Those who are married..

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What is your marriage like? Daniel's posts in the other thread made me wonder.

I am married, but am told it is not a normal marriage. I have been married for 5 years, and we do not sleep in the same room. It is not because we disliked each other, but because we need space to sleep. Random touching that happens in most relationships doesn't happen for us. My husband does not have AS, as far as I know, but never had a need for the normal amount of hugging/kissing.

When we were married, we had a practical, 5 minute ceremony at the JP. We said our vows without looking at each other once. He does not need constant complimenting or attention, and lets me concentrate on my focuses. He does not expect small talk.

What others have said is cold, seems to be normal to me.

Everybody has different needs.
If it works for you, it works.
Are you able to talk when you need to?
If so, I wouldn't apologize for being stable and rational.

I sleep in the same bed as hubby, but he is tiny and it's a big bed. I hate being touched while I sleep, it irks me to no end. He ends up with about an inch of space against the wall... man I miss the king sized bed.

If I were married, I would prefer the partner and I to be in the same beds. I don't have any hangups in that regard.

However, I also feel that I would do better with an AS-AS relationship, so I don't know how that would pan out.

We have a atypical marriage. We don't have sex often, we lack affection because I don't like to be kissed on the lips and I don't like lot of touch, we do our own thing in the same room because I like to be alone, we don't sleep together often because he snores and even ear plugs don't help. He sleeps in the bedroom and I sleep on the couch. Sometimes it's the other way around. When we do sleep together, we are not cuddled up because I like my own space. I talk about my obsessions with him and he is the only person in real life I talk to about. He doesn't mind me watching my favorite movie over and over. He just ignores it. He also lets me do whatever I want and lets me plan things. Right now we are together on the couch with our laptops and he is watching his show while I am listening to A League of Their Own soundtrack at youtube. We're both anti social and we don't have any friends so our apartment is always us in it. My husband has aspie traits. I don't know if he has AS TBH because he said he used to be a lot like me and that makes me wonder. But he doesn't have it I say. Better than saying "I don't know" if people ask. I say he has traits of it after I say no. He has brain damage so it makes it hard for me to tell even though he has scored aspie on the test and borderline on the AQ. Yeah we both don't need friends and the small talk. My husband is fine with the lack of compliments and lack of attention. He just accepts me for who I am. I do talk to him and we go out sometimes. Lot of men wouldn't be happy with me and I wouldn't be happy with them. I wasn't happy in my last two. I can't handle the relationship stuff because I find it stressful and draining. I am more of a friendship person so we have a friendship relationship.
He gets me 95%. He still doesn't understand why I don't have a social word filter in my brain (it doesn't work very well). Maybe someday it will start working naturally as my mind grows just like I got less literal naturally. But he accepts it.


We did have a normal wedding, had over 60 people and it lasted four hours and that was plenty. Everyone just visited while I just walked around and sat and had the food. I talked to my old school friend I invited and some of our family talked to me. But we did not do rings. My mom helped me out with the wedding. I couldn't do it all but hey even normal women need help with it or else there be no wedding planners.

been married for 9 years, and yes, we do share the same bed. I have a queen bed, but need more room. My grandparents( the one that my Grandpa was definately, and Aspie) each had their own bedroom, went about their own buisness, and even split the bill payments. I know they had 50+ years of marriage. Many times, I go to bed while my husband falls asleep on the couch watching tv. There are some nights where he is on the couch all night. He snores and does NOT Like to be woken up and told to roll over to stop snoring. I CAN'T SLEEP WITH SNORING. I like my blanket wrapped around me, and my husband likes it spread out nice and neat, tucked in at the end. I find ways to comprimise such as I will wrap a blanket around me and under the main blanket and sheet. I like my King size pillow, as I sleep with my arms wrapped around it. It bugs him to no end to keep getting wapped upside the head withit throughout the night. (I toss and turn alot. )My marriage is not the typical. My husband is a horny toad, and I am, what he calls "an icebox", "refridgerator", etc. when it comes to intimacy. I am on an anti depressant and it kills any sexual drive. I have two kids(it took 3 years to concieve my second son,so thatmeans alot of intimate activity that I didn't really care for. I am now done with having kids, so therefore, I could do without the sex. Not so for him. uggg. My husband doesn't like cuddling or snuggling. He usually quickly graduates to what I call "groping", with one intention. Makse me angry. My marriage is a big mess right now. I'm trying to get marriage counceling through my Aspergers thearpist, but I can't afford the transportation cost to make it all effective. I have to travel 115 miles round trip to get to the nearest aspergers specialist for adults and I live in a Big city with a nationally known autism center. Of course, it is only for kids. My husband does NOT understand my Aspergers what so ever. I was finally diagnosed last May at 34. I did so to find a starting point for working on my marriage relationship problem and our communication problem.

