Aspergated

Sadly, I have just come to the realisation that I have become totally and utterly and completely aspergated over the 15 years of this AS/ NT relationship. I have read other people saying this, but I never really identified with it before.

On Monday night, after Mr H had gone off to work for 3 glorious days and nights, (and for the first time in several weeks I was completely on my own, not with Mr H, or looking after my Sister in Law), I had a bit of a crisis. I had a glass of wine and I sat and cried, and wished I was dead. And I also wished he was dead. I can see no way forward, no happy outcome. I think thus is a temporary blip for me, I am normally an optimistic person. He likes the fact that he can label himself as "autistic", without a definitive diagnosis, but sees it almost as a badge of honour. He thinks it's funny, an excuse for his odd behaviours. "I can't help it It's my autism" he quips. He has no insight whatsoever into how it really affects either of us, and our relationship, indeed one of his mantras is "I am what I am and I can't change". In other words take me or leave me.

His benign (or is it?) need to control every aspect of his life, and as I am an extension of him, every aspect of my life, has turned me into a person that I don't recognise. Gone is the feisty, outspoken, feminist, professional woman I once was, now I'm a cowed, controlled,  peacemaker, saying "yes dear" and letting him have his way for the sake of a quiet life. I have allowed this to happen, and I don't know why. With the benefit of hindsight, I should have stopped it or left years ago.

He decides when we get up, when we go to bed, what we eat, when we eat it. He is clever though, he says "we'll do ......if it's Ok with you". But if it's not ok with me, if I don't toe the line,  he sulks, big style. I do resist, but then have to bear the fallout of the sulk, and the "not speaking" for days. He decides what we will watch on TV, I realised last week that I hadn't seen any of the Christmas ads that people were talking about - why?  he only watches BBC because he won't watch the ads. I hadn't realised. TV is not a big thing for me, I tend not to watch it if I'm on my own, but I hadn't realised how restricted I was by his preferences.

He persuaded me that it was best if I didn't work once we moved to this house, and althoughI rebelled briefly and got a job, the company folded when I had been there 6 months and he was ecstatic, he'd won! He said "well I said you didn't need to work". He oversees the shopping (I do a big shop online but he feels the need to check it), he decides what we should spend and on what, and worst of all, I have allowed him to control my money. I have a few investments from when I took redundancy a few years ago, but he managed them for me, and so can check them online. Why on earth did I allow that? So I can't take money out without him seeing, apart from my isa, not that I particularly want to, but it's the not being able to that has made me realise just how controlled I am.

In my misery on Monday, I thought seriously about leaving him, I worked out how much money I would have if we divided everything, and yes I could afford to buy myself a very very small house, or a flat, but I wouldn't have any savings left.

So sadly, I think I stay with him for financial reasons, and I'm not proud of myself for that. I am over
60 now, and with some health problems, it would be hard for me to get a job. I would be happy to live on my own, I've done it before. I don't love him any more,  I just can't love a man who behaves like a child a lot of the time, with sulks and bad behaviour that makes me feel on edge if we are with other people, even family. But we do rub along together ok some of the time, and even have fun occasionally. But not often. Most of the time my life is pretty miserable.

What a sad and negative post this is, sorry. 
I need to buck my ideas up I think.

Hannah x

Rigid regimes......and losing out

Mr H loves to stick rigidly to his regimes and rules, and is adamant that he cannot move from them. One of his rules is that, when he works away, for 3 nights every other week he has to get up at 5.30am, therefore he has to go to bed at 9.15pm. On the dot. No question about it, he will go off to bed during an interesting TV programme because he has to go at 9.15. It's the rule.

So.......every 6 weeks or so, when he is away, he meets up with his daughter and son for a meal in the evening, usually at about 6.30pm. I would imagine it's a pretty sparse affair, they meet, eat, chat very briefly, and he escapes as quickly as possible to get back to his friend's house so that he can be in bed by 9.30pm (presumably before the witches get him!),  he has done his duty, all boxes are ticked.

But to throw a spanner into the works, his lovely 23 year old daughter has a new job as a nanny, she will be working until 7pm every day.

So the miserable tosspot that is Mr H, is planning to tell  his daughter that he can't possibly meet her at 7.30pm once every 6 weeks, because he has to get up at 5.30am, which would mean that he would get 7 hours sleep once every 6-8 weeks instead of 8! We are talking going to bed an hour later one night every 6 - 8 weeks! He has regaled me with this rubbish for several hours today, I have said that I think he is being a little selfish........I got a lot of abuse and whingeing about how his children don't fit in with his needs.

And I know this is all about the AS, but really it is not an excuse, he is a human being, a father, but what a miserable, self centred tw*t he is. He has no concept of the fact that other people have other plans too. If I was his daughter I think I would give him up as a waste of space.
All I can say is he will be damned lucky if these kids stick with him, his 2  eldest from his first marriage have no contact with him at all, because they, as adults, wouldn't jump to his rules, and consequently he has never seen his 4 grandchildren.
Sad but true. And entirely his fault. And so sorry that this post is so very negative.

Hannah x

Not my fault at all.......

Once again I'm following on from a post by muddlingthroughaspergers, sometimes all of us NT partners seem to be living parallel lives.
My DH is never wrong, if something goes wrong in his life it's not his fault. It's my fault, or someone else's fault. Never ever his fault.
On Monday we drove over to Manchester for a concert, it was foggy. I drove the first 1.5 hours cross country. It wasn't a fun drive, but he moaned all the time, moaned about tractors on the roads (it's a rural agricultural area), moaned about the fog ( well we can't change the weather), moaned about my slow driving (through thick fog on country roads!)
He drove the other 1.5 hours of the journey on the motorway, through fog, like a bloody lunatic. It was my car so I am waiting for the letter telling me I was speeding, when I will say no I wasn't, he was. He can add it to his other speeding points.
We arrived safely in the big city, no thanks to him, did a bit of shopping, and met up with my middle son and DIL  for a meal before the gig.
Before they arrived he constantly whinged that
(1) they wouldn't turn up, or .....
(2) they would be late so we'd miss the start of the gig....
(3) the food bill for 4 would be very expensive (despite the fact that we take my kids out for dinner about once a year whereas he takes his kids out every month!) and it wasn't dear, was a really cheap night out.

What really hacks me off with this AS business, is that I'm the one who has to do all the accommodating, and when it doesn't work, when I haven't accommodated enough, I feel guilty, like I've failed.
Someone wrote this on a forum, and it upset me, because, for me, it implied that the NT partner was to blame for the AS partners behaviour.
"When my ASP doesn't do what I want or what I would expect of a partner, I try to remind myself of the mantra 'no expectations', and then think about whether I asked him clearly enough, forgot to ask him, or whether my expectation was unrealistic for the circumstances"
For me, that is such a downer, to think that all of my husbands negativity, misery, whingeing, is my fault, because I didn't handle it well. May as well give up now I think.
Oh well
Hannah x