Nancy and her sanity shelter

Aspies seem to have "food issues"

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy M) — Sun, 14 Oct 2018 00:56:00 +0000

“Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what’s for lunch.” ― Orson Welles

This wasn't something I noticed in the beginning, or perhaps this was part of his gaslighting me, or maybe it was something that grew over time. However it happened, my ex-narcissist had what I consider to be some serious food issues.

It wasn't until my youngest left for the Air Force, and was gone for a few months, that he brought up to me how much his eating habits had changed since going into the Air Force.

The first thing he pointed out was he was no longer gobbling up all the chips, ice cream and cookies as soon as they hit the house. He's also the one who pointed out to me it was his father's eating habits that made him that way. See, Mark had a really bad habit of eating all the junk food in the house almost as soon as it walked in the door with me. He made the observation that Mark's doing this caused both my son and I to get some as fast as we could, before his dad got to it.

So I started paying attention and Elias was right. Mark ate junk food constantly!

I would buy ice cream by the multi-gallon drum and it would be gone in less than a week. I'd not even had a bowl! Mark liked to think he ate healthy, so when he'd have ice cream, he'd put it in a coffee cup to show "portion control." However, he'd eat five or six of those in one evening. And when he wasn't eating it out of a coffee cup, he'd have to go to the kitchen for something and would grab a spoon so he could get a bite or two several times a night.

Another habit of Mark's would be to "sleep eat." Elias and I both told him he did it, but he refused to believe it and accused me of trying to convince him he was crazy. If it were just me who was telling him this, that'd be one thing, but Elias was telling him this, too! Mark would cook food and the dirty dishes would be in the sink in the morning, but he refused to believe he did this. His most common night time meal would be a bowl of cereal with milk. He would eat so many bowls of cereal, once it came into the house, there was never any for the occasional bowl for me. I'd bring five or six boxes in from the grocery store and all of them would be eaten in just a few days, with me getting none of it.

Since divorcing my Aspie, it still surprises me to see cookies in my pantry and I don't remember when I bought them. I'd grown so conditioned to there being no snack junk food in the house it looked foreign to me to see it. I can't remember the last time I bought any junk food for myself. I have a medium-sized bag of chips on top of the fridge and it's only half eaten. I can't remember when I bought them. I tasted one this evening and it seemed like it might be a little on the stale side, so it's been a while, I suppose.

Once Mark's health started showing it was suffering from his indifference, I tried to get him to eat healthier. When we were dating and in the first couple years we were married, I would often make salads for dinner. He'd eat them heartily! But, once the honeymoon was over for him (which coincided with Elias being born - Aspies don't like to be one of several children, they want to be the only one. They don't like the competition) he refused to eat a salad. He declared them a waste of space in his stomach. He'd get so mad when I'd make something healthy for dinner.

I can remember when I saw Mark for the first time in months, while I was waiting at the courthouse for our hearing to start. He was getting out of his car and I didn't recognize him. He was so overweight and his hair was completely grey. He'd also added many, many more lines and wrinkles to his face. He looked like he was 15 years older than he was. That was the moment I realized his spell over me was gone.

For years, people who knew me would eventually meet Mark and tell me confidentially they couldn't believe I was married to him. He was the opposite of me in every way.

The day I saw him outside the courthouse, I finally understood what they were all talking about.

In the weeks since I had him removed from the house, I was eating the way I wanted to eat, which was healthy. I seem to naturally gravitate to a healthy diet. I don't actually diet, but I love fish, grains, salads, fruit, and not a lot of junk food. I lost quite a bit of weight over the five months I was waiting for the hearing. And the thing is, I've kept it off over the last nearly five years. My blood pressure is where it should be, my rheumatoid arthritis has gotten much better, and I take regular walks around the two lakes in my home town, where I live. I also sleep much better than I once did.

So ask yourself... Do you have a weight problem that won't resolve, no matter what you do? Start paying attention to how you subconsciously respond to your Aspie's eating. And if you take the plunge and divorce your Aspie, the weight just seems to melt off with no effort from you.

I lost about 60 pounds since divorcing the ex. I love to tell people I lost over 300 pounds since the divorce. 275 of it was him...

Three years post-divorce from my Aspie and here's how it's going...

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy M) — Sat, 01 Jul 2017 04:07:00 +0000

So much seizing the day!

A couple of weeks ago or so was three years since I divorced my ex-Aspie and here's how things are going...

Bought a small house that's just right for me and a pet. I inherited all three dogs in the divorce, but last month two of them passed away; one from cancer, one from myelitis. The house isn't perfect, but it's mine and no one will ever take it away from me. It will also be paid for in another 90 payments.
My two kids still aren't talking to me, but that's okay. My youngest did manage to give me some insight as to why - he says I'm "embellishing" the affairs my ex had during our marriage. Given that lie came to light, I have to wonder how many others my ex managed to convince the kids of? But mostly, I feel sorry for my ex. He's such a pathetic loser, such a liar, such a POS, the only way he can live with himself is to work that hard to convince both himself and others he didn't do the things he did to me and the marriage. Frankly, pathetic doesn't even BEGIN to describe him and his lies/delusions.
I still get triggered pretty easily when someone I'm dating does or says something to remind me of the ex. BUT - I'm also more aware of the narcissism I was subjected to for so long. (Aspies are usually narcissists, too) More than once, I've listened to some guy start to feel me a line of bullshit and I've responded with, "You're gaslighting me." I gotta tell ya, it feels REALLY good to call shenanigans on a narc and know you're right to do so. And trust me, they get really pissed off when you do this, which is another good feeling.
The ex is STILL playing the victim, which is something Aspies do SO well. He refuses to talk to me still, which really is fine, but I have to send him a reminder email more than once, every year since the divorce, regarding the cost of living raise I'm required to get under our divorce decree as I was given a percentage of his military retirement for life. I'm thinking next January I won't do that - I'll just take him to court for contempt, and while I'm there petition the court to continue the alimony, at least until my house is paid for. See, it wasn't in my pre-divorce planning budget to have a car payment but the ex made sure my car was repossessed (because of his doing, not mine, as the car was paid for) so my finances are a little skewed until the car's paid for.
From the first day, my friends have all told me I look 20 years younger, and this must be true, because when I told my coworkers I was over 50, none of them believed me and it was a genuine disbelief. I honestly believe I added years to my life by leaving the crazy behind me.

All this being said, I'm still much happier than I've been in a long, long time. I answer to no one, I'm not responsible to anyone but myself, and there's no one to call me names, treat me like garbage, or to work to convince me I'm crazy for the sole reason it makes them feel better about their assortment of mental illnesses. (When I think of my ex, which I rarely do any longer, the phrase, "From soup to nuts" comes to mind, and it makes me laugh a little to myself) I'm not going to lie, it hasn't been a picnic since the divorce, but it's tons better than it was before.

Seriously, leaving the Aspie, NPD, Bipolar Diordered mind of my ex behind me was the best decision I ever made. You should consider doing the same thing.

It's been a while since I've posted... But...

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 27 Jul 2015 03:01:00 +0000

There are so many reasons I've not been posting, and it's as I suspected... My life is SO much better now that I'm post-Aspie.

