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

@MagicAlixk I'm so so sorry.

Thinking of you.

@Echobelly @SpecialMangeTout3
Thank you 🥹 I have loads of support from lots of people, I'm very lucky.
He sent me a life update about his special interest and then "Fuck! I thought it was Thursday, it's Friday!!! Im so sorry, how are you? ❤️"

I'm so relieved he twigged what happened and apologised @MagicAlixk - I do suggest you be clear with him that you will not be OK quickly because he just might not twig. I read a biography recently where the author described how she'd always been haunted by several pregnancy losses her mother had before she was born. She talked about this to her dad (who, from the description of him though she doesn't say anything about it, I am sure is autistic) and he is totally taken aback, as though he never really gave it and the impact on his wife much thought because maybe he just assumed she'd move on?

I think his autism makes him incredibly insensitive and unaware at times @Echobelly but in his defence I have a very good male friend who was supportive, could never say he wasnt but....just a bit of an air of "it'll be fine".
I think men dont realise the physical intricacies and emotional complexities of this process and in fairness im not sure i entirely did until I lived it

Plenty of ASD women who are like this also. The female ones in my life actually act a lot like males. I find them more difficult because you usually associate empathy and compassion with women. They must find it harder to mask.

My husband is the same. Everyone (especially me) loves him but he is just on another frequency.

I’m starting to understand that the situation is a lot worse than I thought. I am trying to separate from him, because everything is so hard. There is fog and confusion around everything. We have a conversation and if he actually stays in the room for the conversation, he remembers it completely differently.

We are going for mediation soon I’m so glad as it will be someone else’s responsibility to keep track of what’s agreed.

Its so sad. I realised last night that all these years if I am upset, he thinks I’m angry at him. No wonder he has been running away.

I’m so sorry for everyone struggling with this.

@MagicAlixk take your time and look after yourself x x

@3luckystars I agree about confusion.

dh is awful for that. We can have a discussion on something simple, like what we’re having for dinner. I think we’ve agreed on something and yet it’s clear he only remembers bits of the conversation. And/or has misunderstood parts of it.
Even direct questions can be an issue because he hears something different than what I said.

@MagicAlixk i hope you’re doing ok today 🫂🫂

My H is convinced I’m going deaf and I believed this for a long time, even getting my ears tested. I’ve told him numerous times he needs to raise his voice if he talks to me from a different room as I can’t hear. He doesn’t seem to comprehend this. I’m not going deaf, it’s that he can’t understand he needs to speak louder the further away he is. We also don’t seem to gel during discussions. He always thinks it’s an argument when it’s not. He then a will act and agree to something defensively which there is no need for. It’s soul destroying at times.

Absolutely the same here. He picks out a couple of words from a “conversation “ and writes his own script around them, usually completely different to what we’ve discussed.

Christ the confusion!!!!

I found it utterly utterly undermining.

I dont have much confidence at the best of times, or a good memory, and for over a decade to be told that I had things wrong, that I misunderstood, that "he doesn't remember that" absolutely destroyed what remained of my confidence. In verbal conversations you end up not knowing what's real and what's not, especially when he said one thing, later said the opposite and then denied changing what he'd said at all.

Even when I went back and found the original details that proved he was the one who'd got it wrong, (when there was an email) he'd go quiet. Never a touch of light humour about himself or the situation and never, ever, an apology for getting it wrong and turning it back on me, hundreds or thousands of times.

It was mentally absolutely destroying.

Even with my partner now, who just laughs gently if I get something wrong or says 'sorry' when he does himself, no confidence has managed to rebuild.

The confusion was one of the worst bits of it all, and that includes him refusing to take me to hospital when I had sepsis and driving at 200kph on the autobahn less that one meter from the car in front, with the kids in the back.

You say something, he takes something different from the conversation, you say No, thats not what I said, and he tells you you're wrong.

And never, ever a moment's human and tempering doubt that they might just be wrong.

I loath, absolutely loath, utter revulsion, at the way he tried to defend his version of what happened in any given situation no matter what, even when palpably wrong, and impose his version on me and on the children (they struggle with it too).

He doesn't remotely care about the price they and I pay for his absolute need to be right.

(this recent conversation might've hit a raw nerve, does it show?)

Just popping in as I actually don't need you lovely ladies as much, which in itself is a wonderful thing to be able to say 💐
Dh has been out of the house for about 4 months now. We only communicate about household matters. He asks "How are things?" I say "Fine" and apparently that is enough information for him.

I am still doing well with my cancer treatment even though i developed a life threatening condition from the treatment, the irony🙃
Emotionally its all very up and down, some days are definitely harder than others, but not having to contend with dh is such a lifted weight.
He does not know anything about my health as he never asks. I can almost deal with that, but the fact that he hasn't seen or spoken to his children in 4 months is the most heartbreaking aspect of all of this. He simply walked away after 28 years.
On top of everything that is completely out of my control, the overwhelming guilt I carry for dh's actions is the hardest.
So easy to say now, but yes I should have LTB years ago. The damage to my children is irreparable, they will be dealing with their fathers abandonment for the rest of their lives.
The wasted years and tears, trying to understand, make it easier, less stressful, less demanding for dh. Turning myself into a human pretzel to accommodate dh's needs and failings.
Encouraging the kids to accept their fathers limitations, making excuses for his inability to care fills me with anger and shame now😢
Learning that it was never about what I could do but was always about what dh could do was a lesson learned way too late.

