Aspie Husband Won't Help

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I'm a regular member, but I had to make a new account to post about this personal issue. I'm NT and my husband is an aspie. We've been together for over 20 years. We have one child, who is biologically mine.

He and I recently both went off of antidepressants. It was a medication conflict for me and just a personal decision for him. He's "less autistic" on antidepressants. It makes him chill out about work and he's much easier to live with, but it also slows down his thoughts and doesn't allow him to delve into a special interest with aspie abandon. I'm a little testy off antidepressants and I deal with this by being quieter than usual.

I have some serious physical problems, which have worsened since I had the baby. My husband no longer helps at all around the house and I'm now cleaning everything alone, taking care of the animals alone, and except for an hour or two a day where he watches TV with our son, I take care of our son alone. He won't feed him, bathe him, change his diaper or even carry him around. My physical problems are getting worse and worse from exhaustion.

I'm not exaggerating. He does nothing at home.

I've tried explaining to my husband that this is a problem- in person, emailing him, asking for help on a task by task basis (when each thing needs doing asking him on the spot). I've tried directing him instead of asking. Finally I've lost my temper and yelled at him about it. He doesn't seem to get it. But we're middle aged and he's lived with NT people for a long time, so it's hard for me to believe that he really doesn't get it.

Advice, please?

He may need help in how to do even the simplest new tasks, because nobody every showed him how to do that.

Instead of cleaning, perhaps he could do the cooking instead? And buying the groceries.

http://www.babycenter.com/400_how-can-i ... FieldName=

You may want to visit this forum for insight.

Ask him why he won't or can't help you with some household task when you ask him to help you.

Apparently it's a guy thing.

But only some guys.

One of my more unusual conversations was with a mother of two gifted kids--I went to their home a couple of times to teach them one of my special interests--must have done a really good job--she said I really ought to have kids of my own.

I agree...only some guys and that's a disclaimer.

I am fully dx'd AS. If you ask my sig other/fiance, she will tell you that I am the nicest, most kindest, person in the world to her and her grandchildren/mom, etc. Her teenage children are another issue I won't go into or anything. She tells me how great I am with raising her grandchildren, and they all love me. Helping to raise her grandchildren was very difficult for me (I have never been a parent) but it is getting easier. Hated changing diapers at first, now I'm a "pro" at it. Her grandchildren all love me. At first, I was like the supposed uncle who only wanted to be around her grandchildren at most an hour or two. Over time, I have been around them much longer. Yeah, they are kids and kids will be kids. I have become more comfortable in my role in raising them up and such. My sig other is a very giving person as I am. Neither of us keep score on anything - including who is giving more than the other.

We've been together four years as of March 26th and have taken things *very slowly*. Started off as best friends. We are planning on getting a spiritual marriage and don't believe that anyone should tell us how we should get married. We will refuse to call each other "husband" and "wife" because of the connotation of "ownership". We will see the other as "spouse". We see each other as equals who have specific strengths and limitations. We were born 100 miles apart from each other in the same part of the USA, although we met in a different geographical area of the country. Very similar values, etc. I'll leave it at that.

Are you implying that the child is not biologically your husband's?
If so, that could be affecting their relationship and his willingness to help out.

Hi AnimalMom,

I am new on here and haven't even made a profile yet, but I saw your post and some suggestions came to mind. I have been married to an NT for 11 years and we have a son. Even though you have tried several ways to communicate your needs to him, based on my own experience I'm wondering if your communications might be too "NT" for him to understand. My thoughts:

1) When you ask for help with your child, tell him exactly what kind of help and how often. It can be difficult to know when NTs need help caring for kids because they seem to enjoy caring for their kids and like to feel needed, and feel satisfaction when they tend to their kids. We cannot tell the difference between a mom who is burnt out and changing a diaper (but wishing someone else would do it) or a mom who is happily in "the mom zone" and wants to be the one to fulfill a specific need at the moment.

Sometimes moms can feel the need to "cushion" requests for help with statements that can be confusing. Off the top of my head, one such statement might be "normally I don't mind changing diapers, but work was crazy today and I didn't get much sleep last night." The "normally I don't mind changing diapers" will be taken literally and filed away for future reference. Nobody wants to get between a momma bear and her cub when she is caring for her cub, especially "knowing" that she likes changing diapers.

Sometimes NTs appear to be complaining or asking for help (something we all do as humans) but they literally don't want help or relief, they are really just... I don't know the word for it... taking pride in the hardships and sacrifices. ??? I'll give a real-life example. My husband was saying his back hurt and he was sore on one of his days off, but he declined all my offers to help. Knowing that NTs can sometimes decline just to be polite (when they are secretly hoping you will just "jump in" and help) I took the liberty of signing him up for a massage. He got kinda peeved, saying he doesn't want a stranger touching him (he has some trauma from something that happened in his childhood). He said he takes pride in the fact that he works hard for his family, and that feeling some soreness makes him feel happy.

We do not remember the 2 or 3 times that our interventions were actually helpful, we remember the 100 times that our helpfulness was met with anger, annoyance or confusion.