I wish I could say my kids were talking to me again, but I can't. At one point, my youngest son and I were back in contact, but he told his dad, the Aspie, and he shut me out again. (More of that Abuse by Proxy I've mentioned)

I have a great job working in the accounting field again. I have a nice car that I pay for myself, the replacement for the one the ex-Aspie sold out from under me. I have wonderful friends. I am now volunteering for a group that serves the domestic violence shelter in a neighboring county.

And I must be doing something right because I also have a stalker on here named Deb Marino, though I'm sure it's a fake name. I'm pretty sure I know who it is and she's bat-shit crazy so I take it all with a grain of salt. She's known for being crazy and the fact she used the first name of a former boyfriend's ex-wife and a derivative of my surname were the biggest clues. We live in a very emotionally unhealthy world. I turned off the comments here until I can figure out how to delete her bat-shit craziness. It's not as simple as it once was.

Life is certainly good.

One thing you'll note I didn't mention is that there's a man in my life; because there's not. I made the stupid mistake of dating someone before my divorce was final (we'd already gone to final hearing and I'd moved back to my hometown). Why is it stupid? Because when you leave an Aspie led relationship, you're in no condition emotionally to be in a relationship with anyone. It's a rough road back and my PTSD is still prevalent at times.

When you divorce an Aspie (or any other abusive person), give yourself time to heal before going into another relationship. Take years if you have to. The person I became involved with was a predator, of sorts. He's an emotionally abusive person who thrives on running everyone else around him down into the ground. He was such a huge emotional set back for me and I wish I'd never gotten involved with him.

If I tried to discuss a relationship problem with him, he would respond with, "I guess we should just break up." (This is a tool used by abusers and narcissists to keep you in line. They use your fear of breaking up to prevent you from saying anything other than positive things about them).

He had me convinced his family hated me and didn't want me at family holiday functions. (The opposite was true. I ran into a family member of his one night and they approached me to ask why I didn't like them or want to spend time with them. He had them convinced I hated them. This is a form of isolation used by abusers and narcissists so you rely solely on them.)

He worked VERY hard to convince me I couldn't trust anyone but him. Again, this is a form of isolation. Abusers do everything they need to do to remove from your life anyone who is in a position to help you if you need it.

He would wait until the last minute to try to make plans with me and blow up at me if I wasn't available and subject to his whims. (Abusers and narcissists to this to make sure you're sitting at home, waiting on their call instead of going out and, you know, having a life - another form of isolation)

He would routinely disappear on me, refusing to answer my calls or respond to my text messages. I finally got sick of it and made plans with friends, not seeing or talking to him for three or four days (and remember, he did this to me regularly and would tell me, "That's just who I am. Take it or leave it." Over the course of the four days, he and I were at the same grocery store at the same time, but I didn't know it until I had left and saw his truck parked near mine. I went out with friends all weekend - didn't call him, didn't text him, came home late, left early. You know the drill. He had absolutely no idea where I was, who I was with or what I was doing.

Not once did he try to call or text me over those four days. However, the following Tuesday, he sends me a text with those simple words - We need to talk. I refused. I told him, basically, "Oh, heck no. You want to talk while I listen. But when I want to talk, you run in the opposite direction and refuse. So, no, we won't be talking." He responded with, "Okay, I guess we just won't talk another time."

Narcissists hate being shut down the way they shut down everyone else. I did, however, go to his house. See, if he'd come to mine and I'd done anything OTHER than sit passively and let him rant, blaming me for everything wrong in his world, he'd have walked out and I'd have been left upset, confused and angry at being shut down - AGAIN!

I walk into his house and tell him it's time to talk. Being at his house meant he wouldn't walk out. He did try walking away a couple of times, washing dishes, wiping down the counter, until I finally made him stop. What came out was he was mad that we didn't see each other that weekend and it was my fault we didn't. I just kind of looked at him, blinked a few times and said, "Does your phone not dial out anymore? If you'd wanted to see me, you should have called me."

This was the beginning of the end of our relationship. Once a narcissist realizes they can't control you any longer, they have no use for you. John realized he'd lost control of me and he started moving on. He thinks I don't know it but this is when he started dating other people while working to convince me he was completely faithful. He started saying things like, "We're just friends, nothing more".

About two months before I ended it with him for good, I'd started dating a really great guy (sort of, he, too, has issues that led me to ending things with him and choosing to stop dating anyone at all.) and after a week of no contact with John, he finally got thru to me. He started giving me this whole planned (read: scripted) speech that was exactly what I knew it would be: it was all my fault, he was perfect, etc., etc. I finally interrupted him to tell him I was dating someone and had been for two months. He accused me of cheating when he had, in fact, been the one to say he and I were "just friends". It's always a glorious moment when you can use the narcs words against him like this.

Trust me, don't get into a relationship until you've pretty much healed from the abusive one. You won't ever get back to the person you were before the abuse, but you can get close. I know I have.

I'm still fixing things with my siblings, the ones my ex-Aspie alienated me from. One sister has pretty much been okay since the divorce. My brother still doesn't talk to me, but that's on him for not wanting to understand what it's like being in an abusive relationship, though he's in one himself. His wife has him so alienated from his twin sister (my sister, too, but the twin sister thing is for emphasis on just how much his wife has worked to remove him from his family). My oldest sister "seems" to be okay, but I'm starting to see chinks in her armor, that she's got some narcissistic personality traits. She's got gas-lighting down pat. She ignored my birthday. She blames me for the problems with my oldest son, though she was around for all the BS his dad put not just me but her through to spend time with him. I don't know if she's showing signs of forgetfulness or if she's just mean and likes to twist me up in knots. I limit the conversations with her because of this. Just because they're family doesn't mean they're good for you.

I have to confess, I'm still healing emotionally. But I now have boundaries in place I didn't have before. My bullshit meter is much stronger and the slightest bit of bullshit means I kick the person from my life. Period.

Learn to trust your gut. If it feels wrong, it is. Take control of your life and the people in it. Only have in your life supportive, positive people who don't work to make you feel badly about yourself. Don't ever let someone dictate who you spend time with, where you go, when you do things and, most of all, don't EVER let them isolate you. Be vigilant!

Life is good after Aspie. Seriously.

Aspies are indecisive

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy M) — Thu, 10 Apr 2014 15:41:00 +0000

“If you want to kill any idea in the world, get a committee working on it.” ~ Charles F. Kettering

This is a big one, at least it was in my marriage to my STBE.

He was SO terrified of making the wrong decision, he couldn't make a decision at all.

A few years ago, I wanted to paint one of the walls in the kitchen. Being a good wife, I asked for his input. I mean, it was his wall, too. Four months and many color swatches painted on the wall later, he STILL wouldn't help me make a choice, always telling me, "I don't like any of them".

I would ask him, "What color do you think you'd like to see on the wall?" He would respond with, "I don't know". Oh, I see. So you don't know the right answer, you just know the wrong answer. (And this is another thing with Aspies... Maybe I'll do a posting on that one.)

What it finally took for me to get a color chosen was to sit down with him, four painted swatches on the wall in front of us, and say, "Okay, which ones do you definitely dislike?" He told me, "All of them." Me: "Okay, then, let's try this route. Which one do you dislike the least?" Him: "I guess one of the green ones." (Note: They were all some shade of green - see how painful this gets?) Me: "They're all some shade of green. Can you help me a bit? Dark green? Light green? In between green? Does one of them appeal to you more in your hatred of them than the others?"

