Many neurodiverse marriages are sexless. Quite often, the neurotypical wife is deeply grief-stricken at the lack of sexual intimacy in her marriage. She mourns the physical connection she hoped to have with her ASD husband. It’s too embarrassing to confide in any of her friends that her husband won’t have sex with her, so she’s very alone with her pain and confusion.
The autistic spouse might not fully understand nor articulate why he avoids intimacy with her, and may even offer explanations that seem unlikely, or offer false hope and shift blame to her. He may tell her that he DOES want to have sex with her. A circular conversation ensues, where she points out that he doesn’t initiate and when she initiates, he turns her down. He may then say such things like, “I don’t like how you smell,” which is of course a function of his sensory difficulties – but is excruciating for the neurotypical wife to hear. Other things my clients have been told: “I thought your vagina would smell like strawberries, but it doesn’t.” “I can’t stand having to touch your vulva. It’s too squishy.” “It feels awful to be inside of you.” “Your pubic hair reminds me of worms crawling on your skin.” “Touching your clitoris makes me feel like my finger is drowning.”
Some of the above statements are probably shocking to read, but trust me when I say it is the tip of the iceberg. I don’t fault ASD partners for struggling to express their sensory experience in a way that is not hurtful, but I will say that intention does not diminish impact. As much as I can reassure a neurotypical wife that these comments from her autistic spouse are said in this manner because of his concrete, literal brain and fueled by his distress over the sensory aspects – it does not lessen the harm this imposes on her sense of worth, value and desirability.
Conversations about the lack of sex produce anxiety in both partners. Feeling blamed for the lack of sex, he may lean hard into the narrative about her natural body state being intolerable to him, perhaps lacking insight that his sensitivities are quite high. Feeling hurt, she may offer honest feedback to him about how robotic his lovemaking is and that she wishes he could read her cues better about what feels good. This offends him, which further pushes him away, and she is left hurt and reeling to know that he is so repelled by things she cannot change about herself.
As months or years stretch on, the neurotypical wife becomes curious to know how her husband is coping with his lack of sex. Is he asexual? Has he sought out a new partner? How can he possibly live without the touch that she craves?
In my coaching practice, I have heard from many ASD men that they were introduced to porn at quite a young age. As we can imagine, a young boy with social confusion and poor abstract thinking would find porn to be a goldmine of information. Gone is the wondering of how sex works! Unfortunately, a young boy also lacks context and does not understand that porn rarely depicts realistic intimacy between a man and a woman. Additionally, porn is a mesmerizing dopamine hit for his brain, making it quite addictive. However, the most damaging aspects of porn for a specifically autistic husband are these things:
- He conditions himself to experience sex as an observer, not as a participant
- He associates sexual feelings with sensory deprivation of a woman’s scent, touch, taste, feel
- He does not have to practice considering the feelings or needs of any partner
Porn is problematic for many relationships, not just mixed-neurological connections. For an ASD husband, when porn is used at the exclusion of his neurotypical spouse and further entrenches him into habits that are counterproductive for his primary intimate relationship, his use of porn is rightfully experienced as a very grave betrayal for his neurotypical wife.
Porn killed our relationship. He stopped porn, and still could not perform or even initiate. It became my job to figure it out for him? At this point, the lonliness and the unnatural way he wanted me to approach his situation became the end of the relatonship.