Married to an Aspie/Narcissist/Sociopath? You will be alone in this marriage.

Like Katherine Hepburn says, Aspies don't want to be alone,
they simply want to be left alone.  (Image: Flickr.com CC)

“I don't want to be alone, I want to be left alone.”   ― Audrey Hepburn

Note: I jumped ahead to #30 on the list because I went off on a tangent in my last posting about Aspies and their pathological need to be liked.  I decided to cut it out of there and do this post.

Aspies/Narcissists/Sociopaths are a funny breed.  They want relationships with people that are close and loving.  They really do.  Aspies/Narcissists/Sociopaths are extremely lonely people.  What they don't realize, though, is they bring the loneliness on themselves by being so reclusive and difficult.

Aspies actually prefer to be left alone, but they want you to leave them alone while sitting next to them.  They don't want to talk to you, they don't want you to talk to them, they don't want to touch you, they don't want you to touch them.  They just want you to sit next to them and bask in the glory of their deigning to be present.

During your marriage, you'll be treated as an accessory to their life.  You will be the trophy wife, the maid, the cook, the prostitute, the wage earner, the day care provider, the brood mare for their children they want (but also don't want them to bother them), chauffeur, masseuse, and any other role of slavery you can fathom.  But the one thing you WON'T be is an equal partner in the marriage.  You also won't be cherished, honored, respected, acknowledged or treated as though you matter in any way, shape or form beyond any of the above roles.  The signs of this are early in the marriage, if you're paying attention.

Nope, Aspies have people in their life for one reason and one reason only, and that's to serve them.  This is why they work SO hard to win you over.  You are now their new source of Narcissistic Supply.

Aspies/Narcissists/Sociopaths have an UNCANNY ability to spot your weaknesses so they can exploit them.  I made the mistake of telling my STBE before we were married that I came from an alcoholic family and suffered from abandonment and trust issues as a result.  He zeroed in on those almost from the moment we were married.  It took a few months, because they groom you in very subtle ways, before they hop onto the "let's see how much we can run them down" train.  They actually USE these weaknesses in you to build you up during the "love bombing" stage, working to convince you of what a lovely, trustworthy, loyal, honest person they are.  Once you believe that, the reverse starts happening.

I also told my STBE before we married - Don't ever lie to me.  Even if it's something you think will upset me, I need to know I can always count on you to tell the truth.  I'd rather be hurt by the truth than a lie."  Many years later, in marriage counseling, I brought this up.  His response was, "You didn't mean it."  Really?  I didn't mean it?  That's the best you can do?  You profess to be inside my head to know what I meant when I said this?

For me, the "A-ha" moment came when we'd been married about six months.  As I'd said earlier, I'm a pretty good cook (adventurous is really what it should be called) and I was always trying new recipes.  This particular day, I'd made a dinner salad with three or four types of lettuce, strawberries, hand-made vinaigrette dressing, toasted almonds, smoked turkey, etc.  His kids were there for the weekend and I called everyone to dinner.

I set the large salad bowl down in the center of the table and asked everyone what they wanted to drink?  I went to get the drinks and when I came back, the STBE had served the entire salad to him and his kids, leaving my plate empty.  It was entirely gone with none left for me.  His solution, once he saw me sitting in the living room eating a sandwich (FUMING!) was to tell the kids, "Once you've eaten all you want from your plate, give Nancy the rest."  I got the leftovers?  Really?  I MADE the damn thing and I get the leftovers?????  Fuck that.

See how this devalues you as a person?  Now, in the mind of my STBE, the Aspie/Narcissist/Sociopath, I'm nothing more than a cook and slave.  I'm relegated to eating everyone else's leftovers.

Another example from my life of the "devaluing" stage is something that happened not long after the "salad incident".  Mark's ex-wife had signed the kids up for bowling on Saturday mornings.  Mark would take them to bowling, then lunch, and I'd use the time to clean the entire house and this was no mean task.  See, Mark being the "Disney Dad" (AKA Disneyland Dad), the kids were never required to clean up after themselves, help with housework in any way, they scattered their crap all over the place and generally didn't do anything but sit around with Dad while I waited on them all, hand and foot.

One particular Saturday morning, he took the kids to bowling while I cleaned.  I also washed and ironed all his uniforms, did all the dishes, cleaned the kid's bedrooms, made their beds, cleaned up their crap from the floor, etc.  When Mark and the kids came home around 1 o'clock, he walked in and didn't say a thing about my having cleaned the entire two story row home.  BUT - he did look around and all he said was, "You didn't clean the baseboards.  What's planned for dinner?"  And he walked away.

Again, devaluing me as a person.  I've not met his unrealistic expectations.  I cleaned 1500 square feet of living space but what he noticed was -  I didn't clean the baseboards.  So what did I do?  I got down on my hands and knees and cleaned the baseboards.  After so many months of being told by him just how wonderful I was, just how much I fulfilled him, he's now telling me I'm not good enough.

This is where the whole "being alone" kicks in.  No longer are you focused on your expectations of being an equal partner in a good marriage. NOW you're focused on "keeping your man happy" at all costs.  He's unhappy with you so you have to work on this, right?  Because we're all told a good marriage is based on focusing on the needs and the happiness of the other person.  And this IS true.  If you focus on keeping your mate happy, it's like a stone thrown into a pond.  The ripples that come from that spread until it touches every part of your life.

Right?

Not in an Aspie/Narcissist/Sociopath marriage.  Nope.  As focused as you now are on keeping your man happy, he's that focused on you keeping your man happy.  Now that the devaluing stage has begun, this is where you'll start doing TOO much to keep your man happy and no matter what you do, it won't be enough.  Only NOW, the Aspie will start complaining you're hovering and annoying them with all the attention.  From this point on, the only time your Aspie wants you to pay attention to him is when he's horny or hungry.  Period.  Any other time, they expect you to flit about like a butterfly, attending to their needs, picking up after them, washing their clothes, doing the grocery shopping, keeping the kids out of their hair and generally being the fairy that comes in the middle of the night to take care of the house.

Gone are the late into the night conversations of sharing your future together.  No more pillow talk because once they're done with the sex act, they'll either roll right over and fall asleep or will get up to fastidiously clean themselves as though you have leprosy and they need to get your cooties off of themselves.  No more small talk over dinner because your Aspie will now have become mono-syllabic and will eat as fast as they can so they can go back to their computer/television show/movie, whatever.  Any attempts at conversation over dinner are met with grunts and loud sighs, thereby training you to just sit there, eat your food, and shut the hell up.

They simply want you to leave them ALONE!

Towards the end of my marriage, the STBE started bringing the iPad into the den to "watch television" with me.  However, as soon as he sat down, he'd put the ear buds in and start watching YouTube videos on the thing.  I was ignored.  If I wanted to say something to him, I had to tap his knee.  This was met with a loud sigh, he'd do this whole dramatic thing that involved pausing the video, then taking out his ear buds, then turning to me with another loud sigh and saying, "WHAT?!?!?!"

I finally gave up.  And so should you if you ever want to be in a relationship with someone who actually wants you there with them as more than a warm body.

Aspies need to be liked by everyone

Aspies are chameleons, taking on the
personality and persona of the person
they're with or want to attract.
(Image: flickr.com CC)

“Really Hagrid, if you are holding out for universal popularity, I'm afraid you will be in this cabin for a very long time” ― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

I'm starting to feel more and more I should be using the term "Narcissist" in all of this.  Aspies and Narcissists are extremely similar and Narcissism is one of the main qualities of being an Aspie.

As much as Aspies and the mental health community would have us believe Aspies are warm, fuzzy kittens all the time, they're not.

Aspies need to be liked SO much, they'll run you down in the process.  They simply don't understand people really CAN like more than one person.

Over the years, the STBE would run into people at work who just didn't like him.  There was really no reason for it, they just didn't like him.  We all have people like that in our lives and it's nothing wrong with you OR them.  Some people just don't like you for whatever reason.  I've never been someone bothered by this but the STBE?  Oh, man, this would make him absolutely CRAZY!  He would try to talk to the person to show them what a wonderful person he is.  If they didn't go for it then, he'd start inviting them to lunch, or for a coffee, or whatever, but if someone doesn't like you, nothing you do will change their mind.

I used to tell the STBE, "Oh my gosh, just let it go!  Not everyone has to like you and there really are people out there in the world who will never like you.  It's nothing to do with you and it's really not personal.  There's just something about you they don't like and it could be something personal to them.  That happens in life, some times."

But he could never let it go.  It would actually keep him up at night.  It was maddening to not just him but me, too, because I was the one who was always required to listen to him talk about it endlessly and it wouldn't end until the person either told him, "Okay, FINE, I like you!" or they left the company or moved to another location.

