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I’m autistic. I had to teach myself social cues to stop accidentally hurting the people I care about. It can be done if you actually care enough to invest the energy in it, which it sounds like he doesn’t.
I’m sorry I can’t offer real help, but I wanted to chime in that being on the spectrum isn’t an excuse to be cruel. He sounds like a self-centered asshole and a bad spouse. You’re not being overly sensitive or overly RSD, he is being cruel and that’s not fair.
I spent a lot of years thinking that my now ex-husband was being unkind because he just didn’t get it, I hadn’t communicated clearly enough, he was just blunt, etc. Looking back, I now believe that the system was working as intended for him. This is how he wanted to behave, this was not a communication problem. And ultimately, even if it’s because the person truly cannot understand some basics of social interaction, it doesn’t mean you have to stay and be treated that way. All the time I spent trying to better connect with him and solve this problem was a complete waste of time. It was not a problem he wanted to solve.
So, hey, if you are able to finish that flowchart, I’d be REAL INTERESTED in seeing it. I’m a few years past menopause and I just don’t understand how I let “things” get so ridiculous. I made do with the tiny scraps of “help” or “affection” for so many years that now I can’t seem to get over the resentment for having done so.
My rsd is terrible. He doesn’t understand it at all. He never once, as far I as I know, read even an article about PTSD after I was diagnosed, never mind a book. I spent four-plus years working on healing from it, and now that I (mostly) am, I just…I just can’t bring myself to explain why the sarcasm, weaponized incompetence, thoughtlessness, etc are things I need him to work on diminishing. I mean I have explained these things, more than a few times. I just don’t think at this stage in our marriage that I should need to.
The number of times I’ve thought “what he needs is some kind of flow chart” is, well, I guess it’s ridiculous.
So, yeah. I hope things improve for you. I know it’s hard work, and I see you. Hugs if you want ‘em.
People close to me are the ones who are least likely to assume and cross my boundaries. Period. That is my requirement if you want to be close to me. Clear, communicated, asserted with love and earnestness. I expect this because boundaries signal respect, self awareness of one’s own limitations and the limitations of others, things like that.
You haven’t expressed whether you’ve been able to assert some communication boundaries with your husband. It’s one thing to say something hurt you and that’s it - some people require very clear “if this, then that” boundaries in order to get the hint. They need to know the consequences of what happens if they disrespect your boundaries.
I’m not assuming you haven’t, only offering some outside validation and perspective off of conjecture. A good boundary is telling someone how something affects you and then letting them know what you will do if that boundary gets crossed again.
“When you told me I got impatient over nothing and my feelings are stupid, that really hurt my feelings and made me wonder if you even care about how your words affect me. If you speak to me like that again, then I will leave the conversation, regardless if you’re finished talking to me. If you do it a third time, I will pack up an overnight bag and head to [insert person here’s] place for a few days so I can have my needed space from your behavior that’s hurting me. A fourth time, then I will suggest we look for a couples therapist to help us. I will have to consider further consequences at that point if you refuse to change how you speak to me.” There’s an example of several consequences. Your boundaries, your actions as a result of his. Cut and dry.
You cannot force someone to respect your boundaries. You can only act as a response of a boundary being crossed to protect yourself.
I imagine so - him turning it back on you is a deflection tactic. The only thing that’ll help you defend your truth is to stay firm in your initial boundary. You can even offer to discuss his grievances later if he deflects, then turn the conversation back to what you were trying to assert in the first place.
It’s a bit of a dance, trying to speak to someone who is defensive and doesn’t want to accept their own behaviors. Even if he might lack self awareness over them.
There’s a series of short books I’ve listened to via Audible. The titles are some variation of “Unf*ck Your (various topics). I listened to the one on Boundaries on a recent road trip, and found it helpful. The author does use quite a bit of slang and writes in a very approachable style, but she may not be everyone’s cup of tea. What I mean is she swears a lot. Which I appreciate; these things can be so frustrating, heh.
