the saga continues

Back to Lotta Joy's original comment:  "I wish you would give more details of the differences you and your husband adapted to after getting married"

I haven't really answered, I've instead droned on in laying out the whole foundation to my answer(s) from how we met to me starting to notice stuff to the good side of Asperger wifery.  

It's not always such a pretty picture, oh no no.  My Aspie wife friend Maureen, in her book Loving the Tasmanian Devil, notes:

"Having a partner with Asperger Syndrome can feel like a roller-coaster ride for the neurotypical spouse -- riding high one moment on the spouse s charming quirkiness, only soon to spiral downward, exhausted and discouraged -- sometimes by the very same traits, which have suddenly taken new forms of expression."

Remember those things I found so adorable?  Let's revisit:

Magnum's really smart.  Yay.  Really smart people can sometimes be pompous asses.  Boo.  Magnum is not a pompous ass.  He has pompous ass "moments"?  Hardly ever with me, though.

Magnum is very honest.  This is typical of Aspergers.  Since a major trait is an inability to empathize or relate to other people and their experiences, they don't really see any logic in being dishonest.  HOWEVER, there are sometimes things that are better left unsaid.  'nuff said.

Magnum pays attention to every last thorough detail.  Sometimes it takes him forever to finish a task that others will do in half the time or less.  This drives some wives crazy.  I just choose not to watch and be happy that he's doing it and I'm not.

Magnum and I have lots of interests in common, share many of the same opinions and values.  We don't really argue over the typical marital issues of finances, extended family, or child raising.  Still, our personalities are quite a bit different.  He's an introvert, I'm more extroverted.  Before we knew he had Aspergers, I thought his "anxieties" were a combination of being introverted and coming from a somewhat (conditionally loving) dysfunctional family, and that he'd get over them with time.

I'd ask him about it, and he'd say he didn't know, just that it was "always there".   His way of dealing with it is to go into a sort of robotic mode where he just mirrors what he sees other people doing or saying - typical Asperger coping strategy.  To me, it comes across as phony and a bit hypocritical at times.  Additionally, I didn't see any reason for him to put on the "act".  I like him best when he's just being his quirky self.

That's not to say that it's always a struggle.  We've often joked about his cluelessness.  People with Aspergers don't read nonverbal clues well.  They often don't get sarcasm.  Many things have to be explicitly stated.  I just found out a couple of years ago or so, that something I said jokingly before we got married, made him think that I was dumping him.

Now I know, when I see that he's misunderstood me, I restate things.  I've actually told him, "I'm flirting with you now."

One day, it struck me.  I don't know what made the light go on, but I realized that his occasional  anxiousness when dealing with people, myself included, wasn't just an emotional issue.  I told him that I thought it was something "organic".  This was just a few years ago, after several years together and 3 kids.

Soon afterwards, we got the answer.  It came in a roundabout way through a boy named Alec...
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