Aspie Men Married to NT Women

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Ok now I'm really confused, how can someone have A/S and be truly sad about how their actions negatively affected someone.

On the landing a wife/gf front, practice makes perfect with eye contact. Once you get yourself out there, crash and burn a few times, you'll learn and it becomes easier. Being tall and good looking helps before you open your mouth but after that women look for more (generalizing here based upon research and experience). I find that men who land the most attractive woman are not the most physically attractive but those who have the most charisma or money.

For me the problem lies with the fact that a NT emotional women is the best match for my future family but for simply sexual and attention needs, a hypersexual female that has A/S would be ideal it seems. I made the choice that I want a family and must accept the compromises one must make. My struggle, as mentioned, lies with the fact that it's much easier to disengage and act on my impulses than deal with an emotional NT wife who doesn't meet my sexual needs but is a terrific person and future mother.

In an alternate universe it would seem logical to have a sexual needs/companion(s) and a mother of your child partner since it seems in this world, most of the time, the two are mutually exclusive.

It feels I am truly on the wrong planet.

I'm a married AS guy. My biggest challenge is not spazzing out or withdrawing over minor things.

hoping this deletes that duplicate long post lol

I do not know why my posts are posting more than once. I don't know how to delete a second one either. Sorry about that.

Can't have your cake and eat it too as they say. There is something to be said about self sacrificial love. I would like to read the "Journal of Best Practices" by David Finch. Anyone read it?

The one thing you all seem to be unaware of is how much better for us it is to be with you than a typical NT man. There are communications issues, sexual issues and relationship issues no matter who you are with. The difference is the typical NT man doesn't really care about doing his share to make things better. Where, at least as far as those who post on this site, it seems the man with AS does. I am sure to a degree it is part of your processing. There is a problem, find the solution, fix the problem. Where most NT men are of the mindset... this is who I am she can learn to deal with it. Weather you realize it or not reaction to emotion is taught. In hindsite I have realized my boyfriend encourages more emotional play with our daughter when we are all playing together than the average father. If we are sitting together and she uses her drumstick on my leg instead of the drum he will say oh look, mommy is crying. I wasn't but I then pretend to. He then tells her, give mommy and hug and a kiss and make her feel better. She does and I smile and she says mommy is happy. I think it is his way of trying to teach her what he struggled with. He does understand basic emotions when he sees them. The difficulty is in processing when they are slightly different and how I am wanting him to react. I get a particular look when I am annoyed but it is the same look as when I am tired. If he asks what is wrong and I say I am tired he has to decide if I am tired or being passive agressive. Well, he did before I learned the code. If I am tired I really stress.. everything is fine I am really just tired. If I cry it should mean sad, but could mean upset which is different and sometimes it is just an emotional release. Sad and upset can be explained easily enough but how the heck do I explain an emotional release that looks like sad or upset but isn't related to one thing and it can not be fixed. This comes in situations like the other day. Tears pouring from my eyes that I have no control over, but nothing was "wrong". (I have learned as much as possible to do this when he is not around to ease his confusion) In addition to daily life stress I have discovered he is AS which is a hugely positive thing, I have learned how to communicate with him which has made us very happy, I have been learning things about my son too, and I am having to figure out the reasons behind my emotions. It is all good but it is also a lot of stimulation on a mental level. It could be compaired to one of your overstimulation melt downs. It just takes more stemuli for me and the reaction time does not coinside with the situation. Think of it more as an emotional orgasm. When sexual tension builds and you feel that tension and only having sex will release it. You have an intense orgasm and your whole body relaxes. It is very similar just emotional in nature.

Cooking.... I use to get so annoyed because he would stomp around mumble and swairing under his breath and he cooked only one thing at a time. However he loves to cook and is good at it. I didn't know why he was making such a big deal about it. When I wold ask if something was wrong he would say no. Understanding more about him now I started saying... You seem stressed is there something I can do. Turns out the clutter was confusing and our daughter running in and out of the room was distracting etc. I now play with her in the other room and have removed all of the clutter.... that I never "saw" before. He still mutters some but he doesn't melt down and I don't have to make dinner.

