Just found out my husband has Aspergers

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Hi, I'm new to this but desperate for someone to share this with. I have known my husband for 14 yrs, married for 7 and we have a 4 yr old daughter. Our marriage seems to have consisted of 5 yrs of not getting along and 2 years of good times. We have been seeing a counsellor for about 9 months and after a recent incident with my husband our counsellor told me that she feels very strongly that my husband had Aspergers. This emerged when I visited the counsellor alone on the evening when my husbands behaviour reached an all time low for me; I had interrupted his routine when I managed to get a 'last minute' appointment to take our daughter to the doctors. All the way there in the car my husband drove like a lunatic whilst shouting at me. I refused to shout back or be drawn into the dispute as it was not fare on our daughter. As we got out of the car my husband continued to shout at me and when we reached the door to the surgery I finally turned round and told him to shut up as there were people watching. He then pushed me in the back.
My counsellor is convinced that he has Aspergers and so am I. I have not been able to tell my husband this as I don't know how he will react. I would like to speak to his family about it but I feel that i am being disloyal to him by not speaking to him first.
Today we took our daughter to her friends party where we were both going to stay. My husband told me that he was going to the car to get a jumper and he didn't return. As the party ended I text my husband to ask where he was as the party had finished but got no reply. Fortunately a freeing took my daughter and i home. When I got home my husband was not there and I felt very anxious about him returning as I felt he would blame me and be really angry, especially as we haven't been on the best of terms lately. When he did eventually come in he was laughing as he said he had just come back from trying to pick us up from the party and that we had missed each other! I'm obviously really annoyed at what he did and when he realised this he blamed me for making a big deal out of it and then ranted on at me in his usual way.
I don't know what to do for the best, I love my husband when it's good but most of the time it's crap. I also want the best for my daughter and he is a good dad to her.
If anyone can offer some words of advice then I would be truly grateful as I feel so isolated with this problem.
Thanks for reading and sorry for rambling.

Please don't take this personally, but what is your question and particular problem, exactly?

I mean are you wondering if you should leave him? (doubtful any of us can answer that)

Are you wanting to better understand him? (perhaps you should just ask him, or do some research)

Are you wanting to change his behavior?

Are you wanting to change your behavior?

Possibly just express some pent up emotions?

It's very difficult, at least for me, to understand exactly what about these particular situations is bothering you.

I get the feeling that you're hoping the diagnosis of an autistic spectrum disorder would help your relationship, and it's certainly a possibility. If it is the case and once it's taken into account, some things become more explicable and there is the possibility of greater understanding and more effective communication between the two of you. Of course, it wouldn't be a magic bullet, and there's no guarantee anything would change. My shrink told my wife I was probably an aspie (I'm not formally diagnosed) and there's some things it helped with. My partner was able to take it into consideration and now tells me when she's teasing/being sarcastic/being ironic because she knows I just can't pick up on it. She tries to give me warning if she wants to change the plans for something. In turn, I try to be more flexible and allow for unexpected changes in our routine, and I try to be more spontaneous and make chit-chat with people; i.e. I talk to strangers about the weather. I find it stressful, but she appreciates it. However, the realisation hasn't fundamentally changed me. I'm more aware of my idiosyncrasies, but they're still there. Nor were all the concessions made on my part. It's a partnership, and she tries to take my nature into account just as I try to take hers.

Finally, I don't believe pushing and shouting at your wife is an aspie trait. I'm not saying you are implying it is, it's just an observation.

People with Asperger's sometimes have meltdowns when they (we) feel overwhelmed. They can involve either shutting down or flying into a rage. It sounds to me like that's what's happening with your husband. As you mentioned that you knew he was upset because his routine had been interrupted, it might be helpful, in order to prevent meltdowns, to allow him to do his thing on his own, or he may react by losing control. I know this is not fair to you, and places a greater burden on you to get things done with your daughter, etc. But if you want to try to improve the situation with him, unfortunately it may be what you need to do.

Of course, I'm just guessing and I may be off track. You might want to pick up some books on the subject of AS to see if you recognize your husband's behaviors and see if they can offer any advice.

As far as telling him about the possibility he has AS, why not let the counselor tell him?

