Asperger's spouse

Parent Cafe
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I agree that females are different and that each marriage is unique. Also, the ASD-ASD marriages do very well typically. You are ASD-ADD so there is still more of a balance, I am guessing, that a NT-ASD relationship does not have.

I appreciate the responses. I was asked if I have tools to work within this situation. I have only understood since July of this year. So after 37 year of not understanding and, honestly, suffering emotionally and just assuming that something was wrong with me I am finally able to move beyond those feelings. ASH is trying since the diagnosis. There are huge limitations that are real. He does not read my or others emotions and so cannot respond to something he does not see. If he is told directly he is good at giving a cognitive empathic response.

The diagnosis has definitely helped. I am finding and involving myself in many more NT relationships in order to get my needs met.

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Autism is prevalent in my husband’s family and there are strong signs of it in many family members, including him , and some of our kids. Some have had comorbid conditions with it, including seizures and other issues. It has been a theme that has run through the family tree

One cousin who is very intellectually well endowed would have been diagnosed with Asperger’s, had he been born a decade or two later. Now it’s all called Autism, and without a childhood diagnosis, it’s difficult to get the services he has needed. He spent a good part of his life after being a precocious child, swinging back and forth between mental illness diagnoses. He hits the marks exactly right for Autism, and Ive been trying to get him to read up on the condition, join something on line groups that may help him understand how he thinks. He’s color blind as well, and I’ve tried to explain how Autism often affects his ability to read into nuances that social situations often have. That he is neurodivergent and how he can learn to better deal with the world, even as we who care about him have always tried to accommodate and even celebrate his different ways of viewing things.

I don’t think it’s so much lack of compassion in Autism that is present , as a different way of processing and expressing it. This has gotten said cousin into a whole lot of trouble.

I have two who hover around the spectrum, dropping in at times, and spent a lot of their lives , patterning them in appropriate responses so that they could deal with the world a bit more easily. As a mom, and being who Inam, I rather enjoyed their quirkiness. I have many friends who are very different in the way they look at the world and react. But I also could see that those who are not able to perceive things as most of us do, could run into serious trouble.

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Given the high heritability of ASD, marriages between two ASD spouses are very likely to result in kids having ASD.

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Often an ASD looks for a person who has keen empathy. They often look for a spouse who can lead them and offers them a “normal” life with kids and sex and a social life. A few years in it becomes apparent that the NT spouse is no longer having his/her needs met and the differences in executive functioning is a serious issue.
A common situation is that the NT plans all holidays and travel. The ASD is a passive companion (or a complaining one).
This all seizes to work when the NT wants a more serious emotional connection.
There is a huge cluster of common issues between an NT and ASD union.
There are forums for those of us that live with this reality.

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My brother has Asperger’s, but was not diagnosed until his son was diagnosed with autism. He and his wife, who has severe social anxiety, somehow make their marriage work. I don’t know if they are happy, but they have stayed married for 31 years.

They do not socialize together at all. When my brother has a work function, he goes alone. He is very attractive and sometimes has women hitting on him, but he is so blunt and abrasive that they have not been a threat to his marriage. I guess this is one of the positives about being on the spectrum.

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@oregon101 I had a 25 year marriage to a man with Aspergers (and my son also has it I believe). I once read that having a spouse with ASD makes you a “rose trying to bloom in the desert.”

Neuro tests showed my spouse had no real empathy, though, as you wrote, he could mimic it. He admitted to “masking,” pretending to be someone he wasn’t in order to get me to marry him.

It’s hard on the kids and I know I had to compensate for the emotional absence of the other parent. Thank heavens, they are doing fine.

Such a marriage is potentially chronically traumatic. From an article: " We are isolated, no one validates us, we lose friends and family, and we feel like ‘hostages’ in our own homes." It may be hard for others not in this situation to understand, but I do.

You sound courageous and have articulated a lot of really helpful points.

Please feel free to PM me because I don’t want to write more in public :slight_smile:

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“rose trying to bloom in the desert.” Is just such a beautiful way to describe the life a nuerotypical lives with a person on the ASD continuum. That you for posting. And most will not admit that they live with a person who shows no empathy. I have been in this marriage for 37 years and only last July came to understand what is the real issues. Loads of passive aggressive remarks and poor gifts and dependency and so much more. Thanks of your post!

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This is a very enlightening thread. I’ve suspected for awhile that my husband has Aspergers, and we know for sure one of my sons and my brother have it. It was only recently that I started thinking my father had it as well. It’s a common phenomenon for people to choose spouses like our opposite sex parent, and I do think this is what I did.

