Demands for Sex placed on me

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My husband was diagnosed with Aspergers 6 months ago. There is a history of verbal abuse towards me. For the past week 10 days he has been hassling me every couple of days to have sex with him (verbal harrassment).
Our relationship is in a very bad way at the moment. We are both suffering depression. I am overwhelmed by both his diagnosis and that of my son with ADHD. My husband is only now taking steps to learn about aspergers by reading a book. For 12 years we have been together my husband has not been motivated to learn, improve or set-up his environment to help himself or our family. He constantly complains and blames and remains dependent on me and our daughter for certain functioning issues.

I have explained to my husband that in order for me to want to have sex, the emotional stuff needs to be right. his ongoing verbal abuse has done nothing to help me in this regard. when he is calm and I explain this to him, he gets it. However, every couple of days he is tense and tells me it is because I refused him 5 times in the past. I am told:
"You need to do the right thing and fix this" and
"a man like me should not be turned down 5 times".

we have a heated discussion
I repeat the same things as before about emotional stuff and how I need him to address the issue of his verbal abuse so that it changes for the long term. And I need more time to get my head around everything.
he seems to get that for a while and then some hours or a day or two later the cycle starts all over again with him demanding I "do the right thing".

This "cycle" of him bringing up the same stuff over and over again has been going on for years.

In my opinion this is abusive behaviour to continually be harrassing for sex. But I also figure his Aspergers has him so absorbed in himself and what he wants.

I know this is irrelevant to what you are saying...but I clicked on this because sex was in the title with a capital S. Anyways, sorry to hear about all this. It sounds like there is no easy way of fixing this, and the only good way (over time) works if both parties are willing to work at it. My heart goes out to you.

Being unable to read people is a trait of aspies, being a selfish A-hole is not. You have every right to take care of yourself. I recommend books by John Gottman for you husband to read. I think they help explain how emotions work a little bit.

You deserve to be happy and healthy. Sex should be a display of affection, an embodiment of emotion, not a demand.

Hugs,

Amy

I second what traveller said. It's one thing to have trouble with non-verbal communication, it's another thing entirely to be an abusive douchebag. If your husband doesn't want to realize that he's wrong and try to improve his behavior, I would recommend that you divorce him. It's not healthy to be in a relationship with someone who doesn't care about your needs.
It's one thing to not be able to read your unspoken feelings, it's another to not even care about how you feel. Caring about eachother is a key part of any positive relationship. If that piece is missing, the relationship is on the negative end of the spectrum.
Tell him straight up, that if he doesn't stop acting like a douchebag, there is no incentive for you to want to have sex with him, and he can't expect you to want to be with him if he doesn't treat you with respect.
If he doesn't want to try to adjust to that, you're frankly better off without him.

That's not really the behavior one would expect from regular Aspies. I think he's both Aspie and has other ongoing issues over and above the AS. I think he could do with some counseling, though I imagine he's the type that might refuse to go.

On the other hand, I understand how a man would feel being rejected sexually by his wife. Even if he caused the problem with his harassment in the first place. Of course he's hurt, frustrated, and feels it's unfair.

But what can you do? You can't pity-fuck your own husband, that's incredibly lame.

I think the tensions are at their maximum and something's got to give. Either it will be your marriage that gives first, or it will be one or both of you who concede to start changing things instead of each making opposite demands. Maybe you could each give a little, for your mutual benefit. But you may already be so angry with him that you can't.

Think like a problem-solver, not like a judge. When s**t is falling apart, knowing whose fault it is isn't all that useful. Could you negotiate something with him? Is he even aware of how verbally abusive he gets sometimes? Does he remember it when he's calm? Would he respond to you rewarding him for good behavior and ignoring him when he acts badly?

I think your family could use some counseling. I wish you the best luck in figuring it out.

I hesitate to offer advice without knowing both sides of the story. My wife and I had a similar experiance to yours. I am the autistic and she is the normal person. Ther first 6 years of our marriage were good but it was because she rationalized some of my behaviours would dissapear once the right medication appeared. Once I was diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome she shut down, in her own words she stopped loving me. It was just to much, having that hope for normalcy taken away. That is actually part of the story that ended up with me in Second Life trying to find relationships that would be safe and help me to not feel alone. I didn't confront her about how she was making me feel just because I didn't want her to leave me... and I thought just being ignored was better then risking that. So I lived in my own little world. I tried to bring her into that world to. Just to make a long story short, we learned to communicate again, and we fell in love again.. our marriage is the best it has ever been and it keeps improving.

