Thanks guys! Wow, Shapechanger, you sound like a really great dad and husband! Thank you for sharing your story.

Thanks Miktis! You put things into perspective so well.

I do not wish to detract from what you guys have said, but I made this thread quite a while back, and during the time between when I made this thread and now, I've discovered another issue which may have a very large impact (even more than so than autism) on any family I might have one day.

I was raised by a father whom I now realize was a narcissist, and from what I've been able to figure out, there is a lot more amiss with me and ASD is a minor factor. Yes, I have Asperger's, but from discussions I have been having with the folks on the NPD forum, there seems to be the same general "issues" among children of narcissistic parents.

I think it's not going to be such a good idea for me to start a family after all.

My mind is seriously screwed up, and everything I want to do is for the wrong reasons, and when I take away those reasons, there no longer exists a reason at all to want anything.

I'm not depressed or anything, but my life is pointless. As a son of a narcissist, my whole life was defined to be "daddy's little boy", and of course, I did not live up to that expectation, as you would expect, because I'm not my dad obviously. That has had a profoundly damaging effect on me, especially in the core parts of my life, laid down in the foundation of my life (i.e. when I was a little boy).

As an Aspie, I already struggle with identifying emotions in others (empathy), and being a child of a narcissist, I struggle to actually feel it too. I actually lack empathy much of the time, like a narcissist or a psychopath.

Getting back to the wrong reasons part - an example - I wanted to have a family because I wanted to love my wife and child(ren), both of which my dad was not capable of doing. I wanted to give them everything I never had as a child, a home of love. That all sounds great, but when I really look at it, it's just my ego wanting stuff.

It's the same with all my dreams, all my quests in life. I do them because I want to feel loved and needed/wanted by society and people.

I guess it was because I was never made to feel worth much as a boy. I just have a desire to mean something to someone, and to give people something worthwhile that they can love and enjoy, and when I think about it, that's just my pathetic ego wanting to actually feel like it's worthy of someone's time and love.

I know those reasons are the wrong reasons for wanting to do it, and I can't think of proper reasons why I should want it. So, I've realized, the right thing for me to do is just forget about it, all of it. It might hurt me, but in the end it's not supposed to be about me and what I want anyways, it's about the world as a whole, and what's right for everyone. Everything I do has consequences, so I can't think of my own selfish reasons alone for wanting to do something. When I take them out of the equation, the desire to want things like a family just vanishes too.