NT wife of husband with AS-totally lost and alone

Post Reply New Topic

Are there any NT spouses of someone with AS posting here? I have never felt so alone...

You are not alone! I don't know of anyone specifically, but I know there are some. Whatever you're having trouble understanding, we can help with.

Hi ! Sorry you feel alone. How long have you been with your partner?

I'm on the spectrum but a lot less than my husband is. I "felt" alone a lot until I got myself a cause. I volunteer a few hours every week at a local animal shelter and a women's homeless shelter. (Stay away from activities involving sex-seeking, heterosexual men if you are feeling like this! It will end up in a disaster!) Charity work changed my life. At first I had turned to food to full the void. This made me unhappy with my resulting figure and general bad health. You can't change your aspie. You have to find some sort of fulfillment elsewhere...that doesn't mean having an affair...by no means!! ! Unless, you "really"are seeking divorce. Once I got involved in making a difference in lives whether they be animal lives or human lives, I was able to appreciate my husband's uniqueness. He's loyal, hardworking, a good daddy. Why would I throw all that away because my husband couldn't fulfill my babyish want for attention. And God knows...I AM a BIG infant. You can have your cake and eat it too. Another option: working with babies at a daycare! But they usually don't take volunteers, you'd have to have some sort of degree or certificate in child-care. Working with kids can be a joy...but the small ones...the bigger ones fight too much and can be insulting and nasty. You can do church work too or see what the local syngogue's need. When you see the change you make in another's life, you will feel full. Even if they don't even know it came from you.

I also know how you feel. Although I'm on the spectrum, I didn't know it, and my first marriage failed because it was so hard to communicate with my then husband, who is likewise on the spectrum.

You need some counselling from someone who recognises the unique challenges you're facing. As neither of us had a diagnoses when we were first in marriage counselling, the help offered wasn't very helpful. You have at least got a starting point... you know your husband is on the spectrum. He's the same man you married. With patience and help you can work things out.

For the record, I get on far better with my ex now than I ever did, now we understand each other's limitations. I hope someone can offer you more advice than I can, and I wish you well.

Welcome to WrongPlanet.

Have a look through the Love and Dating forums. There are quite a few posts from people in similar positions.

Welcome to WrongPlanet!

Oh my goodness, thank you, all of you, so much for all of your kind words! It's a good feeling just to know that there are people who understand the issue, from any vantage point. The sense of relief at making a connection overwhelmed me, and when I tried to reply I found myself pouring out my life story, lol, so I had to stop writing the novel, have a good cry, and begin again.

As much as I wanted my marriage to survive this, I'm afraid that the understanding of AS came way to late for us to salvage it. We have been married for almost 24 years and didn't learn about AS until about two years ago. By then, our lives were in ruins, financially, physically, emotionally, the whole nine yards. My husband is 100% on board with the feeling that AS is what we are dealing with, but he won't seek an official diagnosis or any help. And, he says he would not 'change' for anyone, not even to save the marriage. I realize I can't change him, but also that I can't live with things as they are.

A short history-our families knew each other from the time we were babies, and we grew up together until we were about 6 or 7 when we moved to different places. The families stayed in touch and many years later he and I began writing to each other, then he asked me to come to where he was living for a visit. We had been writing for a long time, and with the family acquaintances I think we had a false sense of knowing each other, and two weeks after I got there, he asked me to marry him and I said yes. We got married a few weeks later, and in the meantime, he was showing me his 'best' side, and it wasn't until after we were married that I began to see the 'real' him, and that got progressively more pronounced after the first baby.

Throughout the marriage, he made a habit of being away from home 'working', sleeping overnight at his office wherever he happened to be working. We had very little physical connection, very little emotional connection, and that carried over to the kids as well, he just had no interest in spending any time with any of us and when he was with us he was bored and disinterested.

