Asperger marriage
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Anonymous
Agree. It’s scary. The mindlessness, carelessness, and thoughtlessness is non-stop. No seatbelts, fingers smaller in doors, too hot or food given to toddlers, lost track of time, bathtubs never drained for 2yo, not age appropriate outings, equipment, bikes, movies, books, zero conversations, no teaching moments, leaves meals out on the table for young kids like they’re dogs that eat my themselves, burning themselves making s’mores with no supervision, etc. It’s to bad the family court system here doesn’t give two Fs about negligent incapable parent. |
Anonymous
This is precisely why I am sticking with the "marriage" and trying to find my own space and healing, create a separate space within to raise our children and help them understand what they are seeing and experiencing. Shared custody would be 10000x worse nightmare. Ultimately, the ASD spouse is happier tracking separately anyway. And fingers crossed / knock on wood, after about 18 months of tweaks, I am finding our home is much calmer. |
Anonymous
PP, please check out AANE and chat with Grace Myhill. Do the intake questions on the main landing screen. I promise you are not alone, and it is so therapeutic to be amongst others who have experienced these specific things. People outside simply cannot fathom. The role of a spouse is unique, and HFA can be so gentle with others and totally different with spouse. Of course it is not every individual. But your experience is quite common, and you will feel so much better if you find a group who understands it firsthand. It is a huge gift to yourself. |
Anonymous
| Look for meet up groups as well. All on zoom nowadays |
Anonymous
Np. I’m sandwiched with asd spouse who needs prompting and ASD adolescent. He can’t even parent enough to have his kid brush his teeth or shower with soap or shower at all. Asd kid loves it- zero expectations or rules or parenting! Bad habits galore! Therapies unwind themselves when he’s with dad. Ugh. |
Anonymous
Agree. I think AANE and Grace Myhill's groups are useful, but really only when you're just dealing with ASD. We are dealing with ASD and a personality disorder, that was by far causing the most damage. I'm connected with two Facebook groups now that have helped so much. Where does the most damaging behavior comes from-- is it the ASD or the comorbidity? That will tell you where to start. The support groups really solidified how fixed the pathology is, and my responsibility in breaking this cycle for my kids. They've had ten years of an abusive marriage, I'm determined the next eight will be stable (or as near as I can make it). |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
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Anonymous
I was in a psychologically abusive marriage with a man who presented with narcissistic personality disorder. My therapist saved my relationship when she suggested my husband was on the spectrum. My husband was willing to seek an evaluation. After he was identified as being on the spectrum, his special interest began learning about theory of mind and he felt freed to be who he is. When he feels emotionally disregulated due to my doing something that is contradictory to his expectation, he now takes a beat to tell me he knows his feelings are his issue and not mine. Does he become sulky and retreat to the basement to play online tabletop games? Yes he does. But I know he will figure it out and I know it is not my fault. He know that our marriage used to abusive, however unintentional. He has made it clear how sorry he is that he caused me all that pain. We also worked out the social bit. He encourages me to do the things I like to do and goes as far as to text my friends when I am down, because he know he doesn't know the best way to help me. Simon Baron-Cohen, the preeminent expert on neurodiversity, which underlines why my marriage was able to heal. The difference between anti-social personality disorder and autism is that Autistic people have bottomless emotional empathy but lack cognitive empathy (theory of mind), while anti-social personalities have zero emotional empathy and are frequently master manipulators due to their significant cognitive empathy. That being said, not every unidentified person on the spectrum is willing to work towards understanding theory of mind. I was fortunate that my husband did. As for your son...With a husband and three children all on the spectrum, I went back to school to learn as much as I can. The key to avoiding the excruciating statistics of self-harm and suicide for adults on the spectrum is for children and adults learn to use their gifts, see why the autistic mind is extraordinary (and why they need to learn theory of mind and cognitive flexibility), find their tribe and only mask when necessary. My children and husband are "Proud Aspies." When my third child was identified as on the spectrum, she actually celebrated. |
Anonymous
| What kind of therapy would teach an HFA kid Theory of Mind and being flexible/ adaptable?? |
Anonymous
Are you planning to leave? My H sounds a LOT like yours, except that he doesn't drink and is the opposite of hypersexual. In fact, he's extremely repressed. We haven't had sex in 8 or 10 years, because I got tired of initiating what I knew would be mediocre (at best), one-sided sex. I guess I should be glad that he rarely loses his temper, unlike many others on here. But that's because he shuts down at the first sign of conflict, which means that I have to escalate my own behavior to get any type of response. Usually he just continues to ignore me. Nothing is EVER his fault and he never apologizes or even admits a mistake. (The broken glass stories above really resonated.) It's a terrible example for our kids. I feel like I've been in an emotional and physical deprivation chamber for years. I need to get out. |
Anonymous
To the many PPs who mistakenly think that these stories are somehow a blanket condemnation of the entire autistic population: OP was asking to hear from people whose spouse has Asperger's. So clearly all these stories describe individual experiences of living with an adult on the spectrum. Your posts seeking to invalidate these experiences indicate a lack of awareness of theory of mind, which unfortunately many of us are all too familiar with. |
Anonymous
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How do I cope.
I spent a lot of time really sad about the experience my children are having. They are old enough to understand spouse is different now, but won’t understand what they’ve missed themselves until they are adults. I’m sort of numb to it now, mentally exhausted from compensating. I allow myself to feel sad about my own self. And what we’ll never have, and what I’ll never have. But I try not to let myself wallow. I try to work out and do something that makes me feel, daily. |
Anonymous
Ditto. Trapped here as well. Looking for a kid-safe time to pull the ripcord. |
Anonymous
Wow, that list above hits hard. Same $hit happening here weekly. It’s so sad our kids basically don’t have a second parent parenting, it’s like a big belligerent child who cannot learn or connect the dots and lashes out insanely. Good luck to us all. |