Married to an Aspie

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I have been married to an Aspie male for 5 years now, and been together almost 10 years. It's been a very LONG road to say the least. ( we also have a 7 year old Aspie son ).
This is going to be the most honest, no holds barred post I make.
SInce having our youngest child ( almost 4 years old ), our relationship has become a very emotionless, sexless almost roommate like one. My husband has never been much of a emotional person ( which I knew from the start ). I have always accepted him as he is and we have done a alot to help him move forward and improve on his emotional and social skills. The past year has been our worst, relationship wise. He outright refuses to talk to me about anything remotely serious, especially when it regards our relationship.
He does not participate in our children's lives. I am responsible for the house, the kids, the schooling, meals, appointments, extra curricular etc.
He deals with his job in the military and his addiction to video games. The only thing he wants from me is meals and sexual pleasure. If either of those items are not granted he becomes sullen and can become childlike in his temper. He does not participate in any "family activities either. I feel as though I am raising 3 children, not 2.
We have gone to marriage counseling and it did nothing, as the therapist did not help us get to the root of the issues. After 3 months she basically became our friend.
I am at a loss as to what to do. I am contemplating leaving my marriage for the sake of my sanity and my children.
Looking for ideas.

You've come to the right place just by logging on WP. I think just by learning more about Asperger's you will be able to better understand your husband and children.

That sounds really awful. I'm not somebody that encourage people to leave Aspies easily, but this seems to be such a case. I'd say you should leave him unless he changes his manners. He especially needs to help you with your children and with your home. That's a bare minimum.

I have personal input for two parts of this that I hope will be helpful.

First: Regarding your spouse's lack of interest in your children: I hope and believe this will improve over time. It is probably difficult for your spouse to hold a conversation that isn't mentally engaging, and children are not very complex mental conversationalists. I have an Aspie grandparent with whom I had little in common until I was an adult. As I grew up and became invested in the similar topics of interest, my grandfather and I became good friends and he is now one of my favorite people to talk with. I it is reasonable to expect the relationship between Aspie parents and their children to improve as the children age. Especially for your Aspie child, I believe the relationship will improve significantly due to the inherent common ground there.

Second: Regarding sexuality, I would like to say that you are not alone in you feelings of frustration. I think sexuality is an exceptionally complex and difficult of neuro-typical marriages, too. Personally, I have been married for 2 years and we experience a similar problem. I am not very interested in physical affection, for no other reason that nature (that is, my preference does not reflect poorly upon my husband at all). I worry that this makes my husband unhappy sometimes. This has no easy answer, but I hope it will be comforting to know that I very much doubt you are alone in this sort of quandary.

OP, I'd suggest you consult a lawyer and find out what your options really are before figuring out what to do. The problem with divorce is that your husband will, unless you can thoroughly and acceptably document that he'd be a danger to the children, have unsupervised visitation with your children regularly. And you won't be able to do anything about this unless there's obvious, serious, and documentable harm being done to the children, nor will you have any say about who he brings around them. You also need to find out what you might reasonably expect in child support, and think about how you'd manage to support those kids, because unless you've got substantial family help, the child support won't get you where you need to go.

If he isn't actually interested in spending time with the children, that's fine (though obviously hurtful to them and it'll be up to you to mitigate that). But this isn't something you can count on, and if he acquires a girlfriend, often the first thing the girlfriend does is try to "rescue" her man's relationship with his children, which incidentally helps prove how warm and nurturing she is and what great mommy material etc. I'm not saying this will happen, just that it's always something that's out there if you're a single mom.

Well I feel sorry for the woman if her husband starts to treat her like a sex dispenser. He should grow up a little and accept that he should only have sex when both he and his wife are in the mood.

_________________
Health is a state of physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity I am not a jigsaw, I am a free man !

Diagnosed under the DSM5 rules with autism spectrum disorder, under DSM4 psychologist said would have been AS (299.80) but I suspect that I am somewhere between 299.80 and 299.00 (Autism) under DSM4.

It sounds like your husband is failing to grow up to become an adult. He might be an Aspie, but he's committed to a marriage and had children with you, so it's now time for him to step up to the plate.

It sounds like you need to continue with marriage counseling, but you need to use a new counselor. You also might consider increasing the sessions if time and money allow. If you are going once a week, consider going twice, etc. It sounds like counseling may be the only hope for your marriage. If that failed, I doubt anything will change.

As for the sexual aspect of the relationship, that's difficult. Because your husband is essentially acting like an adult child, you are feeling used sexually, and quite frankly you aren't that into it when that happens (who can blame you). However, since he's clearly interested in sex, and the situation doesn't improve without it, I don't think cutting him off from sex is a good idea. Sex is important to most men, and your husband doesn't seem much different.

I think you need to come up with a compromise. It sounds to me like the video game playing needs to go. But, in return, if he then steps up and becomes involved with the kids, sex should than return to your marriage in a big way. I am *not* suggesting you use sex as a tool to control him, or as a negotiation strategy. I'm suggesting that if he changes his ways and meets you half way, and you than in turn begin to have a sexual interest in him again, you seize on that like water on rice.

So basically, if he begins to become the husband you want, and you still have a sexual interest in him, allow sex to become a bigger part of your life. Go to stores and by revealing lingerie, try different positions, focus on exploring each others bodies in an erotic way.

Also, if he begins to show interest in the kids, can or at least cut down on the video games, and help around the house, and also your sexual relationship begins to come alive, you two might actually like being around each other again, by God. If that happens, send the kids over to the grandparents or something and spend a weekend together talking, doing fun things, and having sex like rabbits.

It's the best advice I can give, hope it gives you some good advice and maybe some hope.

bizguy, no, I'm sorry, it's not her job to dispense sex in order to keep him happy, that's not a thing to expect of wives. (Or husbands.) "Lie back and think of England" went out half a century ago.

I do wonder though, OP, did you discuss this part of the problem with the therapist? The sexlessness and the sulks if you don't deliver on-demand, and the overall childishness? Also, was this a counselor who's dealt with Asperger's in relationships before? Because if not the advice might not have been appropriate anyway.

You may need to find someone who can talk quite frankly to him about what's expected in a marriage with children, put it across to him that it's not merely a matter of his behavior being abnormal, but unfair to you because of the burdens it places on you and the supports it removes from you. And that while to some extent you'll always be compensating for him, it isn't fair at all to leave the whole job with you, then come around and behave like a sulky child.

I think my post was pretty clear in that I stated it should not be about sex to please him, but she'd have to desire it as well, after some changes occurred in the marriage. You might want to reread the post, I thought I really went out of my way to make that clear. I guess it's worth repeating?

The fact is, if the husband won't stop playing videos games instead of relating with the kids and helping out around the place, the marriage won't survive. If the wife doesn't have an interest in the husband sexually, the marriage won't survive.

She shouldn't be a dispensary for sex, but if she's not interested in her husband she either needs to work to become so, or she needs to be honest about the situation and work towards a divorce. It seems pretty simple to me, correct me if I'm wrong. Sorry for being blunt, but I think there needs to be a bottom line so they can be realistic about their future.

I have been harboring a lot of anger towards the husband for a long time now. I feel as though he uses his diagnosis as a crutch more often than not. He will use it as his reason that he is not emotionally attached to myself or our children. He has stated our children are a burden. He acts as though his only responsibility is himself and his needs are the only ones that should be met.
I am almost certain that divorce is the answer but very scared to admit it out loud. I have always believed that marriage is forever. I don't want to hurt my children but slowly realizing that this marriage may be doing more damage to them then if we were apart.

Thank you for some of your responses. It helps keep my eyes open to reality.