Hllo, I'm a bit confused and nervous.

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Hello,

I found this forum whilst on a search for help for my husband. He is 39 years old, and I (we) think he has aspergers. I thought I'd come here, and I'm not looking for an online diagnosis, I'm just looking for some friendly advice or ideas from others.

The reason no one has notice till now is because until I met him, although he tried to meet friend he always ended up on his own. He has had one solid friend from childhood, who explains his behaviors as "just john". His mother just thinks hes "a wee bit cold and aloof". In fact, I (sadly, and sorry for this) thought he was just a little bit cold and lacked some social skills. This doesn't mean I love him any less, in fact it always made me love him more because I felt he needed a wee bit more love than others.

As far as symptoms go, he has no social skills, he can be rude without meaning it, as a child he was always one step ahead of everyone (he has told me on his school reports his teachers awlays put how nice it was to have a child they could talk to on their level). He has "hobbies" (he can open up the engine of any bmw, and from the slight differences in it not only tell you the model and the year, but what month it was most likely manufactured in, he can name every plane and boat in the world, he is also a computer programmer and has an engineering degree. He spent his childhood reading manuals for cars and would collect them, and by the age of 5 could sketch inside parts of engines. Everyone just thought he was gifted. AS he got older he was bullied at school, and desprately tried to make friends but couldn't. When he went to university, in his second year he had to move out of halls into a boarding house. After 6 weeks he was kicked out because his landlady felt he was cold and unsocialbe and "a weirdo" (her words). When he went to work, he was surrounded by computer programmers, and as he puts it they don't have the best soical skills in the world. He had a few relationships before he met me, but they'd all been "at arms length". When we met I knew he marched to the beat of his own drummer, and there is a part of me likes that. I do have trouble however when he says things in a hurtful tone or wording and doesn't or can't see why what he has said to me is inappropriate. I know, he can't help it, but I'm a very sensitive person, so Its hard. He also has trouble with loud sounds, has no sense of smell, and has hearing problems. I also don't know if this is related, but he has the worlds worst memory. That combined with the hearing means that if we have a conversation he didn't hear properly or didn't understand or fogot, his brain kinda makes up what he feels the logical conversation should have been, and that becomes his memory of it. Again, I don't know if that's related or not.

We are planning to go to our gp asap. The only reason we came up with the idea it might be aspergers is because i finally confided in someone who told me it sounds like it (she knows someone close to her who has it). I looked online in several sources and he has most of the symptoms.

I know at the moment he is putting the peices together in his head and its all addign up for the first time. I'm happy for him for this, I'm just a bit confused at the moment.

mhairi.

P.S. Sorry for the spelling mistakes, I'm soooo bad at typing.

Welcome to WP!

Tim

Hey!

Welcome to WP, your husband is lucky to have someone who wants to understand as much as you obviously do. I hope you find what you are looking for here, there are lots of great people with a wide variety of experiences.

Welcome to WrongPlanet!

Welcome,

Expecting things from us does not work. We do not have that. You are not being ignored or mistreated, just confused.

You could help, write a manual on the care of a wife for him. See how lucky you are?

We are not good a social guessing games. We may figure out woman want something, but woman want many things, which one now? Very hard, very, very hard.

He has excelent long term memory, short term is the problem. He can hear, he just tunes it out, not you, all of it all of his life. When asked we say what we thought people said. We do not get hints, read faces, body langiage, and never will.

We are extra thick. You can show up in a tiny little black night gown, and we will think you find it comfortable, Oh it means you want attention?

So you have to say just what you mean, in words, email works best, you should have a laptop.

We have no idea what goes on in your head, never will, unless you tell. As for a hurtful tone or wording, he learned to talk from manuals. These soft machines are unpredictable.

He is just a normal Aspie. You have strange thoughts and desires. The best you can do is script what you need, it would help if it was in computer code.

He is normal, for us, he will not change, so how will you fit in? You can be unhappy for not getting the programing the wife unit 1 wants, or you can write the script.

I do not understand NTs. Never have, but have dealt with some female units. I do not believe they say what they mean. My experience has been they never speak a single word about what they want. They talk of consideration, understanding, tenderness, but they act different in the bedroom. It seems their true goals do leave them tender.

Day to day I got a lot of complaints, none ever complained of aggresive sex and talking dirty.

You have to be a bit more than suggestive, like explicit. Maybe an email that would melt the internet.

You want more than you are getting, we were told you wanted to be respected and loved. Neither word is well defined. So you get tolerated. We try. You can have anything you want, but you are going to have to talk dirty to get it.

I'm pretty likely to think of Asperger's as the absence of pathology rather than the presence of one. I think one of the hallmarks is the absence of the ability to do stupid things simply because we can, or because it is expedient.

You're really unlikely to find a pristine Aspie, as you are unlikely to find a pristine Down's Syndrome child. Both are targets of abuse and attempts to alter their nature. Unfortunately, Aspie's by definition are likely to be near geniuses to geniuses, so what do you get when you tamper? At least with a Down's Syndrome child there is nowhere to go but up. The treatment I was given had nowhere to go but down.

Hi Mhairi,

Welcome to WP

I don't have any answers for you sorry. I can say though, to have a look around this website and i'm sure that you will find what your looking for.

Your husband is lucky to have such a supportive wife [you]. You just have to understand though that if he does have aspergers, there is nothing you can do to change him.
Some people on this forum have complained, or more like vented, that they wanted their AS spouse to change to fit in with their own life style and style of communication. As someone told me a few days ago, an aspie can't suddenly change to the Neuro-typical style of communication and will never do so. The NT in the relationship, if they want the relationship to work out, has to try and fit in with the AS style of communication...otherwise things will not progress.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy posting here.

Hello, and thank you for replying.

I know he cannot be changed, just as it is hard for me not to change (I have OCD). Its just a bit of an adjustment at the moment. I love him iwth all my heart, and he's still the person he was when I married him.

I'm sure if we work hard it'll be ok.

The problem with us Aspies is that we are notoriously bad at "seeing oursel's as others see us." So we blunder on until someone pulls us aside and says, "Ahem..." and then we go, "Aw jeez, something else that got left out of the user manual, how come nobody told me this before now?"

I personally am very grateful when anyone (not just my husband) is considerate enough to say exactly what they expect of me instead of playing BS guessing games.

Welcome here, Mhairi! I hope that there will be moments of joy and laughter for you in amongst the hard work.

How many of us Aspies see truth and reject fiction when we look at things? What people "see" in us and other people is often untrue.

Hi Mhairi,

I hope you find what you're looking for here. I'm pretty new here myself, and took years to fully accept AS as part of who I am, but now that I have I've never been happier. I can finally relax and stop being so hard on myself all the time; end that quest for perfection because I never will be and that's fine. For that reason this community is brilliant, there is so much support and empathy shared between members - both those with and without AS - that I'm sure yoúll find some hope and some understanding here too. The experiences common to us all here are some comforting.

Your husband is so lucky having you - take care of each other.

Hello,

I am married to a man with Asperger's. Please click on this link for some more information:

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt47574.html

Also, I strongly recommend the following book:

'Alone Together: Making an Asperger Marriage Work' by Katrin Bentley (Jessica Kingsley Publishers'

Link to website of the author: http://www.katrin-gavin-bentley.piczo.com

Helen

Hi Mhairi,

Welcome to WP, and I hope you find what you seek

Hello stranger.

Welcome.

Nice to meet you, Mhairi.