Aspergers and the imbalance of responsibility

Sometimes I wish I’d listened to those persistent (sometimes raging) doubts that had told me I was making a huge mistake by marrying Ethan.

He is so difficult to live with at times, totally dysfunctional to have a grown-up relationship with and almost impossible to bring up kids with. It leaves me wondering what was left to draw me to him. But I know really – it was the security, the stability and the flattery of being utterly the centre of his world. I was his special interest for as long as it took to get that ring on my finger.

It’s not that he’s stopped trying now, or turned into a tyrant. I know he does his best – most of the time. It’s just that his best is woefully inadequate and it’s so frustrating that his best never gets any better.

I’ve learnt that, when I’m working and he’s in charge of the kids, telling him over the phone what he needs to do doesn’t cut it. He’s forgotten what I’ve said by the time I get off the phone. So these days I text him the information. Today, in the midst of a really hectic schedule, I took the time to text him the information for this afternoon (‘I’ll bring dinner home, could you peel some potatoes, Sam needs to practice his spellings, Oliver’s going to his friend’s house so don’t worry about him and Ava needs picking up from church at 5pm’). I also emailed him Sam’s spellings to practice.

5pm as I leave work I phone Ethan. This is our conversation:

Me: “Could you put the oven on so it’s warming up?’

Ethan: “Oven? Why am I putting the oven…er (I can hear him scrabbling about in his conscious mind trying desperately to remember what he realises he’s supposed to know)…What’s going in the oven?”

Me (exasperated): “It doesn’t matter what’s going in the oven, just that you turn it on please so it’s warming up….(silence)…for the tea…that I’m bringing home.”

Ethan: Right…erm. OK…

Me: “What’s the problem? Just put it on. And then go and get Ava. You do know it’s after 5pm?”

Ethan: “OK (pause)…Where’s Ava?”

By the time I got home, I was already wound up. So the half-cooked pasta, chopped courgette and pepper and cold oven when I got home was enough to break me. I couldn’t even appreciate the fact that he’d made a start on dinner BECAUSE IT WAS THE WRONG DINNER. I HAD THE B*****Y DINNER IN MY BAG!

Me: “You did at least practice Sam’s spellings with him, did you?”

Ethan (pleased with himself) “Yes, I did.”

I felt slightly calmed. It was only when I was putting Sam to bed later that night and he told me that Ethan had grabbed his head to make him look at the spellings that my heart lurched.  Up to that time Ethan had just been annoying and unreliable. But the frequency with which he loses his temper with the kids over normal childhood behaviour (“he wasn’t doing what I said”) genuinely bothers me. As long as I don’t ask Ethan to do anything in the house or with the kids while he’s in charge, there’s no harm done. But there’s also no jobs done, meaning they’re all waiting for me when I get home. And who wants that?

Are you receiving me?!

Anyone else out there in neuro-diverse partnerships experience their NT partner only giving half the information required?! My husband does it all the time! Frustratingly (or perhaps as a sub-conscious means of survival!) my brain never retains the incidents, except for this morning's which is still fresh in my memory...
So, Ethan came into our room, out of no-where while I was getting dressed on holiday and said, 'Do you want to go for a walk by yourself today? I'll look after the kids, I don't mind."
Seemed a bit of a random suggestion for a family holiday so I replied, "erm, no thanks. I'll stay with all of you..."
To which, Ethan, seeming a bit put out, replied, "oh right, ok."
It wasn't until later when I realised the date & mentioned to Ethan that it was the seventh anniversary of my mum dying that he said, genuinely confused, "yeah, I know. I've already spoken to you about it when I offered for you to go for a walk."
The penny dropped...but when I mentioned that he hadn't mentioned the context of it being the anniversary of mum dying he was convinced he had communicated that information. What goes on in his head and what he thinks he's said compared to what he does say seem to be poles apart sometimes!

Managing the unmanageable

Going on holiday in the morning.

Packing has been an interesting meeting of the minds.

Ethan started preparing small 30 ml-sized plastic bottles a couple of weeks ago, along with sticky labels for shampoo, shower gel and conditioner. He also ordered two new suitcases and a weight checker.