All of it is a compromise. What do you want and how can it be achieved. What are you capeable of doing to make this happen, what are you willing to do to make this happen and what do you need someone else to do for you.

I will respond to more comments later as I have already gotten long winded here lol

If those of you who are trying to figure out how to get a girlfriend with what you consider to be awkward AS traits want to start a post about getting a girlfriend with AS traits I can share some things that might help you with confidence. As one poster said... looks may help and sadly for some money too.... but that is not the only way. There are ways to soften the traits so they don't stand out so much. Such as you don't have to really give "eye contact" just be sure to look "at" the person from time to time. Even NT's when they first get to know each other use eye contacted in a limited way otherwise they are appearing to stare. My BF looks at me often.. direct eye contact that is held for more than a passing second is rare but very intimate and special. Often it is when "I love you" means "you are such an amazing person and I am so happy and so in love with you" and not just the routine confirmation of love.

I am an AS man (most likely) who has been married an NT woman for about six years and I can relate to a lot of the issues that have come up in this thread. Earlier on in our relationship I assumed that a lot of the discord we experienced came down to a man-versus-woman thing. Popular culture propped up books like "Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus" which support the simplified idea that men are super-logical and women are super-emotional. While there may be some kernels of truth in there for NTs, I'm coming to realize that the gap is markedly more prominant for the AS/NT couple.

The biggest challenges we face involve communication issues. I'm not always attentive to my wife's emotional needs. I don't say the right things when she's distraught, I'm not as vocal as she'd like during sex, and my observations and analytical approach to situations can sometimes put a damper on romance. When we argue, neither of us have any difficulty expressing anger and stubborness.

Ironically, communication is also one of our strong suits. We discuss literally everything and each of us has proven to be malleable as a result of these discussions. It's important for each of us to be candid and transparent about everything. We need to know what each of us likes and dislikes. This applies to observations and behaviours within the relationship as well as stuff that goes on outside of it. If I happen to glance at an attractive woman I should acknowledge my instincts. If my wife gets hit on by some other guy, she should tell me. I think this honesty and openness ultimately helps solidify trust.

One partner cannot be happy if the other is unhappy. A miserable spouse will inevitably cause misery to his/her partner. Therefore it is in the best interest of each partner in a relationship to strive to make the other happy. That seems obvious but I think it makes a difference to always have that in mind. When I do, I try harder to do what my wife likes me to do.

Most relationships have implicit rules - ours has explicit rules. As the AS person, I was naturally the one to push for this but I've come to think that every relationship (including NTs) ought to have explicit rules. I think I've also convinced my wife that logic is a good thing. We're a two person committee looking out for the interests of two people! Most, if not all, disputes are solved by logical consensus, not emotion. Rather than focusing on judging the other for screwing up, it's better to focus on utility - how to not screw up next time. Explicit rules also help clarify ambiguities that often turn into big relationship issues. A typical relationship assumes no cheating but we will go further to say, for instance, "no private online chats with members of the opposite gender other than work-related stuff" or "no going out drinking in mixed gender group when not accompanied by spouse" to reduce contentious grey areas. If one of us wants attention and is not geting it automatically, all we have to do is ask for it. Of course, if one of us disagrees with a rule, the rule is discarded.

Does it seem that logic of the AS person wins out in this? My NT wife was resistant at first but she's come to realize the power and consistency she can get with rules. Nothing stops her from promoting a "do X when you see I'm unhappy" rule. Anyway, it seems work pretty well for us - my wife's friends say the envy our relationship.

Thanks Lori.

