DH thought I was being inappropriate with our kid. WTF?

[vivariumvivariumsvivaria]

Fuck off, DM

DS is 11, a cuddly, affectionate, attention seeking youngest of three.

DH is, I think, on the spectrum. He does not need physical affection, or any affection, and this is impacting our marriage which has been limping along for a decade - because I find living without affection or physical touch a challenge.

Tonight, all 5 of us were in the same room. DH was playing cards with the older two, DS11 was lying next to me on a small settee. I stroked his tummy, DH said "please don't do that, it makes me uncomfortable" "what?" "it looks like you are masturbating him"

I am a bit lost. And, also, fuck off, Daily Mail.

Have spoken to each of the 3 kids to say if I, or anyone else, did anything that made them uncomfortable or scared they have to tell - and that I don't care who they tell, but, they have to tell someone. They all said "its just dad, he doesn't get it". They love him and understand him, and accept that he's a bit "quirky".

Nevertheless, my husband just accused me of being a paedophile.

There are some situations from which there is no going back in a marriage. And, I think this probably is one.

Anyone with insight into whether a man with aspergers might misinterpret a mothers' touch to her 11 year old kid? I KNOW that people on the spectrum does not equal dick head, I know that. It's what has been holding our marriage together for so long - my continual efforts to understand and accommodate his (undiagnosed) way of seeing the world.

I suppose that if this comment is not rationally explained by a clumsiness of social interaction then our marriage is fucked.

Suggestions of ways forward from this?

I don't think it is relevant he said looks like because he had to be thinking along those lines to say it.

You've done nothing wrong. It doesn't really matter what he thinks when you've done nothing wrong. It's bothered, upset, angered you and you have your own lines. You can leave a relationship for any and no reason.

He seems seriously disturbed
Leaving the relationship is probably overdue

Oh dear.
My xH was (I think) high functioning autistic (although this is not something he would acknowledge or seek diagnosis for) and he had very inappropriate boundaries around sexual contact and discussion. At the same time, I do not think it is really appropriate to connect the two things in the way I am doing because DS (diagnosed) can clearly maintain appropriate boundaries (which he has been taught).

Hence, I would separate out the potential ASD from the behaviours. Unless there is a diagnosis or a will to seek a diagnosis, then it is not appropriate to ascribe behaviours to ASD. People on the spectrum are all different.

The issue is that your H has shamed you for an innocent interaction with your DS and he has done it in front of them. I do agree with the posters who say he has not directly accused you but he has said you were giving the appearance of being inappropriate. He knew you were not otherwise he would have said ‘what the fuck are you doing?’ surely. But he has introduced something unsavoury into your family life by suggesting that your affection to DS gives the appearance of being inappropriate. To him, it may well have done but that should have been a private conversation. This is in the context of him being unaffectionate himself.

It is okay to leave a marriage which is making you unhappy. The main questions are how you will support you and DC, about the house (who stays where) and what the residency/contact arrangements for the DC are. My experience of divorcing xH was that he found it very hard to accept the relationship was over and it was very very difficult.

please do not go into it saying or thinking 'he accused me of being paedophilic' because that really isn't anywhere near what happened.

That. No way should he have said what he did in front of the children. But he didn't accuse you of paedophilia. He said that it made him uncomfortable because the angle or whatever made it look like you are doing something that you weren't (and that he knew you weren't). Try to keep this in perspective.

Stroking a child's tummy is normal! Not weird at all!

Him making that comment Infront of them is innapropriate and cruel. Also it was obvious you weren't, maybe say 'dont do that in public' when you are alone but even then it's not really needed to be said. It will probably be on your son's mind too as he will be questioning 'am I weird lying on the sofa with mum'.

I think the issue is if his behaviour is rubbing off on them. It would be sad if their future partners had a life of no physical contact as their dad taught them it's weird.

Its OK for him to mention something - but the fact he said that infront of the children is very disturbing.

