The saga continues.. is this normal behaviour for a 37 year old man? And should I marry him if I feel like this?

[WhatsupDoc]

Hi everyone

The saga continues.. (my last post is here)

I know I said my DP is hard work, but I just wanted to share some examples and ask for opinions as to whether his behaviour is odd or not (I think it's weird)

Some examples of things he does/has done:

Saved a strawberry in a glass jar for a year as an experiment to see how it deteriorated (lived on his study windowsill, he wouldn't let me throw it out)

He caught a spider in the bathroom one day - I didn't think anything of it - then I discovered he'd kept it in a jam jar (pierced the lid for air) and went out every evening and caught flies to feed it. Then a few weeks later he caught another spider and put it in the same jar to see what would happen.

We have been in our house for a year and have a huge, unkept mature garden with 6 vegetable patches. I tried to encourage DP to do some gardening to get him away from the TV and internet. His idea of gardening is as follows:

buy a bag of birdseed and plant it (to see what happens)

buy sunflower seeds (meant as petfood) and plant them somewhere else

buy grass seed and plant another vegetable plot with it

dig up a patch of lawn, replant it in a flowerbed and let it grow so it produces seeds which he can sow somewhere else

Other random weirdness includes:

Keeping the t-shirt he wore for DDs birth (complete with blood spatterings) hanging up in wardrobe - I discovered it last month, covered in mould (yup, he refused to wash it) We had a huge fight about washing it, I eventually won

Has kept both DC umbilical cord clips in a jamjar, complete with umbilical cord stump (looks for nauseous emoticon )

I could go on

I'm at the point where I feel I need to make a decision whether to stay in the relationship and make a committment to it (i.e. get married) or plan my escape. I just find it really hard to relate to him at the moment.

Opinions please?

He sounds cool to me! Love people with character.

The thing is with Aspergers is that it isn't one convenient label, and you can't ram pills down his neck to make it go away. It's one of these sliding-scale things that, when it's the lowest end of the scale the person is just a bit eccentric or socially awkard, but the further along you go the more difficult the person's life becomes.
Only you know whether his good points outweigh his bad points, but I do keep getting the impression that you are determined to a) have a relationship with this man whatever he thinks about it and b) normalise him whether he likes it or not. You stand more of a chance of managing the former, because he's clearly not bothered either way so is not likely to run off unless you make his life such hell that he can't stand it any more, but you are unlikely to have much success with the latter. He is who he is.

Thanks Madamez

I'm not going to stay in a relationship which makes me miserable

But on the other hand, I'm not ready to walk away yet either

Coming on here and posting this stuff has been really cathartic for me, as I've never aired my doubts about the relationship before. Consequently it's been gnawing away at me and I've not known what to do about it.

I do realise I can't change him, but I am hoping we can reach a stage where we live together relatively peacefully without all the bickering. If we can't achieve that, and both of us hand on heart feel we've put 100% in to trying to achieve that, then I am not afraid to walk away.

Not really understanding him has been a big barrier over the last few months. These posts have helped alot; hearing that other people have similar traits, or would find them endearing/irritating etc. Makes me feel like I'm not going mad, at least.

I'm going to give it 12 months, and if it's still the same I will admit defeat!

So there, I have a plan.. and I like plans

Dittany I thought the close family relationship endearing when we met..

It's been since DCs that it has become particularly oppressive and is why I want to move back down south (400 miles away)

Funny how your perspective changes when you have children!

Sounds like my dad, he's always collecting weird things and trying different experiment.
When my mum met him, he was into making home made fireworks!
He is a scientist by the way
Whenever a piece of classical music came on the TV or the radio he would always ask me and my brother what it was,,we did not have a clue but he would tell us anyway.
The OP DP sounds sweet, but she needs to decide if she can live with his quirks for the rest of her life.

He sounds very much like my DH.
DH once put a pizza in the oven and forgot about it. It went completely black. He still has that pizza saved carefully in a box (has been a couple of years now). he intends to find some kind of solution to preserve it in.
He is also obsesses with 'side by side comparisons'. We can never buy one box of tea bags, always have 3 different varieties on the go so he can taste them 'side by side'

I like it. It is just part of him, and a quite lovable part of him imo.

He is very thoughtful and a good husband in other ways. Plus he is brilliant with the boys. I think his eccentric, experimenting personality shows them cool new ways to look at things that they would never get from me.