Ava texted me when I was out last night pleading with me to come home because Ethan wouldn’t let her take her cleanser (not even in cargo luggage) ‘because it was too big’. He is excelling himself in anal retentiveness and old-woman fussing. Initially it drove me mad. But, as time has gone on, I’ve realised there’s no point fighting it. He is who he is. So I’ve let him do his little labelled bottles, his master packing list and his bag weighing and I’ve sneaked in Ava’s cleanser along with some other non-conforming moisturisers and face-washes. Because I’ve realised that, for Ethan, regimenting the packing, making everything neat and uniform, is his way of controlling the uncontrollable. Because, although the holiday is something he’s looking forward to, it’s also something unfamiliar, out of the ordinary, unchartered. And he needs to be able to compartmentalise it into manageable chunks – quite literally.

And, actually, he was right to buy the extra suitcases. We’d never have got everything into the one big and one small one we had.

Perhaps we do make a good team after all. 

Blame the Aspergers

There are times when I hope my husband’s more frustrating traits are down to Asperger’s Syndrome and not anything else.

…like when I came downstairs this morning to find that our new puppy had pooed all over her bed, and both her blankets. The poo had gone inside the grooves of her cage and smeared onto the wall behind. I was alerted to this fact by my daughter, Ava, proclaiming that Maggie had ‘pooed everywhere’ whilst letting her out of her cage to run her pooey paws all over the house.

What has any of this to do with Ethan and his Asperger’s, you may ask?

It was Ethan that put the puppy to bed last night: without the waterproof mat that I’d placed on top of the cage ready to cover her bed. Instead he’d shoved both her newly-washed blankets inside her bed ready to be smeared with excrement so that we wouldn’t be able to use them the next day.

The kids ended up being late for school, I had to deal with far more poo before breakfast than anyone should have to face and Ethan whizzed himself off to work.

But it’s not just the dog’s bed missing its most important component, it’s the many other omissions, forgettings and just plain vacant moments that make me wonder whether anything at all is going on inside Ethan’s head. And that’s when I hope that it is Asperger’s to blame – rather than my husband just being thick.

The same day (yesterday), I was at work and took the time to text him an itinerary of what our various kids needed to be doing when. By the time I got home at 6.30pm, Ava and her friend should have been at youth club (itinerary instruction #1 ‘Ava and Jessie need to set off at 5.45pm for youth group to be there for 6pm’) and Sam and Ethan should have had their tea and be ready for the Cubs bike ride that was starting at 7pm. Instead what I was greeted with when I got home was Ava and her friend happily playing with the dog half an hour after their youth group had started and Sam and Oliver only just sitting down to their tea. I managed to get the girls out (late) to their club and Ethan and Sam to the bike ride – but they only had a drink and snack because I remembered the water bottles and biscuits that Ethan had forgotten and left by the front door. And Ethan came home freezing because he just walked out of the house in what he was wearing (which wasn’t much).

I asked what was happening (or not happening) in Ethan’s brain when he put the dog to bed and got ready to leave for the bike-ride last night and this is what I discovered:

<what I would be thinking>: ‘Right, I need to put Maggie to bed so she needs her bed in her cage. I’ll take the blanket out so it doesn’t get wee or poo on. And I need to put a mat in to soak up any wee or catch any poo. There we go, ah – isn’t she cute? Here, have a stroke.’

<what Ethan thought> ‘Right, I need to put Maggie to bed. So, grab the bed, put it in the cage, put her in cage.’

<what I would be thinking> ‘Right, I need to get to this bike ride. What do I need? I’ve got bikes and helmets, I need the drink and a snack. Do I need keys – no Laura will be in. Money? No. Jacket? It’s going to get colder, I’ll grab a hoodie.’

<what Ethan thought> ‘Right, I need to go.’

Maybe it’s just a man thing – but it can’t be a man-with-kids thing. With three kids in tow he just needs to think things through a bit more.

I’m going away this weekend and Ethan is responsible not only for looking after our kids for the weekend but also for getting Oliver to football, Ava to dancing, Oliver (later) to a party and Sam to his gym class! Maybe, with me totally out of the picture, he’ll rise to the challenge. And I need to keep giving him the opportunities (or, rather, forcing him to engage his brain) because the alternative is that I do everything all the time, which just leads to me getting resentful and bitter (even if it does mean everything gets done properly)!

