Ask a therapist: ‘My husband is neurodiverse and doesn’t want sex – is this connected?’

Neurodivergence and relationships: what happens when one partner loses interest in sex? Photo / Getty Images

This week, advice columnist Rachel Johnson advises a woman who no longer feels desired by her husband and a wife whose life feels empty.

Q. You talk a lot about men who want sex and women who do not... what about when it’s the other way? My autistic husband has had almost zero interest since our first child was 2 years old. He was 31. He’s now 42 and has rejected me over and over for years. I don’t know if I will ever be desired by him. It’s breaking my heart (and our marriage). Please can you look at this dynamic and at neurodivergent relationships, or those where one is ND, one is NT?

Thanks – NT

A. NT stands for neuro-typical, which is what you say you are compared to your ND (neurodivergent) hubby. It’s interesting, isn’t it? Eighty years ago (ie within dear readers’ lifetimes), no one would stick these labels on themselves or each other and would have just grimly “got on with it” till death us do part. In your short letter to me, you have used three words (NT, ND, the third is “autistic”) that would have been Greek to my grandparents. Autism and Asperger’s were first described as distinct conditions rather than merely different aspects of the human character in the 1940s but didn’t become part of “the conversation” until the 1980s onwards.

With that throat-clearing preamble out of the way, to your question and all I can say is…aaargggh! You have caught me out. On every front. You are absolutely right to flag the structural imbalance in the column, with so many of my letters – I’d say almost three-quarters – from men mourning the premature death of their sex lives.

It’s hard to find new words and fresh answers to this very common concern (look, it turns out to be so common I am reluctant to say it’s a problem). And you’re right, we don’t look at the inverse situation nearly enough, although I have had a letter or two from similarly rejected and dejected women that I’ve tried to tackle, perhaps not very successfully.

Readers should know that I recognise the imbalance and am on the hunt for a male therapist who can join the crack team of counsellors, but for now, I have asked Sophie Laybourne for her input. She points out that in couples where there is any neuro divergence, it can be draining and thus affect the sex life. If you don’t want to open up the marriage, she says, you may have to mourn the loss of the partner and relationship you will never perhaps have and “celebrate the ND traits that will have consciously and unconsciously attracted you to your partner in the first place”. She has questions, as do I. “Was sex okay in the past? What goes on outside the bedroom that may have led to a loss of interest?” Was it parenthood, for example?

Your letter is so brief that it’s unclear whether your husband’s autism is an official diagnosis. You should know that according to the expert Maxine Aston, once there is an official diagnosis of ASD (autism spectrum disorder) some partners chose to leave on the basis that the ND brain does not change and will not respond to insight.

“As for him not wanting sex – there may be squillions of reasons that have nothing to do with ND. He may be very angry (for example) at being labelled ND when he isn’t,” Laybourne adds. “She might also like to think about what unconscious investment she has in being ‘rejected ’ over and over again?” That’s a thought, isn’t it? You may have become hooked on this pattern in some way.

At the beginning of my career, I interviewed a distinguished editor for some reason dressed for the occasion in a cream suit, like Tom Wolfe, who told me he’d been at his paper for decades and couldn’t leave. “It’s like a bad marriage,” he told me, “the longer it goes on, the more difficult it is to end.”

It strikes me you are similarly frozen by dysfunction to take action beyond your cry of pain, and you should seriously consider ending or “opening” the marriage. There’s tons to read on this: Aston has written extensively in her mission to help couples where there is autism, Asperger’s etc, in the mix and has produced workbooks that you and your husband, if you are so minded, can complete together. She has written half a dozen books with titles like Asperger’s in Love which might help. Laybourne also says you could add Terrence Real’s The New Rules of Marriage to your reading list. Lots of homework I suggest before you take any next steps.

Sensory overload can make touch, including sex, overwhelming for some autistic individuals. Photo / 123RF

Q. I am 79 and, although I live life to the full, I’ve gone off intimacy with my husband – but I wouldn’t want anyone else. He is my second one after a complicated divorce, and I hardly see anyone but my grown-up adult children. I am content but I feel empty. Can you advise?

A. I’ve decided to ignore your age which you tell us and answer this letter as if it’s not a factor here. As it happens, I’m listening to William Boyd’s Desert Island Discs and he’s just explained his theory of life which I will pass on as it’s worth hearing.

It’s a version of carpe diem as these things tend to be. He says you should go through each day as if you are walking on thin ice, so at any moment you can plunge into the dark freezing depths and you might never come back. Try to bear that in mind and the savour of merely being alive and immersed in what the author calls the “cinema of the world” could steal back into your everyday, even if you are not having it all in your marriage. We don’t (or shouldn’t) need Boyd to remind us that time is the most precious resource any of us have, and no matter how much sex or success or money or fun we can squeeze into our little lives, they are all rounded off with a sleep.

To your letter, though. You feel empty, you say. You don’t want sex with your husband but you don’t want sex with anyone else. Perhaps this isn’t about sex, then, but boredom? An absence of purpose after two marriages and raising children? I am going to make some obvious suggestions based on other people I know your age who are living contented lives. Start a book group or hobby such as embroidering kneelers for your church (I’m not joking, I’ll never forget Tracey Emin once telling me that needlework was a substitute for masturbation). Volunteer, as the best way to instantly feel more cheerful about yourself is to do something for someone else. Join the Mother’s Union or Women’s Institute. Start making marmalade. Plan ahead. Cook. Travel. Read. Listen to music. Plant a garden, and watch it bloom and then brown. Accept the cycle of change and decay, and carpe diem!