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Aspies and Marriages

YOU say you have it, we Aspies support you. Shrinks are often unsure of diagnoses they make & end up changing their minds several times. Also diagnosing Asperger's in girls is very difficult because it hides in plain sight. Like you, there's nothing odd about my appearance & NTs are very appearance driven.
 
So I take it that Aspies are capable of marriages. It's just that many Aspies find it hard to juggle between their conditions and their spouses' lack of understanding. Much has to be prepared before any marriages, because it's an union between two people.
 
You know the stereotypical issue of females feeling hurt due to their husbands not "talking about their emotions" enough?
I think that for women with Aspergers, the opposite happens.

My boyfriends always had an issue with my lack of emotion.
 
We also have our own emotions. It's just that many of us may not be socially aware of how we're supposed to look to others - either we're too exaggerated (in my case), or in some others, we may just appear as 'bland' to others.
 
I feel in colors. I think that's a separate issue from Aspergers but when I'm asked how I feel by my guy and I say "orange" or something else, and can't explain it any other way, he gets frazzled.
 
Quite seriously HelloDizzy, some people claim to be able to see auras, potentially you feel in colour in relation to what you see your aura as? It's not without possibility ; ]
 
Gomendosi has a point, though, Dizzy. I too feel in colour & sense colours around people, animals, living things & sometimes even objects. I've never known what this is or why it happens but I've been reading about Autism, Asperger's & synaesthesia. Apparently, it is much more common in people on the spectrum so that may be why it is happening.

Emotions are challenging for many Aspies: some feel them too intensely & shut down from being overwhelmed, some of us feel them but much less than the avg NT or even the avg Aspie, some of us might feel them with extreme intensity, lack the ability to cope with or express them either by showing them or verbally so they drown them out with pills & alcohol. That latter strategy is one often used by NTs too. The long term or even short term consequences of substance abuse on non-NT brains has not been studied so we literally can't know what we're doing to ourselves.
 
I think there is a difference between thinking emotions and feeling emotions- some Aspergers do both- I know I am one of them-this is extremely difficult in relationships/marriages.

I was once told by Councillors that I was an emotional thinker and I either refused to or was totally incapable of actually feeling those emotions-I disagreed, still maintaining that with emotions I would overload. I think this relates to ( intense world theory)-its not that I did not recognize the emotions in my partner or myself for that matter but rather at times I reacted in what would be termed a Neurotypically inappropriate fashion.

Relationships are about give and take,compromise,flexibility forgiveness and above all honesty as well as showing love and commitment-our expectations of others and ourselves sometimes can be overwhelming to both partners- I believe I can and will finally manage to be in a successful, loving and fruitful ,if somewhat unorthodox relationship and will look forward to the day I can share this with you all.!
 
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@HelloDizzy

I once lived with a GF and my mother on the same home. She was my 1st GF and I was her 1st BF, therefore it was very romantic and passionate in a fairy-tale style. Decades before me and my GF were even born, my mom and her mom used to work together, were also neighbors and good friends. Her mom died when she was 4, but her family remained in the neighborhood. So this was a girl that my mom knew very well. AT the time I was in high-school, senior year, about to graduate. In before having the GF, the plan was to go straight to college. But after having GF, my plans change and now I had a part time job and I was saving money to get an apartment so we could move together. I had several jobs lined up to start working full time right after graduation so I could afford our own place. She was a couple of years younger, still in school, unable to contribute economically.

My mom saw all this, college plans being screwed, she new the girl her whole life, etc. So one day my mom said:

"Why don't you bring your gf to live here with us? Then you don't to get your own place, or get a job to pay for the place, or delay college to pay for the place".

We accepted... it was hell. My mom was always trying to belittle everything my gf did. "Your cooking is bad"... "You didn't washed his clothes correctly"... etc etc. It was like my mom was jealous of my gf. We ended up moving out and going back to the original plan, getting a full time job and delaying college.
 
MILs are often jealous of the young beautiful new girlfriend. That is one of the oldest & saddest stories in history. It is accompanied by another sad story: boyfriends, fianc?s & husbands who utterly fail to stand up & support their wife in dealing with their mother. If your mother is criticizing & giving your wife a hard time, don't leave her to deal with it. YOU need to have a private heart to heart with Mom & firmly but politely let her know what specific things will not be tolerated. If you don't establish boundaries & your wife or GF then turn & tells your mother a thing or two, well...Mom asked for it & so did you! I've promised my son that I'd never ever do anything like that to the girl he's in a relationship with.

