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
Hi WinnieMay
I was in a relationship for an aspie man for a long time. We have two sons both with aspergers. Like you I had no idea that my ex had aspergers whilst we were together and I did feel unloved and misunderstood. This eroded my self esteem. At the time I was trying to understand the behaviours of my children and being guided by their father, who unbeknown to me at the time was mind blind, so for years I questioned my intuition and instincts. I totally get what you say about if you had known how tough it was going to be you would not have married him. For me if I had known at the start that he had aspergers it would have helped us both. We had a lot of miscommunication and misunderstanding going on. Parenting together was fine whilst the children where babies / toddlers. Once they had a will of their own things disintergrated. He left more and more of the childcare to me whilst he was out either working or pursuing his special interest. I remember one instance where our youngest had to go to hospital for an op. He went to work. His mum ended up coming to the hospital to support me. At the time I thought he was being totally selfish and I was extremely angry that our son would think his dad didn't love him or want to be with him. If I had known he had aspergers I would have realised that he was unable to see his behaviour from our sons perspective, so being angry towards him just confused him and achieved nothing. It is a weird place to be when you have you try to get your children to understand the behaviours of their father and vice versa when both sides struggle with putting themselves in another persons shoes.