Latest thing I have become fed up with about NT's

Post Reply New Topic

About 12 months ago I resumed a friendship with someone I went to college (year 11 and 12, last 2 years of senior highschool)with, over 20 years ago. We have remained friends over this time but because we (my family)have moved around we have lost touch for very long periods (years) at a time within our friendship. I looked her up because we had just moved back to an area that was close enough that we could see each other occasionally. My friend (S) is divorced with 2 boys (supposedly NT, however the ex is suspect ASDian) She has little practical help from her ex and own family and remains quite dependant on her large group of friends for support. (S) and her boys live a couple hours away from us in the nearest major city. My boys and I quite often go to the city for appointments of all manner. Also when my husband is there working there each month we go with him for the weekend and stay overnight too. We ammuse overselves while my husband works........sounds OK to me LOL.

(S) has lots of friends other than me but most of them do not have children. More recently (S) has started to become very dependant on our visits and has given us an open invitation to visit and stay at her place when ever we are there. She has even suggested that we stay there if they are out of town as it gives us somewhere to stay and we can feed and look after the cat while they are away. My boys enjoy our visits to (S's) place because she has wall to wall gaming........you name it they have it. (S) also has a very, very different parenting style to my own and the all of the kids have unlimited access to the gaming when we are there. We, by and large have not brought our kids up like this and I am not all that comfortable with it.

The other thing is my friend is always asking when we are coming up again............... We ASDians need our time and space alone but I don't think (S) has ever had this urge in her life. I think S is becoming dependant on our visits. It has got to a point that I have not told her we are going to the city several times because we want to go there but not stay with or see them. I want and think my kids need the space and time to recouperate. S's kids are certainly no walk in the park to deal with (not overly certain if it is good for my kids to be around them that much either) I read that S's other friends have long ago learned to avoid her kids and only socialise with S herself now, I assume it's all to hard for the friends to deal with. As is my experience with many NT's only like feelgood situations and run at the site of something like what is happening with my friends kids. However this is not my gripe.

My friend and her ex have always worked very hard in their respective jobs. Her children have not been the winners in this though. Both kids have spent huge amounts of time in the care of other people, mostly in childcare centres and the like. As well as this the parents have "parented by guilt" because of the lack of time each was able to spend with them, ie alot of spending and spoiling in lew of quality time. There are the divorce and seperation issues and my opinion is these kids are not well adjusted at all. (I have professional knowledge in this area) (S) is constantly in some sort of crisis with her kids and they rule her. (S) constantly asks for feed back on issues surrounding her kids and (here's the gripe) is visibly offended by anything I say that may help her. Also she is constantly on the offensive despite constantly saying she needs my feed back because I will tell her the truth and I have skills that may help her. I am genuinely concerned for the whole families well being but want to be honest with her because I am worried about how long she can keep this same routine, or lack there of, up for. What is the point in doing the NT thing with her, when she is fully aware of it and says she prefers my ASDian approach.

I understand S but I cannot relate to her in this respect. I am very honest about my kids and I don't really understand the point in being otherwise. Why does every living thing have to come down to insult or compliment with NT's, some things just are. No good or bad just the unadulterated facts. It would be so much less problematic to work in the ASDian way.

Oh the other thing is last time we stayed at S's my oldest boy was talking to S. She was distracted and accidently called my son her sons name. The two boys are only a month apart in age but vastly different in many respects, one of them being weight. My son laughed and started to say how they were so different. I could tell what was going to happen but without jumping up, sprinting across the room and putting a hand over my sons mouth I could not stop the train wreck that was about to occur. My son uttered the inevitable that he was not as fat as M. My son was totally without malice in what he said but S's son took it like only an NT would and got offended. It was just as we were going out for the day and S's kid's were going to their dads. My son had no idea what had happened as most of it was said under M's breath and my boy was distracted getting ready to go out.

I have explained to S's until I am blue in the face how forthright my kids are and more so because we call a spade a spade at home as well. I am sure this has caused S some serious grief with her son since (it seems her son is extremely emotionally based............... I don't even know what to say about it.......to anyone. I feel I need to bring it up for it to be sorted between S and I as I don't think she will mention it and carry around some angst if I don't open up discussion. Sometimes it's hard being one of the most evolved of the 2 species (NT and ASDian)........................... LOL

Cheers

Sounds similar to a few of my mum's friends!

