How do you handle when your spouse wants more from you????

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I'm not sure how to handle this. My husband and I think I may have Aspergers. He says that I am cold and unwilling to share my feelings - I keep telling him that it's not that I don't want to - it's that I don't know how. I become "mute" when pressed too hard or feel anxious. I've been this way for as long as I can remember. Today he wrote:

"I want you to let me in more, and trust me, and help me to understand who you are, and what you feel or what you may be feeling day to day. I understand it seems to be difficult to express yourself or respond to me. Don’t worry about responding at that moment, I only ask you try to come back to it and share with me later, when you can better identify your thoughts and feelings. Whether that be an hour or the next day or whatever. Because that’s what couples due they get through issues together, they care about one another’s feelings"

So question - being new to AS - is it possible for me to have this type of relationship with him? I can't see myself gong back later and sharing - it's either I am able to share or I'm not (and most of the time I'm not). I long for solitude and to just be accepted. I don't like being probed, watched or pressed. So please - someone tell if it's possible for me to have the kind of relationship he wants.

The answer depends a bit on where in your lives the two of you are. It is possible to establish a sustainable relationship, I think, especially if you're past child rearing. Unless of course you are but he's not, but that's another story.

It does take learning, practice and effort on both sides, and there may be other paths that give one or both of you more percieved value for less. Again, it depends where you are. My partner of seventeen years still hopes that with practice I'll get better at appearing normal, which causes some of the instability in our relationship. I want not to live in a world where the outcomes are better for adult autistics who remain ignorant than for those who encounter a diagnosis.

Anyway, if you like him enough, and he you, to keep on trying you can make it work. If those strictures fail, you can get into all sorts of trouble.

Can you share what you don't have?

It sounds like he wants you to be more empathetic--to share your feelings just like NTs do. Problem is, you might not be an NT.

He is hoping for the Disney Movie ending--that whatever is blocking you from being empathetic will magically go away, and you two will be able to have a normal relationship. Problem is, it doesn't always work that way--just ask a Ravens football fan (their kicker missed a gimme 32 yard field goal that would have sent the game into overtime and kept their Superbowl hopes alive).

Good question - I don't think I can share what I don't have. I can't seem to figure out what that "picture" he wants look like. I'm confused and about ready to lose it.

Nothing I say or do is right. He keeps looking for us to have this open and close relationship. Right now I just want to run away. I can't seem to get up the courage to look at things in a logical way. My head is going crazy with thoughts and my emotions are completely out of control.

Is it wrong or bad for me to want to just be left alone? I feel like I can't think when I'm in the same place as him - the expectations just hang in the air. I've always had such control over my emotions - I've been really good at "faking it". Now that the pressure is on me - I can't seem to find a way to "fake it" and get the relief I need.

Anybody have any advice?

How did you wind up married to someone with such disparate needs from you? Or has the dynamics of your marriage changed? I'm just trying to put this into context so that I can get a better sense of what's going on.

I, personally, could not be married to someone with whom I did not share an open and close relationship with. It would break my heart for my husband to deny this to me.

It sounds like his requests are reasonable but that you are incapable of doing what he needs.

Can you ask him for more examples of what he wants to know/hear/feel? Why are you married if you want to be left alone?

For most people with Asperger's, who you are is more about what you do than about what you feel. This is a common misconception for others. You're already one step ahead, in that both you and he have an understanding that you may have Asperger's. This alone allows you both to learn more about what makes you tick. Many people have a closed mind and are unwilling to learn. He sounds very loving and willing to learn, which is a good first step.

The educating that your husband needs is to understand what it means to be in your world. The rules are different, and that's the hardest part for others to grasp. They can't imagine that the rules could possibly be different from the norm and still be considered acceptable. For instance, wanting to have some time alone indicates to many people you must be upset, because that's the only time that they want to be alone, even though to most people on the spectrum, it doesn't have any extraneous connotations - it just means that you want to be alone.

