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 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.

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.

Aspies are loners, but don't want to be alone

Loneliness is never more cruel than when it is felt in close propinquity with someone who has ceased to communicate. ~ Germaine Greer 

Usually, I put some sort of insightful, thoughtful quote here, but today, I decided to combine the image with the quote.  I think Robin Williams either has Asperger's or understands it completely.

The older a person with Asperger's gets without a diagnosis and therapy, the worse they get.  It's as though they lose their filter.  Most Aspies, though, learned at a younger age to "straighten up and fly right" in order to fit in.  These are people who are MASTER chameleons.  They are able to quickly read any social situation and immediately become the person they need to be.  However, there are signs:

He was the student who "never reached his full potential".  He's the kid who was bullied by his peers for being "odd".  He's the kid who spent ALL his time playing video games.  He's the kid who never had many friends, nor does he have them now.  He's the guy who excels at science, computers and math, which isn't to say all people good at these subjects has Asperger's, but these are also the guys who are engineers, doctors, lawyers and other highly successful careers.  These are also the guys whom as adults everyone thinks is WONDERFUL.

But they don't live with them.

They don't see the rigidity of their lifestyle.  They aren't the ones being ignored, day after day after day.  They're also not the ones who get to see the meltdowns, the temper tantrums, the extreme anxiety that comes with any emergency because they simply don't know what to do.  They're not the ones to be standing there when you've walked up behind your Aspie to given them a quick hug or peck on the back of the neck and are sent sailing across the room because they can't stand to be startled.  And while you're picking yourself up off the ground, injured, you get to listen to them rant on just how stupid, thoughtless and uncaring you are for making them hit you like they just did.  They're not the ones who are there to see him ignore you when you're sick because they can't stand the thought of taking care of another person and they'll treat you as though you have leprosy or some other communicable disease.  They're not the ones to see him hit you, giving you a black eye, because your vomiting in the middle of the night woke them up and they need their SLEEP DAMN IT!  They're no the ones to see you crammed into the back of the closet or shower stall to hide from the kids your crying your eyes out because of the pain you experience every day of your life because your Aspie has, once again, ignored you for another day.  They're not the ones who are there to watch the kids come home with some major accomplishment and see their crestfallen faces when they run to their father, excited and thrilled, sharing their big news and his response is either, "That's nice" or "You could have done better and this is how..."

Aspies really don't want to be alone.  The would VERY much like to have friends and a social life.  But they just can't.  It's not that they don't have the skills, they just don't have the confidence and self-esteem.  They're SO desperate to be liked, it terrifies them to approach a social situation, any social situation, because they've already run through all the possible scenarios in their head and the result is always the same there - they'll hate me and think I'm a dork.  Because this is the only scenario they can imagine, they refuse to engage in any relationship of any kind, even romantic ones.

With my STBE, much like what I've heard from every other Aspie wife out there, he wanted to sit next to me on the couch each evening.  He simply wanted me to do it while he sat there with the iPad in his lap, earbuds in his ears, while he watched either videos on YouTube or movies on one of our accounts.  A typical day in our house went as follows:

1. STBE would come home from work, usually around 5:00, 
2. give me a quick peck "Hello", 
3. go change clothes, 
4. eat dinner if it was ready, fix dinner if it wasn't (with my RA, I wasn't able to stand up or chop anything for long...Not much anymore), 
5. sit at the dinner table with me and rush through eating his dinner saying absolutely nothing to me at all. If I would try to talk to him, his responses would be either hostile (as in, "I'm eating!") or monosyllabic, to the extent I'd just stop trying
6. Put his dishes in the sink (maybe...) and precariously pile them on top of the rest because he can't be bothered to empty the dishwasher (one of his three "chores") for four or five days at a time.
7. Walk to the den
8. Pick up the iPad (mine, which he took over the day it came into the house)
9. Put the earbuds in, 
10. Find a video to watch
11. Sit there and watch it

If I wanted or needed to say something to him, I'd touch his leg.  This would be followed by a loud sigh, his going through the exaggerated motions of pausing his video, taking his earbuds out, then looking at me with the rolling of the eyes and saying, "WHAT?"  At this point, after all the histrionics, would generally respond with, "Oh, terribly sorry for bothering you with my need for human interaction."  

Oblivious to the sarcasm, he would put his earbuds back in and turn his video back on.

If I decided I'd had enough of this and would get up to go to the bedroom to watch television or read a book, he'd do one of two things: he'd either take out his earbuds, put away the iPad and start watching TV on his own (thus sending me the message it was ME he didn't want to interact with, not the television) or he would get upset with me for leaving the room for anything more than going to the bathroom or getting something to drink in spite of the fact he's been ignoring me for a couple of hours or so.

The bottom line is, it's not that I'm really there so we can spend some time together, talk, laugh, get to know each other again after so many years of focusing too much on the business of raising a family, but because he doesn't want to be alone in the room.

