Hello and advice, please.

[Guest guest]

Hello, all.

My name is Christy. I'm a 35 year-old woman who is married to a man whom I

believe has Asperger's, or HFA (but he does not think he does, nor has he been

formally evaluated for an ASD.) We have two boys, a four year-old and a nine

month-old. The four year-old was diagnosed with Asperger's this past May.

Since his diagnosis, I've been reading a lot of books and articles on Asperger's

and many of the things I've read rang true of my husband as well as my son. I

recently read an article online about women married to men with AS and it was as

if I was reading about my marriage to my husband.

Looking back on my relationship with my husband, there were many signs that he

had AS, but I did not recognize them as such. Any issues that arose, we were

able to work out with a a good deal of effort on both of our parts. After we

got married, I got pregnant with our oldest son. I found that my husband became

less helpful and more edgy after the birth of our son. As our son became more

mobile and vocal, my husband became more overwhelmed and required more time by

himself. He has been very agitated with our older son's AS traits and symptoms,

especially his repetitive speech patterns and questions, as well as his

decreased ability to follow directions. He feels like our son does these things

on purpose to upset us and to make him " miserable. "

On top of this, we now have another child, so I require more help from my

husband with the children's care. This seems to be extremely distressing to my

husband. The more responsibilities and expectations are placed on him, the more

withdrawn and depressed he becomes. He complains about how miserable his life

is and how our older son sucks all the joy out of his life. He says he has no

time for himself and he dreads waking up every morning to the same thing. He

hates his job and says that he has had the same problems at every job he has had

( " incompetent people who are out to get [him]. " ) He's gained about 30 lbs in

the past year, drinks a tad much given that he is on two anti-depressants, and

spends most of his free time locked up in his office on his computer. He sleeps

excessively, sometimes up to 12-14 hours a day on the weekends, which leaves me

to take care of the kids the vast majority of the time, even when he is home.

He says that it takes him hours to calm down after spending a couple hours with

our older son or after a moderately stressful day at work. He has a really hard

time with noise and auditory processing, such as having an involved conversation

at a loud party, or talking to someone while our 4 year-old talks in the

background.

With all this said, I am feeling extremely lonely and somewhat abandoned in this

marriage. I had terrible muscle spasms in my back yesterday and he flat out

refused to help me with the kids, telling me to " Stop talking and leave me

alone, " while pulling up the covers over his head in bed. This has happened on

several other occasions to a lesser extent. Thankfully, I was able to call upon

our parents for help. Regardless, I don't know how much more of this I can

take. I want to keep my family intact and I want my kids to have their father

in their lives, but I feel like my husband is sucking the life out of me and

turning me into a bitter person. I have two small kids to care for, including a

very strong-willed one with AS. In addition to that, I feel like I have a third

child to care for instead of a husband who is an equal partner in this marriage

and family. Is there any hope that he can change, or do I have to accept that

this is how it's always going to be and not count on him for anything outside of

financially supporting us? I want to have empathy for his situation, as I don't

think he can help some of these things, but can he learn to deal with his issues

in a more constructive way that is less damaging to our marriage and family?