Bill :Re: Going to the Opera; Sex Life, etc.

[Guest guest]

Bill, I am so glad you are posting on this list. You just make so much sense to me. I'm not going to comment on what you've said because I think you said it all. I just underlined a bit the stuff that I think particularly bears repeating! Thanks for posting your wisdom. Jennie AS

Bill said: >>Hmm: "...no instinct for...", "...unable [to] be...".I've no doubt at all those and similar phrases DO describe *many* AS. Not just in parenting, but in the most intimate aspects of married life.They're at the root of the oft-repeated judgment that AS have no "empathy"; that we "just don't get it" in inter-personal affairs.Equally I've no doubt at all those and similar phrases DON'T describe *all* AS.Some of us DO "get it" more often than not. We DO impress others with good understanding, empathic ability, and sympathy. We CAN "get along".I posit that some of us are so good at it, early in life, that we're overwhelmed. Completely overwhelmed. We withdraw - unable to "handle" the consequences to ourselves. In that way we protect ourselves, but at high cost to both ourselves and others.I posit further that some of us have learned instead to "roll with the punch". We do not withdraw, but go about our lives with scarcely a hint of internal turmoil. That describes me well enough.Most AS I'd imagine are somewhere in between.Still, recognizing that SOME of us *have* the capacities suggests a second approach to AS/NT relationships.Don't assume INcapacity. Rather, assume capacities EXIST, but need to be uncovered.Other AS on this List have described their very strong desire to "help others". I've spent my entire life in the "helping professions".I submit: Those in troubled NT/AS relationships could do worse than tap into that desire. Make it part of their plan for healing NT/AS relationships.Find the hidden strength and play into it. It works with and for either party, too.This was/IS part of the turn-around in my own once-troubled marriage.- Bill, 75, AS<<