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Marriage, Trauma, Friendship and ASD: A Toxic Brew

Strong Sad

Active Member
A brief summary of my situation:

1. Married 10 years. 2 young kids;
2. Approx 2 years ago my partner was diagnosed with cancer and underwent surgery, chemo, rads and is still “recovering”
3. Through her treatment she lamented that while I served all her physical/material needs, she didn’t feel love or empathy from me;
4. During this time I made a friendship - a friendship that I considered to be the best friendship I have made (perhaps ever);
5. Friendship is with a woman; my partner accuses me of an affair;
6. A year of marriage counselling, grieving, depression, loss, self-loathing, and no “progress,” unable to understand why/how I created such social/emotional destruction;
7. Self-diagnosis of ASD: it is the one thing that seems to make the catastrophe (and my life experience) coherent;
8. Partner torn: should she have sympathy for me? Or is this the final indication that she will never have the emotional support she needs?
9. “Friend” (who is a colleague) also exhausted by me, when I mention to her that I am pursuing an ASD diagnosis, tells me that I am unknowable, self centred, and she is disinterested in knowing about or understanding my situation.

So I imagined that an ASD diagnosis might mean the potential of repairing relationships, and being able to better understand myself and others. It doesn’t really seem to be playing out that way.

How has navigating friendship, marriage, and adult diagnoses worked out for you? What can I do? How do I recover/move forward/find the support I need? I just feel like a burden, exhausting the people I care about until it is too damaging to them to care for me.

thanks.
 
So I imagined that an ASD diagnosis might mean the potential of repairing relationships, and being able to better understand myself and others. It doesn’t really seem to be playing out that way.

You can't be too tough on yourself over such issues. There's no way of guaranteeing how others will view or understand your autistic traits and behaviors. Even with self-awareness and great hindsight, such concerns may or may not be within your control or theirs to rectify. Even for those within your closest social orbit.

And yes, it hurts. I constantly review situations and conversations I had as long as 30 years ago where I cannot resolve them no matter how much will or clarity I have. Those people left me a long time ago and it's simply too late to even attempt to "mend those fences". :oops:

Let this be your guide relative to the understanding, acceptance and tolerance of autistic people:

1) There will be a few who will attempt to understand and succeed.
2) A few more who will attempt to understand and fail.
3) With a vast majority of those who default to suggesting or demanding that we as a neurological minority, should fundamentally conform to the thought processes of the neurological majority.
 
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Before I was diagnosed I ran into trouble in both my romantic and platonic relationships because people felt I was not emotionally supportive enough. Over the years I’ve learned what’s expected of me in specific situations, so I am now better able to meet the emotional needs people have.
A relationship-specific hurdle was my tendency to shut down in very emotional or stressful situations, such as arguments. I feel like getting a diagnosis has saved my relationship, because it allowed me to understand why I shut down sometimes. It also allowed me to explain to my partner that we sometimes need to take a time out when we are arguing, so I can take the time to return to a state in which I’m able to communicate. It’s also made it easier for me to sometimes tell him I’m getting a little overstimulated and we need to pause a conversation, and he understands now that sometimes my mental state doesn’t allow me to fully process what he says. I just tell him so at the time, and we postpone conversations until I’m in the right state of mind again.
 
Sorry to hear all the adversity you are going through. The cancer scare could not have been easy for either you or your wife. Sounds like you performed the role of caregiver of your wife, which is a role that isn't easy. And probably a role that isn't natural for an aspie. Your wife wasn't the only one going through this - you were too. The most important part of being a caregiver may very well be remember to take care of oneself. Seems like you were feeling like you needed another connection and made one with the friend. Maybe your wife wasn't giving you the emotional support you needed. I can also see why the friendship may have made your wife jealous. But sounds like it was just a friendship and not an affair. Big, Big, difference.
 
Both of the women sound as if they blame you, in your marriage and friendship and you blame yourself as a result. For not being what they desire or expect or want. Yet they seem to not even attempt to understand that your intentions were and are good. It really does take two people to navigate and comprehend these difficulties, not simply one.

Unfortunately some women are raised with entitlement, their way of looking at a relationship is in that fantastical land of commercials, greeting cards and childhood tales that we hear even before we know how to read. Something many women believe is love is a long bastardized interpretation of the troubadours on courtly love. Does this seem reminiscent?


" The idolizer accepts the independence of his mistress and tries to make himself worthy of her by acting bravely and honorably (nobly) and by doing whatever deeds she might desire, subjecting himself to a series of tests (ordeals) to prove to her his ardor and commitment." Courtly love - Wikipedia

What I perceive when you write about all this, is that you fail to understand the exceptional things you have done. Caring for someone in cancer treatment is a difficult and long and thankless task. Which you should give yourself some credit for. Even if it wasn't how your spouse presumed it should be, it was what you were capable of doing. She should accept what you are able to give.

Personally, I lowered my expectations when my husband was diagnosed. I realized that although I at times expected certain things. That they have to come from me first, for myself, of myself. When I realized that both of us were aspies and that we give one another what we are able to give, then that is enough. I don't ask more of him, than he is capable of, and neither does he of me.
 
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Both of the women sound as if they blame you, in your marriage and friendship and you blame yourself as a result. For not being what they desire or expect or want. Yet they seem to not even attempt to understand that your intentions were and are good. It really does take two people to navigate and comprehend these difficulties, not simply one.

Unfortunately some women are raised with entitlement, their way of looking at a relationship is in that fantastical land of commercials, greeting cards and romance novels. Something many women believe is love is a bastardized interpretation of the troubadours on courtly love. Does this seem reminiscent?


