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budgenator
Deinonychus
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09 Nov 2009, 9:26 pm

Space wrote:
. I don't want someone to decide they don't love me anymore and then take half my stuff in the divorce.

IANAL but when your married the only "my stuff" you have is had you had before you got married; everything you acquire while married is "our stuff", 50/50 partnership. Pre-nuptials are for people who have significant growing assets before marriage, such as a performer getting royalties for work preformed before marriage or interest on investments before marriage. Alimony is pretty rare and usually involves a scenario like a wife quitting college and working to paying her husband's way med school, the alimony is to compensate the wife for her contribution to her husband's add earning potential. Every state has different laws and case law so lawyer up if it's relevant.



Bob550
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07 Jan 2010, 9:21 pm

Forty one years to the same NT lady. She's put up with me all these years, I think she deserves a medal. We are still happily married.



computerlove
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08 Jan 2010, 2:46 am

Bob550 wrote:
Forty one years to the same NT lady. She's put up with me all these years, I think she deserves a medal. We are still happily married.
wow! and congrats! :D


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JamesG
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08 Jan 2010, 3:50 pm

Married just over one year to my NT wife. How she puts up with me at some points, I'll never know...



Koldune
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08 Jan 2010, 5:02 pm

My wife and I currently maintain separate households, not at all because we don't like each other, but because it works better. (I'm an apsie; she's NT with bipolar disorder. We've been married for six years. I'm nearly ten years older than she is, and we have a five-year-old daughter.) We've found that if we're not in each other's proximity for long time periods, that there's less of her nonverbals for me to miss and less of my harmless (to me) mannerisms for her to misintepret—from past experience elsewhere, unrelated to me—as danger signals. She's emotionally intense; mine is nearly flatlined. Her normal family life is generally louder and chaotic than I find comfortable. Likewise, if we're not careful, my focus on the nuts and bolts of maintaining a life tends to stifle her simple enjoyment of life. We visit periodically and generally work out logistics (finances, plans, and so forth) over the phone, calmer for the distance and the additional effort needed to stay in touch. We are both highly intelligent people, and I find a discussion with her that isn't emotionally charged is more satisfying than any I've had with anyone else. I can't say that this would be an ideal situation for just anyone, especially as a start for a marriage. It seems to work for us, though, as a way to preserve the relationship that existed before the combination of our respective diagnoses started causing trouble.


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ed78
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06 Feb 2010, 10:13 pm

Acacia wrote:
Five years of a live-together situation.
We had no idea about AS until last year.
I thought I was fine, and I was oblivious to the ways I was hurting her.

Ideas of marriage and a future together evaporated quickly.
However, we do have a child together. So we are currently trying to figure out how to arrange things so that we can each lead our own separate lives, yet take the best possible care of our child. Arguments over posessions seem secondary to some fundamental conflicts over the mental and emotional climate of our home. We can't live around each other. I really don't care who gets what stuff.

I can see now that I never had any idea how to make a relationship work. As much as I've learned, I don't know if I will ever be able to maintain a marriage or any other close relationship.


This resonates very well with me. I was not aware of Asperger's until my middle son (now 8 ) was tested for it at the recommendation of his therapist, and he was found to be incredibly close to clinical. My wife did a ton of research at that point and concluded that he had "gotten it" from me. I was much more skeptical and slow to judge, and am still doing my own form of methodical research, but am getting more and more suspicious each day that she was right. The piece that I find similar to your situation, Acacia, is the complete ignorance I have had of doing any harm. I mean, my wife has told me in no uncertain terms that on many occasions I am hurting her, but without her telling me, I have no idea. This lack of empathy and inability to see how she is taking my words and actions, and the fact that I have this with pretty much everyone (even my kids to a large degree!) is one of the reasons I'm concerned. We have seriously considered divorce on numerous occasions, but so far, our kids have kept us together and we are trying to cope with the difficulties that my issues bring to our relationship.



RhettOracle
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08 Feb 2010, 4:18 pm

I am an AS male, married to an NT woman for nearly 12 years.



Philologos
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10 Feb 2010, 1:25 am

been there, done that. Probably a mistake, but went almost 20 years. Would have gone longer EXCEPT her parents - her mother feared and loathed my differences - worked from day 1 to break it up. Getting out of range a couple times helped, but we always came back within range. Kabloom.

Then I met a like-neuroned person, and kabing. Ex probably STILL thinks it was an affair predating the final break. but not so.

It can be done - with good will and not to much outside interference.



Francis
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11 Feb 2010, 12:15 am

I've been married to an NT women for 13 years. We have known each other for about 25 years. Like every other marriage it requires some communication and some compromises along the way. We are pretty much opposites, so we complement each other nicely.

