Arguing with Aspie partner

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How the heck can I find out what he wants before it gets to the "shitstorm" phase.... ?

More later.

More details please

use this as an opportunity to learn patience, cultivate a thick skin and practice forgiveness.

Basically this in a nutshell:

Me: explain situation (as I see it)
Him: nods, mhmms, etc. seems to think about it
Me: option a?
Him: pondering
Me: option b?
Him: ...
Me: option c?
Him: ...
Me: okay the options to me are (recap), then ask him what he thinks
Him: shutdown
Me: meltdown

End result, nothing changes.

What is wrong with my approach? How should I talk about things like money? He says what I want to do is fine at the time, then we go along for a while then out of the blue it seems like it was "my bad decision"..... I have told him I think he just lets me decide, sees how it goes, then lets me have it if it doesn't work out or it wasn't what he wanted.

I realize this is a sensitive issue and he needs a LOT of time to process, but life doesn't wait for months for us to make up our minds as to when we pay what...

Any suggestions?

Try and make standard solutions if you argue about the same stuff over and over, it can help to speed up the decision making, or make him put a signature a paper that he understood and accepts the possible outcomes. If he's the sort of person to stick to his word.

Hope it's possible solutions.

My ex-husband did this All. The. Time. He's NT, so it was his passive-aggressive way of denying me all viable solutions A, B, and C. Naturally, he blamed me for any complication, because he sought to punish me for perceived wrongs and evade all responsibility. He did this only occasionally throughout the marriage, but it became habitual during the last year. So many unsolved problems built up that he was effectively refusing to participate in the relationship. By his continued, repeated indecision, he made a decision, at which point I filed for divorce. It was obviously what he wanted, but he didn't want to be responsible for that decision either.

I know AS behavior often appears to be passive-aggressive, but very often that is not the intent, and it isn't the same thought process. Still, it might be worth asking if he's upset and punishing you for something else. But you're right, life doesn't wait. If it's habitual, to the point communications have broken down and you're the only one left in the relationship, there comes a point when the intent is irrelevant.

He lets things build to critical mass and expects everyone else to solve the problem. The only problem I have with this is when he changes the rules on me. Say I'm planning to continue spending the money the way we have been.... Then he's all like, well we can't owe that much on that or we can't spend it on this and I want these electronics but I'm not actively saving for them.... and I'm like WTF?? I had this whole plan for us to get caught up (I've been in school full-time and not working much) and keep things the way they are (which for Aspies is REALLY IMPORTANT!) in fact I have an anxiety disorder because of this very trait. Anyway...

SO there is a huge communication break-down where we just circle the dead elephant in the room... Do we stop going out to eat so we can get caught up? Well, I don't think so because I have enough problems just working full-time and being the damn housekeeper, cook, and sex slave of the house (sorry small one-bedroom second floor walk-up) that I can't always cook every meal so I really, really like to go out to eat on the cheap, like $30-50 for both of us. Then spend like $80 on the rest of the groceries for the week. That's my method, it's worked for the last decade. Now it's like we can't do that because he thinks it's better to cook all the meals at home (which it isn't, because I cook them all, with the exception of maybe once or twice a month or if I really bug him it's a couple of times a week).

So how do I explain that we like it the way it's been and to stop worrying about money? I will never let us be homeless and I'm always making money doing lots of different things. Right now I'm employed full-time and trying to also get my blog traffic for some extra cash. Anyway, sorry to go on about it, I just wish I could present things in a way he'd understand so we can meet common goals without missing our personal ones too.

Thanks for your feedback so far.

Oh dear. My ex drove me to xanax too. Never in my life had anxiety ever been an issue. The divorce was long over before I finally stopped grinding my teeth and waking up with self-inflicted scratches on my neck. A big red flag, I'd say, that the relationship was unhealthy.

I can relate to much of what you describe. My ex wanted all the benefits, but none of the responsibilities. And toward the end, he frequently changed the rules. I too framed it as a communications problem - so often wishing I could present things in a way so as to reach some kind of agreement. He let me just keep hammering at it, offering no solutions of his own, allowing things to become worse and worse. After maxing out my verbal capabilities, finally I was forced to conclude that no constructive approach was possible. He was deliberately sabotaging everything I tried, because he wanted out, but didn't have the guts to say so.

