Not sure what to do at this point...

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Sweetleaf
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12 Apr 2018, 1:00 pm

ConcernedNtHusband wrote:

Esmerelda Weatherwax wrote:

^^ This, x 1000% .

OP, we're Aspies - 99.999999% of us are going to tell you what we really think is true, rather than what you are hoping to hear. I don't mean that unkindly. It's a feature, not a bug, but it's actually beneficial to those who can deal with it. (Especially when we've figured out how to do it tactfully.)

Those of us who are experienced with this type of situation - age irrelevant - are giving you very similar feedback. You might want to factor in something important: many many Aspies have some kind of chronic health issue that travels with the ASD. In my case, it's IBS. Really bad IBS, flares up very often, potentially a very limiting thing. Yet I held a full time job for 30+ years, and had relationships as well (including some wonderful ones), and before beginning my career I managed to complete an education through the PhD level. There are many here with far more severe limitations than mine, and a lot of discussion about how frustrating that is. Please think about that, too... and about Giant's ex-aunt. Ask yourself why the difference.

Chump Lady writes about something called hopium... and about something called the Pick-Me dance. Please think about reading her in more depth at some point, because although the front end message at her site is that she speaks to betrayed spouses, I read her - and her commenters (I lurk) to learn more about the varieties of interpersonal abuse.

You might also benefit from reading Dr. George K. Simon, who is a psychologist and about as much of an expert on character disorder as Dr. Robert Hare is on sociopathy. There is no higher compliment I could give Dr. Simon. And he does not counsel "abandon all hope". He counsels clear vision and setting aside treasured illusions in order to engage constructively and know what you are dealing with; which is different.

Link to his site: https://www.drgeorgesimon.com/ will be worth every second spent on it.

This pretty much exhausts my constructive feedback - I've said everything I can think of without repeating, so I'll leave it at this, and wish you the best, and that's sincere.

Thank you again for the response. I'll look into that doctor and will poke around a bit more on Chump Lady's site. I think it's a matter of dicoverability for her site as she has a ton of resources, journals and blogs on there and they all seemed to talk about infidelity.

For everyone else: I will seriously contemplate what I should do from here. She said yesterday that she's just going to bottle and cover everything up, and that this is just going to boil beneath the surface for her. In other words, it's going to blow up again at some point in the future. She was talking about how she doesn't want to kill herself over this, but that it's tempting because she doesn't want me to "throw her away." This wouldn't be the first time she threatened this, and she actually did attempt it at one point and I had to call the police for intervention. So I have that hanging over my head, too.

Well that is an extremely stupid and unhealthy thing for her to do. She needs to deal with her issues not bottle and cover everything up, she's right she will blow up if she does that. Why do I say this, because I've been down that path before and nothing good really comes of it except exacerbated issues. Also, it doesn't sound like you want to 'throw her away' sounds like she's doing a fine job throwing her self away and you're concerned. I think even if she does not want to hear it you should tell her instead of doing that she should get some help for problems instead of bottling them up.

I mean its doing her a disservice if you just go along with her bottling stuff up until the next big blow up...if she's attempted suicide before it's likely she would do it again if she doesn't address this stuff. So maybe sit her down, tell her you're not going to 'throw her away' but that she needs to get some serious help before things get worse ...you mentioned she has PTSD, so I would suggest trauma therapy but empathize its because you care about her and want her to feel better.

Not great to hear but my honest opinion is, if she continues down this path of self destruction its going to be impossible to save the relationship. I mean a person can only take being pushed away by a person they love while watching them self destruct for so long before its enough.

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magz
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12 Apr 2018, 3:34 pm

ConcernedNtHusband wrote:

For everyone else: I will seriously contemplate what I should do from here. She said yesterday that she's just going to bottle and cover everything up, and that this is just going to boil beneath the surface for her. In other words, it's going to blow up again at some point in the future. She was talking about how she doesn't want to kill herself over this, but that it's tempting because she doesn't want me to "throw her away." This wouldn't be the first time she threatened this, and she actually did attempt it at one point and I had to call the police for intervention. So I have that hanging over my head, too.

Honestly?
Sounds very much like emotional terror.
Just another big red flag.
If she doesn't start to work on her issues, it's unlikely the relationship could be saved. And if you want her to start working on it, you mustn't allow her to terrorize you.
Look up for codependency.
You may look for help for yourself – assertiveness training.

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Chronos
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12 Apr 2018, 3:46 pm

ConcernedNtHusband wrote:

WARNING: This is super long as I feel it's important to give context and back story so people can make better judgement calls and advice.

