The Married Aspie Cafe Thread (discussion of marriage, etc.)

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Well, it is illogical. I mean if he did have an affair I would dump him immediately because affairs require lying and I can't tolerate liars. I especially wouldn't allow one in my house or near my money. So he's either going to be with me or not.

I'm not volunteering got over that deal in the Army, lol. Two sides to every story, most times more. I guess NT's have a version and I doubt if you would get the same story from any single one of us. I mean we have a common ground but we're still different from each other, just can relate better here is all. Yeah the wife and I sure have had the rough moments. Think the only thing that saved us, a couple of times, was we're older and who the hell would want either of us again, only semi joking on that one. Freindship managed to pull us through some other rough points.

Denial, wow, man, I just don't know what to say about that. I mean I know it all to well. Did it alot and think I just found myself doing it again, only for 35 years. No one pointed it out to me, self discovery thing I guess found it. But having gone down the destuctive life style road, yeah, I know about denial. had to hit freakin rock bottom before I could yank on my own boot straps. this place is/was a gulp of fresh air for me. It's hard to help anther breathe, very hard, you get tired, you can only keep it up so long, when you win, it's great, when you loose one, it hurts, hurts really bad. I have saved peoples lives and I have lost them. It's life and it can be a real b***h.

Paleo makes a good point--we're all different. Even if we share the same signs, behaviors, quirks, etc, we all employ them differently and context plays a strong role as well.

Abbr-you didn't say what the was at the center of your polarization, but it seemed to me that you were implying that your husband's acceptance of an AS dx might make things better. Am I reading you fairly?

Last edited by TZ on 02 May 2007, 11:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Hi all--I'd like to know your thoughts on choosing gifts for your SO.

Personally, I can't tell what my DW would like or not like. I try, but it is as unfathomable to me as other social behaviors.
I know she likes jewelry, but I can't tell what kind she will like. I've only once gotten her jewelry she liked, because she gave me a picture.

She has told me that she doesn't want to tell me what she likes, because she wants me to surprise her. My solution so far has been to buy her gift certificates at the places where she tends to shop, but this seems less than satisfactory. On the other hand, she is happy/relieved/thankful/encouraged that I even manage to remember special occasions at all...

Okay. Here's what you do. You take as much of her jewelry with you as you can. Go to the jewelry store where she usually gets her jewelry. Take it out and look at it. Find the salesperson with the jewelry that looks the most like her pieces and ask that one to look at her collection and help you find something. They will be able to help you find something she likes based on what she already has that she likes. There's a pattern to it, you just aren't tuned into it. You might ask the salesperson to explain it to you in terms of the jewelry itself. Certain shapes, certain stones, certain materials (gold, white gold, platinum, silver). Also, pay close attention to size of stones. Stay consistent with what she already has. If she has a favorite ring that has a certain stone in it, buy matching earrings with that stone (in gold, silver or whatever as appropriate meaning it matches the piece she already has). If you can do it, get a matching bracelet or necklace as well.

Hope that helps! I love jewelry.

We're polarized on everything. We see things 100% different. I'm willing to concede different points of view and, of course, his feelings being different from mine. He is not. I have no feelings that he acknowledges. He wants to talk and talk and talk in counseling, and all he does is criticize me. Yet he will constantly say, "You're dominating the counseling session," even when I am not.

Our marriage problems are all my fault, he says. I see them as a joint issue. I say, "I know I'm angry. I'm sorry I've hurt you. I'm taking responsibility for my anger. I'm going to resolve it here and now, once and for all, regardless of whether we divorce." And I am. I'm on antidepressants to cope with the stress, for the first time in my life (dr. says it's "situational" and "understandable"). I'm also in individual counseling to deal with the hurt of things like being called a whore or a b***h in public (I have always been faithful), or, say, having to drive myself to the hospital when I was in labor, because he had to "check his emails." There have been many, many things like this. It's very painful. He has put me into the hospital once though he is rarely violent (maybe 3 times in 14 years).

