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
All I can tell you, is that for someone with an ASC, when you are overwhelmed you lose all logic. You can feel panicky and out of control and you are simply unable to think about anyone or anything else, it's all you can do not to meltdown or shutdown (and he has shown remarkable self-control if he has avoided either). It's not being selfish it's an actual brain difference where you don't have the wiring to be able to process in the same way as an NT can. I know this is probably impossible for you to understand because your brain is not set up to process that way. He won't deliberately be ignoring or refusing to accept you have difficulties in any given situation, his brain just doesn't allow him to. That might be an unpalatable truth, but the only comparison I can give to try to get you to understand is imagine a baby or an animal that just reacts at a basic level and can do nothing else. You can't control it, the brain goes into overdrive and takes control.