It's hard to have a partner on the spectrum, especially if you're planning on having kids. When this man wants his partner to get tested for autism, he takes to the popular Reddit forum to ask:

'AITA for telling my partner he should be diagnosed for his Autism before having kids?'

I and my boyfriend stumbled upon the topic of kids. Since we both are gay cis men, we cannot have kids on our own. I said that I would be open to any form of having kids, and he said that he would only be comfortable with some form of surrogacy or basically anything where he is biologically related to the child.

I am on the autism spectrum, and my boyfriend likely is as well. The issue is, that he is in denial about it, because he had pretty severe bullying issues in high school due to the word getting out that the teachers at his school treated him as though he was diagnosed autistic.

He has had many social issues and insecurities due to this, and refuses to look into a diagnosis, or at least getting tested to make sure he is or isn’t.

This is relevant because when he mentioned he wanted biological children, I told him that I would not agree to children until he got tested for autism to confirm it or not. I told him that as someone who was raised in an abusive household likely due to my parents having undiagnosed neurodivergency, and mental issues, that it would be unfair to bring a child into an environment like that.

I also said that he should know, because autism is genetic and we should begin preparing for the likely event that the child is autistic (ie parenting classes, researching what it means to parent an autistic child etc etc.) He got upset with me and began crying, and said that I promised to never bring this up and that I am hurting him by bringing this up.

I told him that I understand it hurts to acknowledge these things, but once you become a parent your pain is no longer your own and is shared by the family you are creating.

It would be unfair to me and to the child to act as if nothing is wrong. He said that we would be good parents regardless and that his teachers were wrong to diagnose him, and that he doesn’t need to get tested or anything. He’s really upset about this, and I want to spend the rest of my life with him, so AITA?

Let's see what Reddit had to say.

proudword24451 writes:

NTA. Please do not have children with him, biological or not, unless he deals with this first. He isn’t ready to be a dad.

hurlypurly writes:

NTA, he needs therapy for the trauma he experienced as a child, it’s clearly still severely effecting him, so much so that it still makes him cry. And he needs to work through his trauma before having a child.

There’s a chance the child could be autistic regardless if he is, how is he going to handle that? Is he going to refuse to let his child be diagnosed out of fear and trauma? You are thinking about the future while he’s stuck in the past.

furiouspottah brings up this interesting point:

NTA.It's important to have a diagnosis like that if you're wanting to have children as it is genetic and the child could likely have autism. I think he should get tested for it as even though he might be on the spectrum there is always a chance he isn't on the spectrum.Best of luck.

Well, there you have it. OP is NTA. But is his partner TA? Do you have any advice for this couple?