Lack of Physical Connections in Long-Term Relationship

Post Reply New Topic

I have been together with my wife for over 20 years now. About 7 years ago, she was diagnosed with a form of bipolar disorder from a psychiatrist. We were going through some intense marital issues at that time. I was pretty ignorant about her condition, lasting until pretty close to present time. Lately, I have been looking into her odd behavioral symptoms (as I used to refer it) and came across AS. My eyes lit up with the primary diagnosis of an atypical AS individual and my wife fits that to a "T".

I feel very guilty and have been very apologetic towards her for being insensitive, but mostly for being ignorant. I always blew off her "odd behavior" and "anti-social" behvior as simply that. I understand much better about her situation and am trying to adjust my thinking appropriately. Howerver, there is still an existing situation regarding my wife's feelings in regarding to physical touch.

At the time my wife was diagnosed with the "bipolar disorder", she was going through severe depression and anxiety. I blew it off as a form of "mid-life crisis". Since that time though, she completely disengaged in physical contact from me. She has lost that physical connection with me and has been since for over 7 years now.

I understand that this might not have anything to do with AS. I guess what I am looking for is suggestions from someone with AS, or someone that has an AS partner, that can approach this situation, to turn it around. I am still very attracted to her, but at this time, nothing I have done thus far has helped.

I would also like to read upon any similar experiences that you may have.

Is it something you guys can talk about openly? If so, that would be a starting point...

Lack of touch could potentially be related to hypersensitivity. If you type "hypersensitivity to touch" into the search box in the top right corner of the screen you'll find a huge number of topics covering it.

Basically, what it could be is that your wife is a lot more sensitive to physical sensations than other people, to the point where simply being touched is either painful, or very close to it. I have this. Basically, until discovering my level of physical sensitivity wasn't normal it had frankly never really occurred to me that other people wanted to be touched, hugged etc let alone needed to be touched to show feelings of affection.

It might be worth doing some more reading and then just asking her about it. Ultimately, she's the only person who really knows.