How do you stay married to an ASD HFA Aspergers husband?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:how did you date and fall in love with him? surely this isn't a new thing.

It’s in her Op, he’s successful at his job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
DP here. How does one deal with rumination, in particular, by a spouse?

A lot of different DSM diagnoses involve rumination. Anxiety, OCD, depression. So it depends. If the ruminating is “ego dystonic” and they are self aware (like OCD) you probably have a different approach than a depressed person stuck in a negative thought spiral but not seeing the thoughts.

Def do not see any ruminating by our Asperger family members.

If anything it’s scary how easily they hit the Reset button after having a blow up or offending someone. They sleep like a baby, wake up like nothing happened, and ignore the elephant in the room.

My speeders spouse definitely doesn’t “fight fair.” In fact he typically deflects, blames others, makes excuses, lies, and would rather start a side argument than resolve a small or large conflict. That’s quite damaging to trust and what’s left of the relationship. It’s not ruminating but he’ll bring up one-offs from long ago to try to “prove” he didn’t do something. Or it doesn’t matter (to him very little matters.).

Same. I think some people tend to over focus and ruminate and others tend to under focus and just live by impulse day to day. My ex also had adhd, so it was a combination of ADHD and autism among other issues. The adhd part was probably the lack of executive function like the time blindness. The autism part was related to the social issues.

Who diagnosed him?

A psychiatrist he picked out to go see.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure if this is practical advice for the OP or more of a social-anthropologically minded response to some of the PPs but it may be useful to take a moment to familiarize with marriage and kinship patterns from basically any culture and time period pre 20th cent. Once you realize how much we currently require from our marital relationships (lover, friend, domestic laborer, financial provider) it doesn't take much to see how a larger group of people, and certainly those who are not neurotypical, can fail to meet expectations more easily.

In general, contemporary society exacerbates neurodiverse traits which I think is one of the reasons we are seeing an increase in diagnoses. So many things that made life simpler to navigate have disappeared: clearly defined social norms and expectations, clearly defined gender roles, clear lines between work and home life, widespread religious life and the daily/weekly rhythms associated with religious rituals and customs, etc. Some of these things you might say we are better off without but there are always knock-on effects with social change and the fact that we have very few remaining social structures that we all organize our lives by makes life more stressful for the neurodiverse adult. There are no guardrails. We all have to reinvent the wheel of what functional social and homes lives look like and it's harder for those with ASD, and to a lesser extent ADHD, to do this. Adults need role models too and nuclear families are by default siloed off from one another.

Maybe some will read this and say well, we live in the here and now. And I agree that you can't just exit society and live in a world where your ideals about marriage and home life arent impacted by the mainstream culture. But when you take some time to reflect on how our current marriage, kinship and social patterns (ie egalitarian/nuclear family, broken/distant family networks, lack of religious community, etc) are so totally alien from most of human history, it doesn't take much to see that we've created a society that is harder for those who aren't naturals at forming social connections to navigate. We literally have parents on here saying that the world we live in can no longer support someone with ASD having a spouse or kids--the marital expectations are just too demanding. That's been taken away from them. And that's a problem for all of us bc human civilization cannot flourish without the neurodiverse.

I've been on these forums for a decade+, and this is the smartest, kindest, most gracious reply I think I've ever read. Thank you, pp. Now go write a book!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Imo adhd guys are worse. Lazy fks. Just eating weed.
I met women who thinks so highly of themselves and they are mostly ugly, big nose.

No wonder these people married together and have more kids with mental issues.

Now SIDS, sudden infant death included Marijuana as one of the possible reasons for an infants death. If you smoke tobacco or Marijuana while pregnant who will hurt your baby's brain and breathing.

? In this scenario the man is the one smoking. This post makes no sense and is not related to OP at all. How is OP supposed to use this info?

Also each generation passes on its traits to either the opposite sex or same sex so these traits don't always stay in the female or male line.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure if this is practical advice for the OP or more of a social-anthropologically minded response to some of the PPs but it may be useful to take a moment to familiarize with marriage and kinship patterns from basically any culture and time period pre 20th cent. Once you realize how much we currently require from our marital relationships (lover, friend, domestic laborer, financial provider) it doesn't take much to see how a larger group of people, and certainly those who are not neurotypical, can fail to meet expectations more easily.