Sorry, double post.

willard put it pretty well, but i feel an analogy needs to be added. imagine making an appointment. and then the doctor tells you you need to residual and the only other time he can do it is next Tuesday, and the next day he goes on vacation. of course you will be a little peved about this, but then you look at your schedule, and you have ANOTHER appointment that day. so you need to go change all of your plans, move this appointment around, move that appointment around, and worry about pissing other people off and messing up.

this is what we go through every day. someone changes something that seems minor and it kills us inside. our brains, or his brain too, just doesn't work like that.

so you need to ask yourself. would you be willing to change a little bit, and become a little bit more stiff in your plans? i mean he has probably been making sacrifices all his life and for you especially for you seeing he lives with you, would you be willing to do the same.

because this isent going to change. and if you for some reason decide because he has this small little thing you wont love him anymore, you will be ruining your daughters life, his life, and most possibly your own. divorce has consequences. its rash, and rash decisions never work.

It's kind of worrisome that he would push you. As far as I know this isn't an aspie trait. I'm sure what Willard and Chadd are saying about how he feels is dead on, but that doesn't mean that's an OK way to express anger. I don't have a solution ATM but that seems like the most important thing to worry about, and I'm kind of surprised to be only the 2nd person who thought it was worth mentioning.

I've also been seeing a therapist who thinks my husband has Asperger's. The pushing incident sounds very similar to an episode that occurred with my husband years ago, also when our child needed medical attention. I think it's not so much abusive behavior as inappropriate behavior due to emotional overload. My husband hates to be torn away from a computer game or a television or radio program. I can't tell you how many times I have tried to talk to him about family matters and been brushed off with a brusque, "I'm listening to Hugh." (Hugh Hewitt is one of his favorite talk show hosts and he can't stand to miss a minute. He'll check online archives to make sure he hasn't missed any comments in the blogs, and he posts quite frequently.) While I appreciate my husband's political interests, our four children know that they rate lower on the totem pole than their father's hobbies (though I won't confirm that it is so), and it is difficult for me to fully compensate. In any event, I have learned that my husband cannot tolerate emotional outbursts and will respond either by withdrawing entirely or, on very extreme occasions, by becoming enraged in proportions that seem absolutely unreasonable. I think I have ADD but have not been officially diagnosed, though I think that will take place within the next few sessions. I have a hard time being organized and structured enough to meet my husband's and children's needs -- one of my children has been diagnosed with Asperger's, and my other children seem quite difficult to manage at times, too. My husband and I have been married for 15 years, and I will admit that I am more married to the concept of marriage at times than I am married to the man himself. I feel that I would lose far more than I would gain by divorcing him, but I became deeply depressed within months of marrying him and feel that I am finally coming out of the fog that has enveloped me for most of our married life. He is very intelligent but lives according to his own set of rules that don't always make sense to me and probably don't make sense to many others. He spends money on whatever he wants and I have to scramble at times to make house payments and have adequate money for food and clothing. He refuses to accept any budget I have ever composed. He tells me I'm a cheapskate and am trying to control him when I'm simply trying to suggest that mortgage payments, student loan payments, utilities, and groceries should be a higher priority than computer games or equipment for the pond or the aquarium. In the meantime, I am attending school to earn a nursing degree. I have a bachelor's degree in two other fields that hold few prospects for employment and have decided I need to be able to support our family if necessary. In the meantime, however, many of my friends are questioning my choice. They don't realize my husband has spending issues, they don't understand how emotionally draining it is to be married to someone who acts like a spoiled child, not a supportive adult, and they don't realize how precarious his own employment is. In my opinion, if he is difficult to deal with at home, he is probably viewed as difficult by his employer, too. He has had a number of problems at work and though he always paints the picture as being someone else's fault, I suspect that's not always the case. I think I've heard my husband tell me he's sorry three or four times during the past sixteen years (I just realized our anniversary is next week), though he's quick to tell me how wrong I am about things. In no way am I trying to characterize him or anyone with Asperger's as villainous; I'm simply exhausted with the way things have been and have felt so guilty and alone for so many years. I'm so sorry for the length of this post. I've just been blaming myself for our difficulties for so long that at times I feel that I start blabbing and cannot stop.