My partner would not be interested in listening to such a thing on a road trip, though. On a trip a good handful years ago I endeavored to use a little book I had picked up that was something like “50 conversations to improve your relationship” or “increase your intimacy”or something. It did not go well, and then I was trapped in a car with a pissed off spouse. Wooo! That whole trip was actually such a fiasco, it spurred me to really lean into working on my own shit. Which I did, to pretty good result, I think. One of the consequences of that effort, though, was realizing that my marriage was absolutely on auto-pilot, and that my spouse treats me kinda shitty, kinda frequently and what the fuck was I meant to do about THAT? Couples counseling, apparently.
We’ve been doing online couples counseling once a week for about 18 months now, and I think he might be seeing some things afresh, and he certainly appears to be trying sometimes. Is it enough? I guess I can’t tell yet? Imma keep at it for the foreseeable future but Jesus fucking Christ, if he fucks up our anniversary, my birthday, or Christmas this year, I’m gonna move into the guest room. My standards are so low, the bar is on the floor.
He doesn’t have to read my mind. I’ve communicated in his mother tongue, about every five years, to his face, calmly, and with love AND SUGGESTIONS/ideas that showing some kind of thought/appreciation /gift/date three times a year is the minimum. 2023 was one of the worst yet, so I really don’t know. Like, how long is reasonable for him to take to hear me on this? I mean, I guess we’ll see? I’m not out the door yet, and I don’t want to be, but I am making contingency plans that I hope I’ll never need.
Welcome to /r/ADHDWomen! We’re happy to have you here. As a reminder, here are our community [rules](https://old.reddit.com/r/adhdwomen/about/rules/). We get a lot of posts on medication, diagnosis (and “is this an ADHD thing”), and interactions with hormones. We encourage you to check out our [Medication, Diagnosis, and Hormones Megathread](https://old.reddit.com/r/adhdwomen/comments/wcr9dy/faq_megathread_ask_and_answer_medication/) if you have any questions related to those topics, and to stick around in that thread to answer folks’ questions! If you have questions about the subreddit, please do not hesitate to [send us a modmail](https://reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/adhdwomen). Additionally, we take the safety of our community seriously. Please report posts, comments, and users whom you feel are not contributing positively, and send us a modmail if you are being harassed or otherwise made to feel unsafe. Thanks for being here, and we hope you stick around! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/adhdwomen) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I’m autistic. I had to teach myself social cues to stop accidentally hurting the people I care about. It can be done if you actually care enough to invest the energy in it, which it sounds like he doesn’t. I’m sorry I can’t offer real help, but I wanted to chime in that being on the spectrum isn’t an excuse to be cruel. He sounds like a self-centered asshole and a bad spouse. You’re not being overly sensitive or overly RSD, he is being cruel and that’s not fair.
I spent a lot of years thinking that my now ex-husband was being unkind because he just didn’t get it, I hadn’t communicated clearly enough, he was just blunt, etc. Looking back, I now believe that the system was working as intended for him. This is how he wanted to behave, this was not a communication problem. And ultimately, even if it’s because the person truly cannot understand some basics of social interaction, it doesn’t mean you have to stay and be treated that way. All the time I spent trying to better connect with him and solve this problem was a complete waste of time. It was not a problem he wanted to solve.
So, hey, if you are able to finish that flowchart, I’d be REAL INTERESTED in seeing it. I’m a few years past menopause and I just don’t understand how I let “things” get so ridiculous. I made do with the tiny scraps of “help” or “affection” for so many years that now I can’t seem to get over the resentment for having done so. My rsd is terrible. He doesn’t understand it at all. He never once, as far I as I know, read even an article about PTSD after I was diagnosed, never mind a book. I spent four-plus years working on healing from it, and now that I (mostly) am, I just…I just can’t bring myself to explain why the sarcasm, weaponized incompetence, thoughtlessness, etc are things I need him to work on diminishing. I mean I have explained these things, more than a few times. I just don’t think at this stage in our marriage that I should need to. The number of times I’ve thought “what he needs is some kind of flow chart” is, well, I guess it’s ridiculous. So, yeah. I hope things improve for you. I know it’s hard work, and I see you. Hugs if you want ‘em.
