I'm been lurking for years because our family is similar to many of yours (see sig line), now writing for ideas on one of the more typical challenges of parenting, complicated by difficult child-ness.
Holden (ok, he's not quite that complicated - but close!) will be 21 in February and is planning for marry his 19 yo girlfriend of 2.5 years in April at the state Renaissance Fair. Neither of the kids - for they truly are children - is ready to get married or has any clue about adult life. He's been working part time for the last 9-10 months at [a large big box retailer] after being asked to take time off from the local community college and has been driving for about 4 months (we pay his insurance, the 25 year old car came from my mom). She also has a PT job that started just before the holidays, and does not drive. Her parents declared her to be graduated her home school/correspondence high school last fall, but she doesn't have a diploma yet. They have been living with his parents since last summer. girlfriend parents are 100% in favor of this marriage and have been at the heart of the plans. They plan to continue living with girlfriend parents in a "suite" in their townhome after the wedding.
Holden is intellectually gifted and unusually social for a Aspie, very sweet at heart, but everything is black and white to him. In his mind, we're either entusiastically supportive or utterly opposed and hate his girlfriend. On top of the Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), he has diagnosis of ADHD and psychotic disorder (hallucinations), or could be bipolar (there's a family hx). He is not in treatment, doesn't like taking medications. This is his second girlfriend and the second time he's been in love. girlfriend#1 was deeply troubled, borderline personality disorder and 4 years younger (the age didn't bother us since he's so immature, but we were terrified that her unstable family would come after him if anything happened, and she was a very sexualized young lady). He started going with girlfriend#2 (she pursued him) only a couple of months after girlfriend#1 broke up with him. Over time, he's moved completely into her and her family's world to the exclusion of all of his previous friends (who originally supported girlfriend#2 since everyone knew girlfriend#1 was crazy).
Despite the long courtship, we hardly know girlfriend. She hardly says 5 words around us, and those only when directly spoken to, accompanied by lots of "yes, ma'am" and "yes, sir" even to our 20-30 something PCs and their SOs (uber-polite? terrified?). She is very sheltered and really seems to have very little personality of her own yet. Her parents are probably somewhere on the spectrum, and as far as we can tell, have completely run her life. They homeschooled her for religious reasons from a young age and choose her books for her even now. They don't appear to have any social life outside of family and girlfriend dad even worked from home until very recently. Otherwise, their lives revolve around sci-fi (really) and television church. Their local family (cousins) are young married in their 20s with elementary school age kids, which is not the norm in our city.
I don't feel like Holden is himself around her either. Even when we aren't in the room, they don't seem to have natural conversations. He tends to be over solicitous ("sweetie would you like to do this?"), or cloyingly sweet ("isn't it cute when girlfriend ...?). Holden and I used to have enthusiastic, wide-ranging discussions of current events, science, religion, you name it - and still do one-on-one - I'd feel better if I heard that same kind of thing with girlfriend. I'm just not sure she's capable of it.
husband & I have been trying to think of anything we can do to delay this wedding since they announced their engagement Sept. 2010, without pushing him over the edge to elope or alienate him so he doesn't feel he has a home to come back to. easy child sisters have been working hard to get him to "come to his senses" (their words) - esp. Meg who is going through her own divorce after early marriage.
The wedding is 3 months away, and we're at a loss. This is an Aspie who has settled all of his Aspie energy on girlfriend. His life is built entirely around her. It's very hard to get him alone - he doesn't want her to feel left out or that we don't like her. They have built this fantasy idea of what life will be like, with the full support of girlfriend parents, who seem to be fully clueless themselves (example: when it was pointed out that the RenFair might not work because they hadn't reserved it well in advance, the parents' suggestion of an alternate was the Vanderbilt Mansion, since the Biltmore Estate would be a little over the top. These people do NOT have $$$ - and neither location is in our state!)
The most I've been able to do was persuade Holden and girlfriend to do premarital counseling at our expense. They chose her parents' church, one of the big nondenominational ones, which uses "trained long-married couples" ("must be married at least 5 years" - whew! that's a lot) and just started 6 sessions. Holden does not share their religious beliefs - in fact, he's 180 out from them. We raised him to be open-minded and explore different religions and he claims adherance to an alternative one. He says girlfriend doesn't agree with her parents beliefs either (but she hasn't told them!!!). I emphasized the importance of sharing that info with 'counselors'. At one point I thought I had persuaded him to see a regular therapist on his own. I had a little luck with getting him to see that he didn't really have anyone he could let down his (waist-length) hair with who wouldn't be judging or have an interest in the outcome - but he's backed away from that.
I'm out of ideas. I've stooped so low that I even suggested how sad it would be if we couldn't all be there for his wedding, since we expect that CeCe will be in Residential Treatment Center (RTC) by then (although she's doing better, possibly because she's hoping to go to Residential Treatment Center (RTC), but that's another story), so perhaps delay a little longer.
With all of the challenges we have as a family, this is the one I'm struggling to find a way through without losing this child. He's taking our lack of enthusiasm for his wedding very hard. I'm terrified that when (not if) the marriage fails, he won't believe he can come back to us. And given his emotional and psychiatric makeup, the alternatives are terrifying.
