AS/NT marriage in crisis - HELP!

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I am NT and in a relationship with someone AS, what I find in my relationship that proves to be hard is that he never wants to do anything at all...he rarely leaves the house other than to go to work, all other time is spent eating, sleeping and in his own interests that don't include me. It is hard for someone who feels a need for interaction, affection and communication to deal without those things. So perhaps looking at that is a start, do you live in your own world and exclude her from it a great deal of the time? Is she forced to choose between you and communicating with the outside world? Does she plain feel lonely, because you tend to spend your free time in interests that don't include her? Anyways, just an NT take for you to ponder...I do wish you well, but something I heard once strikes me often.

...sometimes love isn't enough.

I was also once told that if love isn't enough, it wasn't really love in the first place.

Sorry to hear of your difficult situation. I'd say that if he never relates to you, then you need to relate to others (not in a sexual way of course) - you need to spend time with your own friends, or you'll just get horribly depressed.

My wife and I have a lot of difficuty relating to each other, and though it's not been as totally void as the picture you've painted, she spends a lot of time with her relatives and girlfriends - either on the phone or in person - and attends a local church. I find it kind of sad that I can't share very much of that with her, but I wouldn't wish to stop her because it's clear she needs to do that. I do wish she'd do it a little less and spend a bit more time working at our relationship, but I've no great objection to the general idea.

You might find counselling could help you to understand why you aren't relating at all as a couple - I don't know about your situation, but you seem to be suggesting that you're just hitting a brick wall whenever you try to get him to spend time with you, as if he just doesn't want anything else but his own world.

I suspect my wife would say something quite similar about me, though I believe she's also got a big hand in our problems - although she herself alerted me to the possibility that I mighht have AS, she seems to have enormous difficulty in helping us to develop coping strategies so we can be together.....she's usually the one to leave me on my own, spending loads of time in her own room, she might suggest we do this or that together but she has very little patience with it if I should criticise her plan or try to compromise - she often gets angry that I won't take up her sudden offers without modification, and then angrily withdraws from the situation - I end up feeling guilty as if I've utterly rejected her advances, when in fact I've only wished to modify them.

Another thing I've noticed about my partners in general (I've failed with several), is that they very rarely made it plain to me what they wanted - I got a lot of vague hints that I could do nothing about, then suddenly they acted as if I'd had every chance to respond but had stubbornly refused. I'm not saying you're like that - I really wouldn't know - I'm just saying that it's very important NTs really takes on board that you need to be very clear and explicit with Aspies. They may seem to be behind a closed door, but that door may not be as locked as you think.

He is a great person on a whole to me, but his interests are not things that have room for two people is all. He is into online gaming presently and spends most of his free time doing it, we do occasionally watch something on Hulu, but it is almost always something that can retain his interest. I rarely if ever choose what we watch. Honestly, I am okay with that, if it was anyone else...I am sure I wouldn't be, but I actually do understand him. I know that I am far more flexible than he is, not that he is completely self-centered...but he does tend to think about his needs first, like a child would. So I don't sweat that really, mainly I just miss him.

Love can't always feed the basic human needs that someone has...what makes love enduring is if someone can learn to accommodate their own needs, even if it isn't at max capacity.

...then you hang on, because that love feeds a deeper part of you.

I have a lot of trouble with the word "love" - not that I've never felt it, and I've used the word myself and recognised its meaning sometimes in the words of others. Just that it has so many meanings to different people. Apparently English is unusual in that it uses the word "love" to describe a number of things that other languages have a word each for. That might explain some of my trouble with the word.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love#Definitions

I have to backtrack on something I was banging on about in this thread (or maybe one very much like it) - I said that I find it astonishing that so many neurotypicals end up in agony with their closed-off Aspie husbands. I argued that it begs the question "why the hell did you get married if he's so useless?" After all, AS is a lifelong trait that doesn't really get any worse over time, so the signs must have been there from the start. But I pondered the question further, and I thought of this: suppose the Aspie initially becomes obsessed with his new partner (obsessions are pretty common with Aspies of course). Could that be mistaken for love? Further down the line, perhaps as a result of frustrated perfectionism, the Aspie might well find the obsession unsustainable, and then he'd switch to something else. Meanwhile the spouse has been unwittingly fooled, because this guy who once gave her his full attention now just wants to fool around with computers or something all day.

