Married to an aspie wit fixation issues

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Hi,

New to all this so be gentle!

I'm Paula, I've been with my man 17 very happy loved up years now & we've suspected he may have aspergers for a while but never explored it further till now.

He became friends with a female friend of mine but more recently they've gone from the odd text about football or the odd banter to whatsapping most days about everything.
He's had 3 months of mad busy work on a renovation project so long days, weekends, lots of stress & us hardly spending any time together. My brother has been staying with us as he's been labouring for hubbie & this female friend has also helped out too.
So for the last 3 months I've had to share hubbie with work, cricket & everyone involved on the job thus being pushed to the end of the queue which I'm used to.

The conclusion to this was our 2 week holiday abroad which as you can imagine was much needed. We'd become more like house mates & passing ships so needed to reconnect which he recognised too.

I wanted to have him to myself for those 2 weeks having had to share him all these months, I wanted everyone to leave us alone to have our time, I needed him emotionally, to be fully present & invested in me for just those 2 weeks till we returned & had to go back to sharing him due to another big work project.....it's that so much to ask?

This was communicated to hubbie & to the female friend too the day before we flew out.
He point blank refused to refrain from chatting to her while we were away so they spent the entire holiday messaging at some point each day.
He just couldn't understand why I needed everyone to just leave us be & why being in touch with her was such an issue for me, it upset me so much that he couldn't put me first & respect my feelings & request......obviously she should have respected us enough to not communicate knowing how I felt but that's another issue of course!

We wasted so much time & energy talking about it on our holiday going round in circles & it's continued & escalated since we got home on Friday.
It's affected & upset me so much & he just doesn't get it. It felt like they were having an affair but an emotional one rather than sexual which is kinda harder to deal with. I couldn't understand how he could put the need to chat to her over our relationship & my feelings despite seeing how upset I am & he couldn't explain his reasons for it, just kept trying to justify it all. He's never wrong & doesn't say he's sorry or shwo any concern from how upset I am, no hug or reassurance.

I'm that upset & lost that I decided to do the research on aspergers today in case this rings true to the condition. Having now read lots about it so much makes sense & so many other things within our relationship & his personality make sense now too!
It's like someone has switched a light bulb on & I'm now crying more just knowing what the problem is.
The online tests that you can do came back as borderline aspergers but so many traits ring true.

The fixation on a person or subjects ( sex being one of his too ) seems to be common from what I'm reading.

It was making me question my sanity & making me feel like I'm turning into one of those wives who are jealous & insecure & that's not my style at all, it's all so exhausting & I have M.E so my health is suffering.

The female in question is a lesbian so I know there's no affair sexually, they get on really well, are both quirky so probably identify with each other ( There's nothing to suggest that she may be aspie too btw in the 4 years I've known her ) so I get that they connect on some level & have absolutely no issue with their friendship at all but not when it's meaning I'm being neglected & he's favouring her over me in these situations.

I had a bad day with hormones on the holiday & got a cool reception from him & he gave me a wide berth, no reassurance or support, fair enough.....but then found out yesterday that she messaged him during our holiday, she was having a bad day, time of the month & was upset cos the girl she fancied had started dating someone........his reply to her was compassionate, thoughtful, supportive & reassuring, like a virtual hug ( she showed me the message, voluntarily, not by my request just to be clear )

It upset me so much to see he could be like that for her over something trivial yet not for me who's hurting so much due to how disconnected our relationship is which is far more serious.
Of course I told him this & he just couldn't see what the problem was.

I feel like I'm losing him emotionally at times then other times he seems invested & focused completely on me & gives me what I need.
The fact that it's so fluid makes it harder as it shows that at times he has the capacity but when he's not in that place he comes across as not caring about my feelings at all which I assume is because he's borderline.
When it matters to him & something he needs from me he's all in, when he's not got that need for emotional connection he then is happy to push me to back of the queue.

I call him batman as he's so keen to fix things for everyone else & will put himself out practically & it often feels like he'd rather be at work or distracted than spend time with me, seeing me & being all in emotionally.

Of course I'm now realising that he's not able to deal with that but how do you navigate that in a loving, happy, long term relationship with an aspie partner?

We are madly in love, soul mates & best friends & I'm finding this disconnect emotionally & communication roundabout so heartbreaking!

Sorry for the long post!

Please help me understand it from his perspective & advise as to how on earth I navigate this sensitively & tactfully as I know he doesn't intend to hurt me & still is madly in love with me.

Any advice appreciated! x

I'm sorry to hear about your troubles. My wife is NT but is unique since she values a lot of alone time as I do for myself. 17 years for us at the end of this month.

They say men in general aren't the best at communicating their feelings; add Aspie to the mix and sharing feelings for me, face to face is very uncomfortable.

You've said that you were surprised at how thoughtful his text was to your friend. You're on to something. What I mean is, it's far easier for me to communicate with my wife in written form than verbal when it comes to things that are emotional. Chatting via computer chat.

What if you wrote him a heartfelt letter about how much you love him, but how much your feelings are hurt by him paying so much attention to your friend? Leave it on his pillow or something and ask him to write you back?

The worst thing an NT female spouse can do in regard to communicating with her Aspie husband is expect him to communicate with her about deep topics in the same way she does. If my wife is upset with me, she has to tell me what and why and if we sat down on the couch face to face with her telling me a bunch of stuff, there is no way I will respond tit for tat. I need time, sometimes days, to process what she said, process how I think she must feel and figure out how I feel about it all before I can communicate my thoughts. I need to analyze.

Communicating by written word with your spouse on emotionally charged things may seem bizarre. I mentioned this before on WP and I recall an NT woman said she communicates that way with her Aspie partner too. If anything else, writing him something may be an introductory means to jump start verbal communication with him on the subject?

I hope things work out for you. Your feelings are valid. No one can discount your feelings. They may discount the reasons you feel a certain way, but not your feelings.

"I feel sad and hurt."

"No you don't." < Not an acceptable response....

I can't thank you enough for taking the time to reply & your wise words.

Funnily enough, I did more research after I'd written this post & saw the advice re written communication so it's my intention to do exactly that.

He is often ok with face to face but it's certain topics & certain times that he seems to struggle with but I never know what influences whether I get a positive response or not so it's been hard to navigate.

Hearing a response from an aspie husband is exactly what I needed as right now I'm so desperate to understand him & get his perspective of living in his world rather than hearing sympathatic words from other NT wives.....of course that's much appreciated too but just now I need to understand him & he's not yet able to explain as he doesn't yet understand himself.

At least you're now able to know how to handle it in your relationship because you know what you need from your wife.

I'm sure we will get to that stage too.

This is all so new & early days so lots to understand & very much a learning curve.

Thank you!

I personally think that your insistence that your husband cease all communication with his mates while on holiday (which in these days of WhatsApp is practically unheard of) is extreme. I hope your holiday went well otherwise. If you want to reconnect with him, I would suggest starting at the sexual level (e.g. unexpected sexual favors which he will appreciate) plus letting him get pissed on occasion if he's into that (which will make him friendlier due to heightened oxytocin levels).

From what you've written, he seems a really wonderful husband. I believe you are overthinking this. Honestly, I think you need to take the initiative to get him into "holiday mode". It won't be easy for him to simply dismiss work responsibilities from his mind, especially as a self-employed entrepreneur (which is quite an achievement for a person with AS, if he indeed has it, which has not actually been proven).