There is no treatment if you are looking for something to make him start reading your eyes and non-verbal or subcontexts. The one thing you can do right now to help things is just flat out say what you mean. Don't sugar coat it or try to be subtle because you might as well speak Russian to him for all the good it will do you. You need to forget everything you know about communicating with other people and start talking to him like he's Mr. Spock. If you've been getting emotional about it, you need to stop. That might feel great to you, but it will put him into overload and he won't hear a word you say. Calm down and talk rationally. Say exactly what you want. "I want you to _____." Insert whatever there. Hold me. Kiss me. Talk to me. Whatever it is, say it. If he had been in a car accident and could no longer understand all of your non-verbal clues and what your facial expressions and eyes were trying to tell him, you might be completely frustrated by how hard it is to communicate, but you would not expect it to change. You'd know that continuing to try to communicate that way would be useless no matter how hard and frustrating the alternative was.
The same is going to be true of your daughter so learning how to communicate with one will help you learn how to communicate with the other. If you want him to ask how you are, tell him to ask that and when you want it asked. He'll respond to that, but he won't respond to occasionally because that is too ambiguous. He is not going to understand why you want him to do that. It makes no sense to us. If you look fine, you are fine. We can learn to ask those things by rote, not because we "understand" why people need that. All we'll ever understand is that you seem to need it and it makes you happy. If you ask him that, you probably get a confused, blank or irritated look. That's because if we aren't fine, we'd tell you. That's difficult for you to understand and accept, but again, if you think of it from the perspective of how you would deal with it if an injury caused these differences, you'd understand that you wouldn't think it would magically get better.
I can only tell you what works for my husband and I. We've been together a long time. We work because he's always dealt with my differences on an intellectual and logical level. I talk to him because he stays calm and he says exactly what he means and what he wants. There's no subtlety or hidden meanings. He doesn't expect me to magically know how he feels. He knows I won't. So he just says it. He knows I will never ask if he's hungry or feels alright or any of that. If he wants me to do that, he tells me to do it, but he still doesn't expect me to realize when or understand why. On the other hand, things about him don't bother me that no other woman would live with. I know it and so does he.
Yes, in some ways he acts like my parent. He explains things to me that I don't get. He does things that I can't because of my sensory issues. He worries that someone will hurt me or take advantage of me. But, I let him have everything his own way in the house and the yard. I let him have his own way with how we handle the bills, the money, etc. He feels like he's in control of his world and I feel like my world is controlled and safe.
Probably by most Shrink's standards we're incompatible, but most shrinks couldn't get a marriage through 26 years so I could care less what they think. Works for us.
In your case you probably need to look at why you were with him in the first place. My husband knows exactly why he wanted to be with me and he never thought I would change. I would hazard a guess that you thought your husband would change and that's what's causing the issue. A six month sabbatical isn't going to change that. You're going to have to stop talking to him like you do everyone else and deal with it a different way. He'll work with you, but he has to understand exactly what you want. That's what causes most Aspie/NT marriages to fail. The Aspie has no idea what the NT wants and the NT thinks it's all perfectly obvious. Well, you wouldn't think that way if his brain was different from a car accident. Honestly, if Shrinks just told you that up front, it would probably be much easier to deal with it.
So just go to him and spit it out. Forget about polite, emotion and all that good NT stuff. It can't help you here.
Hope that helps. I didn't mean it to sound harsh and I'm sorry because I know when I write (and speak) it sounds harsh. It's just me spitting out what I mean and not sugar coating it. So please don't read anything else into it. I'm actually just trying to help you understand and be able to do something to make things better. Good luck.
28 Mar 2007, 8:08 pm
