Based on your comments about his behavior, I do not believe he is a submariner.

He is who he is....dont let his social skills affect you. The wife/mother has unconditional love. Take the high road.

I have no helpful advice. I wanted to let you know how valiantly I believe you are behaving. You are in a tough circumstance, I am sorry for your wife. I would point out that she is his mother regardless of his age, though. And while she is not leaglly responsible for him- she has a moral responsability to him at a minimum and a definite responsability to you and your daughter. Being autistic is not shameful. Leaving a condition untreated that has often been linked to emotional disturbance and violence is troubling. Maybe you and your wife could speak with a family therapist about how to approach this- I think you are right and you need help in overcoming your wife's (understandable) resistence.

The more I think about your comments about his Navy experience, either you are making this up or your step son is.

Tell me about your interview with DISCO.

What is your step son's MOS?

Jim-

I assure you I am not making any of this up. Why would I??

Please re-read my original post, we are positive he BS's us, especially regarding his day to day life in the Navy at the base.

Before he went to A-school his dad (ex-Navy) was called, and my wife received a very strange and cryptic call at work... we have no idea what my wife's-ex said but my wife was asked the following:

is this your son?

is this your address?

what's his address?

you are his birth mother?

She answered all the questions and then the lady asked if she wanted to meet face to face would my wife agree to that... my wife said Yes.

That was the last she ever heard a thing from that lady before he went to A-School.

Regarding your wife's behavior: unconditional love.

She has let you know how she feels. Is this the hill you want to die on?

No one for sure he has Aspergers, only your wife suspects it. Tell your wife to make an appointment and have her son evaluated. Then take next steps based on the outcome from the evaluation.

Don't think your wife has right to ask others to fake their feelings and live a lie. Where is her motherly unconditional love for your daughter?

Of course not, but I come from a background where things that are kept secret fester & damage whereas things that are discussed gain clarity and insight.

Look at it this way:

Suppose he never knows but always feels different, out of place, socially displaced & not fitting in... at some point in his life he does something to himself that can't be undone, where will that leave his mom and us as a family--always knowing we could have tried to talk to him.

Since my wife's strong suspicion that he has Aspergers I've been trying to educate myself on it and one of the alarming facts I keep coming across are suicide rates for those that don't know they have it and never feel like they could "fit in".

azmom, the son is of age. He has to agree, and has the right to keep the results private.

@azmom-

I think this is a great idea, so much so I suggested the very same thing to my wife yesterday.

Her reply, "it's not my place, he's an adult."

I understand her point of view but at the same time it is like she is trying to checkmate every suggestion I have.

Jim-

precisely.

It's completely up to her son to move forward on all of it or not BUT we could at minimum broach the topic with him but my wife forbids it.

PBS has The Emotional Life.

Jim-

Unfamiliar, is this a show or documentary on Aspergers?

@azmom-

"Don't think your wife has right to ask others to fake their feelings and live a lie. Where is her motherly unconditional love for your daughter?"

Trust me when I say that has entered my mind as well but I try to keep pushing it out because I feel like that sort of thought is going to go nowhere but bad dark places.

You are not going to change your wife's son. You need to say to her, "look, our daughter and I both are having real problems with his visits. I think we three (husband, wife. daughter) need to talk to a family counselor to figure out how to deal with it. It's not about whatever is affecting your son, this is about how his presence in the house affects us."

When someone has Asberger's Syndrome it means they might be different. Aspys are not bad, Aspys are not dangerous. Aspys are different. If allowed, Aspys can be different in wonderful ways.

You and/or your wife are not qualified to make any psychiatric diagnosis concerning anyone.

It's unfortunate that the incessant yap-yap on the Internet and "talking to" (anyone) makes ignorant or uneducated people think they know something about everything these days. You might as well put it on social media and take a poll. Ooooops! I don't mean to offend you--honestly, that is exactly what I was thinking.

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Please find a Psychiatrist with a strong background in Autism and Asberger's to talk with you and your wife. Autism and it's sub-groups are still relatively new within Psychiatry and there are Doctors who have spent entire careers studying solely within those areas.

!!! Bring up your fears re a potential suicide immediately !!!

!!! Listen closely and follow the suggestions of the Doctor !!!

Other than that, leave the situation alone. It sounds as if you (not very) secretly dislike this person and are using his behavior as an excuse to bag on him AND your daughter's acting out probably stems from your attitude.

Stop wanting to impose specific behaviors on him. He is a separate person than yourself and has a right to autonomy. There is a psychiatric diagnostic term for those who fail to recognize that their offspring are separate entities from themselves and that their children are not on this planet for the glorification of that parent.

