May 26, 2025 • 65 mins
Kathleen and Elizabeth discuss how women can lose their sense of self in neurodiverse marriages, both having married men with Asperger's Syndrome. They are the founders of "My Aspie and Me," a private Facebook group for Christian women. They hear women in their group say that they no longer recognize themselves and don't know who they are. Both also experienced a loss of themselves in their marriages.
This is a timely topic given the awareness of more women that the problems they have been dealing with in their painful and difficult marriages are Asperger's. Understanding how and why they experience this loss of self is necessary because they will need to intentionally restore it to create a better life for themselves.
My Aspie and Me private Facebook group is specifically designed for Christian women. It provides relational, marital, personal, and spiritual help for women married to neurodiverse men with Asperger's Syndrome. To join, please send a message to the group admin expressing your interest via Facebook Messenger. You will receive a message via Facebook Messenger.
#AspergersMarriage #NeurodiverseMarriage #ChristianMarriageHelp #ChangeMyRelationship #ChristianSelfHelp #ChristianRelationshipHelp
Website: https://www.changemyrelationship.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChangeMyRelationship YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@changemyrelationship
Watch this video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/kY60RyGTuRE
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
You're listening to a podcastby Change My Relationship,
featuring licensed marriageand family therapist and author
Karla Downing.
These podcast are designedto provide you
with practical solutions
based on biblical truthsfor all your relationships.
Today,Karla will be interviewing
a guest who has experienceda relationship problem
(00:22):
and successfullyworked through it.
Welcome to ChangeMy Relationship podcast.
Today I have with me
two women
who are in neurodiversemarriages,
(00:42):
and they have brought thistopic to me that they say is
very commonin a neurodiverse marriage
where the whatwe call neurotypical
wife or the non
neurodiverse partner, thethe partner that does not have
the neurodiversity comes to them
(01:04):
saying that she feels as thoughshe is losing
what she refersto as her sense of self.
And we want to talk todayhow that happens.
How do you loseyour sense of self
in a marriage tosomeone that is also
(01:27):
has been referred toas having Asperger's syndrome?
So todayI want to welcome Kathleen
and Elizabeth back becausethey have been here before,
and it is actually the mostlistened to podcast
by far of all of my podcasts.
And Kathleen's husband Cooperhas also been on by himself
(01:52):
and then
the two of them together,if I'm remembering correctly.
And those are alsothe most listen to podcasts.
So this is a very,what I should say popular
or well needed topic.
So today I want to welcomeagain Elizabeth and Kathleen.
(02:14):
Thank you,
Karla, for inviting us backto share with you.
And today, Elizabethand I want to spend some time
speaking to the women
who are married to menwith autism spectrum disorder
and what we'll be referringto as Asperger's.
We're going to start bytaking a few minutes to explain
the differencebetween Asperger's and autism.
(02:34):
And then we're going to go onto talk about
the neurotypical wives, partof the marriage relationship,
and that is her sense of self.
So in 2013,the DSM five came out
and they removed Asperger'sas a standalone diagnosis.
(02:55):
An umbrellaed it under autismspectrum disorder.
We started to hear aspies
identify themselvesas autistics.
So we want to take a minuteto explain.
If a personwas previously considered
as having Asperger's,they still do.
They are not autistic.
Autistics have languagedevelopment delays
(03:16):
and tend to have intellectualdelays, as these do not.
ASD is an umbrella of
five different diagnosis,which Asperger's is one.
There's classic autism
and then there's Asperger'ssyndrome.
And medical doctors likeyour primary care physicians.
They use ICD ten codesand Asperger's has its own code
(03:42):
F84.5.
Autismhas its own separate code.
So under that umbrellathere's a disorder.
Cognitive dissonance.
Childhooddisintegrate a disorder.
Pervasive developmental disordernot otherwise specified.
So the example we want to shareis just because
all of these are umbrellaedunder autism spectrum disorder,
(04:04):
doesn't mean a person with aRett’s disorder is now autistic,
or that the Asperger man
will have Rett's disorder.
Some now refer to being highfunctioning autism
instead of Asperger's, orthey'll refer to themselves asd.
But for this podcast, ourreference will be Asperger's,
(04:26):
which is
let me stopyou just there for a second
so that doesn't get lostin the weeds.
What we're trying to dois clear up
the confusion of is he autistic?
Does he have Asperger's?
And really, in reality,what matters to you
is that you have a functional
(04:46):
understanding of whatis going on in your marriage.
you hadjust said that some people
refer to
high functioning autisminstead of Asperger's.
But for us we're going to useAsperger's for.
Now define Asperger's forhow we're going to be talking
about it in this podcast.
(05:07):
And the next one,
Asperger's is a newerdevelopmental disorder
that impacts the person's
ability to be effectivein their communication.
That's expressive and receptive
and their ability to beeffective in socialization,
which we see play outin their relationships.
A person with Asperger's has nolanguage delays in development.
(05:31):
They have a good vocabulary,
their abilityto construct sentences properly.
They could even speaka foreign language fluently.
Okay, so I'm going to stop youright there.
Before I was a marriagefamily therapist,
I was a speech languagepathologist.
So I'm not going to assumethat people understanding
really the difference betweenexpressive and receptive.
(05:53):
Expressive means yes,
yes. How you say things,how you make your thoughts out
receptive is how you hear,which means how you comprehend
how you understand.
And socializationis also referred to as
pragmatic languagedevelopment or language ability.
(06:15):
Pragmatic meaninghow you interpret
the meaning of whatthe other person is saying,
which can be from non-verbalcommunication.
In other words,your your body language,
your tone in your voice,all the different things
that the person is picking up,
verbal and non-verbal in orderto figure out the meaning.
(06:37):
For instance, we can say, oh,please get that for me.
Or you can say,please get that for me.
What does that mean?
The difference isI've got irritation and anger.
That's a different meaning then.
Oh please get that for me or.
Well,so would you like to go with me
or would you like to go with me?
(06:58):
That is more of the and my bodylanguage at the same time.
And the socialization cues,which have to do with like
the standard of conversation,like how do we do this?
Do we say one thing
and then the next personcomments,
and then we don't changesubjects or we do.
All of thathas to do with the pragmatic
(07:18):
or what you refer to as the,socialization.
So socializationis the pragmatic
and the involvementlike in the conversation.
Does that make sense or didI just confuse it even worse?
No, no no.
Perfect Can you give ussome practical examples
of the communication that occursin neurodiverse marriages?
(07:40):
Yes. I can do that.
Not all Aspies
experiencewhat we're talking about
and not all neurotypicalsexperience what we talk about,
but what we're discussingis what typically happens.
My husbandhas an auditory processing.
So this affects how he hearsand how he expresses.
(08:03):
He will hearmaybe this word in the sentence
and the last two wordsand everything in between
is gone.
And he kind of sandwiches itup in the middle.
And that's what he thinkshe's hearing,
which may not bewhat I'm expressing.
So that's how he receives it.
They also have
(08:24):
a very, literalmeaning to words.
And I'll give you an example.
When we were first married,
when he speaksand I've heard other women
talk about that, it's very quick
and it'll sound like a machinegun going off.
Rather that.
And I was very upset one morningand I said,
I've made an appointmentwith a pastor
and we're going to talkabout this language problem
because it sounds likeyou've got a machine gun
(08:45):
and you're just firing awaywith bullets at me.
And he says,I can't do that appointment.
And I said, why?
He says,I don't own a machine gun.
Now, you know what that does tothe neurotypical wife’s brain?
Because she's lost
that is a partof what they go through.
(09:07):
Then they also there'sthey may also interpret,
our nonverbal cues where we canpick up on something
that seems obvious to us.
It's a blank screen for them.
The other part
that we've discovered is thatthere's a disconnect their.
Facial expression,
their body language and theirtone of voice are all separate.
(09:29):
There's not a cohesiveness
to them, so we have a hard timereading them.
They have a hard timereading us.
They don't pick up on our cues.
Well.
And this creates a problemin their relationship
and the communication back
and forth between the husbandand wife. Well,
so that would be incrediblyconfusing, frustrating.
(09:50):
And I'm going to use the wordexasperating
because you it's literallylike you're both speaking
different languages,
even though you're speakingsame language. Yes.
Imaginedoing that on a day to day
situationwhere you're trying to have
a relationship and just do life
(10:10):
and talk about the kidsor the marriage,
or what you need to do,or how you need to pay the bills
and I have experience that.
It wasn't that long agowhen it was on a weekend,
and I went into the bedroomto see if Cooper was still awake
and I walked in.
Then just like,that's it, honey, are you awake?
And he turns aroundand he says, what now?
This is another issue
because they'll speakvery bluntly and abruptly,
(10:33):
and you just feel like you'rehit between the heart, you know?
And I said, I'm only askingif you're still awake.
He goes, I said, what
translated means
when I say what to you,it means, yes, I'm awake.
How would I know that?
You wouldn't?
Because what to you means.
(10:55):
I'm irritated.
But I want to know what you'retrying to say to me and like.
Yeah, that's.
That would be, again,that complete disconnect
where you don't communicate
what you need and what he needsand what he means
and what you mean right here.
It's like you're in to,you know, that book men are from
(11:18):
Mars and women are from Venus.
Is that the right planet?
You're on two different planets.
And I've said that when we firsthad a podcast with you,
I said I understood that book.
But this was a planetout there in the galaxy
nobody had taught me about,Exactly.
Yeah. So that is
a very, very frustrating.
(11:40):
Right. So.
And when what about, Elizabeth,do you have some examples
that you can thinkof practically that kind
of popped into your mindas Kathleen was talking?
Well, I think one of the thingsthat I was thinking about was,
if you're, even sitting around
with a group of peopleor even by yourself and,
between two peopleand you're doing
(12:02):
say that there's a joke that'svery obvious that most people
would understand and getand they they don't understand.
They don't knowthat it's a joke.
And so they may askyou privately later, like,
can you explain to mewhat happened?
Or you see,you can see a delay in them,
(12:24):
maybe seconds later, maybeminutes later, half an hour.
Where they need eitherthey finally grasp it
or theyneed you to explain to them
about the joke.
Well, and then so also thatmakes their makes, socialization
and relationships outsidethe marriage really difficult.
(12:46):
It sounds like.
Yes, there's
a considerable mismatchwith this marriage.
And I'm just going to brieflyexplain that in the research
that that Cooper
and I have done, whatwe've been taught in therapy
is that you could takea neurotypical
and a neurotypicalin a marriage and,
you know, they'll havesome hindrances and obstacles,
(13:06):
but they've most likelycan find a way through.
You can put a neurodiversewith a neurodiverse.
They get along fine.
No expectation problems.
But you put that neurotypicalwith the neurodiverse
and unfortunately it'sthe highest rate divorce.
There is such an extrememismatch in this relationship.
(13:31):
Yes, I think I've heardpeople even say
that therapistshave kind of said to them,
you're going to get divorced.
Do you really wantto even bother to do therapy?
Which is
sounds very, very negative,but maybe it's reflecting what
is an incredibly high rateof marriages not working out,
(13:51):
although there is much
more understandingand attention to it now.
So I think that,hopefully that's beginning to
change littlewhen there's some practical help
for people that are strugglingin these marriages.
So let's breakand go over to something
that's referred to as dualdiagnosis.
(14:14):
Dual diagnosis means that
they have multiple diagnosisfrom the DSM.
And, can you answer that?
Yes. It's not uncommonfor them to have Asperger's
and ADHD or OCD or trauma
or like with Cooper, there'sliterally like a tri diagnosis.
(14:35):
We started off with Asperger'sand then his therapist said,
I am changing the primaryto trauma secondary Asperger's.
Third is ADHDwithout the hyperactivity.
So you're not dealing withjust the Asperger traits.
It's the other.
Co-occurring diagnosisis becoming a complement.
