By J A Morgan B Ed Grad Dip NSWTFRTA
January 4th, 2012
“We used this knowledge of the so-called (Asperger’s) disorder to rebuild our marriage. With my diagnosis she found patience and understanding, I found self-acceptance and the will to learn to manage the behaviors that strained our relationship, and together-together-we are finding our way to the marriage we always wanted”. Says David Finch on John Robison’s Web Page.
Premise: Marriages/Relationships between Non-Asperger Partners and Asperger Partners Are Extremely Difficult: Just as a relationship when both people are Asperger is difficult
Dr John Gottman (2) of the Gottman Relationship Institute says that in his years of research into marital relationships –interviewing and studying more than two hundred couples over 20 years, that a lasting marriage results from a couple’s ability to resolve the conflicts that are inevitable in any relationship and other vital ingredients.
The widely defined deficits and impairments of Asperger’s syndrome/autism spectrum disorder (AS) will also have a huge impact on the ability of the person to carry out the maintenance of a lasting marriage/relationship with a non-Asperger (non-AS) spouse/partner/carer.
The honest appraisals of the difficulties in their relationships of long-term marriage and young love described by: David Finch and his former wife Kristen “How to Live a High Functioning Life with Asperger’s” (4); Jack Robison jnr with his girlfriend Kirsten “My Life with Asperger’s” (5); Lindsey Nebeker and Dave Hamrick “They’re Autistic and They’re in Love” (6) give a long look into what would also occur within a relationship between a person with Asperger and a non-AS spouse/partner/carer.
The authors are all on the spectrum; and have shed new light on why a relationship with an AS and a non-AS will also struggle to be successful. Despite this the above mentioned are to be congratulated for the insight into their struggles.
The younger couples have described their intimate relationship with another person on the spectrum but the difficulties they encounter will be magnified when a person with AS attempts a relationship with a non-AS person who is defined as having achieved mature developmental levels. These young people are to be commended for their efforts to navigate a very difficult and trying time.
What is particularly disturbing is that in the 16 or so years that Autism spectrum has been identified there has been very little acknowledgement by the medical and psychiatric/psychological community that those with AS do desire to have relationships and that many of them marry. The difficulties of AS with social interaction compound the difficulties in the relationship; especially when there is a non-AS partner. The real difficulties of non-AS partners/carers/spouses are parallel to those encountered by the person on the spectrum, but compounded by neurological differences which are overwhelming.
“Only since the mid-1990s have a group of socially impaired young people with otherwise normal intelligence and language development been recognized as the neurological cousins of nonverbal autistic children. Because they have a hard time grasping what another is feeling— a trait sometimes described as “mind blindness” — many assumed that those with such autism spectrum disorders were incapable of, or indifferent to, intimate relationships. Parents and teachers have focused instead on helping them with school, friendship and, more recently, the workplace.
Yet as they reach adulthood, the overarching quest of many in this first generation to be identified with Asperger syndrome is the same as many of their non-autistic peers: to find someone to love who will love them back.”
Kirsten says of her diagnosis in 2010 around 18 years of age, after her answer came as the result of a six-hour battery of tests, that “no prescription would come with a diagnosis”. The only treatment for AS was for the side effects of anxiety and depression. “In online forums, she encountered sceptics who saw Asperger’s as an excuse for rudeness. Bullies who accuse NT’s and others of bullying”.
“Many children of her generation who probably had Asperger’s, she read, were misdiagnosed with A.D.H.D. because autism carried more of a stigma. Girls with the condition, one theory went, were overlooked because their shyness was tolerated more and “mother hen” friends might shield them from the worst social isolation, as had happened to Kirsten.”
In the past, and sometimes today, those with AS have been undiagnosed or misdiagnosed and had gone on to marry non-AS, who were unaware of their AS spouse’s condition. This has resulted in confusion and despair for the non-AS partner, because they are unable to explain why their relationship is so dysfunctional. These articles written about the self-identified difficulties in maintaining relationships for those with AS gives insight and an obvious explanation why a marriage between people with vastly different developmental levels (non-AS and AS) will probably never be a successful union.
Kirsten has acknowledged the strong possibility of a genetic link with AS: “she gave little thought to his condition, other than to note that it ran in families”.