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Armchair psychiatry is really easy and incredibly dumb. For instance, you describe this man's gait as "mincing". Sooo, you are clearly, obviously, beyond a doubt, either: 1) homophobic, 2) a closeted homosexual, or 3) a latent homosexual.

See how that works...not?

PS--Your wife's purported behavior is extremely odd for a nurse.

Bleeech!

@sushipup1...

Thank you, that's a great approach to this problem. I will try it.

In the past, my wife has been very weary of therapists and counsellors but perhaps if this comes from an angle of helping our daughter & me be better equipped--hopefully she might agree.

Please don't be angry at any responses. There are no comments here that are not based out of genuine concern for you all.

Mine may seem brusque--I would give you that one. ;-) I also want to assure you of two things: 1) There was no attempt on my part to be condescending and I regret that you felt that way and 2) Others did say some solid positive things that you might try.

It can be difficult to communicate with strangers using words on a screen. That goes both ways.

Please take a positive action and best wishes.

That last paragraph in the comment that I Plus One-ed is completely beyond my knowledge and thus I have removed my Plus One to that post.

I do not know what that is about whatsoever. I think that the poster may just be very concerned about your situation and possibly dramatizing a worst case scenario to shock you to action.

Continued best wishes for you and your family.

Behavior #1 - sits in the living room with headphones on and plays video games for 4 to 14 hours. To me that is normal. Not the 14 hours but certainly the 4 hours or longer. Under the same conditions as your stepson, about to be on duty on a submarine, at his mother's house where he did not grow up, no friends in the area, that is exactly what I would expect my son to do. There are 21 year old men who play video games to unhealthy extremes but a 21 year old in the Navy on leave in my opinion is not in that place.

Behavior #2 - I must be missing something here. That doesn't sound like eavesdropping to me. He has his earphones on, he can hear you with the earphones on, he laughs at a joke he overhears. That would not bother me and I wouldn't consider it eavesdropping if my son did that.

Scratching his privates, monologues, not making eye contact, not saying goodnight or be right back, BSing, awkwardness petting the dog, chewing with mouth full, not waiting till everyone has their food, leaving a messy room, some young men are like this. I have known some awkward young men who turned out to be perfectly nice when I got to know them better. My son does not do these things but plenty of normal young men do. I realize these things are disconcerting to you. In our family we say goodnight or be right back...except my daughter for some reason didn't do this and I just let that one go, not worth it to me to bring it up. I think you are being unreasonable to expect your 21 year old son to observe and fall into that custom. The BSing will probably take care of itself over time as your son spends more time in the Navy. Other Navy men or women will probably call his hand on that one I would think, and that would be way more effective than anything your wife would say or do. The only thing that would really get to me on that one is the pacing up and down during dinner if that's a frequent occurrence.

The note thing when he left sounds reasonable to me, at least at his own mother's house. I would expect my kids to write a nice, appreciative thank you note if they were guests in someone else's home but not at my home. If my son was in the Navy on leave, realized he had some things he needed to do and needed to get back to base quickly I would kick his butt for pausing to wake me up or write a long note. I wouldn't expect my son to wake the family up if he needed to leave unexpectedly.

Behavior #3 - Your family is gregarious, he is not, he stifles the vibe at your house. You would be doing your daughter a favor if you teach her not to let those things bother her (and you). She has a lifetime of being around difficult people - college roommates, co-workers, possibly in-laws. It would be better for him if he learned how to join in, but it would be a gift to your daughter if you taught her that she cannot control others but she can control herself. It is also a gift to your daughter to learn to be inclusive and draw out difficult people in a way that is not overbearing. Not only is it the kind and decent way to be but also some people earn more money through their excellent soft skills.

Behavior #4 - The person causing this problem with your daughter is your wife. As mentioned above, you, your wife and your daughter need to get family counseling for the 3 of you. He is your daughter's half brother, she shouldn't have to *entertain* him very often. Also, your daughter needs to be communicating these issues with her mother if she isn't already doing that.

Your daughter sounds melodramatic to me for the situation you are describing. 16 year old girls (boys too) can be real drama queens, even if they were not that way as kids or young teens. Keep in mind your daughter will feed off your feelings and actions and our kids are very, very, very good at sensing what our feelings are even if we think we have kept them hidden.

Families are messy, people are messy. This is a golden opportunity to teach your daughter how to deal lovingly, kindly, compassionately with awkward people while still doing what she needs to do to keep her own life reasonable. It is so much better if she has had experience with this before she goes off to college while you are there to act as a sounding board and sometimes a buffer. Sometimes our kids are in stressful, awkward situations that we want them removed from when really those very situations are going to prepare them for something down the road. What if your daughter has a stepson with Aspberger's one day, or a child with Aspberger's. Or a roommate or coworker.

