Son diagnosed aspie, but NT wife didn't want to tell him.

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Somewhat stunned to realize that I did not see this angle at all.

And: of course.

What parent wouldn't be irked at being cut out of a key decision?

I recently studied the remarkable disorder of visual perception called "hemispheric neglect" as part of a neurobiology class. It is shocking to me, despite having studied ASDs, recognized it in myself and gone through diagnosis, to have this kind of hole in my social perception pointed out. I try so hard to see multiple perspectives and yet was completely blind to this obvious thing.

Thanks for sharing this perspective, DW.

Holy crap.

Interesting analogy: visual perception--social perception.

I've heard it stated that autistic people are not inclined to be social because they only see faces as generic things, not as specific, unique things. In a word, they are not inclined to be social because they are not fascinated by the unique features of, say, mommy's face.

Lost my reply to "no post mode specified", whatever that means.
Let me try this again.

1) I think there was a failure of communication. I think each spouse assumed the other shared his/her viewpoint, and neither actually expressed their opinions until the OP acted on his. I don't think it's fair to lay all the blame on his shoulders.
2) The OP never said his wife expressed any kind of regret that she wasn't present for the "reveal". I don't think we should jump to that conclusion.

Sorry, the correct term is "Hemispatial Neglect" and this is the video I was thinking of:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4FhZs-m7hA[/youtube]

I think the thing that seems most similar is not perceiving that you are not perceiving something.

I'm feeling kind of humbled at this point. I'm fairly used to messing this sort of stuff up, so I assume I'm probably in the wrong. I just wish there weren't so many edge cases to consider.

Mate - just go talk to your wife and tell her why you did it, but apologise for not consulting her and including her. You do not have to apologise for wanting him to be told sooner rather than later.

If my husband had reflected and taken responsibility I wouldn't be seeing the divorce lawyer.

Listen, EVERYONE does it at some point. Sometimes we get so focused on the moment with our kids, that we don't think of what our spouse may want. As someone else pointed out, she may never have expected you to consult her; we don't have that piece of the puzzle; I just wanted you to CONSIDER it.

Either way, just let her know that you are now aware you probably should have talked to her so you both could make this decision together. Marriage is a shared learning process, and spouses learn to compensate for each others' weaknesses. People who love each other get over the mistakes, and may even eventually find some of them adorable (lol, I do with my husband; some flaws just remind me that yep, he is still the guy I married ). The important thing is simply to keep the dialogue going, and be willing to see and understand her side, whatever that is.

I agree with your perspective.

Yes I supposse its better to just call her autistic ...how does acknowledging family members have differences, and including details that mention those prevent the family from being a 'team'? Us vs. Them is when you point out differences with the purpose of dividing or trying to claim they make someone inferior or superior....somehow I do not get that from the OP. Also it is somewhat significant since neurotypical people don't have the experience of being on the spectrum so they aren't going to know what it is like and will need imput from their autistic child and potentially other autistics to have a better understanding.

Yes, I had assumed "mother" could be extrapolated from the data provided. "Caucasian" and "chocolate loving" seemed irrelevant. NT seemed like a relevant datapoint.

I can see how that might have sounded though.

Last edited by superluminary on 09 Jul 2014, 4:19 pm, edited 2 times in total.

If OP is also on the spectrum, it could be possible that consulting her about it didn't even enter his mind. From what I read, he wanted to have a heart to heart with his son about his diagnosis because he didn't want his son to go through the things OP did when he was younger and didn't know why he was different. He only figured out afterwards that his wife did not approve, it didn't seem like he was actively excluding her.

I sometimes wish my mother didn't tell me. I wanted to be normal and I wasn't ready to hear I had something wrong with me. I am glad I didn't know then what it was or knew sooner or else I would have used it as an excuse. I would have been literal thinking rules didn't apply to me and I should be allowed to do the wrong behaviors because I grew up seeing disabled kids doing it and getting away with it because the teachers let them. I did take it literal in my teens when I found out what Asperger's was and that I had a disability.

I say it depends on the child. For me it wouldn't have been good. I am glad she didn't tell me about ADD or OCD or other labels I had before 6th grade. That would have gotten me upset. But telling me I was normal didn't help either because I knew I was different and if I was normal, how come I am going to all these doctors and how come I get treated different at school? Why am I on medication? I also noticed I had problems and I just kept trying harder so I could be normal. I have known since I was a small child I was different but didn't think much of it until puberty. That was when I started to care.

Except HE DIDN'T CONSULT HER SO HE OBVIOUSLY DOES NOT VALUE HER OPINION!! !! I haven't read the whole thing but I just do not understand in what world it's ok to make major parenting decisions without the other parent TO WHOM you're MARRIED!! !! I would have been so angry. We make decisions regarding our children TOGETHER and it does not matter what the hell either of our neurologies are...because we are the parents. You yourself just added exactly what I guess is going on: he thought I'm autistic too, so I'm better qualified to make the decision, so therefore I won't even consult her. And that's just flat out wrong, IMO. The parent/wife should be consulted (and then they can discuss their opinions like adults) because they are a team. Anyway...what's done is done...

Absolutely agree.

I don't think this is obvious or probably even true. Since the OP is autistic, it's entirely possible that he values her opinion greatly but did not consider it at the moment that it seemed right to tell his son. That failure of consideration might mean he does not value her opinion in a neurotypical person, but I think in an autistic person it means they forgot to compensate for the natural pattern of their mind.

I find I do the same thing at work and try to deal with everything myself. I now use decision trees and process charts to coerce myself into consulting with leadership and colleagues when I start down the natural (to me) path of trying to shoulder the whole burden myself. Every time I do this it yields a positive result, and yet I am always surprised because my default perspective does not encompass this behavior. It doesn't mean I don't value other opinions, I just sometimes forget that it's OK or even possible to share decisions.

That is interesting.

I'm thinking that there might have been confusion too because the OP's wife was pushing for evaluation /diagnosis for school problems in an 8 year old. To avoid this conflict, he would have had to think to bring up with her his wanting to tell their child, and maybe that's hard to realize with this emotional issue (for both) when she has pushed the evaluation after all. Or she would have had to think to tell him she wanted to plan together how and when to tell their child.

It would have been better if one of the parents had thought to bring up the issue of how to tell their child so they could talk about it, it just seems to me like since both failed to see and to understand the other's viewpoint, I really wonder, does this relate to his autism?