And I should say, by the time I got to this point, I'd already experienced several months of trying to engage with him and being unsuccessful.  Although, to be fair, this had been going on for years, it just took me this long to really notice it.  In the beginning, when we were still in marriage counseling, I would bring this up, that I was feeling ignored, more like furniture than a person.  Mark would poo-poo this, tell me it was all in my imagination and that I was delusional (his word) and then tell me how hurtful it was for him to hear me say this to our marriage counselor and to try so hard to make him look bad, thus turning it around onto me while making it about him at the same time.  He wouldn't address my hurt, he just made it about him.  Always about him.

It didn't take me long to decide I'd had enough of that, too.

To Aspies, the people in their lives are there for a purpose and it's a purpose that's decided on by the Aspie.  And the sole reason for having this person in their life is to fulfill that purpose, whatever it is.  Whether it's to listen to their problems, do their laundry, tell them what a wonderful person they are, whatever.  But everyone is expendable and interchangeable, based on the needs of the Aspie.  Should you require anything in return from the Aspie, such as when a parent dies or you're told you have a serious illness, forget about it.  They won't engage and will, in fact, become VERY angry with you over needing them.  They will turn tail and run from you as fast as they can and when called on it by you will make it your fault they turned their back on you.  And they'll do it in some clever ways, leaving your head spinning.  And you'll also find yourself apologizing to them for having the audacity to need them to support you, for a change.

My father died in 2001 from cancer.  He'd been diagnosed about 18 months earlier and when he was diagnosed, his oncologist told us all, there's no cure for this.  The best we can do is give him chemo and offer him a few more good months.  This weighed heavily on me and it was during this 18 months I found out I had cancer, too.  In fact, my dad and I were in the same hospital at the same time having procedures done to try to improve our conditions.  I was completely alone in all of it.  My husband went with me to the hospital for the procedure, but once it was done, there as no chance for recuperation because he went back to work the next day.  I had a house full of kids to take care of.  

Also during this 18 months, we were going somewhere as a family.  By this time, my nephew was living with us and we had two of our own in the house.  Everyone had gone to the car but I had to backtrack to get something from the house.  I'd stepped into the silence of our home and was suddenly hit with it all in one fell swoop. The rush of emotions that came to me out of nowhere forced me to sit down at the kitchen table, put my head in my hands and lay them on the table, crying my eyes out like I hadn't cried in years.  At some point, my nephew came into see what was taking me so long.  I barely registered his being in the entry of the kitchen when he went outside to tell my husband, "Aunt Nancy's in the kitchen and she's crying.  I think she needs your help."  What was Mark's response to my nephew?  "What am I supposed to do?  I can't make her dad healthy again."  He never came into the house and I walked outside to the car, eyes finally free or tears but puffy and obvious I'd been crying.  He didn't say a word to me.  Everyone simply pretended it didn't happen.

Finally, the day my dad was rushed to the hospital for what was his final admittance so he could be transferred to hospice, my siblings and I rushed to the hospital, me locally, my sisters and brother from other states, to be there.  The only person who wasn't there was my STBE.  I started calling him immediately because a.) I wanted him there with me and b.) someone needed to pick up our youngest from the school bus so this seven-year-old boy didn't come home to a locked house.  For three hours I tried to get hold of Mark.  He wasn't answering his cell phone.  He wasn't at his desk. The receptionist at his workplace couldn't find him.  His supervisor was looking for him.  There were people searching the building for him and his car wasn't in the parking lot.  They were paging him every few minutes because I was a crying mess on the phone.  No one knew where he was until he seemed to have magically appeared at his desk.  To this day, he'll swear he was at his desk the entire time and people must have just been missing him whenever he got up to go to the bathroom or to get a cup of coffee (to understand this, see Gas Lighting - and once I write my tale of woe in relation to this, I'll change the link to that posting).  However, it also came out later he was in the midst of his cheating with one of his sluts.  I'm guessing he was with her during that time and was refusing to answer his cell because (and here's the strangest part of his affairs) he refused to cheat on his girlfriends (yes, multiple) with his wife but was okay cheating on his wife with his girlfriends.  Once he got to the hospital, my sister tells me all he could talk about was how inconvenient it was Daddy was dying when he was because Mark was on a project with a deadline coming up at work he needed to get back to and finish.

Just to be clear - cheating with your girlfriend during the workday is just fine and dandy.  Father-in-law dying during the workday causes major problems and is inconvenient, thus causing major stress.  Once again, it was all about him.

I found out several months later, during the last year of my father's life and the six months or so I was dealing with my own cancer, my husband was having an affair with a piece of trash he worked with, a graphics design artist named Pam. Adding insult to injury, she was also the wife of someone I grew up with, his mother being my Girl Scout leader for several years.  Once the affair was discovered by the husband of this POS, Mark's reasoning for it was, "If you hadn't ignored me so much, I wouldn't have had to find someone else."  Terribly sorry my cancer and my dad's dying got in the way of me paying attention to you, you selfish prick.