Anyway, we both know it can't be saved, but the problem for me now is that I am 'stuck'. As his behavior created recurring financial issues for us, I eventually took my name off of the house, credit cards and anything else connected to him to avoid being sued or worse and try to preserve some credit separate from him. (too late) Fourteen years into the marriage, I had an accident that left me unable to get around because we had no insurance to get medical treatment. That led to depression, massive weight gain, and more problems. So, my current situation is this...he moved into an apartment in the city near his work, an hour away from where we live. He agreed to come back to the house twice a week to help me out with groceries and such while we worked out the divorce. We had a verbal agreement, he didn't want me to leave but said he understood why I couldn't stay. He agreed to get me set up with insurance and get my medical issues dealt with so that I could be independent again. I pulled myself out of the depression enough to lose 144 pounds (still losing) and he did keep his promise to get insurance that would cover my surgery, but just as that was ready to go, we discovered that the insurance company he had signed on with was not allowed to sell policies in our state. I had seen doctors in the meantime, so was now considered as having 'pre-existing conditions' and can't find insurance to cover me. He controls all the money, and since I can't get around by myself he knows I can't get anywhere without him. The plan was for me to move back to my home state, which I can't do physically or financially, and he has abandoned all the promises. We needed to sell the house, and he wanted me to move into an apartment so he could have someone move in to do some work on it, the same person who planned on buying it. He and my husband had a 'falling out' when my husband didn't keep some of his agreements, and how he has changed his mind. So, we have to rental payments each month, his apartment and mind, plus a mortgage payment for an empty house. I can't move back, I have a lease agreement where I am, and he can't for the same reason. I know that so much of this is connected to the AS (he is also a chronic liar, not sure if that is connected or just something that has developed from all the trouble he gets into and doesn't know how to cope with so he lies to avoid dealing with it). I can't trust anything he tells me.

At any rate, I can't get him to cooperate with the things that need to be accomplished for both of us to move on, he just stays 'away' in body and mind and I am at a loss as to how to get out of the marriage and on with my life without hurting him by getting nasty, which I really, really don't want to do. He has just shut down.

In addition, I am trying to figure out how to get our kids, and other family members to be forgiving, understanding and involved in learning about his issues so we can heal some of the hurt, and I am hitting brick walls. The kids are young adults, but all have a lot of anger at his coldness and distance. His family just 'enables' him, considering him to be just 'different' and not holding him accountable for anything. Me, I'm totally lost as to what is right and wrong, what is AS and what is just his personality, what is okay to be angry about and what I have to find a way to let go of, who or what to be angry at if I'm 'allowed' to be angry at all....and the worst part, he seems to be oblivious to everyone else's pain and turmoil. His kids want him to 'love' them the way they understand love, and he can't and I can't seem to be able to explain that...no wonder, I'm still struggling with it myself. Now we have a new grandchild, our first, and he has held her exactly twice in 7 months, one of those times at my insistence, which is creating a bigger rift between him and the babies mom. I read a great article by a man with AS about the way he 'loves', and he talks about how he has no emotional connection to his parents, his siblings, women he has been in relationships with, and I don't know how to feel about knowing that from the beginning, when he held my hand it was something he did because that was what he was supposed to do, not because he 'felt' like he wanted to...and that our children came from an 'act' more than from 'love'...it's a devastating feeling. How do you understand that after all is said and done?

I know that I am supposed to feel empathy for him, and I do, but as he himself said, he isn't feeling much of anything about any of it. I asked him how he felt about us splitting, it was making me so sad. Even though he said he didn't want me to leave when asked how he felt about it, and he seems to be doing everything in his power to keep me from being able to move on, he said "like everything else in my life, I'll just move on to the next thing, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it." But he says he still loves me. How do you understand those two things coming from the same person?


*sigh* I guess the novel crept out after all. My apologies. I just have so many feelings, so many questions, so much confusion, so much guilt, and yes, so much anger. It feels like years and years of emotional abuse (yes, he could be really, really mean) and now that we know about AS, I am supposed to understand that it wasn't intentional, but how do you make the pain go away?

P.S. Regarding getting involved in other things, I spent over 10 years working for an online charity group raising money, and yes, if I had not found that and had some sense of self worth from it when I had none otherwise, I don't know if I would be here today. It was a saving grace, without a doubt.

Look, I don't think anyone can decisively comment about what you should do or even unequivocally explain the situation you are in. I'm not going to even attempt going down that road, but I will share some of my situation as I feel compelled to do so.

Please forgive my frankness here, and also understand that I am by no means insinuating one thing or another, I am simply stating things in my own situation...

