Feeling isolated after marrying into a very independent autistic family.

[mangorubicon]

I really don’t know why I’m asking but I’m just needing a place to get this out. I have married into an Autistic family and I feel like I’m dying a slow death. Don’t get me wrong, no one is directly awful but they are all self interest based and I feel alone. Both my kids are also Autistic, higher functioning but it’s hard and stressful. I did not know there was autism when I got involved. To be fair I think I’m undiagnosed also but I am also different to these folks.

I don’t have a family of such now so these are what I have. My partners parents and his brother and family live completely parallel. They will meet up and all get on well but day to day they have nothing to do with each others lives. No one visits each other, the cousins don’t have relationships because the brother focuses all his time on work and now the gf is so insecure she will not go out without him. No one asks how you are, if you do tell them something no one will do anything about it. It’s basically get through life on your own, meet do a joint interest and that’s that. I am lonely in this family, this is not the family I dreamed of, all in our separate houses living “comfortably” independently, no help, no support, no chat.

Is this something anyone has experienced?It’s like death by a thousand cuts!

Family’s are generally messy and complicated, if you dreamt of anything else you were always likely to be disappointed.

I also don’t think it’s weird for them not to help each other or an autistic thing, not all families are built on that sort of dynamic. My husband’s family are like this with zero autism.

A prime example is his nephews birthday at soft play last week which we didn’t want to go to. When I said we should check if his sister needed our help during the party before we declined, he looked at me like I had two heads - they’re not a “helping family”. No one offers help unless explicitly asked, no one expects it either. It’s very different to mine but it’s worked for them fine for 40+ years.

I was a child in this type of dynamic the OP is describing, children definitely were not being prioritised or at the very least from speaking to my siblings and other relatives growing up with their own parents they, we all, felt extremely deep existential loneliness and isolation growing up in these dynamics.

There isn’t any world where what the OP is describing meets children’s emotional needs.

I have two autistic children and they would be lost in the world with that level of emotional depth. They still need their emotions mirrored back to them and someone to be able to help them to process difficult experiences and emotions so they can learn how to do that, just because they are autistic doesn’t mean they don’t have emotional needs and just because a NT child has ND parents doesn’t mean those needs disappear.

@mangorubicon that is the condition unfortunately it is that social communication deficit.

My inlaws are like that. FIL and a SIL are the worst for it, MIL was slightly better and very active socially, just not with us, the other SIL is actually pretty great , but lives in another country so contact is mostly through sporadic whatsapps. DH is somewhere in between and shit at keeping in contact too. As a result , we barely saw them and when we did, it was fairly awkward and uncomfortable so they never featured as a support/tribe option.

You do seem to be complaining that autistic people aren’t great at communication.

it is literally part of the diagnosis,

(I have a dd with autism, when she’s not living with me she doesn’t contact me for months then I’ll get a phone call at 3am to say she’s being admitted to hospital and can I come up?

What they do with their time and relationships is their business. You need to backoff a bit from judging their lives. Develop your own connections, it is not the job of your in-laws to make you feel needed. I don't mean all this in a harsh way, just a matter of fact one.

You're expecting neurotypical behaviour from people with diagnosed communication disorders - it's never going to go the way you want it to.

I agree with other posters in that most people love this way. I am also married to an autistic DH and have a child going through the process of diagnosis. I feel sometimes lonely due to my DH’s self focus and inability to anticipate or read my own needs - but the wider thing you’re describing I get from my friendships, which is something I spend a lot of time and energy on. If your relationship with your DH is positive that’s great; and I I think friendships is the area you should focus on rather than DH’s family members.

But that is fine that is how they want to live. They are private and independent.

They don’t have to have friends or visit you. The GP don’t have to visit the kids and live in your pocket.

You need to let them be them and accept them. It sounds like you are really struggling. You really need to forget them and that they exist. You need to get your head around them not wanting the relationships you do.

it’s nothing to do with autism or anything it’s just people being people.

you need to get you head around it as it sounds like it is eating you ip and you need to accept it and move on.

I am NC with my brother now as he hurt me too many times. My DH brother has come to accept that my DH is difficult and doesn’t want to meet for drinks. PIL are lovely.

find your balance and protect you peace.

they are not doing anything wrong.

Ok I wasn't referring to it from a ND angle and I don't think the poster I was quoting was either. I have an autistic adult sister and whilst communication isn't flowing, she definitely texts to ask about the DC every so often. I just found it sad that some people think zero communication within a family is 'normal'. I think where a whole family is autistic you really need to manage expectations.

I get you, OP. My inlaws are a bit like this - not quite as extreme, but similar traits. I would find it very difficult if I didn’t also have my family, who are the opposite extreme (tbh there’s probably a happy medium!).