And to put the nail in the coffin that is your life, it's not enough the Aspie is ignoring you, they will work to separate you from anyone meaningful in your life.  Your friends.  Your family.  Your children.  Your job.  Anyone who might take your time, energy or attention away from them is fair game and they will work to get in between you and these people, even lying if they have to in order to make it happen.  And it happens so subtly, you don't even realize it's happening until it's too late.  You stop one day, look around you and see no one but you and the Aspie and then it'll hit you what they've been doing, all along.  And you cry.  But there's no one there to give you a shoulder or to hear your sobs.

To close, and I can't say it any simpler than this, being married to a person with Asperger's will be the loneliest months, years or decades of your life.  And you'll be told it's all your fault.

Asperger's and marriage - the honeymoon period

It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages. ~Friedrich Nietzsche 

If you're reading this, odds are great you're married to an Aspie and are trying to figure out just what the hell is going on in what was once a great marriage?  Well, you married an Aspie, that's what the hell is wrong.

People with Asperger's don't do marriage very well.  I read somewhere on the internet (I really gotta start bookmarking this stuff) the longest most Aspies can hold out with "the facade" is about two years.  All the times my STBE were in counseling I'd said often, the first two years of our marriage were great!  He was attentive, he brought me home little gifts, he shared equally in the housework, he was easy to talk to, we solved problems together and I felt loved and a part of his life.

But then our son was born, prematurely I might add, following a not difficult but not easy pregnancy.  I was starting to see signs of "something" being not quite right, but I was young and in love and let them wash over me.  However, it was after the birth of our son things went south.  More on that later...

One of the "signs" things weren't quite right in our marriage was one of the earlier times his kids from his first marriage came for the weekend.  At the time, I worked from 6:30 AM until 2:30 PM as a CSR for a major camping club company.  I was home every afternoon by 3:00 and would jump into the whole "wife and mother" thing.  I also loved cooking and was always trying something new (I collect cookbooks) for dinner.  This particular day, I made a dinner salad that was slightly labor intensive - bacon, vinaigrette dressing, smoked turkey, three different kinds of lettuce, toasted almonds, sliced strawberries, and a few more ingredients I can't recall.  I called everyone to dinner, set the salad bowl in the middle of the table and went to get everyone's drinks, calling out as I walked into the kitchen, "What does everyone want to drink?"  When I came back with said drinks, the salad bowl was empty and all three of their plates were filled, except for mine, which was completely empty.  I stood there, gobsmacked that I wasn't served, too.  I quietly set down everyone's drinks, went back into the kitchen, made myself a sandwich (FUMING) and went into the living room to eat my sandwich while they enjoyed this dinner salad I'd obviously made for only them.  My STBE finally (FINALLY) noticed I wasn't at the table with them (and it only took him several minutes, I'd already finished my sandwich and glass of milk), noticed what he'd done and told the kids, "When you've finished eating what you want of your salad, give the rest to Nancy so she can have some."

Trouble in paradise?  He never apologized for doing that, only gave me the explanation (One that meant it wasn't his fault), "I guess I'm just used to serving just them".  Really?  We'd already been married for a couple of months and you'd only been divorced about a month when I met you so how was it a habit was formed so quickly?  I never bought that as an explanation and it still bugs me I didn't walk out right then.

I have 21 years of stuff like that, where I was the afterthought by both him AND his family.  Christmas gifts sent by his family that were addressed to just him and our son.  Same deal with Christmas cards.  For 21 years I was a stepmother to his kids and when they were told I'd filed for divorce, it's as though I never existed.  Gone *poof*  (looks like they might have gotten some of their dad's aspie-ness?)

Also, Aspies prefer their solitude.  The strain of interacting socially with anyone, including their spouse at home, is just too stressful.  There's no small talk.  No discussions of current affairs.  No "How was your day, honey?"  Nothing.  They just want to crawl into their hole, put some earbuds in and watch television, movies or videos online.  BUT - and this is the strange part - they want you there sitting right next to them.  Yes, they're ignoring you, but get up and leave the room to do something else and their feelings are hurt, left, right and center.

Another aspect of the AS/NT marriage is, you're probably a social person with lots of friends; or at least you used to be.  Now, all you see in front of you is a life of solitude and being ignored by your Aspie.  The problem with Aspies is, they really DO want friends, they're just not very good at the whole "friend thing".  They can go hours, days, weeks, months and not talk to anyone outside of work.  There's no parties, no dinner invitations, no celebrations of friend's weddings, nothing.  Aspies prefer to stay home.  Period.  The thought of going out into a social situation terrifies and paralyzes them.  But they'll never tell you that.  They'll simply wait until the day of the event, generally only two or three hours before you're supposed to leave, and they'll pick a fight.  It could be something completely inconsequential (and it usually is) or something major, but the bottom line is, whatever "it" is, it's your fault.  You'll take a long, long time finally connecting the dots and when you approach your Aspie with this observation, whether it's as a loving or exasperated spouse is irrelevant, the response will be the same - they deny it and throw a raging fit.  YOU want to help them, THEY want to refuse to acknowledge they have any problems at all, that it's YOU with the problem.

