Why do they marry them?

Post Reply New Topic

This is exactly the point. AS men are not very good at delving deep into partners emotional needs and expectations and predicting what can address those needs. I think the expectations of many NT women is that they can, and that is where things fall apart. They are working under a different framework than NT men, and thier communications skills are not a strongset. It falls apart either further because many NT women are mistaken that this can change, which it really cannot.

The funny thing is the ways that me and my boyfriend work out our differences being ASD woman - NT guy, may not especially work out very well for the reverse situation. It requires the disintigration of assumptions, clear lines of verbal communication, an understanding of how special interests work and not attacking them, understanding the weird quirks and alot of acceptance of certian aspects of being on the spectrum. I can practically write up a guidebook, but I am not sure it would work with NT women. That is the trick though is not to place upon the same expectations on an AS person or expect to change the aspects that go along with being on the spectrum, but rather to accept them and adapt to them. I think the level of change that is needed is asking alot, especially in societal gender expectations which are in place. Because the truth of the matter is it requires alot of hard work, and alot of NT women have a hard time swallowing that most of the change and understanding is on thier end, since this runs contrary to the framework they understand and are taught. Because the truth of the matter is the NT partner has to adapt in many ways to the AS partner and thier needs, the other way around frequently does not work. This is where AS really is a disability and a hidden one, thats what defines it, it has some things you cannot change and do hinder the person who has it, and it mainly deals with social/emotional aspects of human interactions. That is why it is so much more subtle and much harder to deal with it.

Last edited by starygrrl on 02 Mar 2011, 1:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Great post Starrygirl.

I suspect the *willing* on either side who are also able to discern a few things could/would make very good use of it, yet some people might nevertheless view it as but some one-sided "Aspie propaganda".

Best bet? Just keep right on sharing your own insights and personal experience wherever and whenever you can.

I heard as soon as the wedding was over that I changed. I asked "what do you mean *changed*--I've been the same person all along?"

The point was made that the "interest shifted" and indeed it did--and looking back retro-- it went to remodeling the house from top to bottom in a non-stop obsessional procession, in a day after day, month after month, year after year-- unrelenting phenomenon. It wasn't that I was putting up a front here in the beginning, because the interest was from the other side first, but we are both introverts and had common ground and it built up from here.

My focus just changes like this, and it looked like" the house was the other women now." I failed to meet the expectations and it was attributed to "being alone and left alone as a child and raised in an unorthodox bubble. " I just don't understand it, is there medicine or therapy for this?"

Last edited by Mdyar on 03 Mar 2011, 10:27 am, edited 1 time in total.

This has a lot to do with communication and people on the spectrum. Communication can happen, but not in the same way. It takes a lot more work, more patience, asking specific questions to get to the gist of things.

But I believe things can change. It just takes a hell of a lot of work. Unfortunately, it's more work than many people want to undertake.

That is the thing, most of the change has to happen on the NT end of things, because much of it is very difficult and or impossible on the AS end of things. That is what contrarian to what society teaches.

Totally, totally agree.

The thing is, a lot of the stuff I've read on the ASPartners forum seems to indicate that some women simply aren't willing to make those changes even when they discover those assumptions had been wrong and then simply write AS men off as not capable of having nor deserving of relationships at all.

As an NT female married to an AS male, I can tell you how it is: You meet a great guy, shy, a bit reserved, but polite, very loyal, caring and even romantic. You get engaged, get married, live together and the first couple years are tough, very tough....as they are in any marriage. There's traits that are annoying about him as there are traits about me that annoy him too, again, normal relationship. Fast forward 10 years when a child is born and later diagnosed with AS and you think AS? What is AS? Research research research and the aha moment is that your spouse also has AS which explains so many of the traits that have been a big contributing factor to the fights over the years. The average person does not go into a relationship with somone knowing all about AS, most people are completely oblivious to what AS even is. All relationships have troublesome times at one point or another. When AS is realized it puts an answer to why your relationship has been more difficult than most peoples (obviously, added issues). Hopefully women who come on here complaining about spouses with AS can allow that self-diagnosis of their spouse to help them understand them better and help them work through their differences with more understanding of one another.

Well you seem to have an open mind. But more often than not they seem to come on here right about the time the relationship has disintegrated and it is time for divorce. I really do think there should be a guide similar to Congratulations! Your Child is Strange. for partners of Aspies. The e-book by the way is probably the best resource I have found, and I think a guidebook for NT with AS partners would be similarly helpful, basically a simple guide explaining how AS works in adulthood.

Last edited by starygrrl on 02 Mar 2011, 11:07 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I think your comment (bolded above) is one of the scariest scenarios for an NT woman involved with an Aspie man.

