After diagnoses things got worse

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Yes, and that is a great example of "honest communication" not being the issue. My wife and I have had to learn to deal with that very same thing.

However it happens, your wife is going to have to learn to go straight to the bottom line and ask a clear and specific question: "Can you take ______ to Doctor __________ for a 3pm appointment this afternoon?" And of course, it would really be best if that appointment was already written on a family calendar on the wall so you would have already at least known it was coming up. Find a therapist who understands that and who can help your wife and you work that out and the two of you are going to do fine!

I just wanted to say how sorry I am that you are going through all of this.

It seems to me that you are the same man your wife married, back when your idiosyncracies were something she accepted, and could even joke about (calling you Vulcan for example.) The fact is that since your diagnoses you haven't changed... her perception of you has changed though. She now sees you as diseased, something needing to be fixed. Frankly, that's rather offensive.

Of course, your self perception has changed as well. Your own children are calling you Rainman, it seems like the culture of the family has twisted, and you're treated with disrespect. It also seems like you somehow feel you deserve this.

Honestly, you don't deserve to be treated this way. You mustn't feel defective because you're aspie. And you shouldn't feel excluded in your own home, as though it's aspie against NT. Your wife has to understand you, and you have to understand her. You are not an alchoholic, this isn't something that you have any control over. When your wife fell in love with you she fell in love with YOU... including those traits which she now sees as needing to be fixed.

I hope you have a good counsellor, and that your wife has the courage to realise that she shouldn't withdraw from you just because she has a new label for you. There's nothing wrong with being autistic... it's just different.

I'm sorry things are so bad for you. This is the main reason that I haven't told anyone outside my immediate family (father, brother and son). People react with such visceral panic when they perceive something as different. And yet we're the same people we always were.

Keep strong.

Oh... and you're NOT crazy.

pjs: the argument that you mention doesn't look too problematic, it is just matter of logistics and taking a pause before going into argument. try to organize better and also count to 10 before going into argument. so for example instead going "just beacue I work from home doesn't mean i can run errands" ask "what needs to be done?" going step by step.

'You have to admit you have a problem'? Ugh... I hate when people (Usually family who presume to stake a claim at knowing everything about you) use catch-phrases they've heard to try to sound like they know what they're talking about. It's grasping. Reminds me of my folks' comments shortly after diagnosis, about how I 'needed to be willing to change,' which was a traceably obvious comment to make in all it's ridiculousness. Change what? I didn't discover I'm a drug addict. So clueless, and so trite... my bias is obvious, but I hope it all works out for you in the way you want, pjs. Stick to your guns, whatever they are, since that's what you might as well do, anyway.

Aren't there several different phenomena in play here? First, there's the fact of aspergers, and fairly clear evidence that with adult diagnosis there's little that can be done to remedy things.

Second, there's the lifetime of ignorance, and a worldview entirely based on misunderstandings. There is work to be done in redressing that one, and it's mostly the sufferer who has to do it. Following on from that, there's the relationship and whatever it may take to end or remediate it.

One definition of crazy is to repeatedly do the same thing and get the same result, again and again and again, and yet to keep doing that same thing, expecting a different result. It is probably not a good idea to mention this to your wife when she is in mid-rant though about your predictable reaction to her repeated patterns of behavior.

You both have to compromise and make particular efforts for your marriage to be healthy and functional. So in that respect it's a relationship just like any other marriage.

A good starting point is to identify what each of you needs from the other, what each is willing to do to provide this for the other, and what each of you is willing to accept as is.

That happened to me after 9 years of marriage.

Be careful choosing counselors. One who does not understand Aspies can be more damaging than no counselor, especially since your wife will probably be more likely to hear what she wants to hear.

The only suggestion I can give is to remember arguements are oftern about emotions, not actions or words (doesn't really apply to your example). People want to feel they are heard and understood. Asking "why are you upset", "how do you feel", "how does [xyz] make you feel", etc. can go a long way.. Simply saying "I understand" can go further. Saying you understand doesn't mean you can or will change something. Often arguements successfully end without a "solution", but with mutual understanding. It's a lesson that's hard to learn.

Avoid critisising her. (i.e. "Why didn't you just say that in the first place?!") Instead use "I/me" statements. If something is critical, follow it up with something soothing. Perhaps "It frustrats me when you aren't direct. I understand now you were asking if I was available." Followed with a discussion on how she could have posed the question better, and on how you can avoid getting upset when she isn't direct.

There's a contradiction in those two quotes......if she encouraged you to come out of denial and get the DX, but then can't handle the result herself....

I guess I'm in a similar situation. My wife first told me I might have AS, so I checked it out and was diagnosed positive. She left me the same week . The reasons she gave were all about her not being able to find enough work locally, and needing to spend more time with her (now grown up) kids who live in London. No intentions of ending our relationship. I feel pretty sure the desertion has a lot to do with the DX - suddenly it's a brain-wiring problem and not the kind of problem that can be solved by putting pressure on me to act more like her ideal hubbie.

When she visits (about one weekend in three), I don't see much evidence of any change in the way she tries to deal with me. I stll have to politely refuse to follow her round the crowded shops, and I wonder if she'll ever get it through her head that I just can't do that kind of thing without getting all tired and fratchety. It's like talking to a brick wall. So it's like I had the grace not to go into denial about having AS, while she behaves towards me as if I didn't have it. Seems to me that she just can't come to terms with my condition, and it's so ironic that she was the one who first spotted it.

