The site where they BASH Aspie husband and wives. :O

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League_Girl
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12 Nov 2014, 9:10 am

elkclan wrote:

Coming from that forum, you have to read everything in the context of the fact that many of the people in that space are emotionally done with their relationships. There is nothing that my husband could now do that would make me fall in love with him again. It has gone too far. Of course, my husband is verbally and emotionally abusive, but in a way that's a good thing because I might not have ever left this marriage even though it's not emotionally or sexually sustaining. It's not even intellectually sustaining anymore (and that is a need for me in a partner).

So, you're right - for many of the people on that forum nothing their partners could do would be good enough at this point. BUT, some of that 'faking' and social niceness is important to help your partner feel validated in the marriage. My husband doesn't ask me how my day has been. I once tracked him over a period of nine months and he asked me twice in the whole time. And I live an interesting life! Little gifts would have helped - they're a token of esteem and tangible proof that someone has been thinking of you when you're not there.

In terms of manipulation, from the person who is on the outside (and I won't even say NT or AS, because I'm not sure this matters) - it isn't easy to draw a line on what are AS behaviours and what are intentional slights. Some of my husband's AS behaviours feel like passive aggressiveness, but I think he's also passive aggressive (he can be aggressive/aggressive too). There's also a matter of being aware of one's natural tendencies that are AS related and choosing to behave in a different way (e.g. ensuring that you're checking your partner's emotional state verbally, hugging when s/he is in distress). Or our partners may have been told many times, calmly and rationally (or not) that certain behaviours cause emotional pain and simply choosing to continue them or failing to apologise when you slip into those behaviours. Where is the will and where is the neurological wiring? It simply isn't clear to those sitting outside someone else's head.

And there is no doubt in my mind that my husband also sometimes wilfully engages in hurtful behaviour, but I don't think all of his hurtful behaviour is knowing and wilful. It's hard to unpick. And to get past the emotional damage if someone was going to be able to rebuild the relationship, you'd have to be able to unpick that - you'd have to know when someone was just being AS-oblivious and when they were being hurtful and when they were being negligently hurtful (i.e. they could do better, but choose not to make the effort). I'd need to know this so I could rebuild trust - "Oh he didn't mean it..." vs "Damn, why is he doing this to me?" And it's hard. Even the bits that were outside of the control of our partners - the bits they could truly never change - would trigger the emotional pain of "Why is he doing this to me?" because some of the bad behaviour has been chosen.

So you have left your husband and now you are single now. The way you write about him makes it sound like you are still with him and I wondered what happened to the divorce you wrote about? Did that not work out so you ended up staying? But I assume you still see him because you both have a kid together and there is probably some joint custody or visitation rights am I right?

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League_Girl
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12 Nov 2014, 9:34 am

Quote:

It is my opinion that if you find a forum so distressing it's making you feel depressed and feeling bad about yourself, don't go there. I think the rest you wrote was good and I liked your perspective of the place. I have no problem either what they say about their partners but to generalize is what I have a problem with. It's no different than racism or misandry or misogyny, I believe this is what we call ableism.

If it weren't for their public forum, this thread wouldn't even exist. :wink:

But I do think it would be better if they made their forum a closed group where lurkers can't read it but I don't know if you have to join a forum to post because when I was on the Delphi site, you could post on any board but I don't remember if you had to join it first to post.

I have noticed whenever an NT would post there trying to get advice for their AS/Nt relationship, they never post there again and I assume they probably didn't like the board because it was too negative. I know not all NTs like that board either. I get it's a place for people to vent, not get advice or get told how wrong they are or hear a different perspective that contradicts their perspective or even be told it was not AS, it was just them being a jerk. That place isn't for everyone. It's a place to beat a dead horse and to bash us just because of their ex partner and they feel justified.

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Kurushimi
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12 Nov 2014, 11:28 am

"So here are just 2 things I can think of that you could easily do to help the situation. First of all, if a newcomer makes a post asking for advice, assuming their partner's behaviour isn't completely outrageous, it would help a great deal if at least one person could put things into perspective by saying "All of us are here because of bad experiences with AS relationships, so you'll be getting quite an extreme point of view. If you went somewhere like wrongplanet.net you'd surely get some very different answers". Or at least something along those lines."

