An Asperger's Newlywed

I struggled with whether or not to write this.  Society would say I should leave out the parts regarding sex.  However, when you talk about Asperger's and marriage, sex is a big area where the marriage differs.   According to Eva Mendes, MA, a psychotherapist and couples counselor, "Adults with AS tend to either want a lot of sexual activity or too little." If reading about this topic in relation to my marriage offends you, please skip this post.

Everything seemed great the month before the wedding.  K bounced back quicker than expected from the death of his grandfather and we were looking forward to our wedding.  I was handling last minute details and taking summer classes to finish up my degree.  K finally got a job in his field weeks before the wedding and they wanted him to be there just 10 days later.  We quickly found an apartment in the small town where he had a couple of distant relatives.

We were married in a church wedding as small as I could make it in his hometown.  We did the traditional pictures after the wedding and the photographer kept telling him "Look at me.  Not her."

I'm not sure I'd ever seen him look at me that way and I haven't since.  It all stopped when the photographer asked about taking pictures with grandparents and things were never the same.   After the reception, we left with people blowing bubbles at us and went to visit his Papaw who was unable to attend the wedding.  We went back to the church to change for the picnic following.

K's parents were loading the candelabra that his mother insisted we get (and that I pay for) into a truck to return. It was their sole job for our wedding other than the rehearsal dinner the night before.   Kendall insisted on helping them load it which was taking forever.  Even though I'd wanted to elope and have a honeymoon, I'd planned the wedding with very little help over the past 6 months.  I felt no guilt about leaving them all to clean up the church.  K on the other hand didn't want to leave his family (whom he'd see as soon as they were done returning the candelabra).  So I rode with a friend to the picnic without him.  Around 8pm, I told him it was time to go.  He stalled by talking to everyone he could in the parking lot.  He stalled by stopping to talk to every relative sitting on their front porch on the way to the hotel.  We were getting really funny looks. It took us three hours to make an hour trip.  By the time we got to the hotel at 11pm, I was exhausted.  He made it clear that we were only consummating the marriage "because we have to."

The next weekend we moved our stuff to our new town and then 3 days later, he was gone.  I sent him with a car of neatly packed and labeled boxes that we'd kept at our apartment a little longer. We talked frequently over the next week and a half.  He was in a panic over getting the utilities set up and told me he was completely out of money and that I needed to put some in his bank account so he could live.  I pretty much emptied my account into his even after the bank told me he still had $1000 in it. I trusted my new husband knew what he was talking about.

As I was driving to our new home 10 days later, I imagined neatly packed boxes or everything already put away.  What I actually found was K standing in the office with at least half the boxes empty; the contents mixed together into one big pile on the floor. He was frantically trying to put things away. He looked at me as I walked in and said "Let's go eat." He didn't have a lot to say.

He continued to not have anything to say for at least the next 6 months.  He refused to come anywhere near me.  He stayed up until 2am and was gone by 7am.  I was asleep when he came to bed and still sleeping in the morning since I'd stayed up until I couldn't hold my eyes open waiting for him.  On the occasion that he came to bed while I was awake, he hugged his side of the bed telling me to get away from him.  He'd tell me he'd be home from work at one time and arrive home 2 1/2 hours later even though he only worked fifteen minutes from home and there was no traffic to hold him up. I had to trap him in the car just to talk.  I'd ask about his day when he came home and he'd tell me it was fine.  Then he'd call his dad and give him all kinds of details he refused to give me.

I didn't understand what was wrong.  I was in a new town where I couldn't find a job because they just don't have jobs in my field in small towns and the other jobs seemed to be given to people they knew. Even basic fast food jobs.  This small town was an hour from any city of any size.  The only place I could really go was church.  The one human being who should have been my rock was completely absent from my life.  He was a roommate and nothing more.

I finally directly approached him about lack of action in the bedroom. Like most young couples these days, we had not waited for marriage so it wasn't that he had a reason to be afraid.  He had a million excuses which all seemed as if he was just putting me off. I now realize he may have actually believed some of those excuses since some of it revolved around stereotypes and he acted as if he was doing me a favor to relieve me of the stress of sex.  The absence of it was quickly taking down my self esteem and causing me to doubt the security of my marriage.  When discussing it didn't work, I wrote my feelings down and had him read it he said "This is the same sh$% you are always talking about."

My heart hurt more than anyone could ever imagine.  There was my husband. I wasn't allowed to touch him at all and I was barely allowed to speak to him.  All around me people chatted about intimate moments with their husbands.  I know they didn't think it was a big deal. After all, I was a newlywed, surely I was having those experiences.  Instead, it really hurt to listen to it and I cried myself to sleep every night.  K didn't seem to notice it.  Or at least he didn't care if he did.

We did the grocery shopping together shopping only from the circulars as it was all we could afford.  The first time I threw pads I needed in the cart, he said "Can't that wait until next month?"  I wish!  Still, after he protested again I put them back.  The same thing happened the next month and after that I used money I received for Christmas to purchase cloth ones so I wouldn't have to be without.

If I had felt like I had any support at all or even a job, I would have ended the marriage. I hated where we lived. I hated that I couldn't get a hair cut or even the feminine products I needed.  I wanted something to put my hair up with.  I wanted to go camping and travel with my husband.  Instead, we went to his parents house every month and it was like going from one prison to another.

I wanted my K back but it seemed he was never coming back.