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

@Woodchipwalls perhaps you can arrange for the children to come and stay by themselves when they’re old enough? That way the kids get a good relationship but you don’t get the stress!

Incidentally, just thought I'd share this video here as I found it interesting and thought others here might find it helpful. This woman talks about it from the standpoint of her anxiety, which she realised sometimes caused her to lay a lot emotionally on other people and watching it gave me some interesting thoughts both about DH's occasional meltdowns and helping DS improve his confidence in the way she talks about accountability and finding things you can control.

Thanks- yes. That’s a really nice idea.

I read that in relationships where a person has low empathy there can exist a separateness. I am ND but have high empathy and a deep inner world. They have separateness from their inner world and that of those around them. I experience this within my partners family. My MIL is very low empathy and I’m not going to lie I have hovered over the narc pages a bit. Her relationships with both of her kids are separate. They have complete emotional detachment from her. I have wondered if this is the source of my partners hoarding and the other siblings perfectionism, he is very bad with this. Once scratch on a car and the panel will be re-painted or it we will be sold, he has no resilience. I wonder if others on this page are coming up against this? It would explain a lot of the hurt. It is hard to attach to someone who is completely separate because they don’t need you and we need to attach onto something to feel she and connected . My MiL and FIL relationship works well as they are both separate beings emotionally. My MiL will control the tasks and FIL is happy to do physically what needs doing. My MiL however has no deep relationships with anyone and who have no idea if she feels anything but annoyance about others and their silly needs.

Basically I wonder it ASD adults suffer attachment wounds from their childhood because of their own struggles of if their parent was ND. This could make a bigger struggle on relationships in the future.

I believe people with ND are much likeky to have experienced trauma. Whether it’s cptsd, trauma from bullying or just feeling they don’t quite fit in/struggle to understand who our social environment work etc…

It would make sense that someone with high empathy, NT or ND, would struggle with a parent, NT or ND, with ‘low connexion abilities’ (sorry the right words didn’t come up).
Whether this explains why some ND people struggle more I’m not sure. I know dh and dc2 get on well, and always have done, in part because they react the same way to the environment (silent, little small talk, little emotions showing up etc…). Theyre both ND and dh ND doesn’t seem to have been a problem despite the fact his inability to be caring/empathic towards me always has been an issue.

Tbh I’d be very careful to attribute whatever struggles someone has to ONE and only cause (like the mother or the ND of the mother etc…). It’s more likely to be a mix of a lot of things.

Agree with all the above about trauma. I also think societally things have changed so much eg with our relationship and family life expectations, with many of us leading more socially atomised lives without community, with changes in available types of work, with changed expectations at work of what a good worker or colleague is like; with our expectations and norms being set by the media about all of these things, more so again with the arrival of social media, with changes in how schools are run, etc so many more examples. All of that experienced in combination are all inherently hostile to ND people’s needs, and they are likely to be traumatising because they are so pervasive and being reinforced across so many areas of ND people’s lives.

I agree with this. I feel school just wants to achieve a person who complies on the surface. In my own experience of myself and my children we are very deep people. We ask a lot of questions, we like to know a lot of information. I am way too intense for most people and definitely expose how surface level many people are and transactional. Surface level is a massive challenge for myself, it raises my anxiety intensely but this is what I feel the world is turning into. I believe that is why more ND people appear to be coming out and we are experiencing more challenges. People have lost spiritual, emotional and all sorts of connections.

Definitely trauma issues with DH - he sometimes explodes out of the blue when I raise a concern about anything he has done or said. Bear in mind, I will have thought about my wording very carefully before saying it - not (just) because he might explodes but because I always want to give negative feedback to anyone in a non-accusatory way and I never want them to feel attacked. Because it won't land effectively if they do, for one thing.

Anyway, between the ADHD and his parents who will weaponise past things said or done, I think that if he's on a low ebb, this explodes into RSD and sometimes results in responses that just... don't even make sense? Like literally the other day I said 'I'm a bit concerned that if you keep using that language around [issue] it will cause more anxiety for DS' and he seized on me using the word 'if' and declared that me using the word 'if' meant I believed he was going to keep on using it and I was 'monstering' him and how dare I... now he quite quickly did calm down and apologise, but it's an example of how out of control things get. He reacts to me like I'm his mum being all 'You always, you never, what about that time you...'

DH diagnosed with C-PTSD now. Whilst I agree with the comments above I don’t know how to address DH trauma since it seems likely my expectations pre knowing he was ND have significantly contributed.

I have cptsd.
You can’t address his trauma, only he can.

Id also be very careful about assuming it’s the way you reacted before knowing he is ND that is at the root of it.
I suspect it’s more likely that some of your reactions were triggering for him rather than the cause iyswim. Cptsd is often linked to trauma in childhood rather than in adulthood.

I have to agree with that it’s often us actually being the triggers. My ex had some kind of undiagnosed something and I was a trigger. Being in a relationship with all the expectations that come with this was a massive trigger. He used to scream at me that I was the problem. I was not asking for anything out of the ordinary, mostly empathy but he could not do it and felt very threatened.

Something being triggering doesn’t mean it is fundamentally wrong.
Rather that the reaction to the event is out of proportion or sometimes totally unrelated.

No it’s usually a sign that something needs to be looked at. I couldn’t deal with it because when he was triggered he almost hurt me, throwing phones or slamming on breaks in the car. Making myself safe was more unimportant then examining his triggers at that point.

*important

Many of these men do not have any kind of an undiagnosed something!. He is your common or garden abuser. Why do we women tie ourselves up
like this when it comes to men abusing women?.