Anybody here recognise that kind of pattern in their relationships? Something like it seems to have happened in my first serious partnership. Initially I was besotted with her, then I became very frustrated because she seemed to stop reciprocating the very close bonds we'd had, and a long conflict ensued over that problem, and eventually I got heavily into sound recording and playing in bands. It was easier to ignore the problems of my not having much time for her until we married and started living together, and then suddenly her demands for my attention were much more acute, and I just couldn't cope with them. After a year or so I left. I've always felt very guilty about it, as I could see that she wasn't really doing anything wrong. I never deserted another partner again without a damned good reason, and I've never since denied a partner my attention so completely, but I still feel terrible when I look back and remember how I behaved towards her. Even at the time I knew I was way out of line, but my feelings were very strong, and sadly they'd changed completely, and I just couldn't summon up the will to make the effort with her any more.

Hope that's not gone too far off topic.

In my case, my former husband was "faking NT" in order to find a mate. We actually met at a party! And he took me out dancing! He cooked a meal for me on our second date, and loaded the dishwasher! After a couple months we moved in together, and he didn't do any of those things anymore. I went to bed alone while he stayed up til the wee hours playing on his computer.

That was a rotten trick, assuming he knew he had AS . I guess the only saving grace might be if he was in denial, and so didn't really know what he was doing - my own experiences make me suspect that a guy can get all spaced out on a lady, and start thinking he's Superman, and in that state he's amazed at what he can do - there's a boost of confidence which empowers him and all kinds of things seem effortless. It's also quite common with NTs I think, when the relationship's still a novelty, for a partner to feel a lot more motivated to impress, then when they feel safer (like when the other partner's showing signs of being "sold" on the deal), those little acts of willingness to make the effort just fade away I think NTs refer to all this as being "taken for granted."

Hope you don't feel I'm just making excuses for such things, or belittling the disappointment you must have felt. After noticing such patterns in my own behaviour, I started to try a lot harder to be a bit more true to myself, though I sometimes found I took it too far and presented a worse image than my real self...I'd make a lousy salesman, I'd probably amplify all the bad points of the product and get fired. One of the problems is that I don't really know myself. It's really difficult.....I just wish everybody were "pathologically" honest, but they're not. My ideal was always a bit like the opening scene of "Love Story" (the film) where the couple actually have a fight the first time they meet, and later when the guy's not being quite straight, the woman sees straight through it and shouts "DON'T BS ME!" In practice it's really hard work to command that kind of sincerity, but I reckon it's better when it's done that way. It makes me angry to see some of these guys who are very popular with women, so much of it seems to hinge on the way they can fake things so effectively. End of rant.

I'm an NT wife of a man who I am just learning has undiagnosed AS. We have been married for 5 years, and things have gone terribly wrong. I can say that he pursued me in the sweetest way. At first, I wasn't super interested, as he had some strange quirks. But, he was gentle, kind, handsome, and had a kind of innocence about him. I knew him through work, and he was highly respected at the office and other co-workers. He had extremely formal speech, and I had a hard time turning him down when he asked me out for the first time. We dated for 3 years, and while I did notice that he did seem to need a little more time alone than I what I was used to, I was o.k. with it because I was pretty independent myself. He read books like no one I've ever known. We had common interests in museums, classical music, plays, and operas. He always showed me enough affection, and included me to meet his parents and at holidays. He was anxious in social situations, and it never seemed that our conversation got to the deeper levels that it should have. I did not know what AS was at the time, I just thought that he was more introverted due to being extremely intelligent, and was more logical than emotional. Alot of NT's don't really know what AS is, and really have no idea what they are getting into.