I don’t think you’ll change them, though. They’re just not very interested in the sort of relationship you’d like. I think building your ‘village’ with friends instead is the only thing you can do - but I appreciate that’s not always easy, particular when your children have additional needs.

I think it's normal in a lot of families even where there isn't any autism.

Not everyone is close with their relatives or talks to them a lot. It doesn't mean they don't care or that they're bad people.

Autism is a nuerodevelopmental disability. The person with autism cannot meet you in the middle because it's not fair...no more than someone with a physical disability might be unable to literally meet you in the middle. You're actually showing a really profound misunderstanding of your own children here, so worry about them before you start worrying about your in laws kids.

I get it. My family is hopeless as well, probably different causes although ND is showing up all through the next generation.

DH’s family though, are different again. I think you are probably missing the connection with your husband, and reflecting that onto his family as well. I had to find all my emotional fulfilment elsewhere- build friendships, hobbies, do therapy, and basically be exactly as independent and self contained as they are.

I warn you, it gets hard as the parents become frail. DH’s family do that, ‘You don’t want to do that, why don’t you…’, thing as well. It means no one is stepping up to organise support for the elderly parents. When you raise a concern with the siblings ‘No, they’re fine’.

Well yes, but they can’t get cash out if Dad is ill, they can’t get food and shopping if the son is ill. It’s like a 3 legged stool- and getting very rickety.

I feel your pain- go out and build a life separately from your husband, kids or no kids. Prioritise yourself, because no one is looking out for you. All the time and effort you put into being considerate will never come back, so you must look after yourself!

I grew up in a family like this and it was very isolated. The insistence that children should not like X but Y (to align with their own interests) and not ever checking in with one another or bothering to visit much particularly rings a bell. My DF hasn't been to see us more than a couple of times in 30 years!

I know several people who are autistic and great, empathetic parents. But undiagnosed folk will have developed the coping strategies they have developed without any support or understanding- and may have rejection sensitivity making it hard for you to bring up your different needs. I agree with others that building your own 'tribe' may help but ultimately, I wonder if therapy might also be what is needed?

My kids are given a lot of support and lots of it is about regulation but they also support them how to have healthy relationships. Part of that is learning about the feelings of others. My kids are higher functioning though so this could mean it’s different. One day they will be parents possibly and hopefully will have a greater ability to meet their children as have I. Like I say I am definitely ND and not NT as others have suggested.

My H also is having hoarding problems and lots of anxiety around throwing anything away. I have mentioned this to his parents and they have told me that he is allowed to keep whatever he needs. Nowhere is our needs and the kids needs being considered. I feel they are them and they will never do anything differently, never consider anyone else and that’s that!

Why are you telling his parents?

He’s not a child 🤦‍♀️

His hoarding is a conversation for you both as husband and wife.

You need to be an adult here. Tell your husband what he can and can’t have in your home

Why on earth are you going to his parents about this?

They were here at the time. Previously they had only visited his house twice in the 7 years he moved out so they didn’t witness the extent of the issue. They witnessed his distress at throwing away a pair of shoes with holes in whilst here. I was told not to rock the boat and allow him to keep what he wanted. He already at that point had saved every pair of shoes he’d had since a teenager. I said that we are struggling to save any of the kids things and was told they don’t need anything. Why does he but not them?

We have rules about hoarding. We talk about what we will get rid of to make room for the new thing. Whether the thing we’re keeping has been useful in 20+ years. The time I made him throw away the train tickets he’d collected over 5 years of daily commute, and how that hadn’t turned out to be a problem after all.
It takes a lot of management. Also, discuss that an empty cupboard is a place to reorganise things, not a place to fill immediately with more stuff. Also… things go in other things. Not on top, down the side and underneath. If there’s no room inside the bookshelf, don’t squeeze things on top, down the side, and underneath chairs and beds. If it doesn’t have a home it can’t stay.

I cannot emphasise this enough, if you want to have a home you can move in you have to be really, calmly, obstinate. Just like he is. But more.

Friends outside the family

I take responsibility for moving things on out. We have a pile of things that I will be taking where they need to go. ‘Putting in the bin’ is too confronting. I take them along with things that have been grown out of etc. some to charity shops. Some to recycling. And some 🤫 to the tip.

I think you've simultaneously thrown a red herring and fat onto the fire by mentioning autism, which may have no relevance.

Basically, you wanted the families to all be involved and to be in regular contact

I understand that that's what my family is like

But what you're describing, I think is very much what people are like now

I can tell you my best friends in-laws are exactly the same I don't have in-laws so I don't know what I would expect but she finds it very strange

She initially tried to create some kind of big family, crossover family - but she had to accept that no one was interested.

It sounds like you should to look for what you need outside of the family

You marry a person not their family. Did you want a husband or a ready made family? They’re not your parents/siblings. Your expectations are unrealistic.