The Married Aspie Cafe Thread (discussion of marriage, etc.)

Post Reply New Topic

I'd never do that ... It's just that there's this moment when she asks me something, and I have an internal panic attack of "what the bloody hell am I going to say that will sound authentic?" I'm mentally rummaging around in a thesarus trying to come up with the right words ....

Well, Pandora, it's not really 'bossy'. It's more like she wants to know that I'm paying attention and all that. She wants to hear me comment in at least three differnt statements. If I stop at one or two, she'll ask again. We've been married 17 years, so I guess she's internally worried that I don't really look at her anymore.

Pandora, I guess that's why two ASpies could have a good marriage. We'd understand each other just a little better...
She's NT, but I love her ! !!

Funny you should say 'soppy'. We were watching the telly, and they had a sad story about some people who died what with all this flooding and whatnot. She gets all weepy, and I'm holding her, and she wants me to get all weepy. Sorry, but if I start crying, there's a very good chance of it leading to a full blown meltdown. She sometimes gets upset that I don't cry over stuff...

I used to get annoyed with mum when we saw something sad and she didn't get as upset over it as I did. She could be on the AS herself. She says the first day she went to boarding school at 13, she couldn't understand why many of the other girls were crying because they were homesick. She said she couldn't wait to get away from home.

She has often said she hates emotional displays and that I was too much of a drama queen. It's weird because in some ways I dislike soppiness but in other ways, I am a real crybaby.

I think the last time I cried was when I heard the news regarding those old folks who were abandoned in the Katrina diaster, and all died in that nursing home. I'd been under a lot of stress, going to work every day with an awful sinus infection, and pounding headaches. When I heard that on the radio, I broke down and started sobbing in me car.
(Not that I know anyone in Lousiana USA, mind you, it was just the awful mental picture of old people being abandoned to drown.)

Yeah, I agree. I got a really sick feeling about those people in the old people's home and also couldn't understand how the evacuation of New Orleans was botched so badly and I felt like crying. Ditto with 9/11 and more recently, the Boxing Day Tsunamis.

When my second daughter was about 6 months old, there was a news item about the Kurds in Iraq. A baby girl had died of cold or illness but didn't look dead. She could have been an identical twin in appearance to my own baby girl. The mother was trying to throw herself into the grave with her baby and I just cried and cried. Even now, years later, I still get upset about it.

We have a bit in common, Pandora.

I was switching channels one evening, and there was a programme about the last days of Hanoi and the Vietnam war. There was a narrator between long clips with just the sounds the cameras captured. It was quite different from the usual documentary. I started getting teary watching the growing crowds begging the US GI's to let them into the embassy compound. I've seen all this many times before, but somehow the ambient sounds made me want to cry...

Anything on the news with children either hungry or with that haunted look like they've seen too much for their young age makes me cry. I want to get on a plane and take them food or get medicine to them. I hate to see adults suffering too, and animals, but kids suffering really gets to me.
Music makes me cry sometimes too. Tchaikovsky, especially.

I have read enough in this forum to think that this is the correct place to post this.

My wife and I have recently come to the conclusion that AS is certainly the explanation for my many quirks. We are both 62 and married 41 years to each other and only each other. So I guess that constitutes a committed relationship. Now that we have a handle on this thing; I am picking up insights into what has been going on with me all this time and some things that maybe I can do about it. But I am also picking up insights about communication problems we have always had. She sometimes regards the AS thing as a useless piece of information because she sees no useful application of the information and thinks that I will use the AS designation as an excuse to say "thats the way I am" and then not work to change things in problem areas.

She is strongly disinclined to use the internet for anything other than e-mail and not much of that. I on the other hand have spend much time in the Wrong Planet forums because it is such a relief to see that others have the same problems and characteristics and can provide insights that may be of use to me. It is like a sigh of relief to find others like me and it helps me make more sense of things. I tend to hide my browsing of the sites from her because she seems to think that I am wasting time on the topic. I read her a few clips now and then when it has relevance to something that is a problem for the two of us.

She loves me very much and is tolerant but she imputes ill motives to many of the things she thinks I am doing. It is really frustrating because I have no such agenda ! It is a perception driven by her being NT and me being AS. Oddly she has a bunch of personality quirks of her own but they do not match AS at all. If I could understand her set of quirks as I am coming to understand my own, It would help a lot.

SUMMARIZING MY QUESTION TO YOU ALL:
Can you give me run down on the basics of being an AS husband trying to optimize his relationship with his NT wife? (Yeah, I know that's kind of a tall order, I hope its not too unrealistic)

P.S. Some of her key quirks:
--Very quiet
--Reclusive, Enjoys solitude, Avoids interaction with others. Shy!
--Impaired ability to show affection physically, Compensates by doing things for others
--Almost cannot initiate any show of affection in any situation, no matter how private.
--Feels unappreciated
--Insists on being independent, and is loathe to ask for assistance, even rejecting it when it is sincerely offered spontaneously to an obvious need
--Reluctant to share her feelings
--Thinks that any inquiry by me about her thoughts or choices is an attempt to judge them or berate her.
--Really has trouble believing that when I say something that I mean exactly what I said and that I don't have some ulterior motive or agenda.

Hmmm, being an ASpie hubs with a (suspected) NT wife.

I've had to get things organized to a far greater degree than ever. Particularly our finances. She would ask if I was spending money recklessly. Turns out I was just buying a bit too many bags of crisps here and there, and it added up.
But I understand your wife "attributing" intentions, when in fact it's something you're doing without thinking.