2) The household chores. Make a chore chart for him. Explain to him in detail what you feel emotionally and physically each time you take out the trash. "Each time I lift the garbage can, my back aches and I grit my teeth when I have to lift it up and put it outside. This happens every single time." Paint him a DETAILED PICTURE to carry in his mind. If you have to, tape a physical picture to the garbage (or dishwasher or whatever) as a reminder, and make sure the picture depicts "aching back" (or whatever) in a way that a 2 year old can understand. You gotta anchor it in his mind that when he sees a certain object, he immediately links it with your pain.

Each chore should be either your job or his job, so there is no confusion. The default Aspie setting is "don't interfere", so we need to be very sure that when we do interfere, it was exactly what you wanted and that that it will make you happy.

General communications such as saying "I need you to help me with the housework on a regular basis" can sometimes be unclear to us. This is because 1) we might not remember it... we need a "link" to that statement in our minds and 2) sometimes NTs say things when they are feeling a certain way but it is not meant to be extrapolated to future events, for example my husband once said he wants to sell the restaurant and go back to school. The next day I was very worried about this, how it will affect our finances and how we would manage it, but it turns out he just felt that way in the moment and wasn't serious about it. Our default setting for general statements is "file it", but our mental file system is not alphabetized and our filing cabinets are actually just piles of papers.

I imagine it can be frustrating (is that the right emoticon? lol) good luck (((((((Hugs)))))))

Or he may just be too depressed to help. After I reread your post it sounds like he may just be too depressed.

IdleFriday-What a great answer. I am going to file that one.

AnimalMom-I think I behaved in a similar way when my daughter was born. My situation and ASD are likely quite different from you and your husband but I will share my thoughts anyway.

My wife was all goo-goo for our baby and I looked at it like any other animal that needs help. I figured, she clearly enjoys this stuff more than me so I would let her have her fun.

I hate the sound of the baby eating and the whining would give me instant headaches so my wife bought me a big jar of earplugs. I can sit with screaming babies all day with earplugs.

I really liked cleaning bottles. I would line them up and determine the most efficient sequence and then time each washing until I had the perfect bottle washing method. There needs to be specific rows for each bottle, lid, nipples, etc... Then it is no problem. I find it relaxing to put pieces into place.

Diapers got more fun after I broke it down into steps. I would sing the steps out loud to the baby.

I still won't give the kid a bath because it is just to messy. I prefer to wipe it down with washcloths to keep things neat and the room I am in, under control.

If you want your husband to take the kid for a while, don't say stuff like "I'm tired, I really wish I could do _____".

Be Specific! "Will you take baby for 2 hours and 7 minutes please?" and set a timer.

Also, I Love my child more than anything. I just don't feel a need to show it.

One huge factor in my case was the way my wife spoke to me. She would talk down to me and I would leave things for her because she showed me so little respect. Just because you've got the boobs, doesn't make you any better suited to be a parent. You know what I am talking about.

Just because you've got a di#% doesn't mean you have to be one. You know what I am talking about.

But does your daughter feel a need to have it shown? Not showing affection is a serious deficit in a parent.
Showing it in an idiosyncratic way is a different thing than not showing it. Kids need to know that parents love them and that's a basic need.


That's a really dysfunctional way of communicating and in the combination of your wife's verbal disrespect for you and you demonstration of contempt for your wife, you were teaching your daughter something pretty toxic about relationships. Your wife should not have talked down to you, but your response was totally wrong.

I hope things got better for all of you.

Adamantium-Excellent response, Thank you.

What I meant by show my love for my child was I don't need to prove it to my wife. My kid and I have a very special connection and I doubt there is any question in my daughter about my love.

I agree with you 100% about our dysfunctional communication. Perhaps, you could suggest some other way I could have dealt with that situation. I worry all the time about inadvertently training our child for failure.

That's great. It's a shame that your wife cannot detect it, maybe you can explain how it feels and what you do at some time when she is not being critical, so she can hear you and learn.


This is a hard thing. I think a really good idea is to establish and focus on common goals, then talk about ways you can each contribute toward achieving those goals, separately and together.
Instead of competing over who has to do obligatory but unpleasant things and who gets time to relax or enjoy interests, focus on the goals behind those boring chores (e.g., a tidy kitchen, personal hygiene for you child, etc.) Then agree to to do things that you each can do and divide up the things no one wants to do but that need to get done.
As you move into the doing phases, keep focusing on the goals--"this is how we create the living situation we want" instead of focusing on how to avoid doing the unpleasant work or the moment by moment fairness of the distribution of tasks.
Good luck!

Adamantium-Thank you. That is some super advice. I'd like to run all my problems by you.

My personal philosophy on healthy relationships has been simplified over time to four imperative ingredients:
1)Trust
2)Communication
3)Respect
4)Kindness

YippySkippy-I was not trying to be disrespectful. This happens a lot more than you may know. There is a tendency in breastfeeding women to become, shall we say, pretentious on parenting, to not only their spouse but to friends as well, without always realizing they are doing it. Of course, every person is different.