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I loathe and detest and despise the french father of my son, ( most often for what I perceive as various kinds of insensitive "stupidity"), about 10% of the time.

I narrowly tolerate him ( with irritation and dismissive behaviour ) about half the time, and the rest of the time I ignore/forget about him, except for the moments a few times a week when I find him ok, sweet, helpful, essential, funny, solid, reassuring, actually quite amazingly bearable.

He pays for everything. He enjoys his job. When he is on track with work he is away 4 days a week visiting clients. I can handle this. So far the pros weigh out the cons, but it has been a very close thing several times in the almost 10 years we've been together.

If your boyfriend is actually of any use to you keep him as long as that is the case. ( that isn't meant to be cynical or hard, just realistic decision making tactics). I don't know if I would have been better off/clearer headed, "stronger" if I had left years ago and been a single mother, or whether I would have been a wreck like the mother in the thread about Autistic boy and chocolate in the News and Current Events Forum at:

http://wrongplanet.net/postt66652.html

It helps that the father of my child doesn't want me to leave, he is categorical about it. It means that I am at least supported by his apparent esteem for me. He admires my intellect and original ideas. He seems to prefer in some way me in all my ASness than his ex-wife who worked, cooked cordon-bleu, cleaned efficiently, entertained , etc.

Good luck.

Last edited by ouinon on 25 May 2008, 12:41 am, edited 1 time in total.

Thanks again ^_^

Im prepared to stay as long as i can, IF i can handle it. I appreciate all the advice ive gotten. These are things ive been longing to spill but most people around me seem to agree with my bf and they think im insane. Or lazy. Or whatever.

Im glad to see im not the only one with issues, and i hope more people will post their problems here. It sure is helpfull to be able to share.

about the sensory overload stuff,

im much more concious of how it affects me now. im trying to learn to recognise the onset of a minor meltdown which normally results in me turning into a monster

Kidsworld topic

I am sorry that you did not know how to play with your kids. I could do this stuff when they were younger, but now as they age they should be finding their own quiet stuff to do. I do not mind when they are on their computers (if quiet) (daughter 13, son 16) but they never read and the computer games and friends are very LOUD. My son has a part time job which he likes more than school. My daughter used to be academic but upon entering her teens, her NTness has taken over and she just wants to have a social life. You and I love our kids but some of the things they do! I was more of a disaster with my first. I think this is why relations are strained. When she was little I was totally ignorant of what to do, but I figured it out 18 years later when my son was born. Yes, I am a slow learner.

The ex-husband has a separate room in the apartment. He has not had a steady job for years. Now he says he has found a job and he has to go away for days at a time. Good. One less annoying human being around. He leaves tomorrow (Sunday), and is back on Wednesday evening, stocks up on supplies (food), and leaves early Thursday morning. He then returns Saturday and leaves again Sunday evening.

So why did I stay with useless husband? Good question. The kids like him and I could not afford another place at the time. My disability gave me more if I was with unemployed husband. I gave him as little as possible. He earned pin money when he needed money for gambling or gas for the car. I GAVE HIM NOTHING ELSE. HE KNEW NOT TO ASK.

If this new job is another crock I am going to leave for sure. If the kids want to stay with him, fine.

The only board games I like playing are chess, and, if there are 4 people to play, Risk. My son learned to play chess a few weeks ago and for a couple of weeks we played it most days. I discovered that I am better at the endgame because have fewer pieces to think about. I become inspired!

Three years ago in midst of son's dinosaur passion we bought him a board game which promised exciting dinosaur struggle to survive... which was rubbish. I said how boring it was ... and he customised it, including appropriate separation of carnivore " figures" from herbivore, different kinds of landscape, more complex distribution of dangers, and more "lifelike" predator behaviour etc, all encoded in dice throws and paper pieces stuck on to the board. I played it a few more times and let him know how improved it was as a result of his alterations but I have avoided playing it again.

The best "play time" we have had together was two years ago when we both got into Lego Bionicle at the same time. It started with an astonishing sale of old stock at a local big supermarket where we picked up, over several days of repeat visits, the equivalent of several hundreds of euros worth of Lego for a tenth of its usual price.