I sensed for yrs that something was different about him. I don't even want to type right now. I feel so upset. I love him but I feel like his parent at times and the one who has to always give. I don't feel I can help him at times. He also is disabled. It is soo tough. His parents won't admit to him that he has it. When he was a child they took him to all sorts of people to find out what was wrong with him but he didn't get the help he needed. To top it off he was abused by them. Beat because of his odd behavior. He ended up becoming and alcoholic and drug addict and that is what brought on his brain damage. His family doesn't want to talk about aspergers and for so many yrs convinced him there was no such thing. He is clean now but because of the residual effects from everything he is not easy at all to deal with. I have learned at times that I have to get away from him for my own sanity. He doesn't understand limits so I have to enforce them myself. To be married is to be constantly challenged. I think their needs to be more research into this, this could be some of the reason behind the divorces, especially when you don't know your husband has it, and his family is in denial about it.

I don't know if your husband has AS....to be honest, from all the women we get on here who's marriage counselor told them she...and it usually is a she, thinks their husband has AS, and their stories, I'm starting to think marriage counselors don't really know all that much about AS.

But then again, maybe your husband does have it. To be honest though, it's not an excuse for pushing you, blaming you for things that aren't your fault, or acting passive aggressive. He really just sounds like a petty individual with a lot of resentment towards you for some reason.

There are plenty of men with AS who would treat a woman...if they were able to get one, like a goddess, and if they weren't able to handle the relationship, they would likely just withdraw.

Thanks to all of you for responding, it's much appreciated.
Over a year later and I still haven't had the courage to tell my husband what the counsellor said. We don't see the counsellor anymore, I think in the end that she felt she couldn't help us as she suddenly became 'unavailable'. She told me when we discussed my husbands Aspergers that she didn't think it was a good idea to tell him as may may not react well - I came to the conclusion that the counsellor was crap as she had handed me a hot potato and rather than suggesting what I might do with it she simply told me to hold on to it and I don't think that is very professional.
I still find my husband confusing but I have read a lot about it on the internet so understand a little of why he is like it but it doens't make it easier when he does such hurtful things. I realise that not everything can be put down to Aspergers and it is difficukt to know where Aspergers ends and a difficult husband begins. Because of this I tend to withdraw and lead a mentally/emotionally independant life within our relationship, which is a shame. We also have the added complications of coming from 2 different cultures, and me having older children from my first marriage - very complex!
Anyway, thanks again for your response, I have found some of the things you have said to be a great comfort.

I've never seen a professional who couldn't admit when something was beyond the scope of their expertise and refer the patient/client to someone who they thought was better equipped to deal with the situation so that she should just become unavailable is indeed unprofessional.

Perhaps she is having difficulties of her own but in that instance, she still had the responsibility to refer you to someone else.

I would like to point out that it really isn't known whether or not your husband has AS. In his case, it's likely an actual adult assessment for an autistic spectrum disorder would have to be done.

There are many things that can mimic AS to the untrained eye and other personality disorders and issues that can explain your husband's behavior.

As to where to draw the line, as a person with AS, whether or not my partner had AS, I would not tolerate physical violence be it hitting or pushing, unless he was defending himself from me, which would be extremely unlikely as I'm not a violent person. I would not tolerate passive aggressiveness in a partner, as I need people to be open with me. I should say though that not everything that seems passive aggressive is intended to be, so it can be difficult to make the call as to the person's actual intentions sometimes. My mother used to accuse me of being passive aggressive, for example, I once colored in a flower on the couch when I was 10, which she thought must have been to spite her for some reason, but I wasn't upset with her at all. I thought it would be fun to color it in and it never occurred to my 10 year old mind that she would take issue with it.

Passive aggressive people intentionally try to make things difficult in a way which simultaneously makes them technically appear innocent.

One of many examples might be the scenario of an agreement where the passive aggressive person is to give you a ride to a doctor's appointment on his or her way to work, and then leave without you. Upon your inquiry, the person may claim that they told you it was time to leave and that they were leaving and you ignored them. In reality though, they either didn't tell you they were leaving, or they told you in a voice intentionally soft enough so that you might not hear. In that way, they justify to themselves that they told you they were leaving and you chose not to go after all.

A normal person would have made sure you knew they were leaving. They probably would have called out very loudly "I've got to go, I'm going to be late for work, are you coming?" And should you not reply, they likely would have called again or would have gone to check on you.

I just wouldn't put up with a guy who I thought was a jerk whether he had AS or not, and I don't expect a guy to put up with negative qualities within myself that are unfair to him.