Published on 12, July, 2020
My husband and I have struggled throughout our relationship of 10 years and each time we end up with a situation where he ends up leaving. Sometimes he leaves for just a couple of months, other times he can leave for 6 months. After having some problems recently, he was seen by a psychiatrist who has said he probably is ASD as he scored 10/10 on the initial assessment but now needs to be referred for further assessments.
I've read a lot about masking and the emotional tiredness that comes from doing this. He seems to be suggesting he thinks he needs to isolate and go and live away from us, but says he needs to work out what he wants. This is very hard on me and our young children as it makes me feel very insecure. He says he loves me, but then if he does, what does he need to work out? He keeps suggesting he wants to run away and escape.
Is this normal for ASD and is there anything that can be done to help him recover sooner or to prevent things like this from happening in the first place?
Hi
This must be understandably frustrating for you, I have been with my partner nearly 11 years and we have 3 kids it's been one hell of a bumpy ride but worth it.
Both my partner and daughter are undiagnosed asd and it does present a few challenges. He used to try and control every aspect of our relationship and became aggressive when he couldn't. He would cause arguments to push me away but control if I could go!
At that point I knew very little about asd and we didn't think about it for him as it became apparent our daughter was I spent more time reading and saw so much in his behaviour even he started listening and understanding.
He didn't try to separate to regulate he turned to anger as this was the emotion he knew and understood, so when he got emotional he didn't know how to respond except anger
We set him up a separate room at home, his man cave that he keeps his hobbies in as well as own TV and computer he uses this area to decompress and get himself relaxed rule is if door shut he needs to be alone if open people can come and go but he is in control of the area, unlike the rest of the house which is chaos with the kids!
I also know when he starts shouting he is just venting and despite it being hard if I ignore it, he will go sit and calm himself then explain what is really wrong.
I know it's different for you but there are ways through this, try to work out what triggers these episodes in your husband, is it just a build up of little stressors? If so could setting specific time up for him help, or a quiet escape room so he has isolation without leaving? Try to reduce demands on him even temporarily just to see if it helps
Keep reading up on asd and talking to autistic people this will give you the best understanding and enable you to support him which in turn helps you both
Good luck
I'm an AS man - I think your solution is brilliant. I get very stressed by chaos and need 'me time' too when I can't cope with any more random events without the time to decompress and 'defrag' my brain to process all the stimulation and data.
Young children are incredibly difficult for us to deal with - we can't guess their needs and they change so quickly as they grow that we're always a few steps behind what's required of us. Massive anxiety & stress!
I'm lucky that I have lots of 'man space' and lots of hobbies to help me wind down. Our house is quite peaceful in the first place so i'm able to function most of the time.