Husband Won't Allow Me Around Our Dog

I hear you Betty, sometimes it's like playing clue because an OP doesn't provide the whole picture. I know that being around animals pretty much my entire life, I have seen people exhibit some pretty strange behaviors with their animals.

A household pet is part of the Family unit...be it a Dog or a Lobster. Forbidding one to have a relationship with the household pet would make one feel like a guest in their own home...not a nice feeling.

I don’t know age of this couple but I hope they do not ever have children. Or if she does want them, it would be with someone else and somewhere else, not in this household with this man

Yeah, it's spectacularly bad that she's treated this way by her husband. He sounds fine in other respects, but still, this near total restriction to the dog is very mean spirited.

It's a control tactic. The more of it he gets away with, the more he's going to push the envelope and control, control, control.

Please get help as soon as possible. If it were me, I'd leave, but there was a time in my life I wouldn't have, so I can't say definitely what you should do.

One thing I have learned from being exposed to so many children over so many years is that there are children that actually do have special needs that have to be worked around and understood. There was a time that these special needs were not understood and these children where often punished when they simply didn't do what is considered "normal behavior". NOW with understanding different challenges children are HELPED to learn how to manage their challenges and function better around others.

Given that the OP's mother talked about him possibly being on the autistic spectrum tells me that she has had challenges with him all along and noticed he was difficult to parent and understand and probably did not respond to normal parenting. It's one thing when a challenge is recognized and a child is TAUGHT how to manage their behaviors and interact with other better, and yet another story when a challenged child has never really had their challenges addressed. It's not surprising to come across adults that exhibit confusing behaviors where they never actually learned how to better manage their behaviors where they can engage in behaviors that appear to be "toxic" or "selfish" etc.

Depending on what challenge this OP's husband has, be it that he is on the autistic spectrum or has some OCD challenges etc., this kind of behavior may actually be normal to how the OP's husband NEEDS to have more control than the average person. As I have mentioned, I have been around children and interacted with them that are on the autism spectrum and I have also noticed how their own parents had to learn how to understand their child's wiring and work around it. I HAVE seen how these children DO need more control than the average child too and I had to learn how to understand that when I interacted with them myself. And in all honesty, people who don't KNOW what this challenge actually means tend to view these children as ill behaved and a problem too. In fact, because of this perception there has been a growing effort to provide support groups for parents who have these children so they can bring their children together and do things with their children where if the child starts acting out, they are not embarrassed and have others around them that understand this challenge. I have been to events where several of these challenged children get together, it's very different from a group of children that interact normally. Also, when it comes to the autism spectrum children can be mildly challenged to so severely challenged they cannot even talk. I have noticed that they tend to be in their own little world too.

Control, control, control tends to be the very essence of their challenge too. The sad thing is that the reason they are like this is due to trying to manage their own way of dealing with what is often something they themselves can get very frustrated with. Often they isolate not because they are being mean, but because they are less stimulated that way and can function better.

Quiet honestly, the fact that the OP's husband needs full control of this dog is a red flag, but not really the way most might think. It sounds like he really can't bear to have his wife draw this dog's attention away from him towards her. Actually, this symptom contributes to how children on the autism spectrum often don't do well with playmates. It can be so sad to see how a child on the spectrum wants to be able to have friends but just can't seem to engage in "play" normally so they fail to have friends. Often if they need to understand how to share one of their toys for example, instead of allowing another child to touch and play with their nice little train set, they will often immediately get upset when a little friend moves their train set or tries to touch it and will want to rush over and stop THEIR train set from being touched. OCD can present similar challenges where a person can get very uncomfortable if something they interact with gets out of place. Stress presents with anything that is "out of order" in someone's autistic world and it can get unbearable. It's not unusual for these individuals to excel in math and even computers because there is "order" to these things and that is what tends to be more calming to these individuals.

What this OP is dealing with is probably due to how her husband is wired and she did not see it as well until this dog came into the picture. I caution encouraging her to decide this is purposeful abuse, especially since his mother shared that she suspected he might be on the autistic spectrum.