Kirsten and Jack also note that drug trials they participated in “seemed to have no effect”.
To classify a marriage, Gottman looks at the frequency of fights, the facial expressions and physiological responses of both partners during their confrontations, as well as what they say to each other and in what tone of voice they interact verbally. For those with AS their lack of modulation in the tone of voice is a difficulty. Lindsey describes how “it takes effort to not sound robotic”.
There’s much more to a successful marriage than knowing how to fight well, however.
One of the first things to go in a marriage is politeness. Kirsten observes that Jack’s body language could be construed as impolite. “Jack held himself stiffly, spoke with an unusual formality and rarely made eye contact.” As laughter and validation disappear criticism and pain well up: attempts to get communication back on track seem useless and partners become lost in hostile and negative thoughts and feelings.
Successful couples usually addressed their issues before their anger boiled over. They deal with disagreements by having discussions, sometimes over several days or weeks where each can air their perspective, rather than shouting matches. Usually they arrive at a compromise. Even when discussing a hot topic they display a lot of ease and calm; have a keen ability to listen to and understand each other’s emotions. These couples are called “validators”. In the midst of the disagreement they still let their partners know they consider their emotions are valid, even if they don’t agree with their point of view. This is the expression of their mutual respect. It helps to limit the number of arguments by solving problems.
Dr Edward A. Dreyfus (1) says marriage has begun to take on a different meaning and serve a different purpose than was traditionally the case. Today’s marriages, more than any time in history, depend more upon communication, intimacy, relating, compromise, negotiation and understanding. We must be able to negotiate in the living room and make love in the bedroom, and be skilled at both. There is a distinct lack of skill with AS to fulfil these requirements: “Jack had trouble reading Kirsten’s expressions and body language.” Jack also has difficulty revealing his emotions through body language: “Jack, Kirsten noticed, bit his lips, a habit he told her came from not knowing how he was supposed to arrange his face to show his emotions.” This will make it impossible for a non-AS to connect emotionally with someone with AS: non-AS “read” much more than just the spoken word.
Expectations in loving have similarly changed. Since love-making is no longer exclusively for the purpose of procreation, no longer just for a man’s pleasure, and it is no longer expected that men be more knowledgeable and experienced then women, then couples expect more from one another, requiring greater communications between them.
Therefore, the very basis for marriage changes from fulfilling certain functions to fulfilling emotional and psychological needs. Kirsten complains “We’re so platonic” about her relationship with Jack. She accurately describes what it’s like to be in a relationship with someone on the spectrum.
Psychologist, Dr Judith S. Wallerstein, co-author of The Good Marriage: How and Why Love Lasts, carried out in-depth interviews with 50 couples who have been married at least nine years, had children together and independently regarded their marriage as happy. Dr Wallerstein identified “psychological tasks” as the pillars on which any marital relationship rests.
The following are Dr Wallerstein’s tasks:
- Separate emotionally from one’s childhood so as to invest fully in the marriage and, at the same time, redefine the lines of connection with both families of origin. Those on the autism spectrum because of the developmental deficits; remain immature and naïve throughout their lives.
- Build togetherness based on mutual identification, shared intimacy and an expanded conscience that includes both partners, while at the same time setting boundaries to protect each partner’s autonomy. However, “To Jack, who has a form of autism called Asperger syndrome, her mind was uncannily like his.” This is an unemotional approach to attraction and love. It was purely her mind that interested him. “She was also, he thought, beautiful.” Yet he did not tell her.
- Establish a rich and pleasurable sexual relationship and protect it from the incursions of the workplace and family obligations; it is the second part of this task which must not be overlooked or taken for granted. “The months that followed Jack and Kirsten’s first night together show how daunting it can be for the mind blind to achieve the kind of mutual understanding that so often (may) elude even” non-Asperger people. When AS is added to the mix with a non-AS person there is very little mutual understanding.
A sexual relationship for a non-AS person with someone on the spectrum is unsatisfying and very difficult. There is a lack of spontaneity and joy.
The difficulties are illustrated by the relationship between Jack and Kristen:
“From the beginning, their physical relationship was governed by the peculiar ways their respective brains processed sensory messages. Like many people with autism, each had uncomfortable sensitivities to types of touch or texture, and they came in different combinations. Jack recoiled when Kirsten tried to give him a back massage, pushing deeply with her palms.
