Married to someone with Asperger’s/ASD/ ND: support thread 18

[Bluebellforest1]

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, some have ND children. It is a support thread and a safe space, it does get emotional at times. Avoid sweeping generalisations and try to keep it specific to you and your partner.

these threads have been going about 10 years now and have been a lifeline of support for many of us.

Previous thread
www.mumsnet.com/talk/relationships/5447569-married-to-someone-with-aspergersasdnd-support-thread-17?latest=1

Can you teach a middle aged man empathy?!

No I don't think you can but my experience if you're assetive enough and they are willing to try, you can teach them to respond differently so that they can support you.

The problem is that when they hit problems themself, that can all disappear. So while my DH has been pretty supportive for most of nearly 50 years, he's been relentlessly ill with a series of serious unrelated issues for four years. And at times in that period he talked about "my house", "my car" and in company when asked where he went on holiday he replied "I went to Italy", prompting a surprised friend to ask "on your own? ". If I talked about a problem of my own, he thought empathy was telling me about a problem of his. He thought empathising with my illness was to tell me how affected he was by it. In short his facsimile of empathy broke down complete under stress.

Be very easy of committing yourself to an old age with an ASD man, imo they tend to get worse not better.

Good Lord @Imdunfer, are we married to the same man?
We’re almost 71. His recent multiple health scares, appointments, investigations, etc have been gruelling to say the least, and become a special interest of course. I confess that I’ve largely left him to it, although have offered to go with him if needed. Anyway, all investigations are negative.
But a big YES to the “my house, my car, I’ve done this to the house/garden”. Does it mostly talking to his friend and his sisters on the phone.
Bloody irritating when I’ve done all the organising/work.
And your last paragraph, yes he’s getting worse.

I'm sorry you get this too.

I think we hit rock bottom when he returned from taking the car to have a tyre changed and when I asked him where he had disappeared to he said "I took my car to Kwikfit. ". We certainly didn't have "his car" and "my car", and if anything the car he took was more mine than his, registered in my name, colour chosen by me. During a very fraught house sale in 2022, I overheard him on the phone say "my house" to a bridging company. We have co-owned since 1978! There have been many times when I simply felt invisible.

I have given him an outright ban on doing anything to the house without consult the co owner, me, first. I got fed up with lights appearing where I didn't want them, CO monitors stuck in the wrong place, wrongly laid path in the garden, etc

I've only just realised on reading your post (call me slow!) that he has made each one of his illnesses (we're on number 7 in 4 years now) a "subject of special interest" giving me endless detail about irrelevant stuff that neither of us need to know! I do not need to know how his latest epilepsy medication works (2 failures so far, this is the third) I only care that he isn't having fits and he isn't constantly angry, which was such a fabulously helpful side effect of Keppra.

At least his illnesses are identified, I'm not sure I could cope if he said he was ill but nothing could be found. You have my sympathy.

Even more similarities @Imdunfer
We moved house, from the area we now live in in the North West to rural Lincolnshire in 2013, basically on his whim. I was ok with it, we got rid of the mortgage and I made new friends and found new hobbies, and a job and I travelled back to the NW regularly to visit my adult sons and friends.

In 2022 I suggested (after a health scare for him) that we should think about moving back to the NW.
He initially refused to move, but after some heath issues (his) where I was driving an hour each way to the hospital, sorting out dog care etc, I said “either we sell and move together or sell and split”

Once we’d put the house on the market, there was lots of “my house” to solicitors, estate agents and anyone who’d listen. The move was unbelievable hard work for me, I managed all of the logistics.

The house we now live in, he originally rejected because he thought the garage might leak! I knew it needed a new kitchen, but it is a dormer bungalow with a downstairs bedroom and bathroom and 2 upstairs bedrooms and a bathroom. He found lots of totally wrong houses to look at. I insisted on a second viewing of my chosen house and managed to persuade him it was the one. He now tells anyone who will listen that this house is perfect and he’s glad “he” found it.”

As expected, I’ve made new friends, joined craft groups, rekindled old friendships, see my sons more often and am available to help out if needed, and they’ve helped us enormously.
He’s done nothing really. Makes bread, manages the small garden.
Sorry, that became a rant!

👋

This ^

Thank you for taking over @Bluebellforest1

Ive been unwell these last few days/weeks and missed the end of the last thread

Sorry you’ve not been well @SpecialMangeTout3. I realised we’d got to then end of the thread and panicked! Didn't want it to disappear. I’m impressed that at almost 71 I could remember what to do ~ go me!