He finally settled on a lighter lime green as the "least offensive" and I painted the wall. But remember, it took me FOUR MONTHS to get to this point.

I have 21 years of this crap. His telling me he couldn't make up his mind about "something" of some importance to the household, either big or small.

The worst was when I'd try to discuss financial matters with him, such as starting a retirement plan. I'd do all sorts of research into it, I'd download documents, I'd print out articles, I'd order a prospectus from the ones I favored, I'd put everything in some sort of understandable order for him and after a couple weeks of this, I steeled myself for the conversation. See, the STBE doesn't really have a head for figures and numbers outside of a math book. Finances beyond the basic checking account register eludes him and he starts to become "confused" (his word - not mine).

After all this research, I'd explain it all to him and ask him to help me come to a decision, generally taking more than an hour or two, ending the "presentation" with, "This is what I believe we should do". After all of this, his response would be, 100% of the time, "I need to talk to so-and-so at work about it".

I could never get him to understand everyone's finances are different. Everyone makes financial choices differently and based on their personal financial standing. However, if I wanted an answer from him, I had no choice to acquiesce to his demands I allow him to discuss it with one or more people, usually the "more". Nine times out of ten, the people he'd talk to about it at work would agree with what I felt was the best course, and when that happened, he'd come back to me with, "So-and-so thinks we should do "this" one."

I'd receive no credit whatsoever in that being MY choice, too. In spite of the fact I was proven right by SO many of the people he talked to, he never trusted my thoughts or opinions on anything at all. Not ONCE was I told I was agreed with, nor would he give my thoughts or opinions on financial matters any sort of credence at all (and I have a background in accounting and finance). Nope, our entire life together was him treating me as if I hadn't a brain in my head. He also made EVERY SINGLE major family decision by talking to others about it and leaving me out of the discussion entirely.

I began to call what he did "Decision by committee". He couldn't make a decision on his own. He refused to trust my decisions. But he'd trust our major life decisions to near strangers who know no more about our life than a complete stranger walking along the street. While Asperger's isn't actually considered to be a "mental disorder" (though it was listed in the DSM up until this latest update in the DSM-V where it was grouped under general autism. It IS considered to be a personality disorder and there's a link that discusses the decision-making problems people with certain personality disorders experience.

The mental health community would have us all believe there IS hope (and there's a paragraph towards the bottom of the page I linked to in the prior paragraph) when the person with the personality disorder goes through therapy. However, what they DON'T address is just how you're supposed to GET that person into therapy? People with these personality disorders won't even recognize they have a disorder, much less go to therapy for it. Aspies in particular will take the stance, "There's nothing at all wrong with ME. You just need to go to therapy to work on your coping skills" and they demand unconditional love for them, in spite of the fact they don't give you any love at all, much less unconditional love.

To close this out, since it's gone on long enough and being an NT, you're intelligent enough to understand the gist of what I'm saying, see the similarities to your own life and apply it to your life, Aspies have one frustrating quality after another and this is one of the more frustrating ones, to be sure. Aspies have hundreds or thousands of ways to show you, daily, how unimportant you are to them and this is one of them.

Married to an Aspie/Narcissist/Sociopath? You will be alone in this marriage.

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy M) — Mon, 24 Mar 2014 13:00:00 +0000

Like Katherine Hepburn says, Aspies don't want to be alone,
they simply want to be left alone. (Image: Flickr.com CC)

“I don't want to be alone, I want to be left alone.” ― Audrey Hepburn

Note: I jumped ahead to #30 on the list because I went off on a tangent in my last posting about Aspies and their pathological need to be liked. I decided to cut it out of there and do this post.

Aspies/Narcissists/Sociopaths are a funny breed. They want relationships with people that are close and loving. They really do. Aspies/Narcissists/Sociopaths are extremely lonely people. What they don't realize, though, is they bring the loneliness on themselves by being so reclusive and difficult.

Aspies actually prefer to be left alone, but they want you to leave them alone while sitting next to them. They don't want to talk to you, they don't want you to talk to them, they don't want to touch you, they don't want you to touch them. They just want you to sit next to them and bask in the glory of their deigning to be present.

During your marriage, you'll be treated as an accessory to their life. You will be the trophy wife, the maid, the cook, the prostitute, the wage earner, the day care provider, the brood mare for their children they want (but also don't want them to bother them), chauffeur, masseuse, and any other role of slavery you can fathom. But the one thing you WON'T be is an equal partner in the marriage. You also won't be cherished, honored, respected, acknowledged or treated as though you matter in any way, shape or form beyond any of the above roles. The signs of this are early in the marriage, if you're paying attention.

Nope, Aspies have people in their life for one reason and one reason only, and that's to serve them. This is why they work SO hard to win you over. You are now their new source of Narcissistic Supply.

Aspies/Narcissists/Sociopaths have an UNCANNY ability to spot your weaknesses so they can exploit them. I made the mistake of telling my STBE before we were married that I came from an alcoholic family and suffered from abandonment and trust issues as a result. He zeroed in on those almost from the moment we were married. It took a few months, because they groom you in very subtle ways, before they hop onto the "let's see how much we can run them down" train. They actually USE these weaknesses in you to build you up during the "love bombing" stage, working to convince you of what a lovely, trustworthy, loyal, honest person they are. Once you believe that, the reverse starts happening.

I also told my STBE before we married - Don't ever lie to me. Even if it's something you think will upset me, I need to know I can always count on you to tell the truth. I'd rather be hurt by the truth than a lie." Many years later, in marriage counseling, I brought this up. His response was, "You didn't mean it." Really? I didn't mean it? That's the best you can do? You profess to be inside my head to know what I meant when I said this?

For me, the "A-ha" moment came when we'd been married about six months. As I'd said earlier, I'm a pretty good cook (adventurous is really what it should be called) and I was always trying new recipes. This particular day, I'd made a dinner salad with three or four types of lettuce, strawberries, hand-made vinaigrette dressing, toasted almonds, smoked turkey, etc. His kids were there for the weekend and I called everyone to dinner.

I set the large salad bowl down in the center of the table and asked everyone what they wanted to drink? I went to get the drinks and when I came back, the STBE had served the entire salad to him and his kids, leaving my plate empty. It was entirely gone with none left for me. His solution, once he saw me sitting in the living room eating a sandwich (FUMING!) was to tell the kids, "Once you've eaten all you want from your plate, give Nancy the rest." I got the leftovers? Really? I MADE the damn thing and I get the leftovers????? Fuck that.

See how this devalues you as a person? Now, in the mind of my STBE, the Aspie/Narcissist/Sociopath, I'm nothing more than a cook and slave. I'm relegated to eating everyone else's leftovers.

Another example from my life of the "devaluing" stage is something that happened not long after the "salad incident". Mark's ex-wife had signed the kids up for bowling on Saturday mornings. Mark would take them to bowling, then lunch, and I'd use the time to clean the entire house and this was no mean task. See, Mark being the "Disney Dad" (AKA Disneyland Dad), the kids were never required to clean up after themselves, help with housework in any way, they scattered their crap all over the place and generally didn't do anything but sit around with Dad while I waited on them all, hand and foot.