Although I can’t rant too much – Ethan’s just whizzed the swimming kit down to school for Sam that I forgot to hand in this morning!

Asperger's and making the most of our differences

I’m reading The Rosie Project at the moment (only on chapter 3 so far but I highly recommend it – it’s brilliant if you want to see the world (and the rest of us) from the perspective of someone with Asperger’s and be able to laugh about our differences – sometimes that’s our best weapon!) As I say, I’m only on chapter 3 but already it’s done a lot in my mind to redress the balance between us (NTs) being right and those with AS being wrong – we’re different: we see things differently, we react to things differently (if we react at all) and therein lies the challenge. We want our AS partners to connect with us, to see things our way. But, actually, by embracing our differences and working as a team to each other’s strengths and weaknesses, could we be the perfect partnership?

I don’t know. It’s a question I’m asking myself too. And I know there are all kinds of hurdles and misunderstandings and frustrations to work through. I also know that, sometimes, like when your AS partner ignores a question or someone’s greeting because he’s zoned out, that Asperger’s is at odds with the world and that, if an aspie wants to build relationships and function well in society, they need to adapt – even change, to a certain extent.

But, at least sometimes, can we combine our very different traits to get the best out of a situation? Take The Rosie Project.

It’s such a breath of fresh air after serious, factual, self-help books that I read some of it out to Ethan – the best part of a chapter. And somewhere, in the middle of the chapter, was a reference to a hot January evening.

I recall briefly (we’re talking a split second) wondering about this as I read that line and surmising that the author must be being sarcastic (as evenings clearly are not hot in January). I, even more briefly, recognised that the sarcasm didn’t really work and was out of character for the narrator of the book but didn’t dwell on it and was onto the next sentence without a second’s hesitation. I had to stop a couple of times during my reading to inform Ethan that ‘this was a funny bit and did he ‘get it’?’ since his face showed no understanding, connection or hint of a smile. He, somewhat exasperatedly, confirmed that ‘yes he did get it and yes it was funny and he was enjoying it, could I please carry on.’ When I reached the end of the section Ethan’s response was: 

‘Is it set in Australia?’

‘Yes,’ I replied, bemused. ‘How do you know that?’ (‘and why is that insignificant fact the one thing you’ve decided to pick up on?’ I thought but didn’t say)

‘Because he says about it being hot in January.’

‘Ohhhhhh,’ I said, the penny dropping, ‘I knew it was set in Australia and still didn’t realise that’s why it would be hot in January. I thought he was just being sarcastic.’

Ethan looked at me scathingly, ‘No. Why would he be?’

Why indeed? The bloke’s got AS for goodness sake! But maybe other details that wouldn’t have made sense to me through the course of the novel now will, thanks to Ethan and his penchant for seemingly unimportant details. We make a good team!

Aspergers Christmas spoiler #3

It's Christmas Day and he's opening the present you’ve bought him. The kids are excited because they’ve ‘helped’ wrap it. He opens it, looks at it, pauses a moment and says…

“Oh dear.”

You know he has Aspergers - that he struggles to understand even his own emotions, that present-giving with all eyes on him waiting for a reaction is particularly pressured for him. But actually, right at that moment, you’re just p****d off. Fed up with having a husband who deflates everyone around him, fed up with having to pander to him and make excuses for him, fed up with him always being miserable. So, even though it’s Christmas Day and you’re in the middle of present-opening and all the kids are there and excited and you don’t want to spoil the day for them, you find you just can’t hold it back.

“What is wrong with you?” you say. “I know you’ve got Asperger's but there’s no excuse for being just bloody rude."

He looks awkward and does a kind of smirk, because he doesn’t know what else to do, and that makes you even madder.

“It’s not funny,” you shout at him, surrounded by wrapping paper and a now crying daughter who’s begging you to stop arguing. “It’s just horrible and rude and it’s now spoiled things for everyone. Why would you say that? Even if it’s not something you want. You must surely know that’s not the right thing to say when you open a present that somebody has brought for you?”

