Page 1 of 2 [ 23 posts ]  Go to page 1, 2  Next

hobbes
Emu Egg
Emu Egg

User avatar

Joined: 24 Feb 2007
Gender: Female
Posts: 6

07 Mar 2007, 5:33 pm

Hi! I am new to wrongplanet.net and am struggling to help my husband relate to my 11 year old aspie son.

My son was diagnosed with Aspergers/AdHd in first grade. Neither is a "perfect" diagnosis and he does not fit neatly into either diagnostic catagory. He is a handful....very ridgid, volitile in his mood swings, immature and emotionally fragile with a very black & white view of the world. He is also smart, intuitive,funny and kind. He is managable if you understand Aspergers and approach him the right way.

I am driving myself crazy trying to get my (also VERY black & white) husband to understand his son and all the Asperger's shades of gray. He just does not get it and I resent being out on the aspie limb all by myself. I have given him books (which he does not read) and articles (which he might). My husband would prefer to pretend the problem does not exist or cut himself off from dealing with my little boy. My son needs his dad. I do not question my husband's love for my son, but I know he doesn't like him very much and makes little or no effort to connect with him on any level. If anyone has any suggestions or has experienced a similar situation - I would appreciate any advice you might be able to offer. Thanks!



07 Mar 2007, 6:17 pm

I'm assuming you meant your son didn't meet the AS criteria either. Same here. I wonder why not PDD-NOS. That's used for when the person didn't meet any of the four criterias for autism.



hobbes
Emu Egg
Emu Egg

User avatar

Joined: 24 Feb 2007
Gender: Female
Posts: 6

07 Mar 2007, 6:55 pm

Sorry...I should have been more clear. He does not meet the full criteria for Aspergers but he is without question on the autism spectrum. He has many characteristics of Aspergers so much so that the books on the subject contain far more information that I can use than that which I can not. He actually has been diagnosed with Ad/Hd but I have to wonder....The attention deficit "stuff" is predictable and pretty managable. It is the aspie characteristics that are more difficult to tackle as a family.

I sincerely feel that if my husband understood more about ASD and/or Aspergers he would be much more tolerant of my son's quirky behavior. I just haven't been able to find the right conduit for information that resonates with him.



Apatura
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 24 Jul 2006
Age: 50
Gender: Female
Posts: 1,332

07 Mar 2007, 7:11 pm

Your husband is probably in denial about himself (you said he had traits too). Until he comes to terms with it (he may never), he won't be able to recognize it in his son, either.



Goku
Raven
Raven

User avatar

Joined: 16 Feb 2007
Gender: Male
Posts: 119

07 Mar 2007, 7:13 pm

I can relate. My 14yo son also has adhd/asperger's and sounds like your kid. Dad has similar traits but no dx and no interest in one.

The turning point for him was when he started to see himself in some of the things M was doing (good and bad) and admitted to me that they were alike in a lot of ways. I think it helped him have hope that the future wasn't so bleak afterall since if he's doing ok, maybe M will too.



hobbes
Emu Egg
Emu Egg

User avatar

Joined: 24 Feb 2007
Gender: Female
Posts: 6

07 Mar 2007, 7:23 pm

Goku -

I am glad your husband has come around. My son and husband do share may similar traits and I do not think that my husband has ever noticed how much they really do have in common. They are both so convinced that they are always right and no amount or logic or reason will convince them otherwise. Neither is very good at recognizing or empathizing with other people's points of view.

My husbands biggest issue with P is the impact he had on our other (presumably NT) boys. He can not stand how P's tantrums and daily melodrama impact his younger brothers. He also does not like the "person he becomes" when he deals with P. He blames the 11 year old for his own inability to handle him and blames the child for the screaming matches (in which he actively participates) that invariably occur.

We are in such a bad place right now that I am at a loss as to what to do.



Goku
Raven
Raven

User avatar

Joined: 16 Feb 2007
Gender: Male
Posts: 119

07 Mar 2007, 10:00 pm

hobbes - I know what you mean - once those emotional screaming matches start, it's like a feeding frenzy- we've been there too. Nobody feels good afterward. There's a post by lemon (what to do during a meltdown) that has suggestions for the "emotional rimram".

Maybe you could gently point out to your husband his similarities to P and how they feed off of each others moods. Step in and take over to break it up if your husband will step back. 11 started the moody preteen stuff here in full force. Wish I had the secret - I'd be rich!



07 Mar 2007, 11:18 pm

hobbes wrote:
Sorry...I should have been more clear. He does not meet the full criteria for Aspergers but he is without question on the autism spectrum. He has many characteristics of Aspergers so much so that the books on the subject contain far more information that I can use than that which I can not. He actually has been diagnosed with Ad/Hd but I have to wonder....The attention deficit "stuff" is predictable and pretty managable. It is the aspie characteristics that are more difficult to tackle as a family.

I sincerely feel that if my husband understood more about ASD and/or Aspergers he would be much more tolerant of my son's quirky behavior. I just haven't been able to find the right conduit for information that resonates with him.



