Emotional neglect

[Kayla55]

Background info
However, ALL emotionally-distant parents have reasons for being emotionally distant. The heart of that reason is always that they have not prioritized their children’s emotional needs. For whatever reason, they chose parenthood or felt pressured to choose parenthood, without truly choosing their children too.

The heart of the problem is NOT that autistic parents are emotionally clueless individuals who need extra help to not be distant, cold, or abusive. After all, any parent who is emotionally distant has already neglected their child(ren)—at least, in this way. They may provide their children with everything else a child may need, yet if they cannot find a way to care about the emotional stuff too, that’s a form of negligence.

So back to my problem:
My ex said I was a socio-path that the way I empathese with kids was wrong but he was a narcissist so my intellectual love was only emotional regulation the twins received. One twin is asd the other NT.
He relapsed to drugs many times until I gave up and seperated. Times he and his Mom looked after kids was evident that leave bread pieces in corners, not throw away papers, compete with sibling rivalry. It hurt me so much because my dad was disciplinarian in those days and I viewed my childhood as unhappy, it hurts me so much. If my boy had bad day at school I would go for small ice-cream, I'd use my best derived advice to help resolve social issues, I'd inject my views on true fairness and not NT strange way. I do give hugs a d suppose first time I said I love you was to my son's. My asd son no longer hugs me, he turned around to sleep at certain age, didn't want to cuddle.

I did struggle so many times to play and relate but I really don't think I messed up my kids. Mostly people around are vendictive they are glad our family fought all years, what they fail to understand is I could never hurt a child or animal and it's not because I spent a year in foster care that makes me so. Society is so hurtful and last night I drank bottle of port to stop myself crying at Lack of support. What do other people feel about this because it affected me and I feel guilty but all times I called family to assist in my parenting that I couldn't do they always busy or help for 2 hrs and I spend rest month alone.

 

[Kayla55]

My ex had this excess baggage issue as he had psychological issues with women. Many times I was utterly confused with how this related to me being classified as a disabled woman and felt it was totally unfair to expect me to understand what miss cheerleader did to him.
Am I right classifying this as abuse of autistic person. That due to my passive responses he continued to do this, take it out on me. Does society need to recognise that autistic women are different and that I don't know what other girl did, it's not what I would do, I can't understand what I'm apparently supposed to apologise for.
He also went so far as to compare me to his uncle's ex who bought fur coats, when I'm kind of person who spray paints those things. He then went to everyone telling them I was a gold digger which truth eventually came out that he had no money, and perhaps why he ended up with me who was stupid enough to overlook financial part.

I have my problems but I don't for example treat black people badly because of it, I'm not sure it's a justification to say if I'm not best looking person then it excesses this because other person given situation would behave same way.

 

[1ofakind]

Just found this thread (Still learning this forum) and wanted to let you know that my heart goes out to you regarding your family challenges. If I understood correctly, you said your ex was/is a narcissist. It is very common that people from narcissistic parents go on to marry a narcissist because it is what is familiar. What I found is that years of therapy helped me process the more physical trauma, but not the core narcissistic abuse which kept unhealed patterns & wounds in my life. It is hard to give to others (kids, etc.) what we have never experienced. I also have learned how much narcissists wrongly project their own issues onto others. Do you feel like your therapist helped you fully understand what narcissistic abuse is and its impact on you?

 

[AspiAngie]

Sounds like a few issues happening but not necessarily unique to anyone on the spectrum or any thing. I do not have kids but I did want to say a couple things. As children grow up they naturally grow apart from their parents in their attempt to learn about themselves and become more independent. Boys especially will not want hugs as much until they are confident in themselves enough to be able to give a hug without being seen as still "a baby".

As for that man who was in your life, he sounds like he has his own problems and you should not feel guilty. I was once dating a man with issues and I kept blaming myself for not being good enough for him, not being "hot enough" for him, not being "enough" for him. Why? Because he cheated and lied and manipulated and used me, and yet I kept blaming myself because he blamed me and I took it and blamed myself as well. I started reading self-help books and learned that he fit into the category of a "sex-addict" in the way that he was always looking but yet never happy with what he has and could not be emotionally close but preferred the chase and the "getting the woman" more than the having and being happy and developing and growing the relationship further. Not everyone who is emotionally distant is a "sex-addict". It is just that I don't want to get into more detail as it is not important to what I have to say.

What I wanted to say is that no matter who you are with you won't be happy until you accept you. And if you are having difficulty accepting you for you, then it will be a lot easier for a guy with issues of his own to blame you and make you blame yourself even more and to the extent that you do not see him for him fully.

You are NOT a bad person. You love your kids, you love those around you, you want to work on yourself and question your actions. You ARE a good person. The issue is more about him. Don't let him take your self worth away. You ARE GOOD ENOUGH.

HUGS!