Tony Attwood attending 'Female Partners of Aspies' group

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Hello,

I'm off to a group this morning for 'Female Partners of husbands/partners with Asperger's'.

It is the first meeting and Tony Attwood is attending!! How cool is that!!

I am going to check it out - if it is just a 'whinge-fest' I won't be going back.

I'm leaving in a few minutes - will let you know how it goes.

Regards
Helen

Whois Tony Attwood please?

Just about the best expert on Asperger's Syndrome this planet has! I believe he lives in Australia. He is the author of the excellent book, "The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome."

I just got back.

Tony Attwood stayed for 3 hours (he was there voluntarily!! !).

It was excellent. I'll post more later - we're about to go out. Here's a photo of Tony and me.



Helen

Cool. I'll be very interested to see what you learned - I know my wife finds it hard, sometimes. She just recently read The Other Half of Asperger Syndrome (I haven't had the chance yet), but she didn't get a lot out of it, and some of the online groups seem to be just whinging, ringing of hands and complaining that their lives are hell, as it seems you were worried about this group. A nice, supportive, positive group must've been a great thing.

It was positive and absolutely fantastic that Tony Attwood volunteered his time. There were 20 women and 1 man (he has an Aspie wife).

Also there was another psychologist from Minds and Hearts (volunteering her time) and the author of 'Alone Together' - Katrin Bentley. Her book outlines her 20 year marriage to her husband who has Asperger's.

I have met a lot of women who have divorced their husbands with Asperger's.

But this group were women absoutely committed to their marriage.

Tony facilitated the discussion and there were many similarities in our experiences including:
- Our men are really kind, nice people and we love them.
- Despite the difficulties, we are committed to staying married (some women there had 30+ years marriage)
- Our men wooed us/romanced us at the beginning of the relationship. Once we were married, this stopped.
- We all agreed we often felt starved for affection and attention from our husbands.
- Many reported husbands having meltdowns and saying extraordinarily cruel things to us (this includes myself). The husband did not know how hurtful their comments were.
- Once we told the husbands about how hurtful these comments were - the husbands often expressed sorrow because they said it in heat, and did not realise the long-term hurt we feel.
- Many stated we felt like we had lost our identity. Tony Attwood reported Asperger's is 'infectious' in that we generally adapt to our husbands ways and drastically reduce our level of socialisation we'd had when we'd been single.
- An incredibly amount of us (including me) stated we often felt like we felt we had lost our sanity. This was because others cannot understand our experience, and if we tried to address problems we had with our husbands they told us we were crazy/insane. This was often repeated over years.
- Quite a few reported having to flee the house with their children regularly when their husbands melted down and became violent.

Some women (like me) had worked through the difficulties and were now very happy in their marriage. Others were in crisis, but committed to working things out.

Some ideas to keeping our marriages happy included:
- Ensuring the NT partner maintains her own hobbies and friendships and spends time socialising away from her husband.
- Understanding about the parts of Asperger's that we cannot change, and accepting this.
- Changing the way we communicate with our husbands - they cannot read our facial expression/body language so we need to be very direct with what we want.
- Asperger's husbands need to realise that just because they are happy, doesn't mean the rest of the family is. (I know my husband used to live in his own world, hardly speak to me but he was happy. When I told him I wasn't happy, he would not believe me, told me I obvioulsy had serious mental issues and I should take some pills. This went on frequently for years.)
- Asperger's husband needs to ensure they allow their wife at least a few hours every week break away from the children/household responsibilities.
- Asperger's husband needs to ensure their wife has time away to socialise with her friends + spend time on her own hobbies/interests.
- Husband and wife need to discuss what they want/need. For example, I told my husband I needed 1 hug and kiss every morning and every afternoon. He now does this because he knows it's what I need from him.
- Husbands with anger issues need to seek help.

There was a big box of tissues and I swear every women there cried at least once.

I know I was sobbing and sobbing (with relief) when one woman said that for a long time she had thought she was losing her sanity and many others agreed. I didn't know so many others felt this way!!

Tony Attwood reported that often men with Asperger's marry 'extreme Neurotypicals' - those who are extremely empathetic and nuturing.

We agreed that we would meet 1/month. We will probably have to split into smaller groups as the group grows.