In general, contemporary society exacerbates neurodiverse traits which I think is one of the reasons we are seeing an increase in diagnoses. So many things that made life simpler to navigate have disappeared: clearly defined social norms and expectations, clearly defined gender roles, clear lines between work and home life, widespread religious life and the daily/weekly rhythms associated with religious rituals and customs, etc. Some of these things you might say we are better off without but there are always knock-on effects with social change and the fact that we have very few remaining social structures that we all organize our lives by makes life more stressful for the neurodiverse adult. There are no guardrails. We all have to reinvent the wheel of what functional social and homes lives look like and it's harder for those with ASD, and to a lesser extent ADHD, to do this. Adults need role models too and nuclear families are by default siloed off from one another.

Maybe some will read this and say well, we live in the here and now. And I agree that you can't just exit society and live in a world where your ideals about marriage and home life arent impacted by the mainstream culture. But when you take some time to reflect on how our current marriage, kinship and social patterns (ie egalitarian/nuclear family, broken/distant family networks, lack of religious community, etc) are so totally alien from most of human history, it doesn't take much to see that we've created a society that is harder for those who aren't naturals at forming social connections to navigate. We literally have parents on here saying that the world we live in can no longer support someone with ASD having a spouse or kids--the marital expectations are just too demanding. That's been taken away from them. And that's a problem for all of us bc human civilization cannot flourish without the neurodiverse.

I've been on these forums for a decade+, and this is the smartest, kindest, most gracious reply I think I've ever read. Thank you, pp. Now go write a book!

Agreed, but it seems like a lot of asd and adhd people don't want to stay in the lines so they are the ones pushing the limits of society in all facets. And it really bothers me when there is lying about who they are just to get something they want painting a false persona. I think we've created a society where we ask a lot of people like this with innovations and money creation, but then don't like it when they are too one sided.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
DP here. How does one deal with rumination, in particular, by a spouse?

A lot of different DSM diagnoses involve rumination. Anxiety, OCD, depression. So it depends. If the ruminating is “ego dystonic” and they are self aware (like OCD) you probably have a different approach than a depressed person stuck in a negative thought spiral but not seeing the thoughts.

Def do not see any ruminating by our Asperger family members.

If anything it’s scary how easily they hit the Reset button after having a blow up or offending someone. They sleep like a baby, wake up like nothing happened, and ignore the elephant in the room.

My speeders spouse definitely doesn’t “fight fair.” In fact he typically deflects, blames others, makes excuses, lies, and would rather start a side argument than resolve a small or large conflict. That’s quite damaging to trust and what’s left of the relationship. It’s not ruminating but he’ll bring up one-offs from long ago to try to “prove” he didn’t do something. Or it doesn’t matter (to him very little matters.).

Same. I think some people tend to over focus and ruminate and others tend to under focus and just live by impulse day to day. My ex also had adhd, so it was a combination of ADHD and autism among other issues. The adhd part was probably the lack of executive function like the time blindness. The autism part was related to the social issues.

+1 with the significant degree of lack of self awareness we definitely do NOT see any ruminating or pondering of anything. More like it goes right over their heads, they ridicule people who plan or debrief afterwards. They’re on to their next thing they want to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure if this is practical advice for the OP or more of a social-anthropologically minded response to some of the PPs but it may be useful to take a moment to familiarize with marriage and kinship patterns from basically any culture and time period pre 20th cent. Once you realize how much we currently require from our marital relationships (lover, friend, domestic laborer, financial provider) it doesn't take much to see how a larger group of people, and certainly those who are not neurotypical, can fail to meet expectations more easily.

In general, contemporary society exacerbates neurodiverse traits which I think is one of the reasons we are seeing an increase in diagnoses. So many things that made life simpler to navigate have disappeared: clearly defined social norms and expectations, clearly defined gender roles, clear lines between work and home life, widespread religious life and the daily/weekly rhythms associated with religious rituals and customs, etc. Some of these things you might say we are better off without but there are always knock-on effects with social change and the fact that we have very few remaining social structures that we all organize our lives by makes life more stressful for the neurodiverse adult. There are no guardrails. We all have to reinvent the wheel of what functional social and homes lives look like and it's harder for those with ASD, and to a lesser extent ADHD, to do this. Adults need role models too and nuclear families are by default siloed off from one another.

Maybe some will read this and say well, we live in the here and now. And I agree that you can't just exit society and live in a world where your ideals about marriage and home life arent impacted by the mainstream culture. But when you take some time to reflect on how our current marriage, kinship and social patterns (ie egalitarian/nuclear family, broken/distant family networks, lack of religious community, etc) are so totally alien from most of human history, it doesn't take much to see that we've created a society that is harder for those who aren't naturals at forming social connections to navigate. We literally have parents on here saying that the world we live in can no longer support someone with ASD having a spouse or kids--the marital expectations are just too demanding. That's been taken away from them. And that's a problem for all of us bc human civilization cannot flourish without the neurodiverse.

