Full-spectrum marriage: married to an Aspie

Kristi Sakai

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Having a successful marriage requires effort, but when one partner has Asperger Syndrome it poses additional challenges. My husband, Nobuo, who is on the spectrum, and I have been married for nearly 17 years and refer to our relationship as a “full-spectrum marriage” as a way to express the richness and fullness of our shared experience. We acknowledge our challenges, but rather than viewing our unique qualities (I’m admittedly a little “different” myself) as negative, we try to appreciate our unusual way of interacting with the world.

As in any marriage, we each bring something to the table and at times must compensate for the other’s lack of knowledge or skill. The key to success resides in the ability to embody compassion for one another— and for ourselves when we fall short of that goal. Because, let’s be honest, marriage is an ever-evolving, ongoing collaboration filled with the ordinary stresses of life, and when you toss children into the mix (all three of our kids have Asperger Syndrome), patience wears thin occasionally. Learning to be aware of both our own, and our partner’s, challenges and developing a repertoire of useful strategies to manage them can not only relieve some of the pressure, but also prevent some blow-ups from occurring. The following is a list of some useful strategies we’ve found help enhance our ability happily reside in our full-spectrum marriage.

1. Understand your own challenges and develop self-management skills.
Rather than immediately requiring our spouse to compensate, we must first gain a greater understanding of our own needs and then develop and implement appropriate coping mechanisms. This is true whether either spouse is on the spectrum or not. For example, we have a friend who disappears for a while during social situations—he has gone on a walk in order to burn off a little of the pent up energy that builds up for him during such events. While he’s walking, his wife and children are enjoying their time with friends. After a while he’s relaxed and able to rejoin the party. Other self-management skills include learning relaxation techniques such as deep breathing, and remembering to pack essential items such as sensory supports like earplugs.

2. Marriage is all about compromise, but a reasonable compromise means that each gets a little bit of what he or she wants.
It is important to remember that for our spouses on the spectrum adamant adherence to structure and support may in fact be a NEED, not merely a want. That said, it is important for each partner to stretch for the other; it’s only a matter of finding where that line is.

So, for example, perhaps the AS spouse finds social situations intolerable, but the non-spectrum spouse longs to get out and be with people. Several compromises are possible in this situation. One, she could go with a friend while he happily remains home … but perhaps it means he, in turn, has to watch the kids. Two, they both go, but agree to a time limit for the event. Two hours and they leave, no matter what. Three, they look for a social circle that includes others who share common interests (and perhaps also aren’t the most typically social) Guys especially seem to prefer to have something “to do.” While the women are chatting it up, the fellas might be staring at the computer screen while having an animated discussion. Or they may be out in the garage in a serious discussion over some “guy stuff.” If you’re especially lucky, when the party is over, you may find they’ve managed to repair your lawn mower together!

3. Provide visual supports to enhance communication.
“What do you want me to do? Draw you a picture?!” YES. We know that visual aids work for children on the spectrum. It also works on spectrum spouses. We’re familiar with grocery lists, but we take it further. After repeated explanations about a specific item only to have my husband return home with the WRONG thing again (bless his heart!), we have revised our communication system. First, I buy the item and show it to him so he has a visual reference. Second, I draw a very simple map of its location in the store. While this may sound tedious, as we generally buy the same items over and over, once he’s caught on, no further explanation is necessary, and in the long run it saves time and money—not to mention frustration.

4. Don’t assume.
This is true for marriage in general. Husbands have a reputation for not always catching on to what wives are silently trying to communicate as we seethe in righteous indignation that they are so clueless.

The lesson here is to tell him what you want. The first time my husband didn’t buy me a gift for Mother’s Day and I expressed my dismay, he responded, “But you’re not my mother.” The next year and the year after that, he continued to ignore the venerated holiday as I grew increasingly resentful. In reality, “I” had failed to take the next step of saying, “It is customary to buy the mother of your children a Mother’s Day gift and I expect one—this is the date.” Rather than unrealistic romantic notions that he’d catch on because he was simply inspired to express his undying devotion to me, he required specific instruction. The same goes in reverse. Due to a typical Asperger characteristic of mind-blindness, or the inability to perceive others’ intentions, our spouses on the spectrum may assume we know what they need without telling us. My husband has anxiously asked me probably a thousand times, “What are we doing today?” I found this annoying, as if he was monitoring my day until it finally occurred to me that he was trying to prime (prepare) himself for what was going to occur so he could get a handle on the various challenges it might entail.

Courtesy of APPC