As a group, we were committed to staying married and making it work.

I know from above, it sounds like it was negative, but really it wasn't. We spent a long time discussing all the kind, caring things our husbands have done.

We also discussed that great advances in society due to the innovation of people with Asperger's.

Tony Attwood reported he often tells politicians that our society needs people with Asperger's. He tells politicians we need to support people with Asperger's + support their families.

I think Tony learned a lot from us too! After the session he told us he had only intended attending the first meeting. However he said he would now attend every second meeting, and he will organise different psychologists for the times he couldn't come.

Helen

A pity you didn't say you were meeting him before. I could've asked you to say hello to him for me.

I post on a group that's supposed to be only for "women absolutely committed to their marriage." In fact in order to join, you have to fill out a questionnaire and promise that you're joining in the interests of making your marriage work. But it's still all whine, whine, whine and "let's face it, we're married to men who could never possibly love us" and "why are all people with AS so self-centered all the time?"

I hate it. I want to hit them over the head with a stick a lot of the time. I mean, look, if your spouse is really making your life a living hell and absolutely refuses to admit that anything is wrong, then you should *not* be committed to staying with them, because that's not a "marriage"! And how do you expect to make a marriage work if the idea that your husband could never possibly love you and refuses to have any physical or verbal contact (let alone sexual) with you and is doing all of this out of spite, has become such a central part of your identity?

It's like the whole group is built around a total misunderstanding of AS coupled with a woe-is-me, let's-see-whose-life-is-worse mentality. I mean, I joined the group because it specifically said it was *not* for women who want to get divorced but only for women who want to stay married, but it seems like these women stay married to their partners only because it makes them feel special to be a victim. and/or because they Don't Believe in Divorce.

Sorry, rant over. I love my husband, really I do, and I know he loves me. And if he shows it in odd ways, so what?

I hate that. I think the best way you could look at it - they're weak, fear of being alone to the point that you'll make someone else miserable IMO is disgusting. The guy's much better off when if a woman feels that way they take one of two options: love them or leave them. When you stay with someone (either gender, doesn't matter), if your miserable for whatever reasons your also making your partner miserable. Even if kids are involved, they'd have to be better off with one parent rather than watching parents interact in a way that's f'd. That said I know that marriage is a long haul, I know that chemistry is a real tricky thing and really could die on a dime, but that's where you either choose to continue or discontinue based on your ability to work things out - if you can great, if you can't don't stick to someone's side for the reason of someone else's judgement or because your afraid of going back out on the singles market with kids.

Sounds like you had a great time and it was a pretty well-educating experience. If you do remember some of the more salient points it would be great if you could share them just because, its stuff we could all benefit from and I think the same problems can be there just as badly whether its AS-NT relationships or even AS-AS.

I remember Tony Attwood saying some similar things in a session I attended a couple of years ago (not specifically for partners of Aspies but covering all kinds of topics about autism). He said most men with ASD who married "ultra NT" women treated them a bit like their own personal secretary who would organise appointments etc. for them.

The women would after a while, feel very starved of affection and disillusioned when they needed help but their ASD husbands didn't know how to give it/didn't seem to think anything was really the matter. A sanity saver was to have separate interests outside the house.

He also said ASD women who had relationships tended to look for a man also on the spectrum but perhaps a little less so or a little more so.

Someone should provide all ASD sufferers with PDAs or something. I have a checklist of things I have to do, shopping lists, all my appointments, contact numbers, and I can E-mail from it... I think the problem is that resentment builds up over that without seeking alternatives, there are plenty of efficient organizational tools now I'm sure people would use if only they were directed to them.
Then again, the wives might then get resentful of the computer equipment the AS sufferer is constantly fiddling with. It would be funny if it wasn't true.

it's dumbfounding to me to think of AS partners as untrying...

i feel such the opposite that i idolize the very ground they walk on and try to cater to them so much... not saying i don't have a lot of quirky demands (which definitely might have save most of my longterm relationships, had i known about AS; to know that maybe other people think of these things as outlandish or unreasonable/illogical and thus non-important)...

but i try so hard on a daily basis that i can't fathom why they repeatedly tell me they feel like they're walking on eggshells when all they have to do is not do x,y,z. i can navigate most social situations with some sort of facade of interest and reward... as long as they are with me and include me in conversation (as i often feel like a rock midstream)... all these things i make myself do... cause ever since i was little, i knew there were so many things i disliked doing, yet somehow; i made the decision to make myself do them anyway...

