I'm worried about becoming a terrible husband/father

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I've basically sworn to never get married or have kids, because I'm seriously worried that I'll become the type of husband and father that beats his wife, yells at his kids, and generally makes people's lives a living hell. People often say that I'm a really nice person, and I'm known for being generous, but I also have a dark side, and I've noticed that whenever I get frustrated with someone or something, which can easily happen, my mean streak tends to show. I've yelled at a lot of people, broken random things, and when I was younger and more foolish, I've even gotten into a few fights. I have an anger problem, and I would rather not make it a burden for a wife/girlfriend or any children.

Does anyone else feel like this?

And just to clarify, I'm not in a relationship of any sort right now, nor do I have kids. I want to keep it that way.

I know how you feel.

You should realize that it's neither common or easy to actually beat a family member when it comes down to it. Imagine some random person in the street - could you impulsively go up and beat them? It takes both a certain type of character (which I doubt you have, as conscientious as you seem) and a LOT of effort. That and you're not inherently evil just for being a man, and thus you're not going to be some kind of monster just because you get married and have kids (that's ridiculous btw). As far as I can tell you haven't beaten any of your family members so you're looking okay. A few fights as a kid is not that significant.

Basically though you do need to work on it. If anything just for the selfish reasons -
your self esteem has been badly hurt by this. Admitting you have an anger management problem is the first step, it's empowering to be able to admit it to yourself and others and works wonders (do it often). There's also help for anger management, such as therapy.

I'm female, and I know exactly how you feel. Just ask my ex or my cats how cruel I can be when I get upset (haven't done it in a few years though, so maybe I'm getting better).

Were you bullied a lot when you were child?

I don't think you would beat your wife.


My brother and I are both aspies, we would both fantasize about smashing up the house and enacting revenge on the family when we got upset but we never acted on it.

We're nice people, so the thought of doing these things is upsetting to us. I think the reason we got them in the first place was due to a breakdown of communication. Improve your communication skills and you'll be able to let out your feelings in a healthy way before they build up and become toxic. This is what NTs do naturally.

The thing is, I've noticed that when I tell most people about my feelings, either they just brush it off and ignore me, or occasionally, they massively overreact. I was more blunt and honest when I was younger, so more people overreacted to the things I said, but after going through that a bunch of times, I developed a problem with bottling up my emotions and not letting things out in a healthy manner, so whenever I do tell people about my feelings, I often don't tell the whole story, as I don't want to get people overly worried or scared.

The anger you describe sounds more like explosive frustration as opposed to innate cruelty. I do not think you are going to have as much of a problem as you anticipate. If you are a Christian, you can PM me and I could offer advice from that framework.

If you are not a Christian you might want to try lowering your expectations to reduce the instances when you get frustrated. You can also add delay techniques such as taking a few minutes before responding to process a response to allow for the "edge" to be taken off surprises.

You might also want to experiment with various nutritional supplements such as lithium orate. There have been some studies done that show geographic areas that are deficient in soil lithium tend to have higher rates of criminal incarceration and mental illness. When you consider how depleted the soil is in the factory farms that produce our food, this becomes another factor to consider.

I feel the same. My father was a poor father. I am not a good one and I refuse to have more kids. I have hurt enough people already with my two children. I do not need to ruin anyone else lives.

I will honestly admit, growing up my father wasn't all that great of a father, or husband. He took very little interest in me until I was about 6 years old, besides letting me watch him play computer games which I thought was kinda cool, and he always seemed to prioritize his friends and hobbies and job over myself or my mother.

Things changed when my parents divorced when I was 15, and while it was tumultuous, and my mother ended up meeting an absolute jerk, my dad had a period where he became a "cool single guy", and for the first time we really started to connect and get to know each other.

That kind of started turning to s**t though when he met my stepmother, and though for the first while after meeting her he was still kind of cool, things eventually got to the point where he once again pretty much stopped caring about me. In the meantime, he's totally become engrossed in my stepmother's life, and she just became pregnant with their second child. =p My stepmother is a very dominant, controlling person, and though she seems to think that she cares about me and has my interests in mind, in reality I don't think she actually understands who I am at all. I'm so glad to be away from her right now, and with my grandparents, who actually like and understand me.

Yup, I've got daddy issues alright. Mommy issues to a smaller extent as well, as my obsession with Fluttershy seems to have something to do with my longing for my "old" mother.

My father left before I was born, and my Mom was a workaholic during my younger years. I'm not in a relationship either, and while I've thought of having kids someday, there's still a deep-seated fear that I'd wind up making a child's life worse. I battle very prevalent anger and fear every day, so finding a consistent balance is never easy.

I feel this way. Not so much the parent thing. I know I could make a good parent. I would like to adopt though. I do not want to pass on all of my mental and physical illnesses to someone. I think that would be cruel. However, I don't think I would make a good husband. It doesn't have to do with AS. It has to do with unresolved anger I feel toward women and generally just being a very self-centered person. Maybe in the future, I will be mature enough for a relationship but all the women who have gotten close to me so far have gotten hurt badly.

I grew up not having a father, and I feel the same way... I also feel bad for the single moms who have to raise their kids by themselves... This must be a reason why single moms are attracted to me, but things rarely went further or they are just too busy being a mom they don't have time to be dating

I'm 22, and have different goals in life, they tell me I should be living on my own, get an actual job, and go back to school before I should even be dating anyone... First thing I really need to do is learn how to drive and overcome aspie/driving fears and issues

I currently hate where my life is right now, especially when I don't have any friends

I rarely get to hang out with anyone I know, which is why I end up going to bars/clubs by myself

I just hope 2014 will be better

I have very similar concerns, albeit not to the extent of worrying about physically abusing the kids involved. But I imagine I'll quite likely not be kind of parent a child needs- patient, affectionate, encouraging and such. And I know the impact that that has on a child, given that I am the result of such an upbringing-nothing I ever did was good enough to appease my dad when he lived with us, and if anything good did happen it was answered with a "good, thats what you should've done anyway". My mum split up with him 18 months ago, so I'm still trying to get myself out of habits that I formed to deal with his negativity.

Not only that, but I can see myself enacting out my insufficient parenting even now on my brother and sister (I'm 10 years older than them, and dad doesn't live with us anymore, so I pretty much am the father figure). I mean, I try and be intellectually engaging for them (my sister thinks I actually know everything), but I never give out the kind of willing attention they need and I get quite irritated regularly with my sister because she doesn't know when to stop talking...ever. I feel like I'm more a source of indifferent and negative reactions than of positive things such as praise and hugs and such. I don't know how to connect with them outside of telling them smart things- or rather, I do, but I don't feel comfortable doing so, and I don't know how I'm going to deal with that. And it's weird because generally if I decide someone is rather important to me I have no qualms with such things. So this worries me greatly. How can I reasonably trust myself to raise a child in the manner that they need to not have issues and baggage for the rest of their life?

My plan instead for the future is to, instead of having kids, devote sufficient amounts of time, money and energy into helping those other kids who need it, whether it be for orphans, or domestic abuse sufferers, or those with mental disorders- this way, instead of creating yet another soul who has to be put at the mercy of my patience at parenting, I can focus on aiding and steering those kids who already do have issues that require a leg up in life and not risk putting them in a worse situation. I figure that would be much better for the world than just throwing more lives out there to fulfill my selfish desire to have kids (nobody ever has a child for the childs sake). Go utilitarianism.