An extension of this whole "I don't need friends" thing is, they don't need YOU as a friend either so there's no "friendship" in the marriage.  After a long enough period of time, you start to notice this.  Something else you notice is: you're a maid, a cook, a sex partner (maybe...), a taxi service to the kids and basically a "Guy/Gal Friday" (Aspies are generally male, roughly 4 to 1 - Did you see that?  I found a link to the information!) but you're not a wife/husband.  You've become an accessory to the Aspie, someone for them to take out and play with when the mood strikes, when they're feeling "less Aspie".  Any marital interaction, on any level, is always on their terms, never yours.

There's also no problem resolution in an AS/NT marriage.  Aspies don't like "conflict".  But "conflict" is overstating it a bit.  I'd go to my STBE, calm as a pond on a windless day, and say, "Honey, I feel we should discuss _________."  He would go into panic mode, start suffering from anxiety and want out of the discussion immediately and the pacing would start. To many Aspies, any discussion regarding the marriage is "confrontation" and/or "conflict" and they avoid it at all costs.  At one of our many, many counselors, he told the therapist this made him anxious (and threw in just how "confrontational" I am/was, for good measure).  The therapist then told us what we needed to do when we felt ourselves getting anxious or stressed; we could call a time-out.

The reasoning was, the person calling time-out was feeling stressed and wanted some time to settle down.  The rule was, whomever called the time-out had to be the one to bring the discussion back up, once they'd settled down.  My STBE, though, was usually the one to call the time-out, he just wouldn't bring up the discussion again.  This went on for about a month before I figured out what he was doing.  He was manipulating the situation to suit his need to never discuss marital problems.  When I pointed out to the therapist he was doing this, the therapist put him on a time limit to end the time-out, 24 hours.  It was at this point he decided we no longer needed counseling.  For my STBE, any discussion outside of his interests was "confrontation" and he ran from it like a raging lion was on his tail.

I should mention, this particular counselor was someone we started seeing in year two of our marriage, not long before our youngest was born.  If I had to guess, it would be the strain of knowing a baby was coming soon got to be too much for him.

I seem to have gotten off on a tangent, of sorts, and I'm sorry for that, but the bottom line is - Aspies do dating and the first year or two of marriage really well.  After that, well, it's all downhill.

In this divorce, I've been visiting some websites that lend support to NTs divorcing their Aspies (because we NEED IT!) and some of them express guilt over leaving their Aspie and moving on.  See, the powers that be in the Aspie therapy world tell us, "They can't help it" or "It's an illness, just like any other" and "Would you leave if he had cancer, or heart disease?"  It's all about making sure the Aspie/Narcissist gets further validation it's not them but the rest of the world that is at fault.  There's no accountability, no consequences for their actions and no making them responsible for their behavior.  No, no, sweet abusive baby, let US take care of YOU!  You just go on being the BEST abuser you can be!  I'LL be the one to learn how better to put up with it!

However, if my STBE had heart disease or cancer, he'd see a doctor and do whatever it took to get better.  This past July, my STBE had a "cardiac event" of some sort and spent four days in the hospital because of it.  (I found not too long ago he's had this "cardiac thing" since around 1997 but never told anyone.  Why did he keep it a secret for so long?  Why didn't he tell ME?)  Why is it because it's Asperger's he refuses help?  Because the very nature of Asperger's means they don't see it's they with the problem, but the rest of the world.  Narcissism and Asperger's look a great deal alike so make sure you see a licensed psychiatrist/counselor to help you figure out which one it is.  And if you can get this person to even go SEE a specialist, make sure it's someone who's got experience in these severe disorders.  Aspies believe the rest of the world really should just leave them to be the person they are and to adjust to them, not the other way around.

When his heart started giving him problems that day in July, it took me HOURS to convince him to go the ER, which is a dance we do every single time there seems to be something seriously wrong with him.  It will go on for hours and usually ends once I get to the part where I'm telling him just how important he is to the world and taking care of himself is taking care of the rest of us, that we need him to the nth degree.  It became exhausting, really.  I'd finally gotten to the point where I wouldn't play the game.  Whenever he started in with his, "I'm sick" stuff, I'd tell him he should go the doctor, he'd start in with, "Noooooo, I'm fiiiiiiiiiine".  I started responding with, "Okay.  See you later."

He called this abuse and started joining boards online and telling people, "I'm an abused spouse".  I call it being an Aspie with malignant narcissism.  But that's a post for another day.

Marriage with an Aspie - what you have to look forward to.

People can be cruel, and they will be. People can hurt you, break your heart and they will. But only you can let them keep hurting you... ~unknown

What's it like being married to an Aspie?  It's maddening.

Don't let the sites you're reading tell you, "With just a little more love and patience, all will be well."  Nope, not for an Aspie.  No matter how much love and patience you give them, they want more.  So you give a little more.  Then they want more.  So you give just a little more.  And they want even more.  This goes on for the duration of your marriage.  Aspies are always raising the bar until you get to the point you simply can't reach any higher or do any more, then they start yelling at you constantly, they berate you, they call you names, sometimes they'll even hit you and throw things at you, not because they raised the bar to unattainable levels, but because you just don't love them enough to keep jumping through hoops for them.

