New and on honeymoon and miserable....

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Hi, first of all, I should introduce myself.

I joined sometime last year but don't think I've posted til now.

I'm married (now) to a man diagnosed with aspergers, and have a daughter diagnosed with aspergers (from my first marriage - first husband is a long story I won't get into for now). And even though I'm not diagnosed, I have lots of aspergers traits.

Except for being painfully sensitive to the actions and reactions of others, I'd probably be diagnosed with aspergers. If I was 20 years younger, I'd probably be diagnosed like my daughter - except when I was a kid, aspergers wasn't really diagnosed - kids were just written off as "different". And I was very lucky to have teachers in primary school who taught me how to manage most of the ways I was different from other kids my age - except for social skills. To this day, I do not understand people at all. I'm also losing friends because I misread the signals and end up making an idiot out of myself.

But even that's not why I'm posting.

I knew this day was coming - I've been trying to understand aspie relationships - it doesn't matter really if I have aspergers or not or borderline in between - my new husband does have aspergers and things are so difficult right now.

I've been trying to prepare since we got engaged - speaking to male friends who are aspies (although none are married) about relationships, looking up forums for advice, reading book after book on the topic. The only thing I have really been able to learn is that in relationships, supposedly female aspies act more like female NTs than male aspies.

I know from experience particularly with my daughter, but also a little from my husband, that whoever said aspies don't feel much is very wrong. I have seen in those close to me, aspies can feel just as deeply emotionally, just they can't always make sense of their emotions. I feel bad that I've learnt more about understanding what emotion my husband is displaying from his mum telling me what his actions mean he is feeling than him telling me himself.

Our wedding day a week ago was magical. He was so attentive and genuine and loving - the only problem on the day is the photographer asking us for lots of shots of us looking into each other's eyes - something neither of is comfortable with. I actually think I'm even more uncomfortable looking into people's eyes than he is.

But it's been a mess ever since. Both of us have strong religious values so we didn't have sex before we got married. And the sex isn't bad - it's actually quite good, or at least I think so. Which is why I don't understand this - he never initiates it. We've gone to a resort for our honeymoon, have nothing specific to do for two whole weeks. I thought we'd be like most newlyweds and having sex constantly. Before we left, he talked about booking activities to do and I said why would we do that, he'd never had sex and I hadn't had sex for 6 years since my first husband left my life, I thought he was joking. Turns out he wasn't.

I can barely get him to have sex once a day. To give you an indication - on my first honeymoon, my first husband and I were doing it 4-6 times every day - and that was with the jerk inviting his sister and her husband and kids to join us so we didn't get much alone time. We’d have done it even more then, but with me being a virgin then it was painful for the first few weeks and that was all I could physically manage until I got used to it.
Hubby and I have all the time in the world and no interruptions and we can barely manage it once a day? It's not a physical problem for him. He just doesn't feel like it. He says he enjoys it but he keeps rejecting me. He says he is tired but we're not doing anything to get tired. He just sits around all day reading and playing computer games.

I don't understand. I will add - I suffer from chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia and both rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis and enthesitis (similar to arthritis but attacks ligaments rather than cartilage). So I need 10-12 hours of sleep a day and get exhausted easily and suffer pain constantly. Yet that doesn't stop me from wanting sex. In a week, he has only initiated sex and only because it was shortly after us having a conversation where I told him I feel undesirable because he never starts anything. He hasn't initiated anything since.

I realise even saying to him "if i put on sexy lingerie, it means I want sex" isn't enough. I have to outright tell him I want sex. But I don't understand why he never wants it - never starts anything. And what I understand even less is why he says no when I want it. He'll say "if you really want to do it, I'll do it, but I don't feel like it myself". Which hurts just as much. Being told he'll force himself to have sex with me if I demand it hurts just as much, if not more so, than him just saying he doesn't want to.

It's our honeymoon!! !! I don't understand why our sex life is made up of him forcing himself once a day for my sake. Physically he’s healthy. Before we were married, even though we didn’t have sex, we did touch each other (outside of clothes) and he had no problem with doing that. Every day he wanted to touch– even at times when I didn’t want to due to pain or “girl stuff”. He’d even want to touch that way several times a day. And it’s not that he’s not interested in girls or anything in general – he has told me how he has in the past looked at naked girls online but tries not to because he believes porn is wrong.

