Looking for NT wives Married to AS Men

Post Reply New Topic

Would you really want your husband at an NT conpiration???

I agree that NT partners need as much understanding as aspie ones. My girlfriend had trouble understanding my personality before she knew I had AS. But I didn't understand her either. The fact that she spends most of her time "going out" without clear goals, instead of staying at home and doing intellectual things, seemed alien to me.

This could be a generalization, but I think most aspies need to understand why NTs act the way they act, too. At least I need this kind of explanations, just like my girlfriend needs to understand why I don't like noisy places and that aspie stuff. Mutual knowledge is a must for any relationship.

abbr, there can be little doubt that AS/NT pairings have identifiable traits in common, but I'd be wary of giving much credence to a handful of anecdotal accounts. A quick Google search brings up numerous organisations purporting to speak for family members of people with AS. I would maintain a healthy scepticism toward those as well. I've done a little reading about the so-called "Cassandra syndrome" and "refrigerator mother" phenomena, not enough to draw any serious conclusions, but enough to wonder whose agendas are served by publicity campaigns about these things. Too much "blame the victim" mentality, too many assumptions about what is optimal and whether anything needs fixing.

That said, perhaps a more open discussion of the issues isn't necessarily bad. Misconceptions arise from too little data, not too much.

By the way, the shoe is on the other foot for me; I'm ASD and my husband is NT.

My wife says she'd like to be a part of your research. You can contact her at [email protected]. (Put "To the Supermodel" in the subject header, so we'll know it's for her. Thx.)

A lot of response on this issue. Especially from AS males. Insulted are we?

There's something I don't get: if you want a relationship and you've figured out it needs to be a two-way thing, why do you get so upset if your partner talks about healing? She's not doing it to pass the time of day. I know the only reason I talk about healing is because I want to save the relationship. This is after almost 20 years of what would be considered abuse, if it came from a non-AS-spouse. My husband is grateful I'm talking about healing and not just dumping him by the wayside.

Yes, Healing is no great shame. if it can't be done, work around it. But at least try to get straight what is making your partner miserable and work on it. If the word healing upsets you, get over it.

The thing that is insulting is the implication that in an AS/NT relationship, the NT is the only one who can possibly be hurt, and that if the person with AS gets hurt, it doesn't matter, because the NT was just being normal and is thus blameless. It's insulting to be told that you are the one who needs to change when you exhaust yourself every day just trying to be "normal" enough. It's insulting to have all your effort thrown back in your face and be told that you're nothing but a monster who brings pain to poor, blameless people.

I see from your other post that you think your husband has AS, and that he is also verbally abusive. Asperger's does not cause people to be abusive. Abusive behaviour is voluntary and should be changed. However, AS is hardwired, and while some adjustments can be made by BOTH people in the relationship, you can't push past a certain point without it becoming unbearable.
If people have such problems with their partner, then why are they with them in the first place? This topic is about people MARRIED to partners with AS, not about people on their first few dates. If you've been with them that long, their AS traits should be very much evident- why didn't they bother the NT partner then? Did they think that their partner would change? Did they think that the things they liked would make up for the bothersome traits? I really don't understand.
If they married their partner without being aware of their AS traits, then either there are people wandering around who are brilliant at masking it- my AS starts coming through obviously after about the first conversation, or they are morons for rushing into a permanent commitment without getting to know their partner first.

I've lost the thread of what I was saying, but I think I've managed to articulate my main points-
- That the idea of healing from pain is not insulting, but the implication that the pain is one-sided is very, VERY insulting
- That AS does not cause abusive behaviour
- That if people are hurt so badly by their partners, they should question why they are with them in the first place.

my mum

I can only speak for myself, but I'm disinclined to be insulted by ignorance. The original post was somewhat ambiguous about the purpose of 'help and healing', it is ony natural that a percentage of readers assumed that the comment was aimed towards the 'broken' AS husband.

Of greater concern is the patronising note in your question. I would suggest that you disallow your personal experiences with your husband from tainting your perspective of men with AS. As already suggested by Who_Am_I, AS does not cause abusive behaviour. However, it is not unheard of for someone with AS to respond verbally when under duress, or highly uncomfortable.



When you suggest that an Aspie needs to heal you are essentially telling that person 'who you are is unacceptable'. Try to remember that you're dealing with people who are very literal, and choose your words more carefully.



This is only half of the story. I would be interested to hear your husband's perspective of this 'abuse'. Even without knowing his viewpoint, it seems to me that you are asserting your viewpoint onto him and setting the perceptual boundaries of your relationship. If so, it is no wonder that he is reacting negatively. You have a partner with special needs, yet at no point have you spoken about how you need to adapt for his benefit.



Healing a rent between two people is unrelated to shame. Suggesting that a person who suffers from AS requires healing is incredibly insensitive. What is making your husband miserable? What is the cause of his verbal insults? Have you considered how difficult it must be for him to assert his own needs or to articulate his own emotional pain?

How do you approach your husband when trying to resolve your marital problems? Do you calmly attempt to find a reasonable middle ground, or do you criticise him and label him an abuser? Are you generally logical or emotional when trying to help him understand your views? Has it even crossed your mind to consider any of these questions or your own blame?