My ex and I share a house and co-parent our 7 year old. I am dx'ed As and he would be considered to perhaps have a shadowing of AS.

When we were together as partners, there was no normal touching. We tried to be in the same bed, but ended up sleeping in separate rooms and only occasionally sharing the same bed.
People considered our relationship strange and weird. They still do. We are separated but remain friendly but each set in our own ways and routines. There is not a lot of flowing exchange or spontaneity or compromise. These things are difficult for me and also for him. they are also a little difficult for my son.

I am hard to live with. I talk incessantly about my special interests and think aloud, and then do not reciprocate or get visibly annoyed when others try to talk with me.

We are a household grounded in static intelligence.
Dynamic forms of communication and living are not really a part of the household's lifestyle.

However, for the sake of my son, I am currently trying to introduce some of Stephen Gutstein's ideas about dynamic intelligence and autism, into our ways of relating. It is challenging, but rewarding to see my son move into more fluid ways of thinking than me or his dad.

I might also add that I struggle enormously as a mother and I struggle enormously to live with other people in the manner I do. I spend as much time on my own as I can, and I am less "hands on" as a parent than my son's father. the pressure to behave like a regular mum is enormous, and I fail on a daily basis.



I have had a few relationships in my time. (I am 47.) All have been marred by my inability to communicate appropriately, by my meltdowns and by my less than savvy ability to choose suitable partners. (I was so naive as a younger AS woman - men picked me up and I did not know I had the capacity to say no or to refuse them. I stayed in appalling situations like a little trapped mouse. I had no other options, and most often, the men who picked me up were abusive and bullying. If that makes me "mild" AS - just because I have had relationships (if that is what you can call them,) then so be it!! !!

^You don't sound mild^

^ well yes. that's the thing, spokane girl. In some ways I have learned to mask my AS out in the real world for very short periods. I am also glad to see that your marriage is working for the both of you. I remember last year when you were preparing for the wedding and I am glad it is suiting the both of you so well. That is wonderful news. To have a friend who accepts and understands is just lovely.


I have never held down a full-time job beyond a few weeks, and a few weeks ago I went back on to a disabilities pension in my country, because the strain of trying to keep up with a more regular life causes me to have nervous breakdown after breakdown.
I cannot work with people all day every day. I cannot work in places with lights and too much energy and too much activity. I could do that part time here and there when i was younger. BUt only part-time, and when I did, I had no room left for anything else because i spent all my time on my own resting and recovering from having to cope with a menial-task crappy part-time job. (exhausting to cope with simple things others just do so easily.)

I can answer the front door with a big smile and appear normal for short periods.
The thing is, that when you get me out of my set ways and my routines and my household and the NA meetings I do, I cannot cope with the dynamism and spontaneity.

I have found friends in 12 step programs. and that is good. 12 step programs are fraught with problems, but they are also a place of acceptance for outsiders. There are a few AS and ADHD people that I have met in the meetings and the past 6 months, we have started to form a little support network. That is really good.

Just because I have had partners, does not mean I am "mild" AS.
I tried to attend uni 3 or 4 times and had to drop out each time. My life is a series of failures because of AS.
The only things I have completed since my schooldays 30 years ago (outside of some special interest things) , is a pregnancy (on the 3rd attempt) and rehab program (and it was my 7th attempt!!)

anyway, i still try to find hope and joy in life and i want to try to be positive in spite of the difficulties of AS.
It gets me down, but I can work at being positive and finding some happiness and peace.

I'm married to a lovely NT person, our marriage is pretty 'normal' whatever that means. I don't do much socialising like she does but we have lots of things we can do together and seperately. We do sleep together.

I am not married, but I am in a long term relationship, and I have been in LTR's since I was 15...my first one lasted 6 years....till I was 22....then I was in one for around 4 months that messed me up for around 5 years, and then I was in one for 9 months, before going directly into one that lasted 2 years and then I had a couple that lasted from a few weeks to a few months before I I wound up with my main partner, but in-between the ltrs, I dated a few people...and I dated someone for 6 months during the period where I broke up with Flakey and moved to anther state...I have been with Flakey for almost 7 years and I have been with my other partner for about a year and a half...

The reason that I have been in so many LTR's is because I started young...also I am a musician...and it seems that I am a magnet for weird quirky guys...If it were not for them, I would not have any friends.
They put up with my hostility and low stress threshold...my messiness, my spaciness, my non-driving-ness, my extreme difficulty with social interactions...
Maybe I am extremely lucky...I am not sure...
Despite my frequent feelings of being a horrible train wreck of a person, my main partner insists that I have been the easiest person for him to be in a relationship with, even though I am mean, insensitive, sometimes violent, irresponsible, forgetful, and all this other stuff...