@Ohdostopwafflinggeremy Im glad to hear your treatment is going well, though I hope the dangerous side-effect goes away fast :s that doesnt' sound good.

Regarding your ex, I hear you. The only thing I can say is that if you'd left, he might have had the children half the time and I can tell you from experience that that might have been literally dangerous for them.

The main problem is that we don't realise ahead of time what the nature is of the person we're marrying.

I hear and totally understand your regret .

Absolutely this! Always me who MUST be wrong. He would always tell me I had misremembered. I had misheard. I’d ask “is it not possible you’re the one who might have misremembered?” And the answer was a flat no. I ended up recording conversations (which apparently was something his ex had taken to doing as well!). I’d play it back to him. Or the kids would pipe up and say to him “no, you definitely did say that!” And he would shrug and say “you always have to be right don’t you? I’ve never known anyone like it! You’re obsessed with being right!”

No. I don’t care who is right. I care that you constantly tell me I’m wrong and my memory isn’t working. I care that there’s no acknowledgment or apology. I care that when you’re shown it is YOU who misremembered, you switch to finding fault with my character so you can avoid shame.

One of the many reasons I am so grateful I am no longer with him. The constant confusion and rewriting of conversations. The refusal to ever accept he might be wrong.

I’m so sorry for you all struggling with your partners current or past. My first marriage was to someone later diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic, though as his younger brother is in a home due to his autism and his older brother definitely is ND maybe that was involved as well.

Anyway, I guess it doesn’t matter, and he was also very abusive, but one incident I made a statement about for court he remembered it so entirely differently, and he was believed then - and cutting a long story short this ended up severely impacting my kids.

The difference in the ‘story’ blew my mind, and I didn’t know for years if maybe I’d got it wrong - though I could still see it happening in my head- and also if I’d just got it all wrong about him - it’s a complete headfuck to be blunt - and I was quite chaotic then - it was 8 years later it all came out in the wash that my ‘version’ and surrounding narrative was the more accurate one. A relief though awful and sad.

It’s decades back now, like a different life, I’m ok but I just get quite panicky still when I think I’m ’missing something’ or my thoughts/memories on a topic could be wrong.

My daughter definitely has different recall on events - sometimes I am interrogated on past events in the minutest detail and she won’t believe I can’t recall each nano second - and if I recall something different I’m lying. I do better with handling this than I have with a partner though - guess I accept how it is, though I still dread it - her voice changes as she is about to start, so I have a minute warning lol, but it’s too late to escape it!

It’s a dreadful thing to live with - so confusing, draining, destabilising- I wish you all the strength you need, staying or leaving - there are better times ahead.

I think I am lucky in that I’ve never wondered if I misremembered etc… and I think it’s in part because dh doesn’t verbalise his anger. Instead he retreats into silence.
His anger and stress comes out as a vocal stimming (he mumbles under his breath, Something that used to put me on edge because it felt full of anger) and silent PA (like putting stuff on the kitchen table to ‘order me’ to prepare xyz).

Now don’t get me wrong being PA is still being aggressive. But it doesn’t seem to have had the same impact on my self confidence or self esteem.

@MagicAlixk how are you doing, today. I hope you are starting recovery.

Fortunately DH knows he's more likely to not remember things than me. It was an immense improvement in our marriage when he seemed to make the decision to accept that yes, I had told him our weekend plans in advance rather than exploding at me every time for 'not telling him' when I could literally recall where I was on each of the 3 occasions I told him. That, combined with joint Google calendars relieved a lot of issues.

I find the truth about our relationships quite sad and hard to swallow. We are not going to be loved for who we are. As a person I can see the value of another person being made up of all the parts of them, all their experiences and ways of being. When I befriend someone it is because I see them. When our partners see us they see us within narrow parameters. I am not loved for all that I am.

The other thing I find hard is the empathy. Asking for empathy from someone who doesn’t possess it is going to make them annoyed with you. They don’t really understand, they don’t really care and they don’t understand/care why you want it or why what you need affects them. So basically they annoyed with you and you are upset and invalidated by them. Being an ocean and living with puddles is absolutely soul destroying. Puddles are better off with puddles. I wish I knew this. I wish I knew that a person needs these things in a relationship with me. I wish I didn’t just see the intelligence and the kindness and the charm and the fact they good at DIY, I wish I saw that they didn’t have much empathy and they as life went on it would have such a big impact.

I look at the success of the in-laws, they both puddles in the emotional world. They suit each other and they are happy. I am unhappy because I picked a puddle when I am an ocean and the things that make the in-laws successful don’t mean anything to me (and visa versa).