There is no justification or excuse acceptable for abuse. He’s not throwing things at his mother or work colleagues is he, no this is reserved solely for you.

It’s not your fault he has decided to embark
on his own private based war against you. In the abusers mind it is always someone else’s fault (yours) rather then their own. And these abusive men hate women too, all of them.

Thank goodness he is your ex marshmallow. He fully deserved to be chucked back into the pit from
where he came.

To be fair he did behave badly to anyone that challenged him. I’ve heard on the grape vine that he has gone for an ADHD assessment. We share a couple of distant friends. I thought he was undiagnosed angry bastard. Understanding someone’s triggers sure doesn’t make being on the other end nice. I think he’s probably looking for an excuse because he looses his temper and people leave him.

He likely remains an angry bastard as well.

Read Dr Joe Carver’s description of The Loser.

I’d put a crisp fiver in it he does not have ADHD at all. It’s an insult to those who genuinely do struggle.

Probably but he is someone else’s problem. He had something, he was an entitled prick with mummy issues. He was weird!

Possible rant 😂

I have to say I’m quite uncomfortable with using words like “prick” or “bastard”. They are statements about the person, rather than about what the person has done, and seem to set them in stone as having certain qualities.

And whilst it is absolutely true that some people don't, and perhaps never will, change, I think especially when we're talking about ND relationships we need to be careful to separate the behaviour, the impact that behaviour has on the other person, the intention behind it, and the person themselves.

Someone can be very hurtful without ever intending to hurt anyone. That doesn't make the hurt less real, and it doesn't mean the behaviour should necessarily be accepted, but I don't think intent and character are irrelevant either.

There is then a separate discussion about what behaviour is acceptable. Some things — hitting someone, deliberately frightening them, brake-slamming a car, etc. — are a fairly straightforward NO. Other things will be more individual and depend on the couple, their boundaries, temperament, needs and what they can or can't live with.

With ND (autism in dh case) in particular, my own experience is that DH's behaviour has been hurtful at times, but that was never the intention. Importantly, it never felt it was intentional. Finding ways of communicating that worked for him made a huge difference to us. If I had simply been told “he's hurting you, leave him”, I genuinely think that would have been detrimental rather than helpful (see what happened with Busty too). I needed to understand what was happening and try different ways of doing things before I could work out what was actually changeable and what wasn't.

And I think that's why I find the “just leave” response on these threads quite frustrating. Leaving may absolutely be the right decision for some people, but it's not something you should do because a group of strangers on MN have decided that your partner is a prick or abusive. It's a conclusion you arrive at yourself when, having looked at the situation properly, you decide that the relationship isn't workable or safe for you.
Sometimes that does mean leaving. Sometimes it means setting much firmer boundaries. And sometimes it means trying a different way of communicating and discovering that things actually can improve.
I think people deserve the space to work out which of those applies to them.

Thank you for your nuanced and very insightful post @SpecialMangeTout3

I think this in particular stood out to me Other things will be more individual and depend on the couple, their boundaries, temperament, needs and what they can or can't live with.. People are similar in broad brushstrokes, but they vary in smaller but still very significant ways.

It was hard to read the part about not saying "just leave" because I'm guilty of that myself. Particularly in Busty's case; the incident where her husband in effect refused to let her cover her breasts while approaching harbour was so extreme to my mind that it was deeply abusive. The fact he then went on to blame her was just .... extraordinary.

It's hard not to say "leave" when it's so clear cut, or when someone is unhappy. But you are right. A solid wall of 'leave!'s' is unhelpful and alienating to someone who may be slowly thinking things through. It can actually be deeply offputting.

Sometimes it can be helpful though to see that there's a lot of people all thinking that certain incidents are just not right, and that your relationship is in a very bad place.

Perhaps what's needed is a variety of voices.

Sometimes it can be helpful though to see that there's a lot of people all thinking that certain incidents are just not right, and that your relationship is in a very bad place.

Totally.
I think saying ‘this behaviour doesn’t look right/disrespectful/controlling’ is different I think from saying LTB or he/she is an awful person.
I dint think it’s a good idea to shy away from saying some things are not ok.

For what is worth I stand by the part that my ex was a prick. He never saw me as a person with feelings. His behaviour was appalling. Having someone treat me with respect has been very telling. You don’t realise until someone treats you well just how badly someone else did. My ex forced himself on me and humiliated me many times, he was indecent and angry and controlling. Extreme and more clear cut but still at the time I was lost in a fog of trying to figure him out.

There are so many really decent Neurodiverse people who treat their partners so well. I don’t think picking apart people and seeing them as separate parts is helpful as everyone is made up of good and bad so you could go through the entire human race and do this. As a whole someone can have good qualities and still be a prick to live with. What does it really matter what they diagnosed with. At the end of the day we deserve to be happy, safe emotionally and physically and growing spiritually and mentally not in slow decline which many on here are. That is the part of me that says leave, the part that knows what this decline feels like and doesn’t wish it on anyone. There is another person out there who will not need to be pulled apart and examined for you to feel happy.

My partners grandparents were talking the other day about their friends marriages. How they’d all been married decades and now they hardly talk to each other. They don’t sit with each other, they socialise separately, they basically can’t stand each other. It was so sad to hear. You get to old age, time to chill with each other, sit in the sun etc and you can’t stand your own partner. I do not want to be like this. My in-law grandparents are lovely together, very inspiring, gentle, they still at late 80’s travel together and sit in the garden chatting away holding hands, they are friends. Second marriage but over 40 years together. Grand father clearly has the ASD gene but he is just lovey, not a nasty bone and the way she talks about him is lovely. Very inspiring.