I've been struggling for a while now with my wife, who is an Aspie. I'll set the stage so you have an idea of why I'm at where I am at this point. My wife was not diagnosed as an Aspie until years after we were married. When we initially got together she concealed that she had any sort of neurological problems, among a few other things that I won't get into here because it's not really relevant. She tried her best to be as normal as she could be, but as our relationship blossomed there were some warning signs that I should have recognized that things were not what they seemed to be. I was in love with her though, and as you've probably heard many times: love is blind. Also keep in mind that we have been together now for well over 15 years, so my posting here isn't some shallow scenario. These are problems that have persisted for many, many years and I am at my wit's end.

As our relationship lengthened her outbursts and meltdowns were dealt with by me in a very poor manner. I basically tried to do my best to change her and force her to be "normal." I will repeat myself: neither of us knew she had AS at the time. She suspected she had something wrong with her, but at the time never revealed this to me. So I persisted in calling her out when she'd yell at the TV because someone was on it that could potentially be thought of as pretty. She is obsessed with appearance and her insistence that she is the most beautiful woman on the planet, and will go to great lengths to point out any flaw, real or perceived, to ensure that everyone knows the imperfections in someone else in order to elevate her own ranking in her mind. You can probably tell this bothers me, because it does. I'd insist that she stop disclosing very personal, and what I consider embarrassing, details that nobody else other than close family or very close friends needed to know about.

I felt what I was doing at the time was the right thing to do. I know it wasn't now. I'll explain in a minute, but I wanted to also throw a few more things out there so people understand the disparity of our relationship. She can't work (or at least she insists she can't) because of her meltdowns, PTSD, anxiety and AS. She also has done everything she can to not lift a finger at home by claiming that her PTSD is associated with housework. I will admit I am having a VERY difficult time with the last two items. The reason being is that it basically puts her in a position where she doesn't have to lift a finger and I am the one stuck doing all of the work to not only be employed to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table, but also with keeping up the housekeeping on top of all the normal maintenance that goes along with being a homeowner. Meanwhile she gets to sit on the couch all day long and chat with her online friends and watch YouTube videos. Do I sound jaded? I kind of am.

This environment fostered a situation where I was becoming more and more angry at the situation, the unfairness of all the responsibilities landing on my shoulders and from my perspective doing everything she could to not be responsible for anything; whether it was income, housework or any compromises in the relationship itself. She did try to fake her way through being normal, even after being diagnosed. It ate her up inside and she'd stuff all of this down so it wouldn't show externally.

Eventually she no longer wanted to be in the marriage, though she never said anything up until a certain point. She wound up meeting some guy online and just about left me because she couldn't take the way I was treating her. At the time I was critical of her appearance because she had no motivation and was out of shape, and was still insistent on her being the most beautiful woman in the universe. Don't get me wrong, she is beautiful, but I have a hang-up about the way she demands me to acknowledge this all the time, and I don't do very well with demanding people, even if it's my wife.

I digress; she wasn't able to leave because I wouldn't give her the money to do so and I told her I'd fight her in court with every last penny I had to not give her anything to facilitate what she had planned. She only knew this guy for a few months and the warning sirens were going off in my head. On top of that, I knew the guy had NO idea what he was in for, and despite the fact she was driving me up the wall I still loved her (and still do) and did not want to see her get hurt, whether it was emotionally when things would have fallen apart between them - or perhaps physically if the guy had more nefarious ideas in mind.

We went to marriage counseling and I educated myself on Asperger's. I did everything I could to change and accept her for who she is. Things seemed to get better, but every now and then there would be some contention on things. She has a VERY bad habit of reading into what I say and putting words in my mouth. I am not the kind of person who minces words, I am not passive-aggressive (I am just plain 'ol aggressive) and when I say something it's not ambiguous or embedded with hidden meanings. When I say "nothing is wrong" I mean nothing is wrong.

Fast forward to now. We got in a fight over one of the most absurd things imaginable: me wanting to avoid a fight. There was something that had come up on a playlist that we had argued over previously. She had her opinion, I had mine. We never reached any consensus on this. Well, the same thing came up again and I skipped over it because I didn't want to rehash the argument. I knew we wouldn't agree and there was no point in getting into it again. It was the weekend, we had company over and I did NOT want to argue. So what did she do? Ask me if I skipped it on purpose. I said yes. She started in saying that we can talk about it and it won't be a problem, and then started iterating over the same points she argued last time. I said I don't want to get into it, I skipped it because I don't want to argue. She became adamant about it, and then accused me of hiding something from her. I have NO clue how she came to that conclusion. This was all over a music video, by the way, and how we had different interpretation of it.