I have a few questions, if I may ask. Are one or both of you on the spectrum? How does he contribute to running the household? It sounds like you're keeping the whole edifice together. Is that accurate?

P.S. My ex and I met at work. I was senior to him. One of my rules was: no complaining unless you can offer an alternate solution. Otherwise, we do it my way, and don't hassle me with noise. I let that rule slide when the relationship became personal and romantic. In retrospect, that was a big mistake. I probably wouldn't have married him to begin with, which really would have been better for everyone. But that was NT land, so I am hesitant to jump to any conclusions about what might be going on in your situation.

My dad's like that kirayng & he has Obsessive Compulsive Personality. He waits for my mom to make decisions & then when she tells him what he thinks; he argues with her about why it's wrong. Maybe he needs her to take a side so he can analyze & bounce ideas off another other side I'm sorry I don't really have anything helpful rite now

We're both on the spectrum, I'm recently diagnosed and it brought to light his condition; he admitted having traits. I run the household, yea, he grew up in a home where the woman did everything and the man just came home and watched tv and had everything his way. We suspect his dad was also on the spectrum. He really doesn't want to turn out like his dad either. The odd thing is I can't tell if it's him being autistic on this stuff as in just not knowing how or when or why to do things (and I direct it when I can but I am not going after him to do the trash, I just get sick of it and end up doing it after a while). I had to put some kind of system in place to get all the housework done on a regular basis. With money issues it's another matter because he will tell me whatever at the moment if he picks up on what I want to hear about it. I think this is torturing me in a way.

I'm constantly left with an unsettled feeling where I'm not sure where I stand or what I'm doing in the relationship... I keep attributing that to myself being pretty severe on the spectrum... that "not knowing the REAL truth" feeling all the time with everyone I've mostly gotten used to... but it's pretty aggravating when it's having to do with my hubby. Thank you for the insights, you've given me a bit to think about.

This is certainly the case and I do provide lots of alternatives... it's these beat the dead horse type of conversations about whether or not to do something about a situation and why we should/n't where I end up with no idea of what he truly wants... I only hear what he thinks I want out of the situation, then later on I discover on my own that it wasn't what he wanted, sometimes I confront him and other times I just let it go.

I just don't know where to go from here... just today he even said, 'it's fine the way things have been, you can keep doing x'.

Some people block and shut down communication to get their way, which is often unrealistic (because it never gets examined), or to evade responsibility, or to avoid dealing with issues they don't want to deal with.

This has nothing to do with AS.

Absolutely yes, 100% true. But now I fear I've jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire. I can usually tell when that's what an NT is doing. Aggravating, but I'm on terra firma. In contrast, I think my Aspie guy does it too, but I'm never sure, and I don't think I ever will be. I understand him 1000x better than I did 15 years ago. Still, everything is ambiguous, always a perpetual question mark: is this an AS communication issue, or is he just being evasive? What he thinks and feels seems to be yes/no, black/white, true/false, both/neither, all at the same time. Who he is, his entire being, is a total amorphous paradox. Sometimes I question whether I can live with that. All his ex-girlfriends (a dozen?) and ex-wives (2) quite literally went insane, and I don't think it was the un-dx'ed AS that did it.

Just rambling - sorry to go off on a tangent.

Interesting. I see something of myself in your description of this guy. That habit of going limp......it usually happens when I feel overpowered by others. It's been common in the workplace. How seriously overpowered I actually was, is hard to know. People seemed to just get on with things and leave me on the touchline, expecting me to shout up, to compete for attention if I thought I had anything to contribute. That wasn't going to happen, so I'd feel resentful, and resign myself to just surviving the experience. Their ideas made little sense to me, and if they tried to get me to engage (on their terms), I felt that I couldn't, because to my mind they'd grabbed all control of the situation and insisted on doing the whole thing in their weird way. So the answer to their request was (in my head at least), "What do you expect ME to do about it? You're the one calling the shots." In short, I won't tolerate being given responsibility without power.