So I’m left wondering if the problem is me. I’m (very) overweight. I’m 125kg due to a reaction to one of the medications I take – every time I changed exactly what medication I was on, I gained 5-15kg in the first 1-2 weeks and even though I push my body hard and exercise past the point doctors have told me to stop, I can’t lose weight while I’m on meds. Before I started meds, I had an athletic perfectly shaped body. I’m double the weight I should be now. I have managed to lose 15kg and around three sizes since meeting my husband – actually it’s been in the last year because I started on another medication that treats a thyroid condition that doctors missed for years and with that treated, my hard work with exercise and diet is slowly paying off.

I accept that he will never notice how hard I’ve worked to lose that weight, and that he will never even notice the weight loss even though even though other people in my life who don’t notice these things have noticed and paid me compliments. It’s sad – even my first husband’s mistress who broke up our marriage (he had a lot of mistresses but the specific one who deliberately tried to break us up) has been complimentary about my weight loss (not to my face, but to others).

For male aspies…. Could it be that he hates what I look like naked? He keeps telling me what I look doesn’t matter and to not feel like I have to hide my body from him. But that’s not the same as wanting to see me naked and wanting my body. Being told constantly he doesn’t care what I look like, that he doesn’t hate it, is very different from being attracted to my body and wanting to see it. He and I are both very blunt – if he liked my body and liked seeing it, he would say so.

He doesn’t say anything unless I ask him directly, and even then he just says he doesn’t care. When I say “do you want me to take my clothes off for you, do you like me being naked” etc, even when I say to him I want a totally honest answer with a definite yes or a definite no, all he will answer is “I don’t care what you look like”.

I had a good friend who I opened up to (who doesn’t know he has aspergers) tell me it might be a confidence thing, so I’ve gone out of my way to tell him how good looking he is (which is true), and that he’s a good lover (which is also true) and that I like sex with him and want to do it more, and the things he is doing are good, and as many things I can tell him are good about what he does and how he does it. And after asking him, he seems to believe me when I tell him he’s good at things, so it’s not a sexual confidence thing either.

He wasn’t like this before – he was always cheeky, always touching me, always wanting to do more (even though we both agreed to not have sex before marriage because we both believe that to be important due to religious reasons). He even saw me topless and always liked looking at me topless. And other than my weight, I’m not hideous. I have a big nose, but other than my nose and weight, lots of guys tell me I’m good looking. I’m not sure I’d agree, but it’s what other people think, not what I think that is relevant.

I love him so much, but getting married seems to have made his bad aspie traits worse and he’s lost his playfulness and interest in anything sensual or sexual.

It’s not even the stress of the wedding – he moved interstate some time ago and came back only a week before the wedding. He did very little for the wedding at all. While he was off at his bucks day partying and then home sleeping, my maid of honour and I stayed up literally the entire night before the wedding doing all the things that he could have helped with but didn’t. The week before the wedding I averaged 4 hours sleep a night, and none the night before. The whole day is just a blur. Keep in mind my physical health problems and needing 10-12 hours sleep a night to function properly. The wedding was 7 days ago and this is the first day I’ve been able to walk without too much pain from the lack of sleep.

But it’s not just the sex. We’ve gone overseas to somewhere beautiful. I had wanted to just go somewhere local because it would be a lot cheaper and easier. But he insisted on going overseas so that we could do fun stuff together. I had said to him I don’t think we’ll have time to do all the fancy activities he’d planned because we’d be too busy having sex to do much. When he said to me we won’t be doing it THAT much I thought he was joking. But anyway, he was the one who was all keen to do lots of things so I very surprised to get here and have him not planned anything at all, and just wanting to sit around reading and playing computer games all day.

Don’t get me wrong – I would be more than ok with that if we’d gone somewhere local where there was stuff I could do. If we were back home, I could take a car out and feel safe t explore the sights myself, or I could watch tv (he told me not to pack my hard drive with lots of tv and movies on it because we wouldn’t have time with all the stuff we’d be doing so I feel lied to. Even here, if he’d said he was just planning to read and play computer games all day, I’d have taken books myself and tv shows and movies to watch).