So the whole thing devolved into a massive fight over me NOT wanting to fight by skipping the video. We argued for almost three days on this, and it completely ruined my entire weekend. I will point out that this has happened time and again lately, where if I have an extra day off or if I come home early, we wind up fighting over something that she brings up. To say I am frustrated with this is an extreme understatement, because I don't have enough free time as it is with having to be employed, do housework and maintenance on the house on top of it. The last thing I want to do is spend my free time being angry, frustrated and stuck in an argument with my wife who basically has all the time in the world to do as she pleases. She simply does not comprehend how valuable my own time is to me and seems willing to sacrifice my happiness if she feels that she's been wronged somehow, which has not been the case in over a year and half since we almost divorced.

Eventually this whole thing was dropped, or so I thought. Last weekend she brought it up again out of the blue, saying she never dropped it and just bottled the whole thing up. I'd already told here that if there are situations that come up where I can avoid starting an argument with her, I will do exactly that because I DO NOT WANT TO ARGUE. I have no idea how in her head she twists this into being a bad thing, but she does, and she continually accuses me of having something to hide. I am at a loss for words at how frustrated this makes me, because if doesn't make any sense whatsoever. I have attempted many times to explain to her WHY I don't want to argue and why I will avoid an argument if I can. I have used anecdotes, metaphors, scenarios - anything I can to try to get her to understand and she still falls back on insisting that me avoiding subjects that will result in us fighting is somehow me "hiding something." My only guess is this has something to do with Aspies being honest to the point of it being brutal. She refuses to accept that I don't want to argue.

So that leads me to yesterday where she was making some marital-related "suggestions." I was tired at the time and halfheartedly replied. She asked "did I say something wrong" - and this is where things devolved once again. She does this anytime she doesn't get the response she wants from me and reads into what I'm saying, thinking there's some hidden meaning. We've been down this same path a thousand times and I was just sick of it, especially in light of everything that's recently happened coupled with everything else that's happened over the years. Whenever she asks that it almost invariably is the start of a fight. I replied with a simple "no."

As usual that wasn't good enough I suppose, she doubled over while seated on the couch and started to stim. That's always the start of her melting down and starting a fight with me. I'd left work early yesterday and was looking forward to a few extra hours of unwinding, and instead here I was on the brink of yet another fight. Rather than deal with this AGAIN, I got up and went downstairs before I started to get angry. She melted down, which she would have done either way, and that's where I'm at today.

I know this was really long, but I felt putting everything on the table to give you guys context might help. I am by no means perfect, but I have done what I can to try to be as good a person as I can. I did not enter into this relationship or marriage knowing she wasn't NT as she was not diagnosed until after we were married. She hid a lot of things from me for a long time, so please keep in mind she is not just an innocent Aspie and I'm a cruel, overbearing NT guy. She has done her share of manipulation in this relationship, and I had done my share of damage in the past, though I have done everything I can to change. She'd tell you that I am a different person now, though with the recent fights she's suggesting that I am regressing at least partially. That isn't true, it's just the arguments we're having at this point are absurd. When we start fighting over me not wanting to fight is where I draw the line.

I honestly don't know what to do at this point. I love her, but she is literally ruining my quality of life at this point. She always blames her AS on everything, and if it's not the AS it's her PTSD, and if it's not that it's her panic disorder. She almost never takes any responsibility for anything, expects everyone around her to deal with her AS and wants special accommodations due to it. It's one thing to acquiesce to this if you're just a friend or family member that doesn't live with the person, but when you're married to them and this is an almost daily occurrence it REALLY wears thin. I'd rather not lose her, and I have no idea what she'd do if we were no longer together. The person she met a while ago wants nothing to do with her, she hates her parents and she said she'd sooner be homeless than go live with them. This leaves me feeling trapped on top of it, because I don't want anything bad to happen to her, but at the same time this relationship has soured to the point where I don't know if we have a future together.

Thanks for reading if you got all the way to this point. If anyone has experienced something like this and had things work out, or even if they didn't work out, I'd love to hear about how you dealt with things. Heck, I'm open to ANY suggestions because I'd rather things work out between us. I married her with every intention of "until death us do part" but I feel like I'm slowly dying inside.

Having AS is no excuse for being a narcissistic, petty, unfaithful, inconsiderate jerk.

It sounds more like your wife has some cluster B disorder, perhaps NPD as others suggested. Possibky BPD or somewhere in between. Anyway she has no problem finding some other guy while she is married, I doubt she will have a problem finding one when she is single.

