husband on downward spiral

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It is clear that he is abusive. I took a 6 month class on domestic abuse prevention, and here is some interesting facts.
An abuser never stops being abusive...the behavior may subside for a while, but the mentality that makes him abusive is still there, and the abusive behavior will always return.

When you have children in the mix of an abusive relationship, you are doing more harm than good cause children do better with one decent parrent than living withan abuser. Remember, your daughter has no choice but to live with whoever you choose to live with or without.

Children who grow up with an abuser in the home have a 75 percent chance of continuing the cycle of abuse. Either they will marry or live with an abuser as an adult, or they will become one. Girls have a very high chance of continuously getting involved with abusers as an adult if they grew up with an abusers, however boys have a very high chance of becoming an abuser as an adult if they grew up with an abuser. This is called the cycle of abuse. Only you can stop this so your daughter will not endure your situation.

Everyone has to face consciquences of their actions, but when you prevent a person from experiencing the consiquences of their actions...it has a word...enabling. It is common for abusers to make the victims feel responcible for their behavior, but that is all an illusion. Everyone is reponcible for their own actions and should face the consciquenes therof, even if they have a disability. However, when you enable an abuser, you are preventing him from ever learning from his mistakes, thus allowing the behavior to escelate.
If it takes him being homeless for him to realize that being abusive is unnacceptable, then that is his consciquences for his actions. By preventing him from experiencing this consciquence you are fanning the flames of the situation
You are in no way responcible for him, but you do have a responcibility to your child. The statistics are staggering for children in abusive homes to continue the cycle of abuse, but the statistics also show that when a parrent removes the abuser from the home, then the statistics reverse themselves.

I am not going to tell you what you should do because you probably have enough people telling you what to do, but I will give you the facts and hope that you make the right descision based on those facts.

The fact that he is sucidal poses a risk to you and your daughter because alot of times an abuser is not content just to take out himself but also whom he is abusing as well.

some statistics show that as much as 1/3 of all abusive relationships end in the death of the victims.

As far as the autism goes, it is simply dont an exuse to enable this behavior....regardless of autism, he still has to face the consciquences of his actions or this situation will just escilate.

The pattern of abuse is often where it escilate to a flash point, then he will feel bad or something and the abusive behavior will go into a dormant phase for a short peroid of time, but then it will resume escilating again but the next time the flash point may be more severe...and this continues untill the the victim or the abuser is removed from the situation

95 percent of all rebabilitation for abusers fail to correct abusive behavior....so even if he did get help, the odds are against any likelyhood that the situation will ever get better.

With that, I hope that you can make an educated descision about what to do

(Gulp. Choke.)

What follows is off the main point of the thread (sorry, Argentina, especially as this is such a severe crisis you are dealing with), but I had to do a double-take at this point, because, literally for the first time in 40 years, something (i.e what Callista just wrote) has shed light on the single most damaging thing that has happened in my life.

(In view of how very many very damaging things have happened, in my 59 years, that is a bold claim to make! But I mean that the loss of my "special interest" made the difference between me being able to cope with life, after a fashion, and me not being able to cope at all, and having to essentially destroy my mind, and replace it by mere "acting", by "pretending to be normal". - No, I haven't read the book with that title, or indeed anything else much about AS, yet.)

I just said "special interest". Now, I'm pretty sure that I'm not exactly autistic, and I am not at all sure that I understand very well a lot of the terms used on this forum, of which "special interest" is one.

(I'm not depending just on WP, by the way. I have also started to read Tony Attwood's book The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome.)

Therefore, what follows may be a misuse of language, on my part; if so, please excuse my ignorance and presumption.

One part of what happened to me in 1971-2 (it was very complex indeed - as well as being almost too painful to think about - and I have never to this day been able to puzzle it out, but I sense there is an underlying simplicity) is that, when I left secondary school and went to Cambridge to study mathematics, I left a regimented atmosphere (which I didn't at all like, but to which I meekly acquiesced, for the most part - I'm cutting a long story short here!), and entered an atmosphere which allowed an unusual amount of freedom to its more talented students, of whom I was one.

I was obsessed with mathematics (I still am, in a way which is complicated to describe), but my obsession was erratic. I was perfectionist, my gropings towards perfection would fail, I would become drained, I would lose all interest, and all faith in myself, and I would sometimes not even try to really think for myself again for months (or perhaps only weeks - I forget, after all this time).

Interjection:

I have no idea if this is consistent with a typical Aspie pattern of "special interests". That is one good reason for describing it in detail - perhaps even more detail, but almost certainly not in this thread! (I fear I am a terrible thread derailer.)

When I went to university, no-one was telling me what to do. My exceptional talent (not genius, not savant ability, just talent) had the unfortunate effect that I could still get First Class examination results in the Mathematical Tripos even without accepting any teaching at all, but just casually reading textbooks when I felt like it - and felt up to it.

(Oddly, this tended to be only in the vacations, when I was at home with my family, where I was very miserable, and could think only of escape, including escape into work.)