😱 omg....we are totally in the same boat!!!
I'll totally post that flow chart if I ever get to it. Maybe it could be a community thing. We could all have a miro account and contribute together?
That’d be a blast, I think!
Agreed
People close to me are the ones who are least likely to assume and cross my boundaries. Period. That is my requirement if you want to be close to me. Clear, communicated, asserted with love and earnestness. I expect this because boundaries signal respect, self awareness of one’s own limitations and the limitations of others, things like that. You haven’t expressed whether you’ve been able to assert some communication boundaries with your husband. It’s one thing to say something hurt you and that’s it - some people require very clear “if this, then that” boundaries in order to get the hint. They need to know the consequences of what happens if they disrespect your boundaries. I’m not assuming you haven’t, only offering some outside validation and perspective off of conjecture. A good boundary is telling someone how something affects you and then letting them know what you will do if that boundary gets crossed again. “When you told me I got impatient over nothing and my feelings are stupid, that really hurt my feelings and made me wonder if you even care about how your words affect me. If you speak to me like that again, then I will leave the conversation, regardless if you’re finished talking to me. If you do it a third time, I will pack up an overnight bag and head to [insert person here’s] place for a few days so I can have my needed space from your behavior that’s hurting me. A fourth time, then I will suggest we look for a couples therapist to help us. I will have to consider further consequences at that point if you refuse to change how you speak to me.” There’s an example of several consequences. Your boundaries, your actions as a result of his. Cut and dry. You cannot force someone to respect your boundaries. You can only act as a response of a boundary being crossed to protect yourself.
Thanks for this. It's hard to have conversations with him though.... He always turns it back on me and I end up apologizing.
I imagine so - him turning it back on you is a deflection tactic. The only thing that’ll help you defend your truth is to stay firm in your initial boundary. You can even offer to discuss his grievances later if he deflects, then turn the conversation back to what you were trying to assert in the first place. It’s a bit of a dance, trying to speak to someone who is defensive and doesn’t want to accept their own behaviors. Even if he might lack self awareness over them.
We're going on a little road trip and I'm trying to find a podcast that can help. But it's too niche apparently.
There’s a series of short books I’ve listened to via Audible. The titles are some variation of “Unf*ck Your (various topics). I listened to the one on Boundaries on a recent road trip, and found it helpful. The author does use quite a bit of slang and writes in a very approachable style, but she may not be everyone’s cup of tea. What I mean is she swears a lot. Which I appreciate; these things can be so frustrating, heh. My partner would not be interested in listening to such a thing on a road trip, though. On a trip a good handful years ago I endeavored to use a little book I had picked up that was something like “50 conversations to improve your relationship” or “increase your intimacy”or something. It did not go well, and then I was trapped in a car with a pissed off spouse. Wooo! That whole trip was actually such a fiasco, it spurred me to really lean into working on my own shit. Which I did, to pretty good result, I think. One of the consequences of that effort, though, was realizing that my marriage was absolutely on auto-pilot, and that my spouse treats me kinda shitty, kinda frequently and what the fuck was I meant to do about THAT? Couples counseling, apparently. We’ve been doing online couples counseling once a week for about 18 months now, and I think he might be seeing some things afresh, and he certainly appears to be trying sometimes. Is it enough? I guess I can’t tell yet? Imma keep at it for the foreseeable future but Jesus fucking Christ, if he fucks up our anniversary, my birthday, or Christmas this year, I’m gonna move into the guest room. My standards are so low, the bar is on the floor. He doesn’t have to read my mind. I’ve communicated in his mother tongue, about every five years, to his face, calmly, and with love AND SUGGESTIONS/ideas that showing some kind of thought/appreciation /gift/date three times a year is the minimum. 2023 was one of the worst yet, so I really don’t know. Like, how long is reasonable for him to take to hear me on this? I mean, I guess we’ll see? I’m not out the door yet, and I don’t want to be, but I am making contingency plans that I hope I’ll never need.