Complicate Asperger’scan complicate the OCD
(14:58):
or the traumacan complicate the Asperger's
and everything in between.
But there's alsothe secure attachments.
And this is another thing, we’re
just learning about wherethere could be high avoidance
or insecure with the Aspie manor disorganized attachment
and even another areawe've grown into
(15:19):
is the considerationof biochemistry and hormones.
And that is because in Aspiemen have their high dopamine,
they have high dopamine imbalances,
and this is the hormonethat causes them
to have been looking for thatfeel good experience, reward.
But now
(15:39):
the so I'll stop therefor a second
and interject,so it is very, very common for
men with Asperger'sto also have,
say, a sexual addictionor an alcohol addiction or.
Yes, you just said like gaming,the gaming,
the gaming, video gaming,the video gaming, the,
(16:03):
where they're looking forthat high
dopamine experience reward. Yes.
So now we're talking about aneven more complicated marriage.
And then you have on here
the alexithymia,which can you explain that?
Well, alexithymiais their inability to be able to
identify understand and expressor describe their emotions.
(16:28):
They're not only understandnot understanding yours,
they don't oftenunderstand their own.
And that plays into it.
So now you start to understand
why the neurotypicalwoman is frustrated. But
we tendto just look at Asperger's
and we check off thoselittle boxes and traits and go,
okay,let's go forward from here.
(16:50):
Not understanding that there's
all these other additionalcomplications that make it
even more challenging.
So, like with all of theseattributes coming into play,
we start to see the significantmismatch in the marriage.
And this creates vulnerabilityin the neurotypical wife's
sense of self.
(17:10):
Yeah.
So this she wants that oxytocin.
She wants that connection.
She wants that cuddle me.
And he's like no I'm over here
with dopamine right up over herewith dopamine.
So putting it down to the bottomlevel I need dopamine
I need oxytocin. Yeah.
(17:31):
So there I'll help you both.
And and so
if somebody is listening
and they're notin a neurodiverse marriage,
they've got a very good ideaof how incredibly complicated
one is for the womenthat are in.
And we're saying womenonly because it is commonly
(17:51):
the women that are seeking outthe information and the help it.
Is there a differencein the statistics of men
with Asperger'sto where there are more women
that are marriedto Asperger men versus
men thatare married to Asperger's women?
I think the statisticsshow that boys.
Or is it like 4 to 1 or 2 to 1?
(18:14):
How is the statisticat this point?
I don't have that statisticfor you, unfortunately, but it's
well known that, because it's
it's 80%
to 90%now inherited typically coming
through the father's bloodlinecould come through the mothers.
(18:34):
My husband's,parents, parents were like,
that came through mothermore than father.
So that's whythere is more men out there
on the spectrumthan there are women.
The other part that complicatesthat is that a woman who has,
autism spectrum disorder,she can mask it better.
I'm better at masking it
(18:55):
and handling itmore than the men.
Going back to the factthat he has the anxiety from it,
he's higher anxiety.
That's why he searches outmore dopamine.
It just keeps cycling itself.
So we're not saying thatthere can't be a man
that's married to a womanwith, ASD,
and that he himselfwould also be frustrated
(19:19):
with some of these things.
But we're saying that the
for you twowe have to have to say that
you are both involvedin the private
Facebook group, my Aspie and me.
Right.
And so the most of
the participantsin that group are women.
(19:39):
So. And you two are womenin an Asperger's marriage.
So we're we're using the exampleof what you're hearing
and what's coming to you.
So we're not saying thatit can't be a man,
but I think for the simplicityin this podcast,
we're going to talkabout the woman
and how the woman loses hersense of self
(20:00):
and, how we can go from thereso we don't have to keep
going back and explaining it.
So canyou define a sense of self?
Yes. It's theimage that you have of yourself
and how you,you perceive your identity
and understandyour purpose in life.
It's faith in your self-wortheven when you're criticized.
(20:23):
It's confidencein your ability to bounce back,
which is your resilience.
When things go in this,it's being authentic,
which allows you to be opento change and adapt,
which is so necessaryin a neurodiverse relationship
if necessary.
Being willing
to stand on somethingthat's important to you.
(20:44):
It's being ableto trust your abilities
and trust your judgment
to set goals and attain them.
And it's the very core essenceof who God created you to be.
It is your mindset in heart,
set of knowing and feelinghow special you are,
(21:05):
and then holding onto your sense of self
in the midst of a neurodiverserelationship dynamic
is challenging, but itis so absolutely, necessary.
When a womanis in a relationship or married
to an aspie man like you hadsaid, Karla, at the beginning,
we often hear thatI've lost that sense of myself.
(21:27):
I have been there.
Elizabeth has talked about it.
We've talked about it together.
Or they'll say, I feel likeI've lost a part of myself,
or they'll go,I don't know who I am anymore.
So much of my focus has beenon this marriage and him.
I don't know where I'm at.
So I,I the question that I have is
(21:50):
when you're datingand this is probably a question
that a lot of us ask,even if we're if we're any in,
in any difficultor dysfunctional marriage.
But whatwhy wouldn't you notice all this
before when you were dating,before you get married?
Because the
NT wife is not awareof the man's neurodivergence
(22:12):
and all that is involvedin how this plays out.
It starts with timewas not taken to consider
if our values, beliefs,expectations align up.
Red flags are ignored
as they are thought of as cutelittle quirks,
but think the man's good pointsoutweigh the quirks.
(22:34):
Love will cover them all.
The wife thinks thatshe can change his quirks.
She may subconsciouslysee what she wants in a partner.
She has a preconceived templatethat is projecting her ideal
marriage overwhat realistically is.
But then this createsignoring of the true
evidence of Aspie traits.
(22:58):
So after the honeymoon,life starts to calm down,
and the day inand day out living kicks in,
the Aspie man feels safe with
his neurotypical wifeand so he removes his mask.
He returnsto his authentic self.
He no longer seesthe need to continue pursuing.
(23:19):
He came, he hunted,he conquered, won her heart.
Now life returns to the statusquo for him.
Whereas the neurotypical wifehas a continued desire
to be pursued because it affirmsthat they're loved.
But the pursuingmay start to decrease.
(23:40):
So what happenssix months to a year
after the wedding, or soonerwith your aspie and you,
the love hormonescalm down there is a return
to the attachment styleof which you grew up.
The degree of relationshipand communication
he once exhibited duringdating courtship
(24:00):
takes a toll on him.
And that's the NT wife presseshim for more, his anxiety
increases and it can easilyturn into a meltdown.
He may become verbally offensivetowards his neurotypical wife.
The neurotypicalwife now becomes the pursuer.
She has needs thather Aspie is no longer meeting,
(24:22):
and if he met them beforebeing married,
then she thinks he is capable
afterwards.
He was masking,
but this causes him increasedanxiety
aspiestend to need spans of time
for solitude to counterbalancethe high anxiety
they experience onan ongoing basis.
(24:46):
So I'm wondering herewhat is their anxiety from?
Why would they have highanxiety?
Is it just the difficultiesthey have with interacting in
relationships that causes themto have the anxiety?
Where does the anxietycome from?
They're typically born with it.
And this is I mean, from birth.
(25:06):
It starts in,
And then when they start growingup, like when in,
when they're performingfriendships and stuff,
they start to noticethat there's something different
and they don't quite fit in.
Parents may not understand, they don't know how to let
the parent know their need,and it just keeps accumulating.
(25:28):
And they kind of bumpalong in school.
But that's a hitand miss in relationships.
Growing up junior high, highschool, college or whatever,
it's a hit and miss.
They become comfortablewith themselves
because they have found ways
there again to reward themselvesto get that quick fix.
But that anxiety is always thereand it exhausts them.
(25:49):
Yeah.
So he's so
the Asperger husbandis struggling too.
So, I mean,this is not only hard
for the wife,this is hard for him
to try to do a relationshipwith.
First of all,
we know the differencesbetween men and women anyway.
But in order.
(26:09):
But but to try to do a marriagerelationship is hard for him.
And there's somethingthat's come into play
that they're talking about nowthrough research.
That's the doubleempathy theory,
where the wife feels like
you just cannot empathizeand understand me.
The men are startingto speak up and say,
but you're not empathizingwith my condition.
(26:31):
My disorder.
Yeah.
Makes sense. Right.
And I think it helps herto look at it that way
because it gives her a littlebit of compassion amidst that
frustration and aggravationthat she's feeling
and maybe even angerand resentment,
by recognizing,hey, this is hard for him too.
(26:55):
What's interestingis that's a pivotal moment
in the relationship,and I remember it.
We've been marriedgoing on 24 years.
It was only four years agothat it finally clicked,
and I thought, I now know whatyou're going through,
and it just madea complete U-turn in my heart.
We just had a woman in the groupexplained us not long ago.
(27:18):
She goes for so many yearsand I've been going to bed.
She goes working with thatneurodiverse therapist.
Finally, she got to understandwhat he's going through.
It made a complete turnaround.
Yeah, that that makes sense.
So, what happens to the wife
at this point,
(27:40):
which we're in now?
I think we'rein the part of the marriage
where she's beginningto get frustrated.
Her increase pursuinghas become her mission
to work harderand to make the marriage work,
because if she can makethe marriage work
to fix that which is, the longer
then she will be happy,it will be more fulfilling.
(28:05):
She will haverelationship connection
and she will feel validated.
There's not one thingwrong with her desire
to have relationship with herhusband.
These are reasonableexpectations.
However, the neurodiverse
husband’s expectations differ.
(28:25):
Okay,can you just talk briefly about
a couple of those expectations,how they differ?
The the ASD husbandmay not think
that marrying someone comeswith responsibilities
defining what is an expected wayat connecting
managing finances and trust.
(28:47):
They often view it as agreeingto literal aspects of sex,
sharedliving and paying more bills
so they may not feelthe role of husband.
They may just act it out.
And we
understand that your intentionis to help your ASD husband,
(29:07):
but he mayor may not be opening open
to learning about Asperger'sSyndrome disorder.
And if the marriage relationship
is already at a stressful point,this could possibly make it
more so.
Your husband may needto hear this from a third party
or someone outside of you.
This may make him retreatinto his foxhole
(29:29):
and or become moreavoided towards you.
So at this point,the neurotypical wife
may start to get her husbandto read articles.
Watch YouTubes teach him
about Asperger's neurodivergent,
and kind of become an analystand a therapist.
(29:51):
Her sense of purposemay become involved
in making sacrifices of herselfto satisfy her partner's needs.
She is not able to balancethe demands of her time
and energy to takecare of matters he does not.
She may start to
show symptoms of codependency,
(30:11):
and this is interestingbecause some neurotypical wives
may come from a family of originwhere she has
learned to be codependent.
As a neurotypical wife,we may automatically,
without realizing it,
take holdof all of the responsibilities
and feel like we can handle itall because our
(30:35):
Asperger husbands cannotand end up
completely emotionallyand physically exhausted.
We may have learnedthis behavior in our childhood
and not be aware of it,because it fits like a glove.
And or we may feelour ASD husband
can't handle anything elseoutside of this realm.
(30:56):
So we take chargeby handling this situations,
which makes us feelmore in control.
Or the neurotypical wife
may be coming from a family oforigin of childhood neglect.
Where there were unattached
caregivers, she may have beeninvisible to her family.
She was not seen or heard, andher needs were basically admit
(31:21):
she may have a life
history of experiencesthat have gone missing.
She may be entering the marriagewithout a sense of self,
and see this man who is masking
well as an answerto her prayers.
Some neurotypical wivesdo not enter into the marriage
as codependent,but in being in an Asperger's
(31:42):
relationship,she becomes codependent.
As neurotypical wives,we may not be aware of
not having a sense of self andor codependency until we wake up
one day and do not know whowe are anymore.
