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, I'm a married man in my 50s coming to the end of the NHS diagnosis process for ASD, and I think I can relate to your husband's feelings. What I can say is that alone time is really important. This alone time *can* be had in company to an extent if others are content to sit quietly or talk only occasionally. But there's a kind of exponential effect (that's not quite the right word) whereby little jabs & prods from the outside world build up and if they come too quickly stress levels rise until "I need to run away & find peace" is the only response.
If your husband is feeling this and hasn't yet had the opportunity to understand what's happening and allow himself to manage it proactively, I can fully understand that it will have tipped over to "I need my own house!".
Yes there are lots of things that can be done to manage this and others on the forum will probably suggest what works for them. For me it is:
I don't have any magic answers to how to handle having young kids in the house. Been there & done that and I believe I got through it by masking and having peace after bed time. Emotional energy and frenetic activity drain me and both of those come in abundance from small children. It's *really* hard to share the load of raising children when all you crave is peace, and this so easily causes tensions because it *appears* that the aspie doesn't love the kids or have a sense of fairness and want to be seen as doing their bit, when nothing could actually be further from the truth.
Thank you for all of your replies. I am still working out this forum and can't work out how to reply to everyone more generally!
I've suggested he turn a spare room we have downstairs into a room for him to use when he needs time to himself, and have even said he can put a sign on the door or close the door to indicate he doesn't want to be disturbed. I've also suggested he can have the spare bedroom if he wants to sleep in a different room. None of these are enough, he wants to be in a different house.
He seems to be struggling with the relationship and says that I have too many emotional needs on him. For example, he might come home from work, totally ignore me and just sit in the corner or the room. I would ask if he was okay and he would get quite huffy.
He also doesn't like it if I question whether he loves me, which unfortunately happens more often when he disappears for months on end. If he was to come home and could use the spare rooms it would make me feel more secure and less likely to need to ask if he wants the relationship/loves me, but he just seems so focused on what he wants. Its hard when you have two young children asking why their dad isn't at home too.
He now wants to spend half his time at home and half at the other house on set days. I dont understand this at all if the need to be alone is caused by what happened during the day, or the questions I am asking, how can he predict which days he would need to spend alone?
He says he resents me for my emotional needs, but I really resent having to do all of the chores, look after the kids, organise their parties, look after the pets, take out the bins, work... etc. Living life I guess... as sometimes I wouldn't mind running away to a hotel but I have to stay as who would do all of this stuff otherwise? It doesn't help our youngest isn't sleeping so I've not slept more than 3 hours in a row for several months now and it's very hard.