The List Goes On

Listing



When we first started dating, I thought he was the most brilliant person I'd ever met. He knew everything. I'd had a pretty dysfunctional upbringing and had missed out on a lot of my education. He filled in so many empty spots for me in regards to knowledge, dates and stuff like that.

Today, it drives me crazy. I don't know when the change happened but his brilliance drives me crazy now. I think it has to do with my yearning for an emotional connection. I want him to talk to me about us and about feelings and about stuff that I think everyone else is talking about except us. What he wants to do is known as 'LISTING'.

Listing is an attribute of aspys. I may say something like this to him. "Honey, did you see that car we just passed?"

He won't just say,  "Yeah, it was cool."

No. What will happen is he'll start listing every thing he knows about that car. The type, the background on why it came to be, where it came from, the history of the concept, the history of the car itself and on and on. He'll know the designer's name and where they live and maybe what they like to eat for breakfast. I try not to ask questions anymore.

He's not really talking to me. He's just reciting facts. I used to find this so entertaining. Not so much after ten years. The reason is because it's not balanced. I love that he knows all of this stuff. I'll even ask him, "Where did you learn this?" He'll tell me that he read it. And that will be the end of the conversation. His conversation. I don't get to be a part of it. He never interacts by asking me a question or acknowledging me in any way. He simply lists. There are days where I have patience and days when I don't.

He can spend hours researching. I've seen him stare at his computer for over 8 hours. He can read a book in 2 hours. And he stores all of the information. The problem? Since we've been married, he has jumped from subject to subject. Right now he researching history. He wants to be a writer and share this with others. The problem is that most people don't want to know all of the facts he has learned. It's just too much.

Last year, it was telescopes. Before that it was microscopes, before that, it was motorcycles. He'll learn about something and then move on when he gets bored.

I sound like a complaining and unhappy woman. I'm not really. This stuff does get to me, it's true. But I have hope. My husband's love is the sweetest love I've ever known and for that I'm willing to compromise a lot.

What I've found that works for me to get my needs met is to tell him that I want to be part of the conversation and to explain how that might occur. It's not that he doesn't love me, he just has never had anyone try to be part of his life before. We're both having to learn.

Loneliness

Facing loneliness in Your Marriage

You Are Not Alone

First of all, I want to tell you something that I've learned. If you know someone with aspergers, then you know someone with aspergers. 

They are all different with different levels of autistic behaviors and personalities. Just because someone has been diagnosed with aspergers, doesn't mean that they're mentally ill or deficient in any way. But there are some things that many aspys seem to share.

Theory of Mind

We were sitting having dinner one evening watching the news. The Sandy Hook incident had just occurred and as they showed the story, I began to cry. My husband told me he had something to tell me. 

"I am sorry that this has happened. I know it's a bad thing. But, I don't feel anything."

For my aspy, he was disclosing at a very deep level. He was making himself extremely vulnerable. All I could feel was loneliness. 

A person with aspergers has a hard time feeling something that they haven't experienced on some level in their own life.They do not have the ability to put themselves in in an other's place. This is called Theory of Mind.

For instance, we were at the movie theater watching 'Nebraska', I looked over and saw that he was crying. Nebraska is the story about a father who has begun to exhibit signs of dementia and claims that he has won the lottery and must go to the town identified on the flyer that came to his house so that he can collect.  The story ends up with the son taking the father and all kinds of wonderful things happen between them. 

My husband has longed for intimacy with his father and hence, the tears. He had something he could identify with. He could connect.

Sandy Hook was an incident that he had no experience with, hence, he was incapable of having any emotional response to the story.

Back to the Topic: Loneliness

My husband and I have much in common but not everything. I'm an extremely emotional person. Maybe that's why my husband loves me. But, to be married to someone who has little emotional response to me is often lonely. I want to talk about things and discuss them.

 My husband wants to recite facts which I don't care about. I want him to grab me and kiss me. He doesn't know how or is very clumsy. I watch other couples and yearn for what they have. Of course what I think they have isn't necessarily so good. But it looks good to me. 

What I've learned, is that I have to be RESPONSIBLE for having my needs met. I've learned to form close relationships with other people who enjoy talking about their feelings and want to share with me. It takes a lot of work because I have to go outside my relationship which is where I thought I would find this level of intimacy. I do end up feeling lonely and it can be painful. It makes me angry and sometimes I want to leave or find a lover or anything that can offer me a release. 

I have learned to ACCEPT that I am responsible for my own emotional needs, not my husband. I have found that it also helps to tell my husband my needs. When he holds me, it heals me in so many ways. His hands are warm. He loves me. He will never leave me. I take time to focus on what is right and good. That's my medicine.

The other day I sat at the dining table with my husband. I batted my eyes and asked him if he knew what I was doing. Mind you, we've been married for 10 years. He knows me pretty well.

His response?

You're batting your eyes?

My answer?

I'm flirting with you.

He blushed.

That's kind of what it's like around here. My husband cannot read my non verbal signals. That is tough. I've read articles, books, watched videos and talked to my husband until I'm blue in the face. One article suggested that I structure my life. You know. On Monday this is going to happen, on Tuesday that is going to happen.

Even my husband said, "That only works for washing dishes."

Another suggestion was that I explain myself more clearly.

Explain what? That I love you? That you're driving me crazy? That I try to explain, but you don't understand?

So, here goes. The last time I started this blog, my husband asked me not to do it. He said he was embarrassed. I guess he's less embarrassed because he's blessed the blog, as they say.

In this blog, I'm going to tell you what it's really like married to someone with aspergers. Hopefully, what I share will help you to understand your marriage better and maybe you can tell me things that are working or not working for you.

I do want to say that I love my husband very much. Through all my frustrations and quirky days, he's helped me to understand love in a way I never had. He's pure and that's rare.