One particular Saturday morning, he took the kids to bowling while I cleaned. I also washed and ironed all his uniforms, did all the dishes, cleaned the kid's bedrooms, made their beds, cleaned up their crap from the floor, etc. When Mark and the kids came home around 1 o'clock, he walked in and didn't say a thing about my having cleaned the entire two story row home. BUT - he did look around and all he said was, "You didn't clean the baseboards. What's planned for dinner?" And he walked away.

Again, devaluing me as a person. I've not met his unrealistic expectations. I cleaned 1500 square feet of living space but what he noticed was - I didn't clean the baseboards. So what did I do? I got down on my hands and knees and cleaned the baseboards. After so many months of being told by him just how wonderful I was, just how much I fulfilled him, he's now telling me I'm not good enough.

This is where the whole "being alone" kicks in. No longer are you focused on your expectations of being an equal partner in a good marriage. NOW you're focused on "keeping your man happy" at all costs. He's unhappy with you so you have to work on this, right? Because we're all told a good marriage is based on focusing on the needs and the happiness of the other person. And this IS true. If you focus on keeping your mate happy, it's like a stone thrown into a pond. The ripples that come from that spread until it touches every part of your life.

Right?

Not in an Aspie/Narcissist/Sociopath marriage. Nope. As focused as you now are on keeping your man happy, he's that focused on you keeping your man happy. Now that the devaluing stage has begun, this is where you'll start doing TOO much to keep your man happy and no matter what you do, it won't be enough. Only NOW, the Aspie will start complaining you're hovering and annoying them with all the attention. From this point on, the only time your Aspie wants you to pay attention to him is when he's horny or hungry. Period. Any other time, they expect you to flit about like a butterfly, attending to their needs, picking up after them, washing their clothes, doing the grocery shopping, keeping the kids out of their hair and generally being the fairy that comes in the middle of the night to take care of the house.

Gone are the late into the night conversations of sharing your future together. No more pillow talk because once they're done with the sex act, they'll either roll right over and fall asleep or will get up to fastidiously clean themselves as though you have leprosy and they need to get your cooties off of themselves. No more small talk over dinner because your Aspie will now have become mono-syllabic and will eat as fast as they can so they can go back to their computer/television show/movie, whatever. Any attempts at conversation over dinner are met with grunts and loud sighs, thereby training you to just sit there, eat your food, and shut the hell up.

They simply want you to leave them ALONE!

Towards the end of my marriage, the STBE started bringing the iPad into the den to "watch television" with me. However, as soon as he sat down, he'd put the ear buds in and start watching YouTube videos on the thing. I was ignored. If I wanted to say something to him, I had to tap his knee. This was met with a loud sigh, he'd do this whole dramatic thing that involved pausing the video, then taking out his ear buds, then turning to me with another loud sigh and saying, "WHAT?!?!?!"

I finally gave up. And so should you if you ever want to be in a relationship with someone who actually wants you there with them as more than a warm body.

Aspies need to be liked by everyone

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy M) — Sun, 23 Mar 2014 16:43:00 +0000

Aspies are chameleons, taking on the
personality and persona of the person
they're with or want to attract.
(Image: flickr.com CC)

“Really Hagrid, if you are holding out for universal popularity, I'm afraid you will be in this cabin for a very long time” ― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

I'm starting to feel more and more I should be using the term "Narcissist" in all of this. Aspies and Narcissists are extremely similar and Narcissism is one of the main qualities of being an Aspie.

As much as Aspies and the mental health community would have us believe Aspies are warm, fuzzy kittens all the time, they're not.

Aspies need to be liked SO much, they'll run you down in the process. They simply don't understand people really CAN like more than one person.

Over the years, the STBE would run into people at work who just didn't like him. There was really no reason for it, they just didn't like him. We all have people like that in our lives and it's nothing wrong with you OR them. Some people just don't like you for whatever reason. I've never been someone bothered by this but the STBE? Oh, man, this would make him absolutely CRAZY! He would try to talk to the person to show them what a wonderful person he is. If they didn't go for it then, he'd start inviting them to lunch, or for a coffee, or whatever, but if someone doesn't like you, nothing you do will change their mind.

I used to tell the STBE, "Oh my gosh, just let it go! Not everyone has to like you and there really are people out there in the world who will never like you. It's nothing to do with you and it's really not personal. There's just something about you they don't like and it could be something personal to them. That happens in life, some times."

But he could never let it go. It would actually keep him up at night. It was maddening to not just him but me, too, because I was the one who was always required to listen to him talk about it endlessly and it wouldn't end until the person either told him, "Okay, FINE, I like you!" or they left the company or moved to another location.

Now that you're in a committed relationship with the Aspie/Narcissist/Sociopath, you become the target for all their hatred and rage.

Now, the average husband will say nice things about his wife. She's a good cook. She takes good care of the kids. She's has a great memory for detail. She always gets really great gifts for people at Christmas. She makes a big deal out of everyone's birthdays.

All of these are things my STBE has said to me at one time or another, in his nicer moments (far and few between), so I know he believes them to be true. But he's always hated me for these things because he wasn't able to incorporate them into his life. Aspies choose mates who have the character and personality traits they wish they had. But these very traits become a reason to hate you down the road.

The Aspie husband, though, is bothered by these parts of my personality/character. Using the above examples, this is how an Aspie husband handles these items:

My wife is a good cook: For an Aspie, he's more likely to tell people something along the lines of, "My wife makes SUCH fattening foods, I swear she's trying to kill me". And always with just the right amount of derision (and based on them making this statement, they might actually come to believe you ARE trying to kill them - Aspies are incredibly paranoid). Now the kids, both his and ours, would tell anyone who would listen I was a good cook. At least they used to. Now they say nothing because that's what Dad trained them to do. This is called "Abuse by Proxy" or "Proxy Recruitment", because they actually teach the kids to become abusive towards you.

My wife takes good care of the children: For the Aspie, kids take away attention from THEM, so this is a major, major resentment on their part. Aspies are more likely to start making it look to the kids as though you pay TOO much attention to them. He might start calling you a "helicopter mom" or working to convince them you're invasive in their lives. After a long enough time, they start to resent your presence in their lives as anything more than a source for money, clothes or whatever...

My wife has a great memory for detail: This is another source of angst for the Aspie because they can't remember ANYTHING that has to do with anyone but them. Tell them one of the kids has a special event and they'll forget, forcing you to remind them over and over. They resent you for this and can be heard saying, "I swear my wife doesn't forget ANYTHING. It drives me nuts how she's always bringing something up that happened days/weeks/months/years ago." Aspies tend to forget they have a running list in their heads of everything "horrible" thing you've ever done to them, real or imagined, and they aren't afraid to whip it out in any and all arguments.

My wife always gets great gifts for people at Christmas: My STBE was one of those people who would save his Christmas shopping for the very last minute. He gave no thought to it the other 364 days a year, outside of giving people a list of what HE wanted, so he was never very good at gift buying. I remember one year I got a shower head for Christmas while he got a really nice sweater, something I knew he needed. The STBE asked me once, "How is it you always get exactly the right gift for all of us every year?" I told him, "I pay attention to them when they talk." He never understood this - this whole paying attention to people.