Then we began haunting flea-markets and found vast quantities. We reconstructed models with only the box/promo pictures picture to guide us, not having the full instruction booklets, including some nifty gear mechanisms etc. We spent hours sitting together building, and creating our own models too. It was amazing.

It is also how my son got into playing on the internet, because we discovered the Lego site! !! My son now reads very well, Narnia, Swallows and Amazons, Emil and the Detectives, The Hobbit, etc, and plays on the computer more than anything. It is as peaceful as it could be while still being a mother! I am actually lucky that he is AS like me.

Last edited by ouinon on 24 May 2008, 10:48 am, edited 1 time in total.

I still don't really know what the triggers are. They mostly take me by surprise. I work it out afterwards, realise why I reacted so appallingly, and if my son is interested, I explain it to him, because I believe that at least that helps takes the sting out of it, reduce any feeling he has of responsibility for it.

I think that I just find the combination of responsibility and company ( 10 out of 15 waking hours a day on average, and that's when the papa is on the road visiting clients) more than I can deal with. When the papa is there, even though he now uses headphones to watch TV, he is still present, and "adds" to the load. In order to cope with that I now pay as much attention to him as I would a rather annoying dog.

One problem, which may get resolved as time passes and the papa works on converting the big attic/loft, is that I haven't got a real room here, only an alcove with glassed doors fronting it, directly off our living room. And I mean "living" room. It is the only room we have apart from my son's big one with bathroom "in it", and the papa's closet-sized boxroom bedroom-office in a corner .

I think that I have just about worked out how I got into this situation. But I still find it difficult to believe. I chose to do this?

Last edited by ouinon on 24 May 2008, 3:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I played a game this week with my kids that I actually enjoyed: Mastermind. It requires thinking and no talking is needed.

Regarding the other parent of our children: it seems we are all facing similar difficulties. It's very hard to be a single parent, yet it's also hard for us to have to tolerate another person in the household and handle the sticky relationship issues. Although I still very much tend towards the black/white thinking, I've finally learned that my partner has imperfections and I've learned to tolerate them because his positive traits far outweigh the negative. Luckily for me he is very quiet and steady. However he has angry outbursts that are horrible for me and make me incredibly depressed after we fight. He says he knows he has anger management problems and that he's going to do something about it, but he has yet to take any steps towards reading a book or finding a class about it. Oh well.

The last fight we had was over a very traumatic situation I'm facing. I fell down some stairs 3 years ago and injured my right shoulder. A surgeon on the island of Hawaii (a place with substandard health care) did the surgery wrong, and ended up ruining my arm so badly that I had to have another surgeon do a shoulder replacement. I am in pain daily and am limited in what I can do, and I'll need more shoulder replacements every 10-15 years for the rest of my life. It is a case of malpractice but in Hawaii the laws favor the doctors, and there are so few orthopedic surgeons that I can't find one willing to testify against their colleague who just about ruined my life. Anyway, I got a letter from another attorney where they lied about stuff, calling me a lazy drug addict (after three surgeries the docs put me on opiates for the pain, of course) etc. I got upset, and DP escalated to the point where he told me I'd have to deal with it myself and walked out. I was so depressed about everything at that point that I purposefully swallowed enough of a medication that was a fatal dose. At some point I ended up calling 911 myself, and they gave me charcoal and I was an inpatient on a psych ward for four days. This was just this last month. Afterwards I realized I hadn't even thought about what my death would do to my kids, and I felt and still feel horrible that I was so inconsiderate of them. So even though it was horrible, I learned that trying to kill myself is never going to be an option, and that if life gets intolerable I know I can just go get in bed and read a book and hide from the world for as long as I need to.

There's really no point to this post, I guess it's just a general summation of what it's like being an adult with AS and having to deal with partners and a lesson to not do anything else to harm my kids.

