Hanging with his friends family

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Be nice! I'm new to this forum discussion stuff. I'm the NS partner who just figured out my husband has Asperger's this past year. Been together about 10 years married 5. Been struggling for awhile and still struggling to figure things out. Can anyone relate or tell me why when we hang with his friends family that he will talk and participate in conversations until I join in? Could be the 3 of us talking and when I join in he usually seems to lose interest and the other person will reciprocate but he usually ends up losing interest or only joins in to be rude if he's feeling stressed I figured out I become his outlet to get it out in social situations ??? I have started avoiding these situations because I'm tired of it.

Welcome to WrongPlanet! That's a tough question. I suspect his withdrawing from the conversation when you join in is due to an issue other than his autism. My own experience and the experiences I've heard from other autistics is that it's easier to enter into social situations, including conversations, if a friend or spouse is also involved. It's mind-bogglingly hard for me to walk up to a group of strangers and enter into their conversation cold. When I was married it was so much easier - my wife could start interacting with a group and that would make it much easier for me to find a way to join in too. And going to dinners or other social functions (even quite challenging ones) is so much easier if I have at least one person I'm familiar with with me. Some schools have sort of a buddy system where an autistic will be paired with a neurologically normal child to help the autistic's social interactions. I can only speculate - maybe your husband gets quiet or upset or withdraws because he feels he's being talked over or contradicted or somehow diminished? For myself, I don't really 'have a chip on my shoulder', but my feelings can get hurt by subtle judgments or when I get made fun of because I grew up with bullying and painful ostracism. Even though I know those around me aren't bullying or shunning or making fun of me, my feelings are still sensitive around those sorts of issues. I thought I'd just put forward some ideas...

Do you understand everything they say clearly? Perhaps they want to discuss things on a grad-student level, and you want to contribute high school insight.
My wife was probably quite offended one night when I peeled her arms from around my neck and walked away. We had gone to the park to watch fireworks, and I saw some people I went to meetings with. She started talking steadily, pushing a lot of bias she knew I would not comment on, while hugging me from behind so she was talking right in my ear. She didn't even shut up when the show started, so I moved about 3m away.