She makes a big deal out of birthdays: I've always made a huge deal out of birthdays. I feel we live in a cold world, sometimes, and that everyone should be made to feel special on their birthday. It's their day and I do everything I can to make it thus. The birthday person gets to choose dinner that night, whether it's dining out or eating in, makes no difference. They choose their birthday cake, and Elias would always choose that I make his. I would sit down with him and have him choose the cake he wanted. Too difficult? I didn't care. I made it because it's what he wanted for his birthday. Aspies tend to not remember birthdays that aren't theirs. If I had a nickel for every time I had to remind the STBE it was someone's birthday and he needed to call them, I'd be able to buy an island. My last birthday before I filed for divorce was forgotten by every single person in the family. And no one could understand why my feelings were so hurt. Even my STBE stepdaughter went so far as to say, "But it's okay that we forgot her birthday. We're Dickinson's, after all." In their mind, being a Dickinson is synonymous with being thoughtless, and they're okay with that.

Now, all this being said... Aspies need others to dislike you so they can feel better about themselves. See? So-and-so doesn't like you at all but they like ME so I must be a better person. They use this to chip away at your self-esteem (and Narcissists do this, too) and make you feel badly about yourself. It's a really subtle thing and usually an off-hand remark made after a company dinner or picnic, after a get-together either at your house or someone else's. Yeah, Aspies need people to hate you, or at least have you think they hate you.

Why do they do this? Because Aspies have incredibly low self-esteem. They know they're different, and instead of embracing being different and "quirky", they try to make those around them look bad so they can look good by comparison.

Also, Aspies tend to hide who they are when starting a relationship. They will take on the personality of the person they're with at the time and become extremely agreeable people. You'll think you've found the perfect mate when the truth of the matter is, they're extremely chameleon-like, taking on the likes and dislikes of the person they're courting (this is also called love-bombing). They will inundate you with flattery, gifts, be agreeable to whatever you suggest and will be SO likable AND lovable! They will be the PERFECT boyfriend. (And as a side note: my STBE told me not long before I filed for divorce, "I knew I had these problems before we got married, but I never told you because I was afraid you'd leave me" - How nice for him. He got what he wanted, but he made me and several children miserable in the process, abusing us all. But wasn't that fun for him?)

They NEED you to like them to prove to themselves they ARE likable, conveniently forgetting it's them changing into what the other person might need or want, rather than being who they are. When dating, you ask:

You: Do you feel like a movie tonight?
Him: Sure, that sounds good.
You: What would you like to see?
Him: You pick one. I want to see whatever you want to see. OR I don't care, so long as I'm with you.

So you pick something. What they never tell you afterward is, they never wanted to see that movie and they hated every minute of it. And so the resentment towards you starts. Only they'll never TELL you they resent you for this, at least not for a long time. They're still in the "love bombing" stage, winning you over.

But once you're in a committed relationship with them, it all stops. They've won you over so there's no need to continue with being "the chameleon".

I can remember the first thing my STBE said to me the moment we were married (literally - the moment we were married). He turned to me, held my hands in his, looked at me with a tremendous amount of excitement in his eyes and said, "I'm SO glad I married you!" (and right about then in my head, I'm thinking, "Oh my gosh, what a wonderful thing to say!") but then he followed it up with, "I now have a hot wife!"

Talk about popping your balloon, right?

Nope, once they have you, they have you, and they're not letting go easily. And so begins life with an Aspie/Narcissist/Sociopath.

The process of love bombing me, getting me to like him, is now over.

Good luck with the rest of your life with them because it's all downhill from here.

Aspies will use the children against you

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy M) — Thu, 20 Mar 2014 23:43:00 +0000

Before reading this, read up on Parental Alienation Syndrome.

During my marriage to my sociopathic Aspie (and most Aspies ARE sociopaths, due to their lack of empathy. Testing was done using brain scans of Aspies and known sociopaths and there wasn't a whole lot of differences between the two) he would use our youngest son, Elias, as his therapist and sounding board for ranting about just what a horrible person I am.

It's not that I'm truly a horrible person, it's that to an Aspie/sociopath/narcissist, anything you do that's different from them (and let's just say it - EVERYTHING you do is different from them) is "abuse". When it comes to parenting, they are the ultimate and forever "Disney Dad". No discipline, no rules and the times you DO make them take part in being "the bad guy", it rocks their whole world.

I can remember one time, my youngest had disappeared with one of his friends. He was under 10 at the time and neither I nor the other kid's parents could find them. We were all, every one of us, terrified something had happened to them. They finally appeared but it was after a pretty rough couple of hours and we were on the verge of calling the police (and the father of the other child WAS a police officer).

The STBE Aspie/Sociopath/Narcissist was out of town for this event and after talking to him about it over the phone, we decided to offer Elias a choice of punishments - either he lose his XBox for a week or he get one spanking with the belt. I also talked it over with my son's psychiatrist and we gave Elias the time to decide which one he wanted, by telling him he had until his dad came home from his trip to make up his mind, which was four days hence.

When the STBE Aspie/sociopath/narcissist came home, Elias decided he wanted one spanking with the belt so I made the STBE do it since I'd already dealt with all the other crap while he was gone. The STBE Aspie/sociopath/narcissist went upstairs, gave Elias one crack with the belt and came downstairs BAWLING HIS EYES OUT!

Why was he crying? I asked him and he told me, "It just hurt me SO much to do that" and he went on bawling. Long, heart-wrenching, blubbering bawling. No mention of Elias and his pain both physical and emotional. Nothing. Elias was completely removed from his mind so focused on his own pain was he. I even asked him, "Is Elias okay?" His response was, "I don't know. I just came downstairs right way so he wouldn't see me crying." I don't know?????? This is your kid. You just cracked him with a belt and you don't know?????? There should have been some discussion after this with the child. There should have been some soothing of hurt feelings. Something. Anything, other than, "I don't know."

Turns out Elias was barely fazed by this. He took his spanking and went on with his life. But this stayed with the STBE for months! He would break out in tears at odd and random times, such as if we were at an amusement park with our son. We'd be standing in line at a ride and he would just stare at Elias and suddenly start crying over the heartache he still suffered over having to spank Elias that day. Aspies/sociopaths/narcissist are SO afraid of one of the kids disliking them for even a nanosecond, they make for lousy parents. Kids are often ambivalent about their parents. This is a fact of life. It doesn't mean they don't love you. It just means they're your kids. The STBE simply couldn't bear the thought of being anything less than perfect in the eyes of the kids, even if it meant them hating me pretty much 24/7 and he encouraged that, the hating me.

And that was about the same time he started his campaign of hatred against me with the kids, both Elias and my son from my first marriage. He started undermining me with the kids 100% and suffered no angst in doing it.

See, Aspies/sociopaths/narcissists have such a great need to be liked, they can't even stand it when they have to be anything but the "fun time" parent with the kids. There's absolutely no support as a parent from these people because that gets in the way of, "The kids HAVE to like me more than they like HER!" Because of this, the kids WILL have a definite preference for Good Ole Dad before it's all over and you... Well, you will be the abusive monster.