“Pet me,” he said, showing her, his fingers grazing her skin. But Kirsten, who had always hated the feeling of light touch, shrank from his caress.” Their sexual encounters lacked spontaneity and joy. They became choreographed and stylised. “When I put my hand on your leg,” she said, “you put your arm on my back.”
- (for couples with children) Embrace the daunting roles of parenthood and absorb the impact of baby’s dramatic entrance into the marriage. At the same time the couple must continue the work of protecting their own privacy. Lindsey and Dave are to be commended for their genuine, mature consideration of whether to be parents or not. Just as non-AS, sensibly, have to weigh up possibilities of having children. “Marriage, they say, is a possibility; children, they’re less sure about. Both worry about a genetic predisposition to autism, a valid concern, especially given that both Lindsey and her brother have the disorder. Even if they adopt, parenting seems perilous. “Dealing with our rituals and sensory issues demands so much from us,” says Lindsey, “that I don’t know how we’d take care of someone else.”
- Confront and master the inevitable crises of life and maintain the strength of the marital bond in the face of adversity and create a safe haven within the marriage for the expression of difference, anger and conflict. David Finch was unable to monitor the inevitable breakdown of his relationship. He describes how “Marriage can be a slow boil. When you’re married, and things aren’t going so great, the threshold of pain and drama and wackiness tends to creep up imperceptibly as you go about your daily lives.” This demonstrates the result of his mind blindness, lack of social understanding, lack of empathy and inability to read his own emotions.
Use humor and laughter to keep things in perspective and to avoid boredom and isolation. Kirsten describes how she began researching ASD and found some answers for herself. She accurately describes the lack of growth and change which is healthy and necessary for a mature relationship.
“In one chapter about the repetitive behavior and thought-process “ruts” that are common among autistic people, she saw her own difficulty climbing out of her black moods.” It is very difficult for neurotypicals to live with the routines and black moods of those with ASD.
* Provide nurturance and comfort to each other, satisfying each partner’s need for dependency and offer continuing encouragement and support. David describes how he became “A husband who couldn’t show her the kind of support she needed,” because of his lack of social understanding. Kirsten, who discovers she is also on the spectrum, notes that a former non-AS boyfriend had become her “social coach”. She had come to rely on him for prompts and their relationship eventually broke down because there was no mutual satisfying of each other’s needs. It was too much a one-sided relationship for the neurotypical boyfriend.
* Keep alive the romantic, idealized images of falling in love, while facing the sober realities of the changes wrought by time. Kirsten describes the longing and sadness of those who have an intimate relationship with someone with autism spectrum:
“Still, Kirsten’s wish for more physical affection from Jack was proving harder to manage. Once, during a family gathering at his father’s house, she saw Mr Robison put his arms around the woman he had been dating and would soon marry. That, she thought with a pang, was more than Jack would do unprompted even if there was no one around.”
While giving a seminar presentation one day, Jack was asked “Where do you guys see your relationship going in the future?” He responded with “I see it going along the way it is for the foreseeable future.” Jack does not present a picture of growth and change, but routine only.
Dr Wallerstein’s tasks are not easy. To accomplish them requires that each spouse be committed to enhancing their marriage and making it work. In addition, they require that each spouse be equally committed to their own personal growth as well as the growth of their partner. The preservation and enhancement of the marriage partnership must be a top priority.
The difficulties in accomplishing this are obvious in the story of the purchase of the cat for Kirsten with Jack placing many conditions on the purchase as he really wants all the attention from Kirsten focused on him. There is no agreement about petrol purchase and the cat finally chosen is conditional upon it liking to play with Jack’s laser pointer.
Ironically the cat hides when taken home and none of them seem inclined to play with the laser pointer anymore:
“A cat, she thought, would help more. In recent weeks, she had been showing him irresistibly cute pictures of kittens … But she did not mention the cat that night. Instead, she asked if he would come to bed with her rather than staying up to play Eve.
“Will you pet me if I come to bed?” he asked. She agreed.