At which point your husband tells you to stop being so sensitive and walks out of the room. And you survey the scene before you of two suddenly quiet boys who’ve developed an intense interest in the game of wildlife scrabble that, two minutes earlier they had cast aside disdainfully as it wasn’t Lego or something with a screen and your daughter who is wiping her tears on her sleeve and you realise that, for their sake as well as your own, you have to come back from this. That you can’t let it write-off Christmas Day. That, actually, for a million different reasons, including the laptop, No.7 toiletry set, pestle and mortar and mini gifts from the kids that he’s bought, wrapped and got the kids to write the labels on for you and the many Christmas social gatherings that he’s come to and forced himself to perform at, you know he loves you and doesn’t mean to mess up so badly. So you kiss the kids, tell them sorry and that it’s going to be fine and you go and find your husband. Although you’re still mad and feel he’s the one that should be apologising, you apologise for your part in the proceedings; for having a go at him on Christmas Day in front of the kids. You tell him that you understand that his Asperger’s makes it difficult for him to know what to say but, of all the things he could have picked to say “Oh dear” was probably the worst. And the steam is taken out of the situation. He apologises too. Says he knows it was a stupid thing to say but that he just couldn’t think of anything else. He admits that he already knew about the present because Ava had given it away two days ago – so he was aware he had to act surprised even though he wasn’t and, it seems, this was too much for his mind to process, along with the pressure of everyone watching him and him being aware there was a kind of protocol that he should be following. He doesn’t know why it was that ‘Oh dear’ came out but you suspect it was an expression of how he felt under the pressure of the situation. After all, Aspies find it hard to edit themselves – what they’re feeling or thinking is generally what comes out while they’re busy trying to think of what they should really be saying!

Christmas Day was saved. Ethan came back into the room, we carried on opening presents. We even kissed in front of the kids to show we weren’t mad with each other. I actually ended up feeling a bit sorry for him – that, even in the relative comfort of his own home with just his family around, he still felt panicked and stressed when he had to play a part that he wasn’t sure of. Is there anywhere, anytime, anyplace that this guy can relax?  Oh yes, that’ll be in the office in the dark playing computer games…until I come and have a go at him for shutting himself in there instead of being with his family. Hmmmm….

It ain’t easy! All we can do is keep picking ourselves up and trying again. 

I wish all of you, AS or NT and despite the surface-level complications, highs and lows, tears and triumphs, a foundation of happiness, acceptance and peace this new year. 

Aspergers and not quite connecting

I heard a talk from someone with Asperger’s Syndrome lately where she mentioned the block that exists between AS and NT (neuro-typical) people: a kind of invisible wall that neither person can penetrate. For the AS person there’s a sense that, however hard they try to interact and impersonate the rules of social engagement they’ll always be just slightly off the mark, left with the sense that they’ve not quite got it right; not quite made the connection. And for the NT on the other side, the feeling that this person that they’re communicating with just isn’t quite getting it; isn’t quite tuned in, is on a different wavelength.

I witnessed this at the weekend. We threw a party on Saturday night (belated bonfire, early Christmas!). Ethan loves getting the house ready for a party – tinkering with mood lighting, organising a system for drinks, selecting a playlist…And, he starts off well – greeting people enthusiastically, offering drinks, asking people questions. But he just can’t keep it going. After a couple of hours he was starting to wilt. By the time we were down to the last few stragglers who didn’t want to leave, mentally, Ethan was gone. I was tired too but, as an NT, I could pretend I wasn’t and give the impression that I was still interested and connected with the conversation. Ethan couldn’t. I saw it as he made his point by tidying up around us and turning the music off as people were still sitting chatting. And when a guy tried to start up a conversation with Ethan by telling him about something funny that had happened that day, there was a very slight delay between him finishing his account and Ethan’s woefully inadequate response of ‘yeah’. Although Ethan was looking at the person speaking, his eyes weren’t focusing on him and even his smile somehow seemed fake. I saw, as clearly as you can see something that’s invisible, the barrier between them.

Mind you, the guy did leave quite promptly after that. Maybe I should hire Ethan out as a service to party hosts wanting to get rid of those last stubborn guests!

Why on earth would anyone marry a man with Aspergers?!

I suppose I got into a relationship with Ethan for two main reasons 1) he grounded me and looked after me and was reliable and strong at a time when I didn't otherwise have those things in my life and 2) I felt I could help him in the areas where he obviously struggled.