<He does not meet the full criteria for Aspergers>


Does he meet all the requirements for the diagnoses or did he not fit it all but got diagnosed with it anyway?



jaleb
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 4 Dec 2006
Age: 52
Gender: Female
Posts: 2,714
Location: Kentucky

08 Mar 2007, 12:26 am

my dh is the same. But at the same time they are both so alike! I don't think my dh is true AS, but he shares some "fragments" of it. I have read numerous books and told him to read them too, but he never does. When we first got our dx he read a couple of articles on the internet but thats it. He drives me crazy because he doesn't know how to handle him and usually always makes a bad situation worse. Then if I say anything about he is mad at me because he has "his way" and I do it "my way" they both do not relate to each other at all. And it is exasperating because I am doing all the work alone!



ster
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 23 Sep 2005
Gender: Female
Posts: 2,485
Location: new england

08 Mar 2007, 6:47 am

my son's dx hit my hubby hard....it forced him to really look at the ways in which son was acting.previous to a dx, hubby had always said: "there's nothing wrong with son, he's just like me when i was little."............after dx, he took a good, long look at himself & was scared to death that maybe he was aspie too.after much cajoling, i got hubby to go for a dx..and it turns out he's an aspie too.
btw, my daughter is dx-ed as ADHD, but fits most of the aspie stuff way better than the ADHD dx..



Apatura
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 24 Jul 2006
Age: 50
Gender: Female
Posts: 1,332

08 Mar 2007, 1:18 pm

My husband has actually forbidden the words "Asperger's" or "autism" to even be uttered in this house. The ped. wanted my daughter to be evaluated because she is nonverbal and doesn't make eye contact. My husband flipped and said the dr should be evaluated.

Unfortunately some people see Asperger's as a problem, a stigma, a stain... my husband has this notion that without labels one can rise above the condition that the labels represent, but what he can't realize is that awareness is more powerful than denial.

I am a better person since recognizing the autistic traits in myself (and I used to be very in denial, I would get furious if I was told I had poor communication skills, which I was told more than once!). I now have the knowledge to fight the fights worth fighting and to abandon the ones that are futile. I have been able to reprioritize my entire inner world, everything is cleaner and more organized in my head now. I also have better self esteem because I no longer hate myself for the weaknesses I never understood before. For instance, I used to hate myself for having such an intense aversion to doing things cooperatively with my kids (like teaching them how to cook, cleaning with them, playing with them, etc). Now I know why I have the aversion, and a parcel out my energy and give myself goals for interacting with them. I don't force myself to the point of damaging myself, but I also set the bar as high as I can. I do not interact with them as much as a healthy NT parent would, but when I am there with them, it is 100% and with my whole heart. This is all due to my acceptance of awareness. I wish my husband could see things from this perspective.



mumof1
Emu Egg
Emu Egg

User avatar

Joined: 9 Feb 2007
Gender: Female
Posts: 6
Location: Australia

09 Mar 2007, 5:51 am

Wow, this is all sounding pretty familiar!! ! My DH also has LOTS of Aspie traits. He is in denial about the whole thing since our DD's dx, although not quite as much as his mum and dad who think it's just something I've dreamed up to give me something to do. His mum actually told me I need to get another interest!! Honestly......



Ticker
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 25 Aug 2006
Age: 54
Gender: Female
Posts: 2,955

12 Mar 2007, 1:23 am

Sounds like you ladies have Aspie husbands. Just apply what you learn from the books to your husbands too.



Erlyrisa
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 27 Feb 2007
Age: 113
Gender: Male
Posts: 604

12 Mar 2007, 1:30 am

Ticker wrote:
Sounds like you ladies have Aspie husbands. Just apply what you learn from the books to your husbands too.


very typical of a brainwashed society.

try understanding this.... (and I am truly trying to help)

Nothing is Ever Different
A quote



sigholdaccountlost
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 10 Jul 2006
Age: 33
Gender: Female
Posts: 2,207

12 Mar 2007, 4:34 am

Erlyrisa wrote:
Ticker wrote:
Sounds like you ladies have Aspie husbands. Just apply what you learn from the books to your husbands too.


very typical of a brainwashed society.

try understanding this.... (and I am truly trying to help)

Nothing is Ever Different
A quote


No, everything is different. Recognise the similiarites, celebrate the differences. We're all winners of a gentic lottery.


_________________
<a href="http://www.kia-tickers.com><img src="http://www.kia-tickers.com/bday/ticker/19901105/+0/4/1/name/r55/s37/bday.png" border="0"> </a>


JsMom
Sea Gull
Sea Gull

User avatar

Joined: 15 Nov 2005
Gender: Female
Posts: 228

16 Mar 2007, 5:15 pm

My husband is my son's stepfather. Hubby is NT and son is AS/ADHD. They are like oil and water!! ! Hubby used to think son was doing stuff "on purpose" and didn't really understand what AS was all about. One day hubby suggested my son needed to go to counseling, and I replied that we should all go as a family. It took a little bit of time for my husband to agree, but let me tell you it was the best thing in the world. Now, hubby and son go to counseling regularly to work stuff out between them. I had been trying to explain everything for years, but hubby didn't believe me until the counselor laid it all out for him.

BTW, we went to my son's phychologist who specializes in AS.


_________________
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson