The site where they BASH Aspie husband and wives. :O

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Also no. The person she married was a man who was interested in her, romantic. The man she's married to now has the same name, but has dropped her cold as an interest, and is a different husband. She had no reason to expect that he would change so radically in how he treated her.

I thought of this when I read her post.
http://sethadamsmith.com/2013/11/02/mar ... t-for-you/

I can relate to a lot of what she writes, but this is nonsense. She can't have it both ways. Either her partner controls her, as she is saying here, or has no idea her feelings, is socially disabled, and can't control interactions. Not both.


This is her experience, and it sounds very sad, and I even feel sad for her. But labeling a group of people parasites and scapegoating this group as being responsible for all of her unhappiness, rather than dealing with the fact that SHE is disappointed in HER husband is a dangerous game of avoiding responsibility.

Having ASD does not make us immoral, nor incapable of contributing. I hope she is saying this stuff as part of a brief rant rather than an ongoing tirade. I understand I am taking it rather literally. I'm a mom and this lady has kids and one of those kids soaking up her negative attitude toward people with ASDs may have ASD him or herself, and what then? And, even if none or their children have ASD, their may be grandchildren. These kids deserve a parent who can see their beauty and potential and support them learning, and if their dad is a jerk, they deserve a mom who can help them learn she dislikes the behavior, even hates it. I don't believe it's right for a mom to be teaching hatred of a group of people for their label,

That's not true. She signed on in the belief that he was going to stay, more or less, the guy she was marrying. By the time his treatment of her changed, and changed profoundly, she had children she was responsible for. It doesn't matter whether or not he's doing these things intentionally: she's not free to leave, because if she does that she harms the kids. She has to live in a way that keeps peace at home regardless of how it harms her, and roll with whatever he's laying down in how he treats her, for the sake of their kids.

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If she cares so much for her kids that she's willing to stay trapped in a hellish marriage for their sake, it's extremely unlikely she wanders around blaming their dad and saying nasty things about him and his ASD. It's pretty widely understood that slagging off the other parent is bad for children.

I don't think it's good advice. A marriage is for both partners. When you have children, that's something else -- yes, you're responsible. You can't be absent from the map altogether, but the things they need come first, and you also need to be there supporting your children's other parent. Marriage is for adults, though.

I agree, it is contradictory. I didn't even think of that.

I thought it was also contradictory how she is unhappy that she stopped being his special interest, but she complains that she can't get a break from him either.

Tarantella if life is as bad as this person is saying, her kids WILL know. You've written how you knew. And even if they don't realize she is hurting, if their father is that selfish he isn't going to meet their needs.

But this leaves me wondering, at what age did you recognize the pain your mother was going through? And was your father able to give much to you?

I haven't been able to follow these peoples' life stories, so may be missing something important, but, of which I am aware, they never particularly discussed what they expected from the relationship, before it became legally binding. We were familiar with the concept of the prenuptial in a blue-state middle school.

The first spouse apparently prioritized money. Was the husband more wealthy as a bachelor, or when was he supposed to become rich? I'm not seeing a bait-and-switch, or it hasn't been described to me how the situation has changed, since they took their vows.

Since ASD is central to the discussion, has it impoverished the family in some nameable way? Or, was she unaware of his inclinations, before accepting the proposal?

I acknowledge that it can seem rigid to fixate on another person's objectification, rules, and logic, when they seem foreign to you, but there is typically some way to get along with NT's when they are emotionally accountable. For instance, one person I lived with had a fear of the dentist. In her eyes, I could do no right, once there was an appointment. She felt embarrassed when she neglected to walk her dog. I could do no wrong, if I had completed that task. One person was in chronic, physical pain, etc, but would never say so. I could only figure it out by how I was being verbally abused, and then, she would admit it. One man I know acts inappropriately on the birthday of his dead mother. But, it has never been discussed as such.

Is she the flighty one, and is she picking apart bits and pieces of the situation, in order to come up with a plausible excuse? In my experience, anyone who knew me for long enough would be familiar with my quirks or habits.

It reminds me of being clingy to someone who verbally "accepts" you but is forever making suggestions on how you might improve yourself, from head to toe.

In which case, who is in a state of crisis, and who just wants to leave.

Well, the weird thing is, if one or both of your parents is AS, the likelihood of your family's being social goes way down. So you don't have much to compare your family to. I didn't really understand how my mother was suffering until I was in my 30s, even though I'd snooped her diary -- it was obvious she was unhappy, but as a kid I had no way of understanding what I was reading. The things she was upset about didn't seem like a big deal to me, but that's because I was a kid and off in my own world anyway.

My dad was there for me bigtime when I was very little, but then it all switched off. Actually it never occurred to me before that I myself might've been a special interest for a while. It was pretty terrible, particularly when he'd say hurtful things, but again, as a kid, you don't really know what to do with it, and my mom seemed to accept how things were -- she was just mad that he wouldn't eat dinner with us, or, if pushed, did it reluctantly and ate his own weird food. I really didn't know that there was such a thing as an "involved dad" till I hit college, and truth be told they were still pretty rare -- most of my college friends' dads were lawyers or businessmen, and I didn't see them much. Though I will say their time away seemed to result in hella more money. It was a long time ago, and a lot less was expected of dads.

