His Mother Doesn't Like Me

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Hmm... you want to get his mom to stop doing something that bothers you without cutting all ties to her. Are you sure that Nate is the best one to pull this off? Perhaps you should be the one to hash this out with her, since it is concerning difficulties that are mainly between you and her. Why have someone who is known to have social difficulties act as your diplomat? It seems to me that this is about the most counterproductive thing you could do here.

If she absolutely won't play ball, then Nate is going to have to cut ties with someone. But I think you've got a much better shot at not having it come to that point than he does.

The reason Nate is the one who has to talk to her is because the whole thing started with a fight Nate and I had. One of many. I was trying to figure out why Nate would hurt me, and I asked his mom for help trying to understand him. She did nothing. We patched things up, but not even two weeks later he REALLY messed up. I mean, lied to my mom about me bad, messed up. And I caught him in the act! I had had enough. My friends were worried about me, so I put a couple posts up on face book. One basically said I had it. And I wasn't lying. I was sending him back home in the hopes that tough love would wake him up. His mom was on my friends list, and she laid into me telling me she couldn't believe her son would be with a person who was so demoralizing to him and such a bad influence. She hoped he loved himself enough to leave me. I was demoralizing to him!! Because he lied about me to my own mother! I was livid! And in tears! Her son was perfect, and she didn't care what he did wrong, he was more than welcome to come home and leave the likes of me. So basically, his mom won't have anything to do with me. Again, I'm the screw up, not her son. I've talked to his brother Don about this, and he agrees his mom isn't right, but he doesn't know what to do either. So as far as me talking to his mom, I'm not seeing that as being very productive when her precious son has done nothing wrong. I wish. I have a list of what he's done, and if it wasn't for the Aspergers thing making me see that everything is part of his Aspie traits, I would have left him. For the hurt, the lies, the insults, and lack of love and emotion. Sorry to vent like that.

I basically told Nate he has until his birthday in a couple months. If his family plans on having a get together for him for his birthday, he as to tell them his new family needs to be a part of this. If he can't do that, I already told him, he will need to leave. I love him, but I won't let this hurt my family that was there before him. If his mom is that stubborn, I told him he will have to tell her he won't be over and discuss this with the rest of the family if he chooses. In everything I have read and studied, concessions can be made to him, but I need to make him toe some kind of line. And when it comes to my daughter, that line will be toed. I fight zealously for the people I love, and that includes him, unless he is the one doing the hurting. April is only ten and has learning disorders of her own. She doesn't completely understand. The line has been drawn. I guess we'll see what happens.

Thank you everyone for all your help and advice! I really appreciate it! This has been very hard on me.

First you had a problem with him (a very legitimate beef, mind you), and you turned to his mom to help straighten him out. Now you have a problem with his mom, and you're expecting him to go straighten her out.

Do you see a pattern here? Do you get the sense that you may have been following a sub-optimal strategy here?

Now Nate may very well not have what it takes to be in an intimate partnership. Lying to someone about you is very destructive to a relationship, no matter what condition he has. But pushing a reluctant third party into the role of your ambassador or enforcer whenever you have a problem with another person is also not very conducive to good relationships with any of the people involved. He needs to answer to you for his original misdeeds. She needs to answer - to you - for excluding you from family events. But neither of them should be responsible for taking an active part in bending the other to your point of view.

At least that's how I see it.

So, when I try to talk to her, and she has nothing to do with me, then what am I supposed to do? Nate hasn't talked to his family about the prospect that he has Aspergers. He doesn't think his mom will accept it. He thinks his mom will think it is my way of manipulating him. Or being demeaning to him. How do you talk to a person who doesn't want to talk to you?

I see your point. But it is too logical. His mother wants nothing to do with me or my thoughts. I have tried to email her to no avail. I have no choice but to go thru Nate. Unless you're suggesting I go straight to her home and not leave until she talks to me? And I will be very honest, that could be more than a little confrontational for everyone involved, and hurt not just my relationship with her, but with Nate as well. I have considered my options.