If I were your wife I would not sit down and talk to my son about Aspberger's or even much of this behavior you describe and I would embrace family counseling with you and your daughter. If I were you I would couch this to your wife in terms of going to a counselor to learn how to best help your stepson and also to help your daughter deal with this. For one thing it's true, your wife does need to go in order to learn how to best support your stepson and your/her daughter.

I know you said previous visits over the years went fine but now they're not. That could be due to a lot of things. Maybe the visits are longer now, in which case you would see more issues bubbling up no matter how delightful he is. Maybe he is stressed from his college difficulties and now joining the Navy, perhaps doubting his path in life. Perhaps before both he and his brother visited together and he was more comfortable then or perhaps having his brother there masked some of his issues.

I think your wife is correct that it is not her place and not yours to talk to him about possible Aspberger's Syndrome at this point in his life. It's not your place or hers to ask him to go get evaluated or tested; the time for that was years ago. It doesn't sound like any of you have a close relationship with him. The thing to do now is to build a good relationship with him. He probably really needs your support right now at this point in his life so this is a golden opportunity to build that solid relationship. Welcome him, love him, respect him as a person and a member of your family. If you do that then later on the time will come when you or your wife can broach some of your concerns.

I am not hearing that he says mean things or sexually inappropriate things, not hearing that he steals things or destroys things. Not hearing anything about drugs or alcohol, nothing about him offering your daughter drugs or alcohol. Not hearing about him taking your car and wrecking it or constantly hitting you up for money. This does not sound like an awful situation to me, just a situation that is awkward and uncomfortable. You know, your daughter is going to have awkward and uncomfortable situations with family in her future whether your stepson visits or not. What kind of person do you want her to be? If you want her to believe that family is important even if it's awkward or uncomfortable then model that for her. What if her husband doesn't like you, do you want her to expect that her husband will still be thoughtful and considerate to you? If so, then model that for her with your stepson.

Last, if I were you I would go to counseling with your daughter and give her some time to talk to the counselor by herself. Your daughter could be melodramatic because she's feeding off your emotions, because she's just going through a drama queen phase right now, because she's upset about something else in her life and projecting it onto this situation. But there could be things she isn't telling you or your wife that are valid concerns.

Whatever you decide, I hope and wish the best for all of you. It's not easy knowing the right thing to do sometimes.

So kindly and eloquently written!

I agree with azmom and shushipup1. Being an older, more experienced person, if there is one thing I learned in life, it is trust your instincts. And, make sure you protect your daughter. I'm not going to say anything more, because your SS is an adult and no one knows for sure what is going on with him. We can guess all we want about if he is just going through normal young adulthood, simply misunderstood, has Asperger's, is manic-depressive, or is psychotic. That is why you need to trust your instincts.

However, I do want to give you one warning, reading between the lines. I'm thinking SS may be wanting or planning to move in with you and yours in the very near future. Your wife may or may not know about this. Perhaps he has already hinted, and the reason why your wife snaps at you and goes after you and daughter, is that she's hoping to have him back in the fold, so to speak. I don't know. Again, just conjecture. But, regardless, I would highly advise that you don't allow this until you know what you are specifically dealing with. That phone call from the woman saying she had something to tell is alarming, although she did not following through on it, and hints that there may be even more than meets the eye with SS.

Again, advise not just for you, but anyone in a similar situation--trust your instincts. Any cop will tell you that that has saved many a person.

If your SS indeed has Aspergers, I understand what you and your daughter are going through.

A few years ago I knew a woman who has Aspergers. For
some reasons she liked to social with me. I might
meet her twice a year for dinner, unfortunately after one hour, the time with her became torture. I parsed her behavior like DaisyinGA did, none
was terribly damaging, but I felt
tense, troubled, embarrassed and could not wait to leave. Then I felt guilty for having these feelings. Then I was mad at myself for feeling guilty.

In her case, she would use 'having Aspergers' to excuse herself when she embarrassed others or caused inconvenience to them. My approach of making friends is rather laissez-faire, I have friends from all types of background, and enjoy them as who they are, but I just could not develop friendship with her.

I am not sure it is not your wife's place to talk to her own son about possible Aspberger's Syndrome, instead, all of you should ignore big elephant in the room. She is the mother, she has responsibilities to all of you and herself.

Isn't the best way to deal with challenge in life is to confront and resolve it, instead of tip toeing around and keeping it as a dark secret?

You sound like a decent person with your heart in the right place. I don't think your daughter is melodramatic at all. For your sanity and happiness, it would be a great idea to get professional opinions.