We are juggling so much
in the marriagethat we are at a breaking point
(32:02):
with everyone looking to usfor everything.
We may have liked thisin the beginning
of the relationship,but now it feels like
we can't go ondoing this forever
and we don't have
our neurodiverse husbandto turn to for support and help.
The result is teaching the Aspiehusband learned helplessness.
So that was a lot.
(32:24):
So let me just backtracka little bit and say
we threw in the wordcodependency.
There in our second podcastthat's going to be
in this two part series,
we are going to delve even moreinto whether you came into the
marriage with codependencyor you became codependent
in the marriage.
But for the purpose of thisconversation, at this point,
(32:48):
I I'm just going to saythat codependency
is whereyou don't have a sense of self
and you derive your senseof self from your interaction
or the other personwith the other person.
So it's like your focus on
the Asperger'shusband is where you're
getting your sense of self
(33:09):
instead of you with itfrom within you and who you are.
So as we've just described, theprogression of this marriage,
where you come in there, you'rethinking, oh, I found my man.
We're going to be a goodto have a good life.
It's going to be wonderful.We're going to be ever so happy.
Maybe you even thought this wasPrince Charming
and you were riding awayon the white horse.
(33:30):
And then all of a sudden,shock of all shocks,
he appears to be somebody
different inwhen you're after you're married
and that gets worse.And worse and worse to where.
Now you're a basket of hurt
and resentmentand misunderstanding,
and you can't resolve thiswith him.
And on top of that, you don'teven know who you are anymore.
(33:52):
Your needs haven't been met.
Now you decide.
Okay, the only way I can makethis better is to fix him,
is to change him, is to get himto see what the problem is.
So you can come at thatand we're going to talk about
that next time too,
with being intense, withlecturing, with changing, with,
(34:13):
with, trying to force himto see the difference by having,
all the things that I talkabout, we do in our non
Asperger's marriageswhere we're, we have a
guy who's got problemsand maybe he's narcissistic or
narcissistic traits where he'sgot an addiction or whatever.
These arethe same things that we do.
(34:35):
But you've gotten to this pointin an Asperger's marriage
because as we're talking about,
you're on those completelydifferent planets
and you get desperateto try to get him to understand
what is wrongand what he needs to change.
And he can't get it because he'son a different planet, right?
(34:55):
So, okay, can each of youtake a minute or 2 or 3
and explain
how you felt that you eitherdeveloped codependency
or if you had it beforeyou were marriage married?
How it got worse in yourmarriage to an Asperger's man.
And Kathleen, can you go first?
Yes. For me,it was during the marriage
(35:18):
because I was single for,almost a decade before
I met Cooper, and I was fine.
I had a very lovely life.
I was a singlewoman, was a part of groups.
You know, I had my own friends.
I had my own lifestyle.
But Prince Charming came.
The white horse never showed up.
But I'm a first
(35:40):
born A-type personality,and I'm a doer.
I'm a manager, the organizer,and I'm a multitasker.
So I was I recognized Cooper'slesser strengths.
I naturally took overand filled in the gaps.
However,over time I became angry
and frustrated and resentful.
(36:01):
But then I felt guiltybecause aren't
we supposed to be help mates?
there was so much to juggle
and managethat I became more anxious.
I became exhaustedand started to doubt myself
because no matter how much
I was investing myselfin this marriage, Cooper
wasn't changing and becominga neurotypical husband.
(36:21):
And that's a cuethat's a red flag.
We're lookingfor a neurotypicalness.
We're not taking in the aspects,but for many years
we don't knowthat there are in Asperger.
So as I kept
doing all the workand pursuing this pace,
what our therapistwas pointing out to me
was that I was teaching.
(36:41):
Cooper learned helplessness,just as Elizabeth shared.
I was teaching my husband
that I can do itall, that I would do it all.
However, in reality,I didn't want to do it all.
Yeah, exactly.
How about you, Elizabeth? Yeah.
Well, I believe thatI had codependency.
I learned that in my childhood,although I didn't know
(37:04):
what it was called or whatthe name was.
But then I metthis man and started dating him.
And as I'm going to talk aboutit, it just fits so well.
I didn't even recognizeI was just carrying on what
I had learned in my childhooduntil much later. So
(37:28):
I noticedin our dating relationship
and then early into
our marriage,
I had taken on the roleof homemaker and caretaker.
I had done this
growing up in my childhood homefrom a very young age of eight,
because both of my parentswere unreliable,
my mother in lawwas a homemaker,
and this
imprinted into my husband'sneurodiverse, logical brain.
(37:52):
Looking back now, I feel,although I didn't realize,
that at the time, that this fitlike a glove for both of us.
For my husband, this was choreshe didn't have to do anymore.
And for me, this fulfilled my caretaking box.
Years later,after taking your classes
and getting emotionally healthy,I was able to realize that
(38:14):
being codependent relationshipdependent was unhealthy
and I was looking for othersor other things to fulfill
the voids that I had in my life.
So when we talk about
this ideaof losing your sense of self,
or what is also referredto as codependency,
(38:34):
what traits would thatneurotypical wife
be displayingin this Aspie marriage?
And if you can, if if an example
that you can think offor yourself pops up,
be pleasefeel free to share that.
So what are some of the thingsthat, you would be doing?
(38:57):
Some of the things that I didmyself.
And we hear thisfrom other women too,
is that you start to plead andbeg him to adjust his behaviors
and a court andfor his cooperation with you.
And I mean, it literallyis a pleading and a begging,
literally, literally.
She spends a lot of timethinking about how to influence
(39:18):
and convince himabout his needs to change.
So that
he can become more neurotypical.
And she needs him to acknowledgehow his behavior is real
and how it's affecting her.
And I would do that.
I would spend countless hoursthinking, okay,
(39:40):
literally drawing him pictures.
Do you seewhen you behave like this?
Pictures you drew?
Picturesliterally would draw pictures.
You know,this is the impact it has on me.
And you met with that blank face
because he'snot understanding this.
And so you say, okay,
when you do this,
I would do thiswhen you're at work
(40:01):
and your medicalassistant does A,
B, and C,how does that make you feel?
Oh, it goes awful.
And like, well, that'show I feel when you don't do
A, B and Cand yet cannot translate that.
No, that that example doesn'tregister does not transfer over.
Wow. Okay. So.
(40:22):
What happens so thatI would like the women to know
as she's doing all of the above,
she's doing thisat the expense of herself
because the resultof her choices to pursue
is that she risksthat her husband may interpret
her behaviors as unrealisticand unreasonable expectations.
(40:43):
My husband told methat you need to go get help,
because what you're asking tomeet is unrealistic.
And I thought,okay, I will go get help
because I really don't knowhow to communicate with you
and hopefullymaybe she'll get you in here or
he'll get you in hereand that will can be a start.
He may also see theseas demands.
(41:05):
Oh, and that will be present
and that please, ladies,that are you this thing.
The more you pursue himwith this, he's
going to see it as a demand.
And then he reactswith avoidance
and resistance and pullsthat and pulls away.
You know, if he does havean avoidant attachment style,
(41:26):
this is only goingto emphasize it.
Yeah.
Now we're learning that there'sa whole different way
to communicate with these men.
Rather than saying I need this
or you have to do this,
you need to be ableto approach it by giving them
a free will choice.
Would you be willingwhat do you think about us?
(41:50):
Yeah. And then leave it blank.
They have to come around to thison their own.
We can't pursue it andcause them to make it happen.
So now with all of the avoidanceand pulling away,
the anti wife starts to feellike she's a failure.
Wow, that would bethe point of despair.
(42:13):
It sounds like like that'sjust not working.
I have lost it.
And and this is commonin any difficult
or dysfunctional relationshiplike even with alcoholism.
Al-Anon talks about youfeeling like you feel guilty
because you haven't been ableto fix it,
and you're angryat what's going on,
(42:35):
but you're also fearfulabout what's happening.
And, but yeah, so you're feeling
really bad about yourselfbecause I can't fix this.
I don't know what else to do.
You're taking on too muchresponsibility.
It's not working.
And then you're you're just.
You're indespair and you're exhausted.
So true.
(42:56):
Yeah.
She over functionsin most all areas of parenting.
And this spills over
into the practical managementof the household.
She comes to realize he maypretty much be an absent parent.
She experiencesfeeling like a single parent
even though she is married.
(43:17):
And then she becomes emotionallyand physically exhausted.
Many Aspie dads do not relate
to their childhoodand baby years.
When the childrenbecome eight years and older,
they can have a conversationback and forth.
The Aspie dad is able to relateand reciprocate with them.
(43:38):
So you're saying that this isalso a difficult parenting?
Very difficult parenting.
You pretty muchare going to be doing most of,
if not all, managementfor the children.
School,okay, projects everything.
And and if he does get involved,I'm only imagining
(44:01):
when we're talking about theliteral interpretation and the
I mean, children, you've got toyou've got to have some like
compassionand and awareness of a child's,
immaturityand a child's emotions
and a child's inabilityto express themselves perfectly.
And that you need to dumb downyour conversation
(44:23):
and your instruction
to that child's age leveland put it in ways that, that.
So it just sounds like anotherlike very difficult
dynamic can be going on,which I know for me,
the most hurtful part of my
dysfunctional marriage waswhen it affected my children.
And my children were the bruntof any type of like,
(44:48):
fallout, or they werethe brunt of frustration or,
I mistreated them
and overreacted with themand got impatient or angry
or my husband did
or did somethingthat I felt was hurtful to them,
and then I'd get involved.
So and it was oneheck of a big mess.
So does that also happen?
It sure does.
(45:09):
Yes, it sure does.
There are some neurodiverse menthat can show emotions.
So we don't want to say thatthey're all Emotionless.
That's not true.
It's just going to lookvery differently.
But but for the most part,
If you're going to askyour children to do a project,
(45:31):
a school projectwith your husband, for instance,
that's not going tothat's not going to play
into the emotional part of it.
It's going to play into theirthe logical part of their brain.
And so you need to be carefulwith that.
You need to maybe,
break it up into smallchunks of time, depending
(45:52):
upon the age of your childto do something like that,
because it would be itcould become very overwhelming
because they will naturallyjust take over the project.
And but it's
all consuming for the childbecause the time span is
(46:13):
too long, and then they're notunderstanding
the process of the project.
Because it's their logicalbrain.
It's over.
It's overwhat the child can comprehend
as far as doing a project,what about disciplining
with the children?
What happens with discipliningis, is I can imagine that
(46:36):
maybe he's very like rigid
and very rule based, and there'sno room for no wiggle room
for how the child was feelingor what was going on or what
contributed to that.
And so the disciplinemaybe is too harsh.
Yes. That can happen.
(46:58):
Yes. That can definitely happenbecause that once again
that plays in it depends onwhere the rigidity is,
and how high that is. Yes.
And or this could look likealso two
if you're going to sit down andhave a meeting with your child
about something
that you need to talk about,let's say your husband
(47:19):
and you and the child,there's a lot of talking.
And once again,it's the logical talking. It's
above their
brain level, and it can be.
Well, in my house, it was verylong, like lectures.
I have a really good example
that just popped into my mind ofof how this could happen.
(47:40):
I was told a situation recently
where a wife said thather husband, her neurodiverse
husband, was tryingto put their elementary school
child to bed and the childwas not going to bed quickly.
And the dadwas getting frustrated
(48:01):
and the child was frustrated.
The dad was getting a little bit
more like,just go to bed, just go to bed.
And the child was obviouslyin touch with his sense of loss,
of not having this dad, thathe felt really affectionate and,
and the little boy said,
I, I need, I need
a dad, I need a dad.
(48:24):
And that was a cry for loveand attention.
And the dad just missed it.
And he said,I need a son that goes to bed.
And now you think, oh, how meanand how like wrong.
But he he's thinking,get the kid to bed.