May you find someone who values you and treats you well like a wife should.

Esmerelda Weatherwax
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12 Apr 2018, 6:40 pm

Oh dear.

Parasuicidal threats are a form of emotional blackmail, but they're also a very common symptom of Borderline Personality Disorder. Here is a link to a blog that discusses this exact situation and offers advice from the perspective of someone who's lived much more closely to this than I ever did. (Edit in: I'm not saying that you should not take the threat seriously. The blogger linked below explains how to do that, while also protecting your own mental health.)

https://www.bpdcentral.com/help-for-fam ... threats-10

Unfortunately if you're in the US, we don't live in a civilized country, so the amount of mental health resources available to you will be shamefully small - as Creigh Deeds found out, in VA, when his son needed inpatient tx. Still, it may be enough.

Chump Lady *is* primarily an infidelity survivors' site. The thing is, infidelity is just one form of abuse. To put it another way, spousal abusers operate from a small set of basic behavior patterns, and cheating on their spouses is one of the more common behaviors. So you have to look "through" the infidelity discussion foreground and you'll see the abuse patterns underneath. You can run searches within the site, I think, and I'm pretty sure she uses keyword tags too.

I seem to be throwing links at you like mad, and I'm sorry - but when others know more than I do and explain it better than I can, that seems like the ethical thing to do. So here is one more link, from a young genius who blogs as Issendai. Bookmark this... if it doesn't make sense today, there will come a time when reading it feels like discovering fire. I promise.

https://issendai.livejournal.com/572510.html

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ConcernedNtHusband
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13 Apr 2018, 10:55 am

I know I sound like a broken record by saying "thanks" every time I post, but I want you all to know that I appreciate your feedback and help.

Last night right before I went to bed, I was literally standing next to the bed ready to climb in when she came up behind me and wrapped her arms around my waist. She was saying that she loved me as well as a couple of other related comments, and then she asked if everything was going to be alright. I am honest 99% of the time - the other 1% is the time when I know the response is just going to start a huge fight and make her feel bad, typically anything regarding her appearance. Again - don't get me wrong; she's very beautiful, but with all the things she's been going through, mostly because of her own fault and lack of motivation, she's let herself get way out of shape. She's not overweight, but she's probably closer to the overweight side of things at this point, and she does not carry any fat she accumulates very well at all.

I used to counter her insistence on her being the most beautiful creature on the planet with how out of shape she is, mainly because I couldn't stand her insecurity that seemed to manifest in narcissism. Those days are long gone, and I haven't said a single negative thing about her appearance. I just avoid the topic like the plague, or will outright mince words so that I don't get in a fight over it. Her lack of motivation to keep in shape does bug the heck out of me though. I am a very active guy. When the weather is nice I bike over 120 miles in a week (I'll commute to work and back on my bicycle), take kickboxing classes twice a week and do weight training once or twice a week on top of it. I try to eat healthy with a somewhat strict diet. Doing this takes a LOT of determination, discipline and motivation.

She wants to workout with me, but she demands that I FORCE her to work out with me. I've told her I'm not going to force her to do anything. Last year for a few months she'd join me for some of the stuff I do at home, but she'd skip many days when I asked her if she wants to come work out. She'd make excuses all the time: I haven't slept, my stomach is bothering me, headache, back hurts, etc. Then later on that day or the next she'd get upset that I didn't FORCE her to work out with me. I believe she'd do this to offload any guilt she was feeling for not working out by trying to shift the blame onto me - "you didn't make me workout, therefore it's YOUR fault I didn't workout." I've explained to her that it is hard enough to stay motivated and do all the exercising I do for myself, I don't have the extra energy to try to force someone else to workout who doesn't want to. She insists that I need to force her to do it and I just refuse. She needs to get her own motivation. I've told her the door is always open if she wants to join me. She has done so maybe once or twice on her own over the past year. But I digress...

She had asked me last night if everything was going to be alright, and I said "maybe." I was being honest, because I don't know. With everything that has been happening over the past 6+ months it's put a massive strain on our relationship. I say only the past 6 months, because prior to that I was still in the process of doing what I could to be a better husband and a better person overall. I feel confident that I've met that goal and have maintained it. I slip up now and then, but never in the way that I used to (calling out her appearance, trying to force her into being someone she's not, etc.) She asked if we weren't going to be together anymore and I replied "I don't know." Honest again. She started getting upset (something I knew would happen, but I wasn't going to lie) and said something along the lines of she's trying to bottle everything up so I don't have to be bothered with what she's feeling so that we can stay together. I didn't say anything else at this point and crawled into bed, because I needed to get to sleep since I had work today. She shut the lights off and went in the front room and started crying. I felt bad that she was upset, but I was tired and wound up falling asleep in spite of the whole thing.

