My husband is autistic - help

There is the possibility that he is not getting the stimulation he needs from his kids, friends, and family. When I am in a social environment, I have given up on socializing and simply bring a stim with me so I am still surrounding myself with friends and family; unless I have a family member or friend I know I can have a stimulating conversation with.

I don't know what your husbands hobbies are that he gets to stim from. Let's say he stims from playing a video game on a Switch. Organizing an event where family and friends who play Mario Kart on the Switch would open his world to the people that are in his life. 

Instead of trying to get him to part of our world, we engage in his world. The relationships will follow.

I have been bullied but it has happened less and less into my adult life, but what I find is that I am often desperate to avoid conflict so occasionally end up trying to be too nice to people who really don't deserve my time. Even in primary school I tried to buy friendship with really horrible people by giving them my stuff, just to try and stop the nastiness for a little while. As an adult I don't feel I need this as much but I still ruminate on the idea that people may not like me for whatever reason. Usually because I can't keep my opinions to myself and I ask too many questions. 

I've met plenty of toxic people in my life but I don't think I've ever knowingly had one as a friend.    I think they show their hand years before they will have bothered to get to know me.    They'd be bullying me before they made the friendship grade. 

Perhaps you are fortunate to not have had toxic friendships in your life. 

i hardly ring my mum and dont contact my kids much either. At my dads funerals and other relatives funerals I have no emotion responses like those around me to the point I dont always want to go to funerals simply because i want to remember them as they were when they were alive.

thats the bad side of my autism ( because not attending funerals can be seen as a snub )

it looks like i dont care about my family but actually I do. 

I am trying to improve but its slow progress.

I think its because many autistics dont really like small talk. When I visit my mum, who can talk forever, I have to take breaks from her to stop me losing it mentally. I show my love by doing things for her eg cutting hedges, fixing broken devices, helping her with stuff. 

She knows this probably already and always has stuff for me to do  we connect by "doing" which works for both of us.

I dont think u are doing any harm telling him how to improve eg contacting his kids etc thats quite good of you  

oh I remember all my relatives, not one is forgotten, in anyway. In fact I went into a research mode for 2 years and found relatives that had been totally forgotten in our family one which was an actual hero soldier !

autistics are different, very different. Some of us, can be hard to work with, sometimes impossible.

my advice would be to set up a Facebook account for u, and your husband then get his kids to do the same and other members of family as well --- I just found it an easy way to keep in contact. Also get him to try texting.

some people glue families together  ,,,,, thats you 

some people disappear out of families eg some autistics,  my family is riddled with such people who simply disappeared ( loose contact ) 

So keep asking him direct question about his children - and if u find out info about them feed that information to him as an indirect way of indicating that he should be in contact more. I welcome such help/reminders. It just doesn't occur to me. But I do care about my family.

I hope this helps even in a small way.

M said:

If I am ending a friendship I normally explicitly end it. 

Interesting.      I've never ended a relationship - apart from accidentally neglecting to keep in touch, i can't say I've ever consciously decided to break with someone.    I can't imagine how to do it without it feeling strange and somehow my fault......

I'm exactly the same. It's hard to imagine seeing things differently, but learning that was very helpful.

It sounds like relationship therapy could help! You were attracted to each other enough to get married. Perhaps you could both keep a small notebook each and write down what you admire and respect in the other. Some therapists seem to also suggest it's good to understand what my role and responsibilities are toward and with the other. A set of clear responsibilities with allowance to negotiate can help.

As for family, if the brothers live close can you invite everyone round once a month? Game night? It's easier to do a thing with another sometimes than think of what to say. And all humans require a sort of community, some more frequent than others, so maybe work out what frequency would suit. The stress of doing things wrong seems like a main thing in need of care. That would be a good one to find books or guidance / proper advice and wisdom on how to grow beyond. 

Ooh I do that with my friendships. I just think of them like friendships in the background that I can dip in and out of. I've never thought of them as drifting apart. If I am ending a friendship I normally explicitly end it. 

I'm autistic and have lost many friends from similar behaviour. I read about this recently as something called "relationship degradation". For a neurotypical, the relationship degrades if they don't engage in it and maintain it. For some neurodivergent people, they do not see the relationship as degrading when it is not actively maintained, so a year can pass with no activity and it will feel the same.

i always imagined lying down on a  hillside next to a clear mountain stream ,with a few rocks poking up between the bright green grass and just closing my eyes. I suppose a bit selfish really .

I'm married for 30 years to an NT - it's been tricky.     

I think i survived because I'm a twin so from very early childhood I learned to accept the general sloppiness and crazyness of their existence - my twin brother (the 'correctly functioning version of me') was ok with the things that went on so, logically, i must be faulty and I adapted accordingly..    .   

I build large allowances into my dealings with them because I know they can't help it.   

Just thinking about how he could be one of us saying help - my wife/husband ISN'T autistic. 

I'm definitely seeing autism in a completely different way recently. Funny how autism is pitched as a problem so often, rather than the behaviour of people that aren't autistic. 

Thanks - I look for your posts too.  

I'm gonna miss your wise words.  Your posts are the only reason I bother checking in. 

I admire you nursing dying people at home.    I wouldn't want to do it - not from the work point of view but from the helplessness in an emergency situation - when seconds count, help is only an hour away!  

It's also something I wouldn't want for myself - when my time is very near I'll be going to the hospice where they've already promised me that they will "aggressively treat my pain symptoms which may stop my heart".

You could try empathy maybe? Try and see it from his point of view.Try and imagine what it must feel like to basically be an island. Mid space with nobody to validate your feelings - ever. That is autism in nutshell.

The NTs all say - be positive, right? chuckle.... 

It was the same for me in many ways. Both parents now gone. Both at home nursed by myself and siblings. We did have hospital at home for the final hours though. They are the only ones with pure clinical grade heroine. lol My mum didnt have any diamorph though, or any other pain killer other than CBD! So she was fully with us when she she took her last out breath. My dad was fully spaced out on diamorph so hed already gone. 

Exactly.      My dad died years ago and my mum gave up afterwards - so when she died of a heart failure, I wasn't at all upset - more relived that her suffering had ended.      My brother and sister didn't get that.

There are good things to ,honest ,would never cheat, ,don't just look at the negative ,all of the things you say about him are the same as me,i felt nothing at my parents funeral ,neither did my brother , did you really want him sobbing all day in a right mess . Marriage is about helping and understanding each other.