My gripes at ASpartners

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The site is simply a place for these women to vent about their failing marriages. There's forums all over the internet for women with failing marriages, these women just happen to be married to men with AS.

I am sure if we went to other forums about failing marriages, there be the same gripes on there as there are at ASPartners about the exact same issues.

It could be possible. If an aspie was good at acting NT would you reconize that they were aspie if you didn't know them?

There are also lots of reports of aspies being absolutely horrible caretakers when their partners were ill or injured.

Executive function issues (forgetting to check on the spouse), trouble reading body language, over-reliance on verbal direction that the spouse didn't feel well enough to give, trouble understanding how incapacitating an illness or injury is when they're not experiencing it themselves, continuing to need care and support that their partners didn't feel well enough to give...

Now taking care of your partner when she's sick is crucial for a relationship. I expect it from her and she has every right to expect it from me.

Having read these field reports and seeing the difficulties in advance, I was able to step up my game a bit when my wife had surgery. This time around, it was.... not a complete disaster. Well enough that she felt cared for, although she wasn't a happy camper at the time (not that she could be with post-surgical pain and weakness and all).

But a clueless undiagnosed aspie and an incapacitated NT.... perfect recipe for a complete cluster#*&$^

What methods did you use? What did you do to step up your game? I need to make sure I step my game as well.

1. Read through the ASPartners archives and see where other aspies have gone wrong here
2. Bring pen & paper or recorder to the hospital. Record instructions from the doctor. Don't rely on her to remember anything... even if she's talking, her pain meds might keep her from recalling some or all of what she sees and hears. (I flubbed that one)
3. Check on her regularly - use an alarm if you have to. Don't force her to talk. Use a checklist each time, with tasks like "make sure water is within reach"
4. When she's sleeping (and she'll sleep a lot), you might find it easier to do chores without her interacting with you or watching you. Do them whenever you can... as soon as she's able to move, she probably will, and if she sees a huge mess or a huge backlog of undone tasks it'll be distressing for her.
5. Don't expect her to remember or keep track of anything at home either. Particularly medication schedules. Even if she's talking and moving around, her memory and executive function will be more or less hosed.
6. Don't argue with her unless her life depends on it. If you see her doing something you should have done for her, don't try to stop her... add it to your checklist.
7. Keep the kids and animals quiet as much as you possibly can. You probably won't - or shouldn't - keep them completely away from her, but her involvement with them will need to be limited.
8. Don't radiate distress in her presence. Do breathing exercises or whatever works for you.
9. On the way home from the hospital, drive extra cautiously. Keep g-forces to a minimum. Don't give her any reason to believe she should be "on duty" watching you... she's not physically up to that task.

http://forums.delphiforums.com/n/mb/mes ... sg=11442.1

Check this out

I should say that this is a mix of what I did and what I wish I'd done. Also, I'm pretty sure my wife is on the spectrum.

She did say that I handled stuff pretty well and she even felt bad about all the stuff around the house I was doing (even though there was a really good reason she wasn't doing them).

A few of the ASPartners posters mentioned that they either had, or planned to, find someone else to give medical power of attorney to other than their spouses, because their spouses simply could not be trusted with that role. Given what I know about what someone with medical power of attorney is supposed to do, the idea of having that responsibility over another person scares the hell out of me. However, since both of our social networks aren't all that great, there isn't anybody else but me to do that for her.

Stress-free life, huh?

At least someone who knows a little something responded to that.

Exactly how could he have done this?

For me, it took years of research to truly figure out what exactly was wrong with me. I researched it for a number of years until I finally cracked it at the age of 29. I'm 32 now. The only reason I figured it out was because my wife gave me a lot more data to go on. Even then it was difficult for me to swallow and accept that my neurology is completely different from everyone elses. It was too painful for me to face this truth for a long time. For the women at aspartners whose husbands will not accept themselves on the autism spectrum I believe this is why. It is to painful for some of them to bare as it was for me.

I believe Wayne is correct though in what he is doing. Ultimately, I believe we can sum this up. What you're doing Wayne right now is being proactive. I believe we aspies cannot run on instinct to much. This means we have to be proactive as much as possible in everything we do and our relationships around us. Any child we have who is an aspie needs to learn to be as proactive as possible. Personally, I think we on here need to all come up with strategies on being proactive. I think proactivity needs to be one of our best friends. I believe Greentea did this as well a long time ago. She factored time for herself when doing major things for things that could go wrong. She factored in time for Murphy's law. We do the same thing as well.

These women need to stay in my opinon and need to be able to vent against their asperger spouses. By reading their stuff, we not only know who our enemy is but we truly know ourselves a lot better. Personally, I think you are on to something Wayne. My advice is to strip off all of their emotional crap and read the content that is emmeshed within this emotional crap.

They also vent about a lot of stuff that isn't even Asperger's related, yet they blame it on Asperger's. I'm will to bet that a lot of the stuff the same stuff they vent about, you'll also find people venting about on general divorce forums, where the spouse isn't necessarily recognized as having AS.

If you women from aspartners want to understand what your husbands go through every day. Watch this clip from The episode of the simpsons called the last tap dance in springfiend.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5julb5Fg51w[/youtube]

On 011 out of 040 look at Lisa Simpson's facial expression. This expression expresses feelings of fear, frustration and futility. This is what the aspie husbands feel like when they are dealing with you and the rest of the world. From our point of view you and a lot of NTs are like this dance instructor. The only advice you give us is "Tappa, Tappa, Tappa."

After this continue to watch the episode. Look at the instructor giving Lisa a condescending leture. Lisa looks very perplexed, confused and possibly angry. When people preach responsibility, positive attitude, entitlements and other crap like that without an in depth understanding of what these things truly are I'm perplexed as well. When I try to ask for clarification it is taken that I'm arguing or joking and no clarification is ever given. It ends up my frustration levels go up until I have a meltdown. Again, we can't do "tappa, tappa, tappa."

Again, your husbands can't get into managing the household with you because you expect it to be done in the "tappa, tappa, tappa" way without any of it being spelled out of who is expected to do what and in what way.

http://forums.delphiforums.com/ASPartne ... sg=11462.8Seriously?

Yeah, I know a bunch of them... from the support group I go to.

Not to mention, oh a few thousand of them on a little site called Wrong Planet.

Or for that matter the Working Relationships forum right "next door" to them!

But no, aspies just don't give a damn and don't even try to understand human relationships...

Really, aspies can't spot the difference in other aspies and pick up on they aren't "normal?" If it was that severe and the aspie was milder, they would tell the difference and realize they have the same symptoms but their partner's is more extreme. Also if one of them said they had AS and to the other aspie, it all seemed normal to them, they would be looking up AS and read about it and realize they may have it themselves. This has actually happened before with aspies. They don't realize they are AS until they meet someone with it. My husband thinks he could be borderline AS but he isn't self diagnosed. He can just identify with it and can see himself in me at a younger age but he had gotten better as he got older. But hard to tell because he suffered brain damage at birth and that can mimic the symptoms. But he has better social skills than me. But he has no desire to get tested and doesn't like the fact of having something else wrong with him because he has enough labels and he doesn't need that diagnoses anyway. He said it be a waste of money and he doesn't want to hear the results if it's positive. Besides I can hardly tell anyway.

Looks like in that thread that a couple women there are wondering if they are AS. It also looks like their are blaming their so called traits on their partner or mother. Looks like denial and they are just blaming their problems on other people, oh the irony.