This morning she's asleep on the couch and I saw there was one or more text messages waiting on my cell phone. I avoided reading it until I left for work. While I was on the way in I read what she'd sent. I take a commuter bus in, so I wasn't texting and driving in case someone was thinking that. It was a massive wall of text that reads like one big guilt trip. Accusing me of not loving her, accusing me of not caring about her, accusing me of being the same person I was in the past (which is absolutely not true - she just doesn't like the fact that I am tired of putting up with her starting fights over and over), accusing me of thinking she's garbage to be thrown away, saying she might commit suicide because she doesn't have anyone or anything else to live for, wanting back the time when she felt I loved her (aka the time when I would let it slide when she was reading into what I was saying and constantly getting reassurance from me every few hours every day about how I loved her and cared about her.) Talking about how her AS makes communication hard, makes what she says easily misinterpreted, how she doesn't intend for what she says to be taken as anything mean, how she's stressed out beyond belief now, panicked, upset, feels worthless, etc. Talking about how she's been healing very slowly from the way I treated her over the years up until the time we almost got divorced, which has been 1 year and over 8 months ago now. Talking about how she loves me and how she's not selfish. It went on for a long time repeating the same thing, just phrased a bit differently.

My response was this in a nutshell:
- You're putting words in my mouth again, which has started fights between us so many times I lost count (her saying I think she's garbage, her saying I don't love her, etc. I never said any of those things and nothing even remotely close to those things, either.)
- You need counseling. You're destroying our marriage because of the way you're handling things and starting fights. This is something a professional needs to help you with, because I am not a psychiatrist, a psychologist or a counselor.
- You have all day long to find someone who can counsel you, and this is something you should have done on your own a long time ago.
- I will support you 100% with this in any way I can.
- You are wrong about not being selfish, because part of not being selfish is being willing to sacrifice. If you want to demonstrate not being selfish, sacrifice some time and get counseling to help you.
- You do not value the small amount of time off that I get, because if you did you wouldn't sabotage it by instigating fights over trivial nonsense. (Bear in mind that to her none of the things she starts fights over she considers trivial. In her head this is all super-important.)
- Either stop doing what you're doing, seek help to get someone to assist you in stopping this, or we won't be together because I will not live like this anymore. I have been MORE than patient regarding this whole scenario, and enough is enough.

And that's where I'm at this morning. It's Friday and the weekend is already shaping up to be yet another disaster that will ruin the time off I get. There is absolutely no way this will NOT devolve into another fight. I have never seen us be where we're at without it becoming a massive fight. I'm going to do everything I can to not get angry over the whole thing, because I swear when I know that more of my time is going to be wrapped up in arguing and fighting it's very difficult to not get angry. I just want time off to relax and do some of the things that need to be done around the house, and unwind when I get done with what I'd planned on accomplishing for the weekend. Knowing this whole thing is hanging above my head, waiting for me when I get off work is so unbelievably frustrating. Infinitely more frustrating considering this has happened again and again. It makes me not even want to go to my own home and just go stay at a hotel overnight. But of course if I did that she'd just think I'm cheating on her or who knows what else she'd accuse me of doing, but it would be something like that for sure. I'm just burnt out and so, so tired of this.

I have to apologize because this is more like me venting than anything else. I don't really have anyone to talk to about this which is why I'm posting here in a fairly anonymous fashion. It kind of helps me to organize things, and think about them in a linear fashion as I communicate what's happening - from my perspective anyway. I am sure if she had a chance to tell her side she'd think things are completely different, and that's part of the problem. She is almost incapable of putting herself in someone else's shoes.

Going to stop typing now, I have already gone on for WAY too long on this.

The_Face_of_Boo
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13 Apr 2018, 11:03 am

^ How old is she, it's normal for women to accumulate fat (and in wrong places) with aging.

Maybe it's the time to hit the gym together?

ConcernedNtHusband
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13 Apr 2018, 11:12 am

The_Face_of_Boo wrote:

^ How old is she, it's normal for women to accumulate fat (and in wrong places) with aging.

Maybe it's the time to hit the gym together?

She's in her mid-thirties. I have a gym at home so she can workout any time she wants. She expects me to push her into doing it though, and I just don't have the extra energy to do something like that. I tried it a couple of times when she asked me to do it, but she'll adamantly refuse and make excuses that seem legitimate at the time, but then the next day she'll blame me for not forcing her to workout. I just can't win.

