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Need to know if autism/aspergers is causing H's indifference?

2 replies

dizzykizzy · 03/10/2011 10:19

I have posted recently about my H and one suggestion was whether he had autistic tendancies. He does behave differently to most other Dads and Husbands I know and I have a very unfulfilled relationship in many ways.

I appreciate that it may be entirely his personality and his choice to be indifferent towards me and our DCs but some of his behaviours do ring alarm bells; i.e. lack of emotional capacity, laughing at inappropriate situations, swearing for effect in front of the children, getting angry at small indiscretions, being totally focused on his own activities but not putting himself out at all for me and the DCs. His behaviour regarding emotions is odd (he cannot express how he is feeling and laughs at me when I cry at soppy moments in films) and he has real difficulty with imagination/creativity but is an engineer by trade and has great spatial awareness.

However, unlike autism/aspergers he thrives in social situations (does small talk really well and can talk the hindlegs off a donkey). He doesn't listen but his chattiness gets him by and everyone thinks he's really friendly. He doesn't have regular friends though so although he seems very outgoing, we have a really poor social life together. Also, although he is absolutely anal about getting somewhere on time (often 30 minutes early so he can't be late), he doesn't like routine so we have a very inconsistent family life.

If anyone can help throw any light on this, I would appreciate it. If I could find a reason for his behaviour, it might help me to deal with the situation. I really do understand though that he may just be choosing to be the way he is.

OP posts:
RumourOfAHurricane · 03/10/2011 16:29

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Tota1Xaos · 03/10/2011 16:37

the way you describe him socialising also rings alarm bells re:aspergers/autism, as it sounds like he's talking at people, rather than conversing. I'ld hazard a guess that, whether he's on the spectrum or not, some of this behaviour he could change fairly easily, such as the swearing, even if he needs a bit of prompting, spelling out what you expect. People I know with diagnosed/probable aspergers do have emotional capacity as much as anyone else, but would struggle to verbalise it.

lots of info about adult autism on cambridge autism research centre website.

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