He’s tried to make it about not understanding each other views on holidays, that he treats holidays as a time to relax and do nothing, but it’s not a misunderstanding. I was VERY happy to go somewhere local and just sit around doing nothing all day. But he wanted to travel many thousands of kilometres to another country to do things together, to see a new country and explore and we get here and I find out that he’s not interested in doing what he told me were doing. We’ve been here five days and he’s not left our tiny resort once. He doesn’t even come down to meals most days, and gets grouchy with me if I stay in the dining room (the only place we can access internet) so I have something to do. I have no books with me (and his are boring), I am not a big gamer – the only two computer games I play require internet access and the internet speeds are too slow to play even down here at the dining room. So I am going out of my mind with boredom. And it’s not safe as a woman, to go out by myself here.

So I am trapped. I have told him I desperately want to go out and do things. Every day I keep telling him I really want to go out and do things. Not nagging (because that makes him angry and he deliberately does the opposite, even to the point of hurting himself, if people nag him) but when we wake up I ask him what he has planned for us to go out and do today. At lunchtime I ask him if he wants to go out for one of the afternoon tours, and at dinner I ask him if he’s had a chance to look through the tourist brochures to decide what we’ll do tomorrow.

I am just so down that I cry whenever I’m alone because I feel like he doesn’t want to do anything at all with me. I may as well not even be here. I miss my friends and I miss my daughter who I have only been able to talk to once for two minutes because he wanted me to go back to our villa – no idea why because he didn’t want to spend time with me, just wanted to sit there playing computer games. He likes having me in the room, but he doesn’t even like me doing anything. I make friendship bracelets for fun (just knotting strings) but then he comes over to watch the one tv show we do have with us, and he starts pouting, acting like I’m being rude to him and neglecting him because I am tying knots instead of just lying there doing absolutely nothing. He doesn’t want me to hold him, or cuddle him or touch – he just wants me to lie there doing nothing at all.

Watching tv, reading, playing computer games. He wants me there in the room, but doesn’t want me doing anything else at all. I have mild ADD and I’d rather shoot myself in the head than sit around doing nothing. I physically can’t do it. It makes me physically ill to try and sit and do nothing.

I wouldn’t have a problem with him just sitting around reading and playing computer games all day if 1. He’d just been honest with me about his intentions instead of leading me to believe that we were going to do all these wonderful activities and exploring because if he’d been honest, I’d have packed stuff to do instead of all the romantic lingerie I packed which he couldn’t care less about and 2. Even if I had packed stuff to do, he gets pouty when I do anything at all around him, so even having stuff wouldn’t have made much difference and 3. If he’d been honest about his intentions, we could have gone somewhere local where I’d have stuff to do instead of being cooped up in a tiny room all day everywhere.

I’m at my wits end, I don’t even know what to ask for advice about.

As well as not being interested in sex, and not wanting to go out and do anything with me, and not wanting me to do anything when I’m with him, just sit there in silence with him, he also doesn’t listen to me. I’ve asked him to do a few tiny things for my health. Because I’m a nurse and have so many problems with my health including a low immune system, if people don’t wash their hands around me, I get very sick very fast. I know people with aspergers need reason and logic so I’ve been totally reasonable and logical about it with. I have shown him the research from my university degrees (I have three) and from my work including professional journal articles on handwashing and about how extremely important it is.

I’ve explained with my weak immune system, it can literally kill someone with immune problems. He has sisters with health problems, so he understands my condition, and he knows low immune system is part of it, and that people with my health problems catch germs extremely easily.

He has a background in science – he’s a genius and understands the concept totally. But yet his attitude is just “I don’t get sick, they’re my hands not yours, so I don’t need to wash them”. Despite all the research journals I’ve shown him and the fact he KNOWS what he is saying is illogical and makes no sense, he does it anyway.

What worries me is today I ended up telling him exactly how I feel – that when he touches me with unwashed hands, the stress of knowing how sick he will make me if he keeps doing it actually makes me physically ill from anxiety when touching me, he responded with “well you make me extremely ill when you tell me to wash my hands”.