Now, in a workplace situation that's quite likely what's happening. Workplaces are often competitive, people do grab power, and there is downward pressure on the individual's working conditions. Not surprising that an Aspie can't run with such a pack. In relationships, it's supposed to be different. But again, with me, if a partner gets a bee in her bonnet about whatever, I can very easily feel overwhelmed by the force with which the idea is expressed, and then I'm quite likely to cave in, though I'll be quietly watching the situation and I'll notice and feel exonerated if the partner's plan doesn't work.

Not that I'm suggesting you frequently get bees in your bonnet. What I'm thinking is that he's already been conditioned by his upbringing to let mother sort it all out, and that he's unknowingly seeing you through the same glasses, so that although you approach him as an equal, you won't be seen as one.

The only examples I can recall of making that kind of response to partners, all seem down to the partner hectoring me about problems rather than calmly inviting discussion. For example, I used to shut down when my wife tried to apply pressure on me to refurbish the entire house, because it was just too big a can of worms, the very thought of it tasked me out. I feel that all I needed was a general idea that it was desirable to get the whole place done up, and ONE FINITE TASK as my actual remit. It's purely psychological, but the very thought of a whole plethora of tasks, with no clear idea how to get them done, scares the daylights out of me. In spite of my explaining this to her, I couldn't get her to simply screen out the longterm objective and just talk about one bite-sized chunk of the thing. Nor could I get her to drop the zeal and aggression she used on me when she wanted something.

The odd thing was that she was the one with problems in the financial responsibility department, and when I said categorically that I was worried about how we were spending more than we were earning, there was no answer. In one ear, out of the other. She had some Aspie traits, though self-diagnosed herself as borderline, as she felt that her social intelligence and imagination were good.

Anyway, all I can recommend is that you try to keep your suggestions very finite. A light touch would probably be very helpful too, thoughI know how difficult that can be when the other person seems so unaware and unengaged. You would think that simple arithmetic would be enough to convince somebody that you were running out of money, but if somebody doesn't want to know., it won't sink in. As I knew of the problem quite early in the relationship, I avoided a lot of unnecessary strife by keepng control of my own finances, though that was clearly resented. Your partner doesn't seem to want to do his bit over austerity, yet he doesn't have any ideas where the extra money will come from. If you don't force economic responsibility onto the situation, you could both end up broke.

One thing I'm unsure about is the dichotomy you set up between irresponsibility and autistic traits. I'm sorting out some communication problems with my partner at the moment (I have an ASD, she doesn't). We've both learned a few things in the process:

-If I make a mistake that hurts her, the fact that I didn't intend to hurt her doesn't detract from the importance of her pain. I have to take responsibility and learn new ways of communicating.
-When either of us says that I'm incapable of handling a situation, it shuts down the possibility of a productive (often quite simple) solution. It's better to say that something is difficult for me. This enables me to approach it as a problem to be solved, and while she has a right to expect me to work on it, she also has to be understanding that it's a learning process for me.
-When she makes assumptions about my thought processes (I don't care, etc) it shuts me down; I become guilty and defensive, rather than receptive to her feelings and proactive about changing my behaviour.
-My disorder does not make my needs more important than hers.
-I can often ignore a problem if the consequences aren't made real to me (the big shock of realising how unhappy I sometimes made her only came home when we almost broke up over it).

So yeah. Maybe his disorder is causing some of these problems. But that doesn't mean you need to dismiss these problems, or that your feelings of being upset are less important. I would suggest:
-Describe the problem to him. Focus on his behaviour (which you've witnessed and experienced) not theories about what he's thinking, or his reasons for acting that way.
-Explain how his behaviour affects you.
-Explain what the consequences will be if the situation doesn't change (whether that would mean the end of the relationship, or that you would no longer be able to include him in certain decisions, or whatever; be fair to yourself and to him when you consider what these might be).

If he tries to derail the conversation, don't let him. It's okay to take a break for you both to get your thoughts in order, or to calm your emotions, but it's not okay for him to ignore how his behaviour affects you, whatever the cause. You are both entitled to happiness and respect from one another. Good luck.