The Love of the Loveless (Chapter 4) (2)

      I fixed myself a salad for tea and sat in the kitchen to eat it.  Tinker came in and sat on the windowsill beside me, looking from me to the street, then back to me.  Our usual evening thing.  While I ate, I did a bit of the crossword in my news magazine.

          7 Down - Not uncommon example of T S Eliot translation

          Litotes

      I was pleased with that one.  It also translated into 'toilets', I noticed.

      After I'd eaten, I took a shower and changed.  Then I opened a bottle of Shiraz (my secret treat) and sat down at the computer.  I checked my emails.  Junk.  Then I went onto Spectrum Central, the online autism forum I used, to check on the latest posts.  See if there was anything I wanted to comment on.  Someone I could help. I scrolled quickly down the list of recent posts.  It was familiar stuff:

• Just diagnosed.  What next?
• GP won't listen
• Help!  Son's meltdowns getting out of hand
• Diagnosis - is it worth going for?
• Sensory processing issues
• Exhausted with people
• Is it just me?
• Portrayals of autism in film
• Employer refusing reasonable adjustments
• Am I disabled or just different?
• Burnout looming... 

      I clicked on each of them, but they'd all got comments from other users that I couldn't really add anything to.  It was a hugely supportive place like that.  One of the few completely sane places I knew.  You could go there and say what was on your mind - things that to the world at large would seem childish, crazy, idiotic, freakish - but which made perfect sense to everyone reading.  Many of the users were late-diagnosed people, like myself, who didn't know where to go for support.  If you were above fifty, forget it anyway.  Just cope in the best way you could - like you always had done; 'coping' that might include long periods of sick leave from work, medication (for all the good that was), substance misuse, meltdowns, shutdowns, disconnecting the doorbell and unplugging the phone.  Escaping onto forums like this.

      I was just about to log off when a new post came up:

• Struggling.  Husband has Asperger's

      I'd seen plenty like this before, too.  They always gave me pause.  I stared at it for a few moments.  The poster had a username I didn't recognise.  BStrong.  A reference, I guessed, to the actress who played Mary Alice Young in Desperate Housewives.  Or maybe she was just trying to come up with something self-supporting.  Whatever, it was appropriate.

      I clicked on the post and read it.  It was short and to the point:

Hello everyone,

I hope it's alright if I post here, only I'm not sure who else to turn to.  My husband and I have been married almost three years.  I love him very much, but I'm at the end of my tether.  I knew he had Asperger's when we got together.  He explained it all to me, and the difficulties he had, but I couldn't see that it made any difference.  He was a lovely man and we seemed to get along so well.  We married quite quickly after meeting - within six months.  It all just seemed so right, and I was so happy.  Things haven't been plain-sailing, but I just thought that's what most marriages are like.  Give and take, compromise, acceptance, and the understanding that comes from genuine love for another person.  In the last year, though, things have become increasingly difficult.  It's almost like we're living separate lives.  He spends a lot of time alone in his workshop and often doesn't want to do things with me.  We don't go out together much. He gets irritated sometimes if I keep on at him about it.  Last night, we had an awful row, because he was bound up with his artwork again (he paints) and didn't want to spend time with me.  He tells me to my face he loves me, and that he wishes I could understand.  I try.  I think I'm very patient.  But this no longer feels like a marriage to me.  Our physical relationship is almost non-existent now.  I look at my sister and her husband and how happy they are and feel jealous. Am I doing something wrong?  Has anyone else experienced similar?  What suggestions do you have?  He can't seem to see how much this is hurting me, and destroying everything.  Help!

      I read it through twice.  The words tumbled around in my head like Lotto balls in one of those blower machines.  Several had my number on them.  I sensed them tumbling and tumbling in the current of air.  Slowly, one by one, they fell into place.  I finished my glass of wine and poured another...

              Hi BStrong,

I'm sorry to hear of your problems.  Reading this has touched a lot of places inside me.  I'm not sure I can offer you any solutions.  What I can offer is my perspective as an Aspie myself.  I was only diagnosed 3 years ago, at age 56.  This came 11 years after the end of my own marriage, which itself lasted 4 years.  I was confused for so much of my marriage, and it was my diagnosis that helped me to find some answers.  When I first met my ex-wife, it was like nothing else that had ever happened to me before.  I fell head over heels.  I was in my early forties, so no soppy teen.  But we hit it off in so many ways.  Everything felt so right.  I couldn't bear to be apart from her.  We were married within a year of meeting and set up home together.

      I stopped.  I took a decent sip of the wine.  Tinker came in and started rubbing around the chair, mewing.  She wanted a bit of attention.  I rubbed her head for a few moments until she was purring.  Then she jumped up on the armchair and started to knead the cushion.  I looked back at what I'd written and took another good sip of wine.  Those balls were still tumbling, but softer now and slower.  The feeling in my stomach was settling.  I put my fingers to the keys again...

That was our big mistake, I now see.  It was the first time in my adult life that I'd cohabited.  I'd always lived alone before, and I have since.  The only way I can describe how I began to feel is 'psychologically displaced'.  I simply found it hard to cope having someone else around - someone I needed to share my life with, even though it's what I'd thought I wanted: to be with her.  I loved her very much, but as time went on I felt unable to show it in any meaningful way.  I had certain ways of doing things that she didn't have, and I found it difficult to adapt and compromise.  I used to spend many hours at home alone in our back bedroom, reading or writing.  Writing is one of my main interests, and I needed the space to do it.  But even having that room wasn't enough.  The knowledge that someone else was in the house disturbed me.  I sometimes found myself resenting having to sacrifice my time to do things like visit her mother.  It was a horrible time.  I wanted her - and I wanted to be alone, too.  Towards the end, I even found it hard to touch her.  Our physical relationship was non-existent in the final 2 years.  I began to drink to make myself feel better, but that naturally wasn't a solution.  We tried counselling, but it wasn't getting anywhere - and I found it hard to talk about what was going on in my head because I didn't really understand it myself.  Finally, we separated.  There are always faults on both sides with these things, but I took most of the blame on my shoulders.  It broke my heart, to see how I'd broken hers.  But I had to set her free from me.  In our final months, I recorded my thoughts and feelings - my anguish - in a diary.  After the separation and subsequent divorce, I gave those pages to her.  I hoped they might help her to understand.  I don't know if they did.  All I know is, I haven't seen or heard from her from that day to this.  In compliance with her wishes, I've not tried to contact her.  I'm sure she thinks I'd simply fallen out of love with her.  If only it were that simple.  It all feels like unfinished business, and I expect it will always be that way now.  I live with my guilt and carry on with my life.

Sorry - this is probably not what you wanted to read.  What you'd said, though, brought it out of me.  I feel for you in this.  I'm not saying that your marriage will inevitably go the same way as mine did - not at all.  Every circumstance is different.  I wanted you to know, though, that things might not be as they seem with your husband.  He might be struggling, as I was.  You say that you knew he had Asperger's and he'd explained his difficulties to you.  Do you ever talk to him about it now?  Do you think he might be amenable to discussing his feelings in more depth?  Maybe he wants desperately to say something, but doesn't know how - because he's afraid of how you might react.

I wish you well.  I hope some of the other good people on here can offer some advice and insights.  I know that issues such as you are having are quite common.  Hopefully, there are answers out there for you.

Best regards,

Martian Tom 

(continued)