His attitude in counseling is, "Basically, if my wife will change and be civil and stop hassling me, we'll be fine." Meanwhile he's raging and calling me names and yelling in front of our kids. Before, those incidents only happened every 3-6 months. Now they're every week (he left me 2 months ago after becoming extremely abusive in public, at conference with my colleagues - very embarrassing). He says he was "justified." We had had a minor argument the day before.

He blames his rages on me, too. He says, "My frustration with you had turned to fury." He blames me for everything. He doesn't remember how bad his rages were/are, says he isn't aware when others are present. Once when I was pregnant. weeks after my father had died and I had just been taken off of 12 weeks of bedrest, I lost my temper because he made a unilateral decision that affected me and would not renig on it. This is very common. I was hormonal and grieving and terribly stressed out. But he refused to acknowledge my feelings or do anything different. I lost my temper and threw a small cell phone at him. He deflected it with a pillow then tackled me to the ground (while I was pregnant!) and pinned me there. He then left me for two weeks and emailed all of MY family members and friends (including my best friend), saying that I had "assaulted" him. I'm 5'6". He's 6'1". I was pregnant. Hello? He denies to this day that he tackled me. He says he was "defending himself."

He also makes blanket statements like, "Everything I say is facts; everything my wife says is fiction." He then proceeds to accuse me of the most outlandish things, like spending $2K on plane tickets when I clearly told him they were $800. Not exactly "fact" but he refuses to see the reality of that. He says to the counselor, "Everything she says is either wicked or worthless." He's also OCD. He's been organizing everything in our house (food, dishes, children's toys, my makeup, etc.) during every spare minute of his time off, week after week. He won't stop. He won't respect my boundaries and insists on organizing me stuf. Worse, he gets very angry and full of rage when we change the things he's organized, like the toddler "mixing up" the crayons with the Magic Markers.

Intimacy has been an issue, of course. He can't really say he loves me - never has been able to. He'll easily say he hates me, however, during a fight. He can't give me a compliment and says that mine are "disengenous." Sex has been an issue from the get-go. He's not very interested but when he is, there are a million "rules." He's been very abusive in this area, which I think has far more to do with his upbringing (mother) rather than AS. He forgets to feed the children (they're very young), says things like, "Well, they didn't act hungry." One is 18 months old and he went through two meals without feeding her (she eats every 2-3 hours ).

Lord, I'd better stop. ISuffice to say that it's Hell. The kids are very, very young. We're living across the country from family and he's locked into a government contract that is unbreakable for two more years. I work from home, don't earn enough to support us, and if we divorce he loses his job (it's complicated). If he loses the job he also loses 15 years in the field and will have to find another one entirely. Which means he won't be able to give any or much child support. He wants to stay married, though I don't know why. Probably the kids. I feel trapped. I think he does, too, but he's scared. It's his 2nd marriage.

So yes, I do feel like if he would admit he has the AS and seek some kind of treatment, or at least work together with me to help us both understand it, things would be better. I'm doing my part - I really am. From my POV, he's resisting the one thing that could help, namely the DX. That's very hard, because I feel like it explains EVERYTHING. It means I DON'T have a jerk for a husband - and that all the things I was asking of him, he simply could NOT do. But he just laughs at this...even as he continues to do these things. Just tonight he saw me on this forum and made fun of me. It's hard.

Wow - that's brilliant advice, ZanneMarie! For ANY man!! !

abbr,
I always wonder how two people get married when they have nothing in common and one is so abusive. BTW, he sounds like a your run of the mill abuser, not just AS. Maybe he has it, maybe not. But your core issues aren't Asperger's, but power struggles.
You also sound like you've enabled him to some degree. And at least in the case of the cellphone fight, you have participated at his level.
What does your therapist discuss? Do you discuss problem solving? What can you accomplish if one person is saying it's the other's fault? or if the therapist keeps at this AS diagnosis?
Maybe some of these questions are better left rhetorical.
The abuse is unacceptable though, and you're describing situations that are unsafe for your kids. If your husband really wanted a family and really wanted his job and he has to stay married to keep those things, you'd think he'd stay on his best behavior. But seems that the tables are turned and he figures he has you trapped. That's what makes me thing your core problems aren't based in autism.

As far as turning this into a story, I'd be careful how you frame it. It's hardly a "classic" NT/AS story. It's your story and it's very complicated.