He really changed after marriage. He never initiated affection or sexual intimacy. The first couple of months of marriage, I remember calling him after work to see what he wanted to do for dinner. He said that he was already at a local cafe' and asked me to join him. When I got there, he looked up from his newspaper and glared at me as if I ruined his entire day. I was heartbroken. He apologized and said that he needed to be more sensitive. But unfortunately, more incidents of the same kept occurring. He lived in his own world, reading excessively and messing on the computer. I went to bed alone every night crying myself to sleep because he would rather read and be on the computer than come to bed with me. He never appeared happy to see me, or never seemed to need any physical affection or companionship from me. There were times when I went to hug him, and he would stiffen up, or push me gently away. Because of his ongoing rejection, I have felt extremely lonely, heartbroken, frustrated, and angry. As a result, I had started to close off to him and have not treated him very nicely. For this, I feel terrible. I wish I would have known a long time ago about the diagnosis in order to learn how to handle the behavior better. I do love him, but so much damage has been done, I don't know if things could ever be the same. I'm not sure if getting a diagnosis would be beneficial for him, but I know that the suggestion can not come from me. He takes any perceived criticism very hard and starts a diatribe against me for how angry and mean that I am. I am actually a very nice and well-liked person by everyone else in my life. My husband is the only one whom appears to feel differently.

As for the OP, maybe you could get your wife a book about Asperger's. I liked Tony Attwood's Guide. I also found The Other Half very helpful also. Maybe it would help her to understand and feel more empathy for your condition.

Thanks for sharing your story. The parts of it I've quoted above are the parts that really stood out for me as particularly significant.

The failure to talk deeply baffles me - I should explain I'm suspected of AS myself. I don't know if it's a general thing with AS people, but I've always felt a lot of pain myself that I don't get to do that much. As a gut reaction I'd say it's mostly the fault of others for being shallow, though I've no idea if that's just projection or not. I've heard it said that Aspies need a lot of reassurance and that it really helps...somehow the people I've met just don't seem the types to reassure all that readily. There was one lady who did, but I already had a relationship with somebody who was a self-confessed unsympathetic type.

Initiating affection I find very difficult, and only seem to be able to do that in circumstances that feel very safe. I don't personally feel that it should be the man who makes the first move, fifty-fifty seems a lot more appropriate to me. Sadly, with relationships I've not had much success in holding onto that feeling of safety, it's hard to know who to blame for the unspoken rift that always seems to develop. I don't push people away but I've found myself stiffening if approached too suddenly, and I hate it when they pick that up and read more into it than was meant - it just means I'm scared.

That thing where he invited you to the cafe and then glared at you, if you'd invited yourself or appeared unexpectedly, I'd have expected that outcome, but I don't understand why anybody would invite somebody and then feel invaded by them when they turned up........possibly some forebearance going on, saying what he thought was the right thing. I think it's like that, I often used to catch myself saying what I thought was required of me. I guess it comes from poor self-confidence, a conviction that whatever I felt couldn't be right, that I'd never be accepted unless I were an imposter.

It's probably natural that you feel too much damage has been done to feel the same way. I hope you get that back.

As for the diagnosis, you're quite likely right that it won't work coming from just you. Maybe counselling would help? Sometimes it's easier coming from an outside source, couples often have a habit of refusing to take each other's ideas seriously, especially when alone together, but when somebody else is there, it can help if the third party is genuine and competent.

I've often felt dismayed that there are times when almost anybody I know will treat me with more respect than my partner......there's something in the old saying that familiarity breeds contempt, perhaps. But I prefer to believe that such damage can always be repaired, as long as nobody has done anything really terrible. It sounds like his only crime is to have ignored you.....I'm not trying to belittle your reaction to that - similar treatment from some partners has broken my heart also, in fact I probably had less to feel hurt about than you did, but I do know the pain of that kind of thing, to feel unwanted - but I'm just saying that maybe it could be forgiven in time.

I hope I haven't done more harm than good in posting all this. I'm really no expert, and I don't mean to imply that my situations has been the same as yours, but your post has been rattling round my head for days, so I thought that rather than just stay silent, I'd best set out the impressions that hit me. I do hope you manage to get it all sorted out one day soon. Relationships are hard for most people I think. Good luck!

Based on my own experiences at least, I can tell you that often a relationship gets to the point that it's not worth my while to make an effort.

I know that sounds terrible, but, thinking back to my last failed relationship, I put a lot of energy into it. My reward was that he bitched me out for what I wasn't doing. Upon consideration, a couple of the complaints were valid, so I endeavored to work on those items. My reward was that he bitched me out for another set of things with no acknowledgement whatsoever of my hard work.

If I am in a relationship and am not getting at least a minimum of good feelings from my interactions, I shut down from it. I need to be charmed a little, it's not a big deal, I just need my partner to make it worth my while to pay attention to him.

