Adapting to an NT partner

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if i was a bloke, she would be mine, too!

Garyww wrote

I think that my husband made a big transition (personal development) just before he met me. In the light of his Aspieness, this has an enormous irony but he was doing a course to be a social skills trainer. He found the course very interesting, but the first year was devoted to self-examination and understanding how people tick. It exhausted him and although he's kept the credits fot that first year, he decided to stop. It gave him an insight into his own and other peoples responses. The only thing is that he cannot immediately see things from someone elses perspective. He needs time to reflect. It's not hell to live with him. Just sometimes frustrating: it's because I know that he means no ill-will.
I think that I fit your Calamity Jane image, a little. (Maybe that's why our relationship more-or-less works.) It's because my mum died when I was 10, just before the onset of my puberty. The loss of her was such a shock to my system that I wanted to avoid that whole becoming-a-woman thing. Whilst other girls were busy buying brassieres and trying on make-up, I found that whole world daunting and avoided it. I didn't really ever recover from that. I look like a regular woman, but I couldn't care less for superficial romantic things, like getting presents on my birthday etc.

The Aspie side of my husband is what made him consider me as a partner. In this respect, I find him very wise (wiser than NT men.) He worked out that women that he was primarily sexually attracted to, were in other ways incompatible.
It sounds bizarre, but I was not his "type" when we met. He even told me this (that good old Aspie- honesty .)
The truth is, I found the whole idea, of being considered an attractive female, scary. I found it a great relief that he wanted to be with me for the mere joy of companionship. We really do love each other very much.

In reply to Millie "Does an NT partner have a greater capacity for compromise and give and take than an AS partner?" Thisisnotmyrealname wrote



In my experience, I agree, because I am very flexible. However, I do wonder whether NT's are generally as flexible as people think. In the Netherlands there was a study (commisioned by an employment agency) as to why people turned up late or didn't function properly at work. They found that people have rituals which, if were disrupted in any way, would upset the way they functioned for the rest of the day.
For example on waking , washing, eating breakfast, clothing oneself. I don't have a regular order in which I do these things every morning. However, most people do. The study discovered that, in the work-place, people have their preferred toilet cubicle which they enter. If it is engaged at the time they need it, lots of people preferred to wait till it was free rather than using another.

Thanks Lene (for understanding that I'm not being unreasonable towards him!)

Neshamaruach, it's interesting what you wrote about working out strategies. We've just come to an agreement. My husband needs lots of warning before the situations arise where I'll expect something of him. It doesn't seem obvious for my NT brain, but I know now, from reading this forum that it just is, that I need to remind him (each time, and far in advance) of what needs doing. In the same way that my daughter uses lists for things that are repeated every day, but she needs them (otherwise she forgets the most everyday things, like brushing her hair.)

Thanks to everybody who contributed to this thread.