'He's got that from YOUR side of the family'

[unfitmother]

After having been very anti-diagnosis as he was concerned about 'labelling' DS and that an autism diagnosis could hold him back, I am now finding that the only person I have to protect DS (recently dx'd with AS)from is, his father.
We've been having a row, DH stressed about an incident that occured with DS at his playscheme and is generally taking it out on me.
He has just yelled up the stairs 'Where does DS get his autism from? Your side of the family.'
As well as being factually inaccurate, there's no history on either side, how will that make DS feel, if he heard it?
We've discussed Aspergers with him but deliberately chose not to use the word autism so as not to confuse DS who knows somebody who is severly autistic.
I'm furious!!

My DH says he accepts the label, and was keen for diagnosis but refuses to talk or tell anyone about it - I still call that a form of denial. I agree with tclanger, it is a lonely place but I try and be diplomatic and see that maybe these behaviours show how vulnerable and unable to cope my DH is. Its very early days and it takes time to adjust and accept for both of you. I think mums always carry the burden - thats why we are all posting on mumsnet. Thank goodness for this board.

good point Widemouthfrog .... although there is a dadsnet ... abd you are 100% correct it is very lonely

unfitmother .... I'm not sure I like your name and I would bet you are a great mum, you just have to remember men are a bit stupid at the best of times ... personally I would put a photo on the fridge (of myself) with "It's my fault my son is Autistic" written on it and just leave it thre .... then watch the b***d grovel for a few days

Oh, that's really unfair and horrible of him . Like there's really a whole load of point in apportioning "blame". Silly man.

He has seen the error of his ways, unfortunately he sometimes just says anything he can to hurt me when we're having a blazing row. Obviously, that did!

In my case, it is from my side of the family. In some ways it is nice to know.... DS1 is now spookily like my brother but I might be thinking too far ahead and too hopefully because my brother has done so well despite his difficulties.

If it helps at all, this is what my DH likes to say, too, that ds's problems are from "my side" or, worse, directly from me. It's useless to reason with dh at these moments, but I sometimes like to point out that 1) 50% of ds' genes are from dh, 2) even if ds was my genetic clone, we'd still have to help him with his issues, so, frankly, who cares WHERE he got his problems from? Surely that will not affect our attempts to help him, right? (But dh is not very keen on the helping front, either, but that's another story...)

I think in our case DS3 gets a dollop of ASD from both sides of the family - there are several men who fit the Aspergers profile on his side, and a few people who fit the ASD profile on mine.

But Mamax is absolutely right - even if you could pinpoint exactly whose "fault" it was down to the tiniest little bit of DNA - how does that help!!!