Published on 12, July, 2020
HI there All
I am married to an amazing woman who I love dearly and she has ASD. We have 2 children, a fantastic home, great life and everything on the surface seems to be rosey but unfortunately despite our best efforts we are not making each other happy. In fact we are at the point where we both have doubts that we even want to continue our relationship.
Our marriage is at a point now where we both see that we need to get help to manage our differences to stand any chance of moving our family forward together.
What I am looking for is a recommendation of a Mediation Service that would be able to help us navigate forward but that has an understanding of ASD, a mediator with no experience or understanding of ASD would not be able to give us the support that we need and my wife deserves.
I am desperate for us to find the help we need as I think that we're both still hoping that we can be together, not only for the happiness of our 2 young children but more importantly for ourselves...any recommendations will be gratefully received.
I went down the counselling route and could find no satisfactory solution.
I'm going to make a suggestion but it comes with a 'health warning'(!) It isn't mediation, but it may help both of you (yep) to work together more effectively.
As a result of a recommendation, from a pretty well qualified counselling professional, I bought "Mindfulness: a practical guide to finding peace in a frantic world" by Mark Williams and Danny Penman.
This book (available on Amazon) is highly regarded by professionals and is widely used as a guide for treatment protocols in health organisations across the world (including the NHS).
It comes with an audio CD that contains eight directed mindfulness sessions. The whole point is that it is is helpful to people irrespective of their current state of mental health and it puts things very much in perspective, helps you to clarify thoughts and prioritise.
However (here comes the health warning) ... 'Package Contains Mindfulness'.
Not everyone agrees that it is suitable for people with Autism.
I can only give you my own, direct, personal experience, which is that for me, that whole thing is superb. Absolutely superb. I had a year of counselling privately, in 2018/19 (did nothing for me), and several weeks of NHS counselling more recently (mildly helpful), and this has done more for me - by a long, long way - than any of that. My wife, who is not autistic and has no mental health issues, agrees.
Others may respond negatively, but all I can tell you is what worked for me, and has helped us as a couple (to be fair we've been together 40 years and the worst we have is occasional mild squabbles). If it helps I am diagnosed as 'mild to moderate, not affecting cognition or language'.
It's not the answer you were looking for but I hope it may be of help anyway.
I wish you and your family all the very best.