NT & AS-afflicted partner; when is it our turn?

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Except that it also often doesn't work and lots of NTs get divorced because things did work out the way they had hoped.

I find this hard to imagine. I have certainly read many books that were about people not having this experience. People finding roles and expectations abrasive, crushing, soul-destroying. People knowing full well at the reality of their complicated lives was not reflected in the simplistic fantasy of their accepted roles. From Jane Austen to DH Lawrence to lady Murasaki to Faulkner, I don't find characters or settings in fiction or in diaries and memoires that support your analysis. I can see that people might want to see things this way, but the records suggest that it really isn't so.

I don't think I understand this. To the extent that I do understand it, I don't believe it.


It must have been tough growing up in the hell your parents made of each other's lives. I wonder if your belief in these happy families with all members happily losing themselves in societally determined roles isn't based in part on wishful thinking born in that hell.

People make assumptions about other people all the time. Based often on expectations of social roles and how we think they are or aren't being fulfilled. Few if any of us are adequately described by a stereotype, and yes they give comfort in providing structure, yes they can be constricting when we are forced into them more than we wish. But we use stereotypes, all of us, to help us make it through our day. Neurotypical people do it, people with ASD do it and we may not like it bring done to us, but it is real. And it is important. And violating societally determined roles typically has some rather nasty consequences. Doesn't mean people are necessarily happy with those roles. But violating them does not create happiness either. Just look at those of us frequenting WR. IMO you're both right, and both wrong.

What a fascinating thread. So, there was a guy I worked with ~ 20 years ago. He was an engineer who loved outdoor type activities. One day, he rode his bike off a 30' cliff and became a quadriplegic. His wife didn't sign up for that. But she stayed with him and supported him.

I wonder how this is any different? Isn't the concept of marriage, "for better or for worse". Or do NTs somehow not take these vows literally?

That's actually very different. The guy didn't come into the marriage as a paraplegic. Nor was he a paraplegic who gave every sign of being a normal, healthy guy. Also, he might be physically disabled, and might be seriously depressed by the paralysis, but he's still himself and is aware of what his wife's doing for him. I don't doubt that as a bike-riding engineer, he's also managed to rig some good workarounds to help her out, and likely carries a great deal of guilt to do with the fact that he's voluntarily paralyzed; nobody asked him to go bike riding by a cliff. He may even have pushed her to divorce him and go on with her life -- that happens, too. But people do go on that way.

Although, frankly, a lot of marriages do break up after a disability becomes the center of the marriage. Caregiving can be backbreaking, mentally eroding, emotionally destructive work. And no, few people take marriage vows literally. The unspoken part is "unless it's terrible for me and/or harming the children." It's a Christian idea anyhow, this notion that you marry one person and stay forever no matter what; other cultures are fine with divorce. It's not uncommon, anyway, for one spouse to hide from another a mental illness or addiction or violent side or other set of problems until after they're married, often until after they've got a kid. Happens with shocking frequency. And in those cases divorce is often a very good thing.

No, the difference here is that the OP's husband has an invisible disability, and was unable to clue her in. So she knocked herself out for years trying to help him, as though he might do what was reasonable to expect, and start picking up his end of things. It wasn't ever going to happen, only nobody told her that was the case. That's why she's angry and feels cheated of years of her life and, perhaps, a happier life with someone else, even though she recognizes it wasn't his fault that he didn't say anything. But she is the one who's been doing the heavy lifting all along in the marriage, and now she has to decide whether she's going to continue, knowing that if she stops, that's probably it. It sounds unlikely that she would have married him had she known the extent of his troubles.

I agree it is different. In one situation, a spouse became disabled after marriage. In the other situation, a spouse recognized a “disability” in a partner after marriage.

The husband (i.e. person with AS) is the same person, before and after the diagnosis. The husband (person with AS) probably didn’t realize he had AS. Certainly, he probably realized he was different (which seems common amongst people on the spectrum). But, generally, you assume that others (who are close to you) recognize these differences and accept you for who you are.



The OP should seek some form of couple’s counseling (with a professional who understand AS). To determine if there is a way to reconcile the differences.

This really isn't a safe assumption to make. If "who you are" is something quite different from what people have known before, then no, they won't necessarily recognize the differences. Instead they'll keep on trying to read you into the frameworks they already know. And it's not an unreasonable thing to do. People get along in the world not by reading each instance of everything as unique, but by classing, grouping, making swift judgments which are usually correct.

That's why you can tell someone, in plain English, something unusual about yourself multiple times, and she still won't figure it out until she comprehends this new thing for herself. Which might take years.



It doesn't sound like the problem's really about differences...it sounds like she's spent years taking care of him and getting very little in return, and that's caused her considerable grief. Unless he's actually able to look after himself and reciprocate, I'm not sure a counselor can really do much with that situation in couples counseling.

The fact that the OP’s husband was diagnosed, does not change anything. He is the same person he was before he was diagnosed. He now simply has a label to describe a set of behavioral symptoms that have been present since Day 1. These same behavioral symptoms existed the day he met the OP. These same behavioral symptoms existed the day he married the OP.



Well, who really knows what the real situation is. To me, it seems odd to give up, without trying. And, for me, leaving without trying counseling, is giving up. To each his own.

At some point, presumably, both parties felt love and connection, however imperfect. I think this is about differences, different points of view, different experiences, and that as one partner experiences him or herself as doing everything with no reciprocation, that feeling is likely to be mutual. I don't know that that's an accurate assessment, but I think it's nevertheless true. Believing someone else does nothing seems like a choice, an understandable one in difficult circumstances perhaps, but one which makes it terribly difficult for the partner. And I don't believe that neurotypical partners are necessarily working harder, I think this experience transcends this differences. Though there are some aspects that are different and specific to this situation. And it won't be resolved in quite the same way, not at all probably once both parties commit to the idea the other is bringing nothing of value to the relationship. And that seems to me to be the problem, encapsulated nicely.