Whenever I tried to punish one of the kids for something (again, both Elias and my son from my first marriage), he'd go behind me to "talk" to them. There was a rolling of the eyes. There would be statements made like, "You know how your mom is...!" or "Yeah, I agree. She's being unreasonable. But what can you do?" with a huge shrug of the shoulders. Everything he would say to them at these times was to reinforce to them he was the good guy, I was the monster. He'd then promise them he's "talk to me" about it all, which translated to, "Nancy, you need to change your mind."

He was so good at this, it took me a while to figure out just what it was he was doing. A lot of times I'd cave because of his working so hard to convince me of just what a horrible parent I was for expecting the kids to be punished for such a "minor" infraction.

And this is an example of what he considered to be a "minor" infraction (and I'll have a couple more. This was just a big one) - New Year's Eve, 1999-2000 - My son from my first marriage wanted to go to a friend's house for a party. He was 17 at the time. I was pretty sick with the flu and running a fever so he had to wake me up to ask me. I'm not usually my best after being awakened suddenly like that. Add to that a fever and you've got a recipe for disaster. I agreed to let my son go to this party with the proviso he come home at midnight. He argued he wanted to stay out later due to midnight being "the best part". Okay then, one o'clock. I also told him I wanted the kid's phone number and address so I could get hold of him for any reason. I then fell back asleep.

Around three in the morning, I woke up for some reason and my son wasn't home. However, the STBE WAS on the computer surfing his porn and engaging in his online affairs and spanking off to "chat sex".

The conversation went like this:

Me: Where's Billy?

Him: I don't know.

Me: Did he call?

Him: I don't know.

Me: Did he come home and leave again?

Him: I don't know.

Me (now frantic): Do you fucking know ANYTHING????

Him: I know he's not here. (See the disconnect from the reality of what was happening?)

So now it's on...

I called the number my son had left me. It was a fictitious number. It went no where and was a disconnected number. I drove to the address he gave me. It was an empty lot. I now had absolutely NO idea where my kid was and the STBE couldn't have cared less. God knows a missing teenager can't get in between him and his porn/jacking off/affairs.

The Burger King my son worked at with this kid finally opened at 6AM and as soon as the manager unlocked the doors, I was in there like a bull in a china shop demanding contact information for this kid. After the manager put me through some general douchbaggery, telling me what a horrible mother I was for not knowing where my kid was, he finally gave me the information and I think I drove about 100 miles an hour getting there - TWO COUNTIES AWAY!!!!!

We finally found the house with the help of a deputy we came across. Turns out, this house was a major drug house and it was supposed to be raided on New Year's Eve but my son turning up in the mix prevented that because they were trying to find out what major drug lord this was showing up like this.

We get Billy in the car and he REEKS of alcohol. REEKS! It's coming out of his pores, he's had so much of it. I ask him if he's been drinking and he denies it. I tell him I can smell it coming off of him and if he's not going to admit to it, I'm happy to take him to a police station to have a breathalyzer done. He admits it. He also admits he was passed out when he was supposed to be coming home.

When we got home, I sat a chair in the middle of the living room floor and told him to sit in it until I let him out of it. I then told him, "I'm sick with the flu and instead of sleeping I was out looking for you. Now you can sit there and watch me sleep while you think about what you did."

I took him to work that afternoon, after a good nap, and when I picked him up at the end of his shift, we sat down and talked. I told him he was grounded. He asked me for how long. I told him, "Until I get over it."

Over the next four months, the STBE did his damnedest to convince me I was being "unreasonable" and "outrageous". I refused to budge on this one. I finally let Billy off his grounding but the STBE worked me the entire time. To him, this was a matter of "Boys will be boys".

Another time, this same son, on home for leave from the Army for Christmas, wanted to use our car for a date. He told us, "I'll wash it, I'll fill it before I give it back you." Oh, okay, that sounds fine.

He came to us about an hour before he was supposed to pick up his date: Mom, Mark, can I borrow about $100 for my date and to put gas in the car?

I told him not only could he NOT have the $100 but because he came to us under false pretenses with no intention of paying for the gas he was going to fill up the car with, he couldn't use the car, either. This was such total BS I can't even say it was funny. Not now. Not then. I went upstairs to take a shower and watch some television, considering the matter closed. When I came back down, the car was gone. The STBE was, again, sitting at the computer involved in his porn/jacking off/affairs and this is how the conversation went:

Me: Mark, where's your car (already knowing the answer)?

Him: I let Billy use it.

Me: I thought I told him he couldn't.

Him: I know, but I thought you were being unreasonable so I let him take it. It IS my car, after all.

Me: I thought he didn't have any money?

Him: I gave him $150.

See? See how they do this? Turn the kids against you? Not only did he openly defy my wishes when he should have been backing me up, he gave Billy MORE than he'd asked for, thus solidifying in my son's mind what a "cool" stepfather HE is and what a total bitch I am.

This went on for years. Me being the hard-ass parent, him being the one they all went to because Mom was "unreasonable". The culmination of it for me was when Billy wanted to use my car (after he'd gotten out of the Army and came to live with us) and I wouldn't let him because a couple months earlier, he'd wrecked it by backing into something and didn't tell me. He looked me square in the eye and said, "I'll just ask Mark. HE'LL say yes".

Also in this time frame, he'd become pretty abusive to Elias because of jealousy or because he's also a sociopath, who knows. His father raised him to hate me, too - Billy screaming at me once, when he was about 9 years old - "Dad's RIGHT! You're nothing but a total fucking cunt!"

By this time, Elias was pretty scared of Billy and wasn't afraid to tell me so. I went to Mark that night and told him, "You've undermined me so much with Billy he has no respect for me at all. He's also gotten so abusive to Elias, he's afraid to sleep alone at night. I don't care what you and Billy do, but Elias and I are moving out at the end of the month." (And as a side note, this was in October of that year. Since this was also the month my mother passed away a few years earlier, Mark declared to all and sundry I was simply being "emotional and unreasonable" due to the anniversary of my mother's death approaching)

The result of this was, Mark finally told Billy he was out of it and that all decisions regarding him were mine to make. This angered Billy so much (following so many years of running the household and manipulating everyone), after a couple months of him trying to get Mark to be his buddy again and keep me in line so he could do whatever the fuck he wished, he attacked me and hurt me pretty badly.

Billy was kicked out of the house and I got an order of protection. I haven't seen him since and, frankly, I don't miss him because he's become so abusive and threatening I worry he'd try to kill me, given the opportunity. Even Elias' therapist told me he grown fearful Billy was going to harm Elias and he was on the verge of calling Children's Protective Services about having Elias removed from the house if Billy wouldn't leave.

This is what having an Aspie/sociopath/narcissist in the house does to your family. They create SO much chaos with their line of BS and then like to stand back to watch their work in action, all the while demanding all the chaos go away because it's just TOO much for them, blaming it on the target parent.

This was about four years ago. Fast forward to now. Mark turned on Elias and started targeting HIM with all his hatred of me now that Billy was no longer there to manipulate. He would drive Elias to school every morning and spend the entire half-hour ranting about what a horrible and abusive person I was/am, even if he had to make it up. I had no idea this was going on until Elias spilled it to his therapist when he was about 16 or so. The therapist saw it for what it was, emotional abuse, and called Mark in for a private appointment; just him and the therapist. I don't know what was said that day, but Mark was put on notice if the therapist ever heard of it happening again, he was going to call CPS and turn him in for being abusive. (He should have done it then, and I should have insisted on it but hindsight being what it is...)