I had this ‘oh no. I miss the end of the thread’ panic when I came on here today.

@Morrisons26 i found it interesting that your (ex)dh got more respectful towards you when you decided to separate.
i had a similar thing going on with dh last summer. We had a hard chat that rattled him and he has got better. More respectful yes but simply more aware I exist as a person.
And I started to do stuff for myself, wo always involving him. Whixh is doing me a lot of good too.
It has made a big difference for us, especially with me being chronically ill.

Having said that, I am weary of getting old with him.

@SpecialMangeTout3 I hope you're feeling better now?

I'm so glad the chat worked for you. I'd been pleading for change with DH for a long time and it fell on deaf ears.

I'm not sure what else I could have done. I did get so unwell I was in hospital so if that wouldn't have worked, I don't know what else would have done it.

But it's lovely he's actually responded to your plea for help and change. I hope it continues on.

I'm afraid yes, when the shit really hits the fan, that's when you find out what they'll actually step up and do. I don't think there's ever a good time to end these things and if my body hadn't actually stopped working, I'd still be in the relationship now, feeling very down and small.

If you feel wary of getting old with him, trust that instinct and build a bridge out of there, slowly but surely. That would be my advice because as far as I can see, these relationships will never give us what we want - and you only have one life. I'm grateful I'll get the chance I hope to experience more of being who I am, not who he is.

The feeling of peace I've had since DH has been gone most weekends has been profound. The children are much more relaxed. We all sit around chatting about anything and everything or spending time together but in silence. It's so lovely. There is no tension anymore. No more bracing for impact or defending something innocent that he's found us guilty of doing wrong. To live with that freedom is pure bliss.

OMG how long will it take to read through just one thread? Hard to know what to post that is not private. I am interested in Amitryptiline, DW has been on it for decades

I missed the tag, sorry.

So similar. Before our move i said to him one day "Am I looking for one house here or two? " because he was so reluctant to admit we needed to move out of a house we could no longer manage.

To be fair I do get all the credit for finding the lovely house in a great location that suits us perfectly.

Opened a piece of post addressed to DH as it seemed to be for his business, and he often misses important stuff by only opening his post approximately twice a year so I sometimes spot check.

I discover its a final demand for response to a speeding ticket, that was actually me for going 24 in a 20 zone. Honestly our car is so old and shonky I probably assumed I was fine but anyway I guess I'll now have to do the speeding course if I want to avoid points. Which is admittedly quite funny for doing 24 in a 20. But thank God I happened to open that letter.

But has he ignored all the others?? To be fair the course is fine. Hope you get it sorted so you can do that. I had similar 34 in a 30 didn’t slow down fast enough. But I actually enjoyed the course and it made me modify my speed consistently and really stick to the 30’s. I’m much more conscientious now about those 2 or 3 miles per hour.

@Morrisons26 i didn’t plea for him to change.

I changed. I took a massive step back and started to do stuff as if we were separated. So I went to see the dcs how I wanted wo automatically include him. I gave dc1 a gift for his graduation that was from me, not us.
from afar, I think it looked petty and not very nice but it allowed me to separate me from the relationship iyswim. And dh noticed. He noticed how he hadn’t seen dc1 at uni town at all in 3 years whereas I had etc…

And then I asked him what did he think would happen if I stopped doing all the things I’ve done since the beginning. The organising the birthdays, keeping the house running, etc etc….
Somehow that hit the spot better.
Pleading I think would just triggered his inadequacy.

He won't have opened them, that's the thing. It's been at least 3 months since he last looked at his post; I think now I've responded no harm done from that. I never asked me to open his post for him, though I sometimes felt like doing it regularly, but years ago I decided that was not something I was going to make my responsibility, because it isn't. I only opened this as I thought it was maybe some junk mail I could get off the pile.

I have heard the speed course is really interesting so no problem with taking it. No email yet from police, but assume will arrive in the next few days.

@Echobelly that was lucky!!
🤞🤞 everything is sorted now

DS and DH are sitting together cackling like loons at "Snakes on a Plane". I am very glad that they bond over watching films DH wants to show him, and DH almost always picks right (except the French film Diva, which DS didn't get at all!)

That is lovely to hear @Echobelly
I’m really glad they also find time to bond together and laugh. That’s so important (and maybe under appreciated)

Despite the impression this thread may give, that is actually their relationship 90% of the time. The bad 10% isn't good for either of them, disproportionately so, but the house is not a constant battleground.