PJ
Holden (ok, he's not quite that complicated - but close!) will be 21 in February and is planning for marry his 19 yo girlfriend of 2.5 years in April at the state Renaissance Fair. Neither of the kids - for they truly are children - is ready to get married or has any clue about adult life. He's been working part time for the last 9-10 months at [a large big box retailer] after being asked to take time off from the local community college and has been driving for about 4 months (we pay his insurance, the 25 year old car came from my mom). She also has a PT job that started just before the holidays, and does not drive. Her parents declared her to be graduated her home school/correspondence high school last fall, but she doesn't have a diploma yet. They have been living with his parents since last summer. girlfriend parents are 100% in favor of this marriage and have been at the heart of the plans. They plan to continue living with girlfriend parents in a "suite" in their townhome after the wedding.
Holden is intellectually gifted and unusually social for a Aspie, very sweet at heart, but everything is black and white to him. In his mind, we're either entusiastically supportive or utterly opposed and hate his girlfriend. On top of the Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), he has diagnosis of ADHD and psychotic disorder (hallucinations), or could be bipolar (there's a family hx). He is not in treatment, doesn't like taking medications. This is his second girlfriend and the second time he's been in love. girlfriend#1 was deeply troubled, borderline personality disorder and 4 years younger (the age didn't bother us since he's so immature, but we were terrified that her unstable family would come after him if anything happened, and she was a very sexualized young lady). He started going with girlfriend#2 (she pursued him) only a couple of months after girlfriend#1 broke up with him. Over time, he's moved completely into her and her family's world to the exclusion of all of his previous friends (who originally supported girlfriend#2 since everyone knew girlfriend#1 was crazy).
Despite the long courtship, we hardly know girlfriend. She hardly says 5 words around us, and those only when directly spoken to, accompanied by lots of "yes, ma'am" and "yes, sir" even to our 20-30 something PCs and their SOs (uber-polite? terrified?). She is very sheltered and really seems to have very little personality of her own yet. Her parents are probably somewhere on the spectrum, and as far as we can tell, have completely run her life. They homeschooled her for religious reasons from a young age and choose her books for her even now. They don't appear to have any social life outside of family and girlfriend dad even worked from home until very recently. Otherwise, their lives revolve around sci-fi (really) and television church. Their local family (cousins) are young married in their 20s with elementary school age kids, which is not the norm in our city.
I don't feel like Holden is himself around her either. Even when we aren't in the room, they don't seem to have natural conversations. He tends to be over solicitous ("sweetie would you like to do this?"), or cloyingly sweet ("isn't it cute when girlfriend ...?). Holden and I used to have enthusiastic, wide-ranging discussions of current events, science, religion, you name it - and still do one-on-one - I'd feel better if I heard that same kind of thing with girlfriend. I'm just not sure she's capable of it.
husband & I have been trying to think of anything we can do to delay this wedding since they announced their engagement Sept. 2010, without pushing him over the edge to elope or alienate him so he doesn't feel he has a home to come back to. easy child sisters have been working hard to get him to "come to his senses" (their words) - esp. Meg who is going through her own divorce after early marriage.
The wedding is 3 months away, and we're at a loss. This is an Aspie who has settled all of his Aspie energy on girlfriend. His life is built entirely around her. It's very hard to get him alone - he doesn't want her to feel left out or that we don't like her. They have built this fantasy idea of what life will be like, with the full support of girlfriend parents, who seem to be fully clueless themselves (example: when it was pointed out that the RenFair might not work because they hadn't reserved it well in advance, the parents' suggestion of an alternate was the Vanderbilt Mansion, since the Biltmore Estate would be a little over the top. These people do NOT have $$$ - and neither location is in our state!)
The most I've been able to do was persuade Holden and girlfriend to do premarital counseling at our expense. They chose her parents' church, one of the big nondenominational ones, which uses "trained long-married couples" ("must be married at least 5 years" - whew! that's a lot) and just started 6 sessions. Holden does not share their religious beliefs - in fact, he's 180 out from them. We raised him to be open-minded and explore different religions and he claims adherance to an alternative one. He says girlfriend doesn't agree with her parents beliefs either (but she hasn't told them!!!). I emphasized the importance of sharing that info with 'counselors'. At one point I thought I had persuaded him to see a regular therapist on his own. I had a little luck with getting him to see that he didn't really have anyone he could let down his (waist-length) hair with who wouldn't be judging or have an interest in the outcome - but he's backed away from that.
I'm out of ideas. I've stooped so low that I even suggested how sad it would be if we couldn't all be there for his wedding, since we expect that CeCe will be in Residential Treatment Center (RTC) by then (although she's doing better, possibly because she's hoping to go to Residential Treatment Center (RTC), but that's another story), so perhaps delay a little longer.
With all of the challenges we have as a family, this is the one I'm struggling to find a way through without losing this child. He's taking our lack of enthusiasm for his wedding very hard. I'm terrified that when (not if) the marriage fails, he won't believe he can come back to us. And given his emotional and psychiatric makeup, the alternatives are terrifying.
PJ