I’m poking my head in again. I’m just curious. If his mother suspected autism and is a nurse why wasn’t he ever properly diagnosed as autistic? Most parents who suspect a condition will get it diagnosed by a doctor. So, he hasn’t been properly diagnosed, none of us here can diagnose him, and he’s exhibiting abusive traits, which include very controlling behavior and cruelty. That’s all any of us can really say without more info right? I would personally want a diagnosis.

It is interesting that PC being a mental health forum seems to always JUMP to the conclusion that behaviors that SEEM abusive are ALWAYS intentional & not actually caused my an undiagnosed & untreated mental condition.

No we should NOT just accept them as ok.....but should try to get to the REAL underlying CAUSE of the behavior problem. If that in fact shows up nothing or the person is unwilling to deal with the problems caused by their behaviors THEN determine the action to take at that point in time.

After I left my H but wrote to him about his possibly being on the autistic spectrum he was in denial. When I was in Calif for my law suit against him last summer he actually admitted that with some thinking he realized my analysis of his ASD behaviors ALL his life & the 33 years I lived with him were accurate. He will never get a formal diagnosis because in reality at this point in his life it probably won't make any difference. Some people don't want to know & don't care if they have gotten away with their behaviors all these years.....they EXPECT everyone to adapt to their mental condition because in reality it is the way their brain is wired. It takes a lot more work to make changes in a wired brain that it does one that has just been programmed through life because you have both wired & programmed neuropathways to deal with & figure out.

Then when it comes to the final line anyway one has to sort through what they are willing to tolerate or not & weigh out ALL the pros & cons before just leaving.

Yes, this is what is now available for parents to access. However, our understanding of autism and even other learning disabilities is still relatively new. It sounds like the OP's husband is now a mature adult and our ability to diagnose "now" was most likely not really available when she was raising him as a child. Most likely his mother just tried to work around his behaviors as best she could and all these years later with all the knowledge and information about this challenge she is probably hearing and reading different symptoms that she herself had to contend with.

You are right golden, posters here can only offer their support and opinions based on what the OP has shared. Normally, the behavior she is describing experiencing would be considered toxic and abusive. However, given the husband's mother's suspicion about him possibly being on the autistic spectrum, my guess is this behavior she is dealing with may very well be due to a genuine challenge and not really be as purposely abusive as one may think.

When my daughter started first grade the male teacher she had would put up a morning message he wanted each of his students try to read. My daughter saw that morning message and very matter of factly said "Oh I can't do THAT" and went and sat down. Well, this teacher did not like this behavior he saw take place in her so he told her she HAD to read the morning message like the other children, again she firmly said, "I just CAN'T do that" and went and sat down. So he called me in for a meeting and told me how my daughter refused to do what he asked. Knowing my daughter it was not like her to lie or be lazy and if she did say she could not do something she was telling the truth. So, I made it a point to get her tested INSTEAD of FORCING her to try and read that morning message. Turns out my daughter was telling the truth and that is when I learned she has dyslexia and in order to be able to read that morning message she would need special help. At that time Yale was doing a study on dyslexia and my daughter became part of their study, they followed her progress right up into her collage years. And Yale explained to me the areas my daughter would struggle which helped me help her and support her INSTEAD of punishing her or shaming her.

Years later Yale did a documentary on all they learned about dyslexia and how truly challenging it really is for young children trying to learn. It happens to come from the way the BRAIN IS WIRED and how it's different from the normal brain where an individual CAN put letters together and learn words and spelling etc. These children are far from dumb too, they tend to have amazing WILL to learn despite how challenged they are, and how much longer it takes them to read and process what they are reading. Also, in this documentary different individuals who struggled this way talk about how much SHAME they experience with their challenge. And the truth is often their piers DO SHAME them for needing extra help, which is exactly what my own child experienced. When my daughter watched this documentary she just sat there and cried, why?, because someone validated her own deep personal challenge. However, what my daughter also got to see in this documentary was how amazingly intelligent and gifted people with dyslexia can be, how their mind can think in superior ways compared to what is considered the normal brain. There have been significant contributions made from individuals that have dyslexia, doctors, surgeons, architects, lawyers, entrepreneurs that created things no one else thought of. What was determined is that this challenge served a purpose to mankind and that is why it remained in our DNA and produced more of these individuals. It is believed that Einstein had dyslexia.