Try to see if you can include your husband in activities with you, and explain to him that doing stuff is what makes you happy. By that same token, find out what he needs to be happy. Finding out how you feel may be what he thinks will make him feel better in your relationship with you, but most likely he needs something else. Maybe he's craving more attention (including him in your activities will help), or maybe he's needing more physical affection. It's easy to forget when you are by yourself and feeling fine that maybe he's not feeling so fine.

For me, working alone in the garden for a few hours every day is a great way to recover after a tough day at work. The roses are the envy of the neighborhood!

The realization that I have Asperger's has help our marriage greatly--the fact that I'll spend a few hours every day by myself is no reflection on her--its just how I recharge my energy. We do make it a point to do stuff together every weekend.

I might spend an hour each day helping her with stuff that got broken or just the activities of daily life--but I don't think that counts as "together time" on the NT meter.

BDTD - yeah that seems to be what the problem is.

I go to work and come home and he wants us to have all this "quality" time together when I get home. I really just want to veg out by reading , watching tv, etc... I don't have the energy to go into long discussions about feelings and what not. He doesn't seem to get this.

He wants us to have this quality time every day and have it multiplied on the weekends - it's starting to put a real strain on our marriage and especially me. In fact this realization that I can't do that is what brought us to figure out why I can't - which brought us to Aspergers.

He thinks if I just "work on it" - that I can have these daily meaningful conversations - what he doesn't realize is that they just exhaust me. I need time to rejuvenate - he takes that as rejection.

I tried showing him some posts on the forum of how other aspies respond to different things - and all I got was anger. He said he didn't care how they thought or felt - only how I do. But how do I tell him when it always comes out wrong or brings out an argument/judgement on me - things I really can't handle. So I just keep quiet - become mute.

Not sure where this path is going to lead. I know I need to get into some counseling - hopefully I can find the right counselor .

I hope you are not putting all of the "blame" on yourself. He needs to understand that his way of doing things is not the only way. Aspie or not, this is a simple difference between an extrovert and an introvert. Extroverts get their energy from spending time with others, opening up, sharing with each other, etc. Introverts need "me time" to restore their energy. He needs to understand that you are an introvert and that when you request some me time it is not a sign of rejection.

My boyfriend likes to talk about feelings a lot but I find it really hard. The best thing we ever did in the communication department was to get these great fridge magnets that have 30 or so different faces with an emotion printed on each one (google "moodswinger magnets"). You put what you are feeling into a frame so the other person can see. It's been great, since I can put the emotion magnet in the frame and then he knows what I am feeling without me having to try to verbalize something I can't verbalize. That way, if he wants to share more, he can ask me about it. He has a magnet frame too, which really helps me understand his moods (I am terrible at reading body language etc). It's like he has subtitles.

Have you told him all this?

How long have you guys been married?

Show him this:

My wife is a lot like you. We're pretty sure she's on the spectrum too. What you're going through right now sounds very much like what we've gone through.

Compromise was the ONLY way to work it out. I HAD to learn to accept that she doesn't NEED to talk things over as much as I do. I had to learn to leave her the hell alone a lot more. To get comfortable in my own skin and not constantly rely on her affirmations.

BUT, she also had to learn to overcome at least some of her stoicism. To understand that I do need for her to SAY when there's a real problem, or what she really thinks about things when I ask her.

Sounds to me like you guys aren't speaking the same language as each other. I always feel kind of weird recommending what some might see as fad methods and books, but considering what I'm about to recommend was brought to me by my wife, and you sound so much like her...

I would highly recommend you both read "The Five Love Languages." It helped both of us understand ourselves and each other better in terms of how we communicate. It's not exactly poop psychology. It's just a way to look at how each of you needs to give and receive communication. If you're giving in a way he doesn't understand, it's as if you're not giving at all to him. He's not seeing it.

The core point behind the ideas in the book are that we tend to give what WE need, not what the other needs, and we both had to learn what the other needed, and give it.

If you're partner isn't getting what they need, it should be to surprising if you're not getting what you need in return. That's a pretty basic principle of human interaction, but it's surprising how little either of us knew about what we REALLY needed from each other.

