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

I also agree it’s a stalling tactic. I went on a communications course for parents
of children with autism and they spoke about a boy in a cafe, he didn’t want to be there so made loads of noise, then started messing and eventually tipped the tray over and knocked the food to the floor and they all had to leave.

He got what he wanted. He wanted to
leave and did whatever he needed to do to get out of there. Other people would look in and say it was poor behaviour but no, he wanted to leave so did whatever was necessary.

This story has helped me a lot in other situations as I can see that sometimes people will do whatever they can do to get their way.

I’ve been struggling in relationship with my ASD/Adhd partner to the point where I’m starting to lose self confidence and doubt my reality. One minute he can be loving, caring, attentive. But he’s also easily triggered, and it can be something as small as my comment that he sees as inaccurate/grammatically incorrect/not factual enough. Instead of focusing on the meaning of my comment, the conversation turns into him pointing out these ‘mistakes’, in quite a harsh way.
For example:
Me: I bought vegetables for dinner for tomorrow.
Him: No, you didn’t.
I (confused): But…I did…(trying to run through what I bought, maybe I remember it wrong??)
Him: you bought a vegetable. It was a cauliflower, not cauliflowers.

I’m assuming in his mind, it NEEDS correcting (I’m not sure because he cannot explain why he does it; it just irritates him that I’m not accurate). If I get upset about how he speaks to me, he gets defensive straight away. His response is then withdrawal and avoidance of any conversations about the problem, because he perceives it as an unfair attack, rather than me trying to find a way of improving communication between us.
We don’t seem to be able to get out of this communication struggle.
Is there any way out of this problem?
just to add: the impact on me is that I started heavily monitoring what I say and how I word it, to avoid inaccuracies…I’m anticipating I can be corrected any time and that makes me anxious.

Gosh that’s really quite extreme pedantry, in my opinion. Either he’s not willing to change this behaviour or he can’t. I really feel for you, I can see how this level of correction would really damage your emotional connection, since it’s quite an abrupt response.

What you say here really sums up what a
person can do. They erode emotional connection and they erode safety within the relationship. They basically destroy the relationship and all of us are trying to get this feeling back but we can’t seem to ( because they can’t help it or can’t see it). We all know they can’t help it but it doesn’t stop the consequences.

I think the best choice is to be alone then. I can’t have my sense of self eroded any further, it will eventually break you. Since my ex moved out I don’t have to police myself. For anything. It’s an immense relief.

I can’t live anymore with someone telling me I’m wrong around tiny things that really don’t matter.

What I have understood is that they may be able to see the damage they cause but they either won’t or can’t change.

my husband told me for years this is who I am.

Ive become an over explainer because I thought if he heard just one more time how much it upset me, or how ridiculous and anxiety inducing I found these micro controlling moments, he’d stop.

But he chose efficiency and correctness and his world view over compromise.

Don’t waste your time ladies if it’s causing you to abandon your sense of self and minimise who you are. They won’t change.
it wouod require something monumental to see that happen and you are not the agent for change. It would have worked years ago. In the meantime you’re overriding your protective instinct to yourself and allowing yourself to be gaslit by them that this is normal. It’s very much not normal.

I think it’s just very important to choose the right person (if ones exists).

I think about my own daughter and her relationships. She makes friends quickly on holiday etc and she is brilliant with young children but she can’t keep a friend her own age. The other person always walks off as they won’t tolerate her behaviour. I try to talk to her about it but all I’ve got from her lately is “ I don’t want friends anyway”…which I know isn’t true. I just hope more self awareness as she ages will help.

If we stay as partners we are effectively tolerating and enabling the behaviour. I think many adults today have been enabled. I don’t think an adult can change easily at all. And if they do decades have already been lost.

Thank you for your responses - much appreciated. I keep going round in circles, trying to understand him and explain myself. He sometimes says he understands why I find him constantly correcting me upsetting, but he either seems unable to change/unwilling to change. The conversations end up being not about the meaning, but about whether I used the right grammatical tense, or word, or pronunciation. I feel gaslighted, even though his intention is not to do so. But any form of upset from me results in him feeling angry/rejected/ashamed and shutting down. It’s such a shame as he has so many positive qualities. Equally, I believe he finds my emotions triggering, but I cannot survive in a relationship where striving for emotional connection is one sided. It’s so sad :(.

Many of them are hanging on by a thread at work, TBH.

Constant conflict, confusion, inability to collaborate, misunderstandings, projects failing because they missed the point of what needed doing / didn’t listen properly / felt they knew better / can only do things their way and in their own time and in a particular order.

Often unable to engage constructively with performance management but make it clear they will relentlessly hyperfocus on grievance processes and vexatious litigation, so they can be intimidating and hard to get rid of.

Those who do thrive professionally often have total control of their own workload, with little need to collaborate or accept influence from anyone else.

You could try asking him to write any grammar corrections in a notebook. Give him a notebook:
Once he has a page full of he wants to bring this to you on the 1st of the following month, and he still deems it important enough to upset you then that’s the method he can use.

If he does present you with a written account of all your grammatical mistakes, as if this is important, then get rid of him for good!!

If he still thinks, (given time to reflect on it and not in the moment) that you actually need grammar corrected, as an adult and equal in the relationship, then he is not on the same wavelength. He is an asshole.

I know what you are going through. You can give him an alternative and see if he can change his ways to a way that won’t upset/derail you but I doubt he will do that.

you are important too. You are someone’s child.