(48:45):
Get the kid to bed quickly.
That's my task.
And he's not even he'snot able to switch into that.
This little boyjust had a cry for love.
And it's talking about somethingemotional an emotional need.
And yetthat just added wounding.
Now the the mom or
the wife is sitting over herehears that and her heart breaks
(49:08):
for that little boy, becausethis isn't the first time
that that little boy
has sufferedthat kind of hurt and wounding.
And yet, what can you.
Yeah.
Right. Yeah.
And I know for me,when I had things
that happenedfor a different reason,
but that were like that,that I would go in there
(49:28):
and try to convince my husbandof where he was wrong
and what he needed to doand how he needed to change,
and it just intensifiedthe resistance.
And the, made it to where I wastrying to tell him what to do.
And he got more defensive in it.
And like I said, thattriangulation just gets worse.
Where so this is
(49:48):
I mean, we could probably doa whole podcast
just talking about that. Yes.
Kathleen, this speaks to thatblack and white
thinking that neurologythat they have black and white.
And I know
we don't have children,we have grandchildren,
but we didn't have childrenbetween us.
But even years ago,with the medical assistant
that Cooper had, she had donesomething against his wishes.
(50:10):
And his response was, I'm goingto have to punish her tomorrow.
And I said,this is a grown woman.
You can't punish her.
I mean, there's like,he didn't understand
the art of disciplinethat you have to talk to them
and work this through.
It's black and white. Hum.
Yeah.
That that could bevery problematic
(50:32):
not only in the homebut in the workplace.
Obviously.
So, I thinkwhen we're talking about this,
then we're really talking aboutalmost like
then you feel likeyou've got to be this buffer
between him and your children,
or maybe even your friendsand extended family.
And that can even get into you
(50:54):
what you call enablingor covering up
or excusing his behaviorand feeling like you need to,
interject yourself,
which is all partof codependency that we do.
That's even more.
And you lose yourself even morewhen when you have to do that.
So how does this affect her.
How does it affect her.
(51:16):
Her mood,how does it affect her.
Her life.
Well when the questions can
and they will it is importantthat that a wife explain
to their childrenand their own age appropriate
understandingwhat they are experiencing.
It is not that their dad doesn'tlove them
(51:37):
or is ignoring themintentionally, but as the mom,
you need to explain to themtheir dad's brain
and how it operates differently.
So how does this affectthe wife.
Because at this point
I'm feeling overwhelmedjust even talking about it.
And she's living it.
(51:58):
It is overwhelming.
And we hear this from women
that they may start to findthat their mood,
that, her husband's moodswill impact their moods.
For example,
if he's having a good dayand things have gone
well at work,he's in a good mood.
Well, she's going to bein a good mood as well.
(52:18):
But if he's come homeand things didn't go
well or things are not goingwell for him,
her emotional mentalworld will crumble with him
and she may try to
avoid preventing conflictfor fear with him, for it
him shutting down or having ameltdown or being shut out.
And then she may develop what iscalled walking on eggshells.
(52:42):
And I experienced this more,when I pressed in
for Cooper to becomea more neurotypical husband,
to understand and empathizewith what I was going through,
it came off as meblaming him, making demands.
And that's
when his meltdowns and horriblebehavior came to the forefront.
And I hear this too.
(53:03):
Well, what do I dowhen he starts calling me
all of these bad names?
Elizabethand I talked about this,
when they start to feel pressure
and when that husband feels likewe're pressing in with him,
they can take that upto a point,
and then their brain
cannot consume anymore,and that meltdown will happen.
And when that meltdown happens,they've lost control.
(53:24):
And that verbiage that comes outis horrendous.
Well, and then they're in thelower brain because all of us,
when we get overwhelmedand we're like,
we become what's calledemotionally dysregulated, right?
We get completely in emotions.
We can't use our higher brain
(53:44):
to be logicalinto reason and problem solve.
And then that'swhere you get angry.
You some people couldthrow things, some people can.
You just you lose.
So like you said, it'sa complete meltdown emotionally.
And that doesn't just happenin Asperger marriages.
It happens in any marriage.
(54:06):
And even that's evenwhen children are throwing a fit
and screaming
and flipping outlike that's their
all their lower brain emotions,
and you'recompletely dysregulated
and the meltdownscan be really bad.
I know, really bad.
And it comes offsounding and feeling so abusive
and what we consultthe women, we go like,
(54:27):
don'tstay there and listen to it.
Leave the
room because he will stop.
And and what they don't realizeis that he feels such
shame for doing it.
He can't stop in the middleof it and make it reset himself.
But you walk awayand give him time, he will reset
(54:48):
and he didn'twant to talk about it.
He may not apologize for it.
And honestly,I've gotten to that point.
When that happened,
I when I realized
that I didn't even expectan apology, I'm like,
okay, I know that.
I pressed too farand I'm not saying
that I was at fault, butthis is part of that learning.
(55:09):
Processin and a neurodiverse marriage.
With that,the woman needs to learn
how to set firm boundaries.
But here again and again
and sharing with themto do that.
Some women feel thatthat's being unfair and
controlling of the husband,
and then she
may feel it's a harshbehavior towards him,
(55:32):
and then she may feel guilty,
but she's caughtbetween her angst
and what she's going through,
and some boundaryneeds to be set.
So in codependency,
there may come the resultof the Aspie's underdeveloped
social skills and or lack ofeffective expressive empathy,
and then she maybecome his spokesperson.
(55:53):
And we findthis is interesting too,
especiallywith our Christian women.
And they'll say,
well, you know,he doesn't like to go to church
and he's not showing upto the Bible studies.
And people are askingwhere is that?
What am I supposed to say?
And I get that, but
it's not her place to say.
And even with differentsituations, people have said
(56:14):
that about Cooper.
Even some family members willsay, well, why is he doing this?
What's he doingthat I don't I'm like, well,
have a little chat with him
because I can't speak for him.
That's not my placeto put words in his mouth.
That's his to work outwith friends and family
that I've had.
(56:35):
Not in a neuro,
diverse marriage,but just in a normal marriage.
One woman, gave me this example,said, well,
when somebody asks something
to get some information,like where is your husband?
Or why isn't he here?
She just responds with, yeah,you're right, he's not here.
No he's not.
Is he okay?
He's fine. Well, why isn't here?
(56:56):
Yeah, because he doesn't come.He's not here.
Yeah.
Next time you see and ask him,
and you just you don't haveto carry that for them, right?
That's what we're trying.
But she may she may cover uphis, like a social faux paus.
And because
they are embarrassing to herand make excuses for him
and I get that I get thatembarrassment feeling.
But on the other hand,
(57:18):
it's not my embarrassment.
You can walk awayand let him walk.
That consequences up himself.
Sometimes it works,and then if it doesn't,
there's still not an areathat you can control.
Or should you be controlling itfor them?
Many times the neurotypical wifetakes on the responsibility
(57:40):
of finding help for him,and the aspie man
typically does not seethe need to go get help
or to change.
He's an adult man.
He's come this far in life.
He's, well,content with life is for him,
and he doesn't seethat need to change.
But she needs the relationshipto be fixed to improve the aspie
(58:02):
husband's ability to socializeand have relationship skills.
So he is here to.
And here we back it around againto validate her,
to bring her completionto her life,
and to take care of and meet heremotional, physical needs.
So she does not feel abandonmentand does not feel alone.
(58:25):
And this is how this has muchto do with and according
to how our culture has taught uson how marriage and
relationship is to be.
And I just want to
share with the womenthat we are not to be,
to half people that marry,to become a whole person.
We're to be two whole people,to complement one another,
(58:45):
to be joined together,not to complete one another.
And there's something
significant that you sharewith us wives in a relationship,
and that time needs to be givenfor the husband to be a he
time needs to be takenfor his us wives to be a me.
Then there's timesfor us to be a we.
And that formula will workwell in an Aspie,
(59:08):
neurodiverse relationship.
The NT wife may also
become emotionally unhinged
and some resortto profound tears.
And some saythis is the only way
they can get their husbandto take them seriously.
And I've tried that myself.
But in the long run,this isn't a viable solution.
(59:30):
And here's
another aspect that we wantyou ladies to consider.
Even though you may getyour Aspie husband to respond
when you implementthese escalated behaviors,
what you're teaching him is
that he only needs to doso when you escalate,
and this is going to take a tollon you emotionally,
(59:51):
mentally, and physically.
Severe stresscan disrupt the body's natural
cortisol levels, which regulatethe immune system.
Impaired cortisol regulationcan lead to autoimmune diseases.
There are numerous women
in groups that Elizabethand I have been in
(01:00:11):
and even our our own groupand even our own experience,
where you go to that doctorand that doctor says,
for you've developeda natural immune disorder,
what's going on in your life?Yeah.
We cannot keep escalatingat that level.
No, the stress of that.
And this is common because womencarry a basically a tendency
genetically they canto develop autoimmune disorders.
(01:00:35):
But it doesn't getit doesn't happen
if it's not triggeredby environmental things.
So environmental things can bea really stressful marriage.
I had read a while back priorto my even developing it,
and it said that, a reasona lot of neurotypical women
develop autoimmune disordersis their unwillingness to accept
(01:00:59):
that he hasa neurological disorder.
Well, they don't even know itat that point.
Well, they're going throughall of that stress.
And it's
maybe when they
even when they find it out,they still think they can change
this and fix it.
Yeah, it'svery hard in in it's common in
all dysfunctional relationshipsthat women
(01:01:20):
develop autoimmune disorders.
Right.
Because of the stressin the marriage,
which that even makesa stronger argument
for needing to learnhow to handle this differently.
So I'm imaginingwhen all this is going on
and you're, trying to push himreally hard and you're trying to
(01:01:43):
get him to see
the problemand you're having all of these,
these different thingsthat you're doing.
What arewhat is he actually doing?
Like when he'sif he's not melting down, what
other responses canhe have to your attempts
to try to change him?
Well, what will often happen is,
(01:02:06):
the Aspie husband respondswith a blank look on his face
and withdrawseven more from her.
He may retreat into his foxhole.
He will turnto his special interest
because this all helps himreset the anxiety he experiences
from the escalated emotionshis wife's and his.
(01:02:31):
So I imagine at this point
that any wife listeningwill be feeling
pretty overwhelmed right now,even though she at the same time
might be be feeling reliefthat hey,
somebody is talking aboutwhat I actually go through.
As we
go tothe end of this first part,
(01:02:55):
would you please give them
some encouragement?
We want to shareour understanding
and empathy with you.
We too have experiencedwhat you have
or may be going through.
We encourage you to giveyourself compassion and grace
because your heart's intention
(01:03:16):
is to improvethe challenging relationship
you have with your Aspiehusband and partner.
Our question todayto our neurotypical women
wives listening tothis podcast is
do we need to work harderor wiser? Yes.
Relationshipmarriage takes work, however,
not at the expenseof waking up one day
(01:03:38):
looking in the mirrorand not recognizing who we are.
You can't change your husband.
We are not called to.
You are responsible
to change our husband,neurotypical or Aspie.
if the neurotypical wifecontinues
to work harder on changing herAspie spouse,
she does so atthe risk of losing herself.
(01:04:00):
Okay,so we are going to stop here
and we are going to continuewith a second interview
in which we will talk abouthow you restore
the sense of self that you'velost in your Aspie marriage.
So, Kathleen, Elizabeth,thank you
so very much for coming todayand for sharing your
(01:04:25):
what we call in 12 step programsexperience, strength and hope
for women that are marriedto Aspie husbands.
Thank you Carla.
Thank you.
you've been listening
to a podcaston Change my Relationship.
I hope that if you are enjoyingthese podcasts
(01:04:46):
that you are sharing themwith other people that you know
would benefit from that,especially if you know somebody
todaywho is in an Aspie marriage,
if you would
please forward this to them,
you would be giving thema huge gift.
