Families of Adults Affected by Asperger's Syndrome

I have been married for 10 years and have been very unhappy for the last 8 years, which coincided with the birth of our first child. When we were going out together he lived at home and I didn’t see the side of him that reacts so badly to stress and change. He was always very shy, but that on its own wasn’t a problem. He was rather stressed out before our wedding but then a lot of men are! Once it was over he settled down again (until the birth of our first child). He had the occasional irrational outburst and lack of thoughtfulness, but I put this down to his sheltered upbringing. I thought that once he had the responsibility of a family he would be more understanding of “caring and sharing”.

Sadly the very opposite has happened. From the moment our first child was born I have lived with increasing resentment, bewilderment and exasperation at his behavior, which has gradually eroded all my love and affection for him. Having a child “over-loaded his circuits” and his behavior deteriorated at a time when I most needed him to be supportive.

We recently took our son to a pediatric consultant as he was behaving differently from other children his age, and I had a suspicion that he might be mildly autistic. The consultant thinks that it is very likely that he has Asperger’s Syndrome. I have always thought that our son “took after” his father and when the consultant went on to say that there were many adults who had never been diagnosed and held down jobs in things like computer programming (which my husband does), it was like the missing piece in the puzzle of why my husband is like he is – he has Asperger’s traits.

I have since read “Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome” by Uta Frith and “The Autistic Spectrum” by Lorna Wing, both books describe my husband.

I am convinced there is a genetic link in our case and there should be more research into this area. I could write pages and pages about my experience of living with a man who has “Asperger’s Traits” but will try to stick to a list which might be helpful to other women to compare with.

It is clear to me from reading other women’s case notes that my husband is not as badly affected as some, and they all seem to be affected in slightly different ways, but the fundamental problems are the same in every case.

Now the children are older the pressure has eased slightly, but we don’t share things as a couple, he can’t seem to discuss our son’s future and I avoid getting into situations which I know will trigger him off.

I wouldn’t consider marriage guidance counseling it would be pointless, he says he loves me and I know that he does but I can’t feel for him what I used to. I put my energies into the children, work and gardening – one of the things he has done is to try to put me down when I tried to find part-time work or do things with him, I just do them. I try to keep life steady for the sake of the children but I don’t know what the long-term future holds.

I have written down some facts that other women may identify with:

• Very little eye contact even with me; will look away when talking or fiddle with objects.
• Doesn’t use my name or any term of endearment, i.e. love, dear.
• Doesn’t ask after people.
• Conversation even with own parents very stilted. Doesn’t talk about the future or the past.
• Eats meals staring at a fixed point on tablecloth.
• Hardly every suggests ideas.
• Everyday stresses result in shouting outbursts and walking away from situations, i.e. child having tantrum in park, long queues in supermarket, leaves me to cope on my own, having first been verbally abusive in public.
• Family outings are very stressful as he is always very tense and in a bad mood, he never seems to “lighten up”. When the children are having fun he wants to move them on somewhere else and keeps looking at his watch.
• He won’t do anyone a favor if it would mean any inconvenience to himself.
• He is intolerant of noise and mess of children particularly when they were younger, he expected them to take a bath without splashing and keep all sand in the sandpit. I have to act as a buffer between him and them to allow them to experience normal childhood play like water, paints, mud-pies, clay etc.
• He is not keen to take them out on his own, never when they were babies/toddlers.
• Bluntly honest even if hurtful.
• Doesn’t like changes, any suggestions have to come from me and are met with irrational stubbornness.
• Very callous when I am ill, wouldn’t go downstairs to get a drink of water in the night when I was vomiting. When I had mastitis when our daughter was newborn he wouldn’t take me to the doctor’s surgery and was completely indifferent to my pleas that I would pass out if I walked there – a neighbor took me in the end.
• When I try to talk about such incidents he regards his behavior as reasonable or he “erases” them from his memory.
• He has an obsession with a particular sport, he writes down every result of every game he plays, has boxes and boxes of videos, books and magazines on this topic, it is the only time he talks animatedly.