Thanks Susan
My husband received his dx in early October, nearly 2 months after we separated in August 2010 and was unwilling to accept it at first, but now has, so he hasn't been able to 'use' his dx for anything as such, he just felt from the beginning that he was entitled to these behaviours, (some AS people have a strong need to direct and instruct (control)). This need to instruct/control, his impaired understanding of social/emotional boundaries and what is socially/emotionally inappropriate, his belief that there was nothing sexual in it (which I actually think there was but due to the alexithymia accompanying his AS he was unable to recognise as what it was) and some of the secular personal development courses he did (before we met) that encouraged permissive behaviour under the guise of emotional growth, contributed to this, and as a guy growing up as a loner with low self esteem who had little success with women (apart from his previous wife from whom he had a very high conflict divorce before I came along), found that playing the affirming, 'sensitive, new-age guy' role, who seemed to take a real interest in other's problems and had all the answers was a behaviour that got him the undivided attention of attractive women. In particular one attractive and friendly young woman half his age (his 'best friend' (obession), who lives interstate) whose lack of self respect lead to a life like an ongoing train wreck, which she regularly inappropriately disclosed the details of to him and he advised her on.
I was in my final semester of uni in our first months of marriage (and needed 6 weeks of extensions to complete it due to the psychological distress) and apart from the other women stuff, 5 months into our marriage he closed his successful trades business and took a relatively unskilled job for half the income that allowed him to live 2 hours away from our marital home for 6 days a week, completely shutting me out of his life (except for a brief phone call before he went to bed) and only coming home on weekends.
I understand from other spouses of AS husbands at the support group I attended that varying levels of apparent emotional detachment are reasonably common, with many AS husbands, depending on where they are on the spectrum, either finding a job away, making separate living quarters to the spouse/family in the marital home or moving back into their pre-marriage own home if they can, within months or weeks of the marriage. If this was not a possibility, shutting down the emotional and physical intimacy side of the marriage was the next best thing. I was a size 14 when we got married and a few of months after our marriage, he told me he didn't want sex with me anymore because of my weight (which hadn't changed since our wedding day). This was really due to his AS inability to sustain emotional and physical intimacy - all he knew was that there was something difficult about it and as it couldn't be his fault it must have been mine, so went looking for a reason. He could identify this behaviour as unaccceptable if it happened to other women but was unable to apply it to his own actions and unable to connect my distress to his behaviours. Yes, he is extremely manipulative, but not in the way of a sociopath. He can always find a 'logical' reason to justify his behaviour and when the diagnosing AS psych managed to get through to him on our first of 3 diagnostic sessions that his behaviours were not acceptable he was genuinely shocked and remorseful (for a few days, then retracted back to his earlier position of blamelessness). I have severed all contact with him, as trying to stay in the marriage and find a solution whilst enduring the escalating distress of his detachment, communication deficits and OCD was taking an extreme toll on my emotional, mental and physical health and my daughter's emotional wellbeing and academic progress.
I am not defending his unacceptable behaviour here, but I understand that apart from gender, personality and family of origin issues there are bigger neurological reasons for it some of it eg, components of his AS such as alexithymia (inability to process or respond to many of his own and other's emotional states and non verbal cues (depending on the payoff (low with me, high with other women so he would make the effort to intellectually work out how to respond to them for short periods of time and appear genuine), impaired theory of mind and semantic-pragmatic disorder that together made it hard for him to verbally communicate effectively (again, mainly at home), the masking and coping mechanisms he devoped over a lifetime to hide his 'difference' (from himself and others), and OCD to control his environment and cope with the stress of living in a world he wasn't fully connected to. He wonders why we just can't stay friends (as he doesn't experience the emotional pain that I do), but whilst I can reconcile his AS behaviours on an intellectual level I still can't do it emotionally so have chosen to completely sever our contact. I am recovering my life again and at the stage where I usually no longer allow the temporary intrusion of AS into my life to define my interactions with friends and my own thoughts and emotions.
I watched part of the movie Apollo 13 recently and the narrator described the failed moon mission as a 'succesful failure' - it was launched, things went dangerously wrong but the people managed to get out alive, and it occured to me that this was a good description of my short and painful marriage - a successful failure.