Around Thanksgiving, Jack began to think that he should let Kirsten get a cat. Maybe he would keep the idea a secret, he thought, and make it a Christmas gift. He wasn’t sure. But Kirsten, taking matters into her own hands, stopped by the animal shelter one day to see if it was possible to get a hypoallergenic cat. There is no such thing, she told him on arriving home, but females, the shelter staff had told her, are less allergenic — so perhaps that was an option. “Forget it, then,” Jack said absently.” He cruelly dismisses her needs.
“He had not meant it as a final word. But Kirsten, feeling tears welling up, employed one of the new strategies she had discussed in therapy: going out for a drive, rather than wallowing.
Jack called on her cell phone almost as soon as she pulled out of their street.
“What are you doing?” he asked. “Are you — leaving?”
Trying to control her voice, she said nothing. And then, she managed, “No.”
She was driving into Amherst, hoping to see a friend.
In the apartment alone, he paced, the phone to his ear.
“Kirsten,” he said. “Just come back. We’ll get the cat.”
He did have one requirement: it had to be able to chase a laser pointer.
The next morning, Kirsten woke up from a nightmare: they were late to get the cat, and she couldn’t reach Jack. She was riding a motorbike with pedals in weird places, and she couldn’t find the animal shelter.
In fact, they would have just enough time to reach the shelter before it closed after getting breakfast and buying a laser pointer with a lower-intensity red beam than his green one to test the prospective adoptees.
In the car, Kirsten noticed a blinking “E” on the gas gauge, and the couple had the following exchange:
Kirsten: Oh, we need to get gas. Do you want to stop at the 7-Eleven?
Jack: No, we’ll stop on the way back.
Kirsten: How can you not get stressed when that thing is blinking?
Jack: I’m not intimidated by liquid crystal displays.
Kirsten: You know what I mean, you get anxious about everything.
Jack: I know we have at least 20 miles of gas.
Kirsten: We have to drive seven miles there, and then seven back.
Jack: No, we have three miles back.
Kirsten: Should we just stop at 7-Eleven?” This is another of the pointless semantic arguments which are so emotionally draining for all concerned.
Both of them breathed a sigh of relief when the only female kitten at the shelter pounced without hesitation on the red laser beam Jack shined into her cage. At home, however, she ran straight under the old-fashioned bathtub. Jack bent down and scooped up the kitten, holding her up to the mirror above the sink. Kirsten stroked her black fur in his arms, their hands touching briefly across the kitten’s back, and in the reflection.
“Are you looking at yourself in the mirror?” Jack asked the kitten. “Are you smart enough to recognize yourself?”
They stood for a moment together, awaiting the reaction.” Non-AS ironically, can wait forever for a reaction from their spouses with ASD.
Psychologist Dr Howard Markman at the University of Denver believes that “Love and commitment to the relationship are necessary for a good marriage, but they are not enough. What are needed, on top of that, are skills in effective communication and how to handle conflict.” David describes how his roleplaying and inability to know what to do in a relationship resulted in unintentional deception.
“We got engaged, and still I did everything I could to impress her, because, as I understood it, that’s what a person did when they landed themselves a fiancée. I showered Kristen with affection and praise, went out of my way to act supportive, and never once voiced a negative thought or feeling. What was not to love about that guy?” There was no chance for Kristen, his future wife, to see the real David before the marriage took place.
Dr Markman, along with Dr Clifford Notarius of Catholic University of America, studied 135 about-to-be-married couples. “How you handle conflict is the single most important predictor of whether your marriage will survive,” according to Dr Markman.
These researchers found that certain behavior patterns usually signaled an impending collapse in the marriage:
- When either partner withdraws from conflict. Jack hovered when Kirsten was crying unable to know what to do to console her.
- The tendency to escalate conflict in the face of disagreement and the inability to stop fights before they get ugly. The language processing difficulties of ASD present major obstacles to resolving arguments.
“And then there was the characteristic of autism — focusing on a detail rather than the whole —that seemed to define the nit-picky arguments she and Jack had daily, even hourly, it sometimes seemed. There was the one, for example, when they were trying to recount something that had happened at a particular hotel, but could not advance past the semantics of its size.
“The hotel was miles wide,” Kirsten had started. “And — ”
“It was not ‘miles’ wide,” Jack had broken in. “It was maybe an acre, but not a mile wide, I can guarantee it.”
