Is THIS Denial ?

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Denial? Or just confusion? Because I'd bet that both of them are probably pretty darn confused right now, and not sure what to think.

From someone who learned about being autistic at age 19: Yes, there's the tendency when you find out to say,"Wow! All this wasn't my fault! I don't have to pretend anymore! I can be myself!" And then you just kind of let go of the masquerade; and it's such a relief. Sometimes you deliberately let yourself do things that are stereotypically autistic, things you'd never have dreamed of doing before--maybe you rock in public, or you give in to the impulse to regale the store clerk with your latest discovery about feline behavior, or you get a buzz cut so you don't have to worry about your hair brushing against your neck. I've done all those things. It's almost symbolic, a way of saying, "Yeah, this is me; and the rest of the world can just go take a hike if they don't like it."

So if your husband is going through all that, he's probably pretty scared that somebody is going to take that new, wonderful revelation away from him; that somebody's going to force him back into the NT mold, the burnout, the fear, the constant pretending. Tell him straight out: No, you don't want to turn him into somebody he is not. You love him the way he is--including his autism and everything else about him. You want to communicate with HIM--the autistic man you know and love, not the pretend NT man that the prejudiced world thinks he ought to be. And that means he gets to communicate in his own way, the way he understands, and to teach you to understand him; and you get to communicate your way, and teach him to understand you. Because you love each other, both of you care what the other is feeling and thinking, and getting those messages from one person to another is important to both of you. It doesn't matter if you do it the same way other couples do it. You just have to make your own path, find what works for you. People aren't robots all programmed to be the same way, and relationships between people reflect that diversity. Just like there's no shame in being different, there's no shame in having a relationship that's different. There are plenty of ways to be a loving couple; you two just have to find something that works for you and tweak it as necessary.

I think what he needs right now is time. There is a sorting process he will need to go through to figure a lot of different things out during this time to try and understand who he is and what he needs to function properly in the world. I just started suspecting myself of being somewhere on the mild end of the spectrum a few months ago and it has been a difficult time for me. Unlike your husband, I have never had a romantic relationship with a woman and have always wondered why. Asperger's seems to give me a plausible explanation for that and many other things. During this time I have read all I can about it. For a while I acted more autistic to see if that was a fit (some of it may have been psychosomatic). I even tried rocking to see if that worked for me (to my knowledge, this was not a stim I used previously). I'm now in the process of putting all of the pieces together to see where I need to go from here. In the end, it won't change who I am, nor will it change the knowledge I have gained over my lifetime about how to deal with other people. Those things are a part of me now. However, it will help me understand my needs better and give me a roadmap for understanding what I need to work on and how to go about it. I suspect he will go through a similar period, just like most of us who discover this part of ourselves later in life.

As for advice, I would just give him some space and don't stop loving him! In the first few months his mind will be obsessing over Asperger's and Autism, so expect him to constantly reference it in conversations. This is entirely normal for someone on the spectrum as most of us have made it our "special interest" for a time after discovering it. It should wane after a time, once he has sorted it a bit. In the meantime though, he will probably want to use you as a sounding board for his problems and what he has learned about autism. I did this to anyone who would listen both to get it out and to get feedback about how I appear to others to see if my suspicions had merit. I would also suggest spending some time researching it yourself so that you have constructive things to add to the conversation. I'd also say that Asperger's is no excuse to treat others poorly and it does not give him license to be abusive in any way. That being said, many times what is seen by a neurotypical as abusive (verbally) is not always intended as such. So, if something he says is hurtful to you or someone else, explain that it is and WHY it is. Knowing why is more likely to get the desired result of changing the behavior in the future as it is something he can process logically.

Although I have not read the book, I have heard good reviews about a book called "Loving Mr Spock" (self explanatory)

You ain't going to ask a blind person to see now, are ya?

You can adapt a little, with a cane or a guide dog, but you'll still be blind.

Autism is a "physical" condition of the brain that doesn't change.

Think about that.

Is he interested in coming to WP? With that new diagnosis, he's got to have a lot of questions, and real-life autistics are usually years ahead of the published literature.