Pay especial attention to the above paragraph, givetoomuch. It accurately describes an almost universal problem for Aspies. Forget about healing, helping, changing. Focus your attention on understanding.

Thank you for the comments. After reading what I wrote I see that it was almost aggressive. I apologise to anyone who is hurt.

I think I needed to add that my husband up to very recently refused to accept the idea that he has Asperger's and blamed the world (i.e. me) for the sensory overload. I don't really think he can (or should be) "healed" in the sense that the AS has to go away. Can't be done, and anyway, it's part of him. I fell in love with the guy, AS and all.

Healing to us, at this moment in time means acceptance that he can't blame the world for grating his nerves. I have learned to wear socks, breathe quietly, eat quietly, read in the dark, give him the remote, etc. He needs to know what is reasonable and what isn't. Now that he has accepted that the world is not at fault, we can start working towards solutions.

Healing is a two way thing, and acceptance of the diagnosis AS (by both partners) is where it starts.

There really should be a couples forum. Welcome to WrongPlanet.

I am married to a NT women. Married for 11 years. Together for 15 years. We don't need "hope and healing".

With the divorce rate in america being around 60%, I think the NT marriages are in need of hope and healing.

I wonder where that list of NT females came from, as I was not listed on it and I believe I submitted that with my original profile several years ago?

Anyway, I am married to an AS male. Journalists take particular slants when they write stories. This journalist wants to write about AS from the perspective of NT wives "and what they can do for help & healing"...the implication being, what the NT wives can do to get help and healing when/if needed. I'm sure there are other journalists out there working on what AS men can do to get help and healing in their relationship with an NT woman etc.

If I'd read this earlier in my relationship, I would have been *very* interested in such an article. My husband was in a year-long program for batterers when I met him. His ex-wife saw to it that it was a requirement of him being allowed shared custody of their child because he was so "abusive".

She was unaware (as was he) of his AS...and so she labeled him an "angry, verbally abusive and controlling" batterer. The truth is, he does need things in his environment to be a certain way in order for him to feel secure and mellow. She perceived him as needing to "control" her, when it was really a need to control his *environment* due to a normal response to over-stimulation.

Here's an example, I like to watch TV, my husband does not. He finds the combination of visual and auditory stimulation to be overwhelming. If I'm in the living room watching TV, he can't read or be on the computer (even in another room) because the sound and flashing light from the TV is too overpowering for him.

When we first started going out he'd tell me to turn off the TV, even if I was right in the middle of something. After learning about AS and sensory integration issues, the solution became simple...I wear headphones when I'm watching TV and I keep the screen turned at an angle where the flashes of light from it don't distract him.

Now, is he trying to "control" me by "forcing" me to wear headphones every time I want to watch TV? No. It's what he legitimately needs to have peace and focus in his life.

Clutter affects him the same way. I wasn't a very tidy or organized person when we met, my house was cluttered, there would be dirty dishes in the sink. That kind of environment makes him vary anxious. When he's feeling anxious, he's much more likely to have an angry outburst over something minor. The same goes for my aspie step-son...when the house gets cluttered he gets incredibly "bouncy". We now all work to keep the house clean because we know there will be more harmony in the house if we all respect each others needs enough to make accommodations for each other.

I, on the other hand, have asked him to quit correcting my use of language to the word's strictly literal interpretations because it makes me crazy to be constantly interrupted to tell me that actually, that's jelly, not jam because...

Neither of us needed to be "fixed"...but we did need to make changes and develop some understanding of each other in order to be together. He has made concessions for me. I have made concessions for him. Guess what? Our home life is idyllic now. We argue very little though earlier in our relationship things were incredibly explosive. We could have decided to get a divorce, but our love for each other made us sincerely want to find a solution.

We are more in love now than ever. Our aspie 10 year old is thriving in school and at home. I don't believe *any* of this would have happened if we hadn't all taken a whole lot of time getting to know what makes each other tic. This happens in every relationship, only it can be more difficult in an NT/AS relationship because the communication styles can be so different.

Well said, givetoomuch. I doubt your intention was to cause a stir or upset anyone, and it took me until well after I had posted my last response to consider that your position is 'tainted' by your situation, as is the position of most of us. Very few people with AS go through life without encountering narrow-mindedness or misunderstanding and so aspies tend to react quite badly to even the most minor of infractions. At least, they do according to my own observations.

It seems that you and your husband are at least on the right road. You are communicating, still together and understand that there are problems that need to be addressed. I wish you all the best with finding those solutions and improving your relationship.

It's like a culture gap, I think. Like if someone from the US married someone from China, or something, and they had to learn to understand how the other person thought and did things, so they could merge into a single household properly. Similarly, AS and NT people who marry have to learn to understand each other, and bridge the neurology gap, and learn to communicate; and I think the effort has to be made pretty much equally from both sides. It's not really Asperger's that threatens the couple's communication; it's that they have two different neurologies, and need to be absolutely sure that they can compensate for their differences. An AS/bipolar couple, for example, might have similar problems even though neither of them are NT, because they are neurologically different from each other.

Some of us could just use wives.

At first, I thought this was a new thread. Now I see it's just been necroed.

Are you still out there, Abbr? If so, did you ever write your article, or are you still looking for input data?