The concept of masking, and then being unable to sustain it, is fascinating because in fact my husband did literally fall apart exactly two years into the marriage. He had presented a particular way to me, as someone very empathic, involved in several meaningful social activities. I found out later he’d gone through depression and some therapy and when I met him he was, in his words, “functioning the highest I have ever functioned.” When we got engaged he ceased the other social activities, and after we got married he literally stopped working or otherwise functioning. I was appalled to realize that what had looked like empathy was actually a form of mimicking those around him. He is a skilled mimic.

He did start working again after I threatened divorce and demanded couples therapy, and he has been steadily employed. I stayed with him for religious reasons, though in retrospect I would do it differently. I am very alone at home. I do have a strong friend/church support network. If something important happens to me, he’s about the 5th or 6th person I think of to tell.

“A rose trying to bloom in the desert” is exactly how I feel.

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@oregon101 I’m in this situation too. It was interesting to see you call out the dependency aspect… That is something that I rarely see commented on but something that I’m definitely dealing with amongst all the various other issues you raised. It is exhausting.

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Learning about ASD takes time–lots of reading and watching interactions. There are so many feelings for the NT to cycle through. Disappointment, anger, loneliness to name a few. It is devastating when the truth sinks in, that they cannot change as it is neurological. One thing that each of us has to figure out, if we are to continue living with them, is how to get our needs met in places other than the marriage.

My ASH was extremely dependent on me. He would wait for me to organize the day. I would make all kinds of suggestions for him. It was annoying to say the least. I basically just stopped and went about my business and often left the house alone. He did find new activities and people to spend time with and we are both happier. Took some time but so glad I laid a boundary and glad that he was able to change.

Learning how to interact and set limits is tiring and we all have set backs when we lose it due to the stress of living a emotionally non intimate life.

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I so agree with the above. I kind of live an independent life while married. He has one friend he regularly goes to the movies with on weekends, and he watches a lot of TV. We do have one regular sport-type activity we do together once/week. It gets us out of the house together and gives us couples friends. When I want him to do things around the house, I make a list. He doesn’t initiate much but does check things off lists. I’m not happy in the marriage but I’m finding workarounds, as I really don’t want to start over in my 60s. Financially it would be a huge hit. It also would feel morally wrong (for me, not judging anyone else) in the absence of abuse or other extenuating circumstances.

We don’t fight anymore, now that I’ve accepted his limitations. I just don’t expect much of anything. We are cordial. More like friends. Friends who don’t talk a lot but who are on a team. I do feel he would have my back if I needed anything from him in terms of physical help or even emotional support if I could explain clearly to him what I need. It’s not completely empty.

It does help to realize he’s doing the best he can and he loves me as much as he can.

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I can’t even imagine living in the kinds of marriages that are being described, particularly if doing so makes one feel unhappy, alone, or empty somehow.

But I do understand that in many cases, splitting up would just cause a whole different set of problems that could lead to unhappiness or emptiness.

Life often doesn’t work out the way we imagined it would when we were young and idealistic.

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Like many, I came to appreciate my H’s Aspie-ness after our son was dx’ed.

When we dated I had to convince H to take off every other weekend for, you know, fun. As the child of immigrants who came to the US penniless, he was programmed for an intensity of effort and drive for success that I’d never encountered before. I got him into fitness and he ran his first marathon with me. He now runs 3-4 marathons annually.

Whatever he puts his mind to do, he does with zealotry.

In the early days of our marriage I found that I needed to coach him on professionalism basics. Don’t put angry stuff in emails. Chains of command exist for a reason. Give people a heads up, don’t blindside. I chalked up his “offness” at office politics to being first generation.

Anyway, we both worked hard and had a great life. We traveled, we exercised, we went to cultural events, we bought an apartment in a school zone researched with military precision.

When we welcomed S1, life got very different and a different H emerged. S2 came along 18 months later.

Had we two neurotypical kids, I think we would have all suffered through the disruptiveness of baby/toddler years then settled into a school-aged kids routine. Maybe not, but I think so. There are a lot of supports where we live for two working parents, expensive but doable on two good incomes. For ten years and two months we tried to make it all work. Nannies, housekeepers, after school programs, mommy helpers, therapists.

S1 is (very much) not neurotypical. I’ve posted a lot here about him (he is now 11). Kicked out of four different schools by age 10 and profoundly gifted (Davidson). Years 2ish to 9ish were hell. I mean pure, laboratory-grade existential parenting hell.