So we welcome you back, tofurther podcasts and God bless.
Thank you for listeningto Change My Relationship.
(01:05:08):
We hope you will subscribeto these podcasts
and share themwith your friends.
Karlawould love to hear from you.
She welcomes
ideas for a future podcast,as well as your feedback
on how the podcasts have helpedyour life and relationships.
You can email her at.
karla@changemyrelationship.com
For more information on
(01:05:28):
Change My Relationship and KarlaDowning's ministry,
including her books,studies, devotionals, podcasts
and YouTube videosvisit changemyrelationship.com.
You're listening to a podcastby Change My Relationship,
featuring licensed marriageand family therapist and author
Karla Downing.
These podcast are designedto provide you
with practical solutions
based on biblical truthsfor all your relationships.
Today,Karla will be interviewing
a guest who has experienceda relationship problem
(00:22):
and successfullyworked through it.
Welcome to ChangeMy Relationship podcast.
Today I have with me
two women
who are in neurodiversemarriages,
(00:42):
and they have brought thistopic to me that they say is
very commonin a neurodiverse marriage
where the whatwe call neurotypical
wife or the non
neurodiverse partner, thethe partner that does not have
the neurodiversity comes to them
(01:04):
saying that she feels as thoughshe is losing
what she refersto as her sense of self.
And we want to talk todayhow that happens.
How do you loseyour sense of self
in a marriage tosomeone that is also
(01:27):
has been referred toas having Asperger's syndrome?
So todayI want to welcome Kathleen
and Elizabeth back becausethey have been here before,
and it is actually the mostlistened to podcast
by far of all of my podcasts.
And Kathleen's husband Cooperhas also been on by himself
(01:52):
and then
the two of them together,if I'm remembering correctly.
And those are alsothe most listen to podcasts.
So this is a very,what I should say popular
or well needed topic.
So today I want to welcomeagain Elizabeth and Kathleen.
(02:14):
Thank you,
Karla, for inviting us backto share with you.
And today, Elizabethand I want to spend some time
speaking to the women
who are married to menwith autism spectrum disorder
and what we'll be referringto as Asperger's.
We're going to start bytaking a few minutes to explain
the differencebetween Asperger's and autism.
(02:34):
And then we're going to go onto talk about
the neurotypical wives, partof the marriage relationship,
and that is her sense of self.
So in 2013,the DSM five came out
and they removed Asperger'sas a standalone diagnosis.
(02:55):
An umbrellaed it under autismspectrum disorder.
We started to hear aspies
identify themselvesas autistics.
So we want to take a minuteto explain.
If a personwas previously considered
as having Asperger's,they still do.
They are not autistic.
Autistics have languagedevelopment delays
(03:16):
and tend to have intellectualdelays, as these do not.
ASD is an umbrella of
five different diagnosis,which Asperger's is one.
There's classic autism
and then there's Asperger'ssyndrome.
And medical doctors likeyour primary care physicians.
They use ICD ten codesand Asperger's has its own code
(03:42):
F84.5.
Autismhas its own separate code.
So under that umbrellathere's a disorder.
Cognitive dissonance.
Childhooddisintegrate a disorder.
Pervasive developmental disordernot otherwise specified.
So the example we want to shareis just because
all of these are umbrellaedunder autism spectrum disorder,
(04:04):
doesn't mean a person with aRett’s disorder is now autistic,
or that the Asperger man
will have Rett's disorder.
Some now refer to being highfunctioning autism
instead of Asperger's, orthey'll refer to themselves asd.
But for this podcast, ourreference will be Asperger's,
(04:26):
which is
let me stopyou just there for a second
so that doesn't get lostin the weeds.
What we're trying to dois clear up
the confusion of is he autistic?
Does he have Asperger's?
And really, in reality,what matters to you
is that you have a functional
(04:46):
understanding of whatis going on in your marriage.
you hadjust said that some people
refer to
high functioning autisminstead of Asperger's.
But for us we're going to useAsperger's for.
Now define Asperger's forhow we're going to be talking
about it in this podcast.
(05:07):
And the next one,
Asperger's is a newerdevelopmental disorder
that impacts the person's
ability to be effectivein their communication.
That's expressive and receptive
and their ability to beeffective in socialization,
which we see play outin their relationships.
A person with Asperger's has nolanguage delays in development.
(05:31):
They have a good vocabulary,
their abilityto construct sentences properly.
They could even speaka foreign language fluently.
Okay, so I'm going to stop youright there.
Before I was a marriagefamily therapist,
I was a speech languagepathologist.
So I'm not going to assumethat people understanding
really the difference betweenexpressive and receptive.
(05:53):
Expressive means yes,
yes. How you say things,how you make your thoughts out
receptive is how you hear,which means how you comprehend
how you understand.
And socializationis also referred to as
pragmatic languagedevelopment or language ability.
(06:15):
Pragmatic meaninghow you interpret
the meaning of whatthe other person is saying,
which can be from non-verbalcommunication.
In other words,your your body language,
your tone in your voice,all the different things
that the person is picking up,
verbal and non-verbal in orderto figure out the meaning.
(06:37):
For instance, we can say, oh,please get that for me.
Or you can say,please get that for me.
What does that mean?
The difference isI've got irritation and anger.
That's a different meaning then.
Oh please get that for me or.
Well,so would you like to go with me
or would you like to go with me?
(06:58):
That is more of the and my bodylanguage at the same time.
And the socialization cues,which have to do with like
the standard of conversation,like how do we do this?
Do we say one thing
and then the next personcomments,
and then we don't changesubjects or we do.
All of thathas to do with the pragmatic
(07:18):
or what you refer to as the,socialization.
So socializationis the pragmatic
and the involvementlike in the conversation.
Does that make sense or didI just confuse it even worse?
No, no no.
Perfect Can you give ussome practical examples
of the communication that occursin neurodiverse marriages?
(07:40):
Yes. I can do that.
Not all Aspies
experiencewhat we're talking about
and not all neurotypicalsexperience what we talk about,
but what we're discussingis what typically happens.
My husbandhas an auditory processing.
So this affects how he hearsand how he expresses.
(08:03):
He will hearmaybe this word in the sentence
and the last two wordsand everything in between
is gone.
And he kind of sandwiches itup in the middle.
And that's what he thinkshe's hearing,
which may not bewhat I'm expressing.
So that's how he receives it.
They also have
(08:24):
a very, literalmeaning to words.
And I'll give you an example.
When we were first married,
when he speaksand I've heard other women
talk about that, it's very quick
and it'll sound like a machinegun going off.
Rather that.
And I was very upset one morningand I said,
I've made an appointmentwith a pastor
and we're going to talkabout this language problem
because it sounds likeyou've got a machine gun
(08:45):
and you're just firing awaywith bullets at me.
And he says,I can't do that appointment.
And I said, why?
He says,I don't own a machine gun.
Now, you know what that does tothe neurotypical wife’s brain?
Because she's lost
that is a partof what they go through.
(09:07):
Then they also there'sthey may also interpret,
our nonverbal cues where we canpick up on something
that seems obvious to us.
It's a blank screen for them.
The other part
that we've discovered is thatthere's a disconnect their.
Facial expression,
their body language and theirtone of voice are all separate.
(09:29):
There's not a cohesiveness
to them, so we have a hard timereading them.
They have a hard timereading us.
They don't pick up on our cues.
Well.
And this creates a problemin their relationship
and the communication back
and forth between the husbandand wife. Well,
so that would be incrediblyconfusing, frustrating.
(09:50):
And I'm going to use the wordexasperating
because you it's literallylike you're both speaking
different languages,
even though you're speakingsame language. Yes.
Imaginedoing that on a day to day
situationwhere you're trying to have
a relationship and just do life
(10:10):
and talk about the kidsor the marriage,
or what you need to do,or how you need to pay the bills
and I have experience that.
It wasn't that long agowhen it was on a weekend,
and I went into the bedroomto see if Cooper was still awake
and I walked in.
Then just like,that's it, honey, are you awake?
And he turns aroundand he says, what now?
This is another issue
because they'll speakvery bluntly and abruptly,
(10:33):
and you just feel like you'rehit between the heart, you know?
And I said, I'm only askingif you're still awake.
He goes, I said, what
translated means
when I say what to you,it means, yes, I'm awake.
How would I know that?
You wouldn't?
Because what to you means.
(10:55):
I'm irritated.
But I want to know what you'retrying to say to me and like.
Yeah, that's.
That would be, again,that complete disconnect
where you don't communicate
what you need and what he needsand what he means
and what you mean right here.
It's like you're in to,you know, that book men are from
(11:18):
Mars and women are from Venus.
Is that the right planet?
You're on two different planets.
And I've said that when we firsthad a podcast with you,
I said I understood that book.
But this was a planetout there in the galaxy
nobody had taught me about,Exactly.
Yeah. So that is
a very, very frustrating.
(11:40):
Right. So.
And when what about, Elizabeth,do you have some examples
that you can thinkof practically that kind
of popped into your mindas Kathleen was talking?
Well, I think one of the thingsthat I was thinking about was,
if you're, even sitting around
with a group of peopleor even by yourself and,
between two peopleand you're doing
(12:02):
say that there's a joke that'svery obvious that most people
would understand and getand they they don't understand.
They don't knowthat it's a joke.
And so they may askyou privately later, like,
can you explain to mewhat happened?
Or you see,you can see a delay in them,
(12:24):
maybe seconds later, maybeminutes later, half an hour.
Where they need eitherthey finally grasp it
or theyneed you to explain to them
about the joke.
Well, and then so also thatmakes their makes, socialization
and relationships outsidethe marriage really difficult.
(12:46):
It sounds like.
Yes, there's
a considerable mismatchwith this marriage.
And I'm just going to brieflyexplain that in the research
that that Cooper
and I have done, whatwe've been taught in therapy
is that you could takea neurotypical
and a neurotypicalin a marriage and,
you know, they'll havesome hindrances and obstacles,
(13:06):
but they've most likelycan find a way through.
You can put a neurodiversewith a neurodiverse.
They get along fine.
No expectation problems.
But you put that neurotypicalwith the neurodiverse
and unfortunately it'sthe highest rate divorce.
There is such an extrememismatch in this relationship.
(13:31):
Yes, I think I've heardpeople even say
that therapistshave kind of said to them,
you're going to get divorced.
Do you really wantto even bother to do therapy?
Which is
sounds very, very negative,but maybe it's reflecting what
is an incredibly high rateof marriages not working out,
(13:51):
although there is much
more understandingand attention to it now.
So I think that,hopefully that's beginning to
change littlewhen there's some practical help
for people that are strugglingin these marriages.
So let's breakand go over to something
that's referred to as dualdiagnosis.
(14:14):
Dual diagnosis means that
they have multiple diagnosisfrom the DSM.
And, can you answer that?
Yes. It's not uncommonfor them to have Asperger's
and ADHD or OCD or trauma
or like with Cooper, there'sliterally like a tri diagnosis.
(14:35):
We started off with Asperger'sand then his therapist said,
I am changing the primaryto trauma secondary Asperger's.
Third is ADHDwithout the hyperactivity.
So you're not dealing withjust the Asperger traits.
It's the other.
Co-occurring diagnosisis becoming a complement.
Complicate Asperger’scan complicate the OCD
(14:58):
or the traumacan complicate the Asperger's
and everything in between.
But there's alsothe secure attachments.
And this is another thing, we’re
just learning about wherethere could be high avoidance
or insecure with the Aspie manor disorganized attachment
and even another areawe've grown into
(15:19):
is the considerationof biochemistry and hormones.
And that is because in Aspiemen have their high dopamine,
they have high dopamine imbalances,
and this is the hormonethat causes them
to have been looking for thatfeel good experience, reward.
