Marriage and Aspergers, please help me.

Post Reply New Topic

Hi, you may have already tried some of the stuff (I wrote this before your last post, so I might add stuff in another post) I'm going to state and some have already been mentioned by others. Your situation sounds a lot like me and my husband, except that we are both on the spectrum, so I've been and am kind of on both sides of the issues you're having, so I can at least share with you some of the stuff that has worked for me, or things that might help you understand better at least.

1. hyper-focus and trouble with switching attention can be a real issue for people with ASD. It is physically and mentally taxing, his brain would literally not register words spoken to him when in hyper-focus. But on the other hand he might need that hyper-focus, because at least in my case shutting everything else out is actual way of survival. You mention how he does listen for if there's a delivery and such, which I believe is because he is expecting it, so he is making the effort to keep the attention on the upcoming thing. So I think what could work for that aspect is that every day or how ever often would work for you "AND" him ( might need compromise on both your parts, set a "Rook and daddy time", and even set alarms or reminders a bit earlier than it for him, so he would know what is expected and be prepared for it.

2. Empathy: Same thing you could you for your "me time". You could tell him that like every week this exact time and exact time, are for you. You should explain to him you feel the same way not having your "me time" as he does when he doesn't get to spend time on the internet or whatever else overwhelms and upsets him. I had real problems with that sort of thing, when I was younger, until I started working on developing more self-awareness, but some aspies never do or takes them a long time to do it. So you might have to literally do that for whatever upsets you that he doesn't understand. Find something that makes him feel the same way that issue makes you feel, and then explain that to him, it would help a lot. Tell him how your brain doesn't work like his, and the same way you try to understand the different needs he has, he has to try to do the same for you. It might take a while to develop this, but it is possible.

3. He might not like it, but you might have to help him with organizing these things. I do have trouble stopping whatever I'm doing to do things that need to be done and I have no concept of the passage of time when in hyperfocus. That's part of executive dysfunction I think. But having a routine helps a lot, I still fail every now and then, but then you might have realized by now, that it will never be perfect. For me, I set a certain day for cleaning up, laundry and such, on that day I have a certain order in which I do everything, on those day I make sure not to start on my interests( and it is really difficult but most times doable) until I get those thing done, otherwise I get lost in my interests and nothing gets done. So you two together might come up with some kind of schedule for the things that he needs to do. But beware that it might not be the time you want it done, so both parties need to compromise a bit.

4. I actually have been in a similar situation for a while now, and I might be of some help here. The world is a very overwhelming place for me. It helps me a lot to know, what is exactly expected of me, and to have clear routine to get these done. You might not realize how vast this problem is, but it includes where thing are around me(visual input), what places I need to go, what routes I take to those places, who with and how much interaction I must have, what everyday things I need to get done, and so on... . It takes a while to build these, get used to them, and make life a little more easy. Now imagine you're taken out of all that, and thrown in a whole new set of situations, and the solutions and rules you have figured out or built don't apply anymore, It can become so overwhelming that often you can't deal and you just shut down or you can just put enough effort to survive. In such a situation any added demand might be the straw that broke the camel's back and might lead to meltdown-shutdowns in grown adults. We don't look physically disabled, so people can't see the mental struggles we go through to survive in this world. Of course as I said the before the executive functions issues can make the problem worse, as you can't organize solution when it's so overwhelming. Now, none of these thing, mean you should make demands on him, just help and make room for him constructing a new set of rules/routines and such. One thing you should demand though is that he starts from somewhere, because that's actually the most difficult part.

5. As I said you might need to start small, get him to do one thing that he needs to do, let him get used to doing that for a while, and once that has become part of his routine and he's relatively comfortable with it, then introduce the next thing, this way it won't be as overwhelming that he'd end up abandoning it all together when he feels like he can't keep up. And show appreciation for whenever he does do something, tell him how that make you happier. If he does love you and his son, he will make the effort, even if he still might fail quite often.

I know this seems to require a lot of effort and patience on your part which is a lot to ask of anyone let alone some one who has to raise a small child at the same time, and it is entirely up to you to decide if it's something you want to or even can do or not. You have to decide which route is the best for all three of you. I don't know if any of that was of any help, but I hope it was.

I need exact instructions to get things done too, but I'm a perfectionist, so I don't do something, or I do it (as humanly possible) perfectly. My husband on the other hand does forget them quite often, and I do have to repeat it, though less and less depending on how often he does it. I had this problem with my mother, that she'd tell me while you were doing "x", why didn't you clean "Y", and I would literally not have seen "y" since it was not part of the task defined. What I did was that after that I would corporate checking and doing "y" as part of my "x" routine, though like I said in my other post, it might have to one added thing at a time. Or to explain it differently, what I do is that I make a sequence of things, such as "y" comes after "x". "z" comes after "y". So I might not be able to remember to get "x, y and z" done, but I would remember that if I have to do "x" which is one task, "y" would come after and so on, does that make any sense to you?

When I'm in "obsession" mode, I am constantly thinking of that thing, and if I have to do a task I'm not interested it, I too would be tempted to go check this and that related to the obseeasion, and then ending up forgetting all about what I was doing. This is something that he would have to fight hard to not to do, but it won't be easy. Like somebody else said, it is much like an addict, but not exactly the same thing.

I have the same problem with my parents. If they ask me to do something but they actually mean more than that, I just don't get what they mean other than what they told me. And if they tell me all the things I have to do just verbally, I always forget them. You could try to write down a really specific list of what he has to do, that works with me.