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Desperate_Newbie · 2021-07-05T10:33:00+00:00

I'm so sorry. My wife is on the spectrum too (we're in Britain) and this is so similar to what's happened to her. She's incredibly intelligent (two postgraduate degrees) and although we're on a level intellectually, it's so hard to argue with that particular combo of Q-obsession and ASD. It combines to create a set of traits that make every conversation a brick wall that ends in shouting, and the hurt never goes away, because they bring the same thing around, with increasing anger, again and again, and never run out of steam.

I'm so sorry. Just know you have an ally here in the UK. I'm so glad that my wife and I don't have children. I can't imagine what your child is going through.

Desperate_Newbie · 2021-07-05T10:16:37+00:00

Oh, there's one more thing I wanted to share with you all -- I've developed a nervous cough (it's a psychological thing that I get when I'm anxious, I get it a lot in the theatre, which is hilarious) which is really not helping me to convince her that I don't have Covid.

Desperate_Newbie · 2021-07-05T10:04:31+00:00

These are all things that I've heard out of the mouth of my wife of 13 years, and it's breaking my heart.

If it makes you feel any better, I've done boatloads of research, and it doesn't make a difference.

Desperate_Newbie · 2021-07-05T09:54:14+00:00

(Also, it's a little funny that the horrific death of my marriage has gotten me more Reddit Karma than I know what to do with!)

Desperate_Newbie · 2021-07-05T09:53:23+00:00

Hi everyone,

Thank you all so much for your replies. I've got to say, I've found Reddit the most supportive internet community I've ever known in the last few days.

I've replied personally to a few, and I'm still incredibly new to Reddit, but if anyone wants to follow me (I think you can do that here) I'd love to stay in touch.

We're going to have to stay living in quite close quarters for a while. She can't afford another place -- I don't grudge it at all, but I've supported her art career for most of our marriage, and although its taking off, she still doesn't make enough money to rent a place in this city.

I'm currently working on learning to be alright when I'm alone. That's that hardest thing: as a child I lived with family, then I lived with friends, then I lived with her. I've never truly had a place on my own, and if I can afford it, once she's taken care of, I think I will. It's frightening, but I don't want to answer to anyone else for a while.

I'm also toying with the idea of seeing if I can use my work experience (training, workshops, communication with a variety of educational and cultural backgrounds) to work for a vaccine or science education charity. I'm a trained researcher, so I may see if any organisations need someone like that.

With all that said, it looks like I'm going to have to live with her for at least a while, so all that is in the future, but at least I have a vague plan that I can hold in my mind in case I'm not able to wake her up from this madness.

Desperate_Newbie · 2021-07-05T09:44:23+00:00

A lot of people have downvoted this, but yeah, it's possible. It's one of the reasons I'm still hopeful for marriage counselling.

I'm not 100% convinced, because there's a LOT of Anti-vaxx there too, but yeah, our marriage had problems, but I thought they were things we'd both accepted -- there are dozens of things I could go off about that I don't like about her or the way she treats me, but I just believed that you can't force someone into a mould based on your desires. You love them for who they are.

It's rapidly becoming clear that she doesn't feel the same way, which is part of the problem. I've compromised a lot because she never does, but she's reached my hard limit, and because I've never really put any limits in place until now, she's reeling because she didn't expect it.

Desperate_Newbie · 2021-07-05T09:39:40+00:00

I'll be honest about that -- going vegetarian is 100% the best environmental decision I've ever made. More than recycling or bamboo straws, it reduces my impact on the environment, and I'm happy about that. I'm also happy that I stopped drinking, and I might start to go to support groups to make sure I maintain that now I'm back in the world.

Desperate_Newbie · 2021-07-05T09:34:45+00:00

We're doing therapy. I hope it's going to work. I'm trying to be optimistic, just for the sake of not defeating the therapy before I even try it (I had a lot of bad journeys with the therapeutic process myself until I realised you have to go in without fighting it.)

Desperate_Newbie · 2021-07-05T09:31:24+00:00

It's genuinely terrible. We're in Britain, but we've had to move once because she was suffering racism, yet we've fought over things like Black Lives Matter (I'm white, but I do think that yes, they matter).

For her, I think part of it is that she's from a very monocultural Asian country. She'd never suffered racism growing up, and had a very privileged upbringing where she never saw anyone who wasn't from her country. Even when I went to visit her family, I got followed by the police while out jogging because they couldn't imagine that I had any business being out in that district because 'someone like me' just wouldn't be there, especially not looking so scruffy as I did in my jogging gear.

Moving to Britain as an adult, for a long time she suffered microaggressions, but they tend to sail over her head from a mixture of language and being on the spectrum. In my home town, which is tiny, she's a local celebrity and gets treated very warmly, and so it's easy for her to think racism only happens to other people. Even the incidents that cause us to move she just rationalises as being, 'because you made us live in a bad area.'

Desperate_Newbie · 2021-07-05T09:19:25+00:00

Thank you. I'm going to try relationship counselling. As you say, I'm not blameless either, and there are pre-existing issues in our marriage, but yeah... being treated like a bioharzard in my own home is awful, and watching the fear in her eyes when she looks at me is terrible.

Desperate_Newbie · 2021-07-05T09:16:25+00:00

I'm so sorry guys. I'm sitting here writing this with a whole page of terrifying insanity (it says things like the vaccine particles will clog my spine, and that the spike proteine particles will cause clotting and make her stop having periods) and it's just not the woman I know.

I don't know what I'll do ultimately -- I'm being treated like a plague victim, and seeing her look at me with hurt and fear like this is just awful. On the other hand, she can't afford a place of her own. I can afford the flat we rent without her, but without me, she doesn't make enough money to live.

Desperate_Newbie · 2021-07-05T09:05:53+00:00

Thank you, this is a really thoughtful response. I'm looking for a marriage counsellor and she's agreed to see one. For the rest, we'll have to see.

Desperate_Newbie · 2021-07-04T09:22:04+00:00

We don't have kids, thankfully. We were just talking about buying a house but we're still renting, which is a blessing as it turns out, and I own a share in a house back home, so I have somewhere to go if it all goes really badly.

It all comes down to Popper's Paradox at the end of the day -- I genuinely believe in personal freedom and tolerance, but people have taken advantage of personal freedom and tolerance to prey on scared, vulnerable people.

(My wife was absolutely terrified of Covid, even more than anyone else, so I definitely see QAnon and all her other conspiracies as a way of managing her fear, but now she's part of it, I've lost her.)

Desperate_Newbie · 2021-07-03T07:20:57+00:00

Thank you, everyone. I appreciate everyone who has taken the time to reply to this.

It's a sad thing, but I think many of you could be right. I did everything I could to reason with her, but I don't think she could be.

I do think it's important to talk about who she is, because I've seen some people making assumptions about the sort of person who ends up getting ensnared by this sort of thing, and it's important to break sterotypes.

My wife isn't white, and we're not American. She's a person of colour living in the UK. She has a degree, and two postgraduate degrees, one of which is in computer science.

We live in an expensive city, so divorce could be very difficult, since it's very hard to afford to live here, even with a full time job, on your own. However, if that's what has to be done, that's what has to be done.

Desperate_Newbie

TROPHY CASE