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NT husband and ND wife (me!)

V1rtuoso77

Hi all,

I've seen a lot of posts on here about wives wanting to support ND husbands but not many the other way round. (I'm new so may not have found them yet) I'm 40-something in the UK and (still) waiting for a diagnosis. I feel my husband of nearly 20 years doesn't understand how I feel about certain things and I don't know how to explain myself. Menopause symptoms seem to be making this worse. We can't agree on things and just today we've had yet another argument because we've wanted to make home improvements for some time but still can't agree on what we both want. I'm very resistant to change, I don't cope with it well at all and he knows that he wants to make some big changes to our house and garden. I'm struggling as I don't know what I want, I need all the options to make a decision but this feels massive to me and I can't discuss it without disagreeing with everything he says and I don't know what options to suggest. Then he gets angry and walks out, I get upset and nothing ever gets resolved and no decisions are made. I do want to make some improvements but I just shut down because it feels too huge and I need a start point and an end point and need to know all the steps in between! How do I deal with this? X

Parents

  • Hi and welcome to the community!

    As you've read a lot of posts here already, you may already have seen me offer this advice before. If so, sorry for repeating it! :)

    I suggest borrowing or buying this book, which specifically focuses on helping autistic + neurotypical couples to work on their relationships through improved mutual understanding and communication, and includes exercises that you can both complete and discuss, if you wish:

    Loving Someone with Asperger's Syndrome: Understanding and Connecting with your Partner

    (It was written when "Asperger's" was still a diagnostic term, whereas it's now simply diagnosed as autism / Autism Spectrum Disorder).

    Caveat: between one issue / scenario and the next, the author keeps switching the identity of the autistic party. In one scenario, the male is autistic, but in the next it's the female, etc. This can be confusing and can even happen from one paragraph to the next, so I kept needing to check and remind myself "which partner is autistic this time?" But the benefits from the book are still well worth the effort, I feel.

Reply

  • Hi and welcome to the community!

    As you've read a lot of posts here already, you may already have seen me offer this advice before. If so, sorry for repeating it! :)

    I suggest borrowing or buying this book, which specifically focuses on helping autistic + neurotypical couples to work on their relationships through improved mutual understanding and communication, and includes exercises that you can both complete and discuss, if you wish:

    Loving Someone with Asperger's Syndrome: Understanding and Connecting with your Partner

    (It was written when "Asperger's" was still a diagnostic term, whereas it's now simply diagnosed as autism / Autism Spectrum Disorder).

    Caveat: between one issue / scenario and the next, the author keeps switching the identity of the autistic party. In one scenario, the male is autistic, but in the next it's the female, etc. This can be confusing and can even happen from one paragraph to the next, so I kept needing to check and remind myself "which partner is autistic this time?" But the benefits from the book are still well worth the effort, I feel.

Children