BelLocke

My husband is similar... He doesn't want to do certain things unless they work in his favour and he gets something that he wants. He hated school and was very traumatized by the whole experience as a kid. He had to force himself to go to college because at the time we were living in different countries and he wanted a career to move over and be able to start a life with. (I ended up moving over instead, but that's another story!) More recently, I've convinced him that we need to move out of our flat because the noise is driving him insane and driving us apart. We'll be going back to his parents' house until we can move into our new place in January. He was very against the idea - until I mentioned we may be able to take a trip to Japan (place we went to for our honeymoon) with the spare money we will have. Within less than a day, he was going on and on about moving out! Hahaha. Long story short, your son needs to want it, or it can be difficult to convince him otherwise. Is I.T. perhaps not the right field for him? Is it something he's in love with, or just something he chose just because he felt he had to? If he loves video games, and if the finances are there, why not send him on a games design or games programming course instead to keep him productive - and who knows, perhaps find a job someday? If I.T. is what he likes but he doesn't want to finish the Level 3, perhaps sending him on an apprenticeship might be an option? He'll be learning as well as earning that way, and he could even buy himself more Xbox games with the spare money.

I'm very sorry to hear that. It's apparently a very common thing in people with autism. Behavioural therapy or medicine might be able to help. There's a little bit more about it here: http://selfharm.co.uk/get/facts/autism_and_self-harm

I've been in a relationship with my husband since I was 14 (25 now), and it's definitely a never-ending educational experience. I can definitely relate to a lot of what you've said. We both also suffer from depression, so our emotions can often make us clash at times - most of it comes down to lack of clear communication. My top tips for communication are: 1) Never make promises you think you might not be able to keep; 2) Always keep your requests clear and direct with correct vocabulary ("upset" is vague and has caused many silly arguments between the hubby and I!); and 3) Never make assumptions. Even if it's obvious to you, it's probably not obvious to them. A good example of this happened to me the other day... Hubby was interrogating me mercilessly about our finances (we're moving out, and I handle all the money since he hates mathematics), and although I kept hinting for him to stop because it was upsetting me, he kept going and going until I had a mini-panic attack. This only confused him more because he couldn't figure out why I would be crying over something so trivial, so he thought that raising his voice at me would help. It definitely did not! It makes me laugh now, but if I was a bit clearer and less panicked, we could have avoided it altogether. That brings me to my final tip: 4) Sometimes, it's best to just walk away from a situation and come back to it later. I find at least with my husband that some situations may become too overwhelming and that just separating or dropping it altogether will help in the long term. We might be a bit upset for a while, but after some time has passed, he has had time to think and process things over, and I've calmed down a bit to hear him out.

I don't know much about the legal or financial side of things. However, if your ex is acting this way towards you and your son and refuses to change, I would seriously consider perhaps removing him from your lives. My father was abusive (physically and emotionally - and he never paid child support either, so I can relate to that at least), and although a very confused part of me still loved him and wanted to keep him in my life, my mom took my brother and myself away. In hindsight, it was the best thing she could have done for us. I'm still suffering from my past with my father, even though he passed away almost nine years ago. It's painful and not the easiest of choices to make, but sometimes, we need to cut toxic people out of our lives, before they do even more damage.

What you describe here sounds a lot like self-harm to me. The young person you are describing might be feeling the need to escape or separate from themselves by turning mental or psychological pain into physical pain. The physical pain then causes a sense of relaxation due to the releasing of endorphins. On the other hand, the young person might be depressed and/or not feeling anything at all, and causing some sort of physical pain to themselves helps them to at least feel something. I haven't experienced it myself, although I've known others who have and I've attended workshops specifically about self-harm. It's definitely not a healthy behaviour as the person may end up seriously hurting themselves.

Hello there! And aww, that's great. I hope it all works out for you! Marriage is hard sometimes, but it's definitely worth it.

That's such a terrible thing to say. It makes you wonder why some doctors are even in the trade when they can't be civil and understanding to the people they're supposed to be helping. Anyway, hope your new GP is treating you much better.

Personally, I do not and neither does my husband. We're not strongly religious, so we don't mind the prayer/ritual that is done during the slaughter process. As for the actual slaughter, even conventional slaughter methods where the animal is stunned "humanely" often do not work and lead to a lot of suffering for the animal. I've tried researching the halal methods and seeing if they are any better/worse, but there's a lot of mixed messages. Because of the way it is performed, some say the animal has no idea it is about to die, and when the bleeding process begins, it quickly loses consciousness. Others say it is more painful, on the other hand. Unfortunately, unless we go out and catch our own animals and grow our own food, I never think we'll truly know what actually happens behind the scenes and which methods are best all around.

It definitely crossed my mind to complain. I've just been told it's a problem throughout Birmingham that doctors are overlooking Autism, so the problem might go deeper than just this one guy. The good news is I've been given a good lead to finding a doctor who might be a good fit for my husband, so fingers crossed!

