For some people on the autism spectrum, emotional attachment can be difficult and this may affect intimate relationships, family relationships and friendships. Here we present the views of people on the spectrum and, in some cases, their partners.
Intimate relationships
Some people in long-term relationships, married or living together, sometimes with children, talked about positive and difficult aspects of their relationships. A few partners said their husbands were very focused on them when they first met which they thought might be a characteristic of ASD. For example;
And he stalked, I can only use the word stalked, it wasn’t used in those days, but he wanted, he fell for me and he wanted me and nothing was going to stop him… I am afraid he was so kind and thoughtful and loving and giving when we were courting but it changed the moment we were married.
One woman thought that people with Asperger syndrome enter into relationships with people who are very caring and “they pick someone who compensates for what they lack”.
Some couples, where one partner was on the autism spectrum, said they worked hard at their relationships.
Some people were single and did not expect to have a relationship soon. As one woman said “I mean a boyfriend would mean having to get on with someone and I don’t really want that at the moment”. A few people were single but hoped to have a relationship at some point.
Some people were single after relationships had not worked in the past. One man, for example, described how all the girls he had been involved with had “cleared off and married someone else” and he always thought it was because he wasn’t really “husband material”. Another man talked about how difficult he found living away from his parent’s house; “I don’t know why, I just felt uncomfortable… I didn’t quite know what it was but it was some need for me to be at home. I just feel safer at home”.
Two women were divorced after being in abusive relationships, one of the women had had a few abusive relationships before deciding to remain single and bring up her children alone. These women felt that they were not very good at judging characters and believed too easily what people said.
Partners’ perspectives on relationships
Some partners of people on the spectrum described how difficult their lives had been because their partners often couldn’t understand how they felt about things or didn’t want to talk things through with them or make joint decisions. Some partners found it difficult to cope with their partners’ special interests; some felt isolated and depressed.
One woman had been taking sleeping tablets because her husband’s behaviour had so distressed her over the years. Life became much more difficult when her husband retired because she had “the full volume of his personality”. She said:
You know, people can do the most terrible, terrible things and I don’t think it is possible for people to know. I’m fortunate enough to be able to chat away and get on with people. There aren’t many people left now but he has done the most damaging things to both of us, really to me.
Relationships with children
A few people we interviewed had children and, in some cases, some of their children were also on the spectrum, or they suspected that one of them was. One couple, for example, had several children, one of them with Asperger syndrome. One woman’s youngest son had been diagnosed and one man’s only son was on the spectrum.
Parents said little about having a child or children on the spectrum. The partners not on the spectrum were used to their partners and their children were very similar, and therefore familiar. The parents on the autism spectrum, shared an understanding of different aspects of life with their children. As one father said, “It’s like the blind leading the blind really” as both he and his son pace around the house and both dislike storms .
A few partners of people on the spectrum described how their partner’s behaviour had affected their children. One woman's partner engaged in horseplay with his children at inappropriate times like bedtime or in the middle of a shopping centre, and this could be difficult to manage.
Several people thought that one of their parents had been on the autism spectrum although they had never been officially diagnosed. As one woman said:
We have a strong suspicion that my Dad has got Asperger's as well and it was a big problem, sort of growing up with my Dad because he is so distant and sort of he basically used to lock himself in the garden shed all the time and it was this thing where both me and my sister went through a period where we just hated my Dad because we thought he didn’t love us. We thought that he didn’t care. We basically felt like we had just been brought up by my Mum because my Dad was so not there.
Friendships
The people we interviewed had different experiences of friendships. Some described difficulties making and sustaining friendships, some did not want friends because they did not like socialising and others had very good friends.
One woman had friends from the village she grew up in and friends she’d made through her local Asperger support group. One man began to make friends in his fourth year of secondary school:
I had a couple of friends and I had at least a solid base and, you know, for a lot of people that is probably not that big a deal but for me, at the time, that was like massive, like just to have a couple of friends, that was excellent for me.
One man quoted his wife as saying he had no friends, but he does have friends on the internet: “People that have gone through the same kind of thing, the same kind of experiences and they tend to be people I can relate more to”.