The other thing I want to mention in case it might help someone else, is that I saw my psychiatrist after the incident, and we decided I should try a mood stabilizer, so he put me on a very low dose of Risperdal. I've been taking it for almost two weeks and it seems to help more than anything else in giving me a buffer from the rest of the world. I feel like I don't overreact as quickly and can see more sides of situations than just the obvious negative ones. I feel calmer in general.

The book that my partner (I'll call him MS) and I both read, and that BazzaMcKenzie said he and his wife liked, is called "An Aspergers Marriage".

I like that too! I'd forgotten all about it. Maybe will get it next time near big (toy) shops.


The father of my son has this too. Frequent irritable, heated, aggressive, shouting and swearing reactions to the smallest things. And yes it is wearing, because noisy and ugly. But he says that it is one of the reasons he is happier with me than with his ex-wife ( ex-ed, along with 3 children, 5 years before I met him) ; that he can "express himself", doesn't feel crushed/impressed into keeping quiet like he was in the face of her formidable lifeskills.

He rarely gets angry about more important stuff though, but instead has a scary tendency to sit on serious stuff and not tell me until things have got really bad. ( rather like his father did apparently, who commit suicide when he was 7, leaving 9 children for his mother to bring up).

eg: Three years of tax returns he hadn't "returned", only discovered by me in the nick of time about 15 days before final/unappealable decision to impose a penalty of 12,000 euros on him. I only found the papers hidden away, because I had more-or-less "commanded"/confidently pleaded case for our moving from previous address where felt "stuck" after almost 6 years, and was having a HUGE sorting and throwing-out session at new place.

I couldn't believe how much he had been hiding/not dealing with; bank loans, tax stuff, unpaid fines for non-payments of other things, medical bills from his two serious bike accidents ( he loves cycling ), which put him in hopital two years running for several weeks/couple of months each time and ... .... etc etc. Anyway I sorted it all out. Paperwork, especially about money, is actually something I can usually cope with.

We escaped huge tax penalty by explaining, as I explained to the papa himself who felt rather as if he was hiding the evidence of a terrible sin/crime, that his two accidents had caused depression and confusion ( he had a head injury, amongst other things, the first time and his memory was awful for months afterwards).

We paid off most of the debts by selling the flat bought in haste in the big city in the hope of joining a lively homeschooling community which turned out not to exist, at a healthy profit, and buying this tumble-down old house with few rooms in the countryside instead, which was my idea.

I'm sorry. That sounds unbelievably awful.


There is a point. It is so amazing to read other peoples stories of AS parent experience. It is always important to hear others lives so can help see and understand and forgive ones own. And to get ideas, and feel stronger. It is part of support. I think there's lots of point in your post.

PS: I hope all that is true anyway because this post is a very long reply "equally" unrelated to strictly AS parent problems. Sorry.

Last edited by ouinon on 24 May 2008, 11:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The other book is called "The Other Side of Aspergers". I didn't read it all. Sheila didn't like it either. Its written by a wife whingeing about her AS husband, who has stronger traits than me.

Sometimes when I read things like that book I wonder if I actually have AS? Aylissa knows me and Ouinion will recognise me, but other posters are relatively new - since I stopped posting much. I mention that only because I don't know if my situation is like yours. But as Apatura said, if you like posting on WP, you probably have AS.

My boys were 13 & 15 when I first heard of AS (now 15 & 17).

About 15 years ago I saw a TV documentary about a black guy who moved from the Carribean to Greenland because he had a phobia about snakes (no snakes in Greenland). A small kid met him when he got off the boat and invited him to stay at his house. His parents were not happy but according to the program, Greenland (Viking?) culture respects kids the same as adults and let the black guy stay.

I always liked that concept and as far as possible have always treated my kids as people with that sort of respect. Whether its that or not, I have 2 very self confident responsible and mature teenagers (younger one with AS traits)

I have a "thing" about table manners. I can't stand it if my kids don't hold the knife or fork correctly, elbows on the table etc. At times (son#2 especially) they seem to wind me up about this. Sheila tells me not to say anything. I tell myself not to say anything, but I do and some meals turn into a battle of wills. I can't stop myself. But I am better knowing about AS.

