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

@VoltaireMittyDream thank you for your input.
I have to say I can see dh in there….
And us as a couple too.

Do you have an idea why a lot of ASD men you see struggle to explain why they want a relationship? Esp as sex isn’t the thing they automatically mention.

Alexithymia - difficulty recognising emotional states, including desires, and putting words to them - is a big one.

Open-ended questions are tough as well - i.e. ‘I can’t just come up with reasons why I want a relationship out of the blue - give me a menu of possible reasons and I will answer yes or no’

And then there’s the issue of uncertainty: ‘how can I know for sure whether I want a relationship for the reasons I think I do? How can I know I want something if I haven’t experienced it? How can I prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that something I think I want is actually right for me, or whether the fact that I don’t have it means it’s not meant for me?’ People can go round and round with these sorts of questions their whole lives.

And then there’s difficulty with unquantifiable things / abstract concepts: ‘I’m not sure what you mean by emotional connection - can you give me a very, very precise example, and explain to my satisfaction why it’s a good example? Can you point me to some evidence-based research in this area?’

And then there’s just never having been very interested in relationships in the first place - not seeing the point of fiction or drama / films (apart from genres focussed on problem-solving or world-building), and not having put the hours in observing fictional or real life couples, not having recognised chemistry and affection between people and thought ‘I want that!!’ (But possibly feeling aroused by something they see on screen / IRL and attributing the arousal to some physical detail - what the person is wearing, or the fact she has red hair, etc - and fetishising that)

For a lot of ASD men I’ve worked with there is a sense that ‘getting a girlfriend’ or ‘having a family’ is an achievement you unlock - like beating a level boss in an old platform video game, or obtaining the final item to complete a collection. The acquisition is the whole point. Once you’ve got the girlfriend / wife / kids, it’s done and dusted, chapter closed, time to focus on the next objective.

The fact that the wife and children keep expecting you do to do stuff you don’t want to do even after you successfully acquired them is a frequent source of confusion and frustration.

Some will say, when reflecting on past relationships, things like ‘I get on best with women who have curly hair’ or ‘I have had some success with women who have a masters in a STEM subject’. The success of failure of a relationship is assumed to be based on category attributes of the partner, rather than what happens between them. If currently experiencing relationship difficulties, there is often a lot of rumination about having chosen the ‘wrong’ person on the basis of missing attributes - e.g. ‘I should have known it wouldn’t work out because I’ve always preferred women who are bilingual / high earning / at least 5 foot 7 and I settled for less.’ There is not much sense of a relationship as a living work in progress, so much as a wise or unwise investment in an object.

Bear in mind though that I’m working with a population who have specifically sought mental health support - which means in some cases that they are experiencing significant difficulties in functioning. Not all ASD men etc.

@VoltaireMittyDream- thank you for your posts - very interesting.

I’ve seen the ‘I’ve not experienced it’ a lot in action with my daughter - the one that stood out to me was that she struggled massively with a sibling being pregnant in our home and when going to see the new baby said she didn’t know if she’d like it or not - I said most folk like babies but she could not think she would - she fell in love with him immediately- so much so that she couldn’t wait to see the next ones to the point of trying insane ways to get there faster - well running up a massive hill for a couple of miles instead of waiting for a bus is insane to me lol!

I wonder now that as her last relationship started quite full on, ‘perfect’ and super close that this has made it more of a struggle for her to get past it - she also just can’t understand some of his actions. She definitely has a random list of personal red flags based on her relationships- including hair colour for example.

I wonder if you think females present/are different though - in general of course. I was interested the guys never mention sex - as I see a particular liking for sex, food, sleep - I mean most of us like these things lol but way above the general average. My daughter always puts on loads of weight in a relationship as food sharing is a big thing - I mean loads not just the comfortable effect.

The forensic psychiatrist was doing a paper into girls with autism - he said they can be thought of as promiscuous a lot but it’s just a higher sex drive that is often there. This was 20 years ago mind.

Thanks again for the information- really helpful.

Hi - thank you, I missed this.

The comment came from nowhere - in my view - no arguing or anything - just the type of debate we have - and I thought both enjoyed. It took me to experiences with my ma and daughter where similar has happened (and an ex husband though that was different I guess). I do look at what I did to prompt the sudden digs/explosions but I don’t have this experience with my other kids, nor did with my Dad and other folk.

