't leave.

It does make me embarrassedAlso, but another woman wouldn't tolerate this, and he d be unlikely to find somebody else who would put up with this. So what does that say about me? Sometimes I think I should just end it.So he knows, I don't tolerate it and he respects me more.

I don’t think he’d see it like that. I don’t feel embarrassed. He is what he is, it’s not a reflection on me. Life is always a balance. Mine has enough good to make it worth it. It depends on just how bad the behaviour was. I wouldn’t be accepting abuse or shouting but he can go off and sulk if he wishes to be immature. People are all a mix of good and bad. If I felt my self esteem being effected or my MH then that would be different.

That's very true. It's just the only other girlfriend. He's hard apart from me. It lasted all of five minutes because she only had to tolerate his bad behaviour at a particular trigger point once and it was over pretty quickly.

Since then, he does seem to carry a torch for her and regret that happened. However, he displays exactly the same behaviour with me and I haven't dumped him for it. However, from what he's described, his behavior with his first girlfriend was far worse.

He's not affecting my mental health or my self esteem, it's just annoying.

I think I feel the same. I helped myself a lot when I realised that he can say all sorts of things when emotionally dysregulated and actually he doesn't mean it. NB, it's seldom horrible things to me, I almost laugh when that happens as its so not him, but stuff like threatening to move house because he got woken up early by noise once to often etc.

I spent years hanging on to what I now call 'angry bullshit' sometimes (like thinking he hated someone or something), only to find it was a total non issue, it's just something he said while all over the place. That doesn't mean I discount everything when he's angry, I try to be mindful of if there is a point in there too. But ultimately nothing he has said has ever caused me hurt.

I think it’s ok to not like someone and not feel there is enough to stay with them. His behaviour is not a reflection on you. You don’t have to put up with anything or feel guilty for not really wanting to. He will still have his behaviour with or without you because he is the owner of it. We don’t do anything to cause it or provoke it.

I think we need to be extremely mindful not to loose ourselves to their disorder. To not take it personally, to remember it is them. To make sure we honour our own world and needs somehow. I think it’s all to easy to completely loose oneself to the rumination of what the hell is happening or how can I get a different outcome. We have to stop managing them so that we can feel better.

That's why I snapped yesterday morning. He's in a foul mood again saying we've had the conversation and I know he finds this difficult ...as if he expected me just to admonish myself and yield to him again.

I didn't. I dont care anymore im not losing myself to this. If he finds it difficult then he's a grown man he can deal with it.

We all find things difficult. I don’t think it’s the difficulty that’s the problem, it’s the way they go about it. If mine told me he finds this difficult I’d find a way to do it together. I wouldn’t tolerate the attitude. I understand that people with ND find things difficult, I find things difficult but I don’t blame the other person, it’s my difficulty but it would be great to work through it with a partner who cared.

The only solution he ever sees is for me not to do things he finds difficult.

Good luck to him.