Published on 12, July, 2020
It sounds difficult for you all.
I think it is sad how negatively she sees the autism spectrum, whether or not she was on it. It didn't ought to be an insult! There are and have been very many successful and valuable to society autists.
I think she needs her own space though. It would drive me mad to have to live with 3 other people and not have my own space. If there is no room in your home for her to have a room of her own I do not blame her for wanting to find somewhere to retreat to a few times a week. Maybe she doesn't need it to be as big as your shared one if she intends to spend half her time there? Why would she need the boys to stay with her if she was in your shared home half the time? It would be much cheaper to rent a small place for her than one the size of your family home. Or could you all move to a bigger place where she could have a room of her own? Though that might be too much upheaval for your autistic son.
I am a married female autist (we don't really use the term Asperger any more, it is all autism spectrum condition now) close to your age, my husband is not NT though, and we have no children. We have enough space in our home that we each have our own space within it as well as shared space. We also sleep in separate bedrooms, which is my choice as he snores and I need my sleep!
It's very sad you don't feel loved. I can't really help with that, but maybe it is good she doesn't want to divorce? And that she wants to be in the family home half the time. People show love in different ways, maybe she does love you but struggles to show it? Quite a few autistic adults prefer relationships where they don't live in the same house and it can work out just fine for them
Sorry about your mother too, that is very difficult and you could do with support through that rather than problems on two fronts. Is your older son any help? You haven't said much how they interact with their mother, but there was obviously a lot to say and
Hey AuTriker, thank you for sharing your thoughts. Here's my answer as to the relationship of my wife to my two boys.
My older son (20) is NT. Looking back, I'm sure almost sure he was traumatized by our family dynamics, especially so after our younger son (who is a diagnosed ND) was born. Our younger son sucked almost all of our mental and emotional energy so there wasn't much left for our older NT son. I know that's a colossal mistake. But at the time I wasn't even aware of what was going on. I just thought the younger one is one of those "difficult" children (a tthe time he hasn't been diagnosed yet). Consequently, I think too many times the older son wasn't heard. By nature he isn't a "loud" person. So at some point I think, he just gave up. In a rare moment of frankness (as a child can be), 8 years ago he confided with us that he felt we didn't love him. Can you imagine?! On top of that, recently, as my wife reflected on the past, she said something that struck me light a lightning. She said until our older son was the age of twelve, that he was "superfluous" to her. Like a burden of some sort. Not to blame her, I think this might be one of the reasons of my older's son lack of self confidence, poor self-esteem during his teenage years (13-18). All sorts of problems arose (dropped out of school for 3 years, weed, harming himself..not pretty.....). With much effort and care we handled those problems and now my older son is back on track and I'm proud of him. Going to school successfully and I don't doubt he will have a good life. he still lives with us and we have a good connection with him again. he loves hanging around us.
As for the younger son, I believe my wife was (and still is) afraid of him as from when he was around 3 years old. She told me once that back when our youngest son was 3 years old, she dreaded coming home from work. I guess his tantrums and his ND was such an energy drain to her.
At that time I had my own software company and so I wasn't paying so much attention. But when I realized that my youngest son is on the spectrum, i made a difficult decision. I sold my company to stay at home. I completely changed a career so I could work from a home office and devote much more time and energy to our youngest son. Because he was desperately needing this and I thought if I don't do this, no one will. And I didn't want our family to break apart. Or something worse. A movie "Let's talk about Kevin" comes to my mind. I didn't want that.Looking back I think my wife being on a spectrum, with sudden and frequently unexpected tantrums left a mark. I remember once my younger son (who himself is similar) complained to me that he doesn't know how to behave when he is with his mommy. "One moment she's hugging me, the other moment she's chasing me away". "One moment we love each other, the other one we don't". Surprisingly, that's exactly how I felt on all too many occasions. Don't make any mistake, my wife loves our boys dearly. I know she loves me too. But I think our family dynamics has been heavily influenced by having not one, but two NDs in the family - one diagnosed and one undiagnosed (who doesn't want to accept it). This sure a lot of unintended damage. As did my mistakes, simply because as I wasn't fully aware what was going on until it was very very late. Looking back, I'm sorry I didn't start reading books and blogs 10 years ago. Well, that's that.
Kind regards, Mark