RE: Re: Hi - Steve VERY LONG POST!!!

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Beware: VERY long post to follow. Most of you will just want to hit delete but both Helen and Steve said it was ok to post it here so here it is. And Steve, I wish you luck getting to the bottom too. J I really hope it was worth it if you do. Hi Steve, My Bad. It was this sentence that I took wrong: “I am on the verge of just giving up. I have expended much energy on trying to find work arounds to help me provide some of what my wife needs from me.” Sorry about that, my eyesight is going along with my mind. J I am very sorry to hear that your wife has given your relationship a review deadline. She must be feeling very overwhelmed. I am very glad that I had my children when I was young because I could not imagine going through menopause while raising children (especially if one is on the spectrum), and having an AS spouse. That really is a lot to deal with. It sounds like you are trying very hard and like you love your wife very much. She needs to remember that she fell in love with you because, in part, of the fact that you have AS. So if you can remember how you wooed her in the beginning I would suggest manifesting that guy for her now. If she is a reader or if she would be willing to let you read to her, we found that reading the book: Asperger Syndrome and Long-Term Relationships, by Stanford, to be the start of our marriage healing. I know by the time was diagnosed, (about 25 years into our marriage) I knew I still loved him but I was at my wit’s end and had become disabled both physically and emotionally. I was relieved to know what was going on and that the things I was saying were happening which he was denying were in fact true, and I wasn’t completely bonkers. BUT I was still bitter and thought it was up to him alone to deal with “his issues”. I was busy dealing with my own issues. It took me another couple of years where I hounded him to deal with it, while I became even more angry that he wasn’t doing the things I thought he should before I bought that book out of sheer desperation because I didn’t want to leave my marriage and because in spite of the bitterness, I still loved my husband very much! I had the hardest time reconciling the man who I saw (and still do) as the sweetest, kindest, most decent man in the world, who would do very unkind things to me without really meaning to. I stayed all those years because in my heart I knew he never hurt me out of desire to do so but only because he didn’t know how not to. I didn’t know why (now I do), but I knew it was not deliberate. So our journey began when we read that book together out loud. Some days only a paragraph at a time because we would talk for two hours about that one paragraph and how many things in our life that paragraph explained. And by the end of the book and our talking, I wasn’t bitter anymore. I now know I love not in spite of his AS, but because of it. I’m not saying that everything is perfect or that I don’t want to bang my head on a table sometimes because he has missed a non verbal cue, like please grab this plate before if falls out of my hand and you are looking right at me watching it fall to the floor. And he says why didn’t you say something? But I just have to laugh it off as I explain that there wasn’t enough time in that millisecond to spit out that sentence and my brain didn’t have time to process a faster way to get him to understand. Sometimes our little mishaps can be very comical. I sometimes picture watching it from a third person perspective and laugh till I hurt. So we are both trying to learn each other’s language and to laugh off the mishaps and misadventures. We are very lucky that we have always been each other’s best friend and we don’t take ourselves too seriously so we can laugh at ourselves. Now to menopause; it can be absolutely terrible for some women. Between the night sweats and hot flashes and insomnia wrecking your sleep, the hormone fluctuations that can have you crying or in a rage for no reason at all and cause a whole list of symptoms far too long to write here but are bloody unpleasant, the whole thing sucks! And I for one think men should have to share it with us. Some sort of time share thing could work. She has it for a week, then he does the following week, and so on. J But short of that there are treatments she can get from her doctor, or herbal preparations, acupuncture, bio-identical hormones, etc. As for what you can do, stay supportive, but get out of her way when she is about to blow up. You are at a HUGE disadvantage because you can’t read the subtle signs that she may be giving you that say things like; leave me alone, I don’t want your help. I want to feel capable of doing it myself. Or conversely, get your butt over here and give me a hand. Can’t you see I need you? Etc. So my best advice would be to try as best you can to open up communications. It really is the key to every relationship, and is even more important but also more complicated in our type of relationships. Try to stay positive and remember that sometimes women just want to talk and be heard, so listen and then give her a hug. When she is angry, realize she is hurting and be patient with her. When she is looking