The_Face_of_Boo
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13 Apr 2018, 11:23 am

You sound rich, hmm.

Well, try again to push her into doing it, since she's asking you for it.

ConcernedNtHusband
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13 Apr 2018, 11:54 am

The_Face_of_Boo wrote:

You sound rich, hmm.

Well, try again to push her into doing it, since she's asking you for it.

Hehe, well, I guess it depends on how you define "rich", but I'm not doing bad with regard to income.

She should find her own motivation in my opinion. As stated I tried going this route a number of times, and she pushed back more often than not. I don't like being pushy to begin with and want to avoid confrontations, not start them. I do appreciate your comment though.

Chronos
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13 Apr 2018, 3:25 pm

ConcernedNtHusband wrote:

This morning she's asleep on the couch and I saw there was one or more text messages waiting on my cell phone. I avoided reading it until I left for work. While I was on the way in I read what she'd sent. I take a commuter bus in, so I wasn't texting and driving in case someone was thinking that. It was a massive wall of text that reads like one big guilt trip. Accusing me of not loving her, accusing me of not caring about her, accusing me of being the same person I was in the past (which is absolutely not true - she just doesn't like the fact that I am tired of putting up with her starting fights over and over), accusing me of thinking she's garbage to be thrown away, saying she might commit suicide because she doesn't have anyone or anything else to live for, wanting back the time when she felt I loved her (aka the time when I would let it slide when she was reading into what I was saying and constantly getting reassurance from me every few hours every day about how I loved her and cared about her.)

Has your wife always been like this?

If no, disregard what I have written below the line. If she has not always been like this, she may be suffering from health problem such an endocrine problem. A common one that frequently goes undiagnosed is thyroid problems. This can easily be ruled out with a blood test.

If your wife has always been like this, I have the below to say.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
While the behavior you described is not necessarily indicative of a personality disorder and occasionally manifests in ordinary individuals under the right circumstances, it is common in those with personality disorders, particularly BPD.

ConcernedNtHusband wrote:

Talking about how her AS makes communication hard, makes what she says easily misinterpreted, how she doesn't intend for what she says to be taken as anything mean, how she's stressed out beyond belief now, panicked, upset, feels worthless, etc. Talking about how she's been healing very slowly from the way I treated her over the years up until the time we almost got divorced, which has been 1 year and over 8 months ago now. Talking about how she loves me and how she's not selfish. It went on for a long time repeating the same thing, just phrased a bit differently.

She feels worthless, you are the bad guy, but she loves you and is trying to heal from how you treated her...This is also more similar to BPD behavior.

ConcernedNtHusband wrote:

My response was this in a nutshell:
- You're putting words in my mouth again, which has started fights between us so many times I lost count (her saying I think she's garbage, her saying I don't love her, etc. I never said any of those things and nothing even remotely close to those things, either.)
- You need counseling. You're destroying our marriage because of the way you're handling things and starting fights. This is something a professional needs to help you with, because I am not a psychiatrist, a psychologist or a counselor.
- You have all day long to find someone who can counsel you, and this is something you should have done on your own a long time ago.
- I will support you 100% with this in any way I can.
- You are wrong about not being selfish, because part of not being selfish is being willing to sacrifice. If you want to demonstrate not being selfish, sacrifice some time and get counseling to help you.
- You do not value the small amount of time off that I get, because if you did you wouldn't sabotage it by instigating fights over trivial nonsense. (Bear in mind that to her none of the things she starts fights over she considers trivial. In her head this is all super-important.)
- Either stop doing what you're doing, seek help to get someone to assist you in stopping this, or we won't be together because I will not live like this anymore. I have been MORE than patient regarding this whole scenario, and enough is enough.

And that's where I'm at this morning. It's Friday and the weekend is already shaping up to be yet another disaster that will ruin the time off I get. There is absolutely no way this will NOT devolve into another fight. I have never seen us be where we're at without it becoming a massive fight. I'm going to do everything I can to not get angry over the whole thing, because I swear when I know that more of my time is going to be wrapped up in arguing and fighting it's very difficult to not get angry. I just want time off to relax and do some of the things that need to be done around the house, and unwind when I get done with what I'd planned on accomplishing for the weekend. Knowing this whole thing is hanging above my head, waiting for me when I get off work is so unbelievably frustrating. Infinitely more frustrating considering this has happened again and again. It makes me not even want to go to my own home and just go stay at a hotel overnight. But of course if I did that she'd just think I'm cheating on her or who knows what else she'd accuse me of doing, but it would be something like that for sure. I'm just burnt out and so, so tired of this.

