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Suspected AS-wife moved out. NT husband+2 kids stay at home.

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MarkP
Tufted Titmouse
Tufted Titmouse

Joined: 6 Jun 2019
Gender: Male
Posts: 34
Location: Slovenia

30 Jul 2019, 2:09 am

nick007 wrote:
I'm really glad things are working out for you two Mark :D You've done a lot to figure out what's going on & to learn how to deal with it & adapt. I really wish more NT partners in relationships with Aspies were like you. From what I've seen in the L&D section & other sections of this forum there tends to be two main types of NTs who get in relationships with Aspies(at least posted a lot on this forum anyways). The NT is very critical of the Aspie & doesn't really try to understand & accommodate & resents the Aspie for not being normal. Or the NT does everything they can to make the relationship work while the Aspie is a total jerk or a$$hole who doesn't really care to put forth any effort into tying to compromise or accommodate their partner & the NT uses Aspergers as an excuse to justify their partner's abuse(in some cases the partner likely is not an Aspie & the NT is looking for a reason to believe that their partner isn't really a bad person; & in other cases their partner is likely an Aspie who dealt with having a rough life or childhood by becoming selfish & wanting everything on their terms). It's a shame I don't read about many stories like yours Mark where you both put forth effort into trying to understand & make things work by finding ways to compromise.


Thank you Nick007. We are together 24 years, married 19 years. We are still eager to learn from each other.



MarkP
Tufted Titmouse
Tufted Titmouse

Joined: 6 Jun 2019
Gender: Male
Posts: 34
Location: Slovenia

30 Jul 2019, 2:10 am

rowan_nichol wrote:
MarkP wrote:
UPDATE:

All of you guys have been fantastic. With your help I managed to understand my wife better and that was invaluable. Alternative has been to let my ego prevail. That could have been catastrophic.

So, my wife came back home approx a month ago. We went to vacation twice during that time, we just came back from a week-long vacation without the kids, just the two of us. During that time we talked. It was easier to talk in a relaxed setting. On one occasion my wife told looked me straight into my eyes, and said that she was really sorry for the "suffering she caused". She apologized to me. She said that now she knows how great I have been during that difficult time and that she feels so happy to having me. She said that she started to appreciate me more. Among other things she also said that now she knows her leaving us was never about me or the kid but about her. Maybe she had a sort of a burnout. Anyway, I didn't expect her apology. If it's true that she is an AS, then there's nothing to apologize for. But it feels good to know that my wife knows that her action of moving away her family did have a negative impact. When she left us in anger and sorrow, it caused trauma. It WAS difficult. We (myself and the boys) were traumatised. I really don't want to go through this again. I just can't. So, last week she terminated the lease with the owner of the rented apartment. This was also my only "condition". Yesterday she asked me if I can help her collect the rest of her things from the rented apartment. I did. We put her things in the car and drove off - for good.

We also talked about my strong suspicion that my wife might be an undiagnosed AS. At first she didn't want to hear about it. I think she started to believe me after I read to her some of your replies and snippets of text out of this forum and your replies to me. Specifically, I read my wife a post of Mrs. Peel out loud. It's the post where Mrs. Peel describes how felt when she moved away from her husband. After hearing this my wife said that this was a pretty accurate description how she felt too. So now, I think part of her accepts a possibility that she might indeed be an AS, especially after I told her about other symptoms and the signs (which match perfectly). I don't care about a diagnosis. But I do care about both of us being aware of our neurological states (AS/NT) and the implications of that.

Anyway, things have calmed down now. For the fifth week we're living together under the same roof. Oddly enough, we are still connected. We have THAT connection. I never stopped loving her and she never stopped loving me (even though it seemed like it). But it has been a really really rough journey for me. And, it has been rough for our kids, especially our youngest son (12 y old, a diagnosed AS). I think he secretly blames his mother for abandoning him at the time. I think they need to talk too. I did talk with my son and tried to explain but I can never do that as good as she can.

Anyway, we're still going to be seeing a therapist. It turned out years of miscommunication (also due to lack of awareness about the NT/AS dynamics) did leave a mark. There's still quite some stuff that we need to talk about and a therapist has been great so far at discovering some of them, and we already addressed them. We will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

Also, we're also going to renovate our home during the next months to come. We're going to make it more Aspie friendly. And my wife will get her own space within the apartment, that is going to be just hers. Also, we have already implemented some new "rules" with the kids, how do we engage with each other, taking into account what we have learned about each other. With that new knowledge I believe we can make it. I'm more aware of my wife's needs. They are not typical:) They are different to mine and I wasn't aware of that fact. She never told me, at least not calmly (she did tell me but in codes and always when she was angry or had a meltdown). With a new knowledge of my wife, it's easier for me to understand and respect her needs.

Thank you all. You helped me more than you think.


MarkP, it has been an honour to share the journey you have made together. Please, both of you, stay with us here on Wrong Planet. Your combined experience can help so many more people through similar times.


Thank you, Rowan_Nichol:) We will.



Roboto
Deinonychus
Deinonychus

Joined: 22 Jul 2019
Age: 48
Gender: Male
Posts: 336

09 Aug 2019, 1:07 pm

I'm a little late to the party but the story resonated with me deeply. I have a wife of 6 years and we've known each other for nearly 15. No children.

I'm a diagnosed aspie with a self-defense mechanism to rebel and run away from situations which seem unsustainable. In many ways this has helped me a great deal as I refused to give into the symptoms that accompany asperger's. When I was diagnosed 15 years ago with depression and anxiety disorder I didn't submit to a lifelong prescription of anti-depressants and benzo's and in my eyes this was a very good thing. I wasn't going to submit to the opinion of some authoritative doctor. :) When in school a teacher would tell me I was a menace or a bad person I'd reject them and their opinion altogether and this helped me maintain a healthy ego. I read the stories here of so many who lacked that rebellion mechanism and it seems they have had a much more difficult journey.

My wife and I started family therapy prior to me getting individual help and that was a big mistake in our case. The nature to rebel and to disagree with anyone telling me what I "need" to do caused some pretty serious setbacks and created a very uncomfortable level of personal stress. I was unable to talk to anyone for 5 days after one session and it was then I put my foot down and refused to go until I had my own personal support system in place.

I say this because a positive diagnosis can help your wife and that the methods for improving an NT/NT relationship don't always work with an ND is involved. And reading how your wife has that rebellion/run away aspect about her that family therapy could be incredibly difficult. My wife is incredibly intelligent but she (and our therapist) needed a lot of instruction on how to approach me and simply knowing that we are an ND/NT relationship was not enough to get the necessary understanding to make progress.

I do feel the AS individual needs time and guidance to understand that the lens they've been seeing the world through their entire life was a lens that didn't fit and in order to find peace, reduce depression and anxiety, that they need to take the personal time needed to readdress their areas of quirkiness. I had a nice meditation practice I started nearly 20 years ago to basically reprogram my brain to be better at certain challenges without knowing that I had asperger's. Some of it was helpful but some of it has created formulas in my brain that cause it to act a certain way that is helpful for me personally but detrimental to those who I live with. These were all fine mechanisms when living on my own but now I have a lot of work ahead of me to challenge those and rewrite the script that my brain runs on... Had I know why I felt so different back then I would have gone about it a little bit differently and respected the difference in my brain instead of trying to program myself to act like everyone else... Now it makes me feel like I'm in perpetual jail but am excited to rewrite all of that and come out a more free person.