Things were different with his second wife, though. I was already grown when they married, and when I saw how he treated her sometimes, I understood it as abusive. It took maybe another decade or so to see that it was also controlling (I just didn't know what that was), and that her own insecurities kept her there even though she was more and more unhappy. She's since described to me some of what she's been through. It hasn't been good. But she's also noticed that he's changed substantially, for the worse, over the last 20-30 years. I think my mom actually got some pretty good years with my dad -- I remember him early on as oblivious, but a good and lighthearted guy.

The other thing is...you know, if your mom's unhappy, and you're a kid, it's really hard to know why. She's like the weather; her mood just is. If there are certain things that your dad does that set her off, you'll know what those are, but the background for it, the ground state...that's just how things are, in your house. At least until you're older and you have other families, other atmospheres, to compare it to. It's only when you look back as an adult, with experience and the benefit of lots of people's stories, that it becomes clearer what was going on, I think.

Read it again. It's not saying that marriage isn't for both partners. It's saying that it isn't about ONE partner. It's not meant for one partner to make themselves happy or just focus on getting their own needs met.

This woman is stuck on how she's not getting what SHE wants out of the situation.

Nope, she's worried about money because she loves her children and does not want them to grow up in poverty. Poverty is bad for children. And if she leaves the marriage, her children will be very poor, at least for the years it'll take her to get on her feet.

The bait-and-switch has nothing to do with money. He was extremely attentive and loving to her in the beginning of the marriage, leading her to believe that that's how he'd be, as a husband. Then he stopped and became cold and neglectful, and she found herself married to a man who treated her poorly.

Most people do not discuss realistically, in detail, what they expect from marriages, because few young people have the maturity and insight to understand what it will really be like to be married and have and raise children. Instead they share their dreams and values. Very often one partner has a much clearer idea of their meaning than the other one does. I cannot imagine anyone but Sheldon Cooper saying, "The way you treat me now, viz., [examples], is how you will treat me for the duration of our marriage." Prenups are for easy things, like money and property.

She's not getting *any* of what she needs out of the situation, and when that's the case, that's a bad marriage. A spouse does not live simply to serve the other spouse. Obviously this lady is willing to work very hard and put up with a lot in order to help her children, but there has to be something good in the marriage for her, too, if she's to be happy.

The piece is about how one's happiness in marriage is supposed to come entirely from each spouse serving the other spouse, which, in my experience of marriage and married couples, is hooey. Sometimes a "true marriage" is about you. And sometimes it's about your spouse. And if you've got kids and you're nice people, odds are it's mostly about your kids. But no, marriage is not one long run of Gift of the Magi.

there has always been ignorant prejudiced verabalization of the autism spectrum,so it isnt surprising to hear these comments; the internet has just given more places for people to express their thoughts.
and it isnt just NTs who do this, those of us with LFA are often brutaly and wrongfuly judged on forums like WP from both NT and aspie members.

the part that am really not liking about the post quoted in the original post of this thread, is the way the woman has pretty much made her husband and all aspies by connection sound like its a severe personality disorder with its sufferers looking for the nearest vulnerable individual to manipulate and control.

she clearly hates her husband and everything about him,so she shoud do herself and him the decency by getting a divorce instead of horibly mistreating a vulnerable man online without his knowledge.
he clearly coud do without a resentful wife and woud probably do better finding himself a HFA/aspie who woud understand and relate to him better,we have had several pairs of WP members marry before; successfuly.

Hope I never meet that woman.

No; she hates being married to him. She does not hate him; she's sympathetic toward him. And she would dearly love to divorce him, only she can't, because if she does the children will likely be in a very bad spot, or so she believes. She is trying to warn others away from the same trap.

This is really interesting. I'm seeing people read this woman's message as:

- She hates her husband.
- She's a golddigger.
- She's a flighty b***h who knew what she was getting into, then changed her mind.
- She hates all autistic people.
- She's vicious about her husband's AS and will damage her kids because she tells them how much people with AS suck (and one or more might have AS).
- She lumps all autistics together.

When I read her message, not being defensive about AS, I see only one of these as real: She lumps all autistics (really all with AS) together. But no, she doesn't hate the guy; she's just desperately unhappy married to him. No, she's not a golddigger; she just wants to protect the children from poverty. No, she's not a flighty b***h who knew what she was getting into; he presented himself one way, then changed when it was too late for her to get out. No, she doesn't hate autistic people; she's just trying to warn others away from her unhappy fate. No, she's not vicious about her husband's AS; she's explicitly sympathetic to him. Etc.

I wonder how much of the reaction is to her emotion, rather than to what she's actually saying. If you're angry at her message, do you think it is allowed for NTs to describe the experience of living with their AS spouse as hellish, unhappy, extremely difficult, etc.? If so, in what language?