― Jennifer Megan Varnadore
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| Aspies will always find someone else to blame, even if they were the only one there when they dropped the egg. |
In any marriage, it takes two to tango. In any marriage, sometimes you're at fault, sometimes they're at fault. But in an Aspie marriage, it's ALL your fault.
Aspies deflect blame like it's required to breathe. Did your Aspie zip his penis up in the zipper of his pants? It's all your fault for buying him the pants that have an OBVIOUSLY faulty zipper.
Did your Aspie run someone off the road because they didn't look over their shoulder when they changed lanes? It's all your fault for being in the car with him, playing the radio. As a side note to this one: My STBE did run someone off the road, once, because he changed lanes and didn't look over his shoulder. When I asked him later why he didn't look over his shoulder, he told me, "If I looked over my shoulder every time I changed lanes, I'd never be looking at the road!" Shame on that other driver for not reading his mind, thus knowing he would want to change lanes, so the STBE could do so without encumbrance, huh?
When he said this, I responded with, "Maybe you're changing lanes too much, then?" He stared at me for a few seconds. I could see his eyes nearly spinning in his head. He actually shook his head for a brief second, as if to try to make sense of what I'd just said, and then he paused, looked at me hard, and reared up and slapped me across the face so hard I saw stars for a few minutes. He walked away after that. I guess he spent all his rage in that one slap. The next day, he saw my black eye and the bruise on the side of my face and asked me what happened. I was stunned! To this day, I can't explain this one so if you have an answer for it, let me know.
Nope. Aspies are never responsible for anything that happens in their world that might be a little askew or wrong. They'll always find someone else to blame.
This started becoming more apparent to me after our youngest left for the Air Force. It took me a few months to figure it out but I did figure it out. And I felt terrible! Once I reconciled in my head what was happening, I sent the following message to my son. At the time, we were still close enough to discuss this and I got the feeling he appreciated my sending this, even if it was months and years too late.
I'm sending you a message this way because I know you don't have Internet, thus, no real way of checking e-mail. But I also don't know which e-mail you check regularly...
I'm in a group on FB of spouses of those with Asperger's. I wrote this today and wanted to share it with you. This says it better than anything else I've ever said...
Sounds like my life, Lisa. I've often told people, "My husband would lie to me even if the truth wouldn't hurt him".
They're like children, in that respect. I'm so tired of the arguing about who did what. For a long time, my ASH blamed our youngest, who was, for 10 years, an only child, due to the disparity in ages between him and our next one. My husband would constantly blame our youngest for everything going wrong in the house. It wasn't until our son was gone to basic training that I learned just how much my ASH was doing, after years of yelling at my son. I can't even count all the times I told him, "And now I'm punishing you twice as much for lying...!"
I called my son not long ago to apologize to him for it all, realizing now it's been my ASH, all along. But the damage was done. He's a great kid but he's been hurt a great deal by it all, not trusting his father or I for a very long time. I beat my head against the wall for years, trying to figure out just what I was doing that was so awful he felt he couldn't trust me. And now I know; I let him down in a most appreciable way.
It makes me sad to think of how many times my son walked away, deflated and hurt, simply because his dad used him as a shield from his own wrongdoings and lies and I didn't know any better. I wonder how many times he cried to himself before he just gave up and built the wall we now have between us.
I wonder, sometimes, if I'll ever be able to make it up to him and I doubt I ever will.
I tried to find to post on this page a meme I saw once or twice that said - Narcissism: The only mental illness where the sufferer is left alone and everyone else gets therapy. Or something like that. What does this have to do with an Aspie always blaming others?
Q: How many Aspies does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Only the one. One to hold the light bulb while the rest of the world revolves around them.
Aspies are so married to the idea it's they who are perfect and it's the rest of the world at fault, they simply can't let it go, even when/if presented with evidence to the contrary. They will lie, cheat and steal their way through life for the sole purpose of never having themselves to blame. When confronted with the fallacy of their argument, that it is they who were wrong or responsible, so begins the gas lighting. Lies, lies and more lies to cover up the lies they've told before. And the thing is, Aspies come to believe their lies so, to them, it's the truth.
A study was done (and I'm searching for the link - they seem to be eluding me today) where brain scans were done of both sociopaths and those with Asperger's and there were a lot of similarities. Also, there's a huge similarity to Psychopathy, too. The biggest similarity to all three of these is the lack of empathy.
Empathy is what we all feel when we see those ten hour long commercials of the starving children in Africa or the twenty hour long commercials for the ASPCA. We're sad. We imagine how difficult it must be for those poor children. The more tender-hearted of us might cry at the thought of so much suffering.
For an Aspie (or a Sociopath, or a Psychopath), they feel nothing. Nothing at all. They don't have the ability to step into the shoes of another person and imagine how their actions can affect others. They don't stop to think how blaming someone over and over again will chip away at their self-esteem over time. They also don't stop to think how blaming someone else for their problems and bad times might begin to make someone question their own sanity! But I'm SURE I didn't leave the milk out! I'm POSITIVE I put the ice cream away when I was done. I KNOW I didn't turn up the thermostat.
However, with the Aspie, they don't care that what they're doing is causing you anxiety. They couldn't give a rat's ass their denying turning down the thermostat has you questioning if you're developing a second personality, one that hates to be cold, or that you're beginning to believe you're suffering from delusions (and I heard this one A LOT from the STBE - You're CRAZY and delusional!
For the Aspie, it's all about being "perfect". And the sooner you remember that, the better off you'll be.