Some of the answers you got are more about the poster, their own history and how the are grappling with their own trauma than it is about you and your family.

Sometimes, from a few words on a screen, you get a good idea on how good or bad things are. But more often than not, you just get a very small snapshot that says little about how things really are.

Yeah, I see it that way. I have one online friend who is very adamant DS needs a certain approach for his challenges but I don't actually think it's the right thing for him and you can't see the full picture online.

Just really fed up with the way my wife (both women) gets snappy and overwhelmed. She has autism in the family, 2 diagnosed younger siblings, and one older who presents as ‘stereotypically’ autistic but was raised by her nan so it was never considered, so undiagnosed. My wife shows some autistic traits too, but in no way the same as her siblings. She’s socialable, good at relationships, really empathetic. But she gets overwhelmed in busy and loud areas, and has special interests etc, she was diagnosed with ADHD as a child, so it could just be that, I don’t know much about how ADHD presents.

Whenever she becomes overwhelmed I feel like I become her emotional punching, it’s like if I don’t intuitively know what she thinks we should do, like I walk in one direction or I don’t see the sign as quickly as her she acts like I’m making mistakes, and then tells me off essentially.

Then yesterday we ordered something to eat, we spoke it through said let’s share, but I guess neither of us got our first choice, both compromising. It was horrible and went straight in the bin. I wanted to buy something else but no, she started getting overwhelmed and snappy, said no let’s go. Then in the car said, Im never letting you choose again. And I was just so annoyed, as this is another thing she does, wants to make things my fault so she’s got someone to blame. I could have ignored it for an easy life but I was like what? I didn’t choose that. She scoffed, which infuriated me even more. A few mins later I said no, I’m sorry, I didn’t want that, I wanted something else. She didn’t reply, and we’ve barely spoken since.

I think I might have overreacted because earlier that day we had been shopping and I was clumsy, dropped something, picked it up and two seconds later knocked something else over. She kind of shouted at me and told me off for being clumsy and I was so relieved that no one was around because I’d have been mortified that she spoke to me that way. I’m not a toddler. If I’m clumsy, it is what it is. Why does she think she can tell me off like she’s my mum?

It’s a bit like death by a thousand cuts, I’m just so sick of it. Then 95% of the time our relationship it good. She’s ‘not’ giving me the silent treatment as we are still communicating when we need to, so when I talk to her about her doing this when she comes out of it, she just says ‘I’m processing my feelings’ I’m not giving you the silent treatment, as she knows that’s abusive. I’ve had enough. I can’t decide if this is a result of her being ND or if she’s just a twat

@Pregnancyquestion that sounds wearing. 😢😢
Being the emotional punching bag or having the deal with stonewalling (even dressed as ‘time to deal with my feelings’) isn’t nice.

I very much feel that whether her behaviour is from ND or being a twat doesn’t matter as much as you think it does.

What matters is
1- the impact it has on you
2- whether she is trying to make things better or not
3- if there is any compromise to be found

Blaming the other person seems to be a default position for many ND people. And let’s be honest, on their pov, it lets them off the hook, removes the shame for them etc….
It doesn’t mean it’s ok. ND or not.

Have you tried talking to her once she has come out of he ‘processing feelings’ period. When you are both calm and unhurried? What did she say then?

Fwiw, from the many threads , my own conclusion is that to be able to get proper accountability and find a fair balance, it’s important for both of you to understand her ND. ADHD isn’t just about impulsivity and yes some traits are common with autism (eg executive dysfunction). But understanding that doing xyz isn’t just ‘normal’ (as in the norm, the type of reaction most people are going to have. Not normal = a way to judge) is the first step for a change.

If she has been diagnosed with ADHD, is she also on medication for it? Has she ever tried it?

In other news, have ordered a second, or maybe third alleged 'anti snore' pillow so maybe we can share a bed again. We're both pretty skeptical, but it's worth a try. I do feel we've lost some closeness by not sleeping together anymore (it's not so much the sleeping as the waking up together, though I do try to climb into bed before alarm goes off a few times a week), but I know it will take a few tries. The last couple of times we've attempted sleeping together again we've just woken on another up all night until one of us has gone to the spare bed! I reckon DH should give this one a few nights just to check he can sleep with it comfortably, as it's structured a bit differently to other ones, and if it's OK, maybe find a weekend we're not doing much to try to make it work.