The reality is, roughly 80% of Aspie-NT (neuro-typical, which is the name given to the non-Aspie partner) marriages end in divorce.  I've looked high and low for a link to back this up and can't find one, but it's been referenced several times online from "a Relate leaflet", in p42 of 'Asperger Syndrome and Long-Term Relationships', by Ashley Stanford.

All this being said, these are some basic truths I've come up with due to my interactions with other NTs married to Aspies.  I should say, these are my personal observations and aren't based on anything scientific in any way.  It was these characteristics of their NT/AS marriages that led my STBE and I to his diagnosis from our marriage counselor that he is, indeed, an Aspie.  It was his therapist at the VA who came up with the Bi-Polar Disorder (BPD) diagnosis.  It was another VA therapist who seems to have told him he didn't need an Asperger's diagnosis because it would just make his marriage worse.  I don't know WHAT he's been telling them at the VA, but based on past history, it probably wasn't good.

I want to note, I'll eventually expand on these "truths" as a separate post, and as I create them, I'll try to remember to link back to them and vice versa.

1.  If you've married an Aspie, it'll make an appearance within the first two years of your marriage - Some go longer, some go shorter if kids come along, but it seems two years seems to be the limit for their ability to keep it all under wraps.  Also, whether you dated 10 days or 10 years, or somewhere in between, you'll have seen NO signs of them being an Aspie.  Every spouse I've talked to tells me they saw nothing that sent up any red flags while they dated their spouses.  My own STBE Aspie finally admitted to me he knew he had these issues, mental illness and emotional problems before he even met me but he hid them from me out of fear I'd leave him.

2.  Aspies don't want kids - Aspies are EXTREMELY needy people.  Kids take your attention away from them.  There's more, but this is the gist of it.  If you're married to an Aspie, you WILL be the primary caregiver and they don't reciprocate.  It's like having another child, seriously.

3.  Aspies are loners - but they don't want to be alone.  More on that later.

4.  Aspies will always make it about them - no matter what.  If you're lying in the middle of the road, having just been run over by a car, they won't call 9-1-1 until you have a full understanding of just "why" this is so difficult for them.

5.  Aspies WILL lie to you - everything you read about Asperger's tells you Aspies are extremely honest people.  This must have been something an Aspie tried to convince everyone of because I've yet to meet the spouse of an Aspie who hasn't told me their spouse lied constantly, even when the truth wouldn't hurt them.

6.  They'll cheat on you - and they'll do it more than once, if you stay with them after the first affair.  Another misnomer about Aspies is - they're extremely loyal.  Loyalty and faithfulness are two different words in the dictionary and they are two different words to an Aspie.  Every single NT spouse I've interacted with, and it's been dozens (over 100, at least) has told me their Aspie spouse cheated on them at least once, most of them more than once.  I cover this in the posting I did about #5, Aspies WILL lie to you.

7.  Aspies are huge pornography fans - Every single NT spouse of an Aspie told me and the groups their spouse was addicted to pornography, bar none.  Every. Single. One.

8.  Aspies aren't huge fans of sex - Except with themselves.  Once again, every single NT spouse I've talked to - every single one - tells me their Aspie spouse refuses to have sex with them 99.9% of the time, generally once or twice a year, with most of them sharing they'd not had sex with their Aspie in years.  However, Aspies DO like to masturbate; apparently a great deal.  I'm still scratching my head on this one.

9.  Aspies are the masters of manipulation -  If you're married to an Aspie, you'll spend your entire life with them trying to stay one step ahead of their circuitous thinking.  It's exhausting, to say the least.  (See #10)

10.  Aspies are the most literal people you'll ever meet - and while they can't help this, they also use it to their advantage.  For over a year, I'd suspected my STBE Aspie was having an affair with someone he worked with.  There was overtime not showing up on his paycheck, he was suddenly not available when I called, he wasn't saying, "I love you" to me on the phone much anymore and he'd started neglecting things around the house, such as mowing the lawn.  For a year, I'd been saying to him, "Are you having an affair with someone at work?"  For a year, he was answering me with, "No, I'm not."  When the slut he was sleeping with was finally caught by her husband, who ended up being someone I'd grown up with, and he called me about it, I'd said to my STBE Aspie, "How could you look me in the eye and lie to me about cheating with your co-worker?"  His response?  Typical Aspie - That's not what you asked me.  You asked me if I was cheating with someone at work.  We never did anything at work.

11.  Aspies are abusive - In a variety of ways.  Mentally, emotionally, physically and verbally abusive, sometimes all at the same time.  And if you raise kids with them, they'll become abusive, too.

12.  Aspies are gas lighters - Gas lighting is a psychological term coined from the 1944 movie "Gas Light" starring Ingrid Bergman.  Gas lighting is one of the single most damaging personality "quirks" an Aspie has. It's the one that'll drive you to the brink of insanity and it's the one that will have you running, screaming out the door for the divorce attorney.  Seriously.  It's that bad.