I find it disconcerting- I know now my daughter holds very conflicting views of me in her head - that’s ok - though it is sad as well for us both - I realise looking back my ma did too. I can, well have to, live with that and accommodate it. It’s just not for me in a relationship tbh.

I agree comms is paramount in any relationship- I don’t often find comms difficult tbh with people - I’m aware I can ramble and be disjointed myself but I try harder in general situations to be clearer and focussed, and explain to those closer to me. It’s the specific language differences with my daughter I find hard to navigate - and thinking it’s maybe similar with this guy - I could too he overthinking as I like to do!

It doesn’t really matter why - I do like how you/your guy handle things - really good. Other issue is I have a history of poor relationships so learning adult relationship comms too!

Thank you again - appreciated.

Thank you for all your comments! I'm going to read back through this thread with interest.
Last night he called and was incredibly sweet and supportive.
I'm starting to understand him better: he seems not to be able to divide his attention across several demanding things. If he has an extremely stressful work period for example, he cant seem to carve out mental space to offer support.
He can only be supportive in the very best conditions

@VoltaireMittyDream thank you.
Youve just put into words a lot of my dh ways 😂
And also why some questions, even though they’re important ones, leave him puzzled and/or overwhelmed.

I have to say it reminded me if dh when we were talking about gettimg married, many moons ago.
I asked if he thought getting married was a good idea and he said ‘well you’re the person ive been with the longest so I supposed you’re the right one’ 😂
Not I love you. I want to spend my life with you ….

That's really interesting @VoltaireMittyDream - I think that thing if 'getting a woman/married' as achievement is not just an issue for ASD men, though maybe more acute. A lot of problems for all relationships seem to come from men not understanding or being prepared for the two-way street and that there's actually more expectation on them than 'providing' by having a job. So many have grown up seeing women in the house running about sorting everything while dad puts his feet up/scrolls/games because he's 'tired after work', even though mum's been at work - in the home or out - all day too, for example.

This reminds me if DH who once told me that he had expected me to be. SAHM after dc1 ‘because that’s what women do’.
Apart from the fact I had NEVER said anything like this, his mum has always been working too. Both outside the house and, being a farmer, in the family business too.
Like theres a story that she went into Labour a bit early because she moved bails around (a heavy manual job) whilst 8 months pg.

It’s those scripts isnt it? Even if they don’t reflect their lived reality, that’s what stays.

And yes one very big issue I had with dh was around my responsibilities in the house (ie everything). Not unusual as such but it needed to be handled in a very different way. And NOT by talking about it - see the difficulties Voltaire mentioned.

@VoltaireMittyDream sorry another question for you.

Seeing the ways some ASD brains function, do you think it’s possible to ‘train’ them out of it?
By that I mean, on these threads, we’ve often hoped that our autistic dcs will be in a better place having been parented differently. I’m Wonderimg if what theyre learning isn’t more of a veneer that makes them ‘more acceotable’ in our NT world rather than teaching new ways to think iyswim.

I wonder if some of hoarding is based around the need to be of use. If they can find a use then they don’t have to let it go. I wonder if being raised by someone with ASD who doesn’t necessarily value emotional connection but values use and logic could create this.

I ask because in some ways my partner is very attentive and very supportive, he had no issues socialising. But his hoarding is very strange to me. If his mum sees value in the use of something then it could caused her kids to latch onto this. His brother is the complete opposite, if no one touched it for a few days it would be gone. He replaces everything in a heartbeat, he has no attachment to things. They must though be perfect, any sign of fault and it will be gone.

@SpecialMangeTout3 I think raising children so they have a better understanding of themselves means you’re not teaching to mask so much as adapt gradually and learning they can do some stuff but they need to pace themselves rather than an all or nothing approach. My DH has definitely learnt over the years that he doesn’t always take precedent and that he might not understand how someone else is feeling but it doesn’t make them wrong and him right. I think it’s about gaining tools to negotiate an NT world and pretending otherwise doesn’t help them.
Certainly not feeling you’re wrong and knowing you’re accepted can mitigate a lot of the negative behaviour I think and gives them head space to accept others being different. Knowing why you respond the way you do to something is always helpful. Not sure I’ve phrased the last bit well but hopefully you see what I mean.

I think a lot of this is down to individual differences, interests and capacities. As with anyone.

There are plenty of autistic people whose main areas of struggle are sensory and organizational rather than social, and who can interact and communicate just fine as long as they’re regulated and the atmosphere is fairly calm.

