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
No his parents won't speak to me, it seems like for them its anything for a quiet life. They don't seem to care how much this is impacting on me and baby, and don't seem to believe me wen I tell them what's been going on. They don't ask about me or about baby.
Could autism impact his maturity level directly to this extent? Or do you think it's probably more down to him getting his own way all his life due to his parents trying to avoid the meltdowns?
The more I speak to people in here I feel that autism is not an excuse for some of his behaviours but do worry that it will be used as just that if the assessment comes back starting he is.
He hasn't always been this way, he used to help with the housework and insist on doing all the cooking, over time as the gaming has increased his attitude had changed and he he becomes angry if I even suggest he helps with this.
I'm torn as to whether his issues are being caused by autism and an obsessive hobby or a separate gaming addiction perhaps coupled with autism. Is this possible? Can and at what point does an obsessove hobby become an addiction?
Lulu said:No his parents won't speak to me, it seems like for them its anything for a quiet life.
That's terrible - are they not interested in their grandchild? It should be a big thing in their lives. It's why I suspect both are ASD.
Basically, high-functioning ASD blokes grow up with interests in their subject - model trains, airfix models etc, probably with few or no friends - and this is fine when they are young but as the get older, all the other kids start to change whereas we are still building our hobbies.
By puberty, our pocket money is such that we can get better trains and more models - but the other kids are looking at the opposite sex and clumsily testing relationships.
Bu University, we've got brilliant railways and D&D sets - all the other kids are having sex and slightly more stable relationships.
Around this time we start to notice girls but we're too shy to approach them and as we're so awkward, we get rejected if we try. We've pretty much perfected our mask by now so we tend to get into relationships with people who spot our vulnerabilities and get used and abused because were so naive. We try very hard to be 'normal' and to please others - we're a walking target.
It's usually through this time that the abusive 'girlfriend' demands 100% attention so all the hobbies are stopped dead and ridiculed for being childish - so we're under massive pressure to be 'grown up' and all our relaxation - de-fusing tools are gone - maximum stress & vulnerability - things end very badly. We learn to strengthen our mask to try to avoid it happening again.
Rinse & repeat for the next relationship.
We also enter employment - often in unsuitable jobs that require way too much social interaction and people playing politics so our brain is being thrashed all day trying to cope - but the stress won't go away - we go home knackered - brain fried - needing time to recover.
Rinse & repeat for the next day - for the rest of our lives.
Unfortunately, all this requires energy- which is easy when we're young - but it becomes more of a drain as we get older and our ability to fulfil everyone's demands reduces until something gives out - autistic burn-out.
Unfortunately, as we get older, our lives become more complex and more demands get loaded on - autistic burnout happens sooner.
Does this help you understand how he functions?
Something i have noticed is that alot of asd people end up with sociopaths or narcissists ,[i suppose this is just common sense as these people tend to go for venerable people],
I have found it is common that asd people brought up in these circumstances really struggle as one parent is asd copying/masking or normalising ,and one parent manipulating and using/blaming.
I think something that people struggle with is thinking it's asd or normal .
You touch on it when you say "abusive girlfriend", but what happens when you are brought up by one ,it has become normalized , so the cycle continues .
The worst i have met are the malignant narcissist, I now one who has marryed two people with asd and you can see how she still controls both to keep here world view intact,
I can spot aspies a mile away - male and female - there's a 'look', the demeanour - we stand out like sore thumbs. I guess bullies and abusers can spot us too.
My sister and my mother in law are classic narcissists - I'm used to their tricks and behaviours - thoroughly unpleasant people.
With kids with ASD parents - it depends on which one the child spends the most time with - if dad is aspie but works all the time, an NT child has a fair chance of growing up ok from the NT mother. If the caring parent is ASD, then the child will be slightly messed up but able to learn from peers and family.
If the child is ASD and so is the parent, then the child will probably be very socially stunted, emotionally starved and lacking in all the normal experiences of childhood.
ASD kid + both ASD parents - good luck - the outcome will be totally unpredictable..
I know lots of aspies and I've seen every permutation and combination many times.
I have an NT twin and an ASD mother so I'm very, very different from most aspies - I had a working model to copy 24/7 and because we were treated as a composite person, my quirks were covered by my brother's normality.
I'm very much more aware of what I am and how I function and why I do the things I do.