I ask him to explain what he meant (because it makes zero sense) saying “what does that mean” and because I’ve always been told that if an aspie makes no sense, ask for clarification. But like he usually does, he just responded with “whatever”, I said “please tell me” and he gave me the silent treatment, not even acknowledging I had even spoken.

And this happened quite a number of times. Like when I asked “did you lock the room door” as we headed out the room, and he refuses to answer. If I ask again, he just says to me rudely “if you needed to know, I’d tell you” which makes me extremely angry because I wouldn’t ask something if I didn’t need to know. I have no idea if he’s the type of person who is happy to leave a hotel room door unlocked because he has no valuables in there – I’ve met many people who are more than happy to leave hotel rooms unlocked, we’ve never discussed it, and I have my passport, my laptop (a lot more valuable than his) and my new phone (worth about 20 times what his is worth) all in the room and I sure don’t want them stolen and I have no idea if he’s a person who locks up or doesn’t.

If I try to explain why I need to know, then I’m “nagging” and he refuses to tell me even if by his own admission he understands why I need to know.

I don’t understand him – his aspergers isn’t mild, so why does he play games so much? Why does he hate it when I be direct? And why does he blame me when I give instructors so clear a two year old with aspergers could understand it and he does the opposite of what I’ve asked?

And what is it with him deliberately ignored a really simple request (washing hands after toilet) when it has next to no impact on him but it could make me very ill and potentially kill me if I get sick enough (and it’s a real possibility, only slim but still very possible).

I just don’t understand. I have a surprising number of aspies in my life, I know how the typical aspie acts but why is my husband so different? My first marriage was extremely abusive with my first husband ignoring me at best, hurling abuse regularly, snapping at me every time I didn’t do things exactly his way, and towards the end, becoming extremely violent. There are little things like the ignoring and being snappy that are extremely triggering for me and I’m struggling with depression really badly right now. I know my new husband is not the same, he would never deliberately hurt me, and he would never hit me no matter how angry he was, but the moodiness and snappiness cuts me to the core.

And if it’s like this on our honeymoon, what does that say about our future when there are other people around, when we’re both working (or me trying to find work anyway), with my daughter around who isn’t always easy to cope with, with the pressures of every day life. If he can’t cope now when it’s just the two of us with no responsibilities and just supposed to be relaxing and having fun, I’m worried about what the future holds.

Please give me some advice on what to do? Why doesn’t he ever want to have sex? Why doesn’t he want to spend ANY time with me at all? Why does he snap at me and then ignore me and refuse to speak every time I ask him to repeat what he said or ask what he meant when he says things that make no sense or are mean?

I don’t understand and with the history of my first husband and having depression and PTSD and having Asperger traits myself, I can’t work it out, I don’t know what I’m doing wrong or have the first clue how to make things at all better.

Honeymoons are supposed to be happy and exciting not crying all the time (when he can’t see me) and going nuts from boredom

Wow that is a massive post. Um just some thoughts I had while reading.

1. On sex. Different people have a different level of desire and drive for sex. Once a day seems quite a lot to me for example. So maybe even though you are on honeymoon he might be wanting to do it only, say once every 2nd or 3rd day. Desire mismatch leads to lots of friction and bad feeling between couples. You are not alone on this one trust me, its probably even a normal thing.

If thats the case it doesn't necessarily mean that he does not want to be with you at all, just that he's had his fill for the time being (so to speak) and so does not feel desire.
For a perspective imagine yourself in the other position, imagine your husband wanted sex, 8 times a day for example, what would you be thinking and feeling?

2. Your husband was until recently a virgin, and now both of you are in a very unfamiliar situation, away from home in a foreign country, married to someone, and living with them 24x7 without a break - for a few weeks. Change overload. He might be homesick. He might be a bit down as you are.
Many males ASD or otherwise are terrible about communicating when we are feeling down, and find it extremely hard.

If he has not had a relationship before, probably his interpersonal skills, i.e. the give and take thing that is required in a relationship is lacking and so what you perceive as indifference and uncaring could well be him not realising things, so him being unhelpful, or being hurtful is probably due to him not being aware. Those skills and how to 'be' in a relationship, all that takes a lot of time and experience to get right (it took a long time for me for sure).

