So me and husband (at least temporarily) separated

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Things really boiled over over the holidays. A week ago me and husband got so angry at each other we decided to separate. I have moved out. But since then, we have been meeting up several times and communicating better than almost ever before. We've both agreed to live separately for at least a few months and go to an aspie specialist couples counsellor and not to engage romantically or sexually with anyone else. We have a child together.

In short, we're in limbo. I know I love him and he loves me. The question is can we meet in the middle without either of us compromising our personal well-being. I am such a loser when it comes to many a practical issue that I understand my husband is simply fed up with having fathered me so much over the years. And then there are the communication differences, and me finding out I have AS (self diagnosed only 2 months ago -- took me 3 days of research to be fully convinced -- and now diagnosed officially this week). It's a weird relationship cos neither of us has ever been so close to anyone else thought-wise, but his needs for affection and spending time together tend to be bigger than mine, and pleasing me makes him feel lonely and for me, pleasing him makes me feel overwhelmed and eventually have a period of nervous breakdown / autistic shutdown if I can't engage in my special interests obsessively enough. To clarify, my shutdowns are mainly related to negative thought patterns of mine not husband as such, but to train myself out of these leaves apparently not enough time for the family and practical things, hence pressure on husband with practical matters is immense. In the beginning years of our relationship I also had big anger meltdowns; I would break things in anger etc. Never violent though or anything like that, but some impulsive self-harm like cutting myself etc.

Also am now sitting hear with husband who helped me edit this post in a way that we both agree upon, interpretation-wise. I will be going to stay elsewhere for the night tho, as of last week.

The automatic negative thoughts is something CBT (Cognitive Behavior Therapy) targets. Learning to change the way you think than have a significant impact on the way you feel.

It's unlikely you'll be able gain complete mental control over your feelings, so mindfulness techniques helps too - learning to be more aware of your emotions, and calming them down before they get uncontrollable.

I'd check out "The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work", and don't be afraid to decide to call it quits if your relationship isn't a good fit. If there isn't an atmosphere of mutual trust, honesty, and respect then you don't have what is needed for a healthy loving relationship. After splitting up with wife 1.0 I realized I didn't really love her because I didn't have much respect for her; I had contempt for her propensity to use emotional reasoning and her dismissiveness of my attempts to use logic to resolve our issues.

There's two sides to any relationship and you have explained your side very well, but you haven't explained your husband's side at all, which I guess is understandable, since you say you wrote this post with your husband sitting next to you.

In any case the first paragraph is an affirmation that the relationship isn't working out, so a mutual separation under the circumstances is understandable. I hope it all works out for you and you can save your marriage because there is a young child involved and the needs of that child have to be considered.

You shouldn't feel you are 100% responsible because you have AS and it worries me a little that matters came to a head a short time after you were diagnosed with AS. You are the person you are before you received your diagnosis and it is that person who met your husband, fell in love with and had a child with. The only thing that has changed is an official diagnosis of AS, so your husband shouldn't be using that to justify a breakdown in the marriage.

I hope you're not suggesting an unhappy couple should stay together for their child. Two happy adults co-parenting are much better for children than an unhappy couple that stays together "for the sake of the children".

Is your husband on the spectrum too?

Thanks for your responses.

He's not on the spectrum, he's almost the opposite of an aspie with regards to social skills. He gets along with everyone and is the first man I've dated who understands things like female manipulation, girly mind-games etc. I don't engage in those but I had friendships in the past where that appeared to happen and he helpfully pointed it out to me several times that I was being taken advantage of.

But he's not neurotypical either. He's got ADHD so a flight of ideas and so forth.

It does look like we are really separating for reals. I hope it will be a good thing and not a bad thing. We've both compromised immensely over the years to fit the other person's requirements. It could be that despite being super compatible in certain ways of viewing the world and life ('unconventional' etc) the other stuff just wasn't there to begin with, but because of the immense mental connection we did fight hard for all these years to try and make it work. But it appears to me this very moment that we just both compromised on too many things and ended up harming our individual well-being.

I worry greatly about the effects on our child. But I also recognise that it's not exactly right that me and husband spend the rest of our lives kind of living like robots in a relationship that is for various reasons unsatisfying, just to provide our son with a 'nuclear family model'. I mean, I've been hugely f****d up despite the fact that my parents fought hard to stay together and my mum compromised on a gazillion factors.

Michael,
loving the fact your profile pic is a smiley and your contribution to the discussion was a frownie

You made my day! I'll give you a twisted cat pic for it