Published on 12, July, 2020
I wanted to join a discussion for women married to men with Aspergers but I must be a bit thick as I can't see how to join in the threads I have read so far. I have been married for 45 years and for 34 of those years I have been chronically sick and disabled. Although I always knew my husband was 'a bit strange' I thought it was mostly his upbringing and then this year discovered it was Aspergers. Reading about it and seeing a counseller has helped but I am overwhelmed by the sadness I feel that I have in some ways 'wasted' 45 years of my life expecting something different and always trying to work things out and hope for change. Now I know that I can stop banging my head against a brick wall but I also know that if I could turn the clock back I would not have married this man. I can't leave him now. It's too difficult because of my condition. I have often said that if my husband had taken up medicine he would have been a brilliant surgeon who would save your life but have no bedside manner! It's the emotional support which is lacking. He can build a ramp and adapt a bathroom but when another long term medical condition hit me 3 years ago and I thought I was going to lose my sight he said NOTHING! It's words that fail him. Anyway, this is just a start as I dip my toe into this community... but I would like to hear from other people who are NTs and whose health is not good and have found their partners wanting in that situation because of their lack of empathy. Even though he tells me he loves me every day you begin to wonder what love is because somehow it feels like a mechanical habit as he always says it at the same time and in the same way... Gotta go now
From what I've read and what I can imagine, seeing my own behaviours with others, I cannot imagine it is that easy to draw conclusions.
As you indicate he has good sides, just the emotional/empathic side is not connecting well, but be honest - I keep reading feminist stuff about men anyway, as its branded about. So I guess what you are seeing its often hard to tell whether it's autism or just a man thing. And pretty amazing if he really does put up shelves!
But it isn't necessarily a brick wall. If you don't have adequate feedback as someone on the spectrum, from social exchanges, you are always "left in the dark" or only get part of the picture. So you end up wondering, seeing people's reactions - what have you got wrong?
The easiest way round this is to go into neutral. If you don't respond, while it leaves a gap/void/hiatus it seems harder for other people to take issue. Or you try to smile all the time, which works a lot of the time, until you don't pick up that someone's dog or gran just died, or a someone's child is sick, and you're still grinning inanely.
With AS you need replacement feedback for what you cannot get from conversation in the way NTs do.
Keep a diary of when you think he is puzzled about a dialogue, or when he is clearly playing neutral. You may be able to pick up a pattern where you can then interact periodically.
Would he, on the basis given you are disabled or unwell, accept a daily or twice weekly newsletter from you explaining any needs or issues he hasn't responded to? This sounds bizarre but if mutually agreeable it might help.
I suspect, and hope for you sake, its not that he cannot help or empathise, because abler people on the spectrum usually can. But I think people misunderstand "neutral" response.
If you keep being told off or complained at for responding wrongly, neutral inevitably becomes a safe option. But there is something which happens with married couples after a long marriage called jokingly Selective Hearing Deficit, where one other other partner goes into switch off mode, and just doesn't hear what's been said. It may be similar to going into neutral, and comnbined with AS may be adding to the problem.