Indecision

I talked myself out of being so angry at his hurtful comment. “You don’t get along with anybody”. All he says about it is he shouldn’t have said it and it isn’t true. He just did a knee-jerk reaction to hurt me because I had a new idea after we had decided on a plan.

Honestly, I had to go back and re-read this thread to remember what prompted him to give me the nasty comment. So much happens with him, I don’t even remember what happened yesterday. It’s rapid-fire dysfunction and I’m punch drunk.

I don’t feel like he’s done anything to me bad enough to justify me ending it and leaving in anger. I keep going back and forth from feeling optimistic like we can get on a normal track to we have to end it to save our sanity. I don’t trust myself anymore because I know I get the fight/flight response and say it’s over but then I turn around and say I want it to work.

Meanwhile, he keeps doing the same exact triggering behaviors to me that I have told him infinite times I can’t stand. I have a traumatic reaction every time he does it and he never learns! I back down and keep forgiving him. I honestly don’t think he does it with bad intent. He simply is who he is and no matter how I can’t stand the specific things he does he is going to keep doing them. I am going to keep getting triggered. We are going to keep fighting. Then I am going to keep backing down and saying I want it to work. Then he is going to say he wants that too. But it will never last more than a day or so!

I can keep praying. I keep saying the Serenity Prayer. I can try to stay calm when he does the triggering behavior and not respond, but we will never really enjoy each other as long as this persists.

There is so much good about him. I don’t talk about how good he is much on here. I only rant when I’m upset. Lord help me see the good and not respond to how much he triggers me.

I’m not leaving him. I won’t keep kidding myself and seeking support from you very confident folks. I am too terrified. I have a disorder. I believe the psy who told me I’d probably never be happy with anybody. So, I am blessed to have a nice man who is willing to put up with me.

Is he Asperger-y? I'm thinking the clutter, the not-so-great social skills, the limited relationship with the boys.

Several people have suggested that. I have asked our therapists and psychiatrist and they scoff. But, I think there is definitely some aspect of something on spectrum happening. It could be part me, part him. Neither of us have anything severe enough to have been diagnosed.

I think I’ll try to look at this as though we are dealing with this issue, and see what kind of skills may help us.

He does not ‘get’ me and what I like. No matter how many times he has done what I hate and I have expressed it in every non-violent way I know how , he keeps doing it. He doesn’t really have empathy. I have seen him show some empathy, but just a bit in a moment where anyone would look like a callous POS if they didn’t. He wasn’t nasty or abusive with the kids, but gave them little attention. He was much better with them while we were all vacation together and we had good times.

I do have the sensory thing that is mentioned for people on spectrum. This might explain my hatred of the intimate things I can’t stand. I’m also really sensitive to itchy fabrics and hate being tickled!

No. If he has an issue it would be more like Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder. That type of person can have hoarding issues, is not great with emotion (understatement), and really really does not want new ideas.

But I would not want to diagnose from a distance.

It could be the extreme stress from covid/lockdowns, doesn't mean he has a full-on personality disorder otherwise.

They could also be just really incompatible, seeing that TishaBuv likes ideas and this guy seems to be really triggered by them, liking to stick to his plans. Which is completely not TishaBuv's fault, it's totally valid to like ideas and stuff, it would just be an incompatibility between them.

On top of the incompatibility he could have *traits* of OCPD, but doesn't have to have the full personality disorder. Again, diagnosing when we are not qualified psychiatrists or clinical psychologists is not a good idea.

Yes. It seems like, it could be helpful to categorise which things are triggering to you and which things are triggering to him. And find a way to avoid those. Or it could be impossible to avoid them, and then it would really be an incompatible and unsustainable relationship.

But I am concerned about this post of yours here, because it to me does feel like a toxic pattern in the relationship (without necessarily blaming anyone really). You could seek out resources, books on those relationships. I think it would really be helpful for you. I was in such a relationship before.

Basically, if you regularly feel like you have to end this to save the sanity of the both of you, that to me qualifies as toxic, unfortunately.

And then there is that part to toxic relationships where people are stuck and want to keep trying to make it work. That is very familar to me too. VERY. It's especially negative and draining if you are the only one person really trying. But it's still toxic if both of you are honestly trying. It reminds me of trauma bond, too (you can look this up too, there are good books on it).



One more comment here. Please do not kill your anger, I am sure it has a valid message for you, you just would want to figure out what it is. But to me it sounds like it signalled the extreme boundary violation. As he knew that that psychiatrist told you that *****, yeah? Don't allow yourself to minimise the issue and don't minimise yourself along with it. If that made sense. I hope this helps. It is just my own personal experience, that anger designed to protect you has valid messages, you just have to process it on your own first.


He was able to take responsibility for it afterwards, which to me sounds like a good thing yes. As far as his personality not being full-on disordered if he is able to take responsibility. Unfortunately it doesn't necessarily make the relationship itself less toxic.

I'm not religious, so I hope what I'm going to say here is okay (feel free to let me know if you are bothered by anything, though). So, I just don't think God would want you to keep suffering in a toxic relationship.

And yes, I'm sure he has a good side. Like the way he was able to take responsibility for his hurtful and manipulative or hateful behaviour (to me it does seem that way, my personal opinion).

And this is where I really wanted to post IMMEDIATELY. I was about to wind down for the night (and I'm going to bed after this post) but I saw this and I felt like this is very serious. If you frequently have thoughts like this then you are letting your self-esteem erode, and that's just an absolutely big no no long-term. Whatever he is doing to make you feel this way it's NOT OKAY. Whatever he's doing to make you feel drained is NOT OKAY.