I've been on these forums for a decade+, and this is the smartest, kindest, most gracious reply I think I've ever read. Thank you, pp. Now go write a book!

Agreed, but it seems like a lot of asd and adhd people don't want to stay in the lines so they are the ones pushing the limits of society in all facets. And it really bothers me when there is lying about who they are just to get something they want painting a false persona. I think we've created a society where we ask a lot of people like this with innovations and money creation, but then don't like it when they are too one sided.

This is such a paranoid and openly prejudiced viewpoint of people with disabilities. There is not a cadre of people with autism and ADHD out there “pushing the limits of society” and “lying about who they are to get something they want.” It wasn’t that long ago when people with autism were being targeted for extermination. This is really SO offensive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
DP here. How does one deal with rumination, in particular, by a spouse?

A lot of different DSM diagnoses involve rumination. Anxiety, OCD, depression. So it depends. If the ruminating is “ego dystonic” and they are self aware (like OCD) you probably have a different approach than a depressed person stuck in a negative thought spiral but not seeing the thoughts.

Def do not see any ruminating by our Asperger family members.

If anything it’s scary how easily they hit the Reset button after having a blow up or offending someone. They sleep like a baby, wake up like nothing happened, and ignore the elephant in the room.

My speeders spouse definitely doesn’t “fight fair.” In fact he typically deflects, blames others, makes excuses, lies, and would rather start a side argument than resolve a small or large conflict. That’s quite damaging to trust and what’s left of the relationship. It’s not ruminating but he’ll bring up one-offs from long ago to try to “prove” he didn’t do something. Or it doesn’t matter (to him very little matters.).

Same. I think some people tend to over focus and ruminate and others tend to under focus and just live by impulse day to day. My ex also had adhd, so it was a combination of ADHD and autism among other issues. The adhd part was probably the lack of executive function like the time blindness. The autism part was related to the social issues.

Who diagnosed him?

Wtf? Stop asking this of everyone, like some lame “gotcha” nazi who can’t make a point ever.

Phd psychologists who conducted the surveys and 5 hour neuropsych test. In addition to the chronic and persistent pattern of symptoms.

Either way, fix the symptoms and issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can you foster deeper friendships outside the marriage? Would he be willing to open up the marriage?

+1

Since they are bad at processing new ideas or concepts or change, go slow with this. And if he offers, praise him and agree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure if this is practical advice for the OP or more of a social-anthropologically minded response to some of the PPs but it may be useful to take a moment to familiarize with marriage and kinship patterns from basically any culture and time period pre 20th cent. Once you realize how much we currently require from our marital relationships (lover, friend, domestic laborer, financial provider) it doesn't take much to see how a larger group of people, and certainly those who are not neurotypical, can fail to meet expectations more easily.

In general, contemporary society exacerbates neurodiverse traits which I think is one of the reasons we are seeing an increase in diagnoses. So many things that made life simpler to navigate have disappeared: clearly defined social norms and expectations, clearly defined gender roles, clear lines between work and home life, widespread religious life and the daily/weekly rhythms associated with religious rituals and customs, etc. Some of these things you might say we are better off without but there are always knock-on effects with social change and the fact that we have very few remaining social structures that we all organize our lives by makes life more stressful for the neurodiverse adult. There are no guardrails. We all have to reinvent the wheel of what functional social and homes lives look like and it's harder for those with ASD, and to a lesser extent ADHD, to do this. Adults need role models too and nuclear families are by default siloed off from one another.

Maybe some will read this and say well, we live in the here and now. And I agree that you can't just exit society and live in a world where your ideals about marriage and home life arent impacted by the mainstream culture. But when you take some time to reflect on how our current marriage, kinship and social patterns (ie egalitarian/nuclear family, broken/distant family networks, lack of religious community, etc) are so totally alien from most of human history, it doesn't take much to see that we've created a society that is harder for those who aren't naturals at forming social connections to navigate. We literally have parents on here saying that the world we live in can no longer support someone with ASD having a spouse or kids--the marital expectations are just too demanding. That's been taken away from them. And that's a problem for all of us bc human civilization cannot flourish without the neurodiverse.

I've been on these forums for a decade+, and this is the smartest, kindest, most gracious reply I think I've ever read. Thank you, pp. Now go write a book!

Agreed, but it seems like a lot of asd and adhd people don't want to stay in the lines so they are the ones pushing the limits of society in all facets. And it really bothers me when there is lying about who they are just to get something they want painting a false persona. I think we've created a society where we ask a lot of people like this with innovations and money creation, but then don't like it when they are too one sided.

