Does anyone know of a place where I can talk to other moms whose husbands/partners have Aspergers? My husband (of ten years) has it and it makes parenting very difficult because it's kind of like having two kids. He isn't able to parent like most other dads and it can be very stressful when our 3 year old (who is not at all on the spectrum) is giving us a hard time and my husband starts having fits as well because of it. He can't understand that her behavior is developmentally correct for her age nor is he able to really deal with it, so I have had to not only be the primary caregiver but I have to deal with his behavior issues as well. It's difficult to deal with his "tantrums" (I'm not sure what to call an adult's loss of self-control) when she's having one, too. He isn't able to watch her by himself because he can't control himself when she is having a fit and he will have one, too. This means I have to be with her 100% of the time and often it's with him around as well. It is very exhausting and because I have to deal with both of them and also work from home, I sometimes feel like this must be a bit like what being a single parent feels like.
I love my husband dearly and giving up on him is SO not something I will even consider, so it breaks my heart when every single woman with a normal husband tells me that I should end our relationship or that I should just never have had a child with him in the first place. We did not know he had Asperger's until last year. He was never diagnosed and I didn't know what Asperger's was so his family and I always thought he was just really quirky. Now that we know what the issue is, I'd like to know how to help him get through the parenting years. He does have another daughter who is now 15 and also not at all on the spectrum, but he was never able to care for her by himself and always had either his parents or me around to take care of her when he had visitation when she was little.
Does anyone else have a husband with Asperger's? How do you cope? Also, what kinds of activities are good for your partner and kids to do together? I can get my husband to do some simple things with DD like watch a documentary with her or take a walk down the street. He even took her to the park a couple of times, but not for long. He's kind of scared to be around her for long because he sees her as a kind of ticking time bomb. She could fall down and get hurt or get scared or just angry and "go off" at any minute and he's not capable of dealing with those moments.
I love my husband dearly and giving up on him is SO not something I will even consider, so it breaks my heart when every single woman with a normal husband tells me that I should end our relationship or that I should just never have had a child with him in the first place. We did not know he had Asperger's until last year. He was never diagnosed and I didn't know what Asperger's was so his family and I always thought he was just really quirky. Now that we know what the issue is, I'd like to know how to help him get through the parenting years. He does have another daughter who is now 15 and also not at all on the spectrum, but he was never able to care for her by himself and always had either his parents or me around to take care of her when he had visitation when she was little.
Does anyone else have a husband with Asperger's? How do you cope? Also, what kinds of activities are good for your partner and kids to do together? I can get my husband to do some simple things with DD like watch a documentary with her or take a walk down the street. He even took her to the park a couple of times, but not for long. He's kind of scared to be around her for long because he sees her as a kind of ticking time bomb. She could fall down and get hurt or get scared or just angry and "go off" at any minute and he's not capable of dealing with those moments.