I'm currently seperated and reaching the final approach of our divorce. I can relate to some of the things you expressed about your husband. I was mean, challenging, disgruntled, kept myself busy at work so I didn't have to "deal" with her, was distant with her and my daughter, etc, etc. I had trouble telling her (let's call her apa), tell apa that I loved her, I didn't and don't fully understand love. To me, it's more about a process rather then an emotion. She felt love was unconditional, I'm like no way, Love is expressed through the things you do, untrumpeted, unannounced... supporting the family, taking care of the finances, making sure things are taken care of and needs met, etc. I didn't realize the impact my actions were having or would have as it wasn't all clear to me. Life was black and white, I saw something that I thought wasn't right and didn't make sense, so I dealt with it, myself, in my own ways with anger, with distance, with criticism.
Am I the reason and blame for our divorce, hell no! It was a two way street, all based on selfishness. Selfishness for me that I wasn't trying to be more understanding/ giving, selfishness for her cause she didn't want to address the issues that were "causing" me to act the ways I acted, even through repeated asks for us to discuss and address them, she's an avoider and I have a serious problem wallowing in and ignoring situations that I don't like. I also didn't know/comprehand that I might have an emotional or mental "problem" that might be causing the situation to deepen, nor did I care cause I was right, and those were the facts. right is right, right?

Anyway, it boiled down to a serious communication issue, we both were unwilling to bend and open to how the other needed to be communicated to, nor were we willing to give up our pride (for me), not abile to admit/see her flaws (for her). We both were unmoving and unwilling to try and understand the others "love language" and now there is no hope nor any interest in reconciliation due to the nasty things she has done to "get even". I have come to understand a lot since we seperated (about a year and a half now), about me, about my "condition", about life in general that I just couldn't grasp before.

so did this revelation all happen due to my own strength, my own wisdom? Not at all, I depended too much on myself before, and I failed. I've had a renewed strength in my Christian faith and have learned to trust more in God's truth now then ever before and believe that I couldn't have gotten through this situation without that belief and the people who he brought into my life since. The beginnings were the darkest days of my life, and I've never experienced the depression I felt then.
I've been seeing a great Psychologist who helped me on my journey to understanding more of myself, as it went from needing someone just to talk to, then to possible depression, to possible OCD, finaly to a verbal diagnosis of Asperger. Also my sister has really been there for me, and (her being a Child counselor) first pointed out that my daughter may have it,. Also my Uncle who was diagnosed with Asperger and my great lawyer, who is damn expensive, but actually cares about me and my situation as she has been helping me with both legal as well as social situations.

Now, I respect everyone's beliefs or non-beliefs, free choice is a God given right I believe, but this is my situation, my belief.

Best of all I love, at least I think I love, my daughter, and now spend the time I have with her joyfully. I still struggle with the closeness and emotional bother, and other things, but it's about the mission now, and that is to be there for her and seeing a lot of my traits in the things she does (of her own accord) helping her try to understand the things it took me soo long to.

Lostandalone, could you maybe move in with one of your children for a short time? Until you get your head around things and work out whehter you want to stay in your marraige or not. Perhaps you could offer to help look after the grandchild? At least chat to your friends and family about these issues; they seem pretty serious.

Lene, thank you for the suggestions but not, that really isn't an option. It has taken me years to repair my personal relationship with my kids that went off course with all of their anger and resentment about the whole dynamic of the household. At times they were angry with me, mainly because I was just the one who was there but mostly it was just the situation in general. It was always tense and because of my husband's lying and financial shenanigans they suffered a lot. One is married and living in another state, the others are in the early 20's and just beginning their own lives without the rollercoaster they were on at home, and I don't want to reintroduce that back into the daily lives. I am certain that I can't stay in the marriage, everyone is on the same page with respect to that, and I do see my grandchild often. I am thousands of miles away from any family, and the situation at home has prohibited me from forming many friendships outside of those I have made via the internet. That helps, but talking to people who don't know AS doesn't help much, the general response I get is that "he is a jerk, just get out and take him for all you can", which of course is not accurate, nor is is something I want to do. It's difficult for family, who has seen the devastation and (justifiably, without the knowledge of AS) blamed him to after 20 years just stop being angry. It has taken me a long time to learn how not to be angry with him every single day and to understand how much AS permeated our daily lives. Many still see him as cold, mean, hurtful, etc., and it is going to take time and a lot of discussion to change that.

maleb, thank you for your perspective, I really appreciate being able to hear how it is from the AS point of view. I recently read some great articles on the Aspires website that also have helped me A LOT. In particular, a few by Robert W. Murray, the best I feel is How to Love Without Emotions. It's the first time that I have truly felt that I could understand to some degree what goes on in my husband's head. Every day something new pops up in my mind about things he does and I say to myself " ooooh, okay, NOW that makes sense. I would recommend that anyone who wants to understand someone with AS better read this, and maybe even those new to AS who may be able to connect with what he writes about. It has been extremely helpful to me.