I have considered the fact that Nate is not ready for a serious relationship. It was very hard for me to consider how to work with Nate. When my friend told me I should consider Aspergers, I was on the last straw. I have studied and read many posts on here. Nate would be considered high functioning. But he still has the Apserger traits. Do you give up on someone you love, without trying to fix it? No. I don't. I have made it abundantly clear to Nate, it doesn't matter if some of the things are traits that can be traced to Aspergers. They are not acceptable behavior. We are working together. It's not easy, but we just started with this new information and realization.

Thank you for your help, though.

You're welcome. I'm not saying I know what to do... I'm saying that my experience and observation tells me that sending Nate to hash this out is unlikely to succeed.

I'm not saying that you should force Nate's mom to talk to you if she refuses to. Pressing that issue might get you into legal trouble.

If you must be included in any family event that Nate goes to, then tell him exactly that. Tell him that you will not stay with him if he goes to family events without you. Don't say or imply that he has the additional obligation to change his mom's behavior... even most people without AS can't reliably do that.

I told him my best hope is that his mother will let the past be the past because she wants to be a part of her son's life. Even if she still doesn't like me, she will tolerate me for him. I can handle that. It's not the perfect solution, but I'm hoping. I don't expect Nate to change her. It would be nice if he were more my defender, but I'm realizing that most likely won't happen. I'm hoping for the best. I try to be positive. Best case scenario, Nate can make her realize that Aspergers is real and he has this, and maybe then, we can find a common ground. Again, she may think I'm this horrible person, but maybe she will see why I have done what I have done. Or maybe I'm living in la la world. Who knows.

Thank you again. I really appreciate it.

I wish y'all the best of luck.

But although I agree that if you love somebody, you wouldn't give up easily on that person, I would caution against steering his growth and development too tightly. I have been in a similar situation -- in love with somebody who really didn't have the maturity or mindset to carry himself independently -- and I wanted to try to fix that. However, there is a conflict of interest at work in this kind of situation: I was trying to help him grow, at least so I thought, but only in the way I wanted. And this is contrary to how people usually grow to be fully independent: in a much more chaotic fashion, making lots of mistakes and only eventually figuring out what works best for that person. So although you love Nate, and admirably want to help him, there's only so much you can do in this situation before you start actually stunting his own growth. Once you've done all you can do that is still healthy for Nate, and if it's not enough, then sadly you'll have little choice but to say, "I love you so much, that the only thing left I can do to help you is leave you."

I agree. We have only in the last six weeks to month really started reading and studying Aspergers. I have read so much and there are still things that make me stop and go, "wow, that makes total sense, that is Nate". We have been trying to find counseling for him and also couple counseling for us, and I'm beginning to realize, I may want to get counseling for myself as well. All this cost money we don't really have I'm afraid. We're stuck in a catch 20. Nate doesn't have health insurance, and I'm a single mom. For now, we are just reading and plugging away at it.

I'm trying not to direct Nate. No, I am in one way. I want him to be employed full time. He wants a family, so he needs to be able to help support that family. I can't support everyone on what I make. So in that way, I am directing him. As far as his mother goes, I have left the final decision up to him. He knows the consequences of his actions either way. I think that has been the really big problem up to now. I have given him a lot of freedom to do as he wishes, until I realized it hurt April and me. Then that had to change. But if it does change, that will be his decision. I will have to cope with what he decides. Good or bad. That is also how most of our fights have come about. I have let him run off and do, but he has left me in the dust and forgotten about me. Until I say something to him and then its an "oh, you need me? What do you want?" My forgotten birthday was a prime example. He did nothing until I reminded him and then he did little to nothing and then couldn't figure out why I was upset. I didn't feel it was my place to remind him. I remembered his birthday and took him out for a fun weekend. I didn't expect anything that nice, but I didn't expect to be blown off either. So, I think I do need to step up and be more assertive, but give him the final choice up to the point it hurts someone. I guess that would be a happy medium. Even then, someone may still get hurt, but that is life. I don't know if there is a great answer for everything. I'm not a very pushy person. I am very laid back too, but I can see where with Nate, that has been a detriment to our relationship.

dear god some people's mothers are some kind of messed up.