If he wasnt up to scratch in other ways, then yes it may annoy me. Lots of my friends say things jokingly to me like 'he's lucky he's married to you, not me, i'd go mad' when he does something a bit barmy. But I would go mad with their other halves for different reasons.

I suppose what I am saying is that he sounds lovely to me. He sounds harmless and quite sweet to most people on the thread by the sounds of it. But do you think its funny and sweet behaviour or does it mostly irritate you?
If your personality means that he irritates you, then I think thats not going to change, only get worse over time.
If you find it endearing, but just a bit odd, then embrace his madness and enjoy it! But make sure he doesnt duck out of being responsible and mature at least some of the time!!

Hi 2point4,

If my DP had burnt the pizza he'd have done exactly the same thing

My DP also does similar 'taste tests' - buys cheap and branded and makes me test to see if I can tell which is which

He also spends hours in the supermarket comparing prices and working out the best value for money..

It does irritate me tbh. But if I'm honest that's because I find it quite embarrassing, and I worry that other people will think he is weird, and consequently that I am weird. How shallow is that?

I am too worried about what other people think of me perhaps!

I am going to try to approach his eccentricities with a different frame of mind (sense of humour might help ) and see if that works. The weekend's coming up, so plenty of time together to try it out..

I think a different response to his quirks sounds like a good approach.

I think my dh borders on aspergers and I have told him so! I've lost count of the times he has killed conversations whenever he is forced to be sociable.

Yes, it is irritating sometimes. But I think I chose him partly for his quirks - I think I was rebelling against my normal boring childhood! I see a lot of advantages in the way he is - he is always doing "interesting" things with the dcs, like taking 10 random ingredients from the kitchen cupboards and seeing what they can make(!). I couldn't be bothered. Most of my friends' husbands so nothing like that with their kids.

Don't know if this is helpful....

A different approach sounds like a very good idea. Good luck with it

I do know what you mean about finding it a bit embarrassing. You've just got to try not to let it get to you I think and remember that your real friends will laugh with you at the funny things he does and maybe tease, but really would think he is cool rather than weird.

My DH does the find things in the cupboard and see what he can make for dinner thing as well. Although he does it by himslef as the boys are too young to help lol. The number of times I must have said 'I am not eating that '

I have 23 bars of dark chocolate sitting on the side in the kitchen from his last side by side taste test

I think lots of men have aspergers tendencies, but it doesnt necessarily mean that they have it. Just that theres a very big scale.

WhatsupDoc - my DH has several like minded friends that he has gathered over the years, mostly from uni. One of these friends set up an internet email group where they all discuss various subjects. Your DPs lorry pulling car idea sounds exactly like the sort of thing they would have a field day discussing! Over the years they have discovered other like minded people along the way and added them to the group so now they must have about 20 people and hundreds of emails going back and forth.
Once they discussed kitchen knives whic led to a bit of an obsession and DH bought us about 6 kitchen knives - i'm too scared to use them (they are very shapr and need special cleaning, i cant be arsed) and he rarely cooks! They look nice on the wall though lol.
Another time, me having ds2 sparked off a whole discussion about breastfeeding.. god knows wat they concluded!
Anyway, if you are brave enough to risk it then I could always introduce your dp by email to my dh's group - sounds like he'd fit right in

i fhis behaviour borders on embarrassing, if he isn't supportive, and acts like a child, I cannot understand why you think this is endearing. Long term, it will get worse. Its very easy to love someone,a nd love their eccentricities, becuase those bits are what makes then 'them', yet over time you are giong tobe more and more frustrated.

The guy hasn't learnt basic grown up skills yet. Guilt prevents you from leaving him, and thinking clearly about how YOU feel, its not all about him what about YOU??

Be his mother for then next however many years? He might be pasive, and no threat, etc but he isn't making you happy.

my bf has lots of these kinds of traits and a few others

he is also a physicist

i think it matters less what they might mean than whether you like him for them or even despite them

and you seem fairly unsure on that score

i would think that marriage is a slight red herring as kids together is pretty much a life commitment

Im sorry but I find it weird you would have children with this person yet ask MN to help you 'make a decision whether to stay in relationship and make a commitment'

Surely having children was a bigger commitment than marriage?

if bugs, berries and umbilical cords are being stored in jam jars now, and mouldy t shirts covered in blood are in your closet, think of what else he might want to 'preserve' after it's demise.