I do think some people will never be able to learn to consider others’ perspectives, or understand others as entire people in their own right, with their own separate thoughts and feelings and experiences, in the same way someone who is colourblind will never see colours the same way as I do, or the same way I’ve never been able to learn to read music, despite desperately wanting to and trying for years. It’s just not a physiological / neurological possibility for everyone.

Some people can learn that this is an issue they struggle with, and take steps to try to manually build in a cognitive step where they consider other perspectives - but that depends on having a coherent sense of self, or at least a concept of what ‘self’ is, and that every ‘self’ is different. This is a known challenge in some ASD presentations.

My DH still needs to be reminded all the time that his experience and perspective are not universal - e.g. he wanted to fire a DIY plasma cannon in the garden the other evening & I said he should let the neighbours know as a courtesy. He scoffed at the idea that anyone could possibly take issue with his harmless science project, and I had to explain to him that they had no way of knowing it was a harmless science project. All they would know is that there were unexplained gunfire / explosion noises coming from nearby, and this would quite rightly cause alarm. He looked confused and angry for a minute or two before saying, ‘I hadn’t thought of it that way.’

He has hundreds of these sorts of instances every day. Things like calling a plumber to fix a leak are overwhelming to the point of impossibility for him because he can’t think of what information he should need to impart - how far back he needs to go in explaining hydraulics etc - and it doesn’t occur to him that the plumber might just ask for any specific information he needs. DH approaches the interpersonal world either as though everyone knows exactly what he knows, or as though other people are brand new robots he needs to program from first principles. You’re either an extension of his own mind or some kind of terrifyingly unknowable and unpredictable object. This makes so much of social relationships exhausting and confusing and overwhelming for him, and it is much the same for our DC.

This too is interesting- my daughter worked for a dreadful petrol station that had them sole working and no official method of toilet breaks. She rightly decided she would take the toilet break - well she just couldn’t grasp at all that folk wanting petrol wouldn’t know why the staffed station was not staffed at the time they wanted petrol/to pay and maybthen knock on the locked door.

I tried many times to explain and gave suggestions to tell customers and naybe her manager - but she literally couldn’t understand my point. She left that job cos of the ‘rude customers’ not letting her use the toilet in the end.

DH approaches the interpersonal world either as though everyone knows exactly what he knows

Oh yes! 😂 I’ve said to dc2 so many times ‘I don’t know what’s in your head. You need to explain why….’
Dh is nowhere near as bad for that.

I found the way dc2 and dh approach unpredictability interesting.
dh can’t cope with change of plans. It sets him on edge. He is getting overwhelmed. So He likes to plan things a long time away (like a year ahead!) and once set, nothing can move.
dc2 is tge opposite. Since he was a toddler, his inability to cope with change means he doesn’t want to plan anything ahead as it could change. So all of his stuff is now planned at the last minute 😂 As a tiddler it meant not telling him what our plans until the last minute.

This is so relatable. Two people experiencing the same difficulty leads to two opposite and extreme workarounds, that it falls to the most flexible member of the family to try to reconcile.

Thanks for this thread.
I think my DH is ND and I’ve concluded that his undiagnosed generalised anxiety is shaping our home life and mine and DD’s behaviour.
He is basically in constant freeze mode.
He’s 50 and very intelligent, works, a good person but as a husband he is very hard work.
I do ALL of the Xmas, birthday, housework, emotional labour, decorating, decluttering, gardening. He is often on a screen or reading or generally alone resting.
He is a nightmare to collaborate with because he talks down to me often explaining how to pack yhe
food shopping and instead of finding a job to do when we’re meant to be cleaning the house, he will watch me load the dishwasher and undo what I’ve done to redo same for packing food shopping.
It’s also hard that any need or emotion I express is met with anger from him, disparaging phrases or punishing neglect.
It’s lonely.
We went to therapy together but he would always just tell the therapist that everything was going really well having not checked with me how I had been in the interval. If I dared raise something that I found hard, he would get immediately dysregulated and tell me to shut up, that I’m having a tantrum that I’m lying and he himself would twist the truth about how something had played out, this was a very unproductive use of time and money and in the end I became so apathetic I just went along with his “we are fine” narrative.
He is very controlling when he’s anxious (which is almost always these days) and sees our 10 year old expressing sadness as manipulation and reacts by purposely ignoring her.
I am on the bring of asking for a divorce but at the last minute he has said that he agrees with me that he needs medication.
Im going to give him a chance while he takes something for his anxiety but Im thinking it won’t solve everything.
He has a child (age 20) from a previous relationship who was so abusive and dangerous I asked that he and her meet not in our home because I was very scared for my young DS. Since this happened years ago she has cut contact with him. She has ASD
Do you think I should suggest to him that he seeks out a dx or is this over the boundary?