YES! Yes they are!! !

Thank you!! !

Sounds like maybe he his awareness of Asperger's has come only from whatever resources you have put in front of him -- and maybe he has not spent any time with a therapist about his Asperger's.

He has hopefully a long life ahead of him and thus it seems worthwhile for his own growth in self understanding to meet now with a therapist. You may be living in a rural location where there are no therapists nearby who have experience with Asperger's in adults, but you might find someone who can help him, regardless.

This is somewhat a separate issue from getting a formal diagnosis from a therapist for the sake of getting some of his family, perhaps even/especially the mother, to regard his situation differently.

We have an appointment to see a counselor in a week. We already know no one near us specializes in AS. So any kind of diagnosis isn't going to happen any time soon. But the fact we are going, I'm hoping, will help him try to cope and understand what is going on in our relationship and his life. I'm hoping anyway. And I'm hoping that this counselor will be able to help guide us the right direction.

We have read a couple books, and I have done a lot of online research. He is dyslexic so reading is difficult for him. I try to help. It would be nice to find someone who knows more than what I've found. I'm hoping that will happen sooner than later.

Whoa, wait. This is a recent issue, right? Well, fairly recent, anyway... My instinct at this point would be to let it blow over, but don't let her continue to shut you and your daughter out of family get-togethers. Did she personally tell you or Nate that you weren't welcome at family events, or were you and Nate just afraid that you wouldn't be welcome? It could be that your own fears -- that's a plural "your," meaning yours and Nate's as well -- are blowing the whole thing out of proportion and in the process making the situation much worse than it actually is. This is where Nate needs to stand up to his mother, not about your argument with her. Your argument with her is yours to deal with, but when the next family event rolls around, Nate needs to tell his mother that you and your daughter will be coming and that he expects her to make both of you feel welcome, since you are both very important parts of his life, now.

Wow this sounds like my whole life, everybody I care about using me as a weapon against someone else I care about. I hate being manipulated, and the people doing it usually honestly have what they see as my best interests at heart, yet the bottom line is I'm being forced to take sides over social slights I can't even see much less care about. If you and Nate's Mom want to get all Machiavellian then that's your business. I'm probably an aspie and when I see people doing this I just don't get it, why they do it, why it's important to them or even what the whole purpose is. In the concentration camps in WWII the Germans would have the Jewish prisoner's pick up a pile of rocks on one end of the compound and move it to the other side, then when they finished move it back untill they went crazy and did something sucidal. To an aspie all of this NT social posturing is just moving rock, meaningless and purposeless effort. Nate's response seems to be passive-aggressive by taking neither sides. Nate's mom sounds like she has some narcissistic traits (kind of like my wife) which often reinforces passive-aggressiveness and learned helplessness( kind of like me). Remember 1. she offered him the farm if he left you and he's still there, 2 I'm not a shrink so YMMV.

That's exactly my point!

I want to leave the past in the past! If she doesn't want to deal with her son's issues, and believe he's perfect, so be it. I just want to be a part of "family" events because as my daughter pointed out, we are his family.

Out of the mouths of babes.

Nate is the one who told me I wouldn't be welcome at his parent's home, and it would be best if I just stayed out of it for now. I agreed because I didn't want to make waves, but I warned him this could become bad if he didn't do something. This whole thing happened almost six months ago. I'm still on the outside looking in and wondering. Nate hasn't said anything to him mom yet. I gave him until his birthday, which is just over a month away now. He hasn't said anything to her yet. He hasn't exactly seen her yet either.