One major thing is the one thing at a time mind set. For instance, if i'm working on something and i am interrupted, it is very difficult for me to revert back to what i was doing and i get frustrated. I can imagine the cooking incident since it's like anything else. If i'm doing laundry, i do laundry and it needs to be done start to finish. Structure is required, because without it I am in trouble.

On the dating front, i think for those of us with A/S or those that just have some A/S traits, it's critical to select your mate quite carefully. She must have patience and be a caring person.

On how to get a date, again this is a practice makes perfect thing. Think of it as a field experiment, i did. After i read The Game, i went out and talked to women. Crashed and burned a few times but you'll get better. Now, i can objectively say that i'm not as bad with eye contact as some. Also, not scripting a line or conversation is important. Going with the flow of a conversation is fairly easy once you figure out that most NT people are extremely predictable in that they love to talk about themselves.

I guess the biggest tip that worked for me is to be confident, smile, make eye contact (i know its painful), and pretend to be interested.

Destidude... so well put! I get long winded in my attempt to make sure my point is understood the way I intend. But you hit the nail on the head so to speak. It makes me happy to read a post from someone who is successful in their relationship because I just couldn't agree with all of the articles that this is some daunting task with all the stress and work placed on the NT to make it work. If both parties are willing to bend and agree then everyone can be happy. Ironically I have two very close friends and we share our "man" frustrations and none of us judges the guys at not being good guys just that they frustrate us. They are both in NT/NT relationships. After learning how to convey my emotions and getting such positve results I asked them both if they would try an experiment with me. It was my belief that this method of communicatio would have positive results for any couple. After learning what my emotions really meant I could see how they were expressing feelings not meaning, and also reading emotion into what their husbands were saying and doing that were not necessairly there. I gave them both a script so to speak. How they had to communicate their feelings and things they couldn't say. For example... they could say that "I feel like you don't care about me when you play video games all night and I have to take care of the kids by myself and make dinner and do dishes. However I expected you to just know that and that is not logical. Would you give the kids a bath while I do the dishes" They could not say... "all you do is play video games and never help me out. You don't care about me" Both were blown away by the experience. Both husbands responded positivly and the ladies got what they really wanted.

We talk out everything like you do and we do very well with it. We don't need the more explicit rules of contact with the opposite sex. Cheating is not acceptable for either of us, and we are honest about who we talk to etc. Occasionally he asks "who are you texting" and I just hand him my phone. I can see his IM's on his computer from where I sit although I have never asked to read them I have asked "is she in the film" or something like that (he is a cinamatogropher on an indi film)

Like for your wife, sex is tricky. He is great at it but he makes me second guess myself. Not a sound is made and no facial expressions so I am left thinking..... is this doing it for him or is he "letting" me do it because he thinks I want to? This is a new "rule" for us. If he is not into it he has to either tell me or redirect me or take over himself and show me how he likes it. Other than that I will assume it is good for him. We are still working out the details of this but with all of the other things going well things should go well here too.

Haaaaa... too funny! "most NT's like to talk about themselves" that is a dating "trick" I used to make myself comfortable. I know I get long winded and don't want to overwhelm someone new so I ask a lot of questions about them. Though as a woman I never asked about their job. Only because so many only want a guy for his $$ and I am not that way.

Dating aspie guys could be a viable alternative to women only lifestyles?
Sort of like a naive boy-man Oedipus thingy?

You may have something there. I never thought this at the time but after all I am learning I am pretty sure the guy I dated before my current boyfriend may be AS. My dream guy was always the same... Sort of James Dean like.. quiet and misunderstood rebel but when we were alone he was totally into me. This was a fantasy but the last guy was just exactly that with a bad boy rebel type exterior but almost a child like affection by that I mean just raw and pure. Although as the saying goes... be careful what you wish for. Definitely had a fun time but it was always only meant as a temporary situation for me. He and my son did not get along in a way that we could ever live together etc. But as much as my boyfriend carries himself similarly visually he is not at all a bad boy. But the look and body language is that type and I find that attractive.