Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi all,
If you have seen my previous posts you are probably aware that I'm currently trying to save my marriage.
Yesterday my hubby finally came to the house to discuss how he was feeling. I want to thank everyone who has responded to my previous posts on here, you are all such wonderful people to take the time to respond and help me understand my husband more.
Unfortunately our marriage is still far from healed, my hubby told me yesterday that he still loves me but it's not about love anymore and that it is about his mental health moving forward. On this basis he needs time to decide if he can be with me or not. Im devastated that at the moment our marriage could end at any moment but in the meantime they're is nothing more I can do.
After listening to what he has had to say, I feel sad at how he had been made to feel, although at the time he never showed or explained this. In asking for the emotional connection I so desperately needed, I have made him feel pressured and distressed and now feel extremely guilty.
In the first 3 years of the relationship things were fine, but when the first lockdown hit and we only had eachother, this is when I felt I started to lose him and thus is when he started feeling the pressure from me. I never pressured him through malace or intent to cause upset, I just love him so much, missed him and felt I was losing him.
After speaking to him last night I started doing some reading about the feelings from my side that have motivated my input to what I now realise has contributed to the downfall of our marriage and found cassandra syndrome. Upon reading more about it I realise that this is me over the last year, emotions amplified and heightened by the lockdown.
I feel I want to explain this to my hubby, to show him that with more unstanding of how and why this has happened and with us both receiving help, this could work. However I'm worried that pointing this out to him will cause even more distress and push him away further.
Any advice on this subject would be very much appreciated
Thank you in advance
Plastic
Hi Plastic,
Neither of his parents are diagnosed, and I wouldn't like to guess which if any is autistic, although I do know they never really show emotions or talk about their problems, so it could be that this has had an impact. Also his dad works away all week and only returns home on the weekend so I think although his parents are together, they also spend a lot of time apart. So again this could be a learned behaviour. His parents don't like populated areas and live out in the countryside and even when on holiday will go to a villa rather than a hotel to avoid other people. So I could see how my hubby could have been emotionally/socially stunted even if his folks are not autistic.
I know he's been through a traumatic experience at the hands of a woman, and used drugs as a coping mechanism at the time. He has been clean for a long time now but does seem to get hooked on different things in an obsessive manner, gaming being the main hobby that interferes with him socialising or spending time with me. Maybe this past traumatic experience has damaged his experience of women as you suggest?
Let's look at the evidence - ASD people cannot cope with unknowns - the parents out in the country - away form the randomness of people - going to a villa - hotels are out of control - a villa is under their control - living together individually - never showing emotions?
I'm not a betting man but I'd be willing to put money on probably both are ASD
We get bullied at school so we develop a mask to protect us from bullies - it helps us survive the social environment. It's incredibly risky to let someone see the real 'us' because odds are they will use and abuse us - he's lowered his mask and been badly affected - it will be very, very difficult to allow someone else to do the same - you are getting behind his mask and he's probably at the stage of panic - he's let you in but might be regretting that he's let himself get too involved - but has no functional mechanism to be completely open and honest after years of masking. His brain is probably just waiting for you to do the same thing to him so he's run away to avoid the risk - it gives control to him.
If he's used drugs, that would always worry me - if it's been his coping method once, you don't know where the stress-threshold is for him to revert back to it.
We are very much into collecting data about our special interests - but he's using the phone as a drug - the games are designed to reward playing behaviours and are scientifically optimised to almost create a high from the way the brain works. What else does he like that can get him to *want* to put the phone down?