You were both with 3 teenage children, presumably they all know what the word masturbating means. It's a perfectly acceptable word that they would have heard in sex Ed classes in school. I'm not sure why you'd be 'stroking ' your teen son's tummy, that seems to me to be an odd place to touch him. I think he's a bit too old for that and I would feel uncomfortable if I saw you doing it too. (But I wouldn't think it looked like masturbation unless your hand was near his genitals!)
You've already pointed out that your DH may be Asperger, therefore has a different perspective and response to things than other non Asperger people. He didn't tell you to stop masturbating your son, he told you what it looked like to him. He's not accusing you of being a paedophile, presumably if he actually believed that's what you were doing he'd have dragged you out of there immediately!
All this talk if him not showing affection because of his Asperger, I assume he has always been like this, in which case you knew what you were letting yourself in for before you married and have children with him?
I think you're making a big drama out of this. If a similar scenario happens in my home, I think my DDs would probably laugh hysterically at their dad and tell him to stop being so gross. Then ask for more pizza! But to consider leaving him because of it is just plan daft.

He didn't think you were being inappropriate, he said it looked like that. His choice of words was very blunt and not appropriate in front of the children, but you are being extremely dramatic and making out he accused you of something he didn't. I think your dramatic tendencies are further borne out by the DM references.

Actually I think 11 is a bit old for stroking in that area to be truthful, I think I'd naturally tend to stroke his back or hair after toddlerhood.

I personally believe that parents should not touch their children in certain areas.

One of them is the swimming costume area.

Obviously some scenarios are different...a sore stomach might warrant a rub. But no other reason to show affection by touching a child in the torso area at the front.

Stroking hair or back might be more appropriate.

@vivariumvivariumsvivaria by experience, people who are in an NT/NT relationship are not going to get it. The ASD/NT relationship is so different and hard to comprehend when y u haven’t been in one before imo.

My experience would be that

• yes he did mean you gesture had a sexual content. My H certainly would have meant it like this.
• and you will need to have a chat with him about whether it was or not sexual.
• but I wouodnt Be surprised if you can’t convince him (because he WILL be right of course and you, as his wife, will be wrong)

There will also be a background to this post in how he is, what he says and how he sees things which you can’t give from one post. My answer to that is that if you know that this is what he meant, even if it wouod have a different meaning for NTs (and some pople with ASD - it always los so different when in paper for example), then it probably was what he meant.

Without diagnosis I think it’s deeply problematic to claim he may be on the spectrum. You can’t possibly know.

My nephew was considered to potentially be on the spectrum by various professionals including doctors. Many traits would fit. Yet after thorough assessment he is definitely not and nowhere near.

Many posters here claim undiagnosed ASD to explain major problems with their partners and their marriage because it’s easier than to accept they’ve married an arse.

The one person who has been inappropriate here is your DH. If you’re intending to stay together perhaps do some joint counselling to make sure he doesn’t do it again.

@KTara
He knew you were not otherwise he would have said ‘what the fuck are you doing?’ surely.

Fwtw, my ASD husband wouldnt have said anything along those lines at all. ASD people are all different and all that..

Also re your ds, as you said he is diagnosed and he has been TAUGHT SEXUAL BOUNDARIES. When people with ASD haven’t been diagnosed (or not diagnosed until they are adults), sometimes some stuff hasn’t been learnt. And they are also some times missing the ability to learn things in their own. Or rather to learn them ‘right’. I’ve lost count of the number if things my H ‘knows’ except he actually got the ring end of the stick. He still thinks he is right though.... and is much harder to convince otherwise (talk about years of chipping at things)

Tbh it seems odd to me that you were stroking an 11yr olds stomach.

However he was completely wrong to say what he did.

If he had any concerns he could have found a different way to express it.

You did nothing wrong.

My brother is like your DH. He queried why I was holding hands with my 3 year old son. Ridiculous but makes you question yourself.

People wading in with their personal boundaries of what's acceptable are ludicrous. Stroking a tummy is not weird or abusive ffs.

OP you wouldn't be divorcing him for this. You would be divorcing him for everything else and this is just the tipping point.

It's clear from your posts that there is nothing now binding you to him. You don't mention you love him at all and that is OK. Divorce him now. It doesn't have to be over this just that this has been the final straw or the total eye opener if you will.
Be done. Get some rest from endlessly trying to analyse and appease and fill in the gaps for this twat. You won't regret it.

