AS mens silence in regard to relationships with NT women

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<EDIT> Somehow this ended up in the wrong forum. THIS ONE is where it belongs>

Over the years, I've read lots written by female NT's about the problems they have with their male AS partners. At it's worst, we have the Cassandra Complex and several forums where NT women vent hatred and venom towards their AS partners.

Yet I read very little written by those AS men. I am curious to know why this is. I am sure those men *do* have their viewpoint, that they feel the hurt as much as their NT partners. But why are they sharing so little of their viewpoint when compared to the NT partners? Why the deafening silence?

I would really like to hear the views of AS men who have been involved with an NT woman in a long term relationship that has eventually failed. Especially where the NT blames the the failure entirely or mostly on "your AS" and/or parallel factors such as "your total inability to fulfill my emotional needs'. You don't need to have gone through a painful divorce (though it helps!). I'm not referring to the AS males who struggle to *start* a relationship. Not out of lack of sympathy for their very real problems, but because there is already no shortage of them writing and venting about exactly those problems!

Not that I'm obsessing entirely on 'failure'...every relationship starts as a success, until..... So people could post about how wonderful their AS/NT relationship is right now...only for it to fail down the line. This is not being negative at all, as talking about the problems is useful to avoiding them, hence a positive outcome!

Oh, and if there are any AS females who feel in a similar situation with regard to NT males, that would be interesting too. However, one of the reasons I'm starting this is because I am aware of several valuable threads here where AS females have already posted very openly and honestly about their problems in a LTR with AS men.

In contrast, it seem there is hardly anything written by the AS men. Which is my first quesion: Why do we keep so quiet about our half of the experience? Especially considering the sheer volume of unrestrained criticism we took (and still take on online forums) from our NT partners?

It amazes me how many of the stories I've read by the NT wives of AS men follow a very similar pattern. Almost a template. Starting with her describing him as "different, in a nice way", "not like all the others - he was interested in me as a person, not just my body..". "He was such a charming, attentive gentleman..." It starts with 'him' lavishing total attention on 'her' ...and she loves it! Over time, he can't keep this level up and it fades. And this is the point when she now says "he's totally obsessed in his own interests, he has no interest in me physically".

Where did the "charming, attentive gentleman" go? Answers on a post(card) to....

I have a few clues from my own experience. We do sometimes feel justifiably totally outraged by the treatment we have received from NT wives/partners. However, we are frightened that if we expressed it during the relationship, we would be rejected, so we keep it quiet and pretend all is OK. Everything we say and do gets interpreted as 'the wrong thing', so eventually we say and do nothing, which is also wrong.

Maybe men in general just don't like opening up about relationships, preferring to let the women do all the talking? There is a general air of 'big boys don't complain" and that women are repulsed by any negativity from men. Maybe that's another big reason why the men are so quiet?

Any thoughts? AS men who have been in a LTR with an NT, this is your chance....

Ouch... that would be me. I am the AS husband with a NT wife.

I somewhat tend to take all the blame on myself on the fights and other issues, so I think that is why I don't complain that much.

On the second thought, my spouse does not seem to be much understanding, either.

I think we both are clueless often. It just does not come naturally for me to complain. So I'll remain silent.

I now realize I wrote many words, but said little. Sigh.

That's the pattern all right. Three marriages and at least that many near-misses and that's the template all followed (with slight variations owing to the other partner's personal pathologies). Why? Well, it seems to be that romantic relationships fall into the same pattern as any other obsessive interest - once I've drained the subject of as much information and experience as it has to offer, I grow bored with it and I'm ready to move on to something else - not necessarily another relationship, just another interest. That's when you begin to see just how desperately needy humans are for social interaction. At first it's just a little pathetic and embarrassing. Then it becomes cloying and suffocating. And I can't exclude myself from that behavior - when I was young and afire with romantic passions, I could be as bad or worse, and still fail to show proper empathetic response to the very object of my ardor. There comes a point though, when you finally wake up and realize that not only does the pattern exist, that because of your personal psychological template, it will only continue. At that point, you have to reevaluate and revise your expectations. Perhaps "happily ever after" simply isn't a realistic expectation for you. It may actually not even be desirable. Hey - guess what? You might actually have been happier living alone all along. Boing! Epiphany!

Need intimacy? Hire a hooker. Just don't let her spend the night, or she may never leave (it starts with a toothbrush). Which wouldn't matter, if she didn't start redecorating and insisting that you spend time watching television with her.