Now that you're in a committed relationship with the Aspie/Narcissist/Sociopath, you become the target for all their hatred and rage.

Now, the average husband will say nice things about his wife.  She's a good cook.  She takes good care of the kids.  She's has a great memory for detail.  She always gets really great gifts for people at Christmas.  She makes a big deal out of everyone's birthdays.

All of these are things my STBE has said to me at one time or another, in his nicer moments (far and few between), so I know he believes them to be true.  But he's always hated me for these things because he wasn't able to incorporate them into his life.  Aspies choose mates who have the character and personality traits they wish they had.  But these very traits become a reason to hate you down the road.

The Aspie husband, though, is bothered by these parts of my personality/character.  Using the above examples, this is how an Aspie husband handles these items:

My wife is a good cook:  For an Aspie, he's more likely to tell people something along the lines of, "My wife makes SUCH fattening foods, I swear she's trying to kill me".  And always with just the right amount of derision (and based on them making this statement, they might actually come to believe you ARE trying to kill them - Aspies are incredibly paranoid).  Now the kids, both his and ours, would tell anyone who would listen I was a good cook.  At least they used to.  Now they say nothing because that's what Dad trained them to do.  This is called "Abuse by Proxy" or "Proxy Recruitment", because they actually teach the kids to become abusive towards you.

My wife takes good care of the children:  For the Aspie, kids take away attention from THEM, so this is a major, major resentment on their part.  Aspies are more likely to start making it look to the kids as though you pay TOO much attention to them. He might start calling you a "helicopter mom" or working to convince them you're invasive in their lives.  After a long enough time, they start to resent your presence in their lives as anything more than a source for money, clothes or whatever...

My wife has a great memory for detail:  This is another source of angst for the Aspie because they can't remember ANYTHING that has to do with anyone but them.  Tell them one of the kids has a special event and they'll forget, forcing you to remind them over and over.  They resent you for this and can be heard saying, "I swear my wife doesn't forget ANYTHING.  It drives me nuts how she's always bringing something up that happened days/weeks/months/years ago."  Aspies tend to forget they have a running list in their heads of everything "horrible" thing you've ever done to them, real or imagined, and they aren't afraid to whip it out in any and all arguments.

My wife always gets great gifts for people at Christmas:  My STBE was one of those people who would save his Christmas shopping for the very last minute.  He gave no thought to it the other 364 days a year, outside of giving people a list of what HE wanted, so he was never very good at gift buying.  I remember one year I got a shower head for Christmas while he got a really nice sweater, something I knew he needed.  The STBE asked me once, "How is it you always get exactly the right gift for all of us every year?"  I told him, "I pay attention to them when they talk."  He never understood this - this whole paying attention to people.

She makes a big deal out of birthdays:  I've always made a huge deal out of birthdays. I feel we live in a cold world, sometimes, and that everyone should be made to feel special on their birthday.  It's their day and I do everything I can to make it thus.  The birthday person gets to choose dinner that night, whether it's dining out or eating in, makes no difference.  They choose their birthday cake, and Elias would always choose that I make his.  I would sit down with him and have him choose the cake he wanted.  Too difficult?  I didn't care.  I made it because it's what he wanted for his birthday.  Aspies tend to not remember birthdays that aren't theirs.  If I had a nickel for every time I had to remind the STBE it was someone's birthday and he needed to call them, I'd be able to buy an island.  My last birthday before I filed for divorce was forgotten by every single person in the family.  And no one could understand why my feelings were so hurt.  Even my STBE stepdaughter went so far as to say, "But it's okay that we forgot her birthday.  We're Dickinson's, after all."  In their mind, being a Dickinson is synonymous with being thoughtless, and they're okay with that.

Now, all this being said...  Aspies need others to dislike you so they can feel better about themselves.  See?  So-and-so doesn't like you at all but they like ME so I must be a better person.  They use this to chip away at your self-esteem (and Narcissists do this, too) and make you feel badly about yourself.  It's a really subtle thing and usually an off-hand remark made after a company dinner or picnic, after a get-together either at your house or someone else's.  Yeah, Aspies need people to hate you, or at least have you think they hate you.

Why do they do this?  Because Aspies have incredibly low self-esteem.  They know they're different, and instead of embracing being different and "quirky", they try to make those around them look bad so they can look good by comparison.

Also, Aspies tend to hide who they are when starting a relationship.  They will take on the personality of the person they're with at the time and become extremely agreeable people.  You'll think you've found the perfect mate when the truth of the matter is, they're extremely chameleon-like, taking on the likes and dislikes of the person they're courting (this is also called love-bombing).  They will inundate you with flattery, gifts, be agreeable to whatever you suggest and will be SO likable AND lovable!  They will be the PERFECT boyfriend.  (And as a side note: my STBE told me not long before I filed for divorce, "I knew I had these problems before we got married, but I never told you because I was afraid you'd leave me" - How nice for him.  He got what he wanted, but he made me and several children miserable in the process, abusing us all.  But wasn't that fun for him?)

They NEED you to like them to prove to themselves they ARE likable, conveniently forgetting it's them changing into what the other person might need or want, rather than being who they are.  When dating, you ask:

You: Do you feel like a movie tonight?
Him: Sure, that sounds good.
You: What would you like to see?
Him: You pick one.  I want to see whatever you want to see.  OR I don't care, so long as I'm with you.

So you pick something.  What they never tell you afterward is, they never wanted to see that movie and they hated every minute of it.  And so the resentment towards you starts.  Only they'll never TELL you they resent you for this, at least not for a long time.  They're still in the "love bombing" stage, winning you over.

But once you're in a committed relationship with them, it all stops.  They've won you over so there's no need to continue with being "the chameleon".

I can remember the first thing my STBE said to me the moment we were married (literally - the moment we were married).  He turned to me, held my hands in his, looked at me with a tremendous amount of excitement in his eyes and said, "I'm SO glad I married you!" (and right about then in my head, I'm thinking, "Oh my gosh, what a wonderful thing to say!") but then he followed it up with, "I now have a hot wife!"

Talk about popping your balloon, right?

Nope, once they have you, they have you, and they're not letting go easily.  And so begins life with an Aspie/Narcissist/Sociopath.

The process of love bombing me, getting me to like him, is now over.

Good luck with the rest of your life with them because it's all downhill from here.

Aspies are gas lighters - Or, "You didn't hear what you thought you heard. You didn't see what you think you saw"

One of the most confusing parts of being married to an Aspie (and those with both Narcissistic Personality Disorder - NPD - and Bipolar Disorder - BP - will do this too) is they do something called "gas lighting".

Gas lighting is where someone tries to alter your reality for their own purposeful gain, usually bad or manipulative.

In order to understand gas lighting, perhaps understanding the origin of the phrase will help.  Gaslighting is a psychological term related to the mentally ill that comes from the 1940's psychological thriller Gaslight, starring Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer.

Gregory Anton (Charles Boyer) is a man with a mission.  He marries young Paula (Ingrid Bergman) who has inherited a house in which her aunt was murdered many years earlier.  The killer was never found and once Paula became an adult, she moved into the house with her new husband.  Seems the murdered aunt had some valuables stored in the house and Gregory wanted them.  In order to get them, he had to marry and then get rid of Paula, and the way he chose to get rid of her was to drive her insane.

Throughout the movie, Gregory is doing small things to make Paula believe she's losing her mind.  He'll move a piece of furniture then tell Paula, when she asks about it, "It wasn't me.  You did it and must have forgotten".  He'll turn down the gaslights in the house (and this is where the name of the movie came from) and when asked, "Who turned down the gaslights?" Gregory tells her, "Why, you did.  You don't remember..."  He would move her jewelry to other parts of the house and not tell her, leading her to believe she misplaced it, then when she stopped searching he would put it back in the original place.

While living with a gaslighter isn't usually this obvious (at least to the casual viewer), it's just as damaging as it was to poor Paula in the movie.

What gaslighters are trying to do is alter your reality.  I've caught my STBE in so many affairs it's not even funny anymore.  Every time I'd go to him with evidence, he'd deny it and give an alternate (sort of plausible) explanation that was designed to convince me I wasn't seeing/hearing what I believed I was seeing/hearing.  My STBE would deny until the day he dies I was seeing things wrong.  Alternatively, he'll admit the affairs but find some way to make it entirely my fault and work to convince me of this.

Other times, he would say or do something incredibly hurtful and when I'd call him on it, he'd deny he ever did or said whatever it was I came to him with.