“I don’t think you can guarantee it,” she had retorted — and so on.
These fights, which Jack had dubbed “Aspie arguments,” were not soul-sapping, like the ones where he could not comprehend her need for a certain kind of comfort and she could not abide his inability to give it. But the cumulative effect was exhausting.”
It must also be noted there is no resolution to what should not have been an argument in the first place.
“It had been Jack’s similar escalation of arguments with his father that had prompted John Robison to send him to the therapist who gave him the Asperger’s diagnosis at age 15.”
* The tendency to invalidate the relationship by hurling insults at each other. Dr Markman says, “One ‘zinger’ counteracts 20 positive acts of kindness.”
It should be noted that neither Wallerstein nor Markman say that we should avoid conflict. Conflict in marriage is inevitable. How we deal with conflict is the important issue.
Dr John Gottman has also found that successful couples all do the following things:
* Show interest in one another. When one partner is speaking, whether arguing or not, the other partner is interested in what’s being said. Their minds are not wandering, thinking up the next arguing point or watching TV. They are paying attention. There is too much effort involved for those with AS to engage in the daily sharing and showing interest in each other. Lindsay and Dave say: “Both (of us) often come home exhausted, like actors who’ve been on stage all day. That’s one reason (we) need so much time alone after work, and why (we) rarely call each other to check in and chat.”
“Every day, we put out so much effort to speak properly in the workplace and other social settings,” says Lindsey. “When we talk on the telephone, our conversations normally don’t last long because we get uneasy when the small-talk script runs out.”
* They are affectionate with each other in little ways such as touching, holding hands and expressing their affection for their partner. The difficulties of Jack and Kirsten in their ability to show affection in a physical sense are obvious:
“So far they had only cuddled; Jack, who had dropped out of high school but was acing organic chemistry in continuing education classes, had hopes for something more. Yet when she smiled at him the next morning, her lips seeking his, he turned away.” Jack doesn’t like kissing. “‘I don’t really like kissing,’ he said. Kirsten, 18, a college freshman, drew back. If he knew she was disappointed, he showed no sign.”
Jack’s inability to read Kirsten’s body language when she “drew back” is a result of the deficits of ASD. He does not acknowledge her disappointment and non-understanding as a result. There is no opportunity for her feelings to be acknowledged.
There is further evidence of the reasons why a non-AS cannot have a physical relationship with someone with ASD described by Jack and Kirsten:
“He tried to kiss her, but it was hard for her to enjoy it, so obvious was his aversion. To him, kissing felt like what it was, he told her: mashing your face against someone else’s. Neither did he like the sweaty feeling of hand-holding, a sensation that seemed to dominate all others whenever they tried it.”
* Show they care by small acts of kindness and thoughtfulness, such as bringing flowers or a gift without a particular occasion or making phone calls to say, “Thinking of you”. Non-AS are able to use non-verbal communication and observation to discover what their beloved may like for a present. Jack is unable to do this, so he does nothing. He could also have asked Kirsten what she might like. They later come to this solution:
“For his part, Jack rejoiced to find that Kirsten did not hold certain social expectations that had caused him anxiety with a high school girlfriend. He apologized, for instance, that he failed to get her a Christmas present because he had not been able to think of what she would like.”
* Showing appreciation by thinking, remembering and saying positive things about each other. Stephen Shore, author, and a man diagnosed with autism spectrum says that “without a natural understanding of communication it’s much more difficult for people with autism to find and sustain an intimate relationship.”
* Show concern by paying attention to things that are bothering their partner and being supportive without trying to fix things. Jack’s attempts at comforting Kirsten are begrudging and conditional: “stiffly wrapping his arms around her, against all that seemed natural to him.” He couldn’t bring himself to comfort or touch Kirsten when he had unwittingly hurt her feelings with his bluntness of speech.
* They are empathic and show they really understand what their partner is going through. David has great difficulty with Kristen getting close to him and being understood himself. “So, how could Kristen have known what it was like to be me? I barely knew what it was like to be me”. His lack of Theory of Mind and a lack of Theory of his own Mind have crippled his efforts at being empathic and relating to his spouse’s and his own needs.