It never happened again, that I know of, but Elias also told me his dad told him, "If you ever tell anyone again I'm doing this, the state will take you away and you'll never see me or your mom again." With an Aspie/sociopath/narcissist, everyone's fair game for abuse. It's all about them being able to do/say whatever they wish, no matter how horrible or abusive, and everyone is just supposed to say, "Well, that's Mark!" The need to be the favored person is SO deeply ingrained in them, they don't care who they hurt in order to have the admiration of others. They will use people like you might use a box of Kleenex during a cold. And they don't care. They have absolutely NO empathy at all for anyone else. This is also the mark of a sociopath and why they are so similar personality-wise.

Mark kept up his tirades against me, planting the seeds of hate in the kids, to the extent none of them are talking to me now since I filed for divorce. Elias, whom I was once so close to and who could/would talk to me about anything and everything, told me in our last conversation I was an abusive bitch and "You need to just kill yourself and put me and Dad out of our misery".

Now who does that sound like?

Since Elias left for the Air Force, we got along pretty well for the first year or so. At least until about eight months ago. He started getting extremely angry and hostile towards me (and I found notes Mark had been making beginning about the same time - this past July - that he had begun making plans to divorce me. This explains why Elias' personality and love for me changed so radically and so quickly) and had cut me off from him then. His campaign to hurt me using the kids went into effect LONG before he left, LONG before I had him kicked out.

If you were to ask Elias today if there were any good qualities to me at all, he couldn't come up with a single one. A few months ago, he told me he KNEW he could always count on me to be there for him, while knowing he couldn't count on his dad to have his back. Now, he'll tell you the opposite, along with about a dozen other horrible things about me. Not long before he cut me off, he'd also stopped telling me he loved me.

Parental Alienation, anyone?

Note: I'll be honest - I can look through the list of PAS symptoms and see where I'd done things like this to my son. One item that stands out, #8, is - I refused contact with my family for several years. This was following a long campaign by the STBE Aspie/sociopath/narcissist to convince me my family was awful, his family was wonderful. He also outright lied to me at times about it - such as when I was in the hospital following major surgery. I'd asked him to call my siblings (my parents were gone by this time) and a few other people to let them know I was there. He even had a list and took my cell phone with him to call them so he could have their numbers. He was gone about an hour and came back to report to me none of them cared. He told me my siblings all took the stance, "I don't care. And please tell Nancy to stop calling me". Seems they'd also tried to call the house to talk to me and he would tell them, "Nancy doesn't want to talk to you".

I was LIVID at all my family once Mark reported this back to me and I wrote them all a pretty scathing letter about staying out of my life. It wasn't until three years later my oldest sister had the courage to call and she got me on the phone (right after Mark had been kicked out of the house).

So, yeah, taken out of context, it would look like I'm guilty of PAS by the simple fact I prevented Elias from having anything to do with them. Which is exactly what Mark wanted. I'm working on fixing things with my siblings but the nephew I helped raise still refuses contact with me as do a couple other people. When you divorce an Aspie/sociopath/narcissist, they spread it around. MY family heard from him about the divorce before his OWN family had. They want everyone to hate you as much as they do.

Aspies are NEVER at fault - no matter what

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 02 Mar 2014 23:08:00 +0000

“When you think everything is someone else’s fault, chances are that you’re looking at the wrong side of the looking glass.”
― Jennifer Megan Varnadore

Aspies will always find someone else to blame, even if they
were the only one there when they dropped the egg.

I don't even know where to start with this one. After 21 years of everything being my fault, it's difficult to separate in my mind what WAS my fault and what was HIS fault.

In any marriage, it takes two to tango. In any marriage, sometimes you're at fault, sometimes they're at fault. But in an Aspie marriage, it's ALL your fault.

Aspies deflect blame like it's required to breathe. Did your Aspie zip his penis up in the zipper of his pants? It's all your fault for buying him the pants that have an OBVIOUSLY faulty zipper.

Did your Aspie run someone off the road because they didn't look over their shoulder when they changed lanes? It's all your fault for being in the car with him, playing the radio. As a side note to this one: My STBE did run someone off the road, once, because he changed lanes and didn't look over his shoulder. When I asked him later why he didn't look over his shoulder, he told me, "If I looked over my shoulder every time I changed lanes, I'd never be looking at the road!" Shame on that other driver for not reading his mind, thus knowing he would want to change lanes, so the STBE could do so without encumbrance, huh?

When he said this, I responded with, "Maybe you're changing lanes too much, then?" He stared at me for a few seconds. I could see his eyes nearly spinning in his head. He actually shook his head for a brief second, as if to try to make sense of what I'd just said, and then he paused, looked at me hard, and reared up and slapped me across the face so hard I saw stars for a few minutes. He walked away after that. I guess he spent all his rage in that one slap. The next day, he saw my black eye and the bruise on the side of my face and asked me what happened. I was stunned! To this day, I can't explain this one so if you have an answer for it, let me know.

But I digress...

Nope. Aspies are never responsible for anything that happens in their world that might be a little askew or wrong. They'll always find someone else to blame.

This started becoming more apparent to me after our youngest left for the Air Force. It took me a few months to figure it out but I did figure it out. And I felt terrible! Once I reconciled in my head what was happening, I sent the following message to my son. At the time, we were still close enough to discuss this and I got the feeling he appreciated my sending this, even if it was months and years too late.

I'm sending you a message this way because I know you don't have Internet, thus, no real way of checking e-mail. But I also don't know which e-mail you check regularly...

I'm in a group on FB of spouses of those with Asperger's. I wrote this today and wanted to share it with you. This says it better than anything else I've ever said...

Sounds like my life, Lisa. I've often told people, "My husband would lie to me even if the truth wouldn't hurt him".

They're like children, in that respect. I'm so tired of the arguing about who did what. For a long time, my ASH blamed our youngest, who was, for 10 years, an only child, due to the disparity in ages between him and our next one. My husband would constantly blame our youngest for everything going wrong in the house. It wasn't until our son was gone to basic training that I learned just how much my ASH was doing, after years of yelling at my son. I can't even count all the times I told him, "And now I'm punishing you twice as much for lying...!"

I called my son not long ago to apologize to him for it all, realizing now it's been my ASH, all along. But the damage was done. He's a great kid but he's been hurt a great deal by it all, not trusting his father or I for a very long time. I beat my head against the wall for years, trying to figure out just what I was doing that was so awful he felt he couldn't trust me. And now I know; I let him down in a most appreciable way.

It makes me sad to think of how many times my son walked away, deflated and hurt, simply because his dad used him as a shield from his own wrongdoings and lies and I didn't know any better. I wonder how many times he cried to himself before he just gave up and built the wall we now have between us.

I wonder, sometimes, if I'll ever be able to make it up to him and I doubt I ever will.

And such is life with an Aspie Narcissist. They will deflect blame onto the rest of the world with no remorse or contrition as to who they damage, even if it's their kids. They will blame anyone and everyone but themselves, and WILL leave a great deal of damage in their wake.

I tried to find to post on this page a meme I saw once or twice that said - Narcissism: The only mental illness where the sufferer is left alone and everyone else gets therapy. Or something like that. What does this have to do with an Aspie always blaming others?