13.  Aspies are NEVER at fault - They will do this dance a hundred different ways to deflect the blame off themselves and will say or do anything to keep the smell off of themselves, even blaming loved ones who had nothing to do with it and weren't even in the room at the time.

14.  Aspies will use the children against you - Aspies make lousy parents.  I joke that it's because they can't stand the competition, but it's not too far from the truth.  However, they will say horrible things about you to the kids.  They will undermine you every chance they get.  They will be the "good" parent while you are forced to be the "bad" parent simply because the Aspie doesn't really parent at all, unless it's an opportunity to elevate themselves in some way.

15.  Aspies need to be liked by everyone - Aspies are generally socially inept.  As such, their need to be liked is all-prevailing and they're able to be whomever you need them to be.  They are very chameleon-like in their personality and can turn it off and on at will.  This relates to #14 because they do this to the kids.  You WILL become their scapegoat in all matters pertaining to them, both good and bad.

16.  Aspies are indecisive - to the point of being crippling to a relationship.  Aspies are SO terrified of being wrong, thus "not liked", they have a difficult time deciding which way to go when a major (or minor) decision needs to be made.  And if you can pin them down to a decision, most times they'll come back six months later and say, "I didn't really want to do it that way, I just through that's what you wanted to hear or for me to say" or "I though that's what you wanted me to say."  Unless it's a GOOD decision and then they'll take all the credit.

17.  Aspies seem to have "food issues" - I'm still working on this one in my head, but I've yet to come across an Aspie spouse who DIDN'T have some sort of issues with food.

18.  Aspies will self-medicate - Whether it's drugs or alcohol, they'll do it, even when they know it could cost them their jobs, marriages and kids.

19.  Aspies are narcissists - Aspies are simply unable to imagine anyone's feelings or needs beyond their own.  Period.  Nacissism, Bipolar Disorder and Asperger's are often misdiagnosed, one for the other, so often because they're so much alike.  If you're marrying an Aspie, get ready to never have your feelings count for anything ever again.

20.  Aspies may also have an underlying mental illness - This isn't to say Asperger's is a mental illness, it's not.  BUT - it's not uncommon for an Aspie to have an additional mental illness or two.  Generally, the mental illness with be Bi-Polar Disorder, schizophrenia, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and/or severe depression and anxiety.  While the depression, anxiety and panic disorders ARE pretty prevalent in most people with Asperger's, it's also suggested that perhaps Asperger's has many of the same symptoms as several mental illnesses and they aren't part of the mix.  It's also not uncommon for a diagnosis to be given of Asperger's that's actually a mental illness of some kind, and vice versa.

21.  Aspies don't have the ability to empathize - What this means is, if you're going through a major life crisis, such as the death of a parent or other loved one, you'll go through it alone, unless you have a supportive circle of friends.  I can look back on every major difficulty in my life and equate it to when my STBE had an affair.  He simply can't handle my paying attention to anyone BUT him, even if that "anyone" was a dead loved one.  My heartache at the loss of a loved one was an annoyance to him.

22.  Don't expect to have many friends - Whether it's because they take your time away from the Aspie, or it's your Aspie's odd behavior (and they can get really odd), your circle of friends will grow smaller and smaller with each passing year, until you're completely alone with your Aspie, which is exactly where he wants you.  If there's no one else in your life, you can devote ALL your spare time to taking care of your Aspie.

23.  You will be separated from your family - Because Aspie's are abusive, they will separate you from your family as most abusers do.  It will be so subtle and so pervasive, you won't even see it happening until it's happened - and the kids are fair game to them.  Anyone who is in a position to help you, anyone you trust implicitly, anyone who could possibly see things from your point of view is a threat to the Aspie way of life and they MUST get them out of your world.  They will say and do anything to separate you from your family.  I learned this one the hard way.

24.  Everything they loved about you when they married you is now hated - Was it your ready smile that drew them to you?  Your fierce independence?  Your ability to make people laugh?  Was it the way you could work a room at any party?  It could have been one of these things or all of these things that they LOVED about you when they met and married you.  And, yes, they loved them all.  But as time passes, they will work, diligently, to remove these parts of your personality and they'll do it with a surgical precision that would leave even Dr. Ben Carson in awe.

25.  Aspies hate Neurotypicals - we are the person they want to be and when it's they who fail, we carry the blame.

26.  They will wish for your death, almost daily - We, the spouses of these Aspies, know them better than anyone else because we live with them day in and day out.  As the people who know them best, we're the people with the greatest capacity to hurt them and they hate this about us.  They hate us for knowing them so well and they hate us for being realistic about them and their shortcomings.  Because of this, they want us to die.  They might even write in their journals about it.  They might even refuse to take us to the doctor for a serious illness because they want us to die so much.  This isn't to say they don't love us, they just want us to die.

