Were you reluctant to become a parent?

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Personally speaking, I'm not offended one bit. Most of my family are religious and I love them

I don't ever discuss religion so don't assume I go around telling people how I am an atheist.

I think it's fine and good to discuss god, whether you believe in him or not. Freedom of speech please! I don't like these sanitized conversations where we're so scared of offending the other person that any mention of god must be preceded by apologies and justifications.

Bring back god is what I say !

God aside, any other tales of reluctant AS parents are welcome!

My husband is on the spectrum, undiagnosed, and we have a son who has been recently diagnosed with Aspergers. When we started our relationship, we both wanted to have a child very much. We did not know my husband was on the spectrum - I thought he was just very intelligent and quirky.

The most important thing I have learned from being an NT, with a spouse and child on the spectrum, is that you can expect to do 80-90% of the parenting.... even if he says he wants to be a parent. If you choose to have a child with this man, I think you will find that it is exponentially more work for you than you ever anticipated.

My husband, like many men, didn't really care either way about kids. So, we have kids. I was never for one moment afraid of it. Of course, we had no idea about the history of AS at the time; one of many things we didn't know that might have scared us off. When it comes to deciding to have kids, ignorance is bliss.

You do need to consider that your husband may have fears he is not voicing: how will he deal with the sensory issues kids in the household can create (the smell of poop, the noise, the crying)? How will he deal with situations he cannot control (life with kids is never in control)? And ... what if he passes the AS on? Or, more than that, what if his child ends up being negatively affected by AS much worse than he has been? Those are fears I hear elsewhere on these forums all the time, and common reasons that members give for not wanting to have kids.

You have to validate the fears: they are real, and you cannot promise that these things will never come to pass. Then you have to remind him that not a parent in the world knows what they will end up with when they take the journey into parenthood, and that people still do it everyday. It's not like the rest of the world is filled with perfect parents; it isn't. But a life well lived requires stepping onto paths of the unknown, and taking risks. Ask someone in their 90's what their regrets are and you won't hear a word about things tried and failed; you'll hear about all the things never tried.

He needs to make this choice because it is what you want and he loves you, and because he doesn't want to run from life. But I do not think he should do this as a way of balancing out all the sacrifices you have made. Play that card and I think you'll end up with him resenting the kids.

Many marriages have ended over the issue of kids. It was something my husband and I hashed out in detail before marriage. Unfortunately, sometimes a person's feelings on the issue can change over time, while the feelings of the partner do not. You do need to consider that you entered into this marriage with a sort of contract, an understanding on the issue, and he may feel that even if doors were left open back then, that you are trying to change the deal. Well, that will take some time for him to absorb and adjust to, if he is willing at all to adjust to it.

Even choosing to leave it up to fate will require him to accept the changing of the odds. He may not be willing to do that. Basically, any decision to "have" kids is actually leaving it up to fate; it's not like deciding to have a baby means you will actually end up with a baby.

Which leads to the next topic ... I strongly recommend that couples decide day 1, when they start trying to have children, how far they will go to have them. As a couple progresses beyond the basics in their effort to conceive, issues of cost and ethics start to crop up, and it's not a good time to first consider how you feel about those questions. Once you start trying to have a baby, you put yourself on an emotional merry-go-round with only one result in mind: ending up with a baby (the equivalent of grabbing the brass ring). Leaving that merry-go-round without the brass ring is really difficult, and you will find yourself driven to do whatever it takes, even if that would not have been your inclination under any other circumstance. It is much, much better is to know when the ride is supposed to end and to have agreed on when you'll just get off.

I think when you are sharing a story about your own journey, which is exactly what the OP asked people to do, then using God when you believe in God is totally appropriate.

When trying to transfer the information to others who may not believe the easy substitutes are usually "fate" or "nature."

I couldn't agree more with everything you said, especially this. I have brought up the point about him wanting my happiness, but at the moment all he hears is "if we don't have a kid, I'm going to leave you," which I have not committed to. In fact, I don't know if I would leave him over it. Sometimes I feel like I don't know anything anymore.

I have this fantasy that one day a light will go on and he'll magically understand where I'm coming from, and say, "If it's that important to you..." but that would require a certain level of empathy that I know intellectually he does not have. In a way, the AS diagnosis, while it's been helpful, means that I cannot hold him to NT standards of behavior, so therefore AS gives him a "get out of jail free" card sometimes. The card prevents us from fighting, but it means that I have much less hope of negotiating my way into what I want, or sometimes out of what I *don't* want. I know he won't wake up one day and realize how much this whole thing is tearing me up, but there's that little part of me that wishes he would. I'm sure he feels the same way!

All relationships have a little bit, or a lot, of that. But, yes, there are things we know our spouses truly do not get simply because of the AS. They don't and they won't, and we live with it or we don't have a marriage.

But it doesn't stop one from trying new angles.

Do consider that part of your desire here may be hormonal. Woman have a huge drive to give birth; it's instinctive, and at certain times in ones life it gets more powerful. Men don't have that, at least not in the same way, but they are intellectually aware that women do, and often are wary of it. I have a difficult time when I'm around babies, the desire to have "one more" gets overwhelming, but for a whole host of reasons I know that we should not have another child (we do have a perfect pair, one boy with AS and one girl unsure if NT). Still, it only takes one well timed moment of thinking differently to change everything ... I guess I'm mentioning this because at one point in your life you thought you didn't particularly want kids. Do take a hard look at how and why that changed, because those reasons perhaps should be part of the conversation with your husband.

yes, at the time when we met, I was battling depression, didn't know what path I wanted to go down careerwise, and was perpetually in flux. Since then, I have been depression-free for five years, and am happy with the path I'm on in terms of vocation. Financially we are still broke, but we have enough to pay the bills, and we will have significantly more money in the next five to ten years, so I'm not worried about money.

I think my line about mostly not wanting kids back then was a reaction to the fact that I wasn't in a position to have them, and I didn't know if/when I would be. I had sort of convinced myself I didn't want them simply because I felt I couldn't have them. My own father passed away last spring, and through the experience of caring for him while he was sick, I realized that I don't want to die without having that bond with someone. I cherished my relationship with my father, and I know he cherished it as well. Through his eyes, I am seeing how beautiful it can be to be a parent (not that I was the perfect daughter!), and how much joy it can bring.

So while I don't think my life would be incomplete without kids, I do want that experience, if I might be so lucky, that my own father had, of having children who love me and who I love, into old age. It's not about changing my diapers or anything like that (I'll pay someone to do that), but about that closeness, that bond, that I hope to have with my kids when they are children but especially when they are adults.

Not to open a can of worms, but I just wanted to make things clear. At the time I mentioned that she and her husband just leave it up to God, I did not know that she was not a believer. I guess I will be more careful when I give advice.

I do really feel for you, Changela,--I know that my life would not have been complete without being a mother. Even though my son ended up with AS, I still would not have given up the chance to be a mother.

I hope you and your husband can come to a place where you both feel at peace with the decision.