I am new and desperate. Sorry for long post.

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I am sorry if this is not the right topic to post this in. If it is not then please point me in the right direction. I am very new to the forum thing. Forgive me too for such a long post.


Hello All!

I am 33yrs old, have 3 children and I am married to a man with Aspergers. Due to him being in the military it has been unofficially diagnosed. He feels he has Aspergers and our marriage therapists and his personal therapists support this. Although he believes he has it he does nothing to overcome any difficulties that arise in our marriage. I have researched everything and everywhere I can to try and understand and support this man. I have given so much of myself that I do not know who I am anymore. I have been with him since I was 16 and he was 21. I always knew that there were some "oddities" in him and some traits that I did not understand. After we got married I feel as though he became a different person. He is very uncaring, very obsessive with what I call the "flavor of the month", very self centered, stubborn, and just blind to anything or anyone that doesn't revolve around him. I have tried to give him his solitary time. I have tried to understand the obsessive drive he gets into. I support what his passions might be. I have even tried to take on his obsessions just so he would pay attention to me. I am just so lost right now and do not know where to turn. I do not know if this is the right place or not, so forgive me if its not as I am very new to the forum thing. In my 17yrs with this man he has lied over and over again, he manipulates everything to get what he wants and he will tell himself whatever he needs to too make it ok to do hurtful things. He spent 2yrs convincing me that i was delusional and hallucinating and needed meds so he would not have to admit that he was addicted to child porn and masturbating. I have suffered untold amounts of emotional, mental and verbal abuse from him. It hasn't been til the last year that he has started to admit that he did do these things but that it was ok because he just couldnt admit there was something "wrong" with him. I love this man very much, unfortunately I am not in love with him or should I say I am afraid to be in love with him. He promises so many things, so many times that he will put forth the effort to try to better meet my needs and then he never does anything. I can not rely on him I do not trust him and I am so very angry with him. Even through all of this though I want our marriage to work. I want to understand him. I try so hard but he tries so very little and when I get hurt by that he gets very angry with me and very frustrated. I tell him in very basic non-general terms what I need emotionally and what I expect in a marriage in a partnership. I have tried several different communications with him from writing to emailing to chat to talking to even drawing pictures. What am I doing wrong? Is there any hope? I do not want this man to change as we are all different people and all have different cores but I would like for this man to meet me halfway. I try to meet his needs because I love him and thats all I want from him. He says he loves me, he says he never wants to lose me, yet he will not take the effort and do the hard work to make our marriage livable. My children suffer because they do not understand why he will not play with them or spend time with them. If they want attention they must partake in his interests. My 12yr old daughter has no respect for him because he never keeps his word and as she says "he doesn't care for us or you and he mistreats you badly" I try very hard to explain things to him in ways he will understand. I try to let him see that there are reactions to his actions. He just doesn't get it. Due to all of this and so many other issues we have gone through I am in a very dark place right now and just wish that I could go to sleep and never wake up. He is currently in another country, our son has severe double pneumonia from the flu and will be hospitalized tomorrow, I am past the mental breakdown point and I have begged and cried for him to return home. He told me he has a responsibility to his work ethic and his job and himself and will not come home. Yes he is in the military but he could come home. He chooses not to. He doesn't understand why this has hurt me so bad. He doesn't understand that I feel like he has once again chosen something other than his family that needs him. He is very upset with me for even asking for assistance and being upset that he wont be here for us. I am sorry this is so very long. I am just at rock bottom. I have given up. I do not know where to go or where to turn to.I do not know if I should just give up on him and move on or keep trying. I do not even know if he truly has aspergers, he fits all the traits, or if he uses it as an excuse to be abusive. Is what I am experiencing with him anywhere near normal for an AS to NT marriage? Please someone just help to enlighten me.

Welcome to WP!

What you describe is not a necessary consequence of Asperger's but I remember posts from at least three women with experiences very similar to yours. I think some were in the Love and Dating forum, some in the In-Depth Adult Life forum (http://www.wrongplanet.net/forum32.html). The latter has a thread on married life. It's third from the top, a sticky (a thread that doesn't move down the list if no one posts for a while). It has hundreds of posts, so you can see what is common with an aspie partner. You could copy your post into that thread or ask people there to look at what you wrote here.

I hope you will find some help.

Sounds kinda like NPD to me, but I'm not an expert.

Regardless of Dx, you need a lawyer, and soon. It sounds unlikely he will ever change positively.

Best wishes.

I'm very sorry that you're having such a tough time. It's hard to tell whether he has AS or not, but my gut feeling is that he is not going to change, at least not much.

Welcome to WP! I hope you can find some good answers here.

Two things that don't fit aspergers is the easy with which he lies, aspies just plain don't lie often or well, aspies are much more likely to be brutally honest. The other thing is his being the center of attention, that's way too much social effort for an aspie. I agree with CTBill he sounds more narcissistic than aspie, God help you if he really is, you'd be better off living with a vampire.

Welcome, InvisibleMe, to the Wrong Planet community.

I tend to go off on long winded, disjointed tirades... I will try not to. I know that I make my husband insane with some of my 'aspie ways'... He bends and gives and I frustrate him deeply. It has been problematic... to say the least. But I know I am a pain, and while I am not great with change, I am more than willing to do all I can to make things work... It has to go both ways in order for a relationship to work. But in all honesty, I feel as though I should not even be discussing things along this line of thought. Your post worries me.

You mentioned that he spent months trying to make you out to be crazy while he was addicted to child porn? Run. Run now and run fast and run far. I would like to offer some words of encouragement that things can and will get better, but you are doing more than your fair share to make things work and he is just being an ass. Maybe he has AS, maybe he does not... What he does have is a blatant disregard for you and your children. Take some time to realistically evaluate your situation. Ask yourself things like, if you do not want to change him, can you live your life and stay sane with him being who and what he is? Or, how is his behavior going to impact your kids in the long run? Do you want to be married to a guy who has been addicted to child porn? I find that especially terrifying as you have children... that alone would make me get gone... Do you want to be with someone who thinks it is ok to abuse you (trying to make you think you are crazy is mental abuse... which is abuse)... What qualities does this man have that it is worth it to keep trying to keep getting no positive results? I cannot think of a single thing that would make any of those things tolerable. Your child is mentioning how poorly he treats you... Do you want your kids to end up in a relationship like the one you are in? By staying, you are saying this is acceptable... you are setting a standard for what a relationship ought to be. Run.

You seem to be a very thoughtful, giving, understanding and beyond patient person. You researched, gave of yourself, tried different techniques... you came here looking for advice... These are wonderful qualities for a person to have. More relationships would work if more people were like you. You deserve someone who also has these kinds of qualities. You deserve to be treated as well as you treat him. Go find yourself someone better. It should not be hard to do. There are tons of people out there going crazy trying to find someone like you.

I'm not you. I am not in your situation. I have not lived your life. I have, however, been married to a flaming ass monkey and leaving him was the best thing I ever did. It was not easy. It was the hardest thing I have ever done. It was also the best decision I have ever made.

Whatever you opt to do, I wish you well.