Looking for solutions to better my marriage.

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Well, it's not fair to generalize. People and situations are always individual.

But-- I've never heard of a happy AS-NT marriage. Never. Not one. I used to think I had one-- and I think we are pretty well-off for a neurodiverse couple-- but the reality is that I have never seen one that actually works.

In our situation, both of us always feel unfulfilled.

I wish that there could be some safe place where I could let my guard down and cry too hard, laugh too loud, talk too long, care too much and still be accepted (as distinct from grudgingly tolerated).

He wishes that I were-- other. Flirtier, more sexual, OTHER THAN WHAT I AM.

Even though we've known since the beginning-- I told him I was AS before he ever spent a night in my bed, much less put a ring on my finger-- he still takes it personally.

We just had another three-day screaming fight. See, I've been taking care of his parents for the last six months. While I was gone, he enlisted my cousins to help paint our new house. They came over and got drunk and waved their sexuality in his face. Then he drives down here to see me-- with no warning; he wanted it to be a surprise-- and gets all hurt because I'm eating dinner in a grubby T-shirt and pajama pants, and when he walks in the door I give him hugs and kisses and tell him how glad I am to see and and invite him to fix a plate or sit down with me while I finish eating. To add insult to injury, when we went to have sex that night, it was kind of inconvenient because I haven't been keeping up with shaving my pubic hair. You know, since it takes time that I don't have and itches like crazy and he wasn't here to enjoy my practically bald vulva anyway.

This is the subject of a three-hour tirade about how bad I make him feel and why can't I make the effort to be more like regular women. HEY-- I'm dealing with three kids, two old people, a crippled dog, housework, school work, and my own depression and all the AS quirks. So I'm supposed to also make myself look nice and invest an hour a week that I really don't have in pubic grooming JUST IN CASE HE DECIDES TO DRIVE FOR 23 HOURS TO DROP BY???

If I dropped in on someone in my position, I wouldn't be pissed about not getting a perfect reception when I got there. I'd have been pleased with, "It is SOOOO nice to see you!! !" and a hot home-cooked meal and a cuddle and a lay after the kids were down for the night. I'd have been pleased with anything better than, "Gee, it's really not a good time right now. Maybe you could come back next week??"

My point is not to blow off steam about the dumb thing my husband did, or to look for reassurance that I'm not a horriffic wife.

The fact is that he's not a bad husband. And I'm not a bad wife.

He's NT. And I'm AS.

The gulf-- canyon-- distance-- Whatever you want to call it, it's too wide. Too much to bridge. We cannot meet each others' needs. We never should have tried. Unfortunately, it's fourteen years and 3 and 7/9 kids too late. We're stuck. Neither of us can raise the kids without the other; even though we still love each other, neither of us wants to be here anymore and neither of us is happy.

We never should have tried. It's too late.

If you can end it amicably and go your separate ways without hate, be grateful.

If you can't, cover your own ass.

I suppose AS-NT marriages can work. But I've never seen it happen. We can't do it-- and we're smart, educated, informed (to the point of having known things a decade ago that "experts" are just now beginning to consider) and committed. It's not enough.

Take it for what it is-- just my experience, my $0.02 (which won't get you a stick of gum in the States these days), and nothing more.

Your marriage was dead before it ever got out of the gate. For both your sakes, let it go.

I want to thank you all for your sincere posts. It's been three months since my original post. Since then, I've been on WP quite a bit, done a lot of research and reading, and have shared a lot of my findings with my wife. I am now thoroughly convinced I have AS; she is still processing her opinion on that, but at least she is willing to let me share with her.

I felt lost and directionless when I came to WP. Since then, I have read myself in other people's posts over and over again, and I am comforted knowing I am not alone in my struggle; that my wife is not alone in hers. Somehow, that gives me a calmness and a hope: calmness, because I know whatever happens from here, I'll truly be doing my best, because I know myself better know than ever. Hope, because if she can see how I'm different from her, maybe she'll be more inclined to see me as describe myself, not as the man she surmised was me because I wasn't telling her any different.

Thank you all again, you've been greatly supportive through your shared thoughts during this difficult time in my marriage. Keep learning. Keep growing. Keep living. And forgive often.

~Aharon

My first time to even remotely peruse the boards in a month, and look at the thread I find.

I'm still formulating responses to your PMs, so bear with me. I don't mind you taking so long to respond as long as you don't mind me taking just as long sometimes.

I still HIGHLY recommend The Unwritten Rules Of Social Relationships for both you and your wife. It's written for both the person with ASD to learn some rules that may not be in place as well as for the NT to learn and understand why these rules may not be in place to begin with. It gives some great insight into how something so simple to NTs can be so difficult and possibly not even present in the ASD mind. It helps open the minds of both types of people so that you can work on finding the middle ground of understanding.

It'll probably be a few more days before I can get to the PMs, just FYI.

You'd have to adapt it to your specific situation, but the "5 love languages" book (if I'm remembering the title) is pretty good at making you think about how you enjoy affection and how your spouse enjoys affection. Its possible if whatever channel of affection your spouse craves is something you might particularly struggle with so exploring the subject might be painful. But, if both people are committed to it the exploration would probably be a good one. I consider myself to have a fairly healthy marriage (other than that with full time work and part time school our together time is limited) but it really hit me when I realized my wife's ways of feeling affection are truly different than mine. Sometimes I can't always make it possible to zone in on her favorite form of affection but at least knowing what it is makes me much more sensitive to how she will perceive the relationship.