This is exactly why I joined wrongplanet and not some other site

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YippySkippy
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12 Nov 2014, 12:33 pm

The name of the site is a complete misrepresentation of its nature. It's not about being a partner, or having a partner, or discussing ways of partnering with aspies. It's a bunch of ex-partners spewing hate. Half (or more!) of the people they're complaining about probably don't even have Asperger's, since many of them don't even seem to have a basic understanding of what the disorder is and isn't.

dianthus
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12 Nov 2014, 4:14 pm

Excellent posts jps. You said a lot of what I've been wanting to say but have been struggling to put into words.

It's one thing for people to vent, but something else entirely to put that venting up for public view as if it's supposed to be some sort of informational resource about Asperger's. It's inaccurate and irresponsible.

Also not good enough IMO to just tell people to stay away and not read it. The information and attitudes shared on a website can spread like wildfire and impact the lives of people who may never even visit that site.

As far as having an impact on NT/AS relationships, on the one hand I think anyone who would break up with their partner based on what is written on that site is a fool, and their partner would probably be better off without them anyway. And I think anyone who really wants to work things out with their partner is probably going to stay away from that site once they see what it's about, but it could still hurt a person's state of mind to read that garbage.

I've had partners with disorders and addiction problems and I know how overwhelming it can be when a lot of people are giving advice. It can be really hard to sort out good advice from bad when you are feeling vulnerable and questioning things. In one situation I was told all the same things they say on that forum (stay away, end it, it will never work out, things will never change, you will be miserable, etc.) and I mean I had people butting in to tell me those things without my asking. It was not helpful at all and it had a very negative impact on my life.

It is depressing and demoralizing to hear people making doom and gloom pronouncements on your life with an air of authority that they know better than you do. Some people really get off on that and feeling like they have influence over other people. If something didn't work out for them, they will do their damndest to make sure it doesn't work out for others either.

YippySkippy wrote:

Exactly.

dianthus
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12 Nov 2014, 5:07 pm

elkclan wrote:

Coming from that forum, you have to read everything in the context of the fact that many of the people in that space are emotionally done with their relationships.

I do read it in that context. It's not only clear that most of them are done, it's also clear that they want others who are still on the fence to be done too. They are proclaiming to the world that it's over, they have been done wrong and there's nothing more their partner can do. It would be pretty hard to miss that. But that's all part of why it comes across as being so unfair to partner, who may not have been informed yet that it's over, who may not be aware that their partner is emotionally done...and I understand some people might say a more attentive partner would certainly be aware of it so it's their own fault if they don't know. But isn't that simply the most fundamental point of incompatibility, that the partner is expected to know things they do not know, without being told? If nothing else - unless there is a serious threat of violence or financial ruin by disclosing - a person has the right to know when the relationship is over. Otherwise it comes off like the one who has already decided it's over is just using the other.

When I read the story described in the OP, I could picture a lot of different scenarios taking place, and I saw how it's possible that the husband might be a total jerk. But I also imagined a scenario where the husband is good, honest, decent man, trying his best to provide for his family, feeling totally taken for granted, and having no idea that his wife is complaining on a website about how unhappy she is without having talked to him about it. I imagined how he would feel if he found out and it really turned my stomach.

Quote:

In terms of manipulation, from the person who is on the outside (and I won't even say NT or AS, because I'm not sure this matters) - it isn't easy to draw a line on what are AS behaviours and what are intentional slights.

I think it can be hard to draw a line with any person of what behaviors are intended to be hurtful or not. But it's especially difficult when hurts and resentments keep piling up over time and nothing is being resolved.

I can't think of anything more crazymaking than trying to figure out someone's intentions when they keep hurting you. Bottom line, if you're hurt, you're hurt.

Quote:

Where is the will and where is the neurological wiring? It simply isn't clear to those sitting outside someone else's head.

It's not easy to differentiate but this is how I look at it: AS/ASD traits in and of themselves are not hurtful or abusive. It's the way someone uses those traits (via personality, attitudes, beliefs) that can be hurtful.