All this would be very different if we'd come to a mutual agreement to live apart, but I didn't vote for that, and wouldn't normally entertain a marriage in which the partners didn't live together. Sure living together is difficult, but I've always thought that it's a matter of commitment and working on it, certainly not throwing in the towel without even scratching the surface of the emotional problems. When we were living together she would spend a lot of time alone in her room, and would be quite clearly avoiding me for much of the time, then suddenly she'd appear and just try to cut across whatever I'd been doing and engage me in whatever she happened to be interested in. If I didn't very quickly turn my attention onto her, she'd just go back to her room. If I challenged her behaviour (which I would do without any anger), she'd just duck the issue and never even admitted that it was rather a strange way to behave. So I used to just think, "oh well, nobody's perfect I guess, it could be worse," and just tried harder to get her to at least give me a few seconds to switch from what I was doing to what she wanted me to look at.

She's a special needs teacher and has all the necessary knowledge of AS to be able to really help me, but I guess this is one of those cases where strong emotional involvement renders all the intellectual learning absolutely useless.

I refused to sleep with her again until she said that it wasn't her plan to stay away indefinitely.....I just explained that I didn't feel right having sex with somebody who didn't want to live with me and didn't even seem to like me very much. She got angry but I held my ground and finally she said that she wasn't meaning to stay away permanently. But I still feel that her feelings for me aren't quite what they''re supposed to be, that she's just kidding herself.

Relationship counselling is now pretty much out of the question, as there's nothing available at weekends and the travelling would be very difficult to arrange. We were having some Relate sessions but her leaving the city ended that. Every time we tried to share our feelings, she would just go off into a rant and talk about 10 different issues in quick succession (almost superimposed), so I'd been really hoping that counselling would encourage her to focus on one issue at a time and really try to find out how she feels and what she wants. Since the separation she barely figures in my thoughts at all from day to day.

Bottom line, relationships are always difficult. Relationships between an NT and AS, I think require even more work.

My own marriage disintegrated because I didn't understand where I was failing and she didn't bother to look beyond her own selfishness to help me determine where I was failing. She had 80% of what she needed, but she just focused on the <20% I had a lot of difficulty in understand and providing.

Your story is familiar Pjs, there's no magic bullet. If she really wants the marriage to work and you do too, you'll both need to find the middle ground of what you both are realisticly willing to accept and offer.

Sounds like your wife has the problem, not you. You have my sympathies. And if she thinks AS is a death sentence, that's only going to create problems between her and your son.

That was where my mouth dropped as well. I don't even want to begin the implications are and what that says about the partner. Hopefully, this was a surface emotion and this isn't what she really feels or believes.

I hope that things work out for you pjs. I just recently got diagnosed myself but it was the opposite for me. I'm the one that felt like it was a death sentence and my partner was the one was like, "Of course!" But, it's still difficult now and we don't know if our relationship will survive the Aspergers. But, we are trying.

Bottom line, all you can do is try. I think that she just may need time to adjust. Also, I don't know how you are but the Rain man jokes have already started flying for me as well, but they are good natured and are meant no harm. It is a bit embarrassing for me but the humor and the laughter outweighs the embarrassment. I hope those things being said aren't meant to be malicious. If they are, for your sake you may want to express that you don't appreciate those things being said.

Asperger's is the reason. It is the why. It's not an excuse. It's not a problem unless people want it to be a problem. Alcoholism is a choice. Asperger's isn't.

I was diagosed at seven. My relationship with my parents and siblings got better but at school everything was still the same. I think it was just a sh***y school and my parents ended up taking me out and homeschooling me in fith grade.

@ the O.P.

Sorry to hear your wife isn't understanding and it sounds like there are deeper problems with her than just the ASD you mentioned. As of this writing, I haven't been diagnosed with any type of ASD, but the possibility is there adn my husband has accepted it and willing to learn more about it (whatever's wrong with me). My husband has complained over the years that I'm too cold and withdrawn, plus he never understood why I couldn't get along with his friends. He lectured me over and over about how to meet people, be myself, etc., but as much as I wanted his advice to work, it never did. Now he is starting to understand why. He and I will be married 18 years this fall. We've been separated a couple of times over the years, but we managed to talk it out and get back together. He knows I have problems now that I can't just take a pill to fix, so he's dealing with it (quite well, IMO). Your counselor was wrong in trying to take sides, indicating that it was more your fault than your wife's. You were right to walk out of there. However, you might benefit by finding another counselor, especially after knowing what you know now. Usually problems like these take two people to create and both people have to be willing to do what it takes to work on it.

Also, my husband would never allow my kids to call me a 'ret*d' or 'crazy.' Your wife shouldn't allow this either. Sounds like she's being a bit selfish right now.

my sympathies to you and I hope you can get this sorted out.

E333

I think she needs to consider the words she spoke at the wedding service and meet you half way, mate... perhaps if she'd learn something about AS, she'd help her son and her marriage much better than passively encouraging him stigmatising you for what he has too. I think this is incredibly unhealthy for him in the long run and if she feels its helping her to come to terms with it, she's deluding herself to the detrement of everyone around her.

I've heard a few NT wives react like this (even down to the same 'death sentence' phraseology) and I sincerely think she needs councilling to understand that taking it out on you really isn't going to help you understand or support each other. I try to put as much positivity into the relationship as I can in the hope I might get some back but I'm the aspie with a nondx autie hubby so what works for us is probably pretty unique to us... positivity and respect between parents ain't NEVER hurt any kid tho!!

I concur. She's being entirely unreasonable - you've been together for twenty years, so how has being diagnosed changed anything? You're still the same person she married! It's not like you've suddenly "become" an aspie.