Question about Father who treated Mother poorly

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I was born in the early 1960s. Like many in that era, my mother was a stay-at-home mom. When I was young, I remember my father treating my mother poorly. He didn’t hit her or anything. But was oftentimes verbally mean to her. And treated her almost like a slave.

Let me give some examples:

1. My mother was responsible for the household (including cooking and cleaning). For dinner, we would all wait for my father to come home from work. My mother would always prepare a nice meal (I thought she was a great cook). We’d sit down and if it wasn’t perfect, my father would complain, “It’s cold” or “It needs salt”. And wait for my mother to fix it for him (e.g. if it needed salt, she would get up, retrieve the salt from the kitchen and hand it to him).

2. My father never did any household chores. He didn’t help cook or clean. He didn’t do laundry. He never helped with grocery shopping. He didn’t even do his own clothes shopping. I remember my father saying, “I need underwear”. And, watching my mom immediately get up from what she was doing and begin a load of laundry.

After I learned of Aspergers, I suspected that maybe my father also had it. As he had a LOT of the symptoms (failure to develop peer relations, social reciprocity, inflexible adherence to routine, restricted pattern of interest). Likewise, my sister oftentimes commented that, “Rocket, you are so much like father” about certain of my behavioral patterns (though, never in terms of how I treated my spouse).

Anyhow, the behavior I described above makes me think it may be something else (my uncle who is the mental health profession, suspected narcissistic personality disorder).

My question is this. Is it common for people with Aspergers to treat their spouses this way? Just curious.

I think that might be a generational thing, lots of men thought wives were property.

My dad used to try to get my mom to respond to him the way yours did to your dad, but she'd usually scream or break a plate over his head or something.

I think it’s partly a generation thing. My mother told that once as my father’s father came to visit and found my father at home doing the dishes, he got angry and said: Men do not do dishes in our household! And this happened in the seventies or early eighties... Nowadays it's not so hard to be a modern man...

Your father might have said "This isn't YOUR household. It's MINE."

I can see how it sounds funny, but it was actually horrific, blood and pot roast everywhere. I was five.

I'd agree it was also a generation thing. Only thing is, my dad is like that, and I'm a 90s/00s child. He's still a prat now, despite it now being 4 adults in the house (I'm now 23 soon, and my brother 21 in October).

I suspect my dad has ASPD, because he's just that much of a d*ckhead, manipulative, liar, abusive, violent, and has had many run ins with the police for his behaviour. He's always stealing things too.

Exactly. But he did resist, for as long as I remember he did do dishes and took part in the household chores. Or maybe he was just afraid of my mother more than his father…

I thought the above wasn't to be taken literally. I didn't know you were serious, sorry. That's horrible.

That describes my family when I was a child also. I was disgusted by it, and never understood why my mother never put her foot down about it.

Of course, things are very different with them nowadays.

I don't even want to think about it. I have seen plenty of women complain online about their guys not ever helping out around the house or help taking care of their children so they feel like a single parent. I even started to think it was a guy thing but my mom told me it was not and told me our neighbor men in our old neighborhood were not like that nor is my father.

Thanks everyone for the reply. Though, I am not certain if my question was answered. Would the behavior I described be consistent with someone who might have Aspergers? Or, is it not at all related?

I wouldn't link it to AS, and agree with some others that it was more of a generational mindset. I can see the possibility of that mindset being held very rigidly by someone with AS, but not stemming from the condition itself.

I suppose this means that Aspergers wouldn't be ruled out, based upon his behavior. Not that I am trying to diagnose him. LOL.

This sounds like an episode of The Wonder Years. I think it was just typical of that era. It doesn't indicate NPD or Asperger's but doesn't rule either one out either.

I would be interested to know the answer to your question too - whether the things in your father that you describe have any potential to indicate Asperger's, seeing as what you describe seems very similar to my father. Until I learned about Asperger's, I always thought it was a generation thing, as others here have mentioned, and this indeed could be the explanation. I do wonder whether my father grew up in a household where women were expected to do all the housework. to 'honour and obey' the man, and would be in trouble if they made a dinner that wasn't up to scratch etc. Therefore he may have taken on those traditional views that are becoming more out-dated now. Therefore I wonder whether the characteristic of wanting to be in control of everything, be the bread-winner and not let the woman take part in making household decisions, is a 'traditional man' thing.

HOWEVER, the following things you mention, my father also displays, and these are the things that make me wonder whether his criticism and apparent bad treatment of my mother, could be for autistic reasons and the fact he doesn't realise it:

E.g.

- My dad never had any friends until recently when he met some who shared his special interest, and I always found it odd that he never seemed to to want any friends (as it turns out, it isn't that he didn't want friends, he just hadn't yet found anyone he could really connect with, except my mother)

- He doesn't really express empathy - I always felt like that meant he didn't care about me, as when I was really mentally ill/ in a lot of pain, he would keep away and let my mother do all the work in looking after me, which became a massive burden to her to look after me on her own.

- When I still lived with my parents, months would pass where my father and I didn't speak at all, except to awkwardly say a simple 'hi' every now and again. It always felt like we both wanted to say more, but didn't know what to say as we are both socially awkward. I am fine talking to my mum because if someone else isn't socially awkward and I get used to them, I am fine talking or monologuing my thoughts knowing that they don't mind me going on or will tell me if they do mind. However if I am faced with someone as socially awkward as me, there seems to be a barrier from both sides to achieving conversation.

As for what you mentioned about things such as needing clothes washing and expecting the woman to do it all for him - this is another thing that makes me angry about my father and too makes me feel like he treats my mother like a slave e.g. when he had a bit of a tantrum because my mother said she was going to be out one day and asked if he could make his own dinner, which he acted incapable of doing. I see this as quite pathetic and childish, for a grown man to act incapable of making his own food or wash his own clothes etc. Now I wonder whether he is being pathetic, or whether he genuinely struggles with looking after himself. Hmm.

Chapter 13 'Long-term relationships' within Tony Attwood's Complete Guide to Asperger's was what really made me wonder whether there is an alternate explanation for my father's behaviour than him simply 'being a dick' (as my partner so eloquently put it ). This chapter explained that a woman married to a man with Asperger's may become very unhappy with the relationship and feel unloved, while the man sees the relationship as being completely fine (my father is seemingly quite content with the relationship and doesn't see the issue, whilst my mother is unhappy). Attwood explained that when these men with AS don't show empathy, it is often because they don't know how to act to comfort the woman, or may shut down in face of emotion, rather than because they don't care. What comes across as trying to control the woman, may be the man trying to control his surroundings due to anxiety. The criticism - I may have read this in another book, but I have read that people with AS may appear overcritical due to bluntness and honesty, rather than because they intend to be mean. E.g. with the complaining about the food not being 'right', I wonder whether if the man knew to do this in a more tactful way, it may come across very differently.

Just some thoughts - basically I am still really confused whether this is true of my father or not - seeing as he doesn't like talking about feelings or much at all except the few things that interest him, and can easily take things the wrong way, it is hard to ask and I don't want to cause even more problems.