All I know is that if I could do things over, I would. It would have helped tremendously if we had known of my husband's AS before or while we were married, and not after he left. By then, he thought it too late. And oh yes, if we had known, I wouldn't have taken all the hurtful actions personally.

He didn't say much either about what he was thinking and feeling, although he claims otherwise. He kept everything to himself. I wish there was some way I could have penetrated his emotional wall and prevented our marriage from blowing up in my face.

So us NT wives or ex-wives are not all domineering b*****s, you know? As misunderstood as AS spouses think they are, so are we. We all just have to learn to communicate better and find the methods that work best in each relationship.

I still love my husband, but we're finished as far as he's concerned.

I suppose I've taken a lot of the blame for failed relationships and one failed marriage upon myself. There was always a pattern developing where I showed almost levels of infatuation from the outset and then with time this waned and I'd withdraw more and more into myself or my interests. Combined with a catalogue of disappointment for my partner, incidents such as freezing up and being unable to dance with her at a friend's wedding - this led to about 2 days of 'silent treatment' from her.

I generally do think that a lot of it has been my fault, perhaps I'm being too hard on myself. I also think it would have made a difference if I'd have known at the time I had AS. So far I have no experience of being in a relationship where both myself and my partner are aware of this as I was only diagnosed 1 month ago and have been single for the last 7 months.

To be honest I don't really know what else to say, except I hope that I'll be able to use previous experiences and my new understanding from the diagnosis to make the next relationship more rewarding and successful for both parties.

I think a lot can be expained in terms of inability and unknowingness. Inability from the person in the spectrum; unknowingness from the neurotypical. Our hamperments (<-- maybe that's the inapropriate word for it) to communicate emotions leads to miscommunication. I haven't been in any relationship so far. This is just what I was thinking based on my mediocre social experiences.

I am an AS wife with a very mildly AS husband. I know that one reason he isn't on here, is he has a lot less free time than I do right now. In reading books and talking to him, I have to hold back so we can both work through the relationship issues at a slower pace he can manage on top of his job, which is more hours and more stressful than mine.

He's generally not one to go to others for support, but I wouldn't mind as long as he does it online anonymously because we don't really know anyone in real life that would be safe to confide in about AS.

I can't believe I am actually posting on a forum, have never done this before, the way AS/HFA affects me is to make me very non-communicative, to withdraw inside myself to a world that is safe..this could be one of the reasons for the "deafening silence" and of course it is causing a lot of problems in my relationship.

Like the other AS husbands replying to this post I feel responsible, I am to blame....its not something you feel proud about and want to talk about... so more "deafening silence"

you said

Couldn't agree more, except it's not always interpretation, I do do things wrong, because I just don't understand the implications, can't see the bigger picture, the context within which I am acting or talking

Interesting topic. Just to give a bit of background, I've been married almost 6 years to a wonderful, mostly NT woman whom I only love more and more as the years go by. We now have an 11-month old son. Certainly it's more challenging with him around, and undoubtedly there is less time for intimacy, but we're getting through it thus far.

I found out about my AS tendencies only a few months ago, and they are mild compared to many here. So maybe I am not the most qualified person to answer. But here it goes.

We have always done our best to understand each other. Learning about my autistic side has helped us both understand not only what is harder for me but why it is harder as well. Recognizing my cleaning style, for instance (i.e. spend a big chunk of time cleaning occasionally) helps us divide the household labor more according to what we are good at doing. I always try to make sure that the division of labor is as fair as possible. There are aspects that are not that I can't really do anything about (she's an unplanned work-at-home mom, for instance), so I do my best to make up for this in whatever ways I can.

I'm pretty good at sensing when my wife is upset, although I often can't figure out why. I always make her tell me what is wrong so that we can talk about it. Letting her simmer with unexposed issues is simply asking for trouble later.

I guess when an NT woman gets on here and starts complaining about her husband, I can't relate very well. I do try to point out, however, that often the husbands are not understood and may have trouble expressing themselves.

This "silence" you write about is very common, even among NT men. I think in our society, due to how we are raised, men are basically trained to repress their emotions, so they never really feel quite comfortable with them. In addition to that, both sexes don´t really learn anything about how to relate to each other- it´s supposed to "just happen" of course, by instinct- complicating matters further. These are 2 difficult problems even among NTs, and among Aspies of course these problems are going to be magnified.

