NT married to undiagnosed Asp - need help

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Hello,

I'm not entirely sure what I'm asking for here, except that I need help.

I am married to a wonderful man who is exceptionally smart, creative, insightful, caring and fun. I think my husband has Aspergers/Autism, though whether he has it or not, it doesn't change my love for him or my opinion of him. That being said, because he is undiagnosed, I feel our marriage is heavily suffering because we don't have the tools we need to succeed.

The biggest issue I'm having with him is what I call "adult tantrums." Full body, physical, screaming, yelling, tantrums. It also seems like he comes out of his head. Like he is so angry he cannot think logically whatsoever (which makes sense, he's mad, but it's almost like I'm talking to someone else). The tantrum is so opposite of his regular personality.

He feels like a f**k up, often. Like he can't do anything right. Can't do enough "acts of service." He sadly has no ability to see how amazing he is, only how flawed he is.

Early on in our marriage I read an auto-biography about a man living with aspergers, and then started reading everything I could get my hands on that was related to the topic because I felt like I was reading books about my husband. After that, I approached him on the topic of autism/aspergers but he was deeply hurt. So I never brought it up again. I came to the conclusion of, " it doesn't matter whether he has it or not, but I will continue to learn about it so I can best educate myself on our strengths and weaknesses so that we can continue to work together and thrive." However, the last few years have been very stressful and our marriage has been on the rocks. I feel if he received a diagnosis, or explored it on his own, perhaps he would better be able to understand himself, and we could then work together on how to prevent these adult tantrums (and help him thrive in other ways, as oppose to seeing him only suffer/ridicule himself).

I don't know how to bring up the topic without hurting him. I don't see autism/aspergers as a flaw in him, at all. Again, there are so many reasons I love my husband. But he sees himself as defective somehow, and sadly doesn't see autism as something positive but only negative, and I'm afraid that by bringing autism/aspergers up again, it will send him into a deep depression (something he struggles with). So I'm not sure what to do. The way things are going, our marriage isn't sustainable. The tantrums are scaring our daughter. But I also know we have the ability to thrive and have a healthy strong marriage, and be healthy strong parents together, but I feel utterly alone (and I know he does, too). And so I have no idea how to get our marriage support. We are seeing a marriage therapist who doesn't diagnosis this stuff, but suggested I look for online support.

Thank you for reading this.

You do not need a diagnosis to work on the tantrums or any other marital issues.

Explain to him that he is a grown man and that you expect him to control his anger better. Of course it is ok to let off steam, but tell him he needs to do so appropriately. If he cannot do that by himself, he needs to seek some kind of help.

Be straight-forward and tell him exactly what you want: for him to not scream around you, to talk through the problems causing the anger, etc. Whatever is important to you.

If he does not make the changes himself, and the counseling/therapy/whatever fails, then maybe you can try bringing up the autism thing again.

Also, I know this seems wierd, (And I don't know what religious beliefs you both have), but have you both tried to seek advice in a church? I know that many Christian churches have trained counsellors who can give counselling from both a physical perspective and a spiritual one if it is needed. It just came to mind when I read what you said that it might be of help.

(I use the theory that one may as well try as one has nothing to loose and possibly everything to gain).

It sounds like you are describing "meltdowns". This can be intense to observe. Similar to a summer thunderstorm squall, it can seem to come out of nowhere, be filled with fury, and seem to be over just as quickly.

Aspergers often manifests with a combination of sensitivity, focus, and emotional cascade such that some trigger can cause an emotional overload that vents and passes in a spectacular fashion.

I suspect that much of this is related to an intense focus on a task that if something (even slight) that goes wrong results in the task energy being transferred to a venting mechanism.

Since this is a repetitive phenomena (things will always go wrong), there is the opportunity to experiment with various management techniques that can allow venting to be done in a way that is less disruptive.

Yes, I've been having meltdowns recently, and you are right that he is probably not entirely in his right mind when they occur. For me, it's like the part of my brain that keeps everything under control switches off so I have no impulse control to stop whatever behaviour I'm doing.

Somehow we have to work out ways to take ourselves away from the situation or from our family so that we're not affecting them with our meltdowns.

