Partners with undiagnosed ASD - please share your experiences

[AIBU5]

Please be gentle...
I have known my husband for 8 years and I am quite confident that he's got a highly functional ASD. To preempt any criticism I have a medical background (It takes about 4-5 years to do a PhD, so believe me 8 years is more than enough to come to this conclusion 😂)
He lacks self awareness and has no desire to hear anything about this topic.
If you know you know what it's like to live with someone with ASD. It's been hard, but I have learnt to live my life like this. Being self sufficient and independent helps, but once in a while I get really fed up with him. Divorce? Nope, thank you, I am done looking for a perfect man.
So I just wanted to ask you, lovely people, who is in the same situation, how are you coping? AIBU?

I'm following with great interest and read the many comments. I'm in a similar situation: no diagnosis, but a steady deterioration of symptom's on DH's part who has never acknowledged that there were issues. It wasn't this bad to start with, but got worse with kids and time. Had I been childless or if my family lived closer I would have left ages ago. I see me leaving as the only solution and time is making it harder. My advice OP is to go. It won't get better and life like that will become the 'norm' for you. My heart goes out to you. Don't make my mistake. Best of luck OP!

Check videos of Empathy Bliss on YouTube they have really good videos for adult autism. Subscribe her. The psychologist has just started but is doing really good informative videos

The fact that you are pretty sure he is ND helps you understand his behaviours and know it's not you, so that is a good thing. My DH is undiagnosed ND and he needs time on his own (usually watching youtube videos of men taking old cars apart or academic political and historical things), so we give him that space. There is no point going to him for sympathy over anything because he will only offer a 'solution' which is not what you want to hear. He is not very tactile; my daughter says she cannot remember the last time he hugged her (but she gets that from me). He has huge anxiety over social situations, even something like going to the theatre where he won't have to talk to anybody but will have people around him. However, when I do persuade him to come out he usually enjoys himself and everyone says how good it is to see him. I do most of my socialising with my women friends alone. He occasionally says very inappropriate things which are very embarrassing. For example, in a queue for a rapidly depleting bread counter in a shop on a small island, he sees the man in front buy up almost all the remaining bread and says aloud, locusts! The man turned round and said, we are 3 families together and the kids need breafast. I was mortified, but can laugh at it now. The thing is, you love your man for who he is. And sometimes he is a bit frustrating, but there are also loads of good things about him and hopefully you complement each other well.