If he's just going to b***h about things, and not lift a finger to meet me in the middle (and I'm not talking about the occasional bad day here, I'm talking about a consistent pattern), where's my motivation to overcome my inclination towards solitude and my particular interests?

I think that a lot of NT's miss the fact that interacting is a lot of work, and there are times when many of us look forward to it about as much as a root canal. If we are lucky enough to have a loving, mature partner, that's when they know to turn on the charm and offer something appealing, even if it's just "come watch TV with me and I'll rub your feet". Sometimes they will just say what they feel. "You've been doing that code for three hours and I'm getting lonely, will you put it down for a while?"

That's very different from the eyerolls and the heavy sighs and the "we need to talk". So for the NT side I would definitely say that in the attention sweepstakes, you're probably going to have to seek it differently than you would if you were another NT--you're going to have to own your needs and ask for them plainly and don't waste time being hurt that you have to do it--I know that while my ex was in the corner stewing away, I was happily doing my own thing and totally oblivious to his "hints". I wouldn't know there was a problem until he got mad.

On the Aspie side, we need to endeavor to learn our partner's signals as best we can. The other thing that can really help is to make a point of spending a certain amount of time with our partner every day. Maybe that means we have supper together and go to bed at the same time, maybe it means that when xe gets home from work, we put down whatever we are doing to spend several hours of quality time. That really depends on the couple themselves and what their needs are.

The expectations have to go, though. I remember my daughter really struggling with my diagnosis when I first got it. She said plainly (bless her heart) that she didn't want me to be autistic, she just wanted a normal mother. I love my daughter incredibly, she knows to just say it out straight no matter how awful it sounds, because when she tells me what's up, I have a prayer of dealing with it.

We ended up having a really good talk because of her honesty, and one thing she definitely took away from the conversation was that if she ever wasn't sure of my love, she had only to look at how hard I would work to meet her in the middle. Given how difficult that is for me, it said a lot about how much I valued her.

It took a while, but she's reasonably accepting of me now. And I let her rattle on about the clothes and the makeup and whatever else tickles her fancy, as long as she doesn't ask for my fashion opinion.

I bring up my daughter, though, because it shows a world of difference between my interactions with her and my interactions with my ex. If he could have spoken plainly, even about his negative feelings, instead of trying to make me change, we could have met in the middle just like my daughter and I did. Instead he fell back on what he felt he "should" be getting out of a relationship, and now there is no relationship at all.

Thank you for your observations and impressions, and I appreciate that you did not stay silent. It really helps me to hear how others, especially those with AS interpret behavior and feelings. And believe me, you are more an expert than anyone. I really hope that my husband and I can get our relationship sorted out also. I'm wondering if he would be offended if I gave him a book about AS with a note using loving words to describe how I felt some of the characteristics seemed similar to him. I really feel that the only way to get back on track is if we both realized how different our brains think so that we can make accommodations for one another. I realize that as much as I can say that he is "different", I am just as "different" to him. I know that I can't go on feeling lonely, neglected, and as if I run the whole household by myself. I am exhausted with all of my responsibilities, and need to be met if not half-way, then some of the way. He is seeing a therapist, but he is not consenting to me being involved at this point. His therapist is asking for me to come to a session, but he says that he is not ready yet, but anticipates that he will be at some point. I'm not sure if his therapist has picked up on the AS characteristics yet. I guess time will tell. Thanks again!!

I guess that would depend on the person he is - if it were me, I get scared when somebody gives me a book to read, as usually I can only read things very painstakingly from cover to cover, so it takes me ages and I'm very reluctant to begin, unless the curiosity has come from within me in the first place. I also get scared that I'll offend the other person by failing to do as they ask, and then I feel resentful that they've put me in such a difficult position. But I suspect I'm unusual in that way, I think my school experiences put me off the whole idea of "set books." It's easier if a few small sections of the book are marked - that way it's a lot less daunting for me. The other thing is that I usually find it much easier to take on board another person's ideas if they stress at the outset that they could be wrong. But again that's just me - your partner may have no such quirk, and for all I know he may warm to the idea of having a book offered to him. Again, expressing it in loving terms seems like a good idea, though for me if it's "overdone" then I could just feel scared if I perceived it as a sudden show of affection - not that I'd dislike that in itself, but I could feel overloaded with a need to reciprocate it. I guess the key thing might be to not make a big thing of it, although it must be a big thing to you because if he just takes it on board then it could be the very switch that you're looking for.



