@calla1. Thank you for the explanation. I am out of my league here and just trying to be helpful. I continue reading in fascination and I am sorry with what you and others have to go through.
As I read the posts of so many of you who seem to be coming to a realization or understanding something that had previously gone undefined, I think about the above quote. How many of us with NT husbands complain about the same thing, the husband who just does not seem to choose to use or have or embrace executive function skills. I’ve been married nearly 40 years and had walk & talks with a number of friends over the years, most of them whinging about how their husbands just leave the running of the family life to the wife. Maybe it is the lack of expectations we wives put on our husbands that allow their NT executive function skills to atrophy, but whatever it is, I think hearing those complaints over our 20s/30s/40s/50s must have made it that much more difficult to Dx an ASH back when you were younger.
Yes, and when I first tried to share H’s behavior I was met with, “all men are like this”.
This is such an insulting response because it minimizes my experience.
In the past 48 hours I can give numerous examples of ASH’s lack of seeing or understanding what a situation needs. He called and left a voicemail for a business situation. I heard him. I had to ask him if he meant to leave his phone number as the recipient did not have it. He would have waited for days for a return call, become agitated and been at a loss as to what to do next never remembering or taking responsibility for his mistake.
I have come to realize he does not “see” things: I was cooking and asked for the sesame oil that he would find in the door of the refrigerator, second shelf, back row. He insisted it was not there and that we were out. He was the last person to use it. With my back turned I “saw” it. I finally left what I was doing, reached in and there it was. Intuition?
Next day he texted that we were out of chili oil. No, we were not. It is just so much work. It is not like being with a NT spouse or a friend. I know these examples seem minor but it is the need to interrupt my own experience, the flow of my thoughts and actions, to take care of matters both large and small that is upsetting. Nothing can be counted on unless it is rote.
This is not everyone’s experience as each person is different. The loneliness is one of the most common feeling that those married to an ASD have in common. Not having an equal partner in decision making and in a task such completing a dinner together is lonely.
I truly appreciate everyone’s response.
@oregon101, clearly this weighs heavily on you. I imagine some NT spouses may not feel it as acutely as you. Maybe their spouse was a high school sweetheart and they don’t realize what they are missing out on, or perhaps some just acclimate to it.
I honestly don’t think I could have stuck it out aslong as you have. It sounds very frustrating and lonely indeed.
@calla1 your husband may have prosopagnosia, or facial blindness. His comments about the nephews really seemed significant for that. Often, although a person with this has trouble keeping people apart, they have remarkable memory and discernent of the small details (left eyebrow furrier than right etc.) that they use to compensate. They only see details, not the whole. This can lead to some strengths, in evaluating art for instance.
My ex’ Aspbergers was not benign at all. He must have other issues. He pretended to be someone else before marriage and admits it. No empathy, anger, rigid, and a mental health professional eventually advised me to get him out of the house.
We have a kid with extensive medical issues requiring vigilance and I was on my own. Like another poster, I had to stay home and was trapped for years with no way of getting an income while taking care of my child.
I thought I would be giving this man a better life, before we married. Generosity is never a good reason to marry, especially when the person is an impostor.
I still watch out for him and encourage kids to have a meal once in awhile. But they give me presents on both mother’s and father’s days.
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https://www.theneurotypical.com/tips-for-nt-spouses.html
Not sure if this helps in anyway. Can’t even imagine.
My wife also runs the household. But just like her mother, my mother and her sisters did… Maybe it’s generational.
My wife, who is the chef /cook in the family will also get mad in the situation of me not being able to find something in the fridge that she knows exactly where it’s at. I just don’t cook (trust me I tried) and don’t know where “exactly” things are kept. I will have to try more as I see the frustration in these stories.
Everyone with Aspergers is different. As the saying goes, “If you’ve met one person with Aspergers, you’ve met one person with Aspergers.” I do want to caution people from the trap of thinking that the symptoms among ASD spouses will all be the same. Mine, for instance, is good at details like leaving his phone number. And he’s rarely irritable anymore, though we went through years of irritability when the kids were young and he felt more pressured to perform.
I should mention the ASD and ADD often occur together. Our lives got MUCH better when H went on Adderall. The Adderall took care of the ADD symptoms, leaving only the ASD symptoms, some of which can still look like ADD. There has been some confusion in this thread about these and I think we have to remember that they can overlap.
The writer Deborah Copaken has written about her experience married to an Asperger’s man. They are now divorced.
https://www.nextavenue.org/spectrum-nothing-wrong/
I’m sorry this kind of response has hurt you.
IMO, it’s pretty common for people to try to “relate” to someone’s pain and maybe it’s even more common for something clumsy to come out of their mouths in the attempt.
