Special interests and parenting...grrrr

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OK, it's not my son who is on the spectrum, but my husband. But I wasn't sure where to post this at is related to a parenting issue.

Today I used a special Relate service for partners of ASD folk (relationship counselling) to help me with an issue related to resentment I feel. My husband has fallen into his special interest in a big way (Dungeons and Dragons) spending ridiculous amounts of time on it (30-40 hours a week). He spends more time on D&D than on work and parenting combined. I feel a great deal of resentment about it and how he uses it as a way to hide from problems and would do this to exclusion of family time together. I probably wouldn't fantasise daily about divorce if he'd put a shred of the time into our marriage that he put into D&D.

So anyway, now the only way that he spends time with our six year old (NT) son is by engaging with him thru the special interest. No homework. No other activities. Very rarely just hanging out together. D&D or no interaction. I'm trying to be grateful and happy that they're spending time together but trying to overcome my resentment that it's about D&D.

So anyway I talk to Relate about this and I mention that I was also unhappy that on my training nights, my husband spends his time running an online game and leaving our 6 yr old alone downstairs watching tv - basically ignoring him - instead of interacting with him when I'm out.

The counsellor asked if I could talk to him about it as a safety issue. I said, I doubt it as he's quite happy to leave our son at home alone for an hour and a half when he's watching him when I'm out - even though I've said I'm not comfortable with it. Our son is 6. The counsellor said "this is a child protection issue - and I know it makes it harder for you, but you're going to have to deal with it."

I feel absolutely despondent. I need this time out, as home time is so miserable and I really enjoy playing rugby and it's given me a great support network which I desperately needed - as well as building my self-esteem and getting me fitter.

I feel in despair. I know my focus on my husband's special interest is actually a deflection from some of the real resentment I feel about parenting. I'm angry. I'm sad. I feel exhausted by this.

Oh, wow. I'm so sorry. That is hard. It does seem stupid to need to hire a babysitter while husband is home, but what can you do?

Look-- I love my special interests as much as the next Aspie. But-- if they can't accommodate the kids, then they have to wait until after bedtime.

I've had the D&D obsession (though we didn't find a way to play 30-40 hours a week in COLLEGE). I've had plenty of obsessions-- the worst it ever got was depositing the baby in a playpen in a noisy room full of college students (who adored her) and praying she'd stay asleep, or asking someone else to make my die rolls while I walked the floor in character with a screaming baby (did that more than once, and never did like screw up and forget that the baby wasn't a Morningstar). Or driving around in circles-- once upon a time, our favorite restaurant was a Krispy Kreme 60 miles away-- just because it took an hour to get there so we could get coffee and drive an hour home, and that meant we had two hours to talk about stuff while the same baby (by then a toddler) slept in her car seat.

Selfish?? Hell yeah, I was selfish. Selfish, self-absorbed, self-serving Aspie. Once or twice, I even strapped the car seat in on one side or the other of the back seat (less safe in a side-impact collision) so I could sit in the middle, poke my head up into the front seat, and not have to ask people to repeat things.

Put "Blues Clues" on the TV and sat at the kitchen table (in a three-room apartment) painting miniatures. Did it for HOURS.

Except-- I think there' a little bit of a difference. We were IN THE SAME ROOM. As long as she kept her paws off the paint, the kid could sit right there and talk to us (not necessarily about miniatures). NOBODY, EVER, left the kid alone in a room (unless she was asleep) or alone in the house (would NOT have happened) so we could do ANYTHING.

Because THAT'S NOT RIGHT.

I don't care what kind of condition he's got, or if it is his special interest-- he needs to get his head out of his ass, put the dice down (sometimes-- not forever, just maybe about 25 or 30 more hours a week), and take some responsibility for the rest of his life, before he finds that he has much more free time (and that D&D isn't really much of a substitute for wife&kid).

He's probably thinking that it's bad for him to play-- ever-- and that what is really wanted is that he give it up-- entirely-- because we tend to be prone to this kind of stupid-ass black-and-white thinking. Somewhere, some fool either gave him all the time he wanted to do his own thing, or else they nagged him to "act like a normal kid." Balance is hard to learn, harder still for Aspies...