Son #2 (with traits) has a diagnosed AS kid in his year at school. AS kid had a book (don't know its title) about a cat that had AS traits. Son #2 and AS kid talked about it and son#2 he thinks everyone has some of those traits, even him!

I never mention AS in front of my kids (sometimes when Sheila and I are discussion something she may say for example, why don't you do ????. I say, why don't you,I'm the one with the disorder - said as a joke). I have told my boys that I believe I have a development disorder. I don't read body language, I don't give much body language out, don't have much fashion sense, I have trouble recognising faces and I can obsess about things, so that if they think I am obsessing, or my temper flares up, they should tell me.

Recently I have obsessed about dirty/foul play in a school sport. Again I tell myself to "chill out" but I can't. I have made myself very unpopular with the State controlling body by writing extremely vitriolic letters to the school and the sports controlling body, pointing out (in a very logical, long, researched and referenced document), that they are negligent. I don't know if I have had any effect other than have everyone think I am a trouble maker, but I hope I have made sport a bit safer.

I have had that intention too. I admit to sometimes/often? abusing my adult and parent power, and obviously when I'm in a screaming meltdown I don't behave well, but then I do the same to his papa so they at least get equal treatment there!

But yes, I have tended to always talk to, reply to, my son honestly and seriously. No messing around, no patronising notions, no pretence about motivations. And he is free to choose to go school or homeschool. I think it is very important. I am for children having equal rights to adults; the complete abolition of the two classes, adult and child.


My dad did too. He would rap our knuckles with his fork if he noticed us engaging in poor table manners. His other response would often annoy my mother because it would bring what conversation we were managing to maintain to a standstill; he would just stop talking and glare beadily/alarmingly/fixedly at the offender until they noticed in turn and corrected the "error". I am obsessive about other little things myself.

Chronic physical/emotional pain topic

Aylissa, is there some way your shoulder could be examined to discover that the botched surgery has caused the pain. I find it unconscionable that malpractice can be excused by naively foolish medical colleagues.

Spouses who are not AS have no idea what AS is like. I have never knowingly met any men with AS. The fathers of my children are NT. I doubt there is much written on AS wives of NT men. It is not a good mix. Perhaps NT wives are more supportive of AS husbands. I doubt that any AS men would have been abailable, and now I no longer care. But I hope others have better luck!

agreed. my wife often says its like sharing a house with 3 kids not 2. being told i act like their sibling rather than a parent is frustrating. i feel like i've let the kids down in my pathetic attempts at being a father figure

sorry for rant - its been a difficult day

Well that's good that he understands some of your positive traits.


No wonder he has issues. What a crappy start to life.


I'm very impressed. I HATE getting the mail. It's scary to me - all that official paperwork and bills. I am a mess when it comes to paperwork at home. I never have the paperwork I need for certain important life tasks. If I have to pay bills I have to prepare myself in advance. MS is even worse than I, so between the two of us we're a mess. It's nice when one person in a couple has a strength where the other has a weakness.
I think it's very relevant to this thread to talk about the relationships with the parents of our kids. In fact, I'd say that dealing with my ex-husband, whom I divorced ten years ago, has been as difficult if not more so , than the parenting of our kids.

Good to see you here, Bazza. I can relate to the above. As a an aspie and a parent, it is really hard when you see something that's just not fair or right, and we want to make it fair, plus we want to protect our kids. Good for you for following through - my problem is that I'll get righteously pissed about something and then fail to actually do something about it.

Is the problem that your kids are being targeted or bullied?

There's no doubt that the surgeon's mistake caused the poor outcome. Unfortunately in my state the burden is on me to prove that the doctor did not follow the correct "standard of care", which is only possible if another doctor will say that this is what happened. And I may not be able to find a doctor that is willing to do that.

This makes me think of something related to my kids. I feel like my life has been one crisis after another, and I spend so much time and energy dealing with problems of my own that I feel I have neglected my kids. I have a lot of guilt about my parenting, past and present. Does anyone else have guilt?