My other partner is very AS-ish, and is extremely twisted-but-shy....it is very hard for him to talk to females..though he has wild fantasies about them.
We were friends...in a mostly non-talking sort of way...for years before we started dating....once we started seeing each other, it became a lot easier for us to talk to each other, and we practically have our own dialect that we use between us....

My partners and I are in a band together...I usually sleep in the same bed with my main partner, and my other partner has his own room at my place for when he sleeps over.

I don't mind sleeping in the same beds with people...I don't mind cuddling, but there are certain kinds of touching that I cannot stand.

That sounds nice, I wouldn't mind a marriage like that. :3
Actually I'd prefer bunk beds. XD;

Have had one relationship, and she is my woman. I am her man, and woe be unto any who dare question it, for that gives me the right to switch to barbarian mode.

'Well, no, we haven't gone and done all the legal marriage crap...'
"Then she isn't your wife."
'Oh... ok, let me get my battle axe, prepare yourself, war is upon you.'


Are we a normal couple?

From what I've seen, normal couples fight, cheat, and degenerate into quiet hateful acceptance of each other, maintained by the common bond of children.


It seems to me that most people get married to have sex without pissing off the imaginary friend of some guy who died thousands of years ago... which is a great idea, I'm sure.


I'm a cuddler, but not a sleeper, I just lay there and enjoy the soft womanflesh pressedup against me, wrapped up tight in our blanket, and watch her sleep til I eventually doze off for a few hours.

Think I've slept 6 hours in the last 3 days... that's a LITTLE low for me... but hey, I'm trying to construct a new form of calculus to express a merger of relativity and quantum mechanics with... I'm distracted to say the least, and difficult to live with.

She's got experience being "not quite NT" though, rather significant dyslexia. Being treated as if she was broken and could be fixed made her better able to identify with me, the fact that I constantly point out to her that she is exactly how she is supposed to be makes her happy, which makes me happy, so I'd say we have a wonderful marriage.


Note: I don't consider a legal marriage any more valid than any other type, obviously, if you require a legal contract to stay in a relationship, you probably shouldn't be in it in the first place.

That's a dysfunctional couple.



They can do that as boyfriend and girlfriend without the marriage.

Thank you




Good to hear you found your peers. I hang out in two autism groups and one fetish group. I am bored at the fetish one but I go anyway because I feel I want to. I just bring the laptop with and there is free wi fi somewhere my computer picks up. The place probably has it where we hang out at.



I agree and just because I had learning difficulties in school and needed to be taught in a different way and have my work modified doesn't make me more AS or moderate, same as not being able to find work real easily but hey even none aspies have the same difficulty, blame the economy. I'm also lot of work but hey all spouses are so I don't feel bad.




I never attended and I don't think that should make me more AS. School was hard, I struggled, so I never went. I think AS shouldn't be rated based on if you completed high school or college, if you had a relationship or not or if you been married, ever had a job or held down one, hey there are even none aspies, especially NTs who didn't do that stuff and that doesn't make them any less none aspie or less NT.




You mean you had two miscarriages?



I spent spent nine years of being positive I have convinced myself I am hardly effected by my condition because I have looked at other people and their failures and looking for aspies traits in everyone and finding them. My husband says it's all in my head that I see aspie traits in everyone because "I want everyone to have it." He doesn't think my mom has traits and when I pointed them out to him, he said I was seeing things.

Hey everyone does this or that and I kept telling myself that and I'd feel better and kept telling myself I am no different. Even my own mother acts like things I do are normal and she will say things like lot of people aren't good with small talk and lot of people prefer to be alone. I don't know if she says it to make me feel normal or it's true or both. I have no idea anymore what I do is AS and what is normal
Only thing that is obvious is when I take something literal or start talking about my obsessions in a Rain Man way. The rest I don't pay any attention too. That's a good attitude to have. I think that's something parents do to their aspie kids and lot of them don't like it. Same as when their friends or other people try and relate to them about their problems or tell them people have that issue too and it bothers them.

What did Daniel say?

That you're generally "mild" if you get married? That's what everything I've read says. Of note, I never said that being "mild" doesn't preclude one from suffering or going through hardships, and my opinion couldn't be further form the truth; being "mild" and having a go at the things those who're more severe can't even start can cause a lot of pain and hardship, and it'll require far more effort from the "mild" person for it to succeed (in addition to the other party being understanding).