Gettting FIRED! I need help for my beloved Aspie husband :(

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Hope folks here can help me find the right resources and support for my husband. We've been married for 5 years this Saturday and have been together for nearly 8 years altogether. I knew I was marrying the most special man in the universe and had a feeling that he might be ADHD or "on the spectrum". I fell in love with his quirky genius and "bachelorrific" life. I've given some order and beauty to our world and we now can have the best of both.

Fast forward: things aren't good at work or at home. He had been on an anti-depressant following a very unusual health problem and had been seeing a Psychiatrist about ADHD and trying various stim meds. We found a Neuropsychologist who diagnosed Aspergers (in adddition to ADHD) and my darling has recently started neuro-feedback training. He's been off all drugs now for several months.

Just last week he told me that he was "written up" at work and this was a final warning. He has 60 days to improve in exactly the areas that Aspies do not do well in (i.e., time management, client interaction, team meetings). I'm about ready to give him notice myself because I am the target of his anxiety and aggression.

I've asked him to consider medication for his anxiety and depression as an aide to get through these next couple of months. Does anyone have recommendations for what has or has not worked for them?

Please know I love this man with all my heart. I am not suggesting that he is the only one with a problem in our marriage. It's just that he's the one who is possibly getting fired and is the one not willing to consider medication to ameliorate some work issues.

Thoughts?

Where do you live? he may have workplace disabillity rights that people on here may know about.

Hi, my husband has been diagnosed Asperger's as well. His work situation was always a problem, until he started working in the area that he's interested in, which for John is boats. John knows everything about boats, specifically sailing boats of a certain era. Now he works on repairing boat windows on sailing boats of a specific era - and he's in heaven! Before this, he would go from job to job, but always struggled with time keeping, change, dealing with authority etc. I always had at the back of my mind that he wasn't really trying, but now I know that wasn't true. He's just wired differently. So, John's now working in the area he loves (and he's incredibly good at it), he's a different man, and our marriage is also a lot better. It sounds to me like your husband might not be in the right work situation, and perhaps a change could be a good thing.

Honestly, since John's worked that out, our lives have improved 100%

Medication isn't really going to solve problems that originate from your environment, you know? I mean, your husband is afraid of losing his job for not being able to do things he literally can't do, he's just been diagnosed with AS and he's probably trying to figure out what that means for him and his identity. His whole life just got turned upside-down. There's just no way to medicate that away. Medication can help, but it's not going to make things go back to normal. For that to happen, things actually have to go back to normal. Like, normal as in having some job security and a well-defined idea of who you are and what your place in the world is.

Right now I think the most important thing for him is to find ways to cope with this that don't involve taking it out on you, starting arguments. Does he have someplace where he can be alone to relax? Can he get himself there when he's too tired or worked up to deal with interacting with people? Every time the two of you have an argument that gets personal and hurtful, it makes things worse and paves the way for more arguments; so the best thing to do is to make sure that both of you have ways of getting out of those situations and talking about any relevant issues only when you are both calm and able to deal with them without getting overwhelmed, anxious, hostile, or generally nasty to each other. If you are NT, you might not realize just how natural it is for him to spend time alone; similarly, he might have no idea how deep your need to connect is. You'll have to kind of work with each other's needs, find a compromise in the middle that works for you both. Just don't let this stressful time lure you into taking it out on each other. If there's any time a married couple needs to team up, it's when hard times hit. That's when you most need each other.

Consider finding accommodations for him for his work. If he is being asked to do things that, as a person with a disability, he cannot do, then there should be some way to adjust those tasks so that he can do his job effectively. It is illegal to fire him for having a disability without offering reasonable accommodation. It's his decision whether he wants to disclose this at work, and it may not do much good even at this point. But if the alternative is losing his job, it might be worth a try.

Check with your local Vocational Rehabilitation office... they offer help with those of us with disabilities

Did his workplace problem start after the meds? If so, the meds are creating a problem. He probably should not be on them in that case because he did okay at work before the meds.

My reasonable accommodations to have all the neurotypicals be more like me.

I think you really need to explore what his rights are as a "disabled" worker and disclosing that to his employer. It sounds like you two need to regroup and process all the implications of his diagnosis and losing his source of income will likely only add to the stress levels you're both dealing with right now. Unless he's an actual physical threat to you during his outbursts, I'd encourage you to stick it out. If he can get more stability in his current job for the time being then maybe he can explore the possibility of pursuing a career more suited for him.

I pretty much went down the bad road on all this with my now ex. I didn't realize he had unindentified/undiagnosed Aspergers until after we were divorced. I emailed him to tell him I thought we both had Aspergers and encouraged him to look into it but he rejected my suggestion saying he doesn't trust anyone anymore. As far as I know he never did anything with that information (which doesn't surprise me). He did poorly in every job he held the whole 13 years we were married. He was so meticulous that he couldn't get any of his work done within a reasonable amount of time. His employers would complain, give him warnings and eventually he'd get laid off or fired. He was constantly under stress and took it out on me. He did become abusive so I finally had to end the marriage for the safety of our son and myself.

It wouldn't be reasonable, of course. But it would be nice. It is nice, if you work in the right environment. A research lab, for example, with plenty of nerdy introverts. They often get along with Aspies just fine, though their academic competitiveness can get on one's nerves.

What would be reasonable would be to ask for the team he works with to go to a short meeting and have somebody explain what AS means, so they could understand a bit more how his mind works and how to better communicate with him. The person with AS usually knows lots about NTs, having had to try to get across to them his whole life, but the NTs are often clueless about people with AS and misread them. It might help a great deal if the co-workers can be persuaded to communicate directly in words, instead of assuming that the AS employee understands their hints or knows how it's supposed to be done without being told. It's especially important in cases where the AS employee annoys someone--the NT will send "I'm annoyed; quit that" signals that the AS person won't be able to detect, and the NT will think the AS person is being deliberately annoying, and will eventually just blow up at the AS person, who feels taken aback and usually mortified that they have been doing some annoying thing for so long. I wonder if that happened with some of your husband's problematic workplace behaviors--perhaps he wasn't told how important it was not to engage in them; maybe, for example, he is regularly about three minutes late, and doesn't realize that his boss thinks it's a serious issue, while his boss thinks he must be deliberately annoying people.

How long has he been in this job? Has he always had these issues? Because it sounds to me like he's going through depression, which affects all of the things you mentioned and as you said can be helped with the right medication.

Unless these issues have been a problem from the moment he started working (it doesn't take years for such issues to get noticed at work), "blaming" them on AS and thus basically saying there is nothing he can do about them, is the worst thing you or anyone else can do.

If someone you have known for eight years suddenly starts having trouble keeping a job and controlling his temper, it is NOT because of something they're born with like autism. Something else has changed or is going on in his brain, and hopefully it's something that can be worked on - with medication if necessary.