AS or Midlife Crisis??

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Sooo...my husband hasn't been officially diagnosed with AS (I am NT) but after about 14 years together we figured it out and both had the lightbulb moment (OH! So that's why...).

He is pretty high-functioning and decided to make it his special project to become "normal" at least in the presence of other people. He started going to Toastmasters, observing people, imitating them, etc. He got so good at it that now he is Mr. Popularity. He has lots of "friends" and is very proud of the fact that people like him.

A couple of years ago, he had a very abrupt personality change (at least it seemed to me). He said we weren't fun enough, that I didn't plan enough family activities, that we were boring, we don't go out and party enough, etc. He started going out and staying out VERY late (a few times until 5 am or later), getting drunk, hanging out with "the guys". He goes out without me quite a lot- since I have 99% of the responsibility in the home and we have kids. I did my partying in my 20s (he didn't because he was socially awkward) and I'm over it. I try to go out with him but I just don't want to do it as much.

He started talking to other women online too. He said he liked to listen to their drama (as part of his people-studying project) but nothing was going on...except he was hiding it from me. I admit I snooped- that's how I found out- and he lied to me a couple of times to meet them in person for coffee and for dinner. I saw his conversations with them- there was nothing inappropriate being said, but he had never lied to me and hidden things before.

When we fight about this stuff, he has said some pretty nasty things to me too..like if I didn't make more of an effort to be pretty and feminine, he might stray and that I better wake up and face reality because ALL men his age start doing this (he is 42). He said by talking to other women, he's doing everything he can to NOT cheat..like he's doing it for my benefit because the alternative is having a real affair. I started wearing skirts and high heels more.

I have been living in hell for 2 years..before all this, we were happy and we almost never fought. He says we didn't fight because he was keeping all his grievances to himself all that time to not "rock the boat" and that he always gave in to whatever I wanted to keep the peace. He said he was finally done "taking my crap" and that he wasn't going to stay quiet anymore and he was going to do what he wanted.

My heart is absolutely shattered. I loved him and looked up to him like he was my own personal super-hero. And now he's this other person and he can't even understand how I feel. We went to counseling, but she wasn't really helpful and I can't find a marriage counselor who has any experience with AS/NT relationships.

I'm sorry this is long, but I wanted to lay it out and see if some men with AS can tell me if they've done or said similar things and if this is a midlife crisis or AS.

I am sorry to hear about your troubles and hope that you can find a satisfactory resolution to them soon. It sounds like the diagnosis for your husband wasn't a good thing in the long run. As someone who just finished teaching a summer course in the Psychology of Aging (and will start teaching it again in 3 weeks) I can say that the research shows that the midlife crisis isn't near as common as we are lead to believe, but that doesn't mean that they don't happen to people from time to time.

I can relate somewhat to your husband in that I have gone through something similar, but not near the level that he has. When you finally figure out that you have Asperger's (for me it was about 16 months ago) things from the past-especially failures-start to make sense. You want to see if I could have been successful if I knew then what I know now. Is it too late for me to live a normal life and make up for what I missed out on before? Can I really be like other people? I was socially awkward also but did plenty of partying anyways, and am now in my 22nd year of sobriety, so I am not out doing the party scene, and I am routine enough that I kind of enjoy staying at home and not going out a lot, and my wife seems ok with that also, but she is an NT so she is a little more social. And we both are still active in Church and AA so we get social events quite often in those areas.

I will say, though, that I did decide to try out some of the flirtation things a couple of my therapists said were probably the cause of my trouble before-that I wasn't doing these things. They did seem to work, as at least one woman acted more interested in me. It didn't help overall that I found her incredibly attractive, but I also knew that I couldn't let anything come of it, which almost hurt like a breakup.

I don't know if any of this makes sense to you or helps you picture what might be going on with your husband, but I do hope that you can get back to the happy days you had before. Somethings I do think that ignorance is bliss when it comes to certain things.