For gaslighters, it's not about being right, it's about convincing you to agree with them, even if it's something so off the wall no one in their right mind would ever believe it.  Even the gas lighter may know they're lying, but it's not about that to them.  It's about YOU saying they're right.  Period.  However, with Aspies, they can come to believe their lies so to them, it's absolutely the truth.

What this will eventually do to the victim over the long term is convince them they ARE crazy.  My STBE's favorite term for it was "delusional".  Towards the end, this kept me up most nights, the wondering if I was, indeed, going crazy.  I'd even gone so far as to see a therapist to find out just how crazy I was.  After three or four sessions, the therapist emphatically told me, "Nancy, you definitely don't have a mental health issue beyond depression from being in an abusive marriage".  This was the first time I heard the term "gaslighting" and had it explained to me.  Once I understood what was happening, I felt infinitely better and the most sane I'd felt in a long, long time.

WHY THEY DO IT

Gaslighters usually don't do this for the same reason Gregory did it to Paula.  Most of us aren't inheriting houses filled with jewels and gems.  Gaslighters now do it as a form of self-preservation.  As I'd said earlier, it's not just Aspies who do this but those with NPD and BP.  Also, people with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) are known for this, too.

Aspies, NPDs, BPs, BPDs, NEED your admiration and that of others to feed their low self-esteem. (See this article on Narcissistic supply).  If you're confronting any of these people with a fault or problem in the relationship, their first reaction is to deny there's anything wrong with them at all, that it's you who needs "fixing".  They will then launch into a tirade of just how many faults you have and will sprinkle it with "paranoia" (you), utter perfection (them), and will work to convince you of this, all of this.

The conversation might go something like this:

You:  John, I've been concerned about something that's going on and I need to address it with you.

Them: (Giving you an attentive look) Certainly, let's sit down and talk about it.

You:  I ran a virus check on the computer today and was in the history under your login.  I saw in there you're spending a lot of time inside a website that focuses on helping spouses cheat.  Based on the history, it looks like you're going there several times a day.  It has me worried you're cheating on me again.

Him: (Loud sigh, rolling of the eyes and starts with a loud voice/yelling) I'm SO sick and tired of you accusing me of cheating!  I've never cheated on you (and my STBE actually said this to me, after having been caught in several affairs) and if you weren't so paranoid you wouldn't be going into my history looking for it (you'd already given them the real and valid reason why you were in there, but to successfully complete their gaslighting of you, they need to alter reality - both yours and his).  This is SUCH a violation of MY privacy!  I swear, you're getting crazier by the day and WHY I stay with you is beyond me!  Everyone at work always talks about how much they can't stand you and I always defended you but I just don't see how I can do that anymore!  You should see a therapist about this paranoia!  And since you're always accusing me of cheating, how do I know it's not YOU who's cheating and trying to deflect it onto me!  I DEMAND you apologize to me RIGHT NOW for these unfounded and made up accusations of cheating on you!

It's at this point you're really upset and defending yourself.  Several things have happened during this rant:

1. The gaslighter has gotten you off the original discussion, his possible cheating
2. The gaslighter now has you on the defensive
3. The gaslighter is telling you you're paranoid (and not for the first time, I'm sure)
4. The gaslighter is telling you that you should be seeing a therapist
5. The gaslighter is now telling you that your questioning his fidelity is actually you attempting to hide the fact that you're the cheater (even though you're not)
6. The gaslighter is further undermining your confidence in yourself
7. The gas lighter has successfully diverted not just the conversation about your feelings, but he's also probably gotten you the the point of apologizing.
8. He now has you focusing on his feelings, his needs, his wants and you feelings, needs and wants are no longer even of topic.

Mission accomplished for the gas lighter.  If you've been in a conversation in the past that sounds like this, it's probably time for you to take steps to either put a stop to this or to extricate yourself from the relationship.

And one final thought to leave you with, as you're reeling from the abuses of the Aspie gaslighting you.  I found this on a website I found called Live In the Moment and it's SO true and SO life affirming!

What creates your “broken heart” when you get rejected

When someone rejects you without saying anything negative about you, you will likely begin to immediately think 2 things. First, you decide what the other person thinks about you, and then you believe that their opinion must be right. In other words, you make an assumption about what they think about you, and then you form the conclusion that what they think must be true.

Here are a few common examples:

1. The assumption about what they think: “He thinks I’m not good enough”, “He thinks something is wrong with me”, or “He doesn’t think I am worthy of love”
2. The conclusion that what they think must be true: “If he thinks I’m not good enough, then I must not be good enough”, “If he thinks something is wrong with me, there must be something wrong with me”, or “If he doesn’t think I am worthy of love, then I must not be worthy of love”

You may be aware of these thoughts or you may not be. But if you’re feeling hurt, they are there.

Once we believe these negative thoughts about ourselves, we are essentially worsening our opinion of ourselves. When our opinion of ourselves worsens, we experience the feeling of hurt or being broken hearted. (I won’t get into the details of why this creates hurt in this post).

To help you with this, I'm putting some links here to help you:

Are You Being Gaslighted?

10 Signs Your Man Is 'Gaslighting' You to Make You Seem Crazy  (Note: The writing on this is kind of poor and the examples given are pretty mild, innocuous and naive.  This was obviously written by someone who's never been through it.  But the overall message is the same as I'm trying to impart here)

Taking a break from the "lessons" and sharing a bit of my life

In looking at the nearly 100 posts on this blog over the past weeks/months/years, I realize I've not really shared much of my life with you.  I looked back at some older posts, sporadically put here over the time I've lived in Arizona, averaging two or three a year.  I look at the posts and see the timeline that's been my life with an Aspie.

This is me now.  Also, being a little
goofy for my friends

Back when this all started, in November 2004, about a month after I moved to Arizona - there's a photo of me in this post.  I've got a newer one now.  This was taken just a couple of weeks ago right before I had all my hair cut off, had it dyed and picked up some highlights along the way.  I've also lost a great deal of weight since this divorce started over two months ago - about 40 pounds.

Then there are two more postings about some animals we had here on the soon-to-be former homestead.  Some goats, some chickens, all gone once Mark realized owning them meant work.  I then see some posts about blue skies, rainbows and hot air balloons; pretty pictures that don't tell the whole story.

Then I see some posts about news stories and some rants of mine related to them.  Then, in 2007, I complain a bit about my high school reunion and mention 2012's reunion to plan.  2012 went off without a hitch and I don't think there's a single person who didn't have a great time!  Currently, we planning a 50th birthday party that will include a 5k to commemorate a classmate of ours who passed away from the effects of Muscular Dystrophy.  There are some more ramblings, then a posting to remember my father.  I still miss him everyday.  I still have the coonhound, Daisy, who was bitten by a rattlesnake.  She's now nearly seven years old, she hasn't been bitten by anymore rattlesnakes and she's definitely wiser.  More postings, my crazy mom manifesto and then I move on again.

Which brings us to now...

Just so you know I'm not just talking off the cuff, I've been living with the man I'm describing to you for the last 21+ years.  It's been an incredibly difficult 21+ years dealing with the baggage that comes with being married to an Aspie/narcissist.  My life has been a roller coaster of emotions, up and down, round and round in circles, advancing, retreating, hurting, loving, crying alone in the shower on the bad days, laughing aloud on the good days, and in general, just pretty confusing.

But, like Daisy, I'm no longer being bitten by a rattlesnake.  When Daisy sees a rattlesnake in the yard, now, she barks at it from a safe distance.  When I see my rattlesnake coming, I don't bark, but I do prepare myself for a possible strike.  I assume my rattlesnake is already coiled up and ready to strike.  That way, there are no surprises.

This past week was an odd one, but no surprise.  Out of the blue, Mark came to me with the suggestion we do a legal separation rather than a divorce. Seems he wants to keep me on Tricare so he doesn't have to pay for health insurance for me.  And, oh, by the way, how about we keep reconciliation on the table for some point in the future?  I won't bore you with a lot of the talk that went on between us over the week but I was wary.  I'd been so beaten down by this guy over two decades.  His lies, manipulations, half-truths, cheating, hitting, stealing money from the household funds; you name it, he did it.

What I ended up telling him was, reconciliation isn't off the table, but not now.  When, then?  I don't know.  I need some therapy and so does he.  And I would never consider reconciling if it meant things being the way they were before.  I was in desperate need of some "me time".  This was a couple Thursdays ago.  He didn't even make it a week before reverting back to his passive-aggressive, abusive self.  By this past Wednesday, he responded to a text from me with, "I'm in my cave" (which is his code for needing to be alone with his thoughts)  The following morning, he was back to his "I'm mad at you for no reason other than what I've developed in my head and I'm ignoring you again." Well, that and his attorney talked him out of being "friendly" during this divorce or legal separation or whatever it is (in my mind, a divorce).  Mark's need, though, for a narcissistic host means he'll go on paying her for so long as she'll let him, since she feeds his ego.  And so long as his dad has a pen, a checkbook and a way to mail money to Mark, she'll let him.  So long as she goes on telling him just how wonderful and right he is, he's glad to do it.  She needs hours to bill and he needs someone to tell him what an amazing, wonderful person he truly is.  All parasites need a host and I'm glad they found each other.  We'll file that one under, "Not my problem anymore".