I have to apologize because this is more like me venting than anything else. I don't really have anyone to talk to about this which is why I'm posting here in a fairly anonymous fashion. It kind of helps me to organize things, and think about them in a linear fashion as I communicate what's happening - from my perspective anyway. I am sure if she had a chance to tell her side she'd think things are completely different, and that's part of the problem. She is almost incapable of putting herself in someone else's shoes.

Going to stop typing now, I have already gone on for WAY too long on this.

I do not speak for all women with AS and I am not a mental health professional but she sounds too socially complex to have AS or AS alone. While I do not condone her treatment of you, and and I feel she needs to take responsibility for herself, there is a chance that something about how you interact with her causes her to be insecure. For example, saying one thing and doing another or doing one thing and saying another.

My roommate was very passive aggressive and used to do things like that. I would ask him if he wanted to go somewhere and he would say yes and then he would make the trip unpleasant and act like it was burdensome to him but then deny there was a problem, making me doubt my judgement of his non verbal body language. He was apparently trying to start a fight so he could gaslight me but I didn't take his bait. Even though I thought he was actually acting unhappy when he claimed not to be, I took his word at face value and did not pursue the subject, because I have AS and if a person says they are happy, ok then. I just decided to not to invite him to outings anymore because I found him unpleasant.

Eventually when he realized his tactics weren't working because I took what he said at face value and ignored his contradictory body language, and that he was being miserable all by himself, he started to feel guilty that he was actually trying to be a jerk and apologized and told me what was actually bothering him, all without any prompting on my part.

He wasn't happy where we lived. Why he decided to take it out on me, who knows, but sometimes people will attack those closest to them when they are in need and do not know how to articulate that.

So perhaps you do do something that makes your wife feel insecure in her judgement of you. But I still do not condone her conduct.

However, if she has BPD, she will always find something to be insecure about.

Some people here claim they have AS and BPD so that is another possibility I suppose.

In any case, her treatment of you is not ok.

MrsPeel
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13 Apr 2018, 7:05 pm

Hello, I only just read this thread, but thought I might try and contribute, from the point of view of being a wife with AS to a husband with (I suspect) NPD.

There've been a lot of replies suggesting your wife my have a personality disorder such as NPD or BPD, and on the face of it, from the way you've described her behaviour, I would be inclined to agree. There's too much emotional manipulation going on.

But I wouldn't want to suggest you give up and walk out, because you still love her and want to do the best thing, and (I believe) people with NPD and BPD can be capable of successful relationships, with the right approach. I'm thinking the way forward might be in recognising her personality for what it is and calling her out on any manipulative behaviours. It needs you to be strong in setting out what you need from her and not accepting anything less. The caveat being - this approach is only the way forward if we are correct that she has NPD or BPD.

But we do have to be careful jumping to that conclusion. It is possible that she might genuinely be AS but that you're misinterpreting her behaviour. This is a very common problem in NT/AS marriages. What is seen as narcissism could be an obsession, what is seen as laziness could be issues with executive function and physical or mental health, what is seen as paranoia could be fear/anxiety. Sounds like this might not be the case, but it's important to work out which it is, one way or the other, so that you can adopt the right approach.

My suggestion, just a thought that came to me while reading, is that either way, you need to take a strong stance on what you expect from her in the relationship.

If she is AS, she may actually respond well to having a written plan or schedule. What I mean is, don't just ask her to help more with housework, but actually write down which chores she is responsible for and when she will do them. See if you can sort that in writing to avoid any verbal triggers. If she is genuinely in such poor health that she cannot stick to the plan, she needs to get checked for underlying issues such as thyroid problems or chronic fatigue syndrome, rather than be allowed to continue using health issues as an excuse. Similarly, if she has AS, she may actually respond well to having exercise scheduled into her day, and you prompting her to do it, as she has asked.

If she has NPD, you need to sort out the boundaries of what is acceptable, make those clear, and set consequences. Basically, be strong and don't let her get away with emotional manipulation. What you are expecting of her is not unreasonable. At the same time, though, recognise that a lot of her behaviour derives from an inner insecurity. So be appreciative of anything she does do, and do tell her she's beautiful and that you love her (before she prompts for it).

I'm not sure about how to deal with BPD, I think the above may work for that, too, except that she may be much more emotionally vulnerable and aware of her own insecurities. When she treatens self-harm, she might go ahead. I suspect for BPD, if that's what it is, she may be more willing to take some kind of therapy, such as DBT. The important thing is that it is therapy specially designed for those kind of personality traits, not just relationship counselling.

