• Replies 17 replies
  • Subscribers 86 subscribers
  • Views 1341 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
Related
Hints and tips
  • To quote someone's message, first select/highlight the relevant text, and then use the Quote button that appears
  • To "mention" someone, type @ followed by the start of the forum name, and choose from the list; that person will get a notification of being mentioned

I think my wife is autistic

boarderyogi

Hi all,

I need a bit of guidance.

I've been married to my wife for 17 years, been together 21 years. I'm 50 and she's 47, I  love her dearly but it's been extremely tough emotionally. 

From early on I was baffled by some of her traits and behaviours but she's such a pure person and never judged me so I fell in love with her and I still love her and we've got 2 beautiful children but I'm finding our relationship hard to deal with as we get older.

I used to get angry and bemused as to why she could never really get into me as I gave her everything but as we've got older it's all becoming clearer in my mind.

I believe she has some level of neurodivergence, I now believe she isn't rude, she can't help it and is oblivious to herself acting that way.

Just to give some examples so that you guys may be able to advise:

She finds it extremely difficult to look me in the eyes, at the altar on our wedding day I was saying my vows looking at her but she couldn't hold the gaze and just kept turning away.

She struggles with picking up social queues, if there's a serious situation she can't grasp that her behaviour has to change somewhat and will make jokes.

When someone is talking to her she'll constantly yawn and keep looking away or focus on something else.

She's become increasingly obsessed with tidiness as she's getting older.

She can't pick up on changes in behaviour of me or our kids so misses situations where she needs to be more emotionally involved.

That's just a few but there's more over the years.

How do I approach the idea of her getting checked out and tested? Like I say, she's oblivious to her behaviours.

Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers

Parents

  • I can relate to some of the ways you describe your wife. The question for you is, does she need to know? If you're realising she could be neurodivergent then maybe it will help you understand her behaviour, which may benefit you?  Whether it will benefit her will probably depend on whether she's noticed it herself. For me, I always felt like I didn't fit in with society but couldn't understand why, so a diagnosis really helped with that. Maybe you could subtly bring it up - can't think of any suggestions, subtlety is not my strong point - but if there's a way it could be slowly brought into conversation, she may start to see it for herself. Like someone else said, there are various tests you can do online if she did want to look into a diagnosis down the line.

  • in reply to Cloud44

    Thanks for replying. It's a tough one for sure and I'm really thinking hard about how I'm going to approach this but I really feel like the time is now, I don't want us to build up resentment for each other, we both need to work on it, at the moment I feel I'm the one making the effort, as, like I said, she's pretty oblivious to her behaviours and how they affect others. We have a 17 year old son who's starting to pick up on some of her behaviours and is finding them hard to deal with.

    Thanks again.

  • in reply to boarderyogi

    If you do get to the stage where she wants to look into neurodivergence, there's a book called '22 Things a Woman with Asperger Syndrome wants her partner to know' that could be useful to you both. My husband read it and said it helped him understand the things I couldn't explain. We both agree autism is a reason for behaviours, but not an excuse. 

  • in reply to Cloud44

    Thank you, I'm going to have a talk with my wife over the next week or so (once I've worked out what to say without upsetting her), I'll mention the book that might help. 

Reply Children
No Data