I just shook my head when I got his nasty email.  Same shit, different day.  And I moved on.  One thing to mention is: I did let my attorney go after the first hearing after she did pretty much nothing at all.  I might as well have driven down the street tossing $2,000.00 out the car window for all the good it did me in hiring this attorney.  Just for fun, I started sending emails requesting discovery from his attorney.  She's been denying me access to Mark's financial records but she's never "said" she's denying it.  She's just not doing it. (And here's a tip - the more they want to hide something, the more you want to see it - especially if it relates to the finance)  Up until yesterday, there was really nothing that could be done.  BUT - in the flurry of emails yesterday, mine requesting discovery, hers getting longer and longer, all filled with her narcissistic rage she finally said something that the Arizona Bar is VERY interested in seeing - her telling me IN WRITING that she didn't consider his financial records to be relevant to the proceedings.  As soon as I got that one, I called the people at the Arizona Bar and they asked me to email them everything.  This is an ethics violation and it involves hiding financial resources, something they take very seriously ever since another attorney in another part of Arizona helped a client hide a great deal of money in a divorce proceeding.  He got seven years in prison.

I'm seeing two attorneys next week and one of them comes highly recommended as the one to have since Mark's attorney has the reputation of being one of the most unstable, mentally disturbed attorneys in the county.  So I guess she and Mark deserve each other.

As far as how I'm doing: I'm healing.  I guess there was some residual guilt left over from caring for a mentally/emotionally disturbed person for 21+ years.  I think that's what last week was about.  I'm here to tell you all, anyone reading this, expect the guilt.  Expect them to come back during it all.  Expect it all to fall apart very quickly again.  Again, same shit, different day.  So long as you EXPECT them to be capricious, vile, mean, apathetic, manipulative and abusive, all will be well.  Which is why I never completely let down my guard, even when he was discussing with me the possibility of his quitting his job to go back to school.  I was actually starting to fall for it a little bit; I guess old habits die hard. However, it didn't take me long to snap out of it once his true colors came out again.

This is me now, 40 lbs lighter
and looking pretty amazing!
I'm trying to figure out how to
take a selfie w/o looking like
I'm not taking a selfie!

But, I'm still healing.  I didn't get the house I wanted in my hometown that went up for auction today.  But that's okay.  It just wasn't meant to be or it would have been.  But, I'm still healing and will continue to heal with each day that the sun rises on a new one.

For anyone contemplating leaving their Aspie, it really will be okay.  Whether the relationship is a shorter one or a longer one, it will be devastating, at first.  These guys work on us DAILY to convince us we're nothing w/o them.  I can remember my STBE husband would tell anyone who would listen he couldn't possibly become an Episcopalian priest because I was such a bad person with a bad background.  I come from an incredible family who worked hard for everything we have.  My grandparents were both farmers, my mother and father were both well-educated (but didn't have any degrees) and set an excellent example for me and my siblings.  They remained married for 53 years, only ending it on the day my father died.  His family, though...  Well, that should be another blog post some day.  Trust me when I tell you - they have issues and always will because they refuse to see it's they who are nuts.  They are enablers, co-dependent, mentally ill and refuse to medicate because "Jesus will heal me".

I'm not going to lie - there were days I was positive I wouldn't be able to take the heart ache anymore.  But I got up the next morning and found I could make it through another day.  I don't know just when I stopped thinking about the pain in my heart on a continual basis but I did.  And before I knew it, I lost the "whatever" in the pit of my stomach that was omnipresent.  I was laughing again with people and looking forward to a future by myself.  I started visiting Pinterest to look for decor I liked that I could do in my new home, where ever that might be.  I'm seeing just what life CAN be like w/o having someone peering over my shoulder constantly to tell me how I'm scrambling the wrong egg.  I'm enjoying NOT hearing someone tell me just how wrong I am all the time, not correcting me in front of other people, not telling me how I've become so unattractive over the years.\If I had a nickel for each time someone told me just how beautiful I am...

Yes, that first step is scary - but, trust me, it's worth it.  And you'll come out of it okay.  I promise.

And if you need some inspiration, to know you CAN get through it, try reading One Mom's Battle Divorcing a Narcissist.  I know, I know, we're all talking about Aspies here, but Aspies are also narcissists.  

Aspies are the masters of manipulation

What I'm going to write here might overlap with #10 on the list - Aspies are the most literal people you'll ever meet.

You can't pay enough money to... cure that feeling of being broken and confused. ~ Winona Ryder

I know this post is supposed to be about being manipulated by your Aspie, but it's important to know that they manipulate you by keeping you confused and/or angry pretty much all the time.  How do they do this?  By denying they've said something you KNOW they said.  Or denying doing something you KNOW they've done.  The thing to remember about Aspies is - they'll lie even when the truth won't hurt them.

Aspies aren't a group of people who can just come to you and say, "Honey, I'm upset about something and I'd like to discuss it with you."  

No, no, no, no, no...  That would be too easy to just come out and have open, honest communication.  

Let's say you made meatloaf for dinner and used a spice the Aspie didn't like, say...  Mint.  They won't TELL you they don't like the mint.  In fact, they'll tell you how GREAT your meatloaf is, so much so you're absolutely convinced it's their favorite meal and will make it once a week for 20 years.  What's going on during that 20 years, though, is quite different inside the head of an Aspie:

• First time eating said meatloaf - Wow, I really don't like this spice she used in the meatloaf.  But if I tell her I don't like it, she'll be upset.  I suppose I'll just tell her how good it is.
• Second time eating said meatloaf - I really, really don't like this spice and she's made it AGAIN!  Why would she make this?  Doesn't she know I don't like this mint?  But if I tell her I don't like it, she'll get mad at me.
• Third time eating said meatloaf - AGAIN!  Mint in the meatloaf!  I swear she could screw up a peanut butter and jelly sandwich!  Why is she STILL making it this way??  But if I tell her I don't like it, it'll start a big fight and I'll lose.  So I'll just have to *SIGH* tell her AGAIN how much I love it!
• Fourth through 125th time eating said meatloaf - The Aspie hates the meatloaf every single time you make it but says nothing at all about their not liking it.  Instead, they keep it in their head, allowing their anger to grow each and every time they eat it, telling you the entire time how much they love it, leading you to believe you are the Julia Child of meatloafs.  However, by the time they've gotten to this point, they've already built up inside their heads that telling you will lead to an argument of epic proportions and aren't they the dear, dear man for sparing your feelings?  But they've also decided they hate you for not KNOWING they don't like the meatloaf.
• After about six to twelve months of serving this meatloaf to them because they told you how much they loved it, they finally blow up at you, spend a few hours ranting at you over just how stupid you are for not knowing how much they hate mint in the meatloaf and what a horrible, selfish, narcissistic person you are for not knowing this.  When you ask them why they didn't tell you the first time they didn't like it and their response is always the same, "Because I knew you'd yell at me."

My STBE ASH would do this constantly.  I call this "pulling the rug out from under me".  I'm going along in life, thinking everything's fine and dandy, then the STBE would come along, rant at me over a variety of ills and transgressions he's imagined I committed, most of which were blown up in his head, and use the rest of his time to give you a truly good dose of "You suck and this is why".

I'm sure by now you're asking yourself - but what does this have to do with manipulation.  I'm getting there now.

By doing this often enough and regularly enough, it throws you off balance with regard to your Aspie and their moods.  You never know when or if they're going to blow up on you (often called a "meltdown" in the Aspie world) or about what.  You've also been called so many names over time that they're starting to have the desired affect on your self-esteem and you might be starting to believe them, even a little bit.  You are now ripe for manipulation by the Aspie and this is when the abuse really kicks into high gear.

From this point forward, your Aspie will hit you, maybe not really hard, but hard enough, and when you protest, they tell you, "Oh, jeez, I didn't hit you that hard at all!  In fact, it was more of a nudge and you're making to much of it!  Why are you so sensitive?"  You might have been sent flying across the room, but your Aspie will spend the next million years if they have to in order to convince you that it's not that HE hit you, it's that YOU'RE too sensitive.  Your Aspie will start saying things to you that are designed to hurt you emotionally and when you call them on this, they tell you, "Jeez Louise!  I was just kidding!  You're just SO sensitive!"  They make your hurt feelings and hurt arm YOUR fault for not understanding they're really not the jerk you think they are, it's just that YOU'RE too sensitive.  In short, it's your fault.

