Feeling Alone in My Marriage: Realizing My Husband Might Be on the Autism Spectrum
For a long time, I felt like I was screaming into the void. Every time I tried to share how I was feeling with my husband, I got nothing back. I’d open up about something that hurt me, something that made me feel small or invisible, and he’d look at me like I was speaking a foreign language. His responses were always so flat, so disconnected—like he didn’t understand why I was upset at all. “It’s not that big of a deal,” he’d say. “You’re overthinking it.”
It hurt. A lot. And over time, that hurt turned into something heavier—loneliness. I began to feel completely alone in my own marriage. No matter how much I tried to explain, my feelings seemed to disappear the moment I shared them, like they didn’t matter. Eventually, I started to believe they didn’t.
The loneliness didn’t just stay in my head—it spread through my body. I felt sick all the time. Tightness in my chest, constant headaches, a knot in my stomach that wouldn’t go away. My anxiety was through the roof, and my energy was drained. I started getting migraines after we’d have another one of those painful conversations where I felt so unheard. I was barely functioning.
One night, I found myself Googling adult autism, and what I read hit me like a truck. The difficulty with emotions, the sensory sensitivities, the rigid need for routine—it was like reading about my husband. And suddenly, things started to make sense. All those years of him brushing off my feelings, the cold logic, the emotional distance—it wasn’t just him being difficult. He was processing things differently.
At first, I felt relief. Finally, an explanation for why he couldn’t connect with me emotionally. But then, that relief quickly turned into grief. Grief for the years I’d spent feeling invisible, for all the times I’d convinced myself I was being too sensitive or needy. I had bent myself into knots trying to make him see me, and it was like I had been talking to a brick wall the whole time.
When I brought it up to him, his reaction was… typical. Calm, rational, and lacking any real emotion. He wasn’t defensive, but he didn’t really get it either. It was another reminder of how different we are, how I’m always craving emotional connection while he processes everything like a math problem.
I don’t know where we go from here. Knowing he might be on the spectrum explains a lot, but it doesn’t erase the loneliness or the damage that’s been done. I’m learning, slowly, that my feelings aren’t unreasonable, that I’m not crazy. But the truth is, I’m still alone in this marriage more often than not, and no diagnosis can change that.
I’m trying to take care of myself now, to stop brushing aside my own needs just because he can’t meet them. It’s painful, but it’s also a little freeing. Maybe that’s enough for now.
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