Struggling with marriage

I'm sorry to hear you're struggling so much, it's a difficult time, just after being diagnosed. But as far as your relationship with your husband goes, is it a dignosis thing, or is it that these problems were there alreaay and diagnosis has brought them to a head? I've spoken with so many women over the years who have the exact same problems, of not being listened to, heard or understood and many who've never been able to be themselves or have suppressed who they really are for years as they know it will not be welcomend by thier partner.

How does your husband know that you haven't been masking? Really what he's saying is that he believed the mask and is still believing it.

I don't think many male patners do notice how much thier female partners carry, they just take it for granted. The other thing to keep in mind is that these things don't suddenly happen, they build up over years, each one piling up until theres somekind of explosion or implosion, you are not alone in feeling like this.

Maybe some therapy for yourself and about yourself would be good? 

If you had to write a manual about yourself, how you work and what you need to keep working properly what would it say? I know this sounds very mechanistic, but it can be a useful exercise to do for both you and your husband. A friend did this sort of thing when her father couldn't accept her dietry needs after she was diagnosed with Chronns disease, he was a mechanic and when Chronns was explained to him as a the needs of a high performance car, his whole attitde changed. Sometimes people just don't know how to approach issues and putting in a form they can understand, leads them to be more open and ask questions that are helpful rather than unhelpful and shouting.

One thing you say, which I notice lots of people say, is "the marriage", who is this marriage and why do you speak of and maybe think of it as a third person or abstract concept? A marriage is a relationship, albeit with legal ramifications, but essentially its two people relating. Has "the marriage" got in the way of this?

I'm sorry to hear you're struggling so much, it's a difficult time, just after being diagnosed. But as far as your relationship with your husband goes, is it a dignosis thing, or is it that these problems were there alreaay and diagnosis has brought them to a head? I've spoken with so many women over the years who have the exact same problems, of not being listened to, heard or understood and many who've never been able to be themselves or have suppressed who they really are for years as they know it will not be welcomend by thier partner.

How does your husband know that you haven't been masking? Really what he's saying is that he believed the mask and is still believing it.

I don't think many male patners do notice how much thier female partners carry, they just take it for granted. The other thing to keep in mind is that these things don't suddenly happen, they build up over years, each one piling up until theres somekind of explosion or implosion, you are not alone in feeling like this.

Maybe some therapy for yourself and about yourself would be good? 

If you had to write a manual about yourself, how you work and what you need to keep working properly what would it say? I know this sounds very mechanistic, but it can be a useful exercise to do for both you and your husband. A friend did this sort of thing when her father couldn't accept her dietry needs after she was diagnosed with Chronns disease, he was a mechanic and when Chronns was explained to him as a the needs of a high performance car, his whole attitde changed. Sometimes people just don't know how to approach issues and putting in a form they can understand, leads them to be more open and ask questions that are helpful rather than unhelpful and shouting.

One thing you say, which I notice lots of people say, is "the marriage", who is this marriage and why do you speak of and maybe think of it as a third person or abstract concept? A marriage is a relationship, albeit with legal ramifications, but essentially its two people relating. Has "the marriage" got in the way of this?

TheCatWoman said:

Maybe some therapy for yourself and about yourself would be good? 

This would be my first suggestion too. Understanding yourself can probably happen most easily with a professional 3rd party who will not judge you, has no prior experience of you and is trained on techniques to help you.

Just make sure they have plenty of experience in helping autistic patients as there are plenty who don't and this makes quite a difference.

TheCatWoman said:

How does your husband know that you haven't been masking? Really what he's saying is that he believed the mask and is still believing it.

I agree with this. I think the male perspective is probably confused as you spent 25 years acting as if you were one person and have now come out as a different version of that person. I would expect that as with most recently diagnosed autists, you still fall back into masking behaviour and acting like the old person again so your husband is getting confused.

The therapist can help you work out what aspects of the "new you" that you have greatest need to be addressed and then have a couples session with the therapist (if they offer this option) and they can help your husband understand your situation and needs.

Also remember that your husband will be in need of some help as well as he has just found out that the woman he has spent 25 years with is not who he though she was. He would most likely benefit from some therapy of his own to navigate the confusion and feelings he will experience.

As men (your husband and I) we are conditioned by our upbringing and to a degree society to be stoic and just "deal with it" which often leads to acting on ignorance, fear or our own version of demand avoidance. I'm not saying we are victims but it i much healthier on all sides if we are helped by professionals.

Chloe1980 said:

Is anyone else here late diagnosised autistic and their partner not autistic? I feel like Im cracking up.

I was in my early 50s when diagnosed and my partner never really accepted that my issues were autistic - I was still expected to deal with stuff, suck it up and change my ways.

That did end up with the dissolution of our marriage as we could no longer accept the new reality. My partner did not want a "defective" husband and I could not stand to have a wife who could not accept me for what I was.

We are still good friends and share a business but the relationship at a romantic level was no longer sustainable with that break of trust. We tried couples counselling but we could not find a compromise that would work.

We did have individual and couples therapy for over a year but without being able to reclaim what we had.

Sorry for oversharing but you asked and sometimes the truth is not pretty. I hope you have a better result than I did.