It might be good to go and talk to someone, and/or get help with starting your marriage off successfully, I think often Churches are good in that area and offer help, recognising that starting a marriage is a massive upheaval and often a rocky time.

But I don't exactly know what to suggest though for your immediate situation on holiday.

Is there something you like doing in common? Do you have any common interests you can do together? Fun things you both like?
Are you spending anytime apart, to have some breathing space? People need that.

I'm tired can translate as I feel overwhelmed or I'm upset about something. I often say I'm tired when I'm describing my emotions rather than my state of needing sleep, especially if I don't want to talk about it.

You say that he wanted to book activities before you went away, but you told him that you didn't want to. I've had problems with a couple of Aspie's who latched onto the first thing I said as the "absolute truth" and when I changed my mind they thought I was lying, which led to conversations where they said to me, "but why did you say that if you didn't mean it?"

So maybe now he feels like you're only saying that you want to go out and do things to make him feel better, but secretly he thinks you don't really want to and you're messing with him because initially you said that you didn't want to go on activities. He's maybe confused and upset but can't explain why, so is shutting down.

I was just thinking of how I would handle the conversation. I'd say something like, "Look, we need to talk. I know that you don't mean for me to feel like this, but I'm feeling unhappy at the moment. I am worried that you are unhappy too and it's ok if you feel like that. We need to be honest with each other because it's the only way to move forward. If you feel that you need something I want you to be able to tell me what it is, even if you think that I might not agree, so that we can work things out."

It's really hard to pin down what specifically might be involved. I can offer some ideas though:

1.) Several of my NT friends have gotten married over the last 2 years and gone on honeymoons. All of them did activities on their honeymoon. None of them just sat in a hotel room day and night having sex. It may be that your husband really wanted to do some things on the trip and is upset about it. Now, granted, none of them were virgins before marriage, but still, I think some activities would have been fun to do together.

2.) His sexual desires seem to be consistent with a lot of aspies. It may just be that sex doesn't appeal to him, and it would be that way regardless of the girl. So it's not you.

3.) Disinterest in you. This is another common theme I see. A lot of aspies want a partner, but only in small doses. They need copious amounts of alone time.

Honestly, it sounds like there are some huge issues here. I'm honestly not sure what to tell you for how to resolve it all.

Did you not once discuss with your husband your sex drives before marriage?

I can think of a reason or two, but I better restrain myself or I'll get banned.

Okaaaaay....maybe that is incredibly mean. I should maybe apologize for saying that. But judging by your responses to people in other threads, you fly off the handle quite easily. I'm not saying you're like that in real life, but does that type of thing happen around your husband?

There are things we like to do in common, but not really able to do any of them here. I was hoping to find some things.

I think we're spending most of our waking hours apart. Other than having dinner, and watching an episode one of his favourite tv shows (which I like too) before bed - but we'll run out of that in the next day or two and still have a week left.

I understand saying the I'm tired when it's emotional. I do that because it's easier than just dealing with people's responses if you say you're feeling down or whatever.

He wasn't planning to book activities before we left home (we couldn't do that til we landed in country) but he said he was planning to once he got here. I didn't say to him I wanted to just relax and not do activities at all - I said to him all along that I thought we'd be too busy with sex to be doing heaps of activities all day every day. He knew I wanted to do activities, just with the limits of what I can do physically - I can't do back to back, day after day, activities because I need nearly as much downtime as him - partly because being around people drains me and partly for my physical health problems.

Pretty much had that exact conversation last night. and not for the first time.

I've also explained to him that if he has a problem, it's better he tells me because it's more hurtful to me knowing something is wrong and not knowing what it is and thinking the worst, than for him to just be upfront and tell me.

It's a conversation we've had over and over in the last year.

I don't think (1.) is a problem - I never told him I didn't want to do activities. I just said I thought we'd be too busy having sex to do activities every single day. Plus he's admitted he never planned to do activites - that he'd planned all along to just relax with reading most of the time. Which is why I feel lied to - why did he tell me he planned to do stuff when he never planned to? It's not like an aspie to lie or his character to lie. It just seems so unusual for him.