...but your therapist is RIGHT. This IS a safety issue, this IS a protective issue, and this is ALSO an issue of basic understanding and respect.

He needs to finish up the games he's running, and then spend less time (not NO TIME, but LESS TIME) dicing on the Internet (or IRL, for that matter). If he wants to play with his buddies-- FINE. If he wants to play with the kid-- FINE. But LIFE has to come first. Hey-- I have 15 pounds of potatoes, 15 pounds of beef, and a big ol' turkey carcass to make into stock and can up. Wanna guess my special interest for this half-decade???? And I LOVE talking to you people on the Internet.

But I'm going to get off the computer, wait for my older two to walk in the door, feed them a snack, deal with their homework, get everyone supper...

...and THEN I get to go back in the kitchen and role-play self-reliant hillbilly survivalist.

At least until bedtime.

If your son is interested in D&D then I guess you can tell your husband that during the time you are out your son can either be included in the games or he cannot run them while you are out. You cannot give up the minimal time you have to yourself, or you will go crazy. Even if he has theory of mind issues, he should be able to relate to that.


As to the rest of it, I don't know how to get someone to tone down a special interest. The best you can do is think of a reasonable compromise, and propose it in terms of how much time he can spend on it, and how much other stuff you want him to do. If he were a little kid, it would be easier, but... he is a grown man.

I tell my husband that if he is going to pursue his interests and not spend time with the family, he will have to pay for a babysitter to help me out. It cuts down significantly on his absentee parenting blocks of time.

You just PUT A FACKIN' LEASH ON IT. I'm sorry-- there is no nice way to say that. YOU JUST PUT A FACKIN' LEASH ON IT.

Look-- hop on over to my profile. Oh, yes, I'm one of those wonderful Aspies with multiple special interests.

Some of them-- like kids-- are even useful to my life. Guess what-- I CULTIVATED that one. Deliberately, on purpose, AFTER the baby was born. OK, I had some level of interest in children in general to work with, but I basically cultivated an interest in my kid at gunpoint, saying to myself, "Well, you went and made her, so you'd better take an interest in her, beeotch." I had to get over a lot of shit-- like perfectionism, and terror of judgment, and black-and-white thinking-- to do it. And I STILL need time of being Not-Mommy.

The rest of them?? Well, at least fiction and writing and religion are portable interests. Books can be taken to the park, kids can be taken to most religions' equivalent of Sunday school, you get a few cool mom props for reading mythology to your kids (although not, I note, FROM your kids-- and I learned to my shame today that they don't like it when you clap your hands and say, "So whatcha wanna do yours on?! We have several wonderful biographies in the library..." when they come home griping about surprise book reports, either).

Gardening?? Survivalism?? Carpentry?? DIY?? Massive subjects. Time-consuming hobbies-- for an NT. All-consuming obsessions is more accurate for an Aspie. If I had my way, we'd be living in a three-room cabin on 100 acres and milking goats way out West (or anyway way out in West Virginia) somewhere. Hubby grew up in the 'burbs, on credit, with a you-are-your-stuff definition of success. Believe me-- the paid-up exurban doublewide with thrift-store furnishings and top-of-the-line tools and a one-acre back yard that's slowly being turned into a massive garden and mini-orchard (and not selling Saint Alan's place, but not moving there either) is a HUGE compromise (for BOTH of us).

I bury garbage cans and drag 50-gallon drums home from the hardware store, all the while trying to not get mad 'cause he thinks a root cellar would be a liability if we decide to move. He looks the other way while I bury garbage cans (though I note he's gotten quick to say things like "Have we got another gallon of that in the hoard??"), all the while reminding himself to be grateful that I have at least given up on the root cellar (for now).