So, the college let me go my own way, even though: (a) I was breaking the rules (you were supposed to attend "supervisions", even if you cut lectures, which were pretty much optional, in practice if not in theory); and (b) I was suicidal (but very quiet about it, although I did seek help for depression, and was doped up to the eyeballs with antidepressants and tranquillisers, by GPs and psychiatrists).

Before I go any further (I ramble a LOT!), I had better put this in the form of a question, to WP generally (and Callista in particular):

Is it possible for an Aspie - or an Aspie-like person (I seem, as far as I can tell, to be Aspie in every respect except for all sensorimotor[?] issues, of which I have essentially none) - to have a "special interest" which is intermittent, and which eventually (s)he becomes unable to pursue, specifically because of what you have described (above) as "executive-function issues", viz. an inability to initiate activities even in his/her own area of obsessive "special interest"?

It looks almost like a contradiction, and that may be part of why I have never been able to understand what happened to me at university. (It is only part. This may be a bit complicated, but believe me, I am simplifying!)

Love is greater than a person, and it is being invoked strongly when it is being tested. In order to help a person in a discordant rage, or depression, you must learn to empty your own heart, to approach them on a non-emotional level. Approach him out of pure concern for his well-being, and for your own. He is hurting, he does not know himself, he does not like himself, and he is lashing out. He probably sees the inevitable pattern of decline and feels he cannot stop it. The worst part about this is the emotional turmoil- he will lash out at you, through insults, bad behavior, etc. You must become impervious to this - not by becoming calloused and inaccessible, but by becoming like water, where such actions fall through you and settle without any effect. Release all emotional reactions/reflexes if you can. If you are capable of giving such an attention, it can help to pull him out of whatever he feels is so hopeless about himself. Don't walk on eggshells worrying about setting him off. Instead fill yourself with whatever love of life, confidence and concern you have. Then, it may gradually become a journey of self-discovery for two people. Storms beget more storms. Emotional tension only begets emotional turmoil. You must battle this monster of the psyche with calmness and compassion.

However, if it is all too overwhelming, and if you do not feel able or willing to do what is necessary to help him, then you must do what is best for yourself and your children. Weigh everything carefully.

Just doing a quick reality check.

About how much does he drink (assuming he isn't a crafty alcoholic, hiding his true consumption from you)? That is, about how many units of alcohol per week?

Is he a bully? That is, either physically or verbally?

Has he ever deliberately hurt your daughter?

When he attacks you, is it always because of a loss of a control, because (rightly or wrongly) he feels provoked, feels driven to it?

Does he seem to feel remorse after attacking you?

Does he seem to feel remorse over the situation generally?

Or does he seem to exult in having physical (or other) power over you and you daughter?

Does he seem to enjoy undermining either you or your daughter's sense of self-worth? Or your confidence in reality, and your connection with the wider social world?

Does he try to isolate you from human fellowship in any way?

When you try to communicate with him, do you ever get an uncanny and deeply disturbing feeling as if there is "no-one there"? An absence behind the eyes?

Does he seem to have an incorrigible conviction of his own rectitude?

Does he justify any of his angry or violent actions as a form of "punishment" of either you or your daughter?

Is he a misogynist?

Add so on.

I'm mainly trying to get a feel for whether he has what I would describe (from long and bitter experience!) as an "abusive" personality, or whether, on the other hand, he is out of control, and a risk to himself, to you, and to your child, in some quite different manner - because such differences are important, obviously, when it comes to knowing how to react. For instance, if he is truly abusive (rather than tormented and out of control, and liable to spasms of unpremeditated violence, which give him no satisfaction, or sense of moral rectitude), then the cautions in some earlier posts, to the effect that you can't reform him and he will go on being abusive no matter what you do, need to be taken very seriously. (Just my armchair opinion, based on my experience as a scarred veteran in life's domestic battles.)

[The WP website is malfunctioning so badly that I nearly lost this post altogether, and it took about half an hour to recover the nearly lost text, so I'd better post it just as it is, although it could do with some refinement.]

What you described is the job of a PAID therapist, not an untrained woman with a child at risk.

i say leave him...it's one thing to put holes in the wall....or yell and scream.

but to harm you- his wife, is completely out of order and you should leave him.

by continuing to allow him to behave in this way you are saying its ok.

also....an alcoholic can be violent whether normal or someone who has aspergers.

clearly it is the alcohol that is making him behave this way as you say when he doesn't drink he doesn't do these things.

so....give him an ultimatum.......he must prove that he is no longer going to drink or you're through.

also...since there is a child involved the situation is more urgent for you to leave.

MY ANSWERS ABOVE

ARGENTINA

Oh. Ok. I was just describing the methodology I have develop to deal with people in this state. I have no idea the context. It is just my experience.

Thank you, that's very clear.

(Not typographically, but otherwise! It would probably not have been practical in this case, where you have been asked such a long list of questions, but when replying to pieces of a quoted article, I copy and paste the [ quote = "Nickname" ] and [ / quote ] tags as often as needed.)

The "absence behind the eyes" look is very disturbing, but at least in this case it doesn't seem to indicate the relentless sadism which I have personally learned to associate with such a look. I've read somewhere around this forum that Aspies tend to have some characteristic odd look around the eyes. Could it be that, do you have any idea? Or it might be some personality disorder thing. Do you have your own feeling about what it means?