But now
(15:39):
the so I'll stop therefor a second
and interject,so it is very, very common for
men with Asperger'sto also have,
say, a sexual addictionor an alcohol addiction or.
Yes, you just said like gaming,the gaming,
the gaming, video gaming,the video gaming, the,
(16:03):
where they're looking forthat high
dopamine experience reward. Yes.
So now we're talking about aneven more complicated marriage.
And then you have on here
the alexithymia,which can you explain that?
Well, alexithymiais their inability to be able to
identify understand and expressor describe their emotions.
(16:28):
They're not only understandnot understanding yours,
they don't oftenunderstand their own.
And that plays into it.
So now you start to understand
why the neurotypicalwoman is frustrated. But
we tendto just look at Asperger's
and we check off thoselittle boxes and traits and go,
okay,let's go forward from here.
(16:50):
Not understanding that there's
all these other additionalcomplications that make it
even more challenging.
So, like with all of theseattributes coming into play,
we start to see the significantmismatch in the marriage.
And this creates vulnerabilityin the neurotypical wife's
sense of self.
(17:10):
Yeah.
So this she wants that oxytocin.
She wants that connection.
She wants that cuddle me.
And he's like no I'm over here
with dopamine right up over herewith dopamine.
So putting it down to the bottomlevel I need dopamine
I need oxytocin. Yeah.
(17:31):
So there I'll help you both.
And and so
if somebody is listening
and they're notin a neurodiverse marriage,
they've got a very good ideaof how incredibly complicated
one is for the womenthat are in.
And we're saying womenonly because it is commonly
(17:51):
the women that are seeking outthe information and the help it.
Is there a differencein the statistics of men
with Asperger'sto where there are more women
that are marriedto Asperger men versus
men thatare married to Asperger's women?
I think the statisticsshow that boys.
Or is it like 4 to 1 or 2 to 1?
(18:14):
How is the statisticat this point?
I don't have that statisticfor you, unfortunately, but it's
well known that, because it's
it's 80%
to 90%now inherited typically coming
through the father's bloodlinecould come through the mothers.
(18:34):
My husband's,parents, parents were like,
that came through mothermore than father.
So that's whythere is more men out there
on the spectrumthan there are women.
The other part that complicatesthat is that a woman who has,
autism spectrum disorder,she can mask it better.
I'm better at masking it
(18:55):
and handling itmore than the men.
Going back to the factthat he has the anxiety from it,
he's higher anxiety.
That's why he searches outmore dopamine.
It just keeps cycling itself.
So we're not saying thatthere can't be a man
that's married to a womanwith, ASD,
and that he himselfwould also be frustrated
(19:19):
with some of these things.
But we're saying that the
for you twowe have to have to say that
you are both involvedin the private
Facebook group, my Aspie and me.
Right.
And so the most of
the participantsin that group are women.
(19:39):
So. And you two are womenin an Asperger's marriage.
So we're we're using the exampleof what you're hearing
and what's coming to you.
So we're not saying thatit can't be a man,
but I think for the simplicityin this podcast,
we're going to talkabout the woman
and how the woman loses hersense of self
(20:00):
and, how we can go from thereso we don't have to keep
going back and explaining it.
So canyou define a sense of self?
Yes. It's theimage that you have of yourself
and how you,you perceive your identity
and understandyour purpose in life.
It's faith in your self-wortheven when you're criticized.
(20:23):
It's confidencein your ability to bounce back,
which is your resilience.
When things go in this,it's being authentic,
which allows you to be opento change and adapt,
which is so necessaryin a neurodiverse relationship
if necessary.
Being willing
to stand on somethingthat's important to you.
(20:44):
It's being ableto trust your abilities
and trust your judgment
to set goals and attain them.
And it's the very core essenceof who God created you to be.
It is your mindset in heart,
set of knowing and feelinghow special you are,
(21:05):
and then holding onto your sense of self
in the midst of a neurodiverserelationship dynamic
is challenging, but itis so absolutely, necessary.
When a womanis in a relationship or married
to an aspie man like you hadsaid, Karla, at the beginning,
we often hear thatI've lost that sense of myself.
(21:27):
I have been there.
Elizabeth has talked about it.
We've talked about it together.
Or they'll say, I feel likeI've lost a part of myself,
or they'll go,I don't know who I am anymore.
So much of my focus has beenon this marriage and him.
I don't know where I'm at.
So I,I the question that I have is
(21:50):
when you're datingand this is probably a question
that a lot of us ask,even if we're if we're any in,
in any difficultor dysfunctional marriage.
But whatwhy wouldn't you notice all this
before when you were dating,before you get married?
Because the
NT wife is not awareof the man's neurodivergence
(22:12):
and all that is involvedin how this plays out.
It starts with timewas not taken to consider
if our values, beliefs,expectations align up.
Red flags are ignored
as they are thought of as cutelittle quirks,
but think the man's good pointsoutweigh the quirks.
(22:34):
Love will cover them all.
The wife thinks thatshe can change his quirks.
She may subconsciouslysee what she wants in a partner.
She has a preconceived templatethat is projecting her ideal
marriage overwhat realistically is.
But then this createsignoring of the true
evidence of Aspie traits.
(22:58):
So after the honeymoon,life starts to calm down,
and the day inand day out living kicks in,
the Aspie man feels safe with
his neurotypical wifeand so he removes his mask.
He returnsto his authentic self.
He no longer seesthe need to continue pursuing.
(23:19):
He came, he hunted,he conquered, won her heart.
Now life returns to the statusquo for him.
Whereas the neurotypical wifehas a continued desire
to be pursued because it affirmsthat they're loved.
But the pursuingmay start to decrease.
(23:40):
So what happenssix months to a year
after the wedding, or soonerwith your aspie and you,
the love hormonescalm down there is a return
to the attachment styleof which you grew up.
The degree of relationshipand communication
he once exhibited duringdating courtship
(24:00):
takes a toll on him.
And that's the NT wife presseshim for more, his anxiety
increases and it can easilyturn into a meltdown.
He may become verbally offensivetowards his neurotypical wife.
The neurotypicalwife now becomes the pursuer.
She has needs thather Aspie is no longer meeting,
(24:22):
and if he met them beforebeing married,
then she thinks he is capable
afterwards.
He was masking,
but this causes him increasedanxiety
aspiestend to need spans of time
for solitude to counterbalancethe high anxiety
they experience onan ongoing basis.
(24:46):
So I'm wondering herewhat is their anxiety from?
Why would they have highanxiety?
Is it just the difficultiesthey have with interacting in
relationships that causes themto have the anxiety?
Where does the anxietycome from?
They're typically born with it.
And this is I mean, from birth.
(25:06):
It starts in,
And then when they start growingup, like when in,
when they're performingfriendships and stuff,
they start to noticethat there's something different
and they don't quite fit in.
Parents may not understand, they don't know how to let
the parent know their need,and it just keeps accumulating.
(25:28):
And they kind of bumpalong in school.
But that's a hitand miss in relationships.
Growing up junior high, highschool, college or whatever,
it's a hit and miss.
They become comfortablewith themselves
because they have found ways
there again to reward themselvesto get that quick fix.
But that anxiety is always thereand it exhausts them.
(25:49):
Yeah.
So he's so
the Asperger husbandis struggling too.
So, I mean,this is not only hard
for the wife,this is hard for him
to try to do a relationshipwith.
First of all,
we know the differencesbetween men and women anyway.
But in order.
(26:09):
But but to try to do a marriagerelationship is hard for him.
And there's somethingthat's come into play
that they're talking about nowthrough research.
That's the doubleempathy theory,
where the wife feels like
you just cannot empathizeand understand me.
The men are startingto speak up and say,
but you're not empathizingwith my condition.
(26:31):
My disorder.
Yeah.
Makes sense. Right.
And I think it helps herto look at it that way
because it gives her a littlebit of compassion amidst that
frustration and aggravationthat she's feeling
and maybe even angerand resentment,
by recognizing,hey, this is hard for him too.
(26:55):
What's interestingis that's a pivotal moment
in the relationship,and I remember it.
We've been marriedgoing on 24 years.
It was only four years agothat it finally clicked,
and I thought, I now know whatyou're going through,
and it just madea complete U-turn in my heart.
We just had a woman in the groupexplained us not long ago.
(27:18):
She goes for so many yearsand I've been going to bed.
She goes working with thatneurodiverse therapist.
Finally, she got to understandwhat he's going through.
It made a complete turnaround.
Yeah, that that makes sense.
So, what happens to the wife
at this point,
(27:40):
which we're in now?
I think we'rein the part of the marriage
where she's beginningto get frustrated.
Her increase pursuinghas become her mission
to work harderand to make the marriage work,
because if she can makethe marriage work
to fix that which is, the longer
then she will be happy,it will be more fulfilling.
(28:05):
She will haverelationship connection
and she will feel validated.
There's not one thingwrong with her desire
to have relationship with herhusband.
These are reasonableexpectations.
However, the neurodiverse
husband’s expectations differ.
(28:25):
Okay,can you just talk briefly about
a couple of those expectations,how they differ?
The the ASD husbandmay not think
that marrying someone comeswith responsibilities
defining what is an expected wayat connecting
managing finances and trust.
(28:47):
They often view it as agreeingto literal aspects of sex,
sharedliving and paying more bills
so they may not feelthe role of husband.
They may just act it out.
And we
understand that your intentionis to help your ASD husband,
(29:07):
but he mayor may not be opening open
to learning about Asperger'sSyndrome disorder.
And if the marriage relationship
is already at a stressful point,this could possibly make it
more so.
Your husband may needto hear this from a third party
or someone outside of you.
This may make him retreatinto his foxhole
(29:29):
and or become moreavoided towards you.
So at this point,the neurotypical wife
may start to get her husbandto read articles.
Watch YouTubes teach him
about Asperger's neurodivergent,
and kind of become an analystand a therapist.
(29:51):
Her sense of purposemay become involved
in making sacrifices of herselfto satisfy her partner's needs.
She is not able to balancethe demands of her time
and energy to takecare of matters he does not.
She may start to
show symptoms of codependency,
(30:11):
and this is interestingbecause some neurotypical wives
may come from a family of originwhere she has
learned to be codependent.
As a neurotypical wife,we may automatically,
without realizing it,
take holdof all of the responsibilities
and feel like we can handle itall because our
(30:35):
Asperger husbands cannotand end up
completely emotionallyand physically exhausted.
We may have learnedthis behavior in our childhood
and not be aware of it,because it fits like a glove.
And or we may feelour ASD husband
can't handle anything elseoutside of this realm.
(30:56):
So we take chargeby handling this situations,
which makes us feelmore in control.
Or the neurotypical wife
may be coming from a family oforigin of childhood neglect.
Where there were unattached
caregivers, she may have beeninvisible to her family.
She was not seen or heard, andher needs were basically admit
(31:21):
she may have a life
history of experiencesthat have gone missing.
She may be entering the marriagewithout a sense of self,
and see this man who is masking
well as an answerto her prayers.
Some neurotypical wivesdo not enter into the marriage
as codependent,but in being in an Asperger's
(31:42):
relationship,she becomes codependent.
As neurotypical wives,we may not be aware of
not having a sense of self andor codependency until we wake up
one day and do not know whowe are anymore.
We are juggling so much
in the marriagethat we are at a breaking point
(32:02):
with everyone looking to usfor everything.
We may have liked thisin the beginning
of the relationship,but now it feels like
we can't go ondoing this forever
and we don't have
our neurodiverse husbandto turn to for support and help.
The result is teaching the Aspiehusband learned helplessness.
So that was a lot.
(32:24):
So let me just backtracka little bit and say
we threw in the wordcodependency.
There in our second podcastthat's going to be
in this two part series,
we are going to delve even moreinto whether you came into the
marriage with codependencyor you became codependent
in the marriage.
