30 something adult living with fighting parents.

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Okay the short version of my circumstance. I'm a 35 year old male living in my parents place to save money while going to college. I'm hopeful about my progress and completing this course to get a new career going. Also my disclaimer is I'm Not Diagnosed anything. I consider Aspergers a strong possibility or at least have some unnamed personality quirk.


Now my parents usually get along with each other and myself while living with them. However, every so often my Dad does these weird things that set off my mom and recently she is close to calling a divorce lawyer. It's an odd mix of different things. Recently it was what she described as nagging while she was trying to start a gardening project. Something about saying she watches Home and Garden to much or those Prepper shows(yes my Mom has concerns about preparedness in this bad economy). Also my dad is retired and likes to nap in front of the TV, yet for a while my mom tried to run a family business. It's well known he snores ridiculously loud and he doesn't seem to care about his passively disruptive behavior embarrassing my mom in front of customers.

Also... my dad has lot's of crap. I mean every house they live in he builds a barn to fill up with old car parts and antique stuff. He has a partially disassembled player piano in there now I have now idea what he wants to do with it. Recently he bought a crappy old antique tricycle that is sitting in the garage. Now to add perspective this has never gotten as out of hand as those people on the Hoarder shows. It's really more like what you might see on American Pickers show which oddly enough is one of my Dad's favorite shows.

Aside from this it can be said my Dad is a gifted handyman who fixes damn near anything and he's also a retired electrician. He has a good knowledge for cars to though is frustrated by the computerization and compact design of modern cars.

A little more background; my mom has sometimes said my Dad's parents were unusually quiet, particularly my grandpa, though they seemed to like seeing me around. What I recall is my mom and grandma talked about stuff in the kitchen but my Grandpa and Dad where quiet in the living room not doing much or reading the newspaper. Also, myself I was a awkward quiet kid that struggled through Public School with erratic grades.

I haven't told anyone my suspicion of Aspergers mostly because I don't think my mom would go for it. However, I'm leaning toward suggesting marriage counseling, or some kind of counseling, and I'm going to cite this family history without needing a label. I think it's been an issue that comes up and then gets swept under the rug and continues to fester untreated. In recent retirement years I think this is becoming more of a problem without work routine to occupy my dad.

Thanks to any who read this or may have had similar experiences.

(NOTE: to mods I didn't put this in Adult Autism issues because I have no official diagnoses behind this)

I like the plan of suggesting counseling, mentioing a pattern without giving a label to it.

Of course you need to suggest in a light way and then graciously back off letting them make their own decisions.

(any chance there might be an informal counselor like a hairdresser or an exercise coach? And I mean this seriously. I am not at all impressed by professional counselors, psychologists, etc)

I had contemplated asking their local Pastor but I'm not sure about him.

We also have a peculiar religion situation. My Mom is really Irish Catholic but my Dad decided he likes the United Brethren Church which has a Protestant influence. (Then there is me drawn to the Unitarian Universalist Church with Buddhist Influences. )

So there is the Preacher guy at the United Brethren church but while good hearted I'm not sure about him, but I might ask if he has advice or a referral. I'm not 100% how I feel about him keeping these kind of inquiries confidential. Or I could approach the Priest at the Catholic Church but I don't really know much about the guy. But if he says it'll be confidential I'll be inclined to believe him.

Otherwise it's hard to think of good options to confide in. This place is in a rural area and I'd say at least materially my Dad has succeeded in the kind of retirement he wanted. It's out in the boonies on a hill and many of the locals are Amish. It's got the space to build a barn for his junk storage and John Deere Tractor. My mom is an artist / photographer and has her own social circle of photographer friends but I don't know them that well. Otherwise there is my Mom's siblings but it's probably more up to her to either turn to them or just exit the situation.

I think this environment is contributing to the problem. This place is the ideal retirement land of my Dad but my Mom is stuck living in it feeling out of touch. Occasionally, it almost seems like she becomes a cog in the the machine of my Dad's life routine. Even regarding silly stuff. Like if she is busy with personal stuff like doing volunteer work he's sitting there wondering when he'll be served breakfast as usual. The idea of just scrambling eggs in a pan seems foreign to him.

I can imagine some guys can be chauvinist about pressuring their wives to serve them, but I'm not sure if it's that simple here.

I'll toss in a random reference. My main hangout place is a bookstore and I've become friends with the owner. I don't recall who he was talking about exactly in a previous conversation, it may have been a nephew, but I heard him mention Autism and Aspergers and the phrase High Functioning.

I'm not sure about his guy being used to counsel my parents but maybe get a referral or any info he has on the subject.