I can only speak for myself. I did have that expectation with the first Aspie man I dated (we didn't know about his diagnosis when we got together). I didn't have that expectation with the next Aspie man I dated (we did know about his diagnosis when we got together). In the second relationship, I was actually very straightforward about what I expected of him. (I've always thought it was easier to just tell your partner what you need anyway, rather than play games about it.) I told him when he hurt me, I told him how he hurt me, I told him how he could avoid hurting me in the future. He responded by telling me that I shouldn't have been hurt. Not the response I expected; not the kind of response that will help a relationship thrive.


I'm not sure what framework and/or understanding you're referring to. Most of the women I know who are in marriages do most of the compromising. Granted, I'm talking about primarily NT/NT relationships, and I'm talking about working women with children. Their whole lives are about compromise, hard work, and sacrifice. I can assure you, NT women are used to adapting to their partner's needs. When the relationship involves an Aspie/NT couple, there are certainly different kinds of compromises that have to be made - but both partners have to be willing to compromise if the relationship is to succeed. I'm not suggesting that an Aspie should be expected to become suddenly emotionally intuitive, but willing to learn how to avoid hurting your partner should be on each partner's "to do" list. The majority of NT women who post in this forum are looking for ways to save their relationships. They don't come here to invite people to the bonfire of their partner's keepsakes - they're typically desperate for suggestions. IMO, the most common complaint they have is not knowing how to deal with their partner, what they can do to appease them, how they can lessen the stress in the relationship, etc. They usually come here looking for answers because their partner won't provide those answers. Kinda hard to solve problems without the necessary data.

You are illustrating exactly my point. You are expecting a compromise from the Aspie partner that is simply impossible, expecting them to manage certian social-emotional communication skills, which is not possible. You think autistics can compromise something that is at the heart of what make it a disability. When most NT women talk about compromise and sacrafice in a relationship, it is usually about childcare, not the actual partnership, and definately not about changing the social and communication aspects of the relationship. Most NT women who come here are pretty unwilling to compromise that. Like you they are asking the autist to comprimise in your direction something they honestly cannot change, and understand your emotional and social motivations at some level, and this is simply impossible. I hate to break it to you, this is not compromise on both ends on this part, this is something that a NT has to completely give up on thier end because the person on the spectrum is not as flexible on social-emotional level. That is at the heart of the disability, and you are illustrating EXACTLY what I am saying. The NT women who come here to complain want the person on the spectrum to change in exactly the way they cannot change. As much as you think this is something that person on the spectrum could compromise on this, I will be flat out honest, its not something that can be. This part is not a two way street, this part is an object that cannot move and essential to thier makeup.

The thing is alot of NT guys who are with women on the spectrum often make these social-emotional compromises because they realize this is part of who she is and something she cannot change. NT guys accept women's social-emotional quirks, more than NT women accept guys. Some NT women try to change these quirks more than they accept them, and for most NT guys it works, autists though are different, because they represent an immovable force. Alot of this is evolutionary women build up social and emotional support structures in order to support the perpetuation of the species, so I am not criticizing it in of itself. But rather the contrarian thing about autism, that you are directly illustrating, that this part of being an autist cannot change and that almost all the change has to happen on the NT partners part.

The NT women who post here, like you, simply do not get, because understanding this is almost entirely loss on your end, autism is almost beyond your comprehension and you simply do not grasp how deep it goes.. You think you can compromise with things that are at the heart of being on the spectrum. They simply are not willing to compromise on their parts at the level that is necessary. Yes NT women are willing to compromise and sacrafice on alot of things, just the ones who come here are not willing to compromise on the things that matter to the person on the spectrum, and like you really don't grasp what an autist cannot change, as you are exactly illustrating. You are expecting them to compromise and change the things that are at the heart of the part of autism which is a disability. You are expecting change in areas where change is not possible.

Certainly, and I hope any potential victims might take note of it. A mutual friend had tried to warn my wife at the very beginning, but she was "desperate" enough to not give much thought to that.

In so many words, "Dr. Laura" strongly suggests any man's character should be well-proved well prior to marriage.

Excellent post!

I think that a lot of NT partners would be a lot less frustrated/confused if the could grasp the idea you've articulated.

It's like dating a quadriplegic and and then wondering why they can't go jogging with you.

We can discuss "substitutes" (artificial limbs, wheelchairs, etc) but the limbs themselves are never going to appear...

Desperation, whether it be NT or on the spectrum leads to bad relationships in general. Marriage also should not be the goal of a relationship, but rather the icing on the cake to one that is well established. In general I don't think people should get married until they have been together for at least 3 years, if not longer. Rushing to get married is foolish.