In your case, honestly you seem judgemental. You are applying your reasoning to his actions. There is a disconnect between you two but he is telling you his needs. My problem with this is he seems to be only able to tell you his physical needs. Is what he really wants sex or is sex the only form of affection he is comfortable asking for. If I could make a suggestion, and you can take it or leave it... Next time he approaches you for sex, redirect him. "I'm not interested in sex right now, but I would like to be close to you. Maybe we can sit together and watch a movie and just cuddle." I am not making excuses for him, and he needs to make just as much an effort to see your point of view.

The simple fact of the matter is that you may indeed have him dependent on you for some things for the rest of your life. I have a horrible memory, I get sidetracked easily. My wife puts my patch on me each morning because I will forget until to late in the day and I get nothing accomplished when i am not on medication. It makes her and my life easier to do that little thing for me, which enables me to take care of more for her during the day because my mind is clear. You have to be ok with that. You are his partner and he is depending on you to help him cover the things he misses.

I used to be passive aggressive towards my wife. When she pulled back and stopped being affectionate with me after my diagnosis, and no I don't mean sex... I mean she didn't want to even be near me.. I stopped trying around the house. She was hurting me, so I stopped helping her. I didn't want to be her live in butler I wanted to be her husband. That was the wrong thing to do, instead I should have been talking.. pushing for change... but at the time I was not capable of that. He might be doing something similar..

I really can't offer much more advice then what I have listed. I would say both parties have some changing and some accepting to do. You should both be in marriage counseling with someone you both trust.. I suggest a mental health professional NOT a spiritual leader. You need someone who understands autism / aspergers and most spiritual leaders are not in that category, its just not their training.

In closing I hope this helped you, but if past experience is any indicator your first response is going to be anger at me pointing out what you are doing wrong before you notice any of the advice which will leave you to angry to actually absorb anything I said. If you take nothing else from this.... When he asks for sex, redirect him to another form of affection and closeness with you. Just cuddle and watch tv, just hold him and tell him you love him but that you just don't want sex until your ready. You have to give him some form of affection or he just won't try. Your asking him to give you positive change while offering negative re enforcement.

He has other issues: depression, OCD, anxiety. we have had years of counselling and only now has aspergers been diagnosed and confirmed by autism association. medication needs adjustment (waiting for psych appointment in october).
Regardless, he does need to acknowledge my feelings/needs in all of this or nothing is going to change. we have been through this type of scenario before and i end up giving in and putting aside my hurt feelings to try and make things right between us. i don't want to do that anymore

Guys do love sex. If he doesn't love you more than sex however, you might need a new husband.

You have my sympathy. I'm sorry I can't really think of any constructive advice but I'd just like to say I think you are in the right here.

You ALWAYS have the right to say no, and he shouldn't be verbally disrespecting you all the time.

What emotional needs are you talking about?? Like not being verbally abusive? or something else as well.?

I will admit that it is very hard to want to have sex with someone who talks bad to you...in some ways, at some level, it feels like prostitution.
However as far as his cycles go, thats not going to change without some serious intervention. That is the cycle of abuse. It kinda spirals like that where at first it seems like he is just pissy, then you confront him or there is some flashpoint, and he goes back to being nice again, but then after awhile the old behaviors resurface however over time there is a degree of escelation within each cycle. This is not a behavior problem that causes this. It is a character problem. It is just part of his personality which is not going to change. It may change for a little while with much effort from him, but it is just not who he is so, he cant keep it up and reverts back to his old self.

This is different than being mad about conflict in the relationship like the other poster said. This is a pattern of behavior that you said has gone on for years which is the same partern of abusive relationships. In fact, battered women, get the most flowers from her husband in the hospital than other patients. Verbal abusive behavior is not on the criteria for autism...each aspie is different, some of us are very courtous of others and try to understand where others are coming from, even though we fail from time to time, but other aspies can be total jerks. They say often on here, once you have met an aspie, you only met 1 aspie.

Honestly, I was raised in an abusive home where my mother was emotionally and verbally abused daily by my father. I was much happier after they seperated. Unfortunatly I learned through example that such behavior was to be expected and in my own relationships continued the cycle of abuse by getting involved with abusers. 75 percent of girls raised in an abusive homes, go on to marry or date abusive partners, 80 percent of boys raised in abusive homes, go on to be abusers themselves. The cycle of abuse has to stop.

In conclusion, this is not a relationship, this is an abusive marriage.

Jojo

I have a very similar situation. The responses have been interesting. My DH and I are seeing a marital therapist - one who has a lot of experience with AS and autism. It's hard to say yet if she's having any effect.

Holy rush to judgement peoples.. This thread illustrates why I will NEVER share information like this on a public forum. Too many that know exactly what's going on and just love to make rush judgements.