Published on 12, July, 2020
Good Evening All, hope you are all as well as an be expected under the circumstances.I’m in my late 50’s, married to a man who I believe is Autistic. I’ve known for a long time there was something different about him and up until a couple of days ago was considering walking out because I don’t think I can cope any more, A couple of nights ago and out of sheer desperation, I put in some of his symptoms/behaviour traits and several articles came up about the possibility of my Husband could be Autistic. As I read the article, I felt relieved because his symptoms/behaviours are many and complex. He is hypersensitive about everything, food, sound, colour, lights seems to have little or no resilience to things that bother him. Finds it difficult to talk to people and never puts any effort in to making friends or keeping the ones he has/had Often says hurtful nasty things and is s serial liar. I find his behaviour very challenging and feel desperate to know what to do. The following morning I tried very tactfully talking to him about it. it’s very difficult getting him to talk about health issues and his feelings. I can broach things with him, but then he will close down and ignores the issue no matter if it could be a serious health issue or anything that appears to be not right. Once he’s in closedown, that’s it! He digs his heels in and stubbornly refuses to talk about it or do anything about the issues. I found an on line test of 50 questions about different situations about life etc. from the answers you give it tells you what your Score is on the Autistic Spectrum. He won’t do it and refuses to tackle any issues he has. His sleeplessness. His obsessive compulsive behaviours. Like constantly touching the hair at the back of his head. He does it for hours on end and it’s made his hair thin out and go so greasy so he washes his hair daily. Anyway guys I could go on forever and bore you to tears. The thing is I don’t want to leave our home. I just need to know first of all am I safe? As he gets worse is he going to harm me physically, or how do I deal with his hurtful, thoughtless comments. Myself personally, I have my own mental health issues. I’m very insecure and sensitive to peoples comments. I’ve lost a lot of confidence too. I need to learn coping strategies and how to deal with my husbands Autism. (Having a label which explains his sensitivities and behaviour is massive. It answers so many questions and now things finally make sense. Thank you all for reading this, I hope you can advise me.
Hi, I'm sorry to hear about your difficulties.
I'm going through diagnosis at the moment, but like you with your husband I don't have much doubt about what the answer will be. My main comments are probably more from your husband's perspective because that's what I can relate to slightly more. I hope it doesn't come across like I'm 'making excuses' for him or invalidating your concerns, and my view is that dishonesty and spiteful comments don't have any place in a loving and healthy relationship.
I can relate to his sensory issues, and that combined with little to no social life this causes some significant problems. I work from home full time and am studying a lot in the evening and weekends. I don't have particularly close friends and don't go out very often. As a result I spend most of my time at home and don't have a lot of time to myself away from others which I feel I need. I am very sensitive to noise and there is no escape from the general/normal day-to-day noise of my son playing or watching TV etc. or other household noises. At times this can feel incredibly claustrophobic and this only heightens my stress which makes sensitivities worse and things that I am usually more able to tune out become a much bigger issue. My wife and I are much more aware of this now and have developed ways around this - for example she will go in the other room to eat a snack, or announce that she is going to get something so I can make an excuse to leave the room while she eats (one of my bigger triggers). On occasions I have felt myself getting agitated through sounds and have left the house for a walk.
This only works because we have both accepted there is an issue and I am committed to doing my bit to reduce the impact on our relationship. Its sounds like this is going to be a difficult first step for you though. Does he acknowledge that his behavior is not 'typical' or that it causes relationship issues? Has this always been the case or are things getting worse? I find that other stressors such as work can make me a lot more sensitive. Is it that he doesn't want friendships or just that his difficulties are such a barrier that he is self defeating and not trying? Being honest with myself I am aware of a tendency to widthdraw from situations where I can't see success. Sometimes with friendships and relationships it seems too overwhelming to figure out how to fix things and make it more like the way I want and I make less effort, almost like it's a defense mechanism - like it's less hurtful in the future is a friendship or relationship fails if I haven't committed everything to it's success. I'm afraid I can't think what to suggest to get over this barrier though if he doesn;t want to talk or acknowledge anthing.