The bad behavior will start to escalate.  Most likely, they're now into the porn and/or cheating.  When I found out about my STBE's first affair, it was at a time when my father was dying of cancer and I had cancer myself.  His excuse for the affair?  "You weren't paying enough attention to me." No, ma'am, it's not that he's a lying, cheating prick, it's that YOU didn't pay enough attention to him while your father was dying and you were sick yourself.  It ALWAYS has to be about Le Petit Prince!

No matter what the Aspie does wrong or hurtful or painful, it's going to be your fault.  Always.  You will find yourself taking responsibility for everything wrong in the marriage and will begin researching all sorts of therapy to get into so you can do just a little bit more to make the marriage better.  Once the Aspie gets you to this point, you are his trained monkey and will do his bidding  to the point of exhaustion.  He now has "the perfect wife", one who will do anything to keep him happy (and not realizing there's no keeping an Aspie happy - these are people who aren't happy unless they're sad).  You will do all the housework, cook all the meals, wash all the clothes, take care of everything that has to do with the kids, paint the living room by yourself, build that new garage with no help - whatever he asks, his wish is your command.  It's been SO drummed into you what a horrible wife and person you are, you'll do anything to make him happy.

But the abuse doesn't stop just because you're now the equivalent of a Stepford Wife.  They have to keep up a steady stream of abuse in order to keep you under their thumb.  If you clean the entire house's carpets with a toothbrush and they'll find something wrong - perhaps you left the nap in the wrong direction or something else totally stupid and bizarre.  Aspies refuse to acknowledge you're doing anything right.  They can't have you gaining any self-esteem at all.  They won't say a word about the 1,000 things you did right. They will focus solely on the one thing you didn't do, such as wipe down the baseboards.  This is the ONLY thing they will notice, time and again until you give up and do it, just to get that external validation.  Once you submit and wipe down the baseboards, you stand back and wait for the praise.  But the praise will never come.  They'll proudly tell themselves what a good job they did in getting you to submit to their will by wiping down the baseboards and then say, "Um, you didn't do the window sills" or some other innocuous thing.  So begins the next cycle of abuse/submission.  You will NEVER get praise from them.  They only see what their next step in the manipulation/control process will be.

My advice with regard to combating this?  Get out.  Get out of the relationship.  This will never change because it's just not in their nature to change, nor do they want to.  And why should they?  By doing things the way they've been doing them up to now, they get whatever they wish.

Aspies LOVE pornography, but don't like sex with you

“Pornography is literature designed to be read with one hand. ~Angela Lambert (1990)

I really get kind of tired of all these "generalizations" related to Aspies, but are they still generalizations if they're true?  Is it a stereotype if all of them do it?  Or is it a fact of Asperger's?  It seems Aspies really dig porn.  To the exclusion of a real relationship with their spouse, who would happily get naked for them.  And it would seem that Aspies would also rather masturbate than engage in sex with their spouse.

I really don't have an explanation for this that would even approach anything scientific or based on empirical evidence, just a theory.

My theory is - Aspies prefer pornography and masturbation because there's no expectation in all of it.  With your spouse, you're required to meet their needs.  You're required to talk to them.  You're required to interact.  You're required to maybe take part in a little pillow-talk afterward.  You're required to actually touch them.  Also, Aspies suffer from low self esteem.  If their partner tells them it was wonderful, that starts a whole "thing" in their head.  Did they really mean it? Were they just lying to me so as to not hurt my feelings?  Was I really awful and they're just not telling me?    Did I touch them right?  Did I touch them too much?  Did I touch them not enough?  Did I kiss okay?  Aspies over think EVERYTHING! Right down to the end.  I would imagine sex with their spouse would bring on days and days of anxiety related to just that, much less all the other crap they have going on in their head.  I remember telling a friend once that sex with my STBE was as though he'd read in a book how to do it step-by-step.

With porn and masturbation, it's just them.  They already know what they like.  They already know what it takes to get them to the end.  With porn, they can look and get turned on and the other person isn't demanding of them they make them happy, or even slightly okay with it all.

Also, some Aspies have sensory issues and don't like to be touched.  Maybe sex with someone other than themselves is simply too much touching?

Nope, porn followed by some rigorous masturbation suits them right down to the ground.  No human interaction at all, except with them.

I'm not too sure there's much more that can be said about this.  It's pretty self explanatory.  If you're married to an Aspie, be ready to be told "No" a lot to your initiating sex and be ready for them to be in front of the computer screen the entire time they're home since they gotta have that porn.

Marriage to an Aspie - Aspies WILL lie to you

Everything you read online about Asperger's is they're the single most honest people you'll ever meet - bar none.  In fact, they tell themselves and everyone else, it's their honest that gets them into the most trouble - yes, dear, those jeans DO make your butt look fat!

This is BULLSHIT!

Every single Aspie spouse I've talked to (again, dozens, if not hundreds) has shared their Aspie husbands are the biggest liars, and not just about big things.  One of the comments I'd made so many times to people about my STBE was - he'd lie even if the truth wouldn't hurt him.  And I've heard the same from other Aspie wives.  Things like - Who turned down the thermostat to 45 degrees?  Let's say it's just you and the Aspie living in the house.  Your Aspie will look at you and say, "It wasn't me.  It must have been you."

Now, you KNOW you didn't do it.  Surely you'd have remembered that, right?  It HAD to have been the Aspie.  And, really, let's just say it; it's really not THAT big a deal.  You were really just wondering, that's all.  It doesn't matter to the Aspie.  They imagine all sorts of scenarios and every single one of them ends with you being a massive bitch.  Because of this, they'll say nothing and make it your fault for not knowing just "why" they're upset with you, thus refuse to simply say, "Oh, yeah, it was me sweetheart!  I brought home a side of beef and wanted the house to be cold enough to preserve it while I cut it up for storage."

Oh, okay.  I get it now.  Moving on...

Aspies are also pretty creative when it comes to their lies, too.  As an example, let me use my own STBE and an event from our lives several years ago:

My STBE has had four separate affairs (and every single one of them believed him when he told them they were the only time he'd ever done that - HA!  Stupid fat cow bitches.  That graphic designer who was screwing him while my dad was dying?  He was seeing two other people while he had her believing "she" was the only one - honey, here's a tip...  If he's cheating on his wife, he'll cheat on you.  Seriously, get some common sense, pride and dignity) Anyway...  With that graphic designer, Fat Cow Slut Pam, I'd been telling him for a year I knew he was cheating on me with someone at work.  For months, here's how the conversation went, every time.

Me: STBE, I'm looking at your pay statement here and I'm not seeing anything about the overtime you told me you'd worked a couple days ago.

STBE Aspie: Oh, yeah, it'll be on my next check.

Me (two weeks later): I thought you told me that overtime you worked a couple weeks ago would be on this check?

STBE Aspie: No, I didn't.  And I didn't work any overtime.

Me: Yes, you did, it was on (insert date here).  STBE, I know you worked overtime!  You didn't get home on... until nearly 8 o'clock that evening.  Are you cheating on me with someone at work?

STBE Aspie: No, baby (he called us all baby - makes it easier to not yell out the wrong name while in the throes of screwing any slut with a vagina) I'm not cheating on you with anyone at work.  I SWEAR!  On a BIBLE!

Fast forward to about six months later when I started getting calls from a couple of angry husbands (he liked cheating with people who were ALSO cheating.  It added to the thrill, I suppose) I confront him with it and say, "How in the WORLD were you able to look me in the eye and lie to me about cheating on me with someone at work?"

His response?  "That's not what you asked me.  I never cheated with her at work.  We always went somewhere else."

Oh, okay, sorry for the misunderstanding.

Every Aspie Spouse I've interacted with tells me their Aspies cheated on them, too. Either with a regular person or with prostitutes.  Every. Single. One.  Didn't even matter if they were male or female. They ALL cheated.  More than once.

Every one of these affairs - he was caught with the goods.  An email, a text message, phone calls, instant messaging transcripts, you name it, he was caught every single time. Each and every time he was confronted with the evidence of this cheating, he'd get this sly smile and deny to my face, even with printouts of emails, screenshots of text messages, that I was taking "Can we meet at such-and-such hotel?" out of context and it wasn't what I thought it was.  That CLEARLY I was the person in the wrong, accusing him of something he wasn't doing and, by God, I needed to apologize to him!  He would always say this with just the right amount of righteous indignation, so that I understood he meant business!

