Hi - I have been doing some research on this mysterious disorder the past few days. My husband (prior to us getting married) had mentioned, almost as if in passing, that while in University he saw a counsellor who suggested he may have asperger's. I was a bit concerned at the time he told me this, but did nothing to really educate myself, nor thought he actually had it (talk about making a decision without all the information).
Now 4 years later into our marriage, which the last 2 have been very challenging, I have felt very neglected, lonely, like my affections and love and desire to listen to the other are never reciprocated. What compounds the loneliness is that he works out of town for 4 weeks and is home for 7 days - if I'm lucky.
On his most recent trip home we took an overnight trip to a resort town. We started arguing - due to the fact that I couldn't read the map fast enough for his driving (which happens ALL the time) and it was making him more and more agitated, which in turn completely de-stabilizes me. I get hurt, cry and try to tell him that I am doing the best I can and that he doesn't have to get so upset with me. Before we got too upset, we decided to "just have a nice time and start over" as we typically culminate each of these argument, and this to me is no solution, but I agree to try and have fun. We walked along the beach - him 10 feet in front of me, me falling behind. We exchange a few meaningless sentences. Finally I ask him if he ever wonders if there is so much left unsaid between us. This starts us talking - finally.
He tells me that he needs help, not with just maps but with everything, that he feels like he's doing it all alone. I don't understand why he feels like he is doing it all alone, but I tell him that I feel the same. We are both doing it alone, getting no help from the other. Why do we feel that way?
I explain that I feel like I am failing because I feel constantly tested by him, pushed to do more, and feel like I get no empathy for the strain it takes on me. (We have moved from 2 provinces in the past 6 years in which I have always left behind a fairly good job and still always found I have landed on my feet with an even better one with each successive move - however, still extremely stressful constantly moving, changing jobs, re-adjusting with family members getting farther and farther away). He tells me he can understand where I am coming from.
He explains that he feels like he is constantly seeking my acceptance and fears rejection. That he needs help with his feeling of loneliness. He also says that he fears I may go insane because of what I think to be natural fears of having children in our present situation. That he wants kids because he is adopted and he is somewhat estranged from his family and wants to have someone be a part of him. Or because of my reservations about leaving current jobs to move to another town/province, etc. In my defence, I tell him, that we have been in transition almost all of our lives together and I need some stability and set down some roots once and for all before I can make a decision to have children. He said he felt that we are settled here, now. (I do believe that where we are now is where we will stay - I don't think that this is part of the issue, but rather a circumstance that complicates the issue - but I could be wrong).
We cry - tell each other we love each other and promise to keep talking like this.
A few days later I ask him how he thinks I will go crazy, that I want him to expand upon that (because secretly I don't think it has any validity). He starts to get a bit defensive and says that he doesn't understand why we need to analyze it, that I shouldn't take things so literally. I looked him straight in the face and firmly said "that is not how I work - if I need to ask you a question about something you said 2 days ago, that is my right". He was taken aback a bit, and almost in the same breath spoke of reading an article he came across about Asperger's and how he really identified with it. He said that when I asked "how" he thought I would go insane, to him he thought I was asking literally "how" when what I meant was "why".
We talked a bit about the disorder and then he asked me if I still love him. Of course I do, and reading some of the emotions that NTs go through with their AS spouses, I certainly identify.
I am so afraid that I will not be able to cope with this. I am a very affectionate person who needs her man's attention. Before he came home on this trip I had horribly and mistakenly had a one night stand due to my loneliness and desire for male companionship (having an exchange that I haven't had for so long, for god sake...that is how it happened. I just wanted to keep talking!!) Thus, the complications are so profound that it is hard to know what to do next. I had started seeing a counsellor right after the infidelity, but I have yet to tell my husband - I wanted to get my head straight about how I felt, then the AS thing comes up. Now I have so many emotions that I am a wreck.
Anybody with some good suggestions or comments - please, I am all ears!
08 Oct 2008, 11:28 pm