I've also read some of what you wrote in another thread in March.

There doesn't seem to be a lot of consensus, at least in these two threads, about what is going on, and what can or should be done about it. Have you formed any impression of such a consensus, more broadly, since you've been here?

Another question I forgot to ask (and which you may already have answered in some other thread over the past few months) is whether, particularly after his diagnosis with AS, he has communicated with other Aspies in any way (the most obvious possibility being via Wrong Planet).

I'm having a bad time with my daughter at the moment. (I'll have to see which forum might be best to post about that in, if there is any point. I'm still a bit too shaken to think clearly about it. Ironically, one of the things she does is drag up quarrels from years ago and rage at me about them, not letting me get a word in, or treating my careful answers with contempt, as if I had never explained anything, and going back to the same point and bringing it up bitterly again and again, which is somewhat reminiscent of some of the things your husband does!)

I have no friends, or other support, but the fact that this place exists, even in its cool and detached way, was a helpful presence in my mind when I was arguing with her (fruitlessly, it seems) in a series of e-mails. (She doesn't live with me any more.) I wonder if, even though your husband has no friends, he might be able to find some similar kind of mental presence to give him a little more hope. Better than alcohol, anyway.

(I wouldn't mind a drink now, come to think of it! But I don't have any alcohol in the house. I don't generally like the effects of that drug at all, but on two or three occasions in the past couple of years I have found it to be an effective emotional painkiller.)

Another question which you've probably already answered elsewhere: how old is your husband?

I know I've asked a lot of questions. Did the ones on page 1 of this thread (Mon 16 May 2011 2:14 pm) make sense, or was that article of mine too garbled? (Characteristic fault.)

Does he ever discuss rationally the same things that he rages about (especially when drunk)? Or do certain hot topics always make him rage?

Do the rages ever lead to any progress after he has calmed down, or do you find yourselves always going round in circles, with nothing having been learned?

Generally, how does he behave towards you when he is not raging? And how does he behave towards your daughter?

(Enough questions for one article, methinks!)

Whether he apologizes is irrelevant... in fact, I'd consider it a bad sign. It means he knows he did something to hurt you, but keeps on doing it anyway, and apologizes so that you will not retaliate.

Apologizing and then returning to the same behavior is a classic sign of a chronic abuser.

Hi Twirlip and thanks for your interest in my post. is good to get your feedback and that of everyone else.

Husband is mid 40's. 'absence behind the eyes' is without a doubt because he is off in his own world. when he is like this, it does not matter what I say, he is set in his way of thinking and no other explanation will be accepted. For instance, he believes i deliberately stand in his way when he is trying to do things. This is simply not true and I have tried to explain that we all live in the house and sometimes out paths do cross in the same doorway or hallway or something. I can repeat this information day after day, year after year, but as far as he is concerned I have a "condition" that makes me stand in his way. I even heard him tell his therapist that.

He has no interest in making friends, social networks, computers. his interests are cooking, movies, soccer and drinking. However, he has now been off the alcohol for 1 week.
he prefers repetitive, routine work and happy to do this for hours and hours. he takes care of the housework, washing etc as I work out of the home a lot. He does a good job of the housework, but motivation is difficulty. he keeps reverting his attention to the television.

There are certain topics that will make him rage irrespective of whether he has been drinking or not. Once he gets into these moods he can take days or even weeks to snap out of it. he will react to everything (noise, movement, questions from the family) in a very anxious state.

i no longer listen to his apologies. usually he demands that i apologise for complaining about something and he cites this as the reason for his abusive reaction. I know this is absolute rubbish and that he is responsible for his actions. in his moments of calm and rational thinking he understands this to. i think the next time he pushes me or threatens me in anyway I am going to have him arrested because clearly he aint listening to me. will see how things progress with him not drinking.

Thank you for your clear answers. It does sound rather hopeless, I must say. I wish I could think of something more positive to say! I think the only question I have left is: what does he want from you? And whatever it is, can his behaviour be influenced by the threat of him not having it any more? It almost sounds as if he would be happier living in some sort of institution, perhaps helping out with some routine tasks there, and being a part of things that way. But if he wouldn't be happy in such a situation (which sounds like a nightmare to me, but I'm different), and he is getting something on a personal level from being a "family man" .. well, what is it, and can he be presented with the alternative of either losing it, or else keeping it by behaving in a less threatening and dangerous manner? I expect you've been over this with him countless times, but it's all I can think of: understanding his needs, and giving him a choice, based on how you and your daughter are being affected by the reality of his behaviour, and never mind whether he is able or willing to recognise that reality, he just has to accept what you say about what you are not willing to put up with, even if he can't or won't understand it.

Sadly, this may end up as your only option. Just don't use a threat of arrest, or even an arrest itself, as a way to pressure or manipulate. If you involve the police, you should be prepared to take it all they way. They will want you to file charges and cooperate with prosecuting him. They won't appreciate you starting down that road then dropping all the charges.