Losing connection with my wife.

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I havn't been here much so apologies for turning up out of no where with a heavy post.

This i suppose is an attempt to face a problem i've come to realised has be ignored for months.

I am finding myself further and further from understanding basic human emotion. I cannot read at all any signals from my wife anymore, no comprehension of what attribute intamacy, weve become like house mates and it is tearing her apart whilst i appear unphased and detached. I have a sense that i havn't always been like this, it makes sense logically that i couldn't have always been this detached but i have no experiential memory to draw from to find my direction back to intimacy and emotional connection.

My wife tells me ive been in this state for months, we've even talked about having some time apart in the week each but this is all moving so fast off the deep end that i dont think thats going to help in time. She is feeling deeply isolated, and having just come back from a trip to bali she is quite spiritually open again and finds me in the same space she left me and the distance is even more obvious.

But i cannot for the life of me find any context in which to grasp the divide, like im trapped in a two way mirror. We see two completely different realities now. Im at a loss how to bridge this and may even be too late, as shes ready to leave to safe her health. She also argues i seem to be able to have emotions for our daughter or for friends but not for her, and i cant even grasp the differences, i couldn't explain whats different. Its an existential nightmare situation. I am a loss for direction, i feel like over the last year since my diagnosis i've become deeper and deeper entrenched in the most mechanical aspects of aspie life, like some kind of self fulfilling prophecy in action.

Maybe i can find some wisdom here, i have no where else to turn to here, cant even get contact with an asd specialist where i live. An honestly, i don't know if any amount of therapy could even help right now. I'll try anything though, i want to discover what love and joy actually feels like again, i've lost touch with these human qualities completely....

I deeply appreciate your patience in reading this, its inexpressibly difficult to process....

When was the last time you two just went out on a "date?" Like to the cinema or something?

Are you feeling depressed or disinterested in things you used to enjoy that are unrelated to relationship stuff If you are, it's possible you might be experiencing something like depression & a psychiatrist or GP might could help.

It sounds a lot like depression. A lot of people think depression means you're sad all the time, but at a low level it can simply make you feel nothing at all.
As far as intimacy goes, get naked in bed and watch tv together (assuming she's still willing to try something like that). It doesn't have to turn into sex, but skin-to-skin contact is probably the fastest way to establish whether you're still capable of feeling some connection with her.

Could just be depression, as others have mentioned.

Otherwise...

It’s normal for people to become emotionally detached over the course of the relationship. You need to learn early in a marriage how to be best friends and roommates, along with being parents and lovers. You cannot possibly maintain the emotional highs of the first days or years, the honeymoon period. It drains you to do that, and if staying newlyweds is your goal, it will kill you.

That’s because you constantly adapt to your situation. Like a drug, it takes more and more to keep that same level of excitement and interest. The instant you run out of money or get tired, the relationship crashes.

Marriage thrives on stability, not constantly overwhelming emotions. It’s perfectly ok to hit a plateau. It’s just people think when they level out that their marriage is loveless.

So what do you do about it?

Well...don’t define love in emotional terms. Define it as action. Just because you get married and make babies doesn’t mean you ever really stop dating. You are still obligated to make her feel special even if you don’t feeeeeel like doing it. Cook something special for dinner. Hire a babysitter. Drop the babies off with the in laws and get a hotel room. Just once, not on an anniversary or special occasion, but “just because.” Doesn’t have to be much, just once or twice a year.

Have a “family night” once a month when you all go out together.

Cook a special meal once a week so she doesn’t have to, and make it date-like even if the kids are around.

A few times a week help with cleaning, dishes, laundry, etc.

Every so often buy her flowers and have them delivered to her workplace. “Just because,” not on special occasions. Don’t neglect special occasions, either.

Not once did I say you have to feeeeel anything. I said you have to DO stuff. Love by doing, not by feeling. There’s nothing wrong with emotions. It’s just sometimes emotions are hard to maintain. So you fake it till you make it, that’s all.

One of the simplest things you can do is talk. And by that I mean LISTEN. Get her talking about things she likes. Ask the occasional question, make small comments, repeat what she says in different words, grab onto various concepts to ask about and send her rabbit-chasing, give her compliments, and act like you’re interested. That makes people feel important, which is all anybody really wants, anyway.

That’s another way to love someone by doing, and everything I’ve said depends on a single guiding principle: We are all flawed, broken, selfish people. To succeed, you must play to this selfish nature. And that means that you must value them and their interests above your own. People start to care about you because they recognize your ability and willingness to meet them where they are, to grant their needs and desires, to feed that self-interest. This is called reciprocity. Marriage depends on this more than anything else. Repay kindness with kindness at the first opportunity and don’t delay it. Go above and beyond by showing interest in her.

I didn’t say FEEL interest. I said SHOW. If the feelings are there but nobody can see it or there are no results from it, the emotions are meaningless. If you DON’T have feelings, do it anyway. Actions are more important than feelings. So if you feel you aren’t in love with your wife anymore, then just love her. Not in your feelings, but in your actions. Feelings come and go. Where you may have lacked emotion before, you may eventually get that back. So in the meantime, DO something about it. You’ll be amazed how much this little thing will transform your marriage.

AngelRho, that is probably the most direct, functional advice i've ever been given. Thank you.

I do get lost in thinking what to feel. Two completely polar functions that lead me like a dog chasing his own tail. Taking action away from "feel" breaks that state entirely. And it breaks that divide of nt to nd language. I can just act, not in a response that i may not be able to decipher but just act.

Only read back here today, so thank you everyone for contributing. Actually had a personal breakthrough yesterday, where i could see my own self limiting thought cycle that lead into this connection breakdown. But to maintain and grow a connection, pandering to that innate human desire for attention is approachable, not locked down by analytical thought. Its not lacking in thoughtfulness, its functional, and better to function than to disappear into my own head looking for the perfect solution that never manifests.

Thank you.

Sweet Pea hugs