Jono
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12 Nov 2014, 8:42 pm

JPS wrote:

Another thing I see time and time again is the statement that an AS person cannot change, and most if not all of the compromise must come from the NT partner. This really baffles me, because I have changed a huge amount even before I met my NT wife, and a huge amount more over the course of our relationship. She has changed too, but has never made any allowances for me on account of my "disability". In fact she doesn't consider me to have a disability at all - the diagnosis was made in childhood (there was no doubt at all that I had it back then), and she has almost no interest in learning about it.

The thing is, even if you still have all the diagnostic criteria for AS as an adult, then that still doesn't mean that the relationship can't work. For instance, yo can still learn to communicate feelings verbally if you can't rely that much on body-language etc. I still meet the criteria as an adult but I've also changed since I was a teenager. I used to not be able to understand body language and facial expressions at all, now sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. I surprised to find out that my psychiatrist actually thought that I alexithymic back then but I don't appear to be any more.

Jono
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12 Nov 2014, 8:51 pm

JPS wrote:

From the posts on Wrong Planet, it's obvious how much it hurts some people with AS to read the public contents of ASPartners. Rather than being a useful educational tool, damaging someone's self-esteem in such a way is bound to have far more negative consequences than positive ones, increasing their defensiveness and paranoia. Some of you report having extremely arrogant or downright narcissistic partners, but I really think that such problems actually stem from a very low self-esteem which they need to keep artificially inflated. Anything that might lower the self-esteem of such a person can only make their problems worse. Then of course there are those aspies who are not arrogant but simply feel bad about themselves, and reading that forum just makes it worse. I saw one woman describing how it makes her close to feeling suicidal, and like she's a terrible burden on her partner despite his constantly assuring her that she makes him happy.

But it could also be harming NTs, if you scare them away from relationships that could have made them happy. In my last post I hope I succeeded in showing that good AS/NT relationships are possible, and why it is that the healthy ones probably escape your attention. I'm sure in many cases the advice to leave is the right advice, but you cannot know that until you have a great deal of information, or if their partner is obviously doing something completely unacceptable.

Well, there's also the matter that for every NT who reads something like and decides it's not worth it, is also preventing someone with AS from having a relationship or breaking up their relationship. That's also what I've been trying to say on this thread as well as privately to Elkclan via PM when she PMed me.

JPS
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13 Nov 2014, 7:44 am

Hi Jono - I agree with you on both points, and I did not mean to suggest otherwise in my posts. In my first post, one of my main points is that someone with AS can change, improve themselves and find new ways to compensate throughout their lives. I certainly did not mean to suggest that there is only a short window of opportunity before they reach adulthood. Personally, while I wouldn't be diagnosed with AS now, I might well have been as a young adult.

Quote:

Thanks for your positive feedback League Girl

I also agree with so much of what you write. But while you could very well say that it's a person's own fault if they keep reading something that upsets them, this won't change the fact that many people will still do it. The negative consequences of posting such material remains the same, regardless of where anyone decides to place the blame.

Quote:

Thanks Dianthus

and I completely agree!

Jono
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14 Nov 2014, 3:23 am

JPS wrote:

You didn't suggest otherwise. I was just pointing some things out.

Jono
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19 Nov 2014, 9:21 am

I've found a post on that ASPartners forum from long ago but it reveals it for what it is:

Quote:

The proportion of happy AS marriages seems to be minute - and if you marry someone with AS, chances are you will to all intents and purposes be marrying a 14 year-old who will never grow up, as emotionally they will behave like a teenager for the rest of their lives.

http://forums.delphiforums.com/aspartners/messages/?msg=3665.1

Yeah, don't marry us because we are all like emotionally immature teenagers. How wonderful it is to degrade people on the spectrum or with developmental disabilities, isn't it?

LoveforLoki
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19 Nov 2014, 12:51 pm

Eh what a bunch of w*kers! Seriously, WTF? I do not feel sorry for them at all, there is a solution it's called mature communication. They could go to couples therapy, she could go to a woman's shelter and get her life together through their resources.

I am married to a NT and he digs me to the max, even with my weirdness, in fact he finds it quite charming.
We have been married 7 years (8 years in January) and get along damn well.

