Upset my NT Husband

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My husband's grandfather is in the hospital and dying. Hubby is going to visit him next weekend. And we just had a huge fight complete with him throwing his wedding ring at me.

I knew his grandfather wasn't well but I guess I haven't been very supportive. I didn't hug him or console him. I didn't know what he wanted me to do. So I did nothing. Which was the wrong response.

I am useless when I first wake up, which has been a huge issue anyway, and he drops this on me when I just woke up saying he is leaving to go visit and didn't know for how long. Of course I get all selfish and only think how it is going to effect me, but I don't say that, I don't say anything aside from okay. I know it is something he has to do. Then he tells me he is taking the car without any discussion. And I reacted badly by saying he can't take the car and he can't take the truck (the truck is a beater only used as a second vehicle and for hauling things). I thought his mom was going to take him there and all I could think is what if I need the car.

Granted I know I reacted wrong and that I should have been more understanding, but I wish he had approached it better. He yelled at me, and told me how I have shown little emotion since I found out I have Asperger's that all I have been doing is sleeping and not cuddling with him. I told him I never cuddle that he snuggles up to me usually. I have been sleeping a lot during our together time because I was pmsing and fatigued. Then he calls his mom to rant to her about me while I am in the same room which just felt like a guilt trip.

I tell him I just wanted to discuss the whole car thing and how he is getting there, that it just stressed me out and I didn't know what to think. But he doesn't want to discuss it, he goes into the bedroom and cocks his gun instead. Not a guilt trip... right.

He likes to throw everything wrong with me at me to hurt my feelings so he can have his way (always has) but my putting up with his drug and alcohol addiction recovery and relapses and his lying gives me no leeway for my own issues. It just doesn't seem fair. He has gone through phases of sleeping all the time because of depression due to a work injury and us fighting to get work comp, and I dealt with that but it is not okay if I have been falling asleep because of pms and I have been sitting on a separate couch because of my sciatica?

I just feel hurt. I know I didn't handle things well because I panicked. But I don't feel I deserve to be put down. It feels like his problems are okay, but mine are not.

Sorry just venting as I don't have any place else to do so as my husband is the only person who know about my Asperger's.

So he is a lying, selfish, seff righteous (trust me, most people with substance abuse problems are) former (maybe) drug addict/alcoholic and you are a selfish, uncaring, and unempathetic wife.

Ok, well at least you are on somewhat even ground.

I think the only thing you can do is apologize to him and tell him he just caught you off guard and you didn't mean to be unsupportive.

But I have to ask. Why does he have a gun? Or rather, why is he misusing it? If a person involves a gun in a domestic argument then they are not stable enough, responsible enough, or emotionally mature enough to have a gun.

He likes guns and always has before drugs and alcohol. He says it was already on the bed, that he was cleaning it or whatever before and left it on the bed. Which is BS. So he went into the room and locked the door. He's done it before. He likes to make me feel bad when we fight. He was more threatening to kill himself than using it as a threat against me.

Or I can give you the short answer.

He is an idiot.

I have apologized and will again when he will let me talk to him again and I wrote him a huge letter and left it in the room with him.

just because he's NT doesn't mean he doesn't have borderline personality disorder or maybe it was just the depression coupled with a naturally passive aggressive manipulative personality. usually women are the ones who make the man go to the hospital and face their emotions. so he has to do that by himself, you're not even offering to go with him, and then... you tell him he has to ask somebody else to drive him there because you might need the car. i'd probably want to blow my brains out if this happened when i was already grief stricken.

You should remind him that guns don't give guns a bad name, people who mis-use guns give guns a bad name.

If he can't be responsible with them he should get rid of them.

OK! there is lots of information here that could prompt people to be judgemental. I'll try not to be.

I think the main crux of your post is that you realise that, on this occasion, your husbands needs were greater than yours and you later feel badly because of your reaction. I'm not excusing your husbands reaction, which from your description was not good. He is probably stressed out, felt very unsupported and didn't know how to react to, what he saw as, your unreasonable responce.

Before I knew I had AS, I was very quick to make judgements based on partial information. I could well have reacted in a similar way to you and later end up feeling bad about myself. I am managing to control this now, not perfectly but I have made great progress. Before I disagree with anything, I prompt myself to pause and make sure that I have all the information I need to make my decission known. This is natural to NTs who seem to be able to do this subconsiously. I have to be careful to rationalise through everything. I have set myself a mental checklist to ask myself why somebody would suggest something I would disagree with. This is difficult, takes me longer to do than an NT person does not work 100% of the time but it is a vast improvement.

Before I started using this technique, I often didn't realise when I was being unreasonable. I still make big errors on occasion though.

Thank you for those who tried not to be judgmental. I have only known I have AS for a couple of months so I haven't worked out a method for everything yet. I've just learned to understand that it isn't everyone else, that it is me. It is very hard but it is something I've been working on. My husband says we have been communicating better since we found out. So some progress has been made.

He came to me the next day and apologized and told me I had nothing to apologize about. I did anyway because I knew I made a mistake. That we had both made mistakes.

We have both had a lot of stress going on from other sources and at this point he can't handle anymore. I guess I can't either since I am not behaving very well.

He is gone now, I don't know for how long, rented a car, is staying in a motel in town tonight.

Left today to get the rental set up. Six hours later and I hadn't heard from him. He has a habit of leaving all day without word so we had previously (months ago) agreed he would text me and let me know he is okay when he is planning on being home so I know when to expect him for dinner. So I sent him a text.

He finally called me. Apparently he had a bad day, and on the phone we had another misunderstanding. He told me he lost his wallet, that it was in his bag the whole time. I thought he meant he didn't know how he lost it because it was in the bag the whole time. But he actually meant he DIDN'T loose it, it had been in his bag the whole time. When I told him I didn't understand, meaning I had misunderstood him, he took it as I didn't understand his need to be gone all day, to get out of the house as a distraction, without leaving me a text to let me know he was okay.

He then told me, "You wouldn't understand. You can't." He wouldn't listen to me at that point, he has no patience for me now. Won't even talk to me or answer a text.

All I want to do to help him and it is frustrating that I am getting in my own way.

I know just how you feel right now. There are many of us that have been there. It is so frustrating, just wanting to do the right thing and digging a hole instead.

<<Hugs>>