27.  They will want you to love them for who they are - Sounds good, right?  Unconditional love?  Who doesn't want that.  Except they don't operate in that way.  Their love is completely conditional on you pleasing them.  If you displease them, they won't tell you, they'll just shut you out entirely.  No talking, no acknowledgement, no attention at all.  They won't stop this until you apologize.  For what you ask?  No one but the Aspie knows and they're not telling.  But apologize you will.

28.  If you come to your senses and decide to divorce the Aspie - Get ready for the fight of your life.  Most high-conflict divorces are the result of an Aspie being left.  They truly see themselves as the ideal spouse and parent when, in fact, the opposite is true.  Because of this, they simply can't understand why you'd leave such a prize and this leaves them angry.  Also, remember back to #13 and #19?  It's never their fault and they refuse to accept that the needs of anyone but them matters.  This makes for some rough courtroom time.  They'll say and do anything, even lying to do it, to maintain the status quo.  Aspies and narcissists need a victim to keep their egos at a healthy level (healthy for them, not for anyone else) and if they don't have someone to dump on, they can't stand it.

29.  You will start to look crazy yourself - I can remember when my STBE and I saw marriage counselor #37 or so.  I remember telling her, "I feel as though I'm always being manipulated" to which she replied, "That's a symptom of Borderline Personality Disorder".  She was trying to tell me I had BPD.  I couldn't get her to understand I WAS being manipulated all the time!  My STBE wouldn't come to me to talk about something, such as, "You know, honey, I think I need some new jeans and would like to go get some.  Can we afford that this payday?"  No, no, no... That would be too easy.  Instead, what he'd do is start "talking" about jeans, never actually committing to the "want" or "need" part, just kind of talking about them, much like a child would hint at what they wanted for Christmas.  It would be days and weeks of his "hinting" at something with me giving a non-committal response.  I wasn't AWARE he wanted new jeans because he wasn't telling me!  This would go on for quite a while before I'd finally snap and say, "Oh, for the love of God and all that's holy, just go get the DAMN JEANS!"  Once he got what he wanted, he would move onto the next "want", not by asking, but by "hinting".  To the Aspie, it's all about getting what they want through manipulations, lies and outright trickery.  I "appeared" crazy because of what I was living with at home.  I "felt" like I was being manipulated because I WAS being manipulated - ALL THE TIME!

30.  You will be alone in this marriage - on several levels.  You will be ignored, you will be treated as an accessory, you will NOT be treated as a person who matters.  Also, once the reality of what you're living with hits you, you'll want to go to counseling.  Most likely, the Aspie spouse will go, but it's only so the counselor will give them backup for just how "crazy" you are (see Gas lighting).  You will be the only person working on the marriage at all times.  The Aspie might put in the token effort, but when it gets too hard, they turn their back on you.

31.  Asperger's and Marriage - Or, "What the hell am I dealing with?" - If you've read other posts on this blog, you'll know I was married to an Aspie/Narcissist/Sociopath/Bipolar for 21 years.  For a long, long time, I had no idea what I was dealing with in the marriage, I just knew "something" wasn't right.  I was also told for 21 years, the only problems the marriage had were mine to solve, that it was entirely my fault and that "Il Douche" (yes, I know it should be "Il Duce"...) was perfect in every way, shape or form, and this is what he told anyone who would listen.  If you remember only one thing I say in all these postings, remember this one - You're not crazy!

32.  Marriage to an Aspie - You'll always be wrong - Did you go into your marriage or relationship with an Aspie with solid self-esteeem and a good ego?  Don't expect to hang on to that for very long.  This is the first thing Aspies/Narcissists/Sociopaths attack when the moment they marry you.  Most Aspies suffer from low self-esteem, which is what's behind ALL their behavior towards you.  Rather than seek help to develop better self-esteem, they drag you down to their level.  Part of this is always disagreeing with you, no matter what you say or what opinion you hold (and your opinions will ALWAYS be wrong).

This seems to be about all I can come up with for now.  As other items occur to me, I'll add them here.  And as I said previously, I'm going to try to create a post about all of these, linking back if I can remember to do so.  If I don't do it right away, I'm sure I'll remember w/n a day or two or three.

What it's like being married to someone with Asperger's. And then divorcing them.

“The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved.”  ~Mother Teresa

For 21 years, I've been married to the same man.  For 21 years, it's been hell on earth.

My husband was diagnosed with Asperger's earlier this year (2013).  Life with him's been difficult, to say the least.  Add to the mix he also has Bipolar disorder (and I only learned of this recently, also that he'd hidden this from me for the duration of our marriage), but refuses to take his medication for it because he didn't like how it made him feel (Seroquel XR).  I filed for divorce last month because I couldn't take one more day in his distorted world with his viewpoint being the rest of the world is out to get him.

In trying to research just what Asperger's is, in trying to find out just what Bi-Polar Disorder (BPD) is, I couldn't find anything other than "rainbows and unicorns" out there in the internet world.  Apparently, people don't like to talk about what it's really like in the world of an Aspie (as they like to call themselves, though I think it makes it all cute and wonderful).  Once I saw just how prevalent this "bury your head in the sand" approach is, I decided to make it my mission to start writing about just how hard it really is being married to an Aspie.