I think consider leaving. He says things that 'would be abusive if said by an NT partner' (they're abusive whoever says them), there is no physical relationship to speak of and I'm a bit suspicious that his mind goes directly to a sexual act in the situation described- makes me wonder what is going on in his head, and not in relation to the autistic spectrum either. There may be a genuine reason that he is an awful partner or there may not. Either way, you do not have to put up with it.

Hopefully your DC will be able to brain bleach the memory of his ridiculously inappropriate comment. It would be horrible for them to start subconsciously avoiding physical contact for fear of it looking sexual.

See if I'd been your H and I'd been sat and watched you do something completely innocent but which looked terrible, I'd have waited until after the kids had gone to bed and then said "OMG when you were rubbing Jim's tummy early, from my angle on the settee it looked like you were wanking him off, I nearly died from keeping my laughter in." I would say that if I knew you would find it funny too. After ~15 years together, I would know whether you would or not.

But I would NEVER have said it in front of the DC.

On its own this isn't LTB territory, but it sounds like the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back.

Can I just ask has your dh got any issues from childhood? My mother was a very cold person and the only time I remember any physical contact beyond the normal bathing and helping me get dressed as a young child, were her strange stroking and tickling ‘episodes’ they started off innocent enough and then ended up going too far, and I would ask her to stop. Now I know as an adult and mother where she used to ‘tickle’ me and not stopping when requested made what she did inappropriate. I now have totally weird thing about physical contact. I am probably a very cold person. I do hug and kiss my children but yes I would start to panic if I saw an adult tickle/stroke a child in a soft way. It makes me uncomfortable, although I would not blurt our my thoughts like your dh did.

I don’t know if any of this might be possible with your dh? I buried my own memories of it for 30 years until I had a child and was tickling them and then I had a flashback and I felt weird and uncomfortable and shocked at what was done to me.

However his inappropriate comment was out of order.

Oh and I agree with PPs. Saying what he said in front of the kids is the inappropriateness here.

Part of me wants to report myself to the police incase there IS anything accidentally dodgy - and most of me wonders why, if he thinks the mother of his kids is inappropriate then he has not already done so? For heavens sake, he didn't accuse you of anything, he was concerned that if someone saw you doing that they could misunderstand. I don't think there would be any fuss if a woman said the same to her partner who was lying stroking his 11 year old DDs stomach.

You sound a bit paranoid.

The problem is here is clearly for him any physical contact = sexual contact so he lacks the notion of physical affection being emotional and loving with no sexual context

That said you sound like you have had enough (and I dont blame you)

He wanted to make you and your ds feel ashamed for what is perfectly normal affection. I rub my 11 year old dds tummy, back, head all the time. I dont rub my ds10 as much as he has sensory issues and it annoys him. He does give me a great foot massage (but I have to pay him)

Your dh is uncomfortable with touch and wanted you and your son to feel that it was wrong. He has now put it in to your sons head that there was something inappropriate about your contact or that it could be construed that way. It doesn't matter that he said it looks like it, what matters is that he has associated what was something comforting and innocent to be something that could be seen as sexual thus making it uncomfortable for both you and your son to enjoy that closeness again without having that association in your minds and feeling that there is something wrong with what you are doing. Your dh is a cunt.

I'm not sure I could come back from that, OP.

ComeAndDance is right. I was in a relationship for four years and it's not until years later I was able to work out that my then 'D'P was on the spectrum. He was unable to touch me unless he wanted sex too.

The ASD/NT relationship is fraught with issues. We were like two different species.

Wow.

Firstly I definitely stroke my 11year old dds stomach and back because she finds it relaxing. We are an affectionate family full stop, always cuddled up on the sofa etc. This love and affection is important to all of us. My eldest dd went through a stage of hating hugs, so we stopped. We are guided by our children, and how close they wish to be ( I’d hug them all day given half the chance!)

You are being a good and loving parent, teaching your child how to feel loved and cared for.

However your dh clearly has issues, massive issues. Is he jealous of your relationship with the dc? Knowing he has problems expressing love. Jealously is more common than we like to think.

If my dh ever said that to me, in front of the children, there would be no going back.

The complete absence of affection between you is a problem too, why are you still together? You don’t have to make allowances for anyone, you are not a charity