exhausted ask how you can help. When she tells you to leave her alone, try not to take it personally or feel hurt, ask if there is anything you can do on your way out or pick up while you are gone. J I can’t know for sure but from my own experience and from what I have gleaned from reading and listening to other women in our positions I can surmise that your wife is more exhausted than you can imagine. She has felt more lonely than she thought she could possibly feel and most of that has been when you have been right beside her. She feels like she is juggling plates in the air and is doing it single handedly because she doesn’t feel she can count on you to be there if/when she needs you. She doesn’t know where she is going to find the strength to carry on or even where she found it to get this far. She is afraid of what her future looks like, raising a child on the spectrum and being in a relationship with an AS man, both of which take more time, patience, and energy than what she expected she would have to find in herself. She wonders if she will ever have time for herself or if there will ever be someone who will look after her. And worst of all is, if she is in the place I was in at that time in my marriage, she is afraid of opening her heart up to trusting in you or believing that the relationship can work because she has done it so many times only to be back at square one repeatedly, that she can’t bear doing it all over again and having her heart broken. So IF she can’t allow herself to believe in you right now your only hope is to believe in yourself enough for both of you. The best words ever learned to say are: I know I’ve screwed it up in the past and I don’t have the best track record, but I’m learning and I’m getting better all the time and I always will, because I love you and I want to make us work. Other useful things he has learned over the years are: To touch me or hug me if I seem upset. When he suspects I just want to rant he will listen to me without saying anything, then give me a long wonderful hug. He sends me lovely little IMs during the day to let me know he is thinking about me or sometimes I get a wonderful love letter in email form. He has learned to tell me what his needs are so that neither one of us is asked to work beyond our individual capacity unless it is an emergency. He has learned to take notice of what I do and to tell me he appreciates them. He has learned to communicate about what he is doing and when he is leaving so I don’t talk to the walls as much as I used to. J We are now “Team Eilers”, and all we have to say to each other if one of us is having a rough patch are those two words. Because we both believe that we are better together than we are apart and that when we work together there is nothing we can’t get through, fix or overcome. It is because we both have such different ways of looking at things that we can solve anything if we both bring our gifts to the table. It sounds like you have a lot to offer and are willing to put in the required effort now your wife needs to get back onto the same page and start trying too. I hope that all she needs is a nudge in the right direction and whatever sign she needs to restore her faith and hope that the marriage can work. I sincerely hope you and your wife can find the team you thought you were building when you got married and find the joy we all deserve. Deb From: aspires-relationships [mailto:aspires-relationships ] On Behalf Of BassMan_720Sent: November-30-11 4:03 AMTo: aspires-relationships Subject: Re: Hi - Steve Hi DebI have noted some of your recent posts and they have given me great hope.I should be honoured to correspond with you offline. However, I am quite an open person and I am willing to bear my sole online. As Helen stated, new posts may benefit new users.I am sure that you have much good advice to offer me. I should be particularly grateful for any advice on menopause issues. This may not be of as much interest to other members on this site. I am really at a loss about how much the menopause has affected my wife's view of me. My AS means that I cannot read her at the best of times. I miss the wife that loved me for who I was. Of course, I have always had AS. It seems to be that knowing about this, unfortunately timed with the onset of the menopause, has caused, at times an admitted wobbly, wheel fall of my marriage. I hope that my wife's current intolerance, anger and bitterness towards me and my AS are at least in part due to the menopause and that there is hope that things may settle in time.My wife has set a deadline for a review of our position. I have until November next year and I don't know what to do.By the way, you have misunderstood something from my post. I have read again and don't see where this has originated. I am not seeking a job at the moment. I am very lucky in that there are plenty of international opportunities in my specialist field. (OK! Stereotypical with one of the articles on the main Aspires web page, I started out as a Systems Engineer). Unfortunately work in my field has dried up back home in the UK and most of Western Europe for that matter. I am enjoying my work out here in Hong Kong.I look forward to hearing from you again, either openly or in private.Steve