Advise for a retiring NOS

[Guest guest]

Pat: I live in the USA and American's don't like change and have a hard time placing closure on areas of our life and that is not just associated with AS.

Change is hard and too much work for the average person which is why we stay in comfortable roles that may be good or bad for us. It it what we know and our comfortable with.

Reaching out to new areas like you will be doing is scary and that is normal. You might not be able to predict what the future might bring you, but it sounds like you want to move forward and not backwards in your life. Moving forward is always scary. What if I go left instead of right? What if? That is the beauty of life. The unknown, the future that is just reaching out to you.

I don' have any pearls of wisdom to explain this to your spouse outside of recommending a third party professional that is not emotional vested. Volunteer work is awesome and I do it for my own reasons.

May the force be with you in your new journey.

Just my humble opinion.

I am enjoying lots of the comments and would love to hear from spouse of aspie and how things are when you retire from work. I am an very compassionate person and get lots of my "hugs" from the people I work with and their praise for what I am doing. That will end when I retire in a few months, and I am almost afraid of the sudden emotional void. I know that I will look into doing some volunteer work, but I am not sure how to explain this fear to my aspie, or even how to ask him to help me so that he will understand. Any thoughts out there?

Pat

[Guest guest]

, I live in USA also. You are right that change takes a lot of effort. I am going to try it. Thanks for your thoughts.

Pat

To: aspires-relationships Sent: Thu, December 2, 2010 7:00:31 PMSubject: Advise for a retiring NOS

Pat: I live in the USA and American's don't like change and have a hard time placing closure on areas of our life and that is not just associated with AS.

Change is hard and too much work for the average person which is why we stay in comfortable roles that may be good or bad for us. It it what we know and our comfortable with.

Reaching out to new areas like you will be doing is scary and that is normal. You might not be able to predict what the future might bring you, but it sounds like you want to move forward and not backwards in your life. Moving forward is always scary. What if I go left instead of right? What if? That is the beauty of life. The unknown, the future that is just reaching out to you.

I don' have any pearls of wisdom to explain this to your spouse outside of recommending a third party professional that is not emotional vested. Volunteer work is awesome and I do it for my own reasons.

May the force be with you in your new journey.

Just my humble opinion.

I am enjoying lots of the comments and would love to hear from spouse of aspie and how things are when you retire from work. I am an very compassionate person and get lots of my "hugs" from the people I work with and their praise for what I am doing. That will end when I retire in a few months, and I am almost afraid of the sudden emotional void. I know that I will look into doing some volunteer work, but I am not sure how to explain this fear to my aspie, or even how to ask him to help me so that he will understand. Any thoughts out there?

Pat

[Guest guest]

Pat, I too have problems if I am at home with Ian all day - we are currently snowed in and its been a week of enforced containment. After about three days, he becomes agitated that he cant do his stimmies or private meanderings (although he can, but he feels unable to with my 'presence' in the house!). I give him lots of space.

But for me, I am on edge too, because there is no NT outlet for me - no banter, no hugs or just plain lightweight conversation. I escape to the neighbour.

I found that its good to be out of the house (and after a period of redundancy I now work for Tourette Scotland as their national manager) and away from home life for at least a few hours. Volunteering is good - you can justify your need to be away by stating that you want to contribute to society? And you could volunteer for a local spectrum group, autism support group or spouses/parents of those on the spectrum? Or even start one up.

You dont have to tell hubby that its to get away for a while. You can tell him you want to do something worthwhile, and enjoy a bit of something different. Expand your horizons.

Ian understands my need not to be in each others faces all the time. He doesnt relish being stuck with an NT all day, either. He runs a shop where he does his book writing, its a fair trade shop so doesnt get many customers..... (sign o the times) and he writes away inbetween people coming in. This snow has sharply focused what it is like when we are together in a small space for a while, we can manage but its clear we need our own interests, as many couples do. And that he needs the stimulus of the things he enjoys, which arent the same as my interests.

I guess that any retired or at home couple have similar shocks to the system, but you will have time on your hands to legitimately volunteer or start up your own interest group. Even if its a computer blog, or taking time to write on this site. You can tell hubby that you are working on something and get on with that. Meeting others, though, is essential and you can at this time of year probably find a humanitarian outlet. I dont know where you live, but for two decades I have given out crisis at christmas soup and meals, working alongside a lovely group of volunteers to befriend and feed homeless, lonely and old people on their own.

Thats enough for now, sorry to make this a long 'un. Good luck! Keep in touch with us...

Judy B, snowed in with her errascible AS.

Subject: Re: Advise for a retiring NOSTo: aspires-relationships Date: Friday, 3 December, 2010, 6:17

, I live in USA also. You are right that change takes a lot of effort. I am going to try it. Thanks for your thoughts.

Pat

To: aspires-relationships Sent: Thu, December 2, 2010 7:00:31 PMSubject: Advise for a retiring NOS

Pat: I live in the USA and American's don't like change and have a hard time placing closure on areas of our life and that is not just associated with AS.

Change is hard and too much work for the average person which is why we stay in comfortable roles that may be good or bad for us. It it what we know and our comfortable with.

Reaching out to new areas like you will be doing is scary and that is normal. You might not be able to predict what the future might bring you, but it sounds like you want to move forward and not backwards in your life. Moving forward is always scary. What if I go left instead of right? What if? That is the beauty of life. The unknown, the future that is just reaching out to you.

I don' have any pearls of wisdom to explain this to your spouse outside of recommending a third party professional that is not emotional vested. Volunteer work is awesome and I do it for my own reasons.

May the force be with you in your new journey.

Just my humble opinion.

I am enjoying lots of the comments and would love to hear from spouse of aspie and how things are when you retire from work. I am an very compassionate person and get lots of my "hugs" from the people I work with and their praise for what I am doing. That will end when I retire in a few months, and I am almost afraid of the sudden emotional void. I know that I will look into doing some volunteer work, but I am not sure how to explain this fear to my aspie, or even how to ask him to help me so that he will understand. Any thoughts out there?

Pat