Do I tell my husband about Asperger's?

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I have been with my husband for about a year, and it is by far the best relationship I have ever been in. He has always been very sensitive to my sensitivities and needs, and has always been understanding about my social awkwardness and fears. He has always found my different qualities very endearing and loves that I am different. He also loves the fact that I am more honest than most girls.

I briefly, vaguely hinted at my having Asperger's one day when trying to explain my anxiety. He did not seem to respond or comprehend what I was saying at all. Another thing is when I tried to explain the nature of my OCD, it was so beyond his comprehension that he was obviously uncomfortable discussing it.

I do not know anyone personally with any type of ASD and would like to talk to someone. I share everything with him, but I am very wary about disclosing this with him. Should I? I am afraid it will scare him, or, like the OCD thing, be impossible for him to understand. Any advice??

Have you tried providing him with reading material that would help him understand all of this?

Year there is a big OCD conference put on by the International OCD Foundation. This year it's in San Diego on the 29th to 31. You should arrange to take him as part of a bigger vacation.

Sounds like he is happy with the way you are. You can try to explain it but it sounds like he won't understand what you are talking about. He just needs to know that you are not going to change on him because of what you are learning. As long as you stay you, I don't think it will matter to him.

Supposing you two ever have children, it might be good to warn him of the slight possibility of AS or even Autism in them. Just a thought. It's one of those things that can apparently be a big deal to people i guess.

Every relationship is different, but I told my husband right away. In fact, a week or so after I had told him (and we'd had quite a few conversations about what it means), he commented to my family that "yeah, about two thirds of the things that bug me about her are related to the Aspergers." Basically, it's been a net positive, because he's been able to understand *why* I do some of the annoying things I do. He still wants me to work on learning some of the skills I lack, which I have been, am, and will continue to do, but it helps ease some the frustration, too.

Now, if you end up using the AS as an excuse a lot (eg, "I can't! It's the Aspergers; I just can't do that!"), then that might end up being a negative. But either way, I don't see what telling him would hurt. Don't try to hammer it into him too much, but do inform him. He might come across some news story about something that would help. Or take an interest and research it. You never know.

What exactly are you afraid of happening if you tell him? What do you think is the negative thing that would happen, that makes you wonder if you should keep it to yourself?

An atypical neurological condition present from birth, gives you a lens for experiencing the world that is skewed from the norm. Your perceptions are skewed on several levels as soon as you begin to develop. Your entire personality as you grow up, all of your behaviors, are influenced not only by those perceptions that differ from the norm, but also by the way others treat you as a result of those unusual perceptions and behaviors. AS does not just have 'effects' on you, in the end result IT IS WHO YOU ARE.

To say that a handicap is due to that lifelong brain condition is an explanation, but it is never an excuse. You cannot help being who you are and that shouldn't need to be excused.

"You can't blame that on ASS BURGERS!"

That's the sort of attitude you can expect. Because AS is invisible, it isn't real. Its never anything but an excuse. And when you're hearing that from someone who claims to have it, you can imagine what to expect from someone who doesn't.

Absolutely. But that doesn't give you free license to just collapse on the couch and give up on trying to learn a new way to approach the world. If I'd done that in grade school, I probably wouldn't *have* a husband right now. I was *determined* to accomplish the same end result (making friends, not being too off-putting, "fitting in") that NTs get without needing to apply all the conscious effort I did. I learned such an amazing amount about how to work around my social limitations just because of that determination. As a result, many people who met me as an adult are shocked to learn that I have AS. My family, however, who knew me before I did all that learning, reacted more along the lines of "oh, that makes so much sense!!"

As an example, I never will be able to have the same type of empathy that my husband has. But that doesn't give me permission to not care what my husband is feeling at any given time. I ask him routinely "what are you feeling right now?" I have to get that information in a different way than NTs do, but just because I can't do it the NT way doesn't mean I can't do it. We have extra hurdles, but that just means we have to figure out how to still get to the finish line. And yes, sometimes it will be a different finish line than the NTs use. But it should accomplish the goal.



I agree wholeheartedly. I often say something nearly identical ("It's an explanation, not an excuse") about my own explanations and about others'.



I understand what you're saying here, but I'm not sure if you're accusing me of taking that attitude, or simply stating a general phenomenon. My perspective, if someone said to me "you can't blame that on aspergers!" would be "No, I can't *blame* it on aspergers, but that is the *reason*. Let's find a way around it."

I think that the easiest way to tell him, is to tell him about this site. If he's interested, you might catch him browsing through WrongPlanet.

If you have Aspergers and he is NT - then how you tell him is the key to how he will take it.

Yes, you should tell him. Perhaps he will not understand or will not care - so make it plain that this is neither new nor evolving, just an explanation of some aspects of who you are.

Do it with a little humour - maybe set up a PowerPoint slideshow to display during a discussion at breakfast, like this: http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~wilk ... werpt.html (I am joking, but that article is so funny and so relevant to how families communicate).

I hear what you say, and the scenario of telling loved ones often has similar outcomes. A little confusion and fear or denial. Not always does it happen this way, but any new information, given in a context that is unfamiliar is always going to be met with "analysis".

I was already engaged and diagnosed recently with AS, so my fiance had been on the journey for about 6 years, but I also had to tell him when we first started dating that I had a violent and criminal history, had been a patient of numerous psych units over the last 20 years and been diagnosed with all sorts of mental health issues. A lot of that is in question now with the recent AS dx, but it was quite a bundle to drop on him.

Personally, I would tell him. At least that way you will not feel like you are keeping something as important as your own journey, from him. Even if the "understanding" of you is there, it helps if he knows where you are in all this.

And maybe some interesting and humerous things will come out of it. On my darkest days when everything seems horrible, my fiance comes up to give me the firm hug I love and says "Don't go getting all Asparagus on me" or " I am Asparagus, hear me roar" which makes me laugh. I have a very dark sense of humour

Take good care.

Mics

My husband and I have been together for almost 10 years. I didn't know I had AS until after we had our son. It was something that was suggested to me and I dismissed.

In some ways, knowing has been very helpful. It makes certain things more understandable, like people's constant complaints that I am "not a pleasant person". I guess my default facial expression makes people believe I am angry most of the time. In other ways it's been kind of difficult. If you tell him, there's a good likelihood that he'll have a strong response to it. It might not be a terrible thing to leave things alone. Putting a name to your quirks can change things for some people.