As for relationships, divorce, etc., I'm very sorry to read about how things have played out for you and your family, and I hope you can get through it with as little devastation as possible. My husband and I don't really fight anymore, I do think we have both come to terms with the fact that we speak 'different' languages. I understand that I can no longer blame him for things he can't control, and also that I have forgive the past as it was out of his control. The difficult part is that while he understands completely that everyone should look at him with new eyes now that we know what the problem is, he seems unable to grasp he fact that all of the things he is angry about were also by-products of the AS in the relationship. It changed all of us. People around him reacted (and still react) to 'the way he is' and 'the things he does'. I know better, but the world at large doesn't, and he is angry and edgy a lot of the time, and when he gets that way, he lashes out at the people closest to him. He also harbors anger about a lot of 'the past', not knowing how to forgive as he has been forgiven. That makes it very hard for those of us trying to understand him, when he understands he shouldn't be labeled, yet he still labels us. I don't know that there is a way to help him understand that "for every action, there is a reaction" and the image he has of me, the kids, family members, co-workers is that of the person's reactions to his actions. It's complicated and frustrating for all involved.
My husband and I are not fighting over money (not much to fight over, lol) or possessions or custody or any of that. I have told him if I can just get the medical issues dealt with, I will happily walk away with nothing, as long as I can just move on. The problem seems to be that in some way, he doesn't want me to move on. At times. it feels like I am just another one of his possessions in his vast array of 'collections', something he owns because he decided he liked it and that he isn't trying to keep me because he 'loves' me, but more because he I am 'his'. In some way, I want to believe that it is because I am the one person who at least has tried to understand him, but I'm not sure. It's like he doesn't want me in his way on a daily basis, but he wants me close enough that I am here if he feels compelled to associate with me. It's very hard on the heart. And believe me, I have cried buckets and buckets of tears worrying about 'hurting' him by leaving, but now it feels more like the only emotion mention of my leaving evokes is irritation. In conversations he often uses the phrase "I just don't care", and I truly think that they are the most honest words he has ever spoken, so it't really difficult to sort out why someone who doesn't care seems so determined not to let me go.

maleb, I also understand and respect that your faith has helped you through. While I used to have that same faith, I lost it along the way and now consider myself a Humanist. I don't have access to any kind of therapy or what not, no insurance, so I'm afraid I'm on this road pretty much alone, just doing the best I can to find my way. My heart goes out to anyone living with AS, whether personally or with a loved one dealing with it. I do love my husband, I'm just not 'in love' anymore, and I care about what happens to him as much as I do myself, and my children.

It's not about if you can afford help. Those are just examples of the people I needed in my life, to help me. It'll be different for everyone, and comes in many different forms.

I too had a big problem with forgiveness, I couldn't get over things of the past, things that she refused to address. It caused me to be angry, mean and I would lash out after I let things stew (not physically, verbally). To be honest, in my view, there is really nothing you can do to change him, you can do for yourself though and your children. For me, I came to a point where I wanted to understand and wanted to "change". For that, it was about prayer and relenting control (I constantly have to check myself on that).
He has to want to understand and you have to want to understand. I'm a very hard headed person, I needed the rough journey I have been through to drill abstract concepts in my head. Help me refocus on what is important, realize the things that matter and don't in life and relationships.

There was no amount of money, nor no person that could of helped me through my situation. Again, to me, there is no doubt in my mind that I had a lot of hand holding from above. Even though it usually takes quite awhile for me to have any kind of understanding why certain things happend as they did.

I understand what you are saying. I remember many years ago asking my husband if he was prepared for the day when he woke up and realized that he had lost everything. I had hoped along the way that we (myself and the kids) would someday be that important to him, important enough for him to seek that understanding, but I guess he just isn't there yet. For myself, I could pick up my marbles and go home without putting another ounce of effort into the relationship, but I think it's important that I keep learning all I can about AS and do all I can to try to keep the family 'together' even if we are not still married. I do think he wants that, somewhere deep inside, and I know the kids do, even though they are still angry and hurt, so I guess I am hoping that I can keep a bridge between everyone until he recognizes what's important, if he ever does.

Thanks again for your comments, I appreciate it. And, kudos to you for the insight you have found, especially with your daughter. I know how important Daddy is to a little girl, I didn't have that connection with mine and my daughter's have missed out with theirs, and it's heartbreaking. It's hard work for you, I'm sure, but what a gift for your daughter to know your love, by whatever definition.

Hello lostandalone, welcome to Wrong Planet!

Thanks so much!