Married Aspies: spending time togehter/apart

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My wife is almost NT, and she is asking me all the time when I am home. This stress me a lot, and if I don't answer her promptly she will be mad to me all the day long.
She hates my headphone, because when I am using it means that I will not answer her, and I think she knows that it is off very often.
We are five years together, and now she is beginning to understand that sometimes I need to be alone. She needs it too, but I am still unsure if she wants to be alone because something wrong i did - I'll never know.
But I like her, I need her company, she is very clever (and make all the social stuff that I can´t do by myself )
Living with her is great, we are unhappy together and we think that it is the best we can get of life.

I'm completely the same. I know I've got to spend time with the Girl, but not long after we've settled I'm getting antsy and want to be up doing something else. Its very hard to settle and lay down that 'quality' time. Apparently I am supposed to include 'intimacy' which includes 'deep and meaningful discussions', this I would rather undergo so,me medieval torture than indulge in.

What makes it hard for me is that I work away on a 28/28 rotation. So the time home means a far greater effort required to top up that 'quality time' thing required by NT women. Its damn hard, especially when you want to run off and have your Aspie downtime.

aaaargh!

We celebrated our 23rd anniversary in August.. I'm a bit more AS then she is, but our whole family is definitely not NT.

We enjoy having each other around ... to a point ... yet too much togetherness drives us all crazy. There are some things we do together, and many things we do apart. A trip to the beach or walking the dogs is a good family things... we sometimes play on-line games together, but that usually does not go so well (We are too independent and all want to lead)

We each have our own space and shared spaces. I turned the spare bedroom into a library for her to spend time writing; I have the garage & kitchen. My son has his room and the living room.

It's just working out the right balance..

One day I had to step back and say "do I really want to make this relationship work?" and believe me, it is a lot of work at times. The one thing I have to do a lot of when my temper raises is to ask myself: "Is this conflict worth the stress that it's causing and is it worth losing my partner over?"

I'm married to an ADD husband who had been in and out of relationships before me. I just had one NT relationship, that was enough to make me totally restless.

For me it was the constant expectations towards me I just couldn't handle. My ex tried to make me feel guilty for being by myself. If it was up to him he would have been around me 24/7... Even though we had an agreement about time spent together and apart it was obvious he really didn't like the fact that I did not like clingyness. I felt I could never give him what he really wanted.

My husband is different than me but he needs to be alone a lot too. We both have our own 'caves' to go back to (we both have a small business apart from home, but not too far). This works just great.

We don't even always sleep together. We both like short holidays apart (me with my horse, he with his motorcycle) this works great for us. In our everyday life we always sleep together and mostly have dinner together... that's pretty much it I guess.

I don't think this makes us grow apart. If anything we have the best ASS relationship I've ever heard from. We're just individuals who like to be around eachother but also need time to be ourselves. Our wedding invitation had 1+1=3 on it... we didn't have our diagnosis them but we knew we didn't have the 1+1=1 type of relationship.

Seems to me like going and doing something else would be the thing.

I don't sit around with my spouse just for the sake of it much. I like to sit together if I'm doing something portable (reading, using a laptop) but making yourself miserable is not recommended. I've been married for nine years and do remember the confrontation about this early in the marriage, which involved a puzzling near-to-tears complaint "I feel like I've got to entertain you or you just walk out of the room and go do your own thing," to which I replied, "Well, yes. I don't expect you to entertain me, but I'm not going to sit here and do something that doesn't interest me every evening. How's that reasonable?"

You'll have to make some togetherness time routine, check that it's enough to keep her healthy, and possibly arrange to do it in a complex pattern that will feel random and thus somehow more satisfying to the NT mind. You must also make sure she understands that yeah, really, honestly, you need to be left the hell alone at times, regular and frequent ones.

my guess is you are getting restless because you want to process, systemise. Instead turn that systemising off, lean back and enjoy this sumptuous woman. Very best, JC http://unlearningasperger.blogspot.com

I just explained in another thread about married folks, that my wife and I have our own areas of interest. At home, we are always 20 feet away from each other. She at her computer desk, or reading, or watching TV, and me down the hall in my record room. I have always lived in one room, and one of the bedrooms of our house is where I have all my stuff. I couldn't monopolize the living room and TV like other men I've known. And neither of us is the kind of person who needs to be constantly entertained by the other. She understands how I am, and vice-versa. One of us will get up and go visit the other whenever the mood strikes us, for a kiss and a hug, and maybe a back scratch, and a chat. We don't have to be in each other's presence all the time. Neither of us could handle it if it were the opposite. My wife has remarked how even our silences are comfortable.

We don't shut ourselves off from the other, and there are no times when we can't be approached. We enjoy being together, going out shopping or to eat. Not having any children, we both have hobbies, so we each always have something to do. There is plenty of affection, and absolutely none of the mindset of "why won't you talk to me?" So we don't feel in any danger of drifting apart, because, as mentioned, it's only 20 feet.