My in-laws actually accept me more then my own parents do. So I have never had to deal with that. (now my parents dealings with my wife and kids are despicable. Its no wonder I really don't communicate with them anymore. They're just bad people.)



roguetech
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11 Feb 2010, 12:23 am

I was married 9 years until she left me. As much as I regret her leaving, and the stain it's placed on the idea of marriage for me, I don't regret marrying her. Now, I'm in a committed relationship of 2 years. I think being in a relationship with an NT has huge advantages, from both sides (I hope). It can be a partnership of differences.



ToughDiamond
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11 Feb 2010, 11:40 am

I echo your fear of marriage contracts.....if my marriage ever breaks up then I'd stand to lose an awful lot if they ordered a 50/50 split. But as has already been said, the law doesn't normally do that unless there are good reasons. The old method was designed in the days when a woman would have lousy job prospects and no means of supporting herself without hubby's macho breadwinning skills. So if you live very traditionally, with hubby going out to work and financing the wife as a housekeeper, she might claim something, but if you reject the stereotype and go for the modern thing with both partners earning money, you're a lot safer. I'm careful to keep my finances completely separate from my wife's, because she's not frugal at all, and is always getting into debt......I had to become quite firm about money, which hasn't been easy as she has lots of glibly thought out "get rich quick" plans such as borrowing my money to buy into the housing market, just before the housing bubble popped.....I felt terrible about refusing, but history proved it a wise decision.

Dependent children of course can't be axed from the financial support, which can be a hard pill to swallow if the money has to go through the ex-wife's hands, in some cases. When it happened to me after my second marriage collapsed, I got a deal where I just paid directly for my son while he was in my custody (just under half the time), so I retained control over how my money was spent on him, which I found a lot more dignified. That ex-wife didn't ask for money for herself, as she really didn't need it and probably felt guilty about the way she'd broken the marriage, which was pretty cruel, particularly for our child.

I've no idea whether an Aspie is better off with an NT or another Aspie. I have difficulty in working out which of my ex-partners were Aspie and which weren't. My current wife seems to be a mixture with some AS traits and some NT, and she probably wouldn't score high enough to be a diagnosed Aspie. I can get quite sensitive some of the things that Aspies aren't often so good at delivering, such as regular reassurance that they really care, and warmth in the way they deal with me. So much depends on the individual, whatever their DX.

I don't believe marriage makes a lot of difference. I've been through two marriages that haven't worked so it's clearly no great help for keeping things sweet. Marriage for me has always been because of the wishes of other people rather than anything I've personally wanted to do, so I've just gone along with it because it doesn't seem to do any harm and because I had no intentions of ending the relationship but wanted it to last a lifetime. I like the idea of sending the message: "we're a couple so you'd best respect that" but I'm not convinced it makes much difference in practice. If you feel you can trust each other, I think that just living together is as good as anything.



Berlin
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13 Feb 2010, 5:03 am

Koldune wrote:
My wife and I currently maintain separate households, not at all because we don't like each other, but because it works better. (I'm an apsie; she's NT with bipolar disorder. We've been married for six years. I'm nearly ten years older than she is, and we have a five-year-old daughter.) We've found that if we're not in each other's proximity for long time periods, that there's less of her nonverbals for me to miss and less of my harmless (to me) mannerisms for her to misintepret—from past experience elsewhere, unrelated to me—as danger signals. She's emotionally intense; mine is nearly flatlined. Her normal family life is generally louder and chaotic than I find comfortable. Likewise, if we're not careful, my focus on the nuts and bolts of maintaining a life tends to stifle her simple enjoyment of life. We visit periodically and generally work out logistics (finances, plans, and so forth) over the phone, calmer for the distance and the additional effort needed to stay in touch. We are both highly intelligent people, and I find a discussion with her that isn't emotionally charged is more satisfying than any I've had with anyone else. I can't say that this would be an ideal situation for just anyone, especially as a start for a marriage. It seems to work for us, though, as a way to preserve the relationship that existed before the combination of our respective diagnoses started causing trouble.


I am also married to an NT woman with bipolar. We've been together for 9 years and married for 5. I would say I'm the one who is far more "together" in terms of employment, taking care of finances, household tasks and the like. She is extraordinarily spontaneous and emotional and has difficulty to committing to anything long term in terms of what she wants to with her life. She has found me to be distant (I can get really lost in my own interests over the past few years. She is American and I am Canadian - and since it's generally agreed that I need to be the breadwinner my work is here and I am very busy with it - we live in Canada. The adjustment was not easy for her as she has a lot of friends back home but I feel her inability to adjust (she has permanent residency here) was largely her own doing. She tried to blame everybody and everything for her plight. She also became very dependent on me - didn't work, didn't find a hobby, at her worst point was afraid to even make phone calls or answer the door, and I felt I was constantly blamed for changing from this wonderful romantic person to "who you really are." I couldn't take it and retreated and became very distant and unattuned to her emotional needs.