You can't suppress a special interest, or make it go away. Trust me-- I tried with religion and survivalism both; I suppressed them for YEARS only to have them burst into full (and PARANOID) flower with sufficient provocation (meeting someone else with an interest in religion, and a couple of years on a very tight budget in BFE Arkansas, respectively). But-- I'm typing on a laptop in a fairly typical exurban living room with a pressure canner making that horrible noise in the background, not living in a three-room cordwood-masonry cabin, drawing water by hand on my way to the sweat lodge out past the goat pasture, musing on the esoteric benefits of pitching out the chicken coop while I plan the plumbing to gravity-feed the spring into the cistern. By all this completely meaningless special-interest babble, I mean to illustrate that the damn things CAN BE LEASHED.

Guys, I certainly don't mean to say that people don't deserve some time out from parenting. I certainly do. I think the current culture implies we should feel happy, happy, joy, joy at being in the presence of our offspring. I really enjoy the company of my son now, but I guess I'm not a baby person! I don't think we should feel guilty for enjoying time out*, but then again I'm not obsessional about my interests.

But I really want to thank you for helping me get perspective. My relationship with my husband has become very abusive. I'm really afraid to bring anything up to him because he rages. I carefully avoid mentioning anything critical. And saying stuff about his 'special interest' is a particularly sore spot. I guess I've conditioned myself to say nothing and I've lost perspective.

And I really want to get out of this marriage, but I absolutely despair if I can't trust him to look after our son that I won't get time to do my stuff and to date. But I suppose that's something I can raise with a lawyer.


___
*usually - sometimes things tug us in different directions

Sorry, but it simply does not matter if you are a baby person or not.

Do I like Pen & Paper roleplaying? Yes. - Am I an "clean the toilette person" in the meaning, that I love cleaning toiletts? No. - Does that have any effect on the fact, that the toilette simply needs to get cleaned from now and then, anyway if I favor playing Pen&Paper RPG?

Sorry, your husband does have to get this into his mind. SI? - Fine. See to do it, whenever it is possible for you and you dont have to do necessary duties. Spending some time with his son from now and then IS a necessary duty. It does not f*****g matter, if he enjoys that or not. Does your husband think, that the majority of grown ups, playing "snail-race" with their kids, enjoy that? Or playing memory, and faking to be worse then you are, for giving your kids a chance? And unbelievable or not....the majority of parents DONT think of the pictures of their 3 year old kids as "great art work of an maestro". They simply pretend so. So he shall get his ass moving and do his job. Kids are no game you buy, and dont exist to entertain you.

Abusive is a whole different deal and well above my 2 cent pay grade.

If the only reason you are staying with him is b/c you figure he won't be doing any childcare at all and will just pay court ordered child support, that is probably not a wise way to look at it.

If he is abusive, then solitary time with your husband may be something you do not want him to have, whether married to him or not.

My son was never the type I could leave with babysitters. If your son is OK to leave with other people, than maybe that is just what you have to do.

I'm just gonna throw this out there - my husband is a (recovering) alcoholic (and an aspie). When he was drinking I could not allow him to be alone with the children, it was a safety issue. I had to be sure that either I was available to pick them up or drive them to activities or I had to make arrangements to have a sitter do it as I could not rely on him to be sober no matter what time of day it was. Maybe you won't think this is a fair comparison but maybe you will. IMO your husband is neglecting his duties just as my husband was neglecting his. You need to figure out where your boundaries lie. For me, I came to realize that there was no way I was going to allow my children to be raised in a home with an active alcoholic. Even though there was no physical abuse, the toll that alcoholism takes on families is immeasurable and I became committed to doing everything I could to protect myself and my kids. This became my boundary and as hard as it was to do, I told him that he had to go to rehab and stay sober or he was not going to be allowed to live with us. Setting boundaries is hard and it is important to set boundaries that you can stick to, i.e. don't make threats you don't intend to carry-out.

Your husband's behavior is beyond unfair to you, it is unhealthy for both you and your son. Again this is just my opinion, but no grown adult in a committed relationship where there is a child involved should be allowed to participate in any activity to such a degree that it is detrimental to the other members of the family. I mean, what do you think your son is learning from observing his dad behave in this way and what is he learning if you allow it to continue?