Again, he may have good traits, yes, but if you two are fundamentally incompatible, it's going to bring out the worst sides of at least one of you. Especially under extra stress, but in everyday life too. If you try harder than him at all this then it will bring out his worst side more than yours. Simply because you would be trying to avoid your own worst side coming out and putting in a lot of effort for that, while he may not be doing as much effort for it himself. (And then is he really a special, very nice man? More nice than average?) But that will mean you really make yourself drained and let your self-esteem erode and let your energy drain away long-term. It's a gradual process. Please do not allow that to happen to yourself!

I HOPE this helped some. Please, do not let yourself get stuck this deep, and come back and become empowered like you had nice goals before. And if it has to mean ending the relationship, then that's just what it is. I really wish you good luck to whatever you decide to do to preserve your fundamental well-being!

Maybe he needs a Goofus and Gallant refresher. I just googled it on amazon, and found a Doofus and Darling book of etiquette for men.

But i was thinking goofus and gallant because i keep thinking back to when i took a dale carnegie class, and some of us did not get recognized until we started recognizing that other people existed in our lives besides ourselves.

And the h reminds me of a guy in class, an engineer, who also reminded me of myself, in how he treated his wife. His great breakthru was not yelling at her for how she baked the brownies.

That makes sense to me. If he has some OCPD traits (but even if not the full-on OCPD disorder), then yeah a professional wouldn't mistake that for Asperger, they have differences in traits even though they both are bad at emotion. It makes sense to me also that you are saying neither of you has an outright disorder like that to get diagnosed. To me it overall really seems like a major incompatibility between you two, especially emotionally and in other preferences too (e.g. his planning vs your liking ideas). I had the sense before that you two don't read each other's motivations because of this incompatibility. Like it's hard to understand and read each other accurately then. But that's just my personal opinion, I've not seen that much about your relationship.



I would chalk this up to you two being different to the point of incompatibility like I mentioned. But that's of course still just my personal opinion/impression. Your guy could have about average abilities for empathy but is likely not going to become good at it beyond average.

And you two could have this emotional incompatibility where you two just don't easily influence each other emotionally. I don't know if that made sense as that's truly just my own, highly personal concept of things, from my own observations having been in various relationships. Some people would naturally be able to emotionally influence me more and some just wouldn't be able to. Some would be able to, to a moderate extent. And so on. Maybe it's a chemistry thing.



The sensory sensitivities are not exclusive to ASD. They come with other "conditions" too, such as very creative personalities with the so-called low latent inhibition. I'm mentioning this one because it's not a disorder on its own yet it does often come with sensory issues. ASD or ADHD or other neurodiverse conditions can come with this too. But it's its own concept psychologically. The other such concept I can think of that's not a disorder but can have sensory sensitivities is HSP (highly sensitive personality).

Very perceptive insights @Alive99 all you said are things we’ve thought at part of this over all these years. I want to make this relationship and my life work and feel alright SO BAD!

I’m very grateful for this forum because I can talk about this and not feel so alone. I am so sorry to not really improve or leave or solve anything. But have much love for all you wonderful people I have reached out to and touched.

Very ambitious goals. All that together could feel overwhelming and then it's totally normal to feel it's like you're not really doing or solving anything. But I don't think that's true. The fact you are on here and talking about it and trying to figure this out is already you being on the way there.

Not liking tickling or itchy fabric or whatever other sensory things is a very common occurrence in a lot of people and at no point is a base of a diagnosis for autism spectrum disorder.

Also the husband here could be just not a match in sexuality department or just personalities don’t match. Or maybe people have some traits. I don’t know how it’s helpful to diagnose yourself or others with an actual disorder. We can talk ourselves into having every disorder on the planet by googling things and applying it to people and situations randomly.

No one was diagnosing. We’re just kicking around possibilities. The tactile sensory thing is a part of the whole spectrum thing, from ADHD to Autism. I have always had more sensitivity to it. We’ve suspected ADHD in my family in my grandfather, my mother and her sister, my one sister and myself. We saw it as an inability to relax. For example; my grandfather could not sit still, literally, he had to keep moving and if sitting, his legs would be tapping, his hands would be playing with the silverware. Two of my sons have been diagnosed ADHD. So, there’s nothing wrong with discussing that there might be something to this at play here with me. Although I have broached it with several doctors, they brush me off. I don’t insist and hammer them to force them to discuss it. That’s my experience of what has happened.

I respect your wanting to adhere to guidelines here, but we aren’t violating them.

I don’t care about guidelines. I care about diagnosing without valid degree and knowledge. Diagnosing is a serious thing. I am not in support of “google” diagnosing

ADHD and ASD is not the same thing whatsoever (could be coexisting). The post I was replying to was not about ADHD, it was about people being casually diagnosed with ASD (Asperger is not even a valid diagnosis).

I am staying out of this conversation.

Hi, been separated for a year now and my ex wants to work it. She want to move to another state and I think the same as your husband. But an willing to anything to make it work. I am hesitant but, what ever it takes. I would have to find another job. Which worries me in many way been at same job for a long time. Still not sure if we will work out.

Hello @Bill3407 and welcome to the forum! I’m sorry to hear your relationship is struggling, too. If you both are willing to do what it takes to make it work out, it definitely is possible.