Q: How many Aspies does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Only the one. One to hold the light bulb while the rest of the world revolves around them.

Aspies are so married to the idea it's they who are perfect and it's the rest of the world at fault, they simply can't let it go, even when/if presented with evidence to the contrary. They will lie, cheat and steal their way through life for the sole purpose of never having themselves to blame. When confronted with the fallacy of their argument, that it is they who were wrong or responsible, so begins the gas lighting. Lies, lies and more lies to cover up the lies they've told before. And the thing is, Aspies come to believe their lies so, to them, it's the truth.

A study was done (and I'm searching for the link - they seem to be eluding me today) where brain scans were done of both sociopaths and those with Asperger's and there were a lot of similarities. Also, there's a huge similarity to Psychopathy, too. The biggest similarity to all three of these is the lack of empathy.

Empathy is what we all feel when we see those ten hour long commercials of the starving children in Africa or the twenty hour long commercials for the ASPCA. We're sad. We imagine how difficult it must be for those poor children. The more tender-hearted of us might cry at the thought of so much suffering.

For an Aspie (or a Sociopath, or a Psychopath), they feel nothing. Nothing at all. They don't have the ability to step into the shoes of another person and imagine how their actions can affect others. They don't stop to think how blaming someone over and over again will chip away at their self-esteem over time. They also don't stop to think how blaming someone else for their problems and bad times might begin to make someone question their own sanity! But I'm SURE I didn't leave the milk out! I'm POSITIVE I put the ice cream away when I was done. I KNOW I didn't turn up the thermostat.

However, with the Aspie, they don't care that what they're doing is causing you anxiety. They couldn't give a rat's ass their denying turning down the thermostat has you questioning if you're developing a second personality, one that hates to be cold, or that you're beginning to believe you're suffering from delusions (and I heard this one A LOT from the STBE - You're CRAZY and delusional!

For the Aspie, it's all about being "perfect". And the sooner you remember that, the better off you'll be.

Aspies are gas lighters - Or, "You didn't hear what you thought you heard. You didn't see what you think you saw"

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 15 Feb 2014 03:39:00 +0000

One of the most confusing parts of being married to an Aspie (and those with both Narcissistic Personality Disorder - NPD - and Bipolar Disorder - BP - will do this too) is they do something called "gas lighting".

Gas lighting is where someone tries to alter your reality for their own purposeful gain, usually bad or manipulative.

In order to understand gas lighting, perhaps understanding the origin of the phrase will help. Gaslighting is a psychological term related to the mentally ill that comes from the 1940's psychological thriller Gaslight, starring Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer.

Gregory Anton (Charles Boyer) is a man with a mission. He marries young Paula (Ingrid Bergman) who has inherited a house in which her aunt was murdered many years earlier. The killer was never found and once Paula became an adult, she moved into the house with her new husband. Seems the murdered aunt had some valuables stored in the house and Gregory wanted them. In order to get them, he had to marry and then get rid of Paula, and the way he chose to get rid of her was to drive her insane.

Throughout the movie, Gregory is doing small things to make Paula believe she's losing her mind. He'll move a piece of furniture then tell Paula, when she asks about it, "It wasn't me. You did it and must have forgotten". He'll turn down the gaslights in the house (and this is where the name of the movie came from) and when asked, "Who turned down the gaslights?" Gregory tells her, "Why, you did. You don't remember..." He would move her jewelry to other parts of the house and not tell her, leading her to believe she misplaced it, then when she stopped searching he would put it back in the original place.

While living with a gaslighter isn't usually this obvious (at least to the casual viewer), it's just as damaging as it was to poor Paula in the movie.

What gaslighters are trying to do is alter your reality. I've caught my STBE in so many affairs it's not even funny anymore. Every time I'd go to him with evidence, he'd deny it and give an alternate (sort of plausible) explanation that was designed to convince me I wasn't seeing/hearing what I believed I was seeing/hearing. My STBE would deny until the day he dies I was seeing things wrong. Alternatively, he'll admit the affairs but find some way to make it entirely my fault and work to convince me of this.

Other times, he would say or do something incredibly hurtful and when I'd call him on it, he'd deny he ever did or said whatever it was I came to him with.

For gaslighters, it's not about being right, it's about convincing you to agree with them, even if it's something so off the wall no one in their right mind would ever believe it. Even the gas lighter may know they're lying, but it's not about that to them. It's about YOU saying they're right. Period. However, with Aspies, they can come to believe their lies so to them, it's absolutely the truth.

What this will eventually do to the victim over the long term is convince them they ARE crazy. My STBE's favorite term for it was "delusional". Towards the end, this kept me up most nights, the wondering if I was, indeed, going crazy. I'd even gone so far as to see a therapist to find out just how crazy I was. After three or four sessions, the therapist emphatically told me, "Nancy, you definitely don't have a mental health issue beyond depression from being in an abusive marriage". This was the first time I heard the term "gaslighting" and had it explained to me. Once I understood what was happening, I felt infinitely better and the most sane I'd felt in a long, long time.

WHY THEY DO IT

Gaslighters usually don't do this for the same reason Gregory did it to Paula. Most of us aren't inheriting houses filled with jewels and gems. Gaslighters now do it as a form of self-preservation. As I'd said earlier, it's not just Aspies who do this but those with NPD and BP. Also, people with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) are known for this, too.

Aspies, NPDs, BPs, BPDs, NEED your admiration and that of others to feed their low self-esteem. (See this article on Narcissistic supply). If you're confronting any of these people with a fault or problem in the relationship, their first reaction is to deny there's anything wrong with them at all, that it's you who needs "fixing". They will then launch into a tirade of just how many faults you have and will sprinkle it with "paranoia" (you), utter perfection (them), and will work to convince you of this, all of this.

The conversation might go something like this:

You: John, I've been concerned about something that's going on and I need to address it with you.

Them: (Giving you an attentive look) Certainly, let's sit down and talk about it.

You: I ran a virus check on the computer today and was in the history under your login. I saw in there you're spending a lot of time inside a website that focuses on helping spouses cheat. Based on the history, it looks like you're going there several times a day. It has me worried you're cheating on me again.

Him: (Loud sigh, rolling of the eyes and starts with a loud voice/yelling) I'm SO sick and tired of you accusing me of cheating! I've never cheated on you (and my STBE actually said this to me, after having been caught in several affairs) and if you weren't so paranoid you wouldn't be going into my history looking for it (you'd already given them the real and valid reason why you were in there, but to successfully complete their gaslighting of you, they need to alter reality - both yours and his). This is SUCH a violation of MY privacy! I swear, you're getting crazier by the day and WHY I stay with you is beyond me! Everyone at work always talks about how much they can't stand you and I always defended you but I just don't see how I can do that anymore! You should see a therapist about this paranoia! And since you're always accusing me of cheating, how do I know it's not YOU who's cheating and trying to deflect it onto me! I DEMAND you apologize to me RIGHT NOW for these unfounded and made up accusations of cheating on you!

It's at this point you're really upset and defending yourself. Several things have happened during this rant:

The gaslighter has gotten you off the original discussion, his possible cheating
The gaslighter now has you on the defensive
The gaslighter is telling you you're paranoid (and not for the first time, I