and i guess just as they feel doing all these things with them is no large contribution... mixed with my reactions to mundane things...

that they are not happy. they feel i never like them cause i get mad or hurt by things... and i say so what, cause it's momentary to me and next, i'm off thinking about having sex with them or some other fanciful thing that i want to include them in... i obsess over them so much, it's sad for me to think i can be such a small person, to be content with such.... even sadder that they are not content with just me cause all i want is to be good to them... f**k the rest of the world.

i'm glad that people have and are working through these kind of things... i feel somewhat jilted... cause these problems are so hard to address when neitherr side can appreciate motives and intents (or even seeing what the problem truly is)... i just mourn over my loves lost... and the what ifs...

what can u do but keep trying?

You also know you have AS and know what your issues are and how to work with them. Some support groups (not sure if Smelena's is one) contain mostly people whose partners are undiagnosed or who are diagnosed but don't want to accept the diagnosis. And many people who don't believe they have a problem, believe that issues are therefore someone else's fault.

For example, someone who had sensory issues but didn't know that they had sensory issues and instead thought their perceptions were normal, might therefore think other people are being unreasonably loud/the light bulbs are too bright for the room/someone else was touching them too roughly/the clothing manufacturers were using "cheap" scratchy fabric, etc. Or someone who had AS but felt their view of social interactions was the norm, might therefore get angry at an NT partner for wanting to have "silly" conversations all the time.

Whereas someone who knows and accepts that they have AS would be more willing to accept "I'm the only one who thinks that noise is too loud, so I should just use earplugs" or "I don't understand why she always wants to talk about nothing at all with random strangers, but if she enjoys it, I guess I should accept her doing that and not get angry at her for it."

I'm also guessing by your post that you're female? There've been a lot of posts on here about the differences in behavior between males and females with AS, but what you describe--being more social and wanting social interaction a lot--seems to fit into the "female" pattern, whereas detaching oneself from others is more in line with the "male" pattern. (My husband also fits more into the "female" pattern, so I don't like calling them that, but in any case there do seem to be two different ways it manifests and one is more common in males and the other is more common in females.) IOW if one had a partner who fit more into the "male" pattern, I can see how that person might come across as unfeeling and not trying.

i am not DXed.

and it's not so much as being inclined towards being sociable so much as seeing the importance of trying... and doing things your partner is interested in as well. and like i said, i noticed that most things that everyone does came hard to me... but i chose to try anyway. i just have never really been successful at it. i can go to parties sure, but i never have fun and i never knew why.

and all my relationships ended crash-n-burn style BECAUSE neither of us knew. i have not been in a relationship since finding out about AS. so i understand where these women are coming from because i can see it in the faces of all my loved ones whom i have hurt, even if it was unintentional.

i resented very much what my partners had to say about me in general with respect to my behaviors, as i felt very justified in my "misinterpretations"... and i am very guilty of lashing out in heated or stressed moments where i am hardpressed to defend my irrationalities or whatever little thing has triggered some problem.

but whereas i don't hold onto those lashing-outs (as my partners apparently did)... what i found i held grudges about was that they never took me seriously in my strivings or when i expressed dislike over something because they would just write me off as being immature or something and that i should (or would) change (if i kept trying)... because they couldnt fathom having an issue with whatever issues i was having.


and even though i have never given up trying... i have grown up with the impression that all my instincts are just wrong... which is partially why, i think, i try to cater to my partner moreso... i know i need a beacon.

but i gather people get tired of that sort of thing... cause they expect improvement and i seem to just persistantly get things wrong or refuse to change certain qualifications that i need

I am uber affectionate
but other then that...
I just keep reading stuff about AS and get more angry and hateful towards myself
my life is gonna SUCK!
I am cursed, doomed, f****d for life
I thought knowing more would make it better
Ignorance is truely bliss...
I hate what I am-man...and I would be like that too...
morer affectionate-but still...
god thats what I have to look forwards to
I dont want that!!
I dont want marrage if thats what its gonna be!
I wanna be someone better-why am I stuck like "this"
ohhh whatever