Published on 12, July, 2020
My husband has ASD and I am seeking to understand more about difficulties with achieving a financial overview. He would like to send our children to independent schools but our income is not high and I keep explaining that we can’t afford it. He mentions other possible small future increases to our income and I try to point out that we still would be quite a long way off being able to afford it. He can’t see it, I find it’s like coming up against a brick wall and I’m trying to understand what’s happening. He doesn’t know any of the precise figures because he doesn’t like to engage with online banking or bill paying admin at all, so I’m in the process of putting it all in a spreadsheet for him. But I’m surprised even so that he has such an unrealistic grasp, as he knows what he earns, at least. He is very high functioning and does complex data analysis for his job, so it seems strange to me that this financial overview seems hard for him to achieve.
Hmm....it sounds kind of like the opposite of me. I have ASD, but I'm super conservative when it comes to spending because I fear that I might run out of money if some unexpected situation comes (e.g., if I can't find a job next year, or if some medical emergency comes up). I am very good at saving. I think maybe having your husband write down the costs calculations spreadsheet would be helpful. You can do it with him too. My feeling is that it would be helpful if he is somehow involved in the calculation too, so he can consider everything step by step in a logical way. I think maybe the difficulty of seeing the financial issue may just be that he loves his children very much and would want the best for them, even though it might meant cutting down spending on other things, but maybe he just hasn't considered the bigger picture fully.