It was clear to me quite early on that Ethan had trouble connecting with other people, engaging socially and understanding social situations and cues. But I wasn’t aware of Ethan’s Aspergers until much, much later by which time we were married and had children. The relationship was difficult. We were so different. He frustrated and embarrassed me frequently. I remember being  almost as struck with anxiety as he was before a night out, nervously hoping that this night he would make the effort , that he’d speak to people, that he wouldn’t behave like a miserable git that no-one wanted to be around! I think that was one of the biggest issues early on: that his behaviour and the lack of effort he made with people just made him appear miserable and rude. And why would I want to be with someone like that? We spent a lot of time arguing about how he came across at social occasions and how I’d feel let down by him. Looking back, it must have been hugely frustrating and lonely for him – seeing me breezing about easily chatting to everyone on a night out and knowing that the fact he couldn’t do this – that he could barely hear people and didn’t know how to talk to them – would result in me being angry and upset with him later and there was nothing he could do about it. But at the time, it was inconceivable to me that someone couldn’t learn how to speak to other people and when my efforts at tutoring him in the art of sociability didn’t work, I just saw it as him choosing to be inherently rude and unsociable. A few times we nearly split up – I called off our first engagement. But somehow we stayed together. I think I saw myself as being the person who could change him, who could transform his life and outlook. I’ve always been a sucker for people that ‘need’ me! The other, more positive, factor though is that his unique blend of traits bought with it some characteristics that I found really attractive. In one sense he was hard work but in another, he was really easy. He didn’t want to go out all the time, he wasn’t out with his mates neglecting me in the evenings, he didn’t go to football all day on Saturdays (since then, I’ve realised that he has simply replaced football/sport with his computer!), he was content with me – just me. And being with him was easy – he didn’t talk a lot, I didn’t have to make the effort with him all the time, I could be grumpy and monosyllabic and he didn’t mind. He was always there, always faithful and loyal, always on my side and very rarely complained about any aspect of me – the fact that he was so quiet and simple and stable anchored my flitting, emotional, busy, complicated life. Still today, I am grateful for his simplistic outlook, his unswerving support of me and his plodding faithfulness.

I suppose I thought the big things – his loyalty, his dedication, his hard work, his love for me, his commitment – were worth more than him being able to socialise or being positive. I grew to need him, however much he infuriated me. 

Our relationship and subsequent marriage has never been easy. In the early years I often fantasised about divorce. I felt lonely often, despite being surrounded by friends, and was regularly frustrated, hurt, angry and disappointed by him and his reactions to situations. I spent years trying to artificially carve out friendships for him which never amounted to anything. I suppose I felt I needed my decision to be with Ethan endorsed by the fact that other people wanted to be with him too. The fact he had no real friends was a constant reminder to me that he was just not a likeable person, which just reinforced my doubts as to why I was with him.

Since Ethan has been diagnosed with Aspergers though and I’ve learnt about and understood the syndrome, life together has got better; good even. I no longer try to turn him into something he can’t be which means we’re both less frustrated. We’ve, almost without realising it, made concessions and compromises in our lives that make space for the other person and their needs and, I must credit Ethan here, he has changed. I couldn’t see it while it was happening – it wasn’t happening quickly enough or in the right direction but, looking back to our first years of marriage, he is so much more sociable. He’s learnt tactics for monitoring his behaviour and, although it’ll never come naturally, he’s learning to adapt to circumstances and other people’s needs. He’s even made some friends!

It’s been a rocky, sometimes painful road. But I’ve learnt so much about myself and discovered that I’m married to a unique, complex, incredibly loyal and faithful man who never gives up on us despite the fact that life and relationships are so hard for him. I guess any marriage – any joining together of two totally separate individuals with different hopes, dreams and personalities – is going to be hard. In the end I think it boils down to whether the two of you are prepared to make it work, however much that demands of you. We both needed to be willing to change – not the essence of who we were but how we behaved and reacted, and we both needed to be willing to have our views, perceptions and expectations of life fine-tuned by the other. 

As I write this, Ethan is making me a bacon sandwich before heading off to work for ten hours in the gloom and rain of the day. And he knows, as he does that, that I’m writing this blog post about how flipin’ difficult he is! He is, at heart, a kind and loving man. I’m a lucky woman.

Aspergers and having two of everything!