One of the reasons I know about the "male silence", even in the NT world, is because long before I knew anything about AS, I wondered why I had all the problems I had in relationships, and, to try to help myself figure it all out, I tried to read every book I could about the subject. I especially tried to find books written from the male perspective- as a woman, this was what I thought I particularly needed- but, I couldn´t find any! Men are very silent about this, and I think it´s because men think that emotions and relationships are somehow "women´s domain". In fact, I found 1 very interesting book- it´s called "Why Men Fall Out of Love"- written by Michael French. This book helped me a lot; and, in fact, in the introduction he already mentioned that all types of men are particularly "silent" about their experiences with relationships, and he explained the reasons why. This book was not written from an AS or NT perspective, by the way; there are just different examples of men in the general population who experienced failed relationships of all kinds. (It could be possible that one, or some had AS, who knows). In any case, I found it enlightening.

Another book I liked, written from the AS/NT perspective was "Love, Sex and Long Term Relationships", by Sarah Hendrickx. You may find it interesting, although it may not be as in-depth or detailed enough to answer the kinds of questions you are asking. It is a start, though, in analyzing the differences between NT and AS. It is one of the few books, by the way, that also includes the AS perspective, not just the NT.

Being a woman, maybe I can´t really answer your question, but my belief is that one reason for the silence is just simply that AS people are still trying to figure it all out. I think many of us spend our lives blindly going through relationships, often fraught with problems, and we are trying to learn as we go. Since there is very little information out there for us- (and this is what we rely on rather than intuition)- we have to figure it out slowly. For this reason, I think many of us don´t really feel confident enough to talk about our experience. Add to that the fact that most of us have been told much of our lives that we do things "wrong", etc. etc. I think many of us tend to withdraw into silence if we don´t feel comfortable or understood. It just seems easier that way.

Of course, I´m planning to write a book about AS women and relationships, which is going to change the world!

fiddlerpianist wrote:

... like you I can usually sense when my wife is upset with me, and often don't know why. but there the similarity ends. I wouldn't ask her whats wrong because over the years I have found when we get into that sort of conversation I am left floundering, not knowing what to say or saying something that makes things worse.

How do you have conversations with your wife, do you understand the emotional things she is saying to you, can you respond with empathy and understanding?

...any advice you can give would be great, because I'm really struggling

Thanks for the great replies! I'm not surprised there isn't exactly an overwhelming emotive outpouring from the AS men. Would I be falling for the stereotype if I said we probably need to bring up something like the question of Windows v. Linux for that to happen?

Since posting, I have thought more that a major difficulty in this is separating the AS/NT elements. As some have suggested, and it seems quite a common belief, men talk about relationships *much* less than women in general, anyway. If 98% of marriages were glowing successes, then the AS male role could be signficant in the small percentage of failures. However, we're at a 50% fail rate in the population as a whole - and higher in those that don't actually get to marriage. Many of the things NT women say about AS males, they say about men in general!

Perhaps I have absorbed too much the idea of relationship success/failure as a black'n'white concept? Why assume that just because you're happy with someone today, for a month, for a year, 5 years or more, that it *must* last forever to be a 'success'? If a couple get along well for say 10 years, then separate, why say that the "relationship" was a failure?

That is *exactly* what I did, too, when things started to go awry. Occasionally had doubts, but my ex- fully assisted in helping to build a picture of a relationship failing entirely due to me. Once we separated, I quite quickly switched to the opposite, blaming her totally. Especially as the extent of her 'deceptions' started to became apparent. Eventually, I have balanced that out and now believe that for what it's worth, we were both equally to blame. This is still a major leap from totally blaming myself (and my AS) 100%.



One thing I was wondering about was the stereotype of the Aspie man being generally inexperienced. Anecdotally, and generalising beyond the call of duty, it does seem that the typical AS male has considerably less female interest in him than the typical NT male. So I'd speculate that this could lead him to be far more flattering of, and overtly devoted to, a female he becomes involved with. I've certainly behaved like that - it seems almost inevitable after long periods of being alone!

But what you're saying, Willard, seems to contradict that. After 3 marriages (and the near-misses) , surely this 'novelty' value due to not being single at last, would have worn off? You were *not* inexperienced! Yet still you followed the 'template'.


