[article] Somewhere Inside, a Path to Empathy

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Somewhere Inside, a Path to Empathy

By DAVID FINCH

Published: May 15, 2009

NY Times

IT wasn't working, any of it. Our third year of marriage threatened to

be our last. I'd become cynical and withdrawn, obsessive and

preoccupied, dismissive and unhelpful.

" I don't know when things got bad, " said, wiping away tears. " I

feel like I've lost you and I don't know what will bring you back. "

In reality she hadn't lost me. She'd found me. The facade of

semi-normalcy I'd struggled to maintain was falling away, revealing the

person I'd been since childhood. I didn't even know what was wrong with

me, though my wife, a speech pathologist who works with autistic

children, had her suspicions. Even so, it would be another two years

before she would put all the pieces together and attach a name to what

was ruining our marriage: Asperger's syndrome.

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/fashion/17love.html