Ex husband with aspergers. No contact with his children

Hi NAS64355, I've been in your ex's position (ASD though unknown at the time, and divorced) so I wanted to try to offer some thoughts. I'm aware that what I'm wanting to do is write down my experience, and I'll try to keep it focused on what might be helpful to you now. 

In common with many on the spectrum, I think, I found children a bit hard to relate to and more stress to look after than I anticipated especially when the initial wonder of having your own child wears off and then you add another child! Things that I believed (and still do) were differences in parenting style were interpreted by my ex as a lack of care, and this hurt and perhaps was one of the things that contributed to our break-up. She asked me to leave, and I remember comforting myself with the fact that living alone would be a lot less stress. 

Anxiety, caused by wanting to always do the right thing, worry about what might happen next, is a common theme in ASD.

Part of my autism, possibly, means that I don't deal well with fuzzy, half-situations; so if we're separated, we're separated 100%. My ex and I had what external observers (including our children) refer to as a "model divorce" i.e. amicable. But it still hit me like a brick. I had quite severe mental health issues for almost a decade afterwards. In the immediate aftermath I was somewhat terrified of my ex and hugely anxious if I was late picking up / dropping off our kids. 

So the first insight I might draw from above is that anxiety possibly plays a huge role with your ex, and perhaps the easiest way for him to avoid that anxiety is to keep his world totally separate from yours and the kids, as far as is practical. I think I can relate this to my experience. Not living with my children hurt enormously, but the anxiety of managing the new unknown world with its uncertainties and reminders of how things could have been (i.e. me "succeeding" at being part of a "proper" family) was too great for me to take much pleasure out of the second best solution of "access". In fact, "access" (which, I think objectively, was often more for my ex's convenience than my rights / enjoyment) just seemed somehow "wrong" and made me miserable sometimes.

The other thought is that whilst I think I am a good parent in a pair of parents, I'm pretty useless on my own and entertaining children is the least of my skills. Thinking up things to do with my kids when they visited was nearly impossible.

So to try to sum that ramble up:

• Anxiety can play a huge, enormous, role
• "Black and white thinking" makes the gradual disentangling of lives unpleasant and hard to manage (and the natural inclination will be to try to -perhaps consciously- deploy psychological defences such as pretend that the divorce was decades ago and the kids have grown up)
• Your ex may be at a loss as to what to do with the kids (and I would guess that no amount of suggestions will help because it needs to be his idea or it will only happen "under duress" and he'll resent it and that will reduce future contact / increase anxiety)

Hope that helps a bit - sorry it took so many words to get to the three bullet points!

Thank you. That is helpful. I can relate to a lot of what you have said. He was able to cope with spending time with the children and doing all those things previously. Its since his illness that as a priority they have not been prioritised. I've made a small step since discussing the issue on here so hopefully we can turn a corner and get some contact again

Thank you. That is helpful. I can relate to a lot of what you have said. He was able to cope with spending time with the children and doing all those things previously. Its since his illness that as a priority they have not been prioritised. I've made a small step since discussing the issue on here so hopefully we can turn a corner and get some contact again