I've thought a lot about this. I can't see that this happened to me. Which is not to say that it didn't...however, there seemed to be more a reciprocal withdrawing of interest, slowly, over many years, involving both of us.

Sometimes, I think the pressures of 'modern living' did as much damage from *outside* as much as anything that happened *inside*. The pressure on us to "have it all". To be a glowing success in your career, as a parent and as a partner. Once children came along, we both kept our careers going (you have to if you want to own a decent house and live a little in the UK these days), devoted a huge amount of ourselves to parenting....and totally lost touch with each other. This seems hardly an AS/NT thing, could happen to anybody. The AS aspect is that as things spiralled downhill, *then* I started to become a lower functioning Aspie as every week went by.

I'd like to think that relationships do offer some chance for learning, growth and development in some way that is not possible alone. Else why not just stay single, as you say later?



Yes, that's the kind of thing I'm getting at. Being in a LTR and the efforts required to keep it going, continually having to decipher the internal state of another, very different human being, was definitely good for me overall - although such hard work!



Yes, from what you say, I think it has two intertwined causes: the repression causes men to be afraid to express them, and from this, eventually, they lose touch with them anyway, and don't have anything to express even when an opportunity arises. I remember vividly, seeing a "relationship counsellor" a few years ago, and she asked my "how I felt" about something and I literally could not answer at all about how I felt about anything. I could say what I *thought*, but had no concept of *feeling* anything about anything! Until then, I couldn't recall anybody ever asking me how I *felt* about something. It's hard to give any value to ones feelings when that is the case. How can someone who has become so detached from their own feelings ever begin to have an inkling what another was feeling? It's still very much work in progress!


Absolutely, which is why I couldn't have even though about this a while ago as I "knew" that my "wrongness" was the whole answer!

It's quite possible that she is merely upset in general and not upset with you. When I detect that she's upset, I ask her what's wrong... repeatedly, until she finally tells me. More often than not, she's upset about something in her life that I haven't caused. Sometimes in these cases, it's just best to listen and offer general sympathy such as, "I'm really sorry to hear that..." In fact, that's not a lie at all. I always am sorry to hear that she's upset, even if I cannot understand why.

Sometimes I can help by making sure she's eaten enough. Tea also can help quite a bit. However, it's important to know that I will not always be able to make her feel less upset. She feels better, though, having let some of the frustration out, and then the next day she is usually better.

If it's something I've done, talking about it is really, really important. If you feel that you can't talk face-to-face with her (because that can be difficult), can you try e-mailing back and forth, even if you are in the same room? It sounds kind of ridiculous, but in fact it can really help with verbalization and collecting your thoughts.

fiddlerpianist wrote

Yes I really must try to do that, I often go into "solution mode" trying to find an answer to her problem, which isn't my job and isn't what she needs help with, she is quite capable of sorting out her own problems, its more about listening, easy to say now, harder in reality




No it doesn't sound rediculous, have tried it, with moderate success, but it does seem a bit strange and does tend to make the conversations rather stilted...much better if I can talk about it directly, but this is a big struggle to overcome my anxiety that has built up over the years

Its my anxiety that is my bigger issue rather than AS, if I can overcome the anxiety I would be much better equiped to talk.
Think this is a key point when talking about AS/NT relationships, there is no single kind of AS man (or woman) we are all different based on our upbringing and experiences, but often with co-existing problems (anxiery, depression, OCD) that have their routes in AS, and these can be the bigger problem (IME)

Ask her to remind you when you go into "solution mode" at an inappropriate time. That way you can learn when you do it unconsciously and start to make a mental catalog.


Yes, I understand. Perhaps there are things that she can do or say over time that will help lessen the anxiety you get around the situation? I've found that the more I plunge into an anxious situation and come out okay, the more confident (and less anxious) I get. Maybe you can start easy and work your way up?


Yes. I don't get depressed, but I do have a few OCD tendencies and get anxious in specific situations.

Wow. I wonder if this is the case with my aspie.

When we first began getting to know each other, we talked all day, everyday. Of course, no one can keep up that pace, so for about a year I was put into the time slot right before bed. Then that was gradually extended to chatting a few times a week, then that became a month of a self-confessed hermitic retreat, and now it's just kind of talking whenever.

Throughout our time of communicating, there has been very little consistency on his part - the pattern, in place for a week to several months, constantly changes. Even still.

I've asked him flat out if he wants to only be friends or if he wants to end talking all together and he offers no response.