We took what was supposed to be a short romantic getaway where we had a falling out. She ended up going back home to visit friends and family and to work on herself, which we both thought was a good thing. She extended her stay and it turned out she was having an affair. Of course I was so naive because she'd so such a thing and I was afraid to ask even though I had suspicions until I was 99% sure of it, which I did shortly after she returned. Harder than the affair itself though was her defensiveness and lack of remorse and she seemed to turn into a very selfish person - she was prior to that kind of self-centered perhaps, but very nurturing and loving. Having her adoration (at one time) was the most wonderful thing in the world, but this was passionate resentment. I needed to know it was over but she kept insisting that I was invading her privacy and none of my business. I was never a particular paranoid person but this brought it out. She then insisted she "needed space." I resisted and said we need to make this work. I was extraordinarily desperate and certainly was no longer reserved - I wanted to talk and open up, a lot. We started couples therapy. She wanted a trial separation, and I thought we needed to work on our relationship and make it a top priority. But eventually I agreed to a trial separation, and shortly before she left in November we became closer in some ways than we had in years. We were tired of fighting.

She then became very distant and refused to honor times when we agreed we should talk. Part of it was due to meds-related issues. I then basically laid out my terms and made it clear that I would not tolerate in the relationship and that I cannot be in a relationship with this other guy too. She said that was fair, and after some time without talking for a while she ended up contacting me pretty regularly.

In two weeks we will be meeting in a neutral space for a short vacation, and then returning home. There are signs she has gotten her life together. I am hoping it works out, but I am now strong to be in this relationship with my eyes open.



Koldune
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13 Feb 2010, 12:43 pm

Quote:
I am also married to an NT woman with bipolar. We've been together for 9 years and married for 5. I would say I'm the one who is far more "together" in terms of employment, taking care of finances, household tasks and the like. She is extraordinarily spontaneous and emotional and has difficulty to committing to anything long term in terms of what she wants to with her life. She has found me to be distant (I can get really lost in my own interests over the past few years. She is American and I am Canadian - and since it's generally agreed that I need to be the breadwinner my work is here and I am very busy with it - we live in Canada. The adjustment was not easy for her as she has a lot of friends back home but I feel her inability to adjust (she has permanent residency here) was largely her own doing. She tried to blame everybody and everything for her plight. She also became very dependent on me - didn't work, didn't find a hobby, at her worst point was afraid to even make phone calls or answer the door, and I felt I was constantly blamed for changing from this wonderful romantic person to "who you really are." I couldn't take it and retreated and became very distant and unattuned to her emotional needs.

We took what was supposed to be a short romantic getaway where we had a falling out. She ended up going back home to visit friends and family and to work on herself, which we both thought was a good thing. She extended her stay and it turned out she was having an affair. Of course I was so naive because she'd so such a thing and I was afraid to ask even though I had suspicions until I was 99% sure of it, which I did shortly after she returned. Harder than the affair itself though was her defensiveness and lack of remorse and she seemed to turn into a very selfish person - she was prior to that kind of self-centered perhaps, but very nurturing and loving. Having her adoration (at one time) was the most wonderful thing in the world, but this was passionate resentment. I needed to know it was over but she kept insisting that I was invading her privacy and none of my business. I was never a particular paranoid person but this brought it out. She then insisted she "needed space." I resisted and said we need to make this work. I was extraordinarily desperate and certainly was no longer reserved - I wanted to talk and open up, a lot. We started couples therapy. She wanted a trial separation, and I thought we needed to work on our relationship and make it a top priority. But eventually I agreed to a trial separation, and shortly before she left in November we became closer in some ways than we had in years. We were tired of fighting.

She then became very distant and refused to honor times when we agreed we should talk. Part of it was due to meds-related issues. I then basically laid out my terms and made it clear that I would not tolerate in the relationship and that I cannot be in a relationship with this other guy too. She said that was fair, and after some time without talking for a while she ended up contacting me pretty regularly.

In two weeks we will be meeting in a neutral space for a short vacation, and then returning home. There are signs she has gotten her life together. I am hoping it works out, but I am now strong to be in this relationship with my eyes open.


Sounds like you've put something together that could succeed. Good luck--sincerely. I can empathize with what you mentioned of her becoming uncomfortably dependent, too. My wife's rather large extended family lives mostly on the same road in east Tennessee. Not having family--that is, people she had known a long time and didn't need to build a relationship with---bothered her more than she would admit. I live 350 miles from her family, in northwest Virginia. I also grew up in New England, which is a noticably different culture from her native one.) My in-laws didn't like the separation, either. She would be on the phone to them every day, or we'd get subtle complaints about them not seeing the grandchildren. With her closer to her parents and with some distance between us, however, we get along much better. Hopefully, your situation will work out as well.


_________________
Ek mun þola. (I shall endure [Old Norse]).
The greatest school of magic is life itself; the strongest spell, the one you cast yourself.
I ain't been vampired: you've been Weatherwaxed.
?E. Weatherwax
Pro te ipso faciete. (Do for yourself.)


FreeSpirit2000
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07 May 2010, 1:30 am

Most likely I will end up with an NT one day probably.