* They are accepting, even when they disagree. They let their spouse know they understand and respect their point of view. Jack is unable to do any of this to resolve a dispute. He won’t accept responsibility that if Kirsten feels slighted, she may have been and that should be acknowledged. He simply wanted to be alone and to leave Kirsten alone. He doesn’t try after a while to even find out what the problem is with Kirsten. Kirsten suffers through Jack’s lack of empathy and mind blindness. He has no idea how to comfort her.
“Jack, believing himself accused of a slight he had not made, could not bring himself to touch her. He’s unable to see that he hurt her with his bluntness and took offence. He needed to be apart, to cool down.
Once, he had tried to do as she requested, stiffly wrapping his arms around her, against all that seemed natural to him. But when it only seemed to elicit more tears, he did not try again. Instead, he hovered near her. “Stop crying,” he would say, pacing the perimeter of the small apartment and returning to where she sat.”
* Good marriage partners use humour, silliness and teasing in a loving way; never a hostile or sarcastic manner. The stories display an absence of humor or obvious easy spontaneous, reciprocal affection. Kirsten says that her visit to Jack’s mother’s place was unsuccessful because the mother didn’t even notice that they weren’t just platonic friends.
* Sharing their joy when they are delighted or excited about something or having fun they let each other know. The stories show very little joy and delight because their lives are a self-confessed struggle to navigate daily interactions.
After studying couples who wound up divorced, Gottman found their arguments and conflicts had four things in common which guaranteed a marriage would fail.
Using criticism which is an attack on the very nature of the person in question: The blunt language of ASD is shown when Kirsten is cooking. Even though Jack is simply trying to “educate” in his didactic way, it is still perceived as criticism by Kirsten, who is doing her best. Jack comes across as very unkind and ends up insulting Kirsten who is very hurt by his comments.
“One night as Kirsten cooked dinner, he peered into the pan where she was sautéing vegetables to comment on the way she had cut the cauliflower.
“It’s too big,” he explained. “It won’t cook through.”
“It’s better when it’s not all mushy,” she insisted.
“No,” he said. “You’re just doing it wrong.”
Eventually, Kirsten, unable to contain her tears, fled to the living room.”
Contempt is the deliberate intention to insult and psychologically abuse your partner by: insults and name calling, hostile humour with contemptuous jokes or stories, mockery and subtle put-down; negative body language such as sneering and rolling your eyes only serves to escalate the conflict.
Defensiveness is evident when our automatic response to thinking we are being attacked and to avoid any responsibility is to react defensively by: denying responsibility; making excuses such as “I couldn’t help it”, I didn’t mean it”, “It was beyond my control”; negative mind-reading by one person saying they know what the other is thinking and the whole thing spirals out of control. The quoted conversations show these are features of Aspie fights.
Negative Rubber man/Rubber Woman/“Tit for Tat” is when couples up the ante by ever expanding accusations and put downs. The disagreements and misunderstandings between Jack and Kirsten, along with their lack of ability to resolve arguments caused them both great distress. Their mind-blindness compounds the escalation of what would not even be an issue for a neurotypical. The nit-picking described by Kirsten becomes “tit for tat”. A neurotypical feels that same distress, being unable to stop or resolve what is really a non-argument.
“It was the disagreements that spiralled into serious conflicts when they could not understand and, then, find a way to comfort each other that threatened to break them apart. One might start over Kirsten’s request that Jack hug her when she came home from school, or his perception that she was already angry at him when she came through the door.
“The more we argue, the worse it gets,” Jack said once, close to despair.”
The outlook for couples is not good. They may be trapped in a negative cycle.
Suggestions from Eugene Kayser, (3) marriage and family therapist, for making a marriage work:
Be Realistic. Couples often go into marriage with idealistic notions of what marriage is all about. Each individual should make clear what their explicit and implicit expectations are and clarify these expectations such that they are clearly understood by one another. Where there are discrepancies, a mutually satisfying compromise must be reached. The belief by David that he had to always be what he believed to be “perfect”, before marriage, in order to impress Kristen, could not be sustained after marriage. It was too difficult to maintain the façade and he describes:
“By our third anniversary, the illusion I’d created had been shattered, and Kristen found herself married not to the husband she’d always wanted, but to a husband who had no idea how to go with the flow.”
