Abrupt Ending of 15 year marriage - can anyone help me to understand

Hi googlefox.

I have been on the other side of your situation at the end one relationship and several friendships, in none of these cases was I aware I was autistic but it will most certainly have been a significant factor. I walked out on my first marriage and communicated only through solicitors and my mother as you are experiencing. The breakdown had been long in the making but at no point did I challenge the behaviour I was on the the receiving end of, it was all internalised. Then as the proverbial pressure cooker it went BOOM. 

The reason I only communicated via my mother and solicitor is that I was completely terrified, I (incorrectly) blamed myself for everything, and having come down from the overwhelm and meltdown could not face the likelihood of being attacked (as I thought / expected) by my ex. I had the most dreadful letters from their solicitor (which supported my beliefs) one of which caused me to collapse in shock. 

The fear  never went away, my mind failed to process it all and being diagnosed with c-ptsd was the inevitable result. The autism diagnosis preceded the c-ptsd diagnosis and which followed my fourth (nearly successful) suicide attempt

Im sorry this is mixed up and so negative, everything was and remains unresolved 

Alice

Thank you so much for your reply - and especially for the virtual hug xx

Higooglefox 

I am sorry you are having to go through this. I appreciate how you are still trying to help others during your time of need it says a lot about you.

Can you start to look after yourself and maybe tentatively see if you can find support and friendship from another source.

I am trying to find some support and friendship elsewhere because I am currently struggling because my relationship has ended with my husband of 30 years but I was the one who decided that.

My case is probably very different to the one that you are in, I only realised that a lot of what I was experiencing within my relationship wasn’t what it should have been through therapy…it was therapy that pointed me towards a AuDHD diagnosis too.

It’s hard to explain but I think being autistic can make you blind to certain things but when you start to advocate for yourself within your relationships and expect others to respect and support you and they don’t want to accept you then you are forced almost to see how hollow and one sided the relationship is.

Personally I would rather be alone I am very frightened about living alone I haven’t dealt with bills or anything and it’s going to be tight financially but I want peace that’s all and I think we all deserve that.

It isn’t worth trying unless you both want it to work out and sometimes you can just be prolonging the pain. I’ve been there I used to just keep pushing my needs down.

You both deserve peace.

Sending you a virtual hug

Thanks citroen71 - he wont even speak to me - i tried in the first few days but he was clear he wouldnt even consider it. 

I had the same after 25 years. It is bloody awful. The most painful experience I have ever had in my life. It's 2 years now since he walked out  I have managed to still him on the divorce front. I have had to learn to accept he is not the man I married any more. I don't know how to chat to you privately...

it sounds really really to late for it but would he accept any kind of marriage counselling?

Thanks l Stuart333 your post is very helpful but also a very difficult read - i hope you never have to go through that again.  I was looking for someone to explain to me what my husband might be going through me and I think you just have.  Your description matches what I think I have seen in my husband.  I honestly do not think i have read an account of the 'inside' of the storm which details it so vividly and so clearly- it is humbling to read.  Thank you so much for replying and sharing so much of what i imagine is a very difficult set of memories to recall.

I believe so, but it was perhaps a bit less typical.

If I just say what I believe it is, you will then perhaps be able to understand. I have spent considerable time trying to analyse myself, which means it is specific to me, but may apply to some other people. Also, I would strongly note that I am sure the experience differs between men and women as the emotional processes and priorities differ, as anyone who lives in the real world knows.

For various reasons autistic people seem to often have more sensitive nervous systems. This means things can more easily trigger threat responses, either fight flight, fawning, freezing, overwhelm, in the extreme case, or anxiety, unease, stress, etc. more generally.

This generates the various sensations, knotted stomach, clenched teeth, nausea, etc. It also changes the way you think. When threatened there is no point debating all the options to escape, you just rapidly pick one option and get away from the tiger that is about to eat you. So black and white thinking, collapsing arguments, avoiding nuance, is part of survival. It is very hard to notice your thinking changing though.

It makes interactions in strange places or with strange people seem higher stakes, much harder, and worthy or deep analysis later to learn what went right or wrong, i.e. it drives hyper vigilance.

The solution is to try to calm the nervous system, which is through prior practices that it knows from experience are safe. This drives the desire to avoid change, to retreat to somewhere quiet, to be alone.

Because you can't just hide all the time, you tend to squash it down, or have a drink, or find something to cope (inc. stimming). But the pressure builds if you keep going it. Your body is running it's nervous system hot.

Eventually this causes problems. It can't stand down the threat response. You have high adrenaline and cortisol, and other items, your hormones go a bit wrong, your thinking priorities get distorted. I did blood tests, I found multiple things outside the normal range. It also means your kidneys don't slow at night, so you can go to the toilet a lot, like you have diabetes (which I thought, but I don't have). Chronic stress can affect your eyes, which I have too, and cause inflammation and arthritis.