There's a caveat to all this.  Before I'm inundated by moms with Aspie children, my postings will pertain to how things went in MY marriage.  This isn't directed at your child, whom I'm sure is perfectly lovely and wonderful all the time (see also Precious Darling Syndrome).  Also, the Asperger's of today is different now.  Back when my husband was born, Asperger's wasn't a diagnosis, only having been "discovered" in the 1990's.  In discussing some of this many months ago with my STBE Mother-in-law, she told me she suspected for a long time my STBE, Mark, has Asperger's, and apparently she's discussed it with everyone BUT me and Mark.  Gee, thanks for passing on to me with no warning your troubled son and turning him loose on the world.

Those of us who live in the reality that is Asperger's know it's not as wonderful as "they" would have us believe.  We're made to feel guilty for not being more patient and understanding.  We're made to feel as though we're failures for not giving our Aspies more time, more latitude, more love.

The truth of the matter is, we're not failures for reaching the end of our rope with our Aspies.  We're a testament to the strength of character it takes to remain married for as long as some of us have done.  Most of these women I've talked to have been married for 10 to fifteen years and more.  Aspies chose us to be their wives because they KNEW we'd put up with it, not because we're idiots who relish living in an abusive marriage but because we have a character trait they need to remain in the marriage, we're caregivers and loving people who refuse to give up on a person because they're not perfect.  We're the women who give of ourselves more than the average person.  We don't walk away at the first sign of trouble and we want to do our part to make things better for those around us, for those who love us.

To help those of you who have landed here, completely desperate for information as to just WHAT'S wrong with your husband and father of your children, I'm going to tell it like it is, warts and all.  No sunshine and unicorns here.  Before I do that, I'll say this: Because of this "cone of silence" that seems to surround the Aspies and their families, you won't find in a lot of places what I'm about to share here (and I'll be doing it over several posts, not just one - stay tuned for more as time progresses).  Over the last few months, I found a couple of places online that address what life's REALLY like with an Aspie and they are brutally honest, which is what I needed.  I felt extremely alone in all of this, these last 21 years.  I knew something was off with my soon-to-be-ex (STBE) Aspie husband, but I was always told, "He's got a mental illness.  You just need to be patient."

I feel I've been patient.  I feel I've had the patience of Job with no return on my investment in this marriage.  It's been completely one-sided for the duration and it's like a friend told me not long ago, also married to an Aspie, "Being in a marriage with an Aspie is like rowing a boat by yourself while they sit there and let you.  You're moving.  You're getting somewhere, but it's only in circles and after a long enough time, you're exhausted from the effort.  But you're not allowed to rest, either, because then you fall backward and it gets worse."

One of the takeaways of being in these groups is:  I learned I'm NOT crazy.  My husband was like a million other Aspies out there in the world and ALL of them are bad at marriage, not just mine.  They may be able to fake it for a while, for mine the longest he could go was about two or three months, and then his Aspie-ness would come back full force, and in most cases worse.  I've found this is the same in the others I've interacted with online.  Their husbands can "fake it" for a few weeks or months, but the effort is difficult for Aspies and they can't hold it in any longer.

I came a cross a website about Asperger's and marriage.  The writer there has a list of her own and it's #3 that I steal this little nugget, and it's SO true in most AS/NT marriages:

Many describe living with an Aspie as draining. It is not always the big things that lead to distress, but the constant drip, drip, drip of small seemingly thoughtless behaviors that destroys the relationship. The lack of eye contact, the obsessive/compulsive behaviors, the adherence to rigid routines, the self absorption, the social anxiety, all lead to family members feeling like they just cannot connect with their Asperger family members. It isn't so much the unusual behaviors that make the connecting difficult, but the inconsistency. Never knowing what is coming next, makes a loving connection very difficult. (Excerpted from Kathy J. Marshack's website on Asperger's Syndrome, http://www.kmarshack.com/Asperger-Syndrome.html)

So prepare to share my journey.  I'm going to try to post every day but sometimes life gets in the way, and for that, I apologize.  I've been in your shoes, this married to an Aspie with BPD, and I've been so desperate for information I would sit and cry in the dark sometimes, totally confused, upset and off-kilter with my life and having no clue what was going on.  Truth be told, I'll try to continue on with this after the divorce is final, but if the other blogs like mine, women married to Aspie who are divorcing them, is any indication, it would seem once you divorce them, life becomes wonderful again and they simply don't have the time any longer to write.

I look forward to that day, when I don't have the time any longer to work through this disaster that was my marriage and the angst that goes along with divorcing them.  My divorce is going along fairly typically from what I've read of other women divorcing Aspies.  Seems Aspies are pretty predictable and mine is no different from the rest.

Time for another cup of tea.  I'll see you tomorrow!  Until then, hang on tight!  You'll get through it all not exactly unscathed, but wiser for the experience.