I thought what I needed were long talks, and quality time. Lots of it. Turns out I didn't know myself as well as I thought.

Seriously. Get the book. Get two of them. Ask him to read it at the same time you do. Do the stupid exercises in them. They may feel stupid at first, but they aren't. I thought it was all dumb. I felt foolish doing them.

Not anymore. It saved our marriage. Literally. We've been married sixteen and a half years, almost got divorced at least four times. We're happier now than we ever have been, even than when we first met. It's worth a shot. If you're not speaking languages that "speak" to each other in ways you both need, what you are going through now is what you get.

It's NOT a "one size fits all" approach. It's a "find out what you both need and give it to each other" approach, so the solutions differ from couple to couple.

Good luck.

EDIT: What I don't think I made very clear here is that what your husband is saying to you is the same thing I was saying to my wife. What happened from doing the exercises in the book is that I learned first that what I really needed wasn't what I thought it was. It wasn't exactly what I was telling her it was. I did need to talk more with her, and for her to tell me more, but that was really to get to the real issues. The real issues were not really lack of time together. Lack of time though, did play a part in not being able to get to the real issues.

Her lack of giving me that time turned out to be simply being overwhelmed. In short, she wasn't getting enough basic help with anything, so had no energy, physical or mental, to deal with anything else. Bottom line was that she needed help around the house, from me and the kids, and lots of it regularly. Once I and the kids started pitching in more, she suddenly had more time for me, and was a lot less stressed and able to speak her mind more. That lessened stress on me wondering what the hell was going on in her head that she wasn't telling me, and that in turn caused me to need that a whole lot less than I thought I did.

Now, a year later, we both spend a lot of time on our own things. I don't worry about what she's thinking anymore, and if she wants to go shut herself in our bedroom for hours at a time, I'm not thinking stupid things like "OMG, what's wrong now? Is she pissed?" I'm lovin' it. She's lovin' it, the time we do spend together actually is QUALITY time, and we don't need all that much of it. Even the kids are more relaxed now, though we still have to work on them quitting seeking her out constantly. That's where I come in, running interference for her, keeping them away from her when she needs her privacy.

"Other things" have improved to, that if I got into them might force the mods to move this thread into the adult forum. (If you know what I mean. Nudge-nudge wink-wink say no more.)

Your husband sounds like a very wise man. Realizing the importance of communication is as key to a marriage as the communication itself. I'd say you've got yourself a one-in-a-million, in fact.

This is not to say you don't have some compromising to do. Your longing for solitude is not wrong, and he needs to respect your need for it. But wanting to share your life with you does not constitute being "probed, watched, or pressed."

He is absolutely correct when he says that couples care about each other's feelings. Such caring engenders respect, and respect is critical in a marriage. Lose respect for each other, and you're toast.

The best of luck to you.

I've only had a DX for about a month and frankly my wife and I are just now starting down this journey together. Ask me in a couple of years, but my sense now is that both of us have things we need to learn and work on.

I was sent for the DX because after six months of marriage counseling the therapist was cluing into the fact that the standard techniques she uses in counseling NT-NT couples didn't seem to be working with me. She would get my wife to make a statement about what she was feeling, then she would stare at me and ask me 'how does it make you feel to hear your wife say such-and-such?' I think it must have been after the fourth or fifth time that I responded to that question by staring off into space and saying "I don't know" that she figured out that I legitimately didn't know. That's because as an Aspie I wasn't in touch with my feelings.

We're seeing a new therapist tomorrow night. Based on a 10-minute phone call with her, I am hopeful that this new person seems to have some experience with and seems to understand AS-NT couples. It has been a bit frustrating trying to track someone down who might be helpful to us. I've had several people not return phone calls and I've had several others who seem to downplay the significance of the ASD.

Best wishes to you in your journey.

Bob
Your Aspie score: 94 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 90 of 200
You seem to have both Aspie and neurotypical traits