But for the purpose of thisconversation, at this point,
(32:48):
I I'm just going to saythat codependency
is whereyou don't have a sense of self
and you derive your senseof self from your interaction
or the other personwith the other person.
So it's like your focus on
the Asperger'shusband is where you're
getting your sense of self
(33:09):
instead of you with itfrom within you and who you are.
So as we've just described, theprogression of this marriage,
where you come in there, you'rethinking, oh, I found my man.
We're going to be a goodto have a good life.
It's going to be wonderful.We're going to be ever so happy.
Maybe you even thought this wasPrince Charming
and you were riding awayon the white horse.
(33:30):
And then all of a sudden,shock of all shocks,
he appears to be somebody
different inwhen you're after you're married
and that gets worse.And worse and worse to where.
Now you're a basket of hurt
and resentmentand misunderstanding,
and you can't resolve thiswith him.
And on top of that, you don'teven know who you are anymore.
(33:52):
Your needs haven't been met.
Now you decide.
Okay, the only way I can makethis better is to fix him,
is to change him, is to get himto see what the problem is.
So you can come at thatand we're going to talk about
that next time too,
with being intense, withlecturing, with changing, with,
(34:13):
with, trying to force himto see the difference by having,
all the things that I talkabout, we do in our non
Asperger's marriageswhere we're, we have a
guy who's got problemsand maybe he's narcissistic or
narcissistic traits where he'sgot an addiction or whatever.
These arethe same things that we do.
(34:35):
But you've gotten to this pointin an Asperger's marriage
because as we're talking about,
you're on those completelydifferent planets
and you get desperateto try to get him to understand
what is wrongand what he needs to change.
And he can't get it because he'son a different planet, right?
(34:55):
So, okay, can each of youtake a minute or 2 or 3
and explain
how you felt that you eitherdeveloped codependency
or if you had it beforeyou were marriage married?
How it got worse in yourmarriage to an Asperger's man.
And Kathleen, can you go first?
Yes. For me,it was during the marriage
(35:18):
because I was single for,almost a decade before
I met Cooper, and I was fine.
I had a very lovely life.
I was a singlewoman, was a part of groups.
You know, I had my own friends.
I had my own lifestyle.
But Prince Charming came.
The white horse never showed up.
But I'm a first
(35:40):
born A-type personality,and I'm a doer.
I'm a manager, the organizer,and I'm a multitasker.
So I was I recognized Cooper'slesser strengths.
I naturally took overand filled in the gaps.
However,over time I became angry
and frustrated and resentful.
(36:01):
But then I felt guiltybecause aren't
we supposed to be help mates?
there was so much to juggle
and managethat I became more anxious.
I became exhaustedand started to doubt myself
because no matter how much
I was investing myselfin this marriage, Cooper
wasn't changing and becominga neurotypical husband.
(36:21):
And that's a cuethat's a red flag.
We're lookingfor a neurotypicalness.
We're not taking in the aspects,but for many years
we don't knowthat there are in Asperger.
So as I kept
doing all the workand pursuing this pace,
what our therapistwas pointing out to me
was that I was teaching.
(36:41):
Cooper learned helplessness,just as Elizabeth shared.
I was teaching my husband
that I can do itall, that I would do it all.
However, in reality,I didn't want to do it all.
Yeah, exactly.
How about you, Elizabeth? Yeah.
Well, I believe thatI had codependency.
I learned that in my childhood,although I didn't know
(37:04):
what it was called or whatthe name was.
But then I metthis man and started dating him.
And as I'm going to talk aboutit, it just fits so well.
I didn't even recognizeI was just carrying on what
I had learned in my childhooduntil much later. So
(37:28):
I noticedin our dating relationship
and then early into
our marriage,
I had taken on the roleof homemaker and caretaker.
I had done this
growing up in my childhood homefrom a very young age of eight,
because both of my parentswere unreliable,
my mother in lawwas a homemaker,
and this
imprinted into my husband'sneurodiverse, logical brain.
(37:52):
Looking back now, I feel,although I didn't realize,
that at the time, that this fitlike a glove for both of us.
For my husband, this was choreshe didn't have to do anymore.
And for me, this fulfilled my caretaking box.
Years later,after taking your classes
and getting emotionally healthy,I was able to realize that
(38:14):
being codependent relationshipdependent was unhealthy
and I was looking for othersor other things to fulfill
the voids that I had in my life.
So when we talk about
this ideaof losing your sense of self,
or what is also referredto as codependency,
(38:34):
what traits would thatneurotypical wife
be displayingin this Aspie marriage?
And if you can, if if an example
that you can think offor yourself pops up,
be pleasefeel free to share that.
So what are some of the thingsthat, you would be doing?
(38:57):
Some of the things that I didmyself.
And we hear thisfrom other women too,
is that you start to plead andbeg him to adjust his behaviors
and a court andfor his cooperation with you.
And I mean, it literallyis a pleading and a begging,
literally, literally.
She spends a lot of timethinking about how to influence
(39:18):
and convince himabout his needs to change.
So that
he can become more neurotypical.
And she needs him to acknowledgehow his behavior is real
and how it's affecting her.
And I would do that.
I would spend countless hoursthinking, okay,
(39:40):
literally drawing him pictures.
Do you seewhen you behave like this?
Pictures you drew?
Picturesliterally would draw pictures.
You know,this is the impact it has on me.
And you met with that blank face
because he'snot understanding this.
And so you say, okay,
when you do this,
I would do thiswhen you're at work
(40:01):
and your medicalassistant does A,
B, and C,how does that make you feel?
Oh, it goes awful.
And like, well, that'show I feel when you don't do
A, B and Cand yet cannot translate that.
No, that that example doesn'tregister does not transfer over.
Wow. Okay. So.
(40:22):
What happens so thatI would like the women to know
as she's doing all of the above,
she's doing thisat the expense of herself
because the resultof her choices to pursue
is that she risksthat her husband may interpret
her behaviors as unrealisticand unreasonable expectations.
(40:43):
My husband told methat you need to go get help,
because what you're asking tomeet is unrealistic.
And I thought,okay, I will go get help
because I really don't knowhow to communicate with you
and hopefullymaybe she'll get you in here or
he'll get you in hereand that will can be a start.
He may also see theseas demands.
(41:05):
Oh, and that will be present
and that please, ladies,that are you this thing.
The more you pursue himwith this, he's
going to see it as a demand.
And then he reactswith avoidance
and resistance and pullsthat and pulls away.
You know, if he does havean avoidant attachment style,
(41:26):
this is only goingto emphasize it.
Yeah.
Now we're learning that there'sa whole different way
to communicate with these men.
Rather than saying I need this
or you have to do this,
you need to be ableto approach it by giving them
a free will choice.
Would you be willingwhat do you think about us?
(41:50):
Yeah. And then leave it blank.
They have to come around to thison their own.
We can't pursue it andcause them to make it happen.
So now with all of the avoidanceand pulling away,
the anti wife starts to feellike she's a failure.
Wow, that would bethe point of despair.
(42:13):
It sounds like like that'sjust not working.
I have lost it.
And and this is commonin any difficult
or dysfunctional relationshiplike even with alcoholism.
Al-Anon talks about youfeeling like you feel guilty
because you haven't been ableto fix it,
and you're angryat what's going on,
(42:35):
but you're also fearfulabout what's happening.
And, but yeah, so you're feeling
really bad about yourselfbecause I can't fix this.
I don't know what else to do.
You're taking on too muchresponsibility.
It's not working.
And then you're you're just.
You're indespair and you're exhausted.
So true.
(42:56):
Yeah.
She over functionsin most all areas of parenting.
And this spills over
into the practical managementof the household.
She comes to realize he maypretty much be an absent parent.
She experiencesfeeling like a single parent
even though she is married.
(43:17):
And then she becomes emotionallyand physically exhausted.
Many Aspie dads do not relate
to their childhoodand baby years.
When the childrenbecome eight years and older,
they can have a conversationback and forth.
The Aspie dad is able to relateand reciprocate with them.
(43:38):
So you're saying that this isalso a difficult parenting?
Very difficult parenting.
You pretty muchare going to be doing most of,
if not all, managementfor the children.
School,okay, projects everything.
And and if he does get involved,I'm only imagining
(44:01):
when we're talking about theliteral interpretation and the
I mean, children, you've got toyou've got to have some like
compassionand and awareness of a child's,
immaturityand a child's emotions
and a child's inabilityto express themselves perfectly.
And that you need to dumb downyour conversation
(44:23):
and your instruction
to that child's age leveland put it in ways that, that.
So it just sounds like anotherlike very difficult
dynamic can be going on,which I know for me,
the most hurtful part of my
dysfunctional marriage waswhen it affected my children.
And my children were the bruntof any type of like,
(44:48):
fallout, or they werethe brunt of frustration or,
I mistreated them
and overreacted with themand got impatient or angry
or my husband did
or did somethingthat I felt was hurtful to them,
and then I'd get involved.
So and it was oneheck of a big mess.
So does that also happen?
It sure does.
(45:09):
Yes, it sure does.
There are some neurodiverse menthat can show emotions.
So we don't want to say thatthey're all Emotionless.
That's not true.
It's just going to lookvery differently.
But but for the most part,
If you're going to askyour children to do a project,
(45:31):
a school projectwith your husband, for instance,
that's not going tothat's not going to play
into the emotional part of it.
It's going to play into theirthe logical part of their brain.
And so you need to be carefulwith that.
You need to maybe,
break it up into smallchunks of time, depending
(45:52):
upon the age of your childto do something like that,
because it would be itcould become very overwhelming
because they will naturallyjust take over the project.
And but it's
all consuming for the childbecause the time span is
(46:13):
too long, and then they're notunderstanding
the process of the project.
Because it's their logicalbrain.
It's over.
It's overwhat the child can comprehend
as far as doing a project,what about disciplining
with the children?
What happens with discipliningis, is I can imagine that
(46:36):
maybe he's very like rigid
and very rule based, and there'sno room for no wiggle room
for how the child was feelingor what was going on or what
contributed to that.
And so the disciplinemaybe is too harsh.
Yes. That can happen.
(46:58):
Yes. That can definitely happenbecause that once again
that plays in it depends onwhere the rigidity is,
and how high that is. Yes.
And or this could look likealso two
if you're going to sit down andhave a meeting with your child
about something
that you need to talk about,let's say your husband
(47:19):
and you and the child,there's a lot of talking.
And once again,it's the logical talking. It's
above their
brain level, and it can be.
Well, in my house, it was verylong, like lectures.
I have a really good example
that just popped into my mind ofof how this could happen.
(47:40):
I was told a situation recently
where a wife said thather husband, her neurodiverse
husband, was tryingto put their elementary school
child to bed and the childwas not going to bed quickly.
And the dadwas getting frustrated
(48:01):
and the child was frustrated.
The dad was getting a little bit
more like,just go to bed, just go to bed.
And the child was obviouslyin touch with his sense of loss,
of not having this dad, thathe felt really affectionate and,
and the little boy said,
I, I need, I need
a dad, I need a dad.
(48:24):
And that was a cry for loveand attention.
And the dad just missed it.
And he said,I need a son that goes to bed.
And now you think, oh, how meanand how like wrong.
But he he's thinking,get the kid to bed.
(48:45):
Get the kid to bed quickly.
That's my task.
And he's not even he'snot able to switch into that.
This little boyjust had a cry for love.
And it's talking about somethingemotional an emotional need.
And yetthat just added wounding.
Now the the mom or
the wife is sitting over herehears that and her heart breaks
(49:08):
for that little boy, becausethis isn't the first time
that that little boy
has sufferedthat kind of hurt and wounding.
And yet, what can you.
Yeah.
Right. Yeah.
And I know for me,when I had things
that happenedfor a different reason,
but that were like that,that I would go in there
(49:28):
and try to convince my husbandof where he was wrong
and what he needed to doand how he needed to change,
and it just intensifiedthe resistance.
