My husband is possibly autistic, I need HELP!

Hi NAS72203,

I'm not sure if I can be any help as i'm in a similar position to you. My husband does now believe he is autistic but he also seems to resent me for asking him if he could relate to the traits linked to autism. 

This came about after many a meltdown and his obsession with gaming completely distroying any hope of communicating and in turn distroyed our marriage. He had now walked out and left me at 22 weeks pregnant.

I completely understand how you must be feeling and I bet the lockdown hasn't helped matters. I feel your frustration and hopelessness, it is a horrific thing to go through. I would feel at times that I was just pleading with my husband to show he cared, and it always resulted in a stone cold reaction that made me feel worse. I was reading about Cassandra Syndrome and thought to myself "oh my god this is me!" 

If you and your hubby are still together, hopefully it's not too late. The people on this forum have been so supportive and taken the time to help me with advice, listen to what they have to say as they have a great insight. Hope it all works out for you  x

Many thanks Lulu and yes, it is a great help to be able to connect with people in the same situation and I am very sorry to hear that you are pregnant and your husband has left. We also almost broke up last year,also because are have been dealing with very complicated legal problems, as we are tenants, from the start of our relationship now almost 5 years ago. That has made everything worse as we never had the opportunity to lead a normal, fulfilling life and of course I am left to deal with everything. My husband was next to me as I read your letter and I read to him the bit about the meltdowns. We have had many, believe me... We made big progress a while ago and were in a much better place but without support we end up falling in the same traps. He doesn't resent me for raising the subject of autism although first I was afraid to do it. Because my ex-husband was diagnosed with BPD at the end of our marriage I now know a lot about such conditions but it is also difficult for me because I feel that I have fallen from one situation I felt difficult to deal with into another, as if life is trying to make me show that one day I will be able to deal with it. 

I am a singer who was an X Factor contestant and Holland's Got Talent semi-finalist, started to sing at the age of 58 but all the meltdowns and the fact that I depend on him for all my music videos and recordings have badly impaired my chances of advancing my career. Anyone who knows us from YouTube thinks that we are the golden couple of the century, but if you dig deeper we are not. People feel inspired by us and we are of course not lying in our videos but we are not going to show the meltdowns, difficulty in communicating, etc. All the stress has made me very ill, I now suffer from severe digestive problems, my body can't stand the medication anymore and it has been a true disaster, while I feel my last good years slipping away! 

Yes, Lockdown made everything worse, even though we live in a big house, so we are not on the top of one another. We moved from Wales to England to start a new life, full of hope, thought we had understood one another well and were going for it big time, just a few days before the 1st Lockdown started. I kept a diary of the sheer misery of the past few months and a couple of publishers showed an interest in it but I am so tired right now that I seek distraction rather than spending my time writing about life's difficulties. 

Something that alerted me early on was his stories about obsessions in his youth, which he doesn't have anymore but I used to think that those stories were a bit strange while he seemed to think that it was quite normal. It would be too long to go into detail but he always seemed to go to far greater lengths to achieve his goals than someone would, Like cycling up huge mountains in France, leaving him almost for dead, walking huge distances because he had fallen in love with a girl during the holidays and more. 

Yes,I just want someone to really care about me... all my life I was there for others, with love but now it was my time to shine and my music means a lot to me, but due to our lack of communication I have given up on it more often than I care to remember. I have never heard of the Cassandra syndrome but will research it. My ex-husband having BPD has already traumatized me big time and when I thought that I was finally going to start to enjoy life I started a similar journey again. I was not even looking for anyone, but fate and music brought us together and I am an optimist, so I embarked on it. Yes, we are still together. Finding support has been hell. Despite what they make us believe in the media the support probably for all mental health issues is dire. Thanks for reading and the best of luck with your baby and your future life! 

Many thanks Lulu and yes, it is a great help to be able to connect with people in the same situation and I am very sorry to hear that you are pregnant and your husband has left. We also almost broke up last year,also because are have been dealing with very complicated legal problems, as we are tenants, from the start of our relationship now almost 5 years ago. That has made everything worse as we never had the opportunity to lead a normal, fulfilling life and of course I am left to deal with everything. My husband was next to me as I read your letter and I read to him the bit about the meltdowns. We have had many, believe me... We made big progress a while ago and were in a much better place but without support we end up falling in the same traps. He doesn't resent me for raising the subject of autism although first I was afraid to do it. Because my ex-husband was diagnosed with BPD at the end of our marriage I now know a lot about such conditions but it is also difficult for me because I feel that I have fallen from one situation I felt difficult to deal with into another, as if life is trying to make me show that one day I will be able to deal with it. 

I am a singer who was an X Factor contestant and Holland's Got Talent semi-finalist, started to sing at the age of 58 but all the meltdowns and the fact that I depend on him for all my music videos and recordings have badly impaired my chances of advancing my career. Anyone who knows us from YouTube thinks that we are the golden couple of the century, but if you dig deeper we are not. People feel inspired by us and we are of course not lying in our videos but we are not going to show the meltdowns, difficulty in communicating, etc. All the stress has made me very ill, I now suffer from severe digestive problems, my body can't stand the medication anymore and it has been a true disaster, while I feel my last good years slipping away! 

Yes, Lockdown made everything worse, even though we live in a big house, so we are not on the top of one another. We moved from Wales to England to start a new life, full of hope, thought we had understood one another well and were going for it big time, just a few days before the 1st Lockdown started. I kept a diary of the sheer misery of the past few months and a couple of publishers showed an interest in it but I am so tired right now that I seek distraction rather than spending my time writing about life's difficulties. 

Something that alerted me early on was his stories about obsessions in his youth, which he doesn't have anymore but I used to think that those stories were a bit strange while he seemed to think that it was quite normal. It would be too long to go into detail but he always seemed to go to far greater lengths to achieve his goals than someone would, Like cycling up huge mountains in France, leaving him almost for dead, walking huge distances because he had fallen in love with a girl during the holidays and more. 

Yes,I just want someone to really care about me... all my life I was there for others, with love but now it was my time to shine and my music means a lot to me, but due to our lack of communication I have given up on it more often than I care to remember. I have never heard of the Cassandra syndrome but will research it. My ex-husband having BPD has already traumatized me big time and when I thought that I was finally going to start to enjoy life I started a similar journey again. I was not even looking for anyone, but fate and music brought us together and I am an optimist, so I embarked on it. Yes, we are still together. Finding support has been hell. Despite what they make us believe in the media the support probably for all mental health issues is dire. Thanks for reading and the best of luck with your baby and your future life!