What’s he like around other people?. I would resdily assume he does not talk to his work colleagues or his mother with such outright contempt. I note also without much surprise he had not been diagnosed with any form of neurodiversity or GAD so you cannot prescribe those to him. Even if he was formally diagnosed aware it is still no excuse or justification for how you’re being treated as his hands.

You are dealing with an abusive man and your therapist was crap in that they did not recognise abuse nor saw that you were not safe enough emotionally to undergo joint counselling. Like many such abusive men he dominated the session and tricked the therapist into taking his side. You never got a say.

Abuse is not a relationship issue, it’s about power and control and he wants absolute over you a ASnd inform your dd. What is she learning about relationships here from you two?

He has a problem with anger, your anger, when you call him out on his behaviour. Regardless of why he is the ways he is this treatment of you and in turn your child is totally unacceptable. Do consider contacting Women’s aid and plan your exit from your marriage safely.

@NomoreHolidayswithhim im so sorry things are that hard atm

From your description, his dd bring autistic herself, I can see why you’re thinking getting a diagnosis could be helpful.

It’s great he has agreed to see his GP and look at getting some medication. Whether this would be enough to calm his anger and anxiety is really a question of trying it out.

re the diagnosis - I feel this would help only if he is then open to understand what autism is, how it affects him and to then change his behaviour/learn.
Do you think he would?
Asking to look at a diagnostic is totally ok imo. Not the least because his dd is diagnosed herself.

Re staying.
I think this can only work if you have a balance where both his needs and yours are met.
Do you know what YOU would want?

He’s only doing that as a stalling tactic as op is on the brink of divorce His treatment of his daughter is also appalling.

@NomoreHolidayswithhim how much of his behaviours is him in reality and not being pushed by anxiety as he really sounds very unpleasant and even if he were to get medication that worked I’m not sure I could forgive previous behaviour. Giving a ten year old the silent treatment isn’t anxiety it’s abuse. How does he behave when he’s not at home? From your description he could just be a controlling arsehole who happens to be autistic. Sorry but he does not come over well.

Does being anxious make you nasty? I’m not sure it does. Makes you a bit obsessive, like things to make sense etc but I’m not sure it makes you nasty. My mum had worst case scenario which came across as anxiety.

My biggest annoyance is the lack of ability to see others outside of you and see them as complete and not a threat to your existence. I am fed up of every opinion every need being poo pooed because it’s not theirs. Or it starting an argument merely offering a different way of doing something. I struggle with the arrogance of it. I like certain things a certain way because of who I am, my neurology, my past and experiences. I’d fed up of having people disprove what I want. I find the ND people in my life so rigid and argumentative. If you don’t back down the arguments will never cease.

@NomoreHolidayswithhim your DH sounds very similar to mine. Very successful very hard working but constantly surveying what I’ve done “wrong”. Also has methods for supermarket food packing, dishwasher loading, all manner of things. If it’s not done his way it’s not been done right. I had a physical and mental breakdown as I couldn’t cope any longer with the loneliness and the reduction of all my needs to being a waste of time and money, yes I got similar treatment.

I wish I’d left earlier. It models something very poor to your children, she will learn to override her natural protective instinct because you are teaching her it’s ok to be treated like that. I’m not trying to blame you ar all as I have done exactly the same, I say it to help you understand. I stayed too because I didn’t want to split up the family, I come from a trauma divorce household myself and was determined not to split because of what it did to me but now I see how wrong that belief was and how it damaged me and my children.

we have separated now and I feel immense relief and peace being alone. Even wheh he comes round weekly to drop and pick up his bicycle and even then makes comments about what is wrong in the house. Thankfully I can close the front door and not see him for another week. He needs to start storing the bike elsewhere, at his new place. It’s an excuse to come back. They are deeply unhappy people and micro control their environment as a way to alleviate their anxiety. However my ex won’t ever recover I don’t think as a) he doesn’t think there’s anything wrong and b) therefore no therapy.

hes told me he can’t change.

giving up holidays with him was the best thing ever too. Who needs that stress in their lives?

If it was ASD anxiety would they not be able to cope at work and be micro managing those also? How are lots of these men managing at work etc?