Our house is full of money...

We have change everywhere – in pretty much every drawer of the house and in both cars. It can’t be touched or, heaven forbid, used. It’s our back-up money which, it seems, is destined to a life of sitting idly in a drawer doing nothing. Knowing it’s there – that each drawer in the house is fully stocked with loose change, somehow brings security for Ethan. Personally, I’d feel more secure if we gathered all of this change up and used it to pay off at least some of our overdraft. 

Still, that’s the way it is and, I must admit, the emergency stash of pound coins in the car have come in useful more than once (even if I do get told off by Ethan for actually using the money!) 

What’s rather more frustrating is his habit of having to have two of everything...

A toothbrush in both bathrooms (plus a spare in the bathroom drawer), deodorant in both bathrooms, his own special towels in each bathroom, two pairs of sunglasses – one for each car, boxes of tissues everywhere (in the car, on the kitchen side, in the front room, on the hall table, on his bedside table, in the bathroom), two cars, two microwaves, two sheds...

You get the idea. It’s a small matter but why he can’t pick his toothbrush up from one bathroom and take it into the other is beyond me, same goes for his sunglasses. He lost a pair recently. We had a couple of days of frustrated, moodiness when he couldn’t find them. I knew, from previous experience, that they would turn up. And they did – but not before he, unable to live in the knowledge that he only had one locatable pair of sunglasses, that things weren’t right – bought a new pair. The next day I found his old pair, without even looking. That pair has now become his ‘house sunglasses’...for those days when the sun coming through the windows in our north facing house is just too bright!

Aspergers and negative reactions

A short (and not that sweet) entry this week but am sure that many of you will relate...

Sometimes (often) it's the little but constant things that are the most annoying and disheartening to deal with.

Yesterday, over dinner, I was telling Ethan about the activities that Ava was going to be doing on her school residential in a couple of weeks. The conversation went something like this:

Me (cheerily): The itinerary sounds really full on. They get them up at 7am, activities start at 8.30am and go right through until 9pm at night. They're doing abseiling, canoeing, raft-making, climbing, caving, obstacle courses, team-building...

Ethan (disdainfully): I hope they've got some good supervision.

And that was the end of that conversation. It was so irritating that, out of all the ways he could have responded -said how good it sounded, what a great time she'd have, even just an 'oh wow' - that he said something negative and scathing. It's like his mind is auto-set to respond in the most negative way possible to every piece of  information. I understood his point - they would need good supervision with that many kids doing those kinds of activities and it was a valid concern. But maybe mention that after you've said how good it sounds or, if you're going to take that as your initial approach, say it in a half-jokey 'wow, it's gonna be crazy' kind of a way. There was none of that with Ethan, just negativity. And the effect on me was instant deflation.

I finished my food, popped my plate in the dishwasher and went upstairs to put the kids to bed, feeling weary. 

Living with an NT can be really hard work!

There are times - the whole of yesterday being one of them - when I realise that, in equal measure (perhaps more so) Ethan could be writing a blog about how hard it is to live with me!

Yesterday we had a family day out. I spent most of the day jabbing verbally at Ethan. On the car journey there I had a go at him for getting overly irritated with a bad driver - hooting his horn and gesticulating rudely (one of the few times he does employ body language!). When we were there I had a go at him for being 'selfish' for not being willing to go in the haunted house with Sam for a second time (it was a bit - the point wasn't really whether he wanted to or not but the fact that Sam wanted him to, a point that seemed lost on him). When he gave the cone bit of his ice-cream to Oliver I told him he was lazy for not taking it to the bin. And when he got concerned about where Ava was, I criticised him for fussing.

I may have had a point on some of these things (his attitude towards other drivers over tiny things when he himself drives with absolutely no courtesy for anyone else at all really makes me mad) but, over the course of the day, I had done many things that could have warranted criticism or being called selfish. I'd been bossy and controlling, I'd been irritable, I'd stressed over things that didn't really matter. Through all of it, Ethan kept quiet.