It can be hard to do in the moment because once the executive function part of the brain switches off I'm no longer making very rational decisions. Sometimes I start swearing and saying horrible stuff, and I might want to hit something. I'm not thinking about calming myself down so much as needing to release the intense emotions inside.

So I think a strategy has to come over time from a lot of thought and planning so that as soon as I start getting a bit edgy I can automatically get myself out of there and start doing something to calm myself. Like go for a walk and listen to music and things like that.

With your husband the only thing I can think of is to find a time when he is calm and relaxed and have a talk to him about it. Make sure he understands how damaging the behaviour is but also that you will support him and help him to work out strategies for helping him calm down. If you are able to recognise when he is starting to get stressed and might be leading up to a meltdown you might be able to say something to him (as he may not realise in the moment).

If I have a meltdown at work there's a colleague I can call and talking to her helps me calm down. It wouldn't work face to face but somehow it works over the phone. So one strategy might be for you (and kids if necessary) to absent yourselves from the situation, just walk right away, then call or message him on the phone and try and talk through whatever has set him off.

I really feel for you, because it's going to be really hard to address this if he's in denial about being on the spectrum. Some with Asperger-type autism do go through much of our lives lacking insight into ourselves and our behaviours. But perhaps the first step is to see whether he will understand and accept that his behaviours are causing harm and whether he is willing to do something about them. That would be a start.

Ooh.... What you are describing is what I think my Dad used to get.

Oh and I suppose the other way to think about this is that meltdown frequency and intensity are often related to the amount of stress in our lives. So another way to attack it is by reducing exposure to stressful situations.

It can be hard for people to understand how stressful some day-to-day situations can be for an autistic. Some of us get quite stressed just from having to make a phone call, for example, or having to attend a meeting. And because of differences in our nervous system functioning, our bodies may not release stress very well so it tends to build up until we reach a meltdown state.

Most of us need a lot of alone time doing a favourite activity or working on a hobby to help us regulate. This is likely to be a significant chunk of time on a daily basis, probably at least an hour a day, maybe more. People tend not to understand that this is not us being deliberately antisocial or neglectful of our families but is actually quite a crucial self-regulation activity.

So I guess my other bit of advice is to makes sure you are allowing your husband enough decompression time.
Hope that helps.

It's sad that he is so negative on the idea he may be ASD. Here are some approaches I think might help. Questions like:

What is so bad about exploring if you are Asperger's?

Wouldn't finding you're just different make it easier to like yourself?

What do you think is so bad about Asperger's?

I think you have to get him talking about his feelings towards ASD before he can move towards accepting the idea. I get these ideas from a book on assertiveness training. I haven't tried anything this challenging but other techniques I used have worked. Here it is:

https://www.amazon.com/When-Say-No-Feel ... =4&depth=1

I think a lot of people react badly to having psychiatric labels (of whatever kind) slapped on them. It can easily feel like a condemnation, like an invalidation of one's entire being.

When "Asperger's syndrome" was first brought to my attention back in 2008, my immediate reactions were: (1) yes, this sounded a lot like me, but (2) I was angry at what appeared to me to be a pathologization of some of my best traits as well as my weaknesses.

For example, I've always tended to be more passionate about my interests than most people are, and I've always been proud of this. (I wondered how the authors of the DSM ever managed to get through grad school or medical school without this trait.) Also, as for "persistent preoccupation with parts of objects" -- isn't that a helpful trait for someone who wants to become an engineer?

(See the DSM IV Criteria for Asperger's Disorder -- which is no longer an official diagnostic category, having been subsumed in what is now called "Autism Spectrum Disorder.")

Later, I learned that I was far from alone in my perception that the set of traits described as "Asperger's syndrome" entailed some advantages as well as disabilities.

To kat18: To get around resistance to pathologizing psychiatric labels, it might be a good idea to show your husband some literature about the positive traits that are often (though not always) associated with autism and/or with what used to be called Asperger's syndrome.

The AANE website has a page about what they call an Asperger Profile, in order to be less pathologizing.

Here are two other articles about positive traits often associated with autism (although not all autistic people have these traits):

- Strengths and abilities in autism
- The Positives of Autism

If your husband happens to have any of these positive traits, and if you sincerely feel good about him having those traits, perhaps you could make a point of complimenting him on them.