The emotional stress was WAY too much for H. We picked things to focus our battles on, but really the entire situation was utterly unsustainable for him.

At first I was mad. I thought he was being selfish for putting his career over helping our kid. But perhaps like other posters I came to appreciate that H simply could not function outside of a certain zone of managed control. And an explosive Aspie young child is normalcy antimatter.

Those 10 years were like waves pounding surf, knocking you down over and over, your mouth full of sand and your eyes stinging with salt. But I kept getting back up, thinking this time…

Until I quit.

First I planned to go part time and got comfortable with that. Then I decided just to fully quit. It was like a switch, the change. I took all of my project management skills (I managed projects for scientists, and am trained as one) and applied them to managing our life. H was cut loose from any parenting duties. We call it carte blanche. He has unlimited work travel (where once I insisted on some limits) which for a tenured full professor in medicine means A LOT of travel, probably 1-2 weeks per month. Unlimited office hours. Unlimited weekend working. No household chores, no checking in, no ETA. Nada. He comes home mostly after 9pm, after working and a run.

Free from “forced” parenting and rigid schedules (be home by X, don’t travel more than Y) THE KIDS SEE A HAPPIER FATHER. Isn’t that better than parents screaming at each other every night? We just came back from weeklong holiday someplace sunny and fun and apart from the final day when his nerves were a fried from being around tween boys 24/7, it was a delight.

(I am also finding with S1 that you cannot lead the horse to drink. For the aficionados ABA is disastrous but CBT works. S1 has to decide he wants to improve some skill then he puts his all into it. If he does not agree that something is a good idea, external rewards are meaningless. No effect. S1 is gonna S1. This is why schooling can be so disastrous. I maintain that the most important thing he has in his life is his passion. So my job is to first and foremost protect that passion. And next to help him see what steps he needs to take and what skills he needs to acquire to fully realize his passion. Especially them pesky social skills.)

I realize the longer I stay out of the workforce the harder it will be to reenter. I am aware that I’m not contributing to my 401k. I know that if H ever left me, I’d have a hard time. But it was too awful. Yes I’m under-challenged. I have to figure out how to create a satisfying life for myself. I feel like I’m wasting my doctorate. We will never be the couple we were before. But I cannot see how it would work otherwise, in the here and now, with this H and this S1.

I was in therapy for a year and I came out deciding the glass is completely full of air and water.

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Asp, you are so smart, educated and clever that when it is your turn again you will thrive. What you have done with your ASH and kid is amazing. You have figured out what makes your H work and your marriage work.

Most of us feel emotionally lonely. It is not even so much the physical house or kid workload as it is the lack of our significant other realizing who we are as a person.

In my case, as long as I am neutral and even keeled then ASH is happy and believes I am also. It would never occur to him to ask me how I am doing. And if I mention anything at all that is not positive then suddenly I am the most negative person he has ever met. and so it goes.

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This has been a very educational thread for me. Thank you for bringing it up. I have so many things to look up. Very enlightening.

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So is there a checklist on “symptoms” for self diagnosis. I see so many similarities to Adhd like the hyperfocus, high intelligence, movement patterns. Even decreased empathy to some extent. Decreased executive functioning. I guess there is lots of cross over. I find this very interesting. How does one get a diagnosis with so much overlap?

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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2695286/

I found this and it’s giving me an increased understanding of this condition.

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@Knowsstuff ASD and ADHD often co-occur. Pure ADHD does not have social impairments. In the lingo of the SN world, pure ADHD people are “socially typical.”

@oregon101 :heart:

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@Aspieration. What is “Sn world”.

Just saw a you tube channel called “apergers from the inside” and the video was "help, I love an Aspie " or something like that. It is a 30 y/o make diagnosed and his understanding and comments about certain things. Very interesting…

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My MIL is a classic, undx’ed aspie. This thread has had me nodding along in understanding.

I truly cannot imagine what it would be like to be married to one and I’m grateful that I can put up physical and emotional boundaries because she is exhausting and regularly makes my high anxiety SIL cry.

Her marriage is a disaster but they’ll never divorce. Her kids lack a lot of basic social skills that they’ve picked up to varying degrees since living apart from her.

I’d say Mr R and his brothers are more or less neurotypical but never learned basic skills like adaptation and Improvisation. Luckily Mr R has learned very well, his oldest brother semi well, but the middle brother hasn’t learned at all and falls back to MIL’s rigid, unspoken rules and it’s a strain on his marriage.