My [24F] husband [25M] seems to be getting more immature as we get older, and I can’t tell if I’m overreacting about it.

We have been together for 7 years and have a relatively lovely relationship. We are best friends, we never have heated arguments, and we are very open and well-reasoned communicators. We don’t have an amazing sex life right now for a variety of reasons, but it’s not a huge priority to either of us at the moment. I’m generally quite happy and see a future with him.

Lately, I’ve been noticing that he expresses himself (publicly and privately) in a way that is increasingly childlike. Not childish, necessarily, but literally child-like. We were at a tattoo parlor the other day getting some of our piercings adjusted and when his were done he rocked back and forth, clapped, and said “yayyyyyy” in a singsongy voice. He also is constantly walking around making “laser” noises (literally, “pew pew pew pew”). We were walking down the street last week and I heard him behind me muttering “butts butts butts.” This happens at home and also in public settings. He also spends the majority of his free time playing video games, and lately he’s stopped taking care of himself as much physically.

A few things here:

1. I am sure that childishness becomes more obvious as we age, and he’s always been a little bit this way and it’s just now starting to bother me.
2. I am sure that the longer we stay together, the more his idiosyncrasies that have always been there will stand out to me.
3. He has always had a symptomology that reflects he is on the Autism spectrum (and a therapist previously diagnosed him as having Aspergers). He “stims” to release pent-up energy, and often that is in some form of verbalization — but it has never been in such a childlike way before (e.g. it’s been tapping his foot, humming, singing a song under his breath, etc.) .

Even taking the above into account, I feel sure it’s getting more pronounced. We both have fairly high-pressure corporate jobs, and I understand wanting to be goofier when we’re not at work. I also understand that I was raised in an environment with fairly strict ideas about social norms and appropriate behavior, and maybe I’m being too judgmental and shouldn’t care what other people think of him. And I also know I have a little bit of codependency, so I’m probably not having a very good boundary with him and feeling like people are judging me because of what he’s doing, which is certainly my own problem to deal with.

Still, I am starting to feel more and more like I’m married to a child than an adult (which certainly doesn’t help my sex life). It also makes me want to keep him away from my friends out of embarrassment.

Is this something I need to let go of? Am I being too judgmental? I would really love it to stop (or at least to lessen, especially in public), but I know it isn’t reasonable to expect people to change for you, and I know that I’m probably too hard on him about something he can’t really change because of his Aspergers.

Tl;dr: I’m starting to get annoyed and embarrassed by my husband’s behavior, and don’t know how to move forward.

Submitted December 28, 2018 at 09:36AM by basedronpaul http://bit.ly/2Q7twC0