Well, I'm no expert on any of this (I'm an engineer!), those were just my thoughts, hope they're helpful in some way.

ConcernedNtHusband
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16 Apr 2018, 10:15 am

MrsPeel wrote:

If she is AS, she may actually respond well to having a written plan or schedule. What I mean is, don't just ask her to help more with housework, but actually write down which chores she is responsible for and when she will do them.

Funny you should bring this up. I wrote down a weekly schedule of chores because she stated she doesn't know what to do around the house, beyond obvious things like dishes and laundry. I have the whole thing on the fridge, and it's something I wrote up probably a good 6 months ago. She used it exactly one time and hasn't bothered with it since. I've pointed out how the chart is right there on the fridge, but then it's excuse time: back hurts, arthritis, stomach is bothering her, too sleepy, etc.

We actually talked when I got home on Friday and worked out a lot things. She agreed that she does need therapy, but she also feels we should go to a marriage counselor too, which I am fine with. It'll take up some time on the weekend but if it helps make things better I am all for it.

She was also OK with me renting a storage facility so we can de-clutter the house a bit. She has a lot of things she never touches that could easily go into storage, and it will go a long way to making the house look nice and clean again - or at least facilitate it being clean since so many miscellaneous things laying all over the place would go away. I have a bunch of my own stuff that needs to go into storage too, although in my defense I have my stuff boxed up and stowed away on shelves or in the attic so it's organized and not cluttering the place up.

It was actually a pretty good weekend. I 100% expected that the weekend was going to be sabotaged, but it wasn't. I got a decent amount of things done around the house and was able to relax a bit, too. She was nice and didn't try to start any fights. I think maybe this time she really took what I was saying to heart. She doesn't want to lose me and she loves me, and I believe seeing how frustrated and angry I was about how things have been lately was a wake-up call for her. I'll have to wait and see if she's just bottling things up again and is really just hiding that she wants to fight and argue about everything, but for now things are OK.

ConcernedNtHusband
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16 Apr 2018, 10:23 am

Chronos wrote:

So perhaps you do do something that makes your wife feel insecure in her judgement of you. But I still do not condone her conduct.

You're correct, I absolutely do things that make her feel insecure because she's told me I do. And that thing is: she doesn't like the fact that I am in such good shape while she isn't. I also don't tell her she's beautiful anywhere near as often as she wants me to. Hard to do that though since she doesn't get dressed, do any makeup or even bother showering sometimes. I've also told her that part of what I find attractive about someone is their capacity to contribute to a relationship and their level of motivation. She is sorely lacking on both fronts.

I should clarify: she will be plenty motivated if it's something she really wants to do, but if it's something that's a task which requires work and isn't a hobby or something one would consider fun then her motivation hovers right around zero. That's why she doesn't do much housework or bother working out. To give her some credit though she did get on the stationary bike last night and then went on the stepper machine. I didn't even say anything about exercising either. Maybe she's finding a spark of motivation? Not sure. Would be awesome if this was the start of her being consistent with this stuff.

Sweetleaf
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16 Apr 2018, 11:55 am

ConcernedNtHusband wrote:

Chronos wrote:

So perhaps you do do something that makes your wife feel insecure in her judgement of you. But I still do not condone her conduct.

How often exactly does she need you to tell her shes beautiful, it does seem very odd how pre-occupied she is with that. I mean I certainly would not expect my boyfriend to shower me in compliments about my looks when I am in pajamas and haven't showered.

Though I do not think make-up really makes people beautiful, I don't wear it because it feels gross, its a hassle to put on and even if you do get it on then it can smear and get in your eyes or get mixed in with sweat and clog pores making acne worse.

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ConcernedNtHusband
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16 Apr 2018, 1:31 pm

Sweetleaf wrote:

Everyday, and I'm sure she'd want to hear it multiple times a day on top of it.

Sweetleaf
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16 Apr 2018, 2:07 pm

ConcernedNtHusband wrote:

Sweetleaf wrote:

Everyday, and I'm sure she'd want to hear it multiple times a day on top of it.

Well perhaps if she really is considering therapy and goes through with it, they can help her with that. I mean there has to be some kind of underlying issue if she needs that much validation about her looks. I mean it seems like a case of Snow-white's-step-mother syndrome. I would have no idea how to even begin to address that...or if she'd even address that with a therapist.

Could be something to bring up in the marriage counseling perhaps, maybe you could bring it up in that environment and explain how it makes you feel...and maybe she'd get some perspective.

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