I was afraid this was the case. Coming from an entirely different culture (America) in terms of medical care, I still can't get over how much of a mixed bag the NHS is. It's really depressing sometimes. But thanks for the honest answer. I might have to work on some sort of information packet or something that I can show his doctors in the future. It's a real shame some doctors are still so stubborn as to not take autism seriously as a condition.

Hello! Pleasure to meet ya. Might seem strange, but he actually wanted to live in the city centre. He feels all trendy and cool living here (his words, haha), and truth be told, we haven't had a lot of issues with noise at all, with the exception of our direct neighbors over the last year a half. A lot of what you've said about opening up, etc, is stuff I have addressed with him before. It's funny. When we were just friends/just started dating, our relationship was the complete opposite of what it was now. I was the quiet and depressed one, and he was the talkative one who was really good with putting how he felt into words - he's a really good writer which has something to do with it I think. The dynamic is completely changed which is part of what I'm personally struggling with, because I have my own personal fear of big changes, and when I do try to get him to open up and talk to me about everything, it's almost like I'm fighting the current. I got into the habit of asking, "Are you okay?" a lot, and over time, it would instantly freeze him up and lead towards arguments if I didn't catch myself saying it in time. He's fallen into this rut and just won't budge. Part of it is because we've argued so much now that he's always afraid of "triggering" a new argument. Ironically, that just tends to make more friction between the two of us because all the bad things get buried until they build up and explode. I recently e-mailed Autism West Midlands with a huge emotional essay, and they're actually the reason I ended up here. They recommended I start posting on forums to try and find some support... They also gave me the name of a local counselor who helps couples (and who also has AS himself). I'm trying to get my husband to consider getting back on some kind of medication to help him a bit, but he's afraid of gaining weight or other side effects. We might be moving out of our flat if these problems continue, so I'm just going to take it one day at a time with him and try to work this out as best as possible.

Hiya, real brief - my husband is 28 years old and has Aspergers. He's currently not on any kind of medication, although he used to take anti-depressants until we became a couple. He's now very against taking them, especially as he has body/weight issues (if I weren't here to feed him, I very much wonder if he would stop eating altogether) and is extremely frightened of gaining weight. Anyway... We moved three years ago, and he's only ever used our local GP twice. The second time was just this week, and it was not helpful at all. He's been extremely stressed and anxious due to various issues, and was perhaps seeking some medical advice for anxiety medicine, etc. Rather than helping him, the doctor decided it would be best to tell my husband (diagnosed for the better part of 15 years, by the way) that autism "is not a disabling condition" and pretty much belittling/downplaying anything having to do with his AS. Obviously, I'm getting red flags from this GP already, and I'm desperate to find someone who actually believes autism/Aspergers is a real condition. Does anybody have experience with doctors in the Birmingham area? Am I too optimistic in hoping to find someone useful/understanding on the NHS? Is private any better? Or in the end, is it just trial and error until you find a good doctor?

Heya, first time poster here. I'm a 25 year old American chick who's married to a 28 year old British guy with Aspergers. Ours is a really interesting story; we met online in a chat room when I was 12 and he was 15. We hit it off straight away and were best friends for a couple of years before he came to visit me for the first time. Since then, we've hardly ever been apart - together for over 10 years and married for 5. It's meant me relocating to England, which has been a challenge in itself, and everything was pretty good until he started struggling even more with his AS in recent years... Funnily enough, I didn't even know he had AS until we were engaged, but it's become really, really clear over the years of living together that it's there. Lately, he's struggling in particular with over-sensitivity to noise. Three years ago, we moved out of his parents' house (we'd been living there while I worked on getting my residency visa) because they made too much noise and he felt it was crowded and trapped. We moved into a flat in the city centre of Birmingham, and he was so happy to be independent - until the noises started here too. It started with people playing music, which he complained about and got stopped, but now even people walking around upstairs and the occasional slamming of the communal doors has him acting like a caged animal at times. We argue a lot. When he is unhappy, he makes it very difficult for people around him to be happy, and ironically, I can't even ask him if he's okay because it REALLY bothers him to be asked all the time. I feel like I'm walking on eggshells a lot of the time, and have told him as much, but rather than try to work on the problem with me, he just internalizes all of the blame and closes himself away from me even more because he's a "horrible person" and I "deserve better." Needless to say, his stress is rubbing off on me. I've even started shaking a bit or dropping things a lot, and on top of the social isolation after leaving everything behind in America, I'm finding it more and more difficult to cope as time goes on. It's not ALL bad, and I do love him loads. We're both big kids and have all of the same interests for the most part, and when he's not stressed, he's so much fun to be around. Anyway, I'll leave it there for now. I'm hoping posting here will help me cope with some of my own stress, and maybe get me some much needed advice for the husband. In the meantime, it's nice to meet you all.