Part of what makes marriage/ relationships to an Aspie hard for a NT is that we are often very self-centered & expect others in our lives to tolerate, understand & make exceptions for our (sometimes many) Aspie quirks. A partner can end up feeling like a carer in a special home or like his/her needs don't count because the other person is an Aspie & that overrides everything. It doesn't take a genius to see how this becomes a one-sided relationship that's very dissatisfying & un-fulfilling for the NT. Even another Aspie would find it difficult. That is why making sure you have compatible needs & tendencies is doubly important for Aspies in relationships: we find compromise & change hard!

If you're a neat freak Aspie, don't marry a sloppy person: you won't be able to live with a compromise: ANY mess will drive you nuts. If you're an Aspie who is quite reclusive & doesn't like to socialize (like me) don't marry an NT who expects you to accompany him all over the place to every cocktail party, banquette & social event under existence! Find another recluse. I don't care how in love you think you are or how attached you think you are: it'll crash & burn shortly after the stresses of the daily marital challenges (kids, bills, chores, exhaustion etc.) kick in. He'll want to have you beside him at this or that business supper/award event or family reunion & will expect you to be all dolled up, smiling & chatty. You'll need anti-anxiety meds just to get up & go there & then, too, having a melt-down in front of his colleagues & boss is NOT conducive to marital bliss. Same goes for an Aspie husband. You can't go to your MILs family dinner & flip out, overturn the table, tell everyone to go F#$K themselves & storm out (as tempting as this may be at times!).
 
Banquette : A platform lining a trench or parapet wall on which soldiers may stand when firing
:smoke::smoke:sounds way more fun than a f#$ki#g cocktail party
 
I say yes! I had a wonderful 20yr 13 married relationship with my high school sweetheart.
Although we eventually split up I would rate it as 95% happy and would absolutely do it again.
It even ended well with no resentment or fighting over money/posessions of any kind.:bounce:
 
I'm tired of guys with mommy issues.
And all the guys who drink, also do drugs and aren't committed. I need a balance.
 
If you can't even feed yourself, would you commit to feed others in marriages and starve together in woe?

Just saying, as a person from a country with no comprehensive welfare.
 
The financial advantages are definitely there. BUT, there are social advantages I hadn't known existed & was surprised to discover. Many couples choose to just cohabitate. Here, after 1 yr of cohabitation, the couple has a similar legal status to a married couple. This is a common law marriage under Canadian law (there are some differences in QC but federal law prevails. This takes the religion & the moral pretence out of marriage when it comes to legalities because any 2 idiots can get dolled up, find a witness & go sign some papers.

Socially, however, it remains different. When you're just cohabitating, 'society' here sees you as almost a 'fake' couple: like people playing house. Once you're married, you acquire a kind of weird social legitimacy. This applies even if a cohabitating couple has been together longer & has a bunch of kids! You could've been married for only a few months & somehow, through the magic of some baffling NT unwritten social rule, paperwork gives you the rubber stamp of legitimacy. You are a REAL couple. WEIRD!

You see the marriage mystique reflected in tv ads where a woman is featured cleaning her home or with a man: they always make sure to show a close-up of her left hand & her simple gold wedding band. Somehow, she becomes magically respectable: she could be a drug dealer or a hooker (or both!) BUT the gold band makes her 'legitimate' & respectable.

I asked a professor in a marketing & advertising class I took at Uni about this: he says it is a social status thing: like the difference between being a rented property (implying that the lease will end & you'll be back out there for rent) or a purchased one ( no more market for you!). WEIRD!!! The notion of being a metaphor for real estate of any kind is a little unsettling.
 
I have been married for 12 years to a NT but quirky man. He likes to be alone a lot, but compared to me he is a social butterfly. He gets frustrated a lot with me too, because I don't understand things quick enough and forget things all the time. He thinks I am selfish at times because I get focused on stuff I find interesting. It is true I am indifferent at times, but I try. He doesn't realize that I try. His family thinks me anti-social, weird and aloof. But oh well. We make it work. We both have the same values, so over the years we have learned to tolerate each other's quirks. Well, it is mostly one-sided, but he has his issues too. They are just different than mine. I think we make a good team, as long as people butt out. His brother was a horror, thinking that just because we did things different than most, than it must be wrong.Thank goodness, my hubby has no problem speaking up when it needs to be done.
 
You 2 sound like a good match, Biblio-Love. He sounds like one of those NTs that's very Aspiesque. So long as what you're doing is working for you both, to hell with what the in-laws think.

As for weird & aloof, in my case it is 100% true! But, so is my husband. Being aloof can be a social advantage of sorts: you're less prone to having a big fat gossiping mouth that'll cause family squabbles. Better to be faulted for what you didn't say that condemned for words you cannot retrieve!
 
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