Being on edge may eventually lead to collapse, which is lots of sleeping. Or you may be able to cope on minimal sleep (4 hours or less) for long periods from being permanently wired on adrenaline.

If you are very systematizing, can strongly compartmentalise and have been used to squashing emotions since young and can mask well, you can hide this quite well (or so you think). If you are very logical you can keep going, say if you have a quiet technical job. Work may actually feel safe, sat on your own, working through fixed rules, regulations, calculations, etc. It is non-threatening. But you have no capacity. Evenings are just sit there, no TV, just zone out. Executive function issues exist. Your special interests start to fade. Anything unusual provokes a disproportionate response 

You just want to be alone. You can't support more than one person. Other requests are just too much. You have no bandwidth.

You can't cope. You want the feelings to stop. But mostly you think you are thinking logically, but the priorities are wrong. The arguments too narrow and absolute. Small issues become huge. Multiple issues together are overwhelming. You need peace, you need quiet. Emotional triggers are overwhelming, you start to lose control of your emotions. Crying is easy. You may try to hide it from others, but cry when alone. It may burst out for no reason, collapsing while walking to kitchen to make a cup of tea, or something triggers a memory 

You may be pulled back to previous times you felt like this as your brain replays events looking for how it escaped last time. This is the worst part. It feeds you all the worst moments on a loop as previous times were not good. Understanding your thinking is difficult from inside the system.

I have done this 4 times. The first time killed my relationship, the second time damaged my career and nearly made me go bust, the third and fourth times I considered ending it all. The 4th time I went and got help and got diagnosed. Several times I let large plant collections worth a lot of money die as I couldn't water them.

The way out is reduced pressure, reduced demands, alone time, to get the nervous system to return to baseline and become stable so it does not flip at slight triggers. Thinking then becomes rational, able to hold multiple viewpoints. It is possible to even enjoy things again. This takes months though. It is very easy to push too early and take a step back.

So you can function. But do you make good decisions, no. 

Do you remember much, not really. Do you feel like you are ok, sort of, but that is just you minimising things and coping. Your survival instinct keeps you going.

Are you good with other people, no. They sense it too.

I don't know if this helps. Maybe it gives some insight.

Stuart333 Have you experienced burnout - if so,  can you tell me whether you were able to function through it - or was it (as i have read) a complete inability to navigate things? 

Thank you very much alushjoyhand.  I am glad that you have your diagnosis - i have just been diagnoses with ADHD and suddenly the madness that is the world i try to navigate makes sense to me.  I am not broken,  i am just wired differently. i am so glad to hear that you both retain a good relationship and view of the other.  Right up until this happened my husband and I were planning a move and a new life and he seemed keen for that.  I hope that you and your ex-partner continue to get along, not just for your children but for each other.  The world can indeed be a lonely place - i worry about my husband being lonely all the time and as i said,  we were each others person for such a long time that navigating this world without him currently feels impossible and scary.

I am about three months in to an amicable separation, googlefox .

It has been difficult for us both. While my former partner instigated the conversation to seperate, I have been on another planet since the COVID years, more serious, teetotal, and recently, diagnosed autistic.

I think the selves we were when we met are gone, and that is pretty healthy after 20 years together.

We have children. Our agreed aim is to provide stability for them. My personal objective beyond that is to avoid becoming a jaded or hateful old man. 

The norms to which we became accustomed; our roles, the effort to sustain all but our relationship, the balance of time and energy of being working parents, all factors that put weight on something once sunny and now historic.

Yet we retain a mutual interest in each other's well being, and that is heartening in a world that can be very lonely, especially as a person with autism.

Thanks Stuart333 - i really appreciate your kind reply.  I have asked him to reconsider and I have told him via the solicitors that I do not want a divorce - but also that I respect his decision.  I have no hope of saving our marriage but we have been each other's 'person' for 15 years and it feels so hard to accept that there is not even a friendship left.  We met once in person since my last post and in the meeting he said he sometimes misses me and sometimes worries about me - he came back for a hug and he was visibly upset, but then he stopped any direct communication because he said he 'could not do it'. I do not think this is burnout because everything i have read says that burnout is a complete collapse and he has been able to navigate the legal ending of our marriage far quicker than I can understand.  I am heartbroken.  I hope if anyone on here is unhappy in their relationship that they do find a way to speak about it before it ends in the way that mine did - if there is a chance to save a relationship, communication is the key to it. Thank you again.

Hello, I'm sorry you are finding it so hard and can imagine how you must feel. I don't have anything to suggest, I wish I did.

If you can't talk indirectly through a 3rd party friend or family member and say what he meant to you, I don't know what the answer is. Time may help, as I think was mentioned before. But this may be many months. It can take 6 months or more to recover from burnout, but I don't want to give you false hope.

it is :) - thank you Profdanger

I hope it’s okay for me to do this, googlefox, but here’s the other thread in case someone wants to know more about this situation: https://community.autism.org.uk/f/adults-on-the-autistic-spectrum/46644/relationship-ending-abruptly---advice-sought