Then there are the lies of omission.  My STBE Aspie would tell people the most horrible things about me, such as, "She's always going through my computer, tablet and cell phone looking for something".  But he wouldn't tell them he cheated like a card counter in Vegas, necessitating my snooping so much.  He would tell people I threw a glass at him, leaving out the part where I was walking to the door to see what one of the dogs was barking at with a glass in my hand, that the dog jumped up on me, knocking it out of my hand and sending it sailing about three feet, where it crashed on the floor and his foot.  He would tell people how I tried to hit him with the car, leaving out the part where I was backing out of the driveway with just my car keys, so I could get to a safe place to get away from one of his beatings and he threw himself on the hood to stop me from leaving.  He would tell people I refused to buy him cereal, conveniently leaving out the part where I'd just bought four boxes of cereal a week earlier and he ate them all in the first five days they were in the house.

Yes, Aspies are liars, through and through.

But wait, there's more!

Which brings me to gas-lighting, an aspect of this whole lying thing.  I won't go too much into it since there's a great deal about it available online (and I'll include some links), but I will say, it's the part of his lying that brought me to the brink of suicide.  It had me telling our marriage counselor, "I really think I need to be admitted to the hospital for delusions." 

And I was serious.

The term "gas lighting" is a fairly new psychological term, borrowed from the 1944 Ingrid Bergman movie "Gaslight".  In this movie, a young woman moves into her deceased aunt's home following her marriage.  She's young and in love but her husband has married her for the sole purpose of taking from her the estate she'd inherited from her aunt years earlier, including the house.  To do this, he works a plan to drive her to insanity through manipulation.  He would turn down the gas lights in the house, then when she asked about them being turned down, would tell her she'd done it and didn't remember.  He would move furniture and when she inquired, again, as to it being moved, would tell her she'd done it.  She'd protest at not remembering it, he would then work to convince her she had.  The movie goes on like this until a family friend...  Well, I won't tell you the ending.  Find it on Netflix or Amazon and watch this frightening psychological thriller. 

Gas lighting is one of the more damaging aspects of being with an Aspie.  The reason this ties into the lying is this:  Your Aspie will say or do something that's hurtful and/or abusive.  When you call them on it, as in bring up to them this being a problem in the relationship, they'll deny ever saying or doing whatever "it" was.  You will, of course, tell them you distinctly remember them saying or doing this, to which they'll work to convince you otherwise.  They'll even go so far as to tell you, "You're delusional." or "You're just too sensitive" or (following their being just a little too rough with their horseplay, which they do quite a bit) "I was only kidding.  What's wrong with you?" Aspies need to alter your reality to fit theirs so they can go on abusing you.  This is a defense mechanism of theirs in order to protect their confusing and disjointed world.  And they need you to believe everything they say, even if it means going insane yourself.

When an Aspie is gas lighting you, it's not about them being right or wrong, it's about you agreeing with them, even if it's a lie.  They do this to aid in their showing the rest of the world you're the crazy one and they're perfectly normal.

There is a book I read, once an acquaintance told me what this was - what to call it - that opened my eyes so completely I read it in one day.  I simply couldn't put it down.  This book, written by Dr. Robin Stern, is one of the BEST books you'll ever read if you're in an abusive relationship, "The Gaslight Effect: How to Spot and Survive the Hidden Manipulation Others Use to Control Your Life".  Seriously, read it.  It will open your eyes like they've never been opened before.  Finally, Gas Lighters are predators, pure and simple.  They need you to be confused and off-balance.  They WANT you to be this way so they can go on abusing you.  This is part of the process of separating you from your loved ones - the very people who are in the best position to help you the most - so you're basically trapped with them, to go on being abused.

Are you being Gaslighted?

(Excerpted from Power in Relationships: Are you being Gas Lighted? - PsychologyToday.com

How do you know if you are being gaslighted? If any of the following warning signs ring true, you may be dancing the Gaslight Tango. Take care of yourself by taking another look at your relationship, talking to a trusted friend; and, begin to think about changing the dynamic of your relationship . Here are the signs: 

1. You are constantly second-guessing yourself

2. You ask yourself, "Am I too sensitive?" a dozen times a day.

3. You often feel confused and even crazy... when talking to your gaslighter.

4. You're always apologizing to your mother, father, boyfriend,, boss.

5. You can't understand why, with so many apparently good things in your life, you aren't happier.

6. You frequently make excuses for your partner's behavior to friends and family.

7. You find yourself withholding information from friends and family so you don't have to explain or make excuses.

8. You know something is terribly wrong, but you can never quite express what it is, even to yourself.

9. You start lying to avoid the put downs and reality twists. 

10. You have trouble making simple decisions.

11. You have the sense that you used to be a very different person - more confident, more fun-loving, more relaxed.

12. You feel hopeless and joyless.

13. You feel as though you can't do anything right.

14. You wonder if you are a "good enough" girlfriend/ wife/employee/ friend; daughter.

This post has actually gone on longer than it probably should have, but the lies and gas lighting will do you in fast than anything else will.  Trust me on this one. If you even see a little bit of yourself in any of this, get out.  Get out of the relationship just as fast as you can extricate yourself safely.

Your Aspie, your narcissist - Aspies will always make it about them

“Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.”  - Oscar Wilde

From the moment I found out I was pregnant with my son, I never made it a secret - NO EPIDURAL!  I told my STBE, I told my doctor, I told the nurses, I'd tell total strangers in an elevator.  I was dead serious about this.  I knew I was being irrational, but there ARE side effects to these and I just really didn't want to risk suffering one of them.  Fast forward to his day of birth.  It was in a military hospital in Aurora, CO, Fitzsimons Army Medical Center.  My water broke in the elevator after my seven month checkup and I was whisked into labor & delivery.  I was doing great for the first few hours (the doctor had given me pitocin to get my labor going, due to the water breaking like that and me not being in labor at all) and we played Trivial Pursuit while I went through this.  The doctors and nurses were telling me how amazing it was I was able to not only do that but win!  The STBE started stewing.  Where was HIS atta-boy?  Where were the people to tell HIM how wonderful he was doing?

Then, my labor started getting serious and I was in a lot of pain.  I'd made sure the doctor on duty, the obstetrician taking care of me, knew I didn't want an epidural, but I was really okay with morphine.  (REALLY OKAY!)  But, he went off duty and another doctor came on, a real asshole (probably an Aspie or Narcissist, too, since he felt HE knew better what was good for me than I, the patient).  He kept demanding I get an epidural, in spite of the fact my records PLAINLY said I didn't want it.  I kept refusing to sign the form and he kept getting angrier and angrier at me.  So what'd he do?  He went to my STBE and told him I was too doped up on morphine to make a clear decision about it so the STBE signed the form for me to get an epidural, knowing full good and well this went completely against my wishes!  When I asked him later why he did that, he told me, "You were in so much pain I couldn't take it any more."

I'm sorry but... WHAT?

It was my labor & delivery but my STBE made it about him, even when it meant going against my medical wishes.  For the duration of the rest of our marriage, I refused to give him my medical power of attorney and it infuriated him.  He refused to accept he'd made such a fundamental error and violated my trust at it's most basic level, my trust that he would do what was right and best for me.  I told a marriage counselor once I truly believed were I in the hospital and unable to make decisions for myself, he would order them to pull the plug, even if it wasn't warranted.

A few weeks after my youngest was born, I was exhausted.  As easy as it was with my oldest son in his first few weeks, it was that difficult in the first few weeks of my youngest sons young life.  My oldest son did everything as though he was following a set of rules in a textbook.  He slept extremely well, he ate well, he reached every milestone pretty much on the day he was supposed to do so.  But my youngest son, WOW!  He slept two hours, was awake two hours, slept to hours, was awake two hours...  He did this 24/7 and I was completely exhausted.  My STBE slept through it all, every night, and though he did take leave when my youngest was born, he did nothing to help me get some sleep, demanding I take care of the baby because he was always "busy" with something else. (And this became a pattern with him throughout our life together)

By the time I was at my six-week postpartum check up, almost as soon as I walked in the door of the doctor's office, she could tell I was wiped out and why.  Apparently, she'd seen more than one apathetic father.  She sent me to the psychiatrist immediately because I was starting to show signs of psychosis from lack of sleep and was worried about me.  I went to see the psychiatrist and told him everything, with my STBE sitting right there next to me.  He prescribed me ONE halcyon and told my STBE he had a choice; he could take about three day's leave so I could sleep after taking the halcyon, he could do nothing and let me go on being sleep deprived to the extent it was dangerous, he could take care of the baby by himself while I was in the hospital for three days or he could answer to his commander as to just why he was being so abusive to his wife.  My STBE chose to take leave.  I slept the entire three days, with only brief wake-ups to eat or go to the bathroom.