Do Not Take One another For Granted. This can be a killer for a relationship. It usually occurs sometime after the honeymoon period. When our partner feels taken for granted, not respected or acknowledged, and feels that others are a higher priority than him/herself, resentment brews. A regular “state of the union” check-in with your spouse as to how s/he is feeling about the relationship can help avert resentment build-up.
Communication Skills. Being able to communicate is one of the greatest assets in any relationship. Being able to articulate our thoughts and being certain that the listener understands what you wish to say take considerable practice. Often we believe we are saying one thing, while the listener is hearing something entirely different. The listener often is responding to either what they believed you to say or their own interpretation.
Communication requires both good transmission skills (articulation) and good receptive skills (listening). Without both, communication will be at best difficult. Jack describes part of his attraction to Kirsten involved a distinctly one-sided didactic conversation pattern.
“She was the only girl to have ever asked questions about his obsessive interests —chemistry, libertarian politics, the small drone aircraft he was building in his kitchen — as though she actually cared to hear his answer.” Joint attention is a wish to share with others. Jack wants to “educate”, not share.
The approach, often referred to as “active listening,” once learned can prevent misunderstandings and serve to keep emotions under control. It is difficult to react emotionally if you are truly listening and have to communicate understanding before you get a chance to react.
David honestly describes how his need to concentrate on one thing at a time and reluctance to be interrupted by his loved one resulted in a form of abuse: “A husband who lost his temper whenever his concentration was disrupted-even when it was disrupted by an act of affection, such as a kiss or a simple hello.”
Jack and Kirsten also had great difficulty with communication:
“On that fall day in 2009, Kirsten did not know that someone as intelligent and articulate as Jack might be unable to read the feelings of others, or gauge the impact of his words.”
Keep the Romance Alive. Maintaining the romance in a relationship is vital to the vibrancy of the relationship
Develop Sexual Skills One of the most common problems that couples have is the lack of innovation. Sex becomes boring. Such predictability can lead to staleness and apathy. Communication about sexuality and the willingness to experiment will keep the bedroom activities exciting, interesting and fun.
Be Complimentary. It costs nothing to compliment your partner and it sure feels good to receive them. We are often tardy about paying compliments to our mates, letting them know that we think they are pretty/handsome, smart, clever, well-dressed, kind, a good parent, etc. We do not have to wait until some occasion when we purchase a greeting card to let our mates know that we think they are special.
Show Appreciation. Another small thing that feels good. Thanking your partner for making dinner or taking out the trash, picking up clothes from the dry-cleaners, and in general letting him/her know that s/he is appreciated can go a long way in creating a caring environment. Couples are very quick to criticize one another when chores do not get done, but they are very remiss when it comes to showing appreciation.
Honesty with kindness and consideration is the corner stone of building and maintaining trust. Without trust there is no hope of the marriage surviving.
David describes how “I could possibly elude a diagnosis if I assumed the right character while talking to a psychologist for an hour or two”. He is desperately trying to “act normal” and “look normal” and describes how “we dated for a year, a period of time that, in some ways, felt like a twelve-month-long audition.” … “After we were married, and we were living together around the clock, Kristen began to understand exactly what was hard to love about that guy: he wasn’t entirely real.”
The subterfuge begins to unravel after marriage. David is unable to tell how he feels about himself and thus unwittingly brings dishonesty to the marriage.
Kirsten’s boyfriend has difficulty with the perceived rudeness and disrespect shown by Kirsten towards his mother:
“And sometimes, he was plainly upset by what he perceived as her rudeness. ‘I can’t believe you did that,’ he huffed when his mother asked Kirsten how she was and she did not reciprocate.”
Every non-AS has the same reaction to the perceived disrespect shown sometimes by those on the spectrum.
Non-AS will continue to have an optimistic view that the relationship will grow and improve, which simply compounds their distress when the person with ASD finds it extremely difficult and almost impossible to change. Kirsten’s boyfriend describes it thus:
He “was convinced that with some effort she could become as socially adept as he was.”
The truth of the situation is that the person with ASD cannot make any real significant change because of the way their brain is wired.
