u/Da-Goosh

I've been in a bit of an increasingly severe depressive episode lately regarding intimacy and affection with my autistic wife.

I just don't think I even know really how to interact with her anymore. If I try to touch her or hug her, even with warning she freezes up.

Sex only happens once in a blue moon when she happens to want it (which at her cadence already being responsive desire and low drive is like once every 3 months when she's in an absolutely perfect mood), otherwise all attempts to intiate are met with non-commital respobses, or obvious masking. We've had intimacy issues our entire 7 year relationship, for years it's never been at a rate of any more than twice a month.

Eventually I stopped initiating, years of trying to touch my wife and being met with flinching or freezing up makes me feel like a creepy goblin. I occassionally get the courage to try every now and then but it ends in the same dissapointment.

Over time too she's become far less sweet, nearly every conversation is her being critical either of me, or what I'm doing. What I think is sometines meant as banter has been making me more and more bitter, and I've grown reluctant to even bring up things I want to talk about or do because it's always met with either critisim or no response. If I bring up that I'm getting sick of the critisim she defaults to "Oh I just won't say anything then." She has to "win" every conversation, and seems compelled to bring up every mistake I make. If I stand my ground she claims I'm not litening to her and thst I'm "brushing her off".

I already have performance anxiety, it affects my day to day, but it's anihilated our sex life as well. ED isn't an issue but other than a handfull of times I've not been able to finish from sex. Despite my best efforts I've not been able to get her there either. So even if we do get around to doing something nobody finishes and we split off to take care of ourselves. Despite this she insists doesn't think i'm bad at sex, orgasm is just difficult for both of us.

I just don't know how tf to be affectionate/intimate to her, I can"'t even touch her, flirting goes over her head, she never makes herself accessible, and I'm reluctant/afraid to even talk to her somtimes because everything I say is either picked apart on an atomic level or met with woe is me.

My wife (F27) is highly suspected to be on the spectrum, although we have no official diagnosis (takes like 5 years where we live), she is diagnosed with ADHD however this particular issue seems to be much more autism related.

Basically without any real cause or trigger either of us can discern she goes into "shutdown-mode" sometimes for a week or two where she closes off to me emotionally. She's recognized she does this (brought it up herself) and can't recall any specific triggers or causes.

I'm unsure if her work collegues have witnessed this or not, and she doesn't really have friends outside of a recent online friend group we both joined. Her parents have definitely seen this however.

I just can't seem to pull her out of these shutdowns, I just try to be positive and not pushy, invite her to do stuff like go on walks or dates with me, and even when she accepts you can tell she isn't really "there". They don't seem to coincide with her cycle at all either.

She can recognize when she's in one but we don't know how to get her out, which causes her to feel guilty about shutting down. I don't think much into it myself unless I suspect I was the cause.