One thing I have learned is that often people can display behaviors that might be considered a huge detriment, yet it's important to be willing to look beyond the surface and make an effort to considering it may not really be as intentional as we may think.

Researching Asperger's now called ASD in relation to my OWN marriage failing I found out that it wasn't even diagnosed in the US until 1994. Then only a handfull understood it anyway so getting a diagnosis even then was not that possible.

My now ex presented with obvious behavioral characteristics in all our marriage counseling & the Pdoc we both went to ONLY diagnosed him with adult ADD in 2004 but added that he should go see a neurologist because he has more going on than JUST adult ADD & that was at the time I finally left him in 2007. We think that these Dx's are just so easy to come up with & that every PDOC & therapist recognizes the behaviors but in reality it is a lot harder to put the pieces together than we are quick to judge from the outside...also if the person is an adult they have to be willing to go after the diagnosis & many don't even want to know that a label that contains autism is a part of them even though a label or lack thereof doesn't change the behavior that is creating a problem. Many just want everyone around to just continue tolerating the behavior as they have experienced all their life because as my ex said "this is who I am".....sadly he was right & I finally had to make a choice as to whether I could continue to tolerate behaviors I had been fighting for 33 years.

When you are just an onlooker you have no idea how difficult it is to "JUST" get a DX even when it is suspected.

Respectfully, I disagree with some things said here. He clearly shows intent by deliberately going out to the yard when she is outside to make sure the dog is not with her. He shows intent by making sure that he walks the dog alone and without her, every single time. He shows intent by only allowing her now to touch the dog’s nose but nothing more. They talked for months about getting the dog together but he got the dog by himself. This has gone on for three years despite her obvious pain and pleas for change. He MAY be autistic, yet he is not diagnosed. Either way, it sure seems deliberate to me, his actions. And the main point is that it’s hurting the OP immensely, as it rightfully should. Now either she learns to accept it, something that is very hurtful and painful for her, or she makes a change and decides it’s unacceptable, regardless.

I agree with golden. Sure he might behave this way because of whatever issues (rather than just being a jerk) but we don’t know that, there is no diagnosis and he isn’t posting here. SHE posted here however being quite distraught by abusive treatment. Instead of suggesting that she seeks help, we are focusing on how he needs help even though he isn’t posting here.

We can spend hours analyzing “diagnosis” of someone who isn’t even posting here. What is being accomplished by doing so? We are all college educated people and some if us are in mental health or similar fields so we can analyze until cows come home. But unless OP comes back and says that our analysis of his nonexistent diagnosis now solved her issue, then I don’t see any point in continue focusing on how poor guy is abusive because of ADD or ASD or LD. All we know is she is suffering.

Well, the OP has not come back and posted since the 8th. Hopefully she found the member's effort here to be helpful, perhaps she was even able to get help elsewhere too. Let's wish her well and that she is sorting this challenge out. We are here to offer support if she wants to come back and post some more.

if the behavior seems abusive I think the members here have been on the receiving end of abuse and are trying to help the OP overcome being a victim or staying a victim. I do not think the people here are meaning to ignore the mental health/possibly autism issue. But we do not know more than what is shared by the OP so we cant diagnose. We are not doctors. But the people here seem to know an awful lot about abuse and are able to recognize it. I think the point people are trying to make are about helping to OP protect herself. And if she need protection from an abuser it doesnt change the fact that she needs protection even if he has a mental health issue or autism. I often get annoyed that people assume that it must be a mental health issue or autism rather than take the behavior at face value. My sister is autistic and never once has she been abusive. And she was diagnosed when autism was not even a thing yet by one of the first doctor's to notice autism. How we treat someone can be overcome-even if it is a mental health disorder or autism. No one should get to treat someone poorly or be abusive simply because they have a mental health disorder or autism.
I personally think this has been established already.