And the, made it to where I wastrying to tell him what to do.
And he got more defensive in it.
And like I said, thattriangulation just gets worse.
Where so this is
(49:48):
I mean, we could probably doa whole podcast
just talking about that. Yes.
Kathleen, this speaks to thatblack and white
thinking that neurologythat they have black and white.
And I know
we don't have children,we have grandchildren,
but we didn't have childrenbetween us.
But even years ago,with the medical assistant
that Cooper had, she had donesomething against his wishes.
(50:10):
And his response was, I'm goingto have to punish her tomorrow.
And I said,this is a grown woman.
You can't punish her.
I mean, there's like,he didn't understand
the art of disciplinethat you have to talk to them
and work this through.
It's black and white. Hum.
Yeah.
That that could bevery problematic
(50:32):
not only in the homebut in the workplace.
Obviously.
So, I thinkwhen we're talking about this,
then we're really talking aboutalmost like
then you feel likeyou've got to be this buffer
between him and your children,
or maybe even your friendsand extended family.
And that can even get into you
(50:54):
what you call enablingor covering up
or excusing his behaviorand feeling like you need to,
interject yourself,
which is all partof codependency that we do.
That's even more.
And you lose yourself even morewhen when you have to do that.
So how does this affect her.
How does it affect her.
(51:16):
Her mood,how does it affect her.
Her life.
Well when the questions can
and they will it is importantthat that a wife explain
to their childrenand their own age appropriate
understandingwhat they are experiencing.
It is not that their dad doesn'tlove them
(51:37):
or is ignoring themintentionally, but as the mom,
you need to explain to themtheir dad's brain
and how it operates differently.
So how does this affectthe wife.
Because at this point
I'm feeling overwhelmedjust even talking about it.
And she's living it.
(51:58):
It is overwhelming.
And we hear this from women
that they may start to findthat their mood,
that, her husband's moodswill impact their moods.
For example,
if he's having a good dayand things have gone
well at work,he's in a good mood.
Well, she's going to bein a good mood as well.
(52:18):
But if he's come homeand things didn't go
well or things are not goingwell for him,
her emotional mentalworld will crumble with him
and she may try to
avoid preventing conflictfor fear with him, for it
him shutting down or having ameltdown or being shut out.
And then she may develop what iscalled walking on eggshells.
(52:42):
And I experienced this more,when I pressed in
for Cooper to becomea more neurotypical husband,
to understand and empathizewith what I was going through,
it came off as meblaming him, making demands.
And that's
when his meltdowns and horriblebehavior came to the forefront.
And I hear this too.
(53:03):
Well, what do I dowhen he starts calling me
all of these bad names?
Elizabethand I talked about this,
when they start to feel pressure
and when that husband feels likewe're pressing in with him,
they can take that upto a point,
and then their brain
cannot consume anymore,and that meltdown will happen.
And when that meltdown happens,they've lost control.
(53:24):
And that verbiage that comes outis horrendous.
Well, and then they're in thelower brain because all of us,
when we get overwhelmedand we're like,
we become what's calledemotionally dysregulated, right?
We get completely in emotions.
We can't use our higher brain
(53:44):
to be logicalinto reason and problem solve.
And then that'swhere you get angry.
You some people couldthrow things, some people can.
You just you lose.
So like you said, it'sa complete meltdown emotionally.
And that doesn't just happenin Asperger marriages.
It happens in any marriage.
(54:06):
And even that's evenwhen children are throwing a fit
and screaming
and flipping outlike that's their
all their lower brain emotions,
and you'recompletely dysregulated
and the meltdownscan be really bad.
I know, really bad.
And it comes offsounding and feeling so abusive
and what we consultthe women, we go like,
(54:27):
don'tstay there and listen to it.
Leave the
room because he will stop.
And and what they don't realizeis that he feels such
shame for doing it.
He can't stop in the middleof it and make it reset himself.
But you walk awayand give him time, he will reset
(54:48):
and he didn'twant to talk about it.
He may not apologize for it.
And honestly,I've gotten to that point.
When that happened,
I when I realized
that I didn't even expectan apology, I'm like,
okay, I know that.
I pressed too farand I'm not saying
that I was at fault, butthis is part of that learning.
(55:09):
Processin and a neurodiverse marriage.
With that,the woman needs to learn
how to set firm boundaries.
But here again and again
and sharing with themto do that.
Some women feel thatthat's being unfair and
controlling of the husband,
and then she
may feel it's a harshbehavior towards him,
(55:32):
and then she may feel guilty,
but she's caughtbetween her angst
and what she's going through,
and some boundaryneeds to be set.
So in codependency,
there may come the resultof the Aspie's underdeveloped
social skills and or lack ofeffective expressive empathy,
and then she maybecome his spokesperson.
(55:53):
And we findthis is interesting too,
especiallywith our Christian women.
And they'll say,
well, you know,he doesn't like to go to church
and he's not showing upto the Bible studies.
And people are askingwhere is that?
What am I supposed to say?
And I get that, but
it's not her place to say.
And even with differentsituations, people have said
(56:14):
that about Cooper.
Even some family members willsay, well, why is he doing this?
What's he doingthat I don't I'm like, well,
have a little chat with him
because I can't speak for him.
That's not my placeto put words in his mouth.
That's his to work outwith friends and family
that I've had.
(56:35):
Not in a neuro,
diverse marriage,but just in a normal marriage.
One woman, gave me this example,said, well,
when somebody asks something
to get some information,like where is your husband?
Or why isn't he here?
She just responds with, yeah,you're right, he's not here.
No he's not.
Is he okay?
He's fine. Well, why isn't here?
(56:56):
Yeah, because he doesn't come.He's not here.
Yeah.
Next time you see and ask him,
and you just you don't haveto carry that for them, right?
That's what we're trying.
But she may she may cover uphis, like a social faux paus.
And because
they are embarrassing to herand make excuses for him
and I get that I get thatembarrassment feeling.
But on the other hand,
(57:18):
it's not my embarrassment.
You can walk awayand let him walk.
That consequences up himself.
Sometimes it works,and then if it doesn't,
there's still not an areathat you can control.
Or should you be controlling itfor them?
Many times the neurotypical wifetakes on the responsibility
(57:40):
of finding help for him,and the aspie man
typically does not seethe need to go get help
or to change.
He's an adult man.
He's come this far in life.
He's, well,content with life is for him,
and he doesn't seethat need to change.
But she needs the relationshipto be fixed to improve the aspie
(58:02):
husband's ability to socializeand have relationship skills.
So he is here to.
And here we back it around againto validate her,
to bring her completionto her life,
and to take care of and meet heremotional, physical needs.
So she does not feel abandonmentand does not feel alone.
(58:25):
And this is how this has muchto do with and according
to how our culture has taught uson how marriage and
relationship is to be.
And I just want to
share with the womenthat we are not to be,
to half people that marry,to become a whole person.
We're to be two whole people,to complement one another,
(58:45):
to be joined together,not to complete one another.
And there's something
significant that you sharewith us wives in a relationship,
and that time needs to be givenfor the husband to be a he
time needs to be takenfor his us wives to be a me.
Then there's timesfor us to be a we.
And that formula will workwell in an Aspie,
(59:08):
neurodiverse relationship.
The NT wife may also
become emotionally unhinged
and some resortto profound tears.
And some saythis is the only way
they can get their husbandto take them seriously.
And I've tried that myself.
But in the long run,this isn't a viable solution.
(59:30):
And here's
another aspect that we wantyou ladies to consider.
Even though you may getyour Aspie husband to respond
when you implementthese escalated behaviors,
what you're teaching him is
that he only needs to doso when you escalate,
and this is going to take a tollon you emotionally,
(59:51):
mentally, and physically.
Severe stresscan disrupt the body's natural
cortisol levels, which regulatethe immune system.
Impaired cortisol regulationcan lead to autoimmune diseases.
There are numerous women
in groups that Elizabethand I have been in
(01:00:11):
and even our our own groupand even our own experience,
where you go to that doctorand that doctor says,
for you've developeda natural immune disorder,
what's going on in your life?Yeah.
We cannot keep escalatingat that level.
No, the stress of that.
And this is common because womencarry a basically a tendency
genetically they canto develop autoimmune disorders.
(01:00:35):
But it doesn't getit doesn't happen
if it's not triggeredby environmental things.
So environmental things can bea really stressful marriage.
I had read a while back priorto my even developing it,
and it said that, a reasona lot of neurotypical women
develop autoimmune disordersis their unwillingness to accept
(01:00:59):
that he hasa neurological disorder.
Well, they don't even know itat that point.
Well, they're going throughall of that stress.
And it's
maybe when they
even when they find it out,they still think they can change
this and fix it.
Yeah, it'svery hard in in it's common in
all dysfunctional relationshipsthat women
(01:01:20):
develop autoimmune disorders.
Right.
Because of the stressin the marriage,
which that even makesa stronger argument
for needing to learnhow to handle this differently.
So I'm imaginingwhen all this is going on
and you're, trying to push himreally hard and you're trying to
(01:01:43):
get him to see
the problemand you're having all of these,
these different thingsthat you're doing.
What arewhat is he actually doing?
Like when he'sif he's not melting down, what
other responses canhe have to your attempts
to try to change him?
Well, what will often happen is,
(01:02:06):
the Aspie husband respondswith a blank look on his face
and withdrawseven more from her.
He may retreat into his foxhole.
He will turnto his special interest
because this all helps himreset the anxiety he experiences
from the escalated emotionshis wife's and his.
(01:02:31):
So I imagine at this point
that any wife listeningwill be feeling
pretty overwhelmed right now,even though she at the same time
might be be feeling reliefthat hey,
somebody is talking aboutwhat I actually go through.
As we
go tothe end of this first part,
(01:02:55):
would you please give them
some encouragement?
We want to shareour understanding
and empathy with you.
We too have experiencedwhat you have
or may be going through.
We encourage you to giveyourself compassion and grace
because your heart's intention
(01:03:16):
is to improvethe challenging relationship
you have with your Aspiehusband and partner.
Our question todayto our neurotypical women
wives listening tothis podcast is
do we need to work harderor wiser? Yes.
Relationshipmarriage takes work, however,
not at the expenseof waking up one day
(01:03:38):
looking in the mirrorand not recognizing who we are.
You can't change your husband.
We are not called to.
You are responsible
to change our husband,neurotypical or Aspie.
if the neurotypical wifecontinues
to work harder on changing herAspie spouse,
she does so atthe risk of losing herself.
(01:04:00):
Okay,so we are going to stop here
and we are going to continuewith a second interview
in which we will talk abouthow you restore
the sense of self that you'velost in your Aspie marriage.
So, Kathleen, Elizabeth,thank you
so very much for coming todayand for sharing your
(01:04:25):
what we call in 12 step programsexperience, strength and hope
for women that are marriedto Aspie husbands.
Thank you Carla.
Thank you.
you've been listening
to a podcaston Change my Relationship.
I hope that if you are enjoyingthese podcasts
(01:04:46):
that you are sharing themwith other people that you know
would benefit from that,especially if you know somebody
todaywho is in an Aspie marriage,
if you would
please forward this to them,
you would be giving thema huge gift.
So we welcome you back, tofurther podcasts and God bless.
Thank you for listeningto Change My Relationship.
(01:05:08):
We hope you will subscribeto these podcasts
and share themwith your friends.
Karlawould love to hear from you.
She welcomes
ideas for a future podcast,as well as your feedback
on how the podcasts have helpedyour life and relationships.
You can email her at.
karla@changemyrelationship.com
For more information on
(01:05:28):
Change My Relationship and KarlaDowning's ministry,
including her books,studies, devotionals, podcasts
and YouTube videosvisit changemyrelationship.com.
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