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Thanks Susan
My husband received his dx in early October, nearly 2 months after we separated in August 2010 and was unwilling to accept it at first, but now has, so he hasn't been able to 'use' his dx for anything as such, he just felt from the beginning that he was entitled to these behaviours, (some AS people have a strong need to direct and instruct (control)). This need to instruct/control, his impaired understanding of social/emotional boundaries and what is socially/emotionally inappropriate, his belief that there was nothing sexual in it (which I actually think there was but due to the alexithymia accompanying his AS he was unable to recognise as what it was) and some of the secular personal development courses he did (before we met) that encouraged permissive behaviour under the guise of emotional growth, contributed to this, and as a guy growing up as a loner with low self esteem who had little success with women (apart from his previous wife from whom he had a very high conflict divorce before I came along), found that playing the affirming, 'sensitive, new-age guy' role, who seemed to take a real interest in other's problems and had all the answers was a behaviour that got him the undivided attention of attractive women. In particular one attractive and friendly young woman half his age (his 'best friend' (obession), who lives interstate) whose lack of self respect lead to a life like an ongoing train wreck, which she regularly inappropriately disclosed the details of to him and he advised her on.
I was in my final semester of uni in our first months of marriage (and needed 6 weeks of extensions to complete it due to the psychological distress) and apart from the other women stuff, 5 months into our marriage he closed his successful trades business and took a relatively unskilled job for half the income that allowed him to live 2 hours away from our marital home for 6 days a week, completely shutting me out of his life (except for a brief phone call before he went to bed) and only coming home on weekends.
January 5, 2011 - 9:11pmI understand from other spouses of AS husbands at the support group I attended that varying levels of apparent emotional detachment are reasonably common, with many AS husbands, depending on where they are on the spectrum, either finding a job away, making separate living quarters to the spouse/family in the marital home or moving back into their pre-marriage own home if they can, within months or weeks of the marriage. If this was not a possibility, shutting down the emotional and physical intimacy side of the marriage was the next best thing. I was a size 14 when we got married and a few of months after our marriage, he told me he didn't want sex with me anymore because of my weight (which hadn't changed since our wedding day). This was really due to his AS inability to sustain emotional and physical intimacy - all he knew was that there was something difficult about it and as it couldn't be his fault it must have been mine, so went looking for a reason. He could identify this behaviour as unaccceptable if it happened to other women but was unable to apply it to his own actions and unable to connect my distress to his behaviours. Yes, he is extremely manipulative, but not in the way of a sociopath. He can always find a 'logical' reason to justify his behaviour and when the diagnosing AS psych managed to get through to him on our first of 3 diagnostic sessions that his behaviours were not acceptable he was genuinely shocked and remorseful (for a few days, then retracted back to his earlier position of blamelessness). I have severed all contact with him, as trying to stay in the marriage and find a solution whilst enduring the escalating distress of his detachment, communication deficits and OCD was taking an extreme toll on my emotional, mental and physical health and my daughter's emotional wellbeing and academic progress.
I am not defending his unacceptable behaviour here, but I understand that apart from gender, personality and family of origin issues there are bigger neurological reasons for it some of it eg, components of his AS such as alexithymia (inability to process or respond to many of his own and other's emotional states and non verbal cues (depending on the payoff (low with me, high with other women so he would make the effort to intellectually work out how to respond to them for short periods of time and appear genuine), impaired theory of mind and semantic-pragmatic disorder that together made it hard for him to verbally communicate effectively (again, mainly at home), the masking and coping mechanisms he devoped over a lifetime to hide his 'difference' (from himself and others), and OCD to control his environment and cope with the stress of living in a world he wasn't fully connected to. He wonders why we just can't stay friends (as he doesn't experience the emotional pain that I do), but whilst I can reconcile his AS behaviours on an intellectual level I still can't do it emotionally so have chosen to completely sever our contact. I am recovering my life again and at the stage where I usually no longer allow the temporary intrusion of AS into my life to define my interactions with friends and my own thoughts and emotions.
I watched part of the movie Apollo 13 recently and the narrator described the failed moon mission as a 'succesful failure' - it was launched, things went dangerously wrong but the people managed to get out alive, and it occured to me that this was a good description of my short and painful marriage - a successful failure.
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