When I discovered that I had AS, I went through a psychological rejection phase. I kept telling myself "you're not this, your someone else" phase. I attempted to overtly social, but it just didn't feel right. It was almost like I was trying to manufacture a new personality fight against the dark stereotypes of AS.
I lost because you be something your not. I was also 22 and didn't have a committed relationship. I also made some very very poor decisions during that time.

Thanks, Professor John. That was helpful- I never thought about it that way. It makes sense that he would want to see if he would have had a richer social life if he'd known what he does now. It doesn't make it easier, but it helps me not take his behavior personally. I know he feels like he missed out- I get that. I want him to feel like he's experiencing things like a normal man, I just wish his definition of normal didn't include acting like a 21 year-old frat guy.

I've been able to get him to (partially) at least understand what his actions are doing to me. He sees the impact it has on us, but he thinks I am overreacting a lot of the time. Maybe I am..if I didn't have anything to compare it to, it wouldn't seem like such a big deal I guess. But for him to go from being so even-tempered and mild mannered to this other extreme is shocking.

I started keeping track of his drinking and was able to show him in black and white just how out of control he was getting. He hates not being in control, so that part calmed down for a while. But last Saturday he went out and got so drunk he blacked out and doesn't remember driving himself (!) home at 3 am. He was so alarmed by that he promised to change- which means he will limit himself to 3 beers and no liquor when he goes out. So, the change was in no way for my benefit or our relationship, it is basically just to keep HIM out of trouble.

I keep hoping this will burn itself out, and he will get interested in something else. I will stick by him, if not for myself then for our kids, but it's so hard.

I imagine this could be a lot worse problem in AS/NT relationships because then the AS person has to adapt a lot, and in that process see how much they might have missed in comparison to a typical NT person. Personally, I've only been interested in how I work naturally, and I don't think I've missed out on anything, because I don't find typical NT-stuff that interesting, so I have not changed a bit. That said, I also feel I have absolutely nothing in common with a typical NT-male my age, and I find these have an incredibly dull life. Thus, if I lived with an NT, I might have thought just like your husband.

His drinking problems seems to be the worse issue. He cannot claim that those helps him better "discover the world". He should realize this is a serious problem for him, and get help before he gets in real trouble because of it.

I think he is just being immature.

Blaming everything on you and indirectly threatening to cheat, what a guy. I'm not at that stage to offer much advice, but when NTs come looking for help it seems like there is often a concept of having to deal with how their partner acts because their partner has AS, even if it makes the NT unhappy.

AS/ASD is not an excuse, it's a diagnosis in a book. Everyone has issues, not just people with ASD. Having ASD (or any other condition) doesn't give a person the right to prevent others from being happy. It doesn't obligate you to put up with his BS because he might have ASD and you don't. Someone living with a person who has rare violent outbursts would not be obligated to deal with being beat up every so often: it is simply unacceptable no matter what the underlying cause of their behaviour is. So if how he acts makes you unhappy, do not frame his behaviour it in the context of having aspergers: that sets you up to make excuses for him. What matters is that you are unhappy. Maybe aspergers is playing a role in how he is acting; maybe he's just a jerk; it doesn't matter why.

If you aren't happy with the way things are, then you make the change you need to make you happy. Don't rely on others changing in order to make you happy, that's what sets you up to be stepped on, ignored, and exploited. If someone's okay with how things are but you aren't, does it make sense to expect that they are going to change the situation? You could wait a lifetime of uncertainty waiting for someone else to bring you happiness, or work toward getting it for yourself: at least then you know that something will change.

I hope you find your happiness. I'm not an expert on it, I am still looking for mine, so keep that in mind.

His behavior reminds me of myself at that age. I was in a 12-ish year relationship at the time.

In my case, my underlying drivers turned out to be: 1) midlife transition, and 2) alcoholism. More the later than the former.

If you still love him means try to change him from the ad things to your required things if it wasn't possible for you then better to leave him.