I agree 100% - my wife has a habit of insinuating somehow that NT and mainstream is somehow the "proper" way to be, which often sparks off an argument that turns into two people simply invalidating each other. I can be quite damning of neurotypical ways if anybody seems to suggest AS is a problem in itself.



I often find my wife takes over a lot of the responsibility of our relationship before I get a chance to meet her half way - I'm sure she believes it to be necessary, but if only she'd slow down and bring the issues to me one by one, calmly and clearly showing me what the problem is, I think I'd not find myself so "typecast." I feel that I get too quickly judged as closed off; I may be behind a closed door, but it's taken as a locked door, when really all that needs to be done is to turn the handle and it will open. But again, my relationship may be very different to yours. I'm sure my wife has issues of her own that get masked because everything is seen in terms of the stereotypical Aspie/NT problems. Sometimes I find myself being cold towards her because she's hurt my feelings or drained me with a barrage of demands, or I'm just feeling guilty and afraid to speak in case I make it worse or get my head snapped off. I'm sure that often it just needs her to ask "why did you glare at me?" or something similar, instead of the defeatism she seems to adopt.



It's hopeful that he's at least seeing a therapist, though it'd be a lot better if you were both there. It must be very trying that you've only got this distant hope that he'll maybe allow that one day. The first time my wife suggested counselling, I was very resistant, but mostly that was because she went about it too aggressively, so I became defensive. Later on we established that I had no real objections, and eventually we got in touch with Relate and went there.

I hope you find something helpful in my post. I'm very mindful that all I can do is talk about my own experiences, which are probably somewhat different to yours, and I fear misleading you with that, or just wasting your time with irrelevencies. Anyway, if it at least strengthens you to know that somebody else has at least been down similar paths and sympathises with you, then maybe a little bit of good has been done.

8 disasters with NT'S. Met another aspie and have been happily together for almost 20 years!
We "do" fight but NEVER want to leave each other. We have no friends only acquaintances and relatives. We have an adult NT child who is just back from Iraq and a 9 year old who is an Aspie who has just been mainstreamed at school. He's doing well but they can't make him a people monger. It ain't gonna happen. BUT....everybody's got a big BUT: My husband is moreso an aspie than me. I like to joke with people and have fleeting, superficial, communication but I don't wish for enduring friendships with them. My husband doesn't want to talk to anybody. I can hold warm and humorous conversations with store clerks but I don't want their phone number to meet for lunch sometime! The friendship ends when I leave the store. I enjoyed customer service jobs because I got the right amount of people contact without them getting too close. My husband desires NONE of that. There are times where I weep from the lonliness I feel even when he's home but I have my kids. When I got married and the priest read the vows, my husband held my hands but I couldn't figure out if his eyes were actually "looking" at me. I felt as though I was standing behind a wall and my husband was looking at that wall but holding my hands at the same time. When I hug him, it's like hugging a tree. If I express an opinion about Christianity which is his new obsession, he beats it down (if it's a disagreement) and he judges and corrects it...if it is an agreement. The convo ends up one-sided. But the bottom line is this...I'd rather be dead without him. Seriously. He makes me VERY mad but he is my life...my reason to keep going. "Safety" is love for me and I don't care what anybody thinks because my life was hell before him. I've accepted the fact that that is how it is going to be. I intend to make the best of it. I hope that Christianity stays his obsession because there is a lot to say for it. It has made things better between us as well. I'll take 20 mopey husbands before I take even a half of a falandering, liar deadbeat.

Last edited by RightGalaxy on 21 May 2009, 9:45 am, edited 1 time in total.

Brrrr....cold but true.

8 disasters beats my record, I think. And I can't even be sure mine were all NTs, as most of them happened before I suspected I had any autistic traits at all - can't really diagnose them after the fact, and I've certainly no desire to meet them again in order to find out. Anyway, it's good that you've got it together AS-AS......in some ways it figures - lots of common experiences and lots of grounds for empathy and shared attitudes. And I once read that introverts and extraverts have a tendency to dislike each other - seems to me that a lot of people who used to be labelled introverts were probably Aspies, and Aspie extraverts are probably quite rare, given their "job description" with all that social stuff they do.