Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello
I firmly believe that my wife is on the autistic spectrum. This has been the result of 6 months on couples counselling, although she has no formal diagnosis. We have been married for more than 15 years and have children. She has fairly frequent meltdowns which are explosive and usually consist of shouting, swearing and verbal abuse which is mainly directed at me. On one occasion she punched me in the face whilst I was trying to comfort our children. She says the most awful things to me which are so hurtful. My life is like walking on eggshells, trying to keep things calm and avoiding physical contact which can sometimes be a trigger. I have also been having individual counselling to help me cope with my feelings. It is very difficult to express myself to her as she denies there is an issue. After a meltdown she shuts down, retreats to bed and cries a lot. She used to apologise but this doesn't happen anymore. I am torn between calling this abuse and accepting that it is part of her autism. She can be so kind and caring but at other times impossible. I am struggling to carry on with our relationship and have great concerns about the damage being done to our children when they witness these episodes. I want to leave but dont know if I can, I want to help her but dont know if there is anything I can do. I just want it to stop. I dont want her or the kids to be as unhappy as I feel.
Please offer advice.
I'm curious what pushes her beyond her threshold? I can tell you from experience and as a female left undiagnosed, raised by an undiagnosed mother, that until practical and very tangible change occurs, this expression of stress is the unbearable kind.
Stepping aside for a moment from relational matters, we live in a world of daily sensory assault. The kind used on prisoners a century ago. It used to be illegal to gas humans, now it's considered perfectly normal to spray toxic chemicals, use them in cleaning products, candles and public spaces and pathologise the individuals who immediately notices the effect. For the rest who can desensitise, all kinds of problems will eventually have a biological impact, but at least they can live with a phantasy of 'being perfectly fine'. The same is true for sound, lights and an array of maddening sensory elements which aren't properly governed. One is left quite literally at the mercy of others, powerless, and yet figures continue to rise over early issues with hearing and sight loss which is preventable. Without help understanding the physics and biological impact, one can be 'shooting in the dark' as it were.
Here's the problem: she sounds like she's living in a Reaction-ary / Response mode and potentially just barely living above Survival mode, which is not a healthy way or even enjoyable of living one's best life.
Depending on class and financial status, one might be able to check out of the home for several months and take a decadent amount of time to find our: Self, Ground, Limits, Potential, Values and hopefully get a clearer assessment of what's driving and destroying us, peel off everything weighing us down and begin to re-emerge better equipped to navigate what we must, be responsible for our future and our kids, and completely detox from those we cannot configure a functional dynamic with. If that means divorce, it can actually be better for the kids. But if you want to commit toward a fresh start and examine all the triggers in the Relating-With (relationship) or, in this case failure to relate with, there will be two of you in this.
I know a woman whose first husband withheld sex as a power move. It crushed her self-esteem and even though she got divorced with in a year, she was marked by it 10 years later. I know another woman who was married to a man who got a little ego boost out of pushing her to her limit. Another short lived marriage.
If she is Autistic, you will have had 15 years of miscommunication and misrepresentation and as it stands, she definitely sounds like the one without any power. She'll have had a life of dealing with intentional and unintentional gaslighting and potentially have not forgotten any cruelty - but have a trove of unresolved injustices, only without the power and education and tools to do anything about them. Autism is this: having less of an ability to filter out incoming sense perception (or, seeing the world with more clarity and more vulnerability), it is a hyper-signalling in the brain with the ability to make connexions Non-autistics cannot see and it is a difficulty with Typical social-linguistics, a more right-brain access to language than left. This is merely a mismatch for modern society, but we would've flourished in the wild.
While none of this justifies lashing out, it's useful to remember abuse comes in all forms: silent contempt, disdain, withholding, ghosting, mimicking, stonewalling, staring, gentle touching, schadenfreude, subtle manipulations - dominance and stealing agency, small betrayals, humiliations and so on. One doesn't fell a tree in a swift blow, but many.
At this point in life, I have learned that when I'm impacted this intensely by another, to just exit and sever connexion. We all have to learn to pause an emotionally charged situation, check within our selves if we're enjoying this or genuinely have the others best interest in mind, and allow time enough to problem solve in a respectful and kind way. Every time this hasn't happened, or there hasn't been a resolution which works for both parties, will be one more notch in that tree...
NAS93687 said:I want to help her but dont know if there is anything I can do. I just want it to stop.
There will be a great deal of work on both your parts, I'm afraid. It can be rewarding but you cannot have a false sense of peace and quiet at the expense of another. You'll have to learn to examine your contribution. x But I wish you the best.