At my follow up appointment with the psychiatrist, he was asking me if I'd gotten any sleep, how I was doing, how my son was sleeping, if the STBE was taking more of an active role in parenting, etc.  After about five minutes of this, the STBE apparently couldn't take any more of the focus being on me and blurted out, "I've been thinking of killing myself!"  From that point on, I was ignored.  See, I wasn't thinking of killing myself so I didn't matter any longer.

And thus went the rest of my life with him and when my youngest was born, we'd only been married 19 months.

For years it went on like this, my being relegated to admiring fan, maid, cook, chauffeur, nanny and prostitute in his life.  About three or four years ago, his oldest son came to spend Christmas with us bringing with him his wife and three kids.  They're truly a lovely family and I adore them all so much, but the week or so they were here completely wiped me out and I ended up spending two days in bed in the midst of an RA flare up so bad I was running a fever and was incredibly sick.  I'm going to guess my stepson and his wife saw what was going on because at the end of that two days, they'd cleaned the entire house and did all the cooking.  See, what was going on was this - cooking and cleaning for eight people was rough on me.  Every time I'd ask the STBE for help with anything at all, he'd swoop up one of the kids and say, "I'm with the grandbaby!" and walk away.  He absolutely refused to help me with anything at all.  I wasn't able to sleep for much more than three or four hours a night because of all the cleaning I had to do, including laundry that had somehow piled up in the laundry room and the STBE was peacefully sleeping each night while I did this.  As the week wore on, I grew more and more resentful and I was angry.  It completely ruined Christmas for me, which was probably his goal, since he hated any holiday and Christmas was a particular dislike of his, but more on that in another post.

However, a good illustrative part of our marriage was probably one you've seen in your marriage or relationship and this one will have you nodding in agreement - the circuitous arguing, somehow managing to make it all about them.

This particular point was made to me by our marriage counselor, who brought it up in a session with him.  My guess is, he put up with it for as long as he could and finally began this particular session with this, "Mark, one thing I've noticed in all this is: when you share with Nancy something she's done that upsets you, she acknowledges it, restates it so you know she understands what it is you're saying, then has a discussion with you regarding how she can work to improve on that, thus reducing the chance of it happening again.  However, when she shares with you something you do that upsets her, you respond with how that affects you and your feelings related to her concern.  When do we address Nancy's concerns and feelings?"

Our "homework" related to that was that I would tell him a concern of mine, he was required to address what I'd said in the form of restating it and then he was to work with me on a solution that was JUST about my feelings.  When he'd respond with his feelings about what I'd just said, how much it upset him to hear it and how it affected him, I was to say, "I understand you have feelings related to this, but before we get to those, can we please address mine and come to a resolution first?"

The STBE simply couldn't do it.  He would sit there with his head in his hands, pace, stammer, you name it.  I could almost see the wheels in his head turning, his eyes nearly spinning in his head.  He simply couldn't address anyone's feelings but his own.  The more I tried to keep him on point, the worse he got.  It usually resulted in a blow up on his part, with him accusing me of being a selfish bitch with no consideration of anyone but myself.  (This would be called "projection", something Aspies do this a great deal.)

Now, I can't say it was always like this.  There was a time when I could go to the STBE with a concern of mine, he'd go on a rant about how I was such a thoughtless, selfish bitch, and then a couple of hours to a couple of days later, he'd come to me and apologize, telling me I was right and he'd work more on that.  The rant part came to be called, "Mark the asshole".  I used to beg him to bypass the asshole part of it and let us get to meaningful and healing discussion first.  That was another thing he couldn't do, bypass the asshole part.  If I had a nickel for every time he came back to me later to tell he finally thought about what I'd said and was ready to be more rational about it, I'd be a wealthy, wealthy person.

Another one of his "quirks" was he refused to listen to me when I talked.  I would try to address with him a problem in our marriage and he would go off on one of his rambling speeches about it all.  If I tried to interject anything into the conversation, he'd either talk over me or interrupt me until I'd just give up in frustration.  I started saying to him, "Well, I wasn't done talking but, yeah, you're right, your thoughts and opinions are the only ones that matter."  (And I'd only started doing this in the last couple of years or so...) He would call this "abusive" and it would send him into a tailspin, having him rushing to the internet to share with his fellow Aspies just how abusive I was.  He'd do that for a couple days to a couple weeks, then he'd be okay until the next time.

We were never able to resolve any of our problems, not in 21 years, because he simply wasn't willing to take part in the give and take, the compromise, that goes along with being married to someone who wasn't exactly like him in every way, shape and form.  I honestly think he WANTED to be able to do that, he just isn't able to.  He's so married to the idea that he's the only one with anything worth saying, he simply can't grasp that there are other opinions and ideas that might actually work.  Because of an Aspie's linear, black and white thinking, subtlety and nuance eludes them completely.  With an Aspie, there's no such thing as a "suggestion".  In addition, even were you to say outright, "I feel as though this might work..." they'll disagree with you without giving it any thought at all.  I used to tell people all the time, "If you want my husband to do something for you, tell me, I'll ask him to do the opposite and it'll be done in record time."

Briefly - the circuitous arguing is part of this.  What I'm talking about it your attempt to discuss something with your Aspie and they go round and round with you until they've brought you back to an argument you'd had a few days ago, a few weeks ago, even a few months ago.  They manage to always bring it back to their hurt feelings, their feeling slighted, they're accusing you of "something" you'd LONG forgotten about, if you'd even done it at all.  They will send you down so many rabbit holes in the argument until they've successfully gotten you off them and the discussion (to the point you're thinking to yourself, "I'd only told him I didn't like that he would toss my clean clothes on the bathroom floor.  How did we get to the time I wrecked his car seven years ago, leaving him without a car for four days?")  This circuitous arguing is a tactic of theirs to put you on the defensive, thus you find yourself defending yourself rather than talking about the issue you'd originally come to them with.  You'll know it's happening when you suddenly realize you've gotten light years away from what the original discussion was about, if you can remember what it was you'd come to them with in the first place, and are having the same argument with them you'd had already, many times over.  You'll also be incredibly confused at the end of it.

I guess to round this post out, to bring it down to the brass tacks of the Aspie and the future of your relationship with them is this:  You will never matter to them.  Not your thoughts, not your opinions, not your solutions, not the sound of your voice - nothing.  They will always find a way to make it about them, no matter what the subject.  By the time you realize this is going on, you're already well on your way to being an accessory to their life.  You're the cook, the maid, the taxi/chauffeur to the kids, the personal assistant (pick up/drop off my dry cleaning, etc.), the prostitute (who doesn't get paid because, HEY, I MAKE MORE THAN YOU!) but in none of this will you EVER be an equal partner.

Update: I found a link that explains what life's been like with me.  See, it was so hard to pin "Narcissist" on my STBE because he was always SO self deprecating, SO passive, SO full of, "I don't deserve this".  Even when he was sick, we had to do this dance.  The page's title is "The Covert Narcissist" and it explains my life to a T.

This past July, he told me at the end of the day his heart seemed to be giving him problems and that it had been going on ALL DAY!  I won't go into the explanation here but he was having tachycardia and his blood pressure was through the roof.  It took me two hours to convince him to go to the Emergency Room (it was a Sunday and even were it not, he waited to tell me until after any chance of seeing his primary care physician were out the window.  For two hours, I'm telling him, "C'mon.  Let's get you to the ER."  He would always respond with something along the lines of, "I'll be fine.  It's no big deal. We all have to die sometime."  You get the point.

What finally got him there was me sitting on the bathroom floor, crying, begging him to go, saying things like, "You're SO important to the family!  We LOVE you!  We NEED you!" More crying, more begging.

And THIS was the game to him.  He was putting me in the position of being his ego.  He didn't need an ego or self-esteem himself (and he DOES suffer from extremely low self-esteem) because he was able to manipulate ME into doing it for him.  This was the first time I'd realized this dance we'd been doing for over two decades.  After this, I stopped doing it.

He would tell me he was having a tachycardia problem and I'd say, "Perhaps you should call Dr. Coghlan and see if you can get in today?"

He'd then kick into his, "Oh, I'll be fine.  I'm 53 and this is to be expected at my age.  We all have to die sometime.  When your number's up, your number's up."

I started responding with, "Okay.  You're an adult and it's your choice."  I'd then go on with my day.

This must have infuriated him because I found notes and memos of his that showed this is when he started planning to divorce me.  In preparation for moving, I've been packing and cleaning out closets.  I've found SO many notes he made to himself, all entitled, "Reasons to hate Nancy".

