Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello
I was diagnosed autistic last October. Always known I was different. Spotted autism in partner’s dad and it fascinated me. Also experience of children as a teacher. More I read, more I realised I was on the spectrum and fairly certain my other half is. We’ve been married for more than 20 years. We don’t argue hugely. But all our arguments follow the same unhelpful pattern… Argue. I try to say what I think went wrong. I try not to blame and attempt to say how I feel, not criticise. Partner always sees criticism. Says I’m blaming him. Starts bringing in everything else that’s wrong in our relationship to then, often, point out I need to change. Dredges history. Says I can’t do this anymore. Gets overwhelmed (I think) and shuts down for a couple of days. I’ve learnt this pattern and know to accept it. I say I’m not blaming but trying to find a solution so it doesn’t happen again and I don’t care who’s at fault. I think he can’t get beyond needing to pinpoint who’s at fault and seeing it as me saying he’s to blame. Do you have tips for handling this as two, I’m sure, autistic adults?
Eg The latest is over partner continuing a conversation with my parents about politics. We have different views to them. We’ve discussed avoiding it and trying to steer away. I could see he was getting animated, enjoying the conversation, and kicked him gently under the table. He responded positively to that and laughed and said I know, we need to move on, or something similar. But the conversation swung round, including him saying God forbid if XYZ gets in. He then said, before we move on, I want to find out what you think about Israel. I have never done this before but was getting so stressed that I interrupted and said, no that’s enough, we need to change topic. I was shocked when he then said So I can’t talk about something I’m interested in? I said it’s not something I want to end our conversation on before we leave - he then agreed and dad changed subject to cars. I couldn’t think how to bring it up without it spiralling the same way but by the time I went to bed, he noticed something might be wrong. And it spiralled. As above! I haven’t bothered trying to force my point and he has not accepted that anything he did was wrong. Says my dad continued the conversation and I can’t dictate what he does and doesn’t talk about. I said I would rather see my parents on my own than have conversations like that. It’s not family conversation. He interpreted that as me telling him I don’t want him to visit my parents. I reiterated that’s not what I said.
What am I doing wrong? We enjoy lots of the same stuff, have similar values etc but he thinks he’s lucky that his dad’s gene missed him! I don’t need him to be diagnosed but I wish he would see some of his character traits. I haven’t said this to him. I feel like I’ve spent my adult life trying to understand mine and how to behave as an adult. I find it very difficult to express my thoughts in an argument. Last time we texted each other and I felt that was better. This time, I just can’t bear bringing it up again and we’re just 24 hours post argument and this one doesn’t feel like it’s going anywhere.
Can anyone relate to this, ummm, rant! Sorry!
Thought you might be interested in an update.
We agreed to talk about it again and left it a couple of days. In that time, I used Iain’s link to fair fighting rules to write some statements down in the place I log the argument. I keep adding to it when I understood myself a bit more and what made me so upset.
We sat on our sofas and talked about it. Except talking for me is difficult without crying. I read some of my statements out and let my partner respond to each of them. When I got to the ones I couldn’t read without crying, I texted them to him (I had explained in our last argument texting made it easier to cut out the emotions so that wasn’t so new).
OMG, he understood! He thinks he can’t have the conversations at all without keeping going so wanted me to tell my dad not to talk about it. I don’t want to do this because I don’t think they need to know the stress it causes us (and my mum, sadly, is big on absorbing fake news so we like to make sure my dad hears normal views). I said I could tell dad but don’t want to. He left it until the end to then say, but I need to tell you that I think you’re wrong! He doesn’t think politics should be off-topic. I agreed and said me neither. I think we should recognise that we need to move on after a short period and there are nicer family things to talk about (which is where the frustration and stress started!) I told him that I thought ‘we’ would be better at recognising that we need to move on now we have talked about the feelings it has caused. We’ve agreed to try one more time and if we end up in the same situation, I’ll say something to dad.
We visited his parents at the weekend and I commented on the way home how well his mum moved away from politics by saying this isn’t very cheerful, let’s talk about something else - in the hope that he sees his mum as a good example. I’ve been updating my will and he joked, have you written me out of it?! I guess his, I can’t do this anymore, is a heat of the moment comment. I do make sure I have my finances in order though! Thank you all for your supportive comments.
TheListener said:OMG, he understood
This is great news. Clear communication is the lifeblood of a relationship and it is so refreshing to see that it took one session to clear that blockage that had real potential to fester.
It will be a work in progress (all relationships are I think) but by taking the time to really communicate clearly you can find where the real issues are and then work on them.
It takes guts to say some of those things out loud though - cudos for taking that step and making yourself vulnerable for the sake of the relationship.