As can be seen from the foregoing, maintaining a contemporary marriage is no easy task. It requires hard work. To think that a successful marriage — that is a relationship between two people that is fulfilling, enhancing of one’s sense of self-esteem, emotionally gratifying, nurturing, and supportive — can be achieved by merely living under the same roof without investing effort and time, would be naive thinking. Some individuals believe that marriage should be easy, and if it is not, they think something is wrong.
Marriage, like any other worthwhile endeavor, requires patience and practice. Today’s marriages are more than just two people living under the same roof. They are complex and dynamic entities that become even more complex as children enter the picture. For then there are additional dynamics that must be incorporated into the mix.
Maintaining a marriage is one of our most significant challenges. David describes the impossibility of a non-AS/AS intimate relationship working:
“That’s how Asperger syndrome can so thoroughly destroy a relationship that at one time seemed (to me) invulnerable. If it’s well-hidden, and you’re not specifically looking for it, the condition can reveal itself slowly, one misunderstanding and baffling meltdown at a time.”
He laments a heartbreakingly slow decline in the marriage coupled with intermittent reward and abuse, due to the inconsistency of positive behaviours; only negative responses.
Lindsey and Dave realise their relationship will be a “lifelong struggle”.
Stephen Shore, (7) author of “Beyond the Wall” and international expert on autism, has said of relationship possibilities; those with AS “have hearts that feel; it’s the funky wiring in their brains that makes things so challenging.”
It is a truly, almost impossible, challenge for partners with ASD and their partners who are non-Asperger’s, to maintain and nurture a healthy, satisfying mature marriage relationship.
References:
1. Making Your Marriage Work by Dr Edward A. Dreyfus
http://www.docdreyfus.com/making_your_marriage_work.html
Dr Edward A. Dreyfus is in private practice in Santa Monica, California where he practices as a clinical psychologist, divorce mediator and life coach. He offers individual and group psychotherapy as well as couples therapy and sex therapy. In his coaching practice he works with individuals seeking to enhance and balance their professional, career and personal life.
Dr Dreyfus is a Licensed Psychologist and a Licensed Marriage, Family, & Child Therapist. He is also a Certified Sex Therapist of the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, a Diplomate and Fellow of the American Board of Sexology, a Fellow of the Academy of Clinical Sexologists, a Diplomate in Professional Psychotherapy of the International Academy of Behavioral Medicine, Counseling, and Psychotherapy, Inc., and a Diplomate of the American College of Forensic Examiners. Dr Dreyfus is a Registrant in the National Register of Health Service Providers in Psychology and is a Registrant in the National Register of Certified Group Psychotherapists.
In 1996, he was the recipient of the prestigious Distinguished Psychologist Award given by the Los Angeles County Psychological Association. Dr Dreyfus has written three books, several book chapters, over two dozen professional articles, and has presented at many professional meetings.
2. What makes marriage work? It’s how you resolve conflict that matters most.
By Dr John Gottman and Nan Silver published on March 01, 1994. Reviewed October 01, 2009
3. Good Marriage or Failed Marriage? What Works & What Won’t!
Eugene Kayser MA, MFT Lic Marriage & Family Therapist
4. How to live a high-functioning life with Asperger’s by John Elder Robison
Love Is Blind, Marriage Is the Eye-opener. What’s it like, being married with Asperger’s? December 13, 2011 by John Elder Robison
David Finch is an author and lecturer. His debut memoir, THE JOURNAL OF BEST PRACTICES (Scribner; January 3, 2012) is available for pre-order now. David lives in Illinois with his wife and their two children.
5. My Life With Asperger’s New York Times Navigating Love and Autism By AMY HARMON Published: December 26, 2011 GREENFIELD, Mass.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/26/us/navigating-love-and-autism.html?_r=4&pagewanted=all
6. They’re Autistic—and they’re in Love. Lindsey Nebeker and Dave Hamrick each used to wonder if they’d ever find lasting love. Here’s how they came together—and how, side by side, they face the world. February 2, 2009 by Lynn Harris
Writer Lynn Harris is a contributing editor at Glamour.
http://www.glamour.com/magazine/2009/02/theyre-autistic-and-theyre-in-love?currentPage=1
7. Stephen Shore, author of Beyond the Wall is an internationally recognized expert on autism who has the disorder himself.