Thanks for the suggestion ZM! I'll give it a try. She doesn't buy her jewelry in any one place, but she has some friends who might help me out with this.

Yeah been thinking about control types from both sides as well as co-dendency. It can get and be compilcated. hard to weed it down to the simple sometimes. I think the simple is sometimes the very hardest thing that one can do. That simple is the hardest thing to see, we tend to get it all out whack, when it's just that, simple.

Abbr--Wow...It sounds like you two are lucky to agree to see a therapist together.
A person can be dx'd w/ AS and still be an abusive jerk, so don't pin all your hopes on that option.
If therapist you two are currently seeing doesn't seem to be helping, maybe you should seek out another.

I somehow doubled my previous post when the SQL server burped last night.

Last edited by TZ on 03 May 2007, 6:40 am, edited 1 time in total.

Hi Dinos. Your attention please (copied from the Dino-Aspie thread because I didn't want anyone to miss seeing it)

Sorry to interrupt, but there's a discussion about the possibility of a new senior's forum in this thread:-

http://www.wrongplanet.net/modules.php? ... c&start=15

Alex is considering a new forum and he wants to know what threads to put in the older forum. He doesn't want to open an empty forum. There has been a suggestion made to move the Dino Aspie and the Dino-Married threads to the new forum as he doesn't want to open an empty forum.

I am feeling a little nervous about posting this actually and am ready to duck behind a wall to avoid the missiles, but I suspect a lot of you are very happy here and see no point in changing things. But we have an opportunity here to have a new forum where us oldsters can stretch out a bit, get some separate threads going, which will bring some new faces into the discussions and give a little more room to include other things...a book discussion group has been suggested for one thing. Whatever you want, really.

Anyway, as I say, please post your views on it in the new forum thread above. I know some of you will already have read the threads and the discussions about the possibilities of new forums that have been rumbling around WP for a long time, those of you who haven't, there are links to those in the above thread.

Also, I know a lot of you have kids...Aylissa is trying to get a new forum for AS parents, so if you would like to see a parents with AS forum, please help support this too. (Again, there's background to this on the above thread)


Thanks everyone.

yeah, i don't know whether it's a NT/AS story either, i had dark years in my own marriage (me being the AS, hubby NT)

i think when Aspies get that agressive that there might be some agressivity in the air (from someone else that is, friends, someone at work, you, someone in the family, he being brought up that way ?)

or otherwise that there is something very wrong, something overlooked :a thing that an aspie really needs but doesn't get, so that he is feeling himself in a constant state of emergency.
also if your husband needs to take care for the kids and doesn't know how to do it, as an asperger he might need full instructions.

if all this is not the case than i think that there might be other problems that have nothing to do with asperger's.

for the therapy, i think the thing that is most important is to try to investigate why it goes so very wrong, not whether someone is wrong as a person. maybe one of you (or both) doesn't understand the other's nature, this might take some time to discover.

Hi abbr

I'm not saying he is not AS. But if he could be anything. I'm sorry your going though a hard time. I would suggest you find a good psychologist and go together. If he his in not going I would start going first and keep asking him. I would hold off writing an article about simply because it might not help at this stage, though write in a diary because legally and for yourself this is a good idea. One thing that would stress is it is possible to develop other behavioural problems that are separate but maybe not helped by the communication problems of AS. I don't think I would wrestle to the ground a pregnant woman. I did once hit someone who tried to straighten my collar. It was mainly was because the guy was behind me, I was surprised and didn't particularly like being touched or know what he was doing. I was around 15 at the time; he was way bigger than me it was just an impulse. I would probably just move away now. If someone does tap me on the shoulder it always makes me jump. I don't like it. I'm not agreeing with what he did though. I think there could have been an element of surprise, but I think he has anger issues. Maybe that culminated from years of frustration who knows.

What makes you and the counselor think he has AS? AS people tend not to talk at all in those situations because we generally don't talk feelings. We're more inclined to think things are fine because we can't read the NT's non-verbal signals that they aren't. In general, we're the last one to know there's a problem in the marriage. Some of us may talk a lot, but we talk about our own interest. For instance, if it was Physics, we'd relate all of it and the marriage to physics. (A body in motion stays in motion and all that) Just that lead off makes me wonder if something else isn't going on. Let me keep reading.