I came to the conclusion that DH who needed to make sure every single thing in the house was optimised 100% so as to ‘save money’ was beyond help when he knew and I knew that a divorce would be far more expensive. He couldn’t control his need to control 🤣
At work these tendencies are more controlled because there is a payoff: money/survival/identity/status/routines

At home there is no payoff because they do not seem to need or feel love in the way we do. Their love is like a shallow puddle that’s easily filled but if it runs dry, the underneath isn’t affected, they are like a block of concrete. They have limited emotional capacity. My love is a deep reservoir or ocean and it’s full of life, teeming with life. It needs regular currents and rain to feel alive and healthy.

My DH does the pedantic correcting, which is a huge problem now that I’m perimenopausal and occasionally losing words.

I was gardening the other day and asked him where he’d put the ‘little shovel’, because I the word ‘trowel’ wasn’t coming to mind. He had no idea what object I was referring to. I explained what I was trying to use it for, I described it as a handheld tool for digging little holes in the garden. He still didn’t understand what I was after.

I eventually found it, and DH said, quite angrily, ‘that’s not a shovel!’

I said I knew it wasn’t a shovel, that was just the closest word I could come up with at the moment.

He followed me around the garden explaining that a trowel is NOTHING LIKE a shovel, a shovel has a flat edge and is used to move material like dirt or gravel, and is completely unsuitable for digging.

Our DC is like this to an extreme extent - if he feels someone has pronounced a word wrong or put the accent on the wrong syllable, or even if they have a cold that affects the way they make an ‘n’ or ‘m’ noise, he can’t let it go, and keeps asking ‘why did you say it like that?’ over and over and over.

It’s a combination of OCD and genuine struggle with language processing.

I don’t think it’s a behaviour that can be changed, TBH. Doesn’t make it any easier to live with.

That makes sense and could explain why they are worse at home ----then, just no more ability to mask. The only successful ASD relationship I have in my family is heavily enmeshed.

It’s very hard isn’t it? Knowing that the behaviour is hurtful but also knowing it’s not intentional.

I agree with you re emotions being triggering too. My dh doesn’t know what to do when I’m emotional (or unwell etc….)
It took me a long time to realise the part I was/am playing in our relationship. How my reactions were massive triggers for him which then made everything worse.

i like @3luckystars idea of the notebook.

Do you have children together too?

Btw I dont know about other people but I found talking/explaining/having a discusdion with dh just a waste of time.
It took me a long time to realise that but I’m better with saying things very bluntly (I will not tolerate to be constantly corrected on minor grammatical errors) once. As assertively and calmly as possible and then refuse to engage.

Going on at length seems to confuse dh even more and intend to then get emotional (think anger, sadness, grief coming out) and by then nothing sinks in.

@SpecialMangeTout3 no we don’t. We are in our 50s and met a few years ago.
It’s very hard. If I bring an issue up, or become tearful, it’s seen as at attack, accusation, and brings a massive shame reaction and avoidance. I am then left to manage my feelings on my own. I love him, and I don’t know how to be together with him. I’m sure he struggles, too.

I think some people are great people outside of a relationship just not that great inside one.

They come at them like a business relationship (which is was an Aspie friend once said to me (he used this term to describe himself)).. He said he didn’t know how to approach it any other way and all the women left him.

Oh yeah. Dont know if anyone else is the same but everybody and I mean EVERYBODY loves my DP. Very affable and easy going

Might be because he is masking, he feels more in control of non intimate relationships. I think intimacy exposes a lot in a person, their level of emotional intelligence and empathy etc. They probably subconsciously try and create this in intimate relationships but their is fight back from the partner.

It can be very had to find the right balance. Even more so if your DP isn’t fully aware of his own quirkiness and how it comes out.

Do you know if he can understand/accept that other people might think differently than him?

@MagicAlixk my dh is the socially awkward, says very little unless it’s one of his special interests.

A few in my family have terrible social skills and will actively shut down a conversation if they aren’t interested or it’s not going their way. The conversation always has to be purposeful, constantly about who died, who did this and that, then onto shares or how to fix this…informative all the time…even if you don’t want this information because you haven’t a clue who or what they talking about. If you go into a conversation that interests you they will shut it down. They seek a constant supply of information but no one must talk about feelings ever!

For some individuals, brain reward centers do not release dopamine or feel a natural "high" during standard social contact. This absence of intrinsic social motivation explains why chatting or gathering feels like an empty task rather than a pleasure.

Why the Social Reward is Missing;

• Brain Chemistry: Differences in dopamine or oxytocin pathways mean human bonding cues do not trigger the brain's pleasure centres the way they do for others.

This makes it feel less personal.

Today was the day of my abortion and the worst day of my life. He didnt text before I went in. Hes just sent me a message giving me a random life update as im sitting in hospital. Hes clearly totally forgotten

Oh @MagicAlixk im so sorry 😢

Are you doing ok?
And is there someone in RL you could contact? A good friend, family member?

I'm sorry @MagicAlixk - I agree with Special, is there someone else who will be able to give you the support you need? Wishing you strength over the next few days - will your OH respond at all if you tell him that you will be struggling mentally (potentially for some time) and physically (for at least the next few days)

@VoltaireMittyDream 'Those who do thrive professionally often have total control of their own workload, with little need to collaborate or accept influence from anyone else.' - this is exactly why DH was trying to develop a business idea for himself because he just had interpersonal conflict at work far too often. I think some people can take doing things a way they don't like because it brings in the bacon, but he finds it unbearable. Which is a shame as it means he'll not be renewing his current contract at the end of this year which could run for another, but he feels far too obstructed.

We're off on holiday tomorrow - he's taking his ADHD meds with, but he said he won't take them unless I ask him to because he knows that sometimes on a few days without them he gets a bit drastic (and holidays can be a flashpoint), so we'll see how that goes.