I’m sure I’m guilty of sharing some lame “me too” story with someone who is hurting.
The article @brantly linked mentions the “humor” in the “clueless male” (re: social situations). Like it or not, it’s part of our culture.
Years ago I said to a friend: it’s not that H is childish, it’s that he’s often child-like and it makes me feel like I have a 5th kid. Always looking out for #1 (himself).
This thread has been eye-opening for me. Despite having an ASD son, brother, and nephews, (and probably D2), I never connected the line from H’s quirky personality to ASD before now. It explains a lot, but I doubt he will ever agree to be tested, because he doesn’t have a problem.
Thanks for the linked articles—-while not all of it fit, much is applicable.
I’m another finding this interesting. I’m pretty sure after reading this that my BIL is ASD. The things my sister shares with me that are so upsetting to her about her H have been shared here. She also once mentioned that she felt her father in law has Asperger signs. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of her kids doesn’t also have some ASD signs. I’m not sure I’ll mention my opinions to her but it will change my responses to her when she shares things with me.
+My examples of my ASH and executive management were simple everyday things on purpose. Imagine 10 a day. The most simple things you say, “the things in the hall closet need to be returned”. You and he are leaving and you repeat the last message. He stands there with confusion on his face. Things? Hall Closet? This is a high functioning physician. Your spouse. So such a simple thing becomes an irritant and exhausting emotionally. The lack of executive functioning is amazing in a person who can function at work.
Then you realize the ASD has no close friends , you are their social seeing eye dog–which they needed and counted on when you married them without this piece of information given to you.
Years of the confusion as NT’s expect NT responses but the ASD cannot give except occasionally.
Some ASD’s are very passive aggressive/narcissistic while others are sweet and well meaning but still have Aspergers and cannot respond in what you need from a spouse.
I am very lucky in that once we learned the diagnosis we are able to begin some recovery and relearning. But the 30 years of thoughtless comments and gifts will remain with me as not every thing can or should be forgotten.
How does one know when someone is ASD or just a jerk? I can think of several people who exhibit some of the above traits and I’ve always considered them arrogant and self serving. Maybe there is more for me to consider. When I’ve coached with a - gee that wasn’t a nice response, a better one would be…it’s met with snark
@momoffour I’ve been thinking about this a lot!
There’s someone who we know and I can’t stop thinking. He has some of these traits but when I looked into it further, there were so many things that say ASD but so many that don’t.
The one thing I keep coming back to is how his wife keeps saying that she feels so lonely in her marriage. How incredibly selfish he is and the complete disregard for household finances.
But seems better socially than everything I read. Other things also make me wonder if he is just a jerk.
The thing that I keep going back to is how @oregon101 says that people told her that all men have these traits but that they don’t understand how it is. Gives me more sympathy for this wife and what she may be going through.
@oregon101, have you ever read The Rosie Project trilogy? That seems to be a prime example of the “sweet and well meaning but still have Aspergers and cannot respond in what you need from a spouse” type of Aspergers. The books were very funny and sweet, but seeing things from your persepctive, not so funny anymore. To be fair, in the books, Rosie has enough and at one point thinks very seriously of leaving, and at other times, seems frustrated beyond belief.
I think a lot of people are lonely in their marriages. That’s how I interrupt- we grew apart.
One important thing to understand is that high levels of emotion, such as an angry voice, directed at them will overload them and shut down the thinking part of their brain, and they often don’t react well when that happens. I am thinking that maybe one way to tell the difference between someone on the spectrum and someone who’s just a jerk might be to give a calm, clear explanation of what behavior you would like to see differently next time. Most ASD folk really do have good intentions, even if they have some trouble seeing your perspective. A jerk won’t care.
My marriage got a lot better when I learned to stay calm when addressing tough issues.
Some of the less desirable traits that are not ASD can fit under the heading of personality disorders. The clueless traits in the ASD folks I know are despite being generally well meaning. I have been around others with elements of and perhaps blatant cases of Narcissistic PD or borderline PD that really are not so well meaning, if generally functional. Someone who works in mental health might be able to pick out these distinctions better than I can as a lay person.
I went through months of thinking ASH was passive aggressive. I studied and researched and then looked into narcissism. The problem was that his actions never felt intentional. His hurtful comments and actions felt as if he was clueless. He did not learn from one situation to another plus was very defensive when asked about these behaviors. Defensiveness is, obviously, available to anyone but notable in most ASD’s. They easily become overwhelmed and any raised voice is a trigger for them, as Calla1 described.
Interesting. How do they keep it under wraps for s couple of years while dating?