A marriage between two NT's have their fair share of problems and pretty much the same issues. I have read my fair share of women in my mommy forums complain about the same issues of their husbands ignoring them all the time. This woman you quoted is just using her husbands autism as an excuse for her failed marriage and her poor attempt to adjust to her husband.

As I read that forum I am dumfounded at the pure hatred they have for autistics. I mean utter hatred! I can't believe they are saying what they are. I wish I could expose them all to their partners. It's not just complaining there is some really disturbing and brutal threads there.

It is so damn disrespectful!

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dianthus
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19 Nov 2014, 4:18 pm

LoveforLoki wrote:

A marriage between two NT's have their fair share of problems and pretty much the same issues. I have read my fair share of women in my mommy forums complain about the same issues of their husbands ignoring them all the time. This woman you quoted is just using her husbands autism as an excuse for her failed marriage and her poor attempt to adjust to her husband.

Agreed and that is why I find it really hard to take their complaints seriously. The vast majority of it just sounds like very commonplace relationship issues and typical complaints that women have about men.

There are a few stories on there that do sound like the women were really mistreated. Like in one thread where two of the women talk about how their husbands cheated on them while they were going through treatment for breast cancer. That's terrible, but cheating or neglecting a partner during an illness has absolutely nothing to do with Asperger's.

It's just plain bigoted to hold a grudge against an entire group of people who have a disability, just because they have unhappy marriages. I can't repeat this enough: most of them don't even know, or care, if their partners actually have AS.

Quote:

I wish I could expose them all to their partners. It's not just complaining there is some really disturbing and brutal threads there.

I know. I wish I could expose them too. It just makes me sick to think of how any of their partners might feel if they found out.

What they are saying there borders on hate speech...I'm not sure if it actually is from a legal perspective, but I think an agency that deals with such things should look into it. Does anyone know of one?

Skilpadde
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19 Nov 2014, 5:37 pm

Being with an aspie apparently causes fibromyalgia, breast cancer and vitamin deficiency.
http://forums.delphiforums.com/aspartne ... sg=13394.1

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ToughDiamond
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19 Nov 2014, 9:19 pm

Skilpadde wrote:

Being with an aspie apparently causes fibromyalgia, breast cancer and vitamin deficiency.
http://forums.delphiforums.com/aspartne ... sg=13394.1

I've been accused of some bizarre things in my time, but :lmao:

The replies are just as good. Did you know that we were all jerks? And we "chemically produce 4x more adrenalin" :jester:

< (that's right, it squirts out of the top of our heads in three colours)

Understandable if it's the irrational venting of somebody who has co-failed in their relationship with an Aspie and doesn't understand why and can't overcome their bitterness. Best to keep such venting confined to a private session with a counsellor though. Once it's aired, sanity usually starts to come back. I don't think it's as dangerous as it may look. It's mostly limited to matrimonial criticisms, and anybody far gone enough to take it in and shun Aspies is probably doing us a big favour. I know people often say this as a retaliatory lie, but I honestly feel sorry for them when they're so hurt that they lose their grip on reality and forget to ask "what did I do wrong?" I've been in extremely hurtful relationships but I've always been emotionally healthy enough to look for my own mistakes, and I think closure only comes when you can tell the story of the relationship without sitting in judgement, because until you can, you're still at the mercy of your own anger, and that must feel pretty horrible.

Skilpadde
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20 Nov 2014, 3:54 am

ToughDiamond wrote:

Skilpadde wrote:

Being with an aspie apparently causes fibromyalgia, breast cancer and vitamin deficiency.
http://forums.delphiforums.com/aspartne ... sg=13394.1

I've been accused of some bizarre things in my time, but :lmao:

The replies are just as good. Did you know that we were all jerks? And we "chemically produce 4x more adrenalin" :jester:

< (that's right, it squirts out of the top of our heads in three colours)

IKR? That thread actually made me laugh, it was just that ridiculous.
Now I wonder who have caused my asthma, allergies and dry skin. I'm very glad the solution to illnesses is to stay away from some people. Spares me expensive doctor's visits and medication.

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