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Frustrated NT women with "AS"men. Victims or control freaks?

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Chronos
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11 Feb 2018, 3:06 am

NorthWind wrote:
Chronos wrote:
"He was not like this when I married him."

It's true that people are often on their best behavior when they are dating. Or sometimes it wasn't that the person changed but the environment did and you are seeing the person operate under a different condition. Out of environment, dynamics, and people, people are the most difficult to change.


The "he wasn't like that when I married him." is a common claim and then they sometimes list traits that are, if he truly has them, impossible to hide. Like a severe lack of (cognitive not just emotional) empathy. How do you hide that? You either can tell what the other person feels and then you can act accordingly or you can't but then you can't fake it either.
Or a complete lack of understanding how conversations work. There was that one woman who claimed her husband can't hold any normal conversation. Like, when she tells him that her friend next door has a new cat he responds with "Cats are allowed in apartments here but dogs aren't". Or when she tells him she was at the indoor swimming pool he states a random fact about indoor swimming pools. And I just wondered 'Shouldn't you have noticed this before you married the guy?' (Didn't ask her that though).


Typically when I ask them why they married him they will either state he changed after marriage or they will swoon over his positive traits, but obviously, in marriage, his positive traits aren't enough to placate her.



sly279
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11 Feb 2018, 4:05 am

Wish one of these women would date me. And when they get tired and leave me atleast id had a few years of love.

But what if they right and aspie men are just horrible?



elkclan
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12 Feb 2018, 8:24 am

In my case it wasn't so much that I realised who he was and wanted to change him, it was more that I had a growing realisation of who he really was and what was ok with me also changed until I could no longer live with him.

1. When we first were going out he was besotted by me, which was pretty flattering. In retrospect, I was his special interest. Of course, over time, that fades and he went back to his original 'special interests' and I felt pretty abandoned - given he was spending 20-50 hours a week on it and not spending couple or family time with me.
2. Like everyone, he was on his best behaviour at the beginning of the relationship. This is impossible to sustain over time.
3. As we got older and took on more responsibility (e.g. house, career, child) he felt more under stress which took up most of his 'external emotional energy' bank, so there wasn't anything left for me.
4. Each of us had more crises over time, we didn't early on so his way of reacting during a crisis wasn't visible. I didn't know he would shut down in what felt to me cruelty and coldness and what probably felt to him like overwhelm when I lost my job, had a difficult childbirth, ended up in the hospital with chest pains, etc. When I most needed emotional support, he really wasn't there for me. At all, and in fact, made things worse.
5. I ignored red flags. I remember thinking "Is he autistic?" when we first got together, but dismissed the idea, because all I knew about autism was Rain Man. Literally, that's all I knew.
6. I blamed myself. He was a virgin when we met and was pretty sexually dysfunctional. I found all kinds of ways to blame myself for the sexual problems and I was pretty good at it. After all, all men like sex right? So it had to be me, right? (It wasn't.) It took a long time for me to realise that sex was important to me and I couldn't be in a relationship where we had dry spells of years and rarely had sex more than once or twice a month in 'good times'
7. I was used to being treated like s**t. My dad is an alcoholic. My mother is pretty much a classic narcissist. So I was used to my feelings, needs, preferences, etc being ignored. I thought that's the way things were. Obviously I didn't consciously think that, but that's what I was used to. As I matured, I realised it wasn't right. So I began to question the way I was being treated, and he had no wish to change.

These things added up over time and drove us apart. I'm not a control freak and I like a partner who is independent and who gives me plenty of space... but I also want one who can support me when I need it, just as I try to provide support for my partner.



314pe
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12 Feb 2018, 9:40 am

So typical that wife gets frustrated that husband didn't change after the wedding while husband gets frustrated that wife did change after the wedding.



kraftiekortie
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12 Feb 2018, 10:32 am

^^^Yep...more perceptive words have never been spoken. This is almost universal.

My wife wishes I could have become carpenter-like. I don't know why (laziness?)---but I, basically, cannot fix anything except for very simple things.

She denies it----but she laments the fact that I can never fix a leaky roof.



cberg
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12 Feb 2018, 7:16 pm

They're just confused if you ask me. I don't think we should be diminutive or accusatory to anyone on here, it's a place for q&a, I think this just narrows everyone's scope.


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The_Face_of_Boo
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13 Feb 2018, 2:50 am

That's a main reason why I said this in the other thread:

The_Face_of_Boo wrote:
Sabreclaw wrote:
Don't tell people you have autism. Ever. A diagnosis is based on personality traits, it's not hard science and as such it's ultimately little more than an opinion.


Exactly, and here we are talking about AS/HFA - people who don't appear abnormal among others like in case of severe/low functioning autism (they may not be the same condition, we simply all call them autism, there's no hard scientific biological proof of any type of Autism).

People here seem to forget that ASD diagnosis is ONLY a psychiatric diagnosis, NOT a medical diagnosis.

Rett Syndrome was thought to be 'Autism for girls" and was a psychiatric diagnosis in DSM; they removed it from DSM and made it into real medical books after its biological cause:


Quote:
Prior to the discovery of a genetic cause, Rett syndrome had been designated as a pervasive developmental disorder by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), together with the autism spectrum disorders. Some argued against this conclusive assignment because RTT resembles non-autistic disorders such as fragile X syndrome, tuberous sclerosis, or Down syndrome that also exhibit autistic features.[49] After research proved the molecular mechanism, in 2013 the DSM-5 removed the syndrome altogether from classification as a mental disorder.[50]


Don't tell anyone before AS diagnosis reaches a biological level, if ever will do.


Btw, I didn't even tell my girlfriend about it and will never do, and will never tell my future wife if I ever get married.




Why should I let them know? They will end up googling and finding such women on the internet who will be bad influence to the relationship.



Anngables
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13 Feb 2018, 9:46 am

As a (supposed) close friend of an Aspie man I can relate to much of this. I think frustration is natural when 2 people with very different minds and thought patterns try to communicate. I purposely choose to discuss any problems I have on this forum rather than on the ones for NT partners.

I do get upset and hurt often within the friendship. He has told me recently that I have also hurt him many times. It is difficult. I don’t consider myself a victim though. I have the choice to simply walk away from the friendship as does he.