I may just walk up to him with one of my J.E. Robison books and just ask if he knows about this stuff. Maybe he can give me a different perspective.

Aspergers in families, yup. Usually some family members end up being the tallest tree in the family forest and their Asperger traits are uh, more pronounced.

If you want a formal diagnosis for yourself, get one. It could help with getting accommodations at college if you need them, see the various posts on the high school/college forum for more information on that. It could also help you understand yourself better, your strengths and weaknesses.

Your parents have been bumping together along for a long time now. I suggest this is not the hill you want to die on. In other words, detach from their marital battles, they have been at it for a long time now. I am assuming your parents are in their 70s now?

It is most doubtful they will divorce and your Mom has probably been taking care of and dealing with your Dad's quirks all her adult life. If she is truly miserable, then it is her job to handle it, not yours. If Mom is recruiting you into the fight, refuse to participate. My mother used to complain endlessly about my Dad, I finally told her one time, 'so divorce him if you are so miserable'. The complaining abated for awhile and no, she never divorced him either.

I recommend you concentrate on your college courses and get a formal diagnosis if you wish. It is admirable that you want to help your mother out, because you perceive she needs help but really do not go there. The only person you can control in this world is yourself. It doesn't sound like a lot of fun living there, focus on the degree, get a job and move out as soon as you can. I would also ask, is there someplace else you can live right now? But you are back home due to financial reasons, so probably no. Sigh.

My two cents anyhow....

Well it's not really bad. Instead of yelling my mom takes off and goes shopping and then stops cooking. It's not to the point of yelling yet.

I enjoy cooking anyway so it doesn't change things for me. I enjoy cooking my own breakfast. I gained an appreciation for it from watching Food Network it made me want to experiment in the kitchen.

The main role I play in things like this is the thoughtful listener to my mom. My Dad doesn't come to me with personal things like this. I try to think of thoughtful responses and did just say maybe Dad is a creature of habit or routine to a fault. In one example after dinner my mom started offering to serve ice cream. This started as a nice gesture but has now become an expectation. Maybe after dinner my Mom gets busy with other things and he won't get it himself unless he really wants it.

I think this could be something like Aspergers and a mix of family culture from the farm where he grew up. Also I don't know if he picked attitudes about somethings from the short time in the military during the draft. He didn't go to Vietnam but he served on a fort in Texas.

However, I don't plan to try being mediator between them. I'm to close to the situation and think someone outside this predicament could fill the role of impartial mediator.

That's a little bit of a difficult situation to be in, since it might morph to you taking your mom's side against your dad, or running interference on behalf of your dad, and neither one is good situation.

This kind of thing, like in art, less is probably more, and done with a light touch.

It occurs to me that you could say something like this to your dad: Dad, you can't be napping and snoring when mom has customers over.

You could say it once matter-of-factly, and your dad may or may not follow it. That is, you would be coaching your dad, and the art of it, you would then need to be open to reciprocal coaching, at least to some extent.

And yes, it does sound like your dad is on the spectrum.

Well my mom has said she doesn't want to put me in the middle of this thing, yet I'm the most convenient person to come to just to have someone to listen to her predicament and who understands what is going on. So far I'm really just someone to talk to who can be a good listener.

Also she might feel embarrassed and I don't know if she has talked to any of her siblings.

I think when situations like this happen there can be a tendency to quarantine it and not let it out of the house, instead of opening up to someone and seeking help or knowledge.

Well this is becoming a kind of silent treatment statemate thing. At least from my Dad. Just kind of sitting there doing crosswords then trying to make crappy meals when he can't stand it anymore.

Many older couples go through a rough period when one retires, especially if it's the husband as the wife is more likely to have been home-based and now finds that her own routines are disrupted.

If you were going to speak to anyone then my suggestion would be to have an informal word with the minister/pastor of the church they attend. You don't need to go into great detail, and explain that it's confidential. Maybe the minister could involve your father in some work or projects around the church which would get him out the house and out your mother's way for a while. Or maybe the minister could drop by, if that's a usual thing, and have a chat with them generally about how things are.

For now I've decided to do the wait and see approach. Also concentrate more on College Homework.

This Algebra kind of sucks but hoping I'm almost over the hurdle of Prerequisite classes. After that I can be more immersed in computer stuff.

Sounds like hidden tension, and that's not ok that your parents try to make it look like everything's all right. I hate that, but I'm not sure what to say because it's like parents are bigger than God and you have to scream pretty loud before they listen.

My advice: Do not "Wait and see." This will only enable your parents problems to go unresolved. Force the issue out of the house! Abuse thrives in secrecy!