(2.) Really??? the male adult aspies I have in my life have quite normal sex drives. My sister's on/off boyfriend always seem to want to make out - albeit not sex. Maybe some guys prefer to make out without full-on sex?

(3.) I don't understand that. We haven't "lived together" but I've stayed with him for 2-3 weeks at a time when I get holidays from work and he's had no problem with me being around 24/7 when he's not at work (and at work he's surrounded by people who are always interacting with him). It's me that wanted to get away for alone time. It was always him wanting to cuddle and be around each other - it was me that felt overwhelmed at times and needed to be by myself for while.

His actions now are different from what he's usually like - that's what has me so confused.

We discussed sex lots - just the two of us many times, as well as a discussion with his pastor who did our premarital counselling.

We were totally open about it - he was more open about it than I ever expected from someone with our religious background. We discussed everything like techniques, types of sex we'd like to do, types that we wouldn't do. He also gave me a whole bunch of books he'd got on the subject that he thought was useful after reading them himself. To this day, I'm amazed at how much detail we went into discussing it.

And when it came to sex drives, we discussed that too. I didn't say him to bluntly "my first husband and I did it 4-6 times a day on our honeymoon and on holidays" because it hurts him when i discuss details about my ex, so I avoid details about my ex. But I have told him multiple times that I have a higher sex drive than most women and that I never said no to my ex - that I'm always happy to do it, even if he wanted to a dozen times a day.

He never said bluntly anything like "I'd love to do it a dozen times a day", but he did say things like how he was looking forward to doing it "lots". Everything he said made me think he'd want to do it at least several times a day.

Just everything about his reactions have made it sound like he expected to want to do it more but it's not quite as good as other people had made him think it was and that he's not excited about doing it as he thought he would be.

lol I'm not offended.

I'm the total opposite of fly off the handle easily. I just detest people who remind me of my first husband and a few other selfish men in my life who only see sex about their own pleasure don't care about the woman they are getting with.

I like sex but not like that - when not in a relationship, I'm not the slightest bit interested in sex - for me, it's about connecting not just physically but emotionally and spiritually with the love of your life.

I don't like guys who are acting without respect for women, and some guys with aspergers don't even realise they are doing it - so I try to be totally blunt with them that what they are saying or doing is disrespectful to women.

Actually I think my husband has only seen me get mad at once. And that's why we avoid spending time at my parents' home. My family upset everyone.

But yeah, I wasn't mad - just very frustrated - and only because I was really upset at what hubby has been doing the last few days. Saying really mean things which took me by surprise.

I realise not everyone with aspergers is the same - my daughter does some things which are very atypical - but I don't know how to deal with someone with aspergers who is doing something the opposite of usual aspergers behaviour. It makes no sense, it's not logical, and people who are not logical drive me crazy. Especially as hubby is usually so logical

Sorry for the long post - writing is my way of dealing with stress.

I just can't cope with illogical people. Why can't people just be logical???

I don't want to say anything heartbreaking so I'm going to keep it short and sweet - you're going to have to have a 2nd honeymoon later down the line should you choose not to divorce the guy.

Something struck me about this sentence. It places a heavy amount of fault on him, it's self involved and it's all about how you feel.

He's possibly acting different as he's feeling alot of pressure in this new circumstance. He probably feels under pressure to say "the right thing" so he doesn't make you feel worse, or so you don't freak out at him. I can feel alot of tension in your words and we are miles away from each other. I understand you feel hurt and disappointed, but what do you want the resolution to be?

I'm confused about what you actually want from him. Does he know what yet want? Have you asked him what he wants?

For example someone recently wanted me to sit down with them and resolve problem that we had. I wasn't entirely sure I understood the problem or how to fix it. So I let her say her piece and thought to myself, I wonder when I can leave this conversation? Granted I wasn't in love with her so it's different, but being around her made me feel like I was expected to conform to a certain way of being that
Wasn't who I really am. It was damn hard to explain that to her. I just couldn't convey it. I felt like there was no middle ground. It was her way or the highway. Don't make him feel like that. Needless to say, I don't live with this woman anymore.