Each one of them was the same, same line items, same reasons, but occasionally he'd add a new one to the list.  Number 1 was always the same, though, always in large block letters - NEVER FORGET REASONS TO DIVORCE NANCY!  (I also found a journal of his that he must have forgotten about.  It took me nearly a month to read it all because it was filled with some sick, sick stuff.  I always wondered why he and his sister seemed to have this bizarre, co-dependent relationship.  Now I know why, and it's not good at all.)

Oh, and something else I found in all the paperwork in the closet?  Copies of his medical records.  In these medical records was proof he'd been having this "heart problem" since 1998, not long before he retired from the Air Force.  Just as he'd never told me of his diagnosis early in our marriage of his Bipolar Disorder, he didn't tell me he had a heart issue.

Why was it such a big deal now?  Because I'd been making plans to leave him.  I'd seen an attorney.  I'd started hiding money.  I'd started telling a couple of close friends I thought I'd reached the end of my time with him.  I started making plans to move back home.  How did he know all this?  He had a keystroke logger on my laptop.

He needed me to stay, not because he didn't want a divorce but because HE wanted to leave ME!  So he finally pulled this rabbit out of his hat, the rabbit that had been sitting there, festering, waiting to be pulled out for just such an occasion.  He needed to stall me and he knew, with me being an empathetic and caring person, that I'd stay if he fell ill and needed taking care of.

Narcissists need to be the one to leave.  Always.  To them, it's the ultimate in "Winning".  To leave a narcissist is the ultimate narcissistic injury, in their mind.  Doing this will subject you to all sorts of abuse you never dreamed imaginable.

Leaving any marriage is never easy.  Leaving a narcissist is down-right impossible.

Asperger's in Adults or What the hell am I dealing with?

“One thing you can't hide - is when you're crippled inside.”   ― John Lennon

Being married to someone with Asperger's is the kind of marriage where you're married to someone with no emotions, no physical reaction to emotion and refuses to be anything but "logical".

According to the medical journals, DSM and other professional diagnostic books and such, Asperger's is:

Excerpted from the DSM-IV (but with the introduction of the DSM-V, Asperger's is no longer a recognized diagnosis, being placed now inside the Autism Spectrum as "High Functioning")

1.  Qualitative impairment in social interaction, as manifested by at least two of the following:

• Marked impairments in the use of multiple nonverbal behaviors such as eye-to-eye gaze, facial expression, body posture, and gestures to regulate social interaction
• Failure to develop peer relationships appropriate to developmental level
• A lack of spontaneous seeking to share enjoyment, interest or achievements with other people, (e.g., by a lack of showing, bringing, or pointing out objects of interest to other people)
• lack of social or emotional reciprocity

2.   Restricted repetitive & stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests and activities
3.  The disturbance causes clinically significant impairments in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
4.  There is no clinically significant general delay in language
5.  There is no clinically significant delay in cognitive development or in the development of age-appropriate self-help skills, adaptive behavior (other than in social interaction) and curiosity about the environment in childhood.

Blah-Blah-Blah-Blahbity--Blah...

Let me break this down for you, using the above as a guide (And I'm not a psychiatrist, just someone who's seen many of them with my STBE ASH):

1.  They have higher than average problems with being in a social situation, and to be diagnosed with Asperger's, it should be at least two of the following:

• Trouble with the use of the average non-verbal social actions most of us use.  Actions such as making eye contact with the person with whom they're talking, changing their facial expression to match the conversation such as laughing when something's funny, showing sadness when something's sad, etc., having a more relaxed body language - not crossing their arms over their chest, sitting with crossed legs, etc., and more relaxed gestures directed at the other person to show engagement and to facilitate the continuance of the conversation, such as a pat on the shoulder, the shaking of hands, maybe a wink to show solidarity.
• This is all about having real friends in your age group at the same maturity level as you.  Aspies tend to make friends with people who are either older or younger than themselves, generally younger since they suffer from a frozen maturity level around that of a pre-teen or so.
• This means sharing their lives with others, such as "Honey, I got a promotion!" or "I got an A on my final!"  Aspies tend to either not say anything at all or downplay it when they do.  They'll also fail to recognize your accomplishments, not really caring.  They're not ones to share photos of their kids or family at all and it's rare you'll actually see a photo of an Aspie, and when you do, they're tense as all get out, not smiling, not looking at the camera or wearing sunglasses.
• This is the hardest part of living with an Aspie full-time, as a spouse, child or significant other - the lack of engagement in day-to-day life.  Not only do they not share their life with you, they don't want you to share your life with them.  Also, these are the guys who when you say, "I love you" respond with a smile, nothing at all or "Yeah, me, too."  Any conversation with them is stilted and awkward because they simply don't take part in it beyond grunts or an occasional, "uh-huh".

2.  Aspies have MAJOR focus when it comes to their "special interests".  They'll have a hobby and their whole life is about that hobby, to the detriment of everyone and everything else in their life.  They'll do this hobby in every single free minute they have.  Some Aspie might even have a tic of some kind (called a "Stim" or "Stimming", which is short for "Stimulation or Stimulator") that brings them comfort in stressful situations.  The Stimming is different and individual to the Aspie, but you'll know it when you see it.

3.  Asperger's causes them problems in most facets of their life, be it with friends, or at work, or in another environment that requires them to interact with others. ( My STBE ASH was recently challenged at work over his knowledge of a certain subject pertaining to his job.  It was a mild challenge, but a co-worker had to come into the room to prevent my STBE from slugging the poor man)

4.  They seem to have pretty normal speech patterns and such but to those of us who live with them daily, we tend to notice little "idiocyncracies", such as a slower speech pattern, saying the wrong word in certain situations, etc.  Once, my STBE was told by a psychiatrist he felt my STBE was mildly retarded because of his slow, careful, measured speech pattern.

5.  Aspies generally have higher than average IQs and if employed are generally EXTREMELY good at what they do.  This is part of why it's so hard to get people to see just what the matter is.  They can be extremely good problem solvers if you can get them to focus on the problem at hand - which is difficult to do.  Most Aspies, by the time they are adults, have honed their skills of adaptability to suit most social and external (meaning outside the home) situations.  They are very chameleon-like and can easily fool people.

Okay, all this being said, my STBE has ALL these problems, with the exception of stimming.  I don't know I ever saw him stim at all.  However, he came from an extremely dictatorial father and an apathetic and childish mother who allowed her feelings to be hurt over the slightest infraction to the extent it would send her to bed, what I've come to call the "Shrinking Violet Routine".  She's a Drama Queen to the nth degree, as is my STBE.  Anyway, the stimming - if I had to guess, it would be that his father spanked it out of him.  His dad was never strong on letting people be who they are.  It was his way or the highway.  And the STBE got spanked A LOT.  

But he hangs onto stuff longer than he should and makes it sound worse than it really was.  Unless it was him committing some sort of action that had you gasping at its violence.  Then he downplayed it completely to become the single most innocuous act known to man and wasn't I the proper fool for seeing it any other way?  My STBE had a particular fondness for being too aggressive with my dog, which he hated with a passion.  He told me once he hated her so much because she and I had similar personalities.  However, he would get pretty aggressive with her and when she reacted the way a dog would, he'd haul off and hit her either with his fist or open hand; every so often, he'd kick her.  When I'd deign to tell him what I thought of this abuse, he'd start in on me, drumming into me just how wrong I was, that I didn't see what I saw or heard what I heard.  If my dog would yelp in response to his hitting her or harming her in some way, and I'd hear it and say something, he'd start in on, "That's just how she is!  She over reacts to EVERYTHING!"  (now he's gas-lighting a dog?)

Speaking of the "hanging onto stuff longer than he should"...  My STBE is 53 years old and is STILL upset over a dirt bike his younger brother got when he was 15 and his brother was 12.  He's STILL angry and hurt about it because HE wanted a dirt bike and his parents KNEW it!

He can also give you a litany of the last 21 years of every transgression he believes I've committed against him, either real or imagined.  But, ask him to remember saying something horrible to you, like the time he told me he couldn't stand to see me without clothes on because I was so fat it made him nauseous, and he'll take to the grave with him the insistence he never said that and that I'm making it up because I need to find something wrong with him.  (Seriously, I never had to look hard - he was always doing something that was either hurtful or annoying)

I'm starting to ramble, now.  I've been forced into silence for so long, I have too much to say, all the time.  That's the reason for this blog, to get it off my chest and try to help others at the same time.  Misery loves company and all that, you know.

Be on the lookout for my next post and tell me what you think of this one.