Right at the end of the day, Oliver wanted his long-sleeved top on to go on a twisty, turny 'hang on for dear life' kind of a ride with me. On searching for the top, we realised that Ethan had taken it back to the car already. I had a go at Ethan (of course) and then looked for the car keys. I couldn't find them and blamed Ethan for losing them, stating that he had gone to the car last. I was convinced he had and proceeded to tell him, step-by-step, why I was right. He was convinced that I was the last one to have the keys and tried to explain to me calmly but firmly why he was right. I very quickly got really annoyed and louder and angrier, the kids backed away, other people at the place stared at us. I just went on and on about why I was right and why he was so annoying. I was horrible.

In the end, he walked away (we'd found the keys), went to the car and got the top for Oliver. When he got back, Oliver excitedly grabbed the top and pulled eagerly at my arm, pleading with me to come on the ride. Ignoring him, I picked up where I'd left off and continued ranting at Ethan about how wrong and annoying and infuriating he was. He told me how horrible I was to spend time with and Oliver gave up and went on the twisty, turny thing by himself. Ethan walked away. Seething, I cornered Oliver on the ride and asked him whether he'd  gone to the car with daddy before or after the ice-cream (this was the crucial point in the argument about whether Ethan or I had gone to the car last). "We had an ice-cream after we came back from the car, mummy," said Oliver simply and innocently. Just the facts. And, in that instant, I realised that he - and Ethan - were right. I'd been the last one to go to the car. Which meant that, the whole time I'd been shouting at Ethan about him being wrong and unwilling to accept what I was saying,  I'd been wrong and unwilling to accept what Ethan was saying.

I said sorry and Ethan was nice. He didn't give me a hard time or dwell on it or repeatedly bring it up. He accepted my apology and we moved on. That was it.

I can't help but think, if the boot was on the other foot, I'd be writing a blog entry about him right now - about how awful and impossible it is to live with a husband with Aspergers, how thoughtlessly he behaves in front of the kids and how long-suffering I am.

Some of the posts on the different-together facebook page lately are about Aspies being 'right' and I do recognise these traits in Ethan. The difference between him and me is that generally, he only insists he's right about something when he knows he is (so they tend to be practical or scientific issues) and he explains calmly (and persistently) why. I, on the other hand, insist I'm right often and impulsively (when quite often I'm not) and go about it passionately, emotionally and intensely. 

We're not always the easier breed to live with!

Aspergers and learning on the job

Well, we went as a shiny, happy, sociable couple to the wedding reception! 

Ethan was making a concerted effort after the near-divorce proceedings that had arisen in the build up to it (see my earlier post) and we had a really lovely time!

I also, it has to be said, was making a concerted effort to be sensitive to Ethan's needs while we were there. When we first arrived there were quite a few single sex groups of people we knew a little bit that ordinarily I would have zoomed right in on and joined the conversation, leaving Ethan floundering. This time, knowing that Ethan would find this group chat overwhelming, I held back. We 'warmed up' in the little seating area next to the main bar where the music was quieter and chatted amicably one-on-one (which is really the only kind of chatting Ethan can comfortably do) with the other people who were hiding out there!

After a while, seeing that Ethan was safely enjoying a conversation with one other man, I went and had a dance. Ethan was able to legitimately excuse himself at regular intervals to go to the bar (I've never been so well attended to!) or the buffet table (proper man-size sausage and bacon butties!) meaning that he had short but regular 'breathers' from conversation.

After a while, when we'd both had a couple of drinks (and sausage sarnies) and were feeling relaxed and people had dispersed a bit either to the bar or to dance or to sit at tables, it was easier for Ethan to chat to one or two people at a time - and he did. I didn't even have to be around. Allowing me to catch up with my friends and to dance  - with all the gay abandon that comes from three glasses of wine!

The fact that he was feeling relaxed and comfortable and was chatting easily with people boosted Ethan's confidence which, in turn, made him more sociable which made him more confident. It also helped that he had something specific to talk about that he was interested in and that was interesting for other people (blokes at least). Yes, you've guessed it, (that bloody car) that I ranted about in an earlier blog has come into its own in more ways than one!

We came home and didn't argue. There was no awful feeling of dissatisfaction or embarrassment or frustration or of not fitting in for either of us. And we fell asleep cuddling (a bit too much wine for anything else!)

The night really was an on-the-job tutorial for how to get the best from a night out with an AS partner. And all it took from me was a bit of patience, a bit of understanding and, until Ethan was ready to wade in, a bit of holding back.