Sounds like at this stage you two could benefit from a less close relationship, where you meet for McDonald's or whatever fun/food couple hours each time you are in town and your husband's working. Then talk on the phone in-between that time, and in those conversations you can recap with her about anything that may have happened and left a bad feeling during an encounter. It's inevitable that kids will say something inappropriate, AS or not. AS only starts becoming a problem in social frankness when kids are older, near adolescence. But I think that right now there are too many things that you don't like / have doubts about to have a closer relationship than meeting for an activity. I'd say play house together at this stage would be a no-no.

G'day Lene,

Yeah sounds like plenty of mothers all over the world. LOL

G'day Greentea,

Thanks for you response.

I take note of your suggestions and say a year ago I would not have had an issue in backing right off, as in disappearing all together. However I have just come out of a period of my life where I have totally isolated myself from the only life I knew . It was a period of around 7 years where I put in and exhausted every resource I had into helping my 2 ASDian kids achieve their fullest potential. With the dogged persistance that only an ASDian knows I achieved my objective. As I came out of this time I realised that so many things in my life were spent. Including my health, my extended family, my few but very loyal friends, any career asperations, loads of money..........You get the picture.

Now I am taking steps to rebuild the sort of life I once had. I suppose the first of these steps is allowing myself support from someone that I am not paying to do it, like I did with the people that helped my children and in doing so supported me in my mission. This means allowing myself to have a friend actually for the first time since my oldest son was born, he is 11 now. Although S has been my friend since school I have not had contact with her much at all in this time. That means I find myself very out of practice at being a friend. Not that I think I was ever what an NT would consider a friend in the first place. I would like to do what you suggested but I am not sure I can do the whole freind but not that friendly scene. I don't do the whole NT small talk thing and making all the pleasantries, I am not that good on the phone or verbally in general. You see I do actually have to put alot of effort and persistance into being a friend.

You see S is actually my oldest sons Godmother and I might say I like the relationship they seem to be developing.I have never trusted anyone with my kids before so I am glad there is finally another adult in their lives that can perhaps add what their father and I cannot. Both S and myself have very little to no extended family involvement for various reasons and because I have known S for alot longer than any of her other friends and I am more willing to have involvement with her kids, we have become each others surrogate family. Too close................ maybe for me at this point in time!

However my friend is very NT in the respect that she loves having loads of people around. Infact to my knowledge she has done very little in life alone. She didn't even get a drivers licence untill she got married and her husband wanted to buy a driving school business. He taught her to drive then pushed her to get her licence. She also picked a university and what she studied which coincided with what one of her friends was doing. When her friend dropped out so did she. More recently she started another for the same reason. She is the sort of person who had a friend from O/S and her 4 member family come and stay with her at her apartment for 4 months. I know I would never even contemplate doing that. I think she is very lonely and somewhat over awed by the responsibility and the sheer hard work that bringing 2 kids (with problems) up as a single parent. So us being friends is helping us both ATM.

I suppose I am the one with the issues here. Maybe I have to stick to just being a friend and forget the whole advice bit. Maybe I have to just say something evasive when she asks for advice and look the other way when I see something that could so easily be remedied. Maybe I have to recognise that not everyone is as practically minded, stubborn and unemotional as I am in dealing with problems. I think some people are not as ready as I am to put exhaustless effort into things, they want the quick fix. Some people are not ready to be disliked by their kids, even if it means that their kids become better people for it. maybe some people are not prepared to take risks. Maybe some parents are consummed by guilt that stops them from being cruel to be kind. All these things maybe I have to recognise are not my problem. Or perhaps it's all about boundries and knowing where to draw the line.

I don't know it's hard to do after so many years but I think worth doing. We really do have a ball together when my kids and I go there to stay, plenty of laughing thats for sure. Maybe if it's not too often I can overlook a few of the things that make me uncomfortable. Maybe a little of that sort of life will not bring my kids undone. They know the rules are the same at home, so maybe it's all OK and I worry too much.

cheers