Detaching from AS partner

[Guest guest]

Hello everybody.

I rediscovered ASPIRES after a year of being away from the list. It's good to be in contact again.

I am a senior (in years) member, married for 12 years to my second husband who is undiagnosed AS. Thanks to this list and lots of reading I learned a good deal about AS. It cleared up a lot of confusion about why my marriage was so difficult. When I finally got up the nerve to tell my husband about AS he listened but was unresponsive and not interested. I expected this reaction: he comes from an Asian culture where any deviation from "Normal" is considered taboo. I figured that, as the NT partner, equipped with a good understanding of AS, I could be accomodating and understanding, and live with it.

For quite awhile this seemed to work fairly well. I also went back to art school and started painting. My husband is still working full time as an engineer. But in the past few months the relationship for me has deteriorated almost to the point of being unbearable. There's no conflict, just withdrawal. His life centers around his computer, TV and his job. His hours of waking and sleeping have always varied enormously so we agreed that sleeping in separate rooms was a good idea. He also agrees that I need to be out in the world with other people more than he does, and should do what I like. Things that I could tolerate before, like constant self-referral in conversations, his mind-blindedness, monologues delivered at the dinner table on areas of special interest to him now have become like a Chinese water torture.

My reaction has been to emotionally detach. I no longer want to talk to him about the relationship: talking about it never worked very well anyway. I just want to get through it without causing either of us too much pain. I know he cares about me, wants me to be happy, and I feel sorry that he is more isolated than ever. Though whether or not this bothers him, I can't tell. Friends say to me, you have to take care of yourself and be happy, which is true. But still I have a sense of abandonning my husband who is becoming more and more reclusive but says I am his best friend.

I'm sorry Bill W. --who is the same age as my husband--left the list. Comments from AS men were always helpful in the past. So Ron, Greg, can any of you out there gives me some pointers on how to prevent these tectonic plates from widening beyond hope?

B.

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