Calling you things you are not is not really our thing either. Here's an example - An Aspie might say something like, you're slovenly. That would hurt your feelings, but it might be the truth and it would be more in line with the awkward (from an NT point of view) way we speak. Many NT/AS problems go more like the NT saying, you're cold and the Aspie saying, you don't say what you mean. Almost like taking normal NT/NT problems and taking an NT man's problems to a whole new level. I'm not saying the violence couldn't happen, but I haven't seen it talked about yet. Violence many times is more of an NT man thing. But, I guess that could happen with any man or woman and his childhood might affect that. I just wouldn't use it to assume AS. The labor/email paradox, that could be a sign of AS or an online affair or a plain old jerk.

You know, as I kept reading, I wondered if maybe he was OCD with other issues. My husband is OCD (I'm the one who is pretty sure she's AS). I always joke that no NT woman could live with him because she'd actually have an opinion about the house and yard. It's not really a joke though. Part of the reason he and I work is exactly because I don't move anything he's put in a certain place. He also has rules for everything including the air vents. Now, part of that is worse from living with someone like me who wouldn't even notice if the house fell in on her, but part of that is genetic. His sisters and brother are all that way. His father was that way and I hate to say it, but he sounds exactly like your husband and he is not AS (he can hold his own in a social situation), but almost everything you described could have been told to me by my mother-in-law. She left him when my husband was four. Even those emails could be explained by that if it was his routine to always answer all emails before leaving. Think of it like a record stuck in a groove and it won't move unless you bump it. That's about what it's like when you have an OCD person in the middle of a routine or one of their rules. Trust me, I've had the forays into the yard to "LOOK AT THESE BLADES OF GRASS." He claimed the lawn guy left jagged edges on them because he didn't sharpen the lawn mower blade between cuts. Of course I told him if he was going to work late, lawn dude would continue to cut the grass and he would have to live with jagged blades of grass. Then we both went in and had a headache. (I can laugh because he doesn't go crazy on me, but it's not really funny because I know his dad did go there.)

Here's another thing that strikes me. Did it get worse when the kids came along? My husband's father completely lost it then. Kids were too messy and chaotic for him. He associated that with my husband's mother. Now granted, the abuse was always there, but it escalated then. The other option is that it's escalated since you tried to control the situation. They don't handle that well. OCD is about control issues. His behavior at the therapist's office also fits in with the things my father-in-law said and did regarding my mother-in-law. He definitely tried to turn everything on her and make it her fault. He also told lies about her. He also tried to alienate her from her family by lying to them. That is all typical abusive behavior. Any abuser (NT or AS) would display that.

Is he being treated for OCD? Regardless whether he admits violence or not, if you have record of it, you can force him into anger management therapy in most states. At this point you may have to go yourself (i.e. phone incident) or this is going to leave scars on you and you'll end up reacting the same way to someone else and setting off the cycle again. You don't need that.

I don't know. You guys definitely have issues. I'm not seeing AS, but you are in an emotional state so understandably it's all coming out in a tumble.. The big signs would be lack of socialization or all wrong socialization (meaning awkward, not aggressive and dominating like your husband is being), obsessive interests (cars, science, books, etc.) and sensory issues (very sensitive to light, sound, smell, touch).

Does he drink by chance? Many OCD people have very addictive personalities as well (part of the patterning thing going on in their brain). If he drinks or self medicates in other ways, his sexual dysfunction could be coming from there.

Those are just some thoughts. My own reaction is that he is dangerous if he's hitting. That won't stop with you so don't think it will. I'm not sure if my father-in-law actually struck one of the kids, but I do know that's finally what made my mother-in-law leave. Whatever it was, she called her father who worked in Saudi Arabia to come get her out. That's bad. Dont' wait that long. If he won't get anger management, then he has to go. You can make the decision to risk that for you, but it's not fair to your kids to put them at risk. I'm only saying this if he's actually hitting and I'm not talking about a stinging slap either. I think you know what I mean.