Published on 12, July, 2020
Spent the last 50-odd years struggling with the world and putting myself down for it. I have an exceptional mind, but find life too confusing to put it to the best use. I have a handicapped son who has recently taken an oral test for autism and found myself answering yes to all of the questions....for myself! Online tests confirmed this, so I made an appointment with a mental health expert who is convinced that I'm an Aspie, athough I face an 18 month wait to see a specialist. The relief was immediate. I didn't have to see myself as a klutz anymore; it's standard for Aspies. Yippee!
I took the information back to my wife and she flatly refuses to believe it; you can see the scorn in her face, like it's just another of my "excuses" for non-standard behaviour. It's impossible to reason with her; I can't tolerate confrontation, which leaves me sick and shaking with adrenaline, unable to formulate a cohesive reply, and she's got a black belt in deliberate obfuscation, running rings around me every time and leaving me shaken. I'm even doing this incognito, since she scans for nascent obsessions, intending to nip them in the bud. I got up the nerve to tell her that what she's doing amounts to sadism - even controlling behaviour - and you can guess how well that one went down.
It seems that she's doing everything in her power to try and mould me into a "normal" person, putting me under the sort of intense scrutiny that demolishes my ability to function effectively. Basically, it provokes the opposite effect to what's intended. I feel like I'm being microscopically dissected by the Thought Police. I've lost count of the number of times I've been accused of infidelity, when in fact the effect of being forced to be something I'm not places a mental obstacle between us that effectively excludes intimacy for long periods. I try to explain but I get tied in knots each and every time. I just don't possess the mental tool set that's required.
I am now camped out in my head going through the motions, offering about 1% of my mental capacity for interfacing with the world, while the other 99% is in frantic, desperate activity wondering what the hell to do to salvage the situation. Never been so low. Meanwhile, with Christmas coming up I'm expected to contribute with a pasted-on smile - something that I'm literally incapable of doing. What on Earth can I do?
It's a worn-out cliche, but my wife - in very real terms - does not understand me.
I recognise everything you say, sadly. I've been in a relationship like that too, to the point where she was having revenge sex with other people to get back at me for what I wasn't doing... It isn't a relationship if both people don't put it first.
I wouldn't bother trying to see things from your wife's point of view. You won't be able to, and if she won't try to understand you then you'll waste a lot of time and energy on a null result. As 'socks says, if she is intent on imposing her 'solutions' on you without bothering to try and understand you, she'll just drive you under. We're easy targets for bullying, and the way you describe the effects on you of this situation sounds like that's exactly what you're experiencing. Jiggeryqua says it, and so do I.
I've had it thrown at me that my diagnosis is a convenient 'excuse', although for what I have no idea. I'm aware that I behave 'differently', but we are 'different' people and only the thickest tw*t could fail to grasp this, so it's the most ignorant, dismissive, bullying outrageous thing that anyone can say. It's an explanation, but that's what it is, it isn't something we hide behind, it's something that we struggle, hard, to get to grips with, and we help each other to do that on this website. You can lead a horse to water, but if she spits it out again she'll just stay thirsty!
So let me tell you that it is OK to be you. It's good to see that you clearly know yourself and your situation very well indeed, and I'm glad that you're starting to get yourself into perspective. Trust me when I tell you that the journey you are embarking on will cause you all sorts of torment, nothing you haven't repeatedly experienced before, but this time when it does we're here for you and at the end you'll be glad that you did it because it will end many of those sessions where you've tortured yourself just trying to understand.
On here, you have found people who DO understand you, and we'll be with you on your journey because those of us (there are a good few) with late diagnoses have been on the same journey - you are not alone. I would recommend that you let your wife read these posts. If she has any respect for you or desire to keep your relationship, she'll jump at the chance. Her answer to your invitation to read them will tell you all you need to know, I think, but please be prepared for the tragic truth if she refuses. There are plenty of NT partners of AS people who post on here, so she can't use her non-AS status as a convenient excuse!
Lastly, if she treats her AS child how she treats you, she is going to harm him and the child will be better off with her out of his life, frankly. Please take this last issue extremely seriously.