" The idolizer accepts the independence of his mistress and tries to make himself worthy of her by acting bravely and honorably (nobly) and by doing whatever deeds she might desire, subjecting himself to a series of tests (ordeals) to prove to her his ardor and commitment." Courtly love - Wikipedia

What I perceive when you write about all this, is that you do not take credit for the exceptional things you have done. Caring for someone in cancer treatment is a difficult and long and thankless task. Which you should give yourself some credit for. Even if it wasn't how your spouse presumed it should be, it was what you were able to give. She should accept what you are able to give.

Personally, I lowered my expectations when my husband was diagnosed. I realized that although I at times expected certain things. That they have to come from me first, for myself, of myself. When I realized that both of us were aspies and that we give one another what we are able to give, then that is enough. I don't ask more of him, than he is capable of, and neither does he of me.

Sorry to hear that he was diagnosed with this. l wish the best for both of you.
 
This sounds tough for everyone, and I really appreciate how clearly you summarised your situation, and also think the way you did so does allow you to see some of the way things have got skewed to somehow be all about you.

For example, how is your partner processing her ordeal, and what it means for her, where's the paragraph on that, or has she somewhat sidestepped that (understandably but hard for you) avoiding her own processing which is ultimately what she needs to do but is hard for her.

You have all been through a massive ordeal. You coped, everyone coped, but now everyone's exhausted, distressed, and feeling the emotional aftermath. Another thing I felt was clear from your summary was that your partners way of coping by deflecting her anguish on to your lack of emotional empathy started early in the situation, maybe implying that the way she does that was already half of a developing problem between you, the other half being the way you had been about exploring that issue?

Not implying blame here, just saying that crises bring out the fault lines, and seems like your partner was already upset/insecure in her handling of this aspect of how you came over to her, maybe based on her own issues from her childhood and/ or previous relationships, and you also had some lack of understanding of this aspect of things, perhaps insecurity and unknown autistic traits tripping you up there?

Then it sounds like the relationship counselling unfortunately didn't bring out these issues, it may have been too hard to do so given the nearness of the ordeal you'd been through, and the complexity of it. The support you'd pulled in from a colleague seems to have dominated the way things were discussed? Relationship counselling works best when each person can look at and process their own issues in the situation, blaming of the partner, whilst understandable, is counterproductive to processing what is going on in the relating, and how this may have gone the way it has, and why.

In summary, your summary seems to show how you have become the lynch pin in a way of understanding the ordeal that is unhelpful. Could you step back, out of this fixed position, and start to just be you? And start to process all of what you have been through? Getting ASD diagnosis might help, depending on who you interact with about it. As clearly your high autistic traits or Aspergers is in the mix for you here.

Others in the situation, including your colleague, have the option to think through their own issues and how this has been for them, hopefully dropping the defensive strategy of getting sidetracked on pointing out your supposed deficiencies. Having said that, your stance as the receiver of angst totally needs honouring here, while the crisis was ongoing it served a purpose, but maybe now people can let you off the hook and process their own stuff. And you could step back from the firing line, this is not yours to suffer.

I do hope things start to sort out, you have been through a lot, and have many strengths in relating, despite the aspects many of us find challenging on the spectrum.
 
Thanks everyone for the thoughtful and supportive comments. As I am just starting to reflect on/embrace that asd may be the crux of the matter for me, these dialogues have been really important for sorting out who I am, what my reality is, and how to understand my relationships. many of your comments will resonate with me, and illuminate - or reflect - my own experiences. It seems like many of you are asking me to forgive myself or be kinder to myself, and right now I can’t figure out how to make that work (I’d like to, for sure). There are complications beyond what I wrote in my initial post, and they are important complexities. I lied, a lot. I misrepresented both my wife and my friend, to one another. I was unpredictable, unreasonable, untrustworthy, desperate. I was a mess (or am, rather). I put both my wife and friend into unreasonable circumstances, and then wasn’t able to understand why they were upset with me. I. Just. Didn’t. Get. It. This is a big part of what has led me to re-evaluating myself and to pursue diagnosis. My situation is a tragicomedy of errors and missteps, which has only become clear to me as it has been pointed out (or rather, found out). What I know I tried to do is form a friendship at the worst time of my life, and care for my wife when her life was threatened. However, all my actions look like those of a selfish, manipulative, and callous person. With so much at stake, it has been hard to forgive myself or move forward. I don’t know how to, and each step - which requires emotional/social prowess and sensitivity - seems to be a new way to make things worse. I just want to sit extremely still and cause no more problems. Thanks for reading!
 
You did your best at a tough time. Can't imagine how I would cope, as frankly my way has been to limit my contact with others more than you have. Take it easy on Yr self, and I agree it's great to think about you and how to move forward, slowly and surely. Btw, I expect you get much joy from yr children, that's an ongoing blessing despite they need a lot of taking care of. Take care of yourself too!
 
You did your best at a tough time. Can't imagine how I would cope, as frankly my way has been to limit my contact with others more than you have. Take it easy on Yr self, and I agree it's great to think about you and how to move forward, slowly and surely. Btw, I expect you get much joy from yr children, that's an ongoing blessing despite they need a lot of taking care of. Take care of yourself too!


Think that Thinx did a excellent job of giving great support, l would like to point a few things.

You did show love by taking care of some very important needs. Maybe you didn't have the emotional capacity to give because it sounds like you were doing everything, and you were expected to be super human caregiver extraordinaire. That is a extremely tough role to be and l don't understand your wife's criticism of you. You may have stepped back to protect yourself emotionally so that you didn't have a complete breakdown. We react according for pure survival and sometimes love ones don't understand. You leaned on the friend for emotional support until that gig was up with them. Maybe counselling would have been a better choice but stuff happens.

Anyways- hope your wife is better, hope she appreciates you more, and that you are in a better place.
 
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