No, it’s simpler with that. With more freedoms, choices, technology and independence— instead of well-defined roles, routines, less fluid job functions — an adult must created their own structure, schedule, and goals to their life.
And someone with executive functioning skill deficients and poor communication skills will struggle to do this, creating chaos.

[Anonymous]

Regressing in manners, respect of others, verbal communication, and selfishness is not pushing the limits of anything. Unless you mean who much their parents, spouses and own kids will take of it. Yeah, those limits get pushed.

[Anonymous]

My parents have a very weird marriage and my dad is likely on the spectrum. He volunteers sixty hours a week at the animal shelter in retirement and was upset that it was closed on Christmas because he wanted to go and volunteer. In many ways my mother acts more as his caregiver than as his partner and always has. My siblings and I are still coming to terms with all the ways in which our family life was dictated by my father's likes and dislikes -- he wouldn't eat chicken, he didn't like anything that was then contemporary (1970's) but instead made us read old Bobbsey twin books from the 1930's and liked Laurel and hardy, etc. We grew up with few social skills to navigate the world of other children and felt like misfits. (Imagine a family that listened to church organ music on records while your peers were listening to Chicago.) We were also largely emotionally neglected because my mother was so consumer with taking care of my father.

But as to the question of whether my mother was and is lonely and sad -- one thing that I will say is that in previous generations, there was much more pressure for women to marry. One of our neighbors was married to a similar absent minded professor with strange interests, and after the kids grew up she moved in with a woman. I think in the past there may have been women who felt pressured to get married even if they were gay. They may have preferred a distant marriage where their partner gave them their space. Women also married in order to advance socially -- like a secretary who marries her boss, and continues organizing his life and finding his things like she did when he was the boss. The weird, demanding guy might also marry a recent immigrant who mostly just wants economic stability and an opportunity to help her family immigrate from the developing world.
The issue is that these scenarios don't really exist anymore. Women don't need to get married because they need money or would otherwise be homeless, for camouflage, or even for immigration reasons if they themselves have an in=demand skill. So I think the marriages in previous generations where the guy was weird but the long suffering wife put up with a lot are probably gong to happen less. Today women are more likely to be true to themselves and also to have the resources to leave.

[Anonymous]

Wish the family court systems in the US would look into this too. Coparenting with an ASD ex is very difficult on the children and Nt ex. Probably less so than remaining in the marriage and same house but tons of mishaps, issues, non compliance, and anger.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Regressing in manners, respect of others, verbal communication, and selfishness is not pushing the limits of anything. Unless you mean who much their parents, spouses and own kids will take of it. Yeah, those limits get pushed.

Someone like Elon Musk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My parents have a very weird marriage and my dad is likely on the spectrum. He volunteers sixty hours a week at the animal shelter in retirement and was upset that it was closed on Christmas because he wanted to go and volunteer. In many ways my mother acts more as his caregiver than as his partner and always has. My siblings and I are still coming to terms with all the ways in which our family life was dictated by my father's likes and dislikes -- he wouldn't eat chicken, he didn't like anything that was then contemporary (1970's) but instead made us read old Bobbsey twin books from the 1930's and liked Laurel and hardy, etc. We grew up with few social skills to navigate the world of other children and felt like misfits. (Imagine a family that listened to church organ music on records while your peers were listening to Chicago.) We were also largely emotionally neglected because my mother was so consumer with taking care of my father.

But as to the question of whether my mother was and is lonely and sad -- one thing that I will say is that in previous generations, there was much more pressure for women to marry. One of our neighbors was married to a similar absent minded professor with strange interests, and after the kids grew up she moved in with a woman. I think in the past there may have been women who felt pressured to get married even if they were gay. They may have preferred a distant marriage where their partner gave them their space. Women also married in order to advance socially -- like a secretary who marries her boss, and continues organizing his life and finding his things like she did when he was the boss. The weird, demanding guy might also marry a recent immigrant who mostly just wants economic stability and an opportunity to help her family immigrate from the developing world.
The issue is that these scenarios don't really exist anymore. Women don't need to get married because they need money or would otherwise be homeless, for camouflage, or even for immigration reasons if they themselves have an in=demand skill. So I think the marriages in previous generations where the guy was weird but the long suffering wife put up with a lot are probably gong to happen less. Today women are more likely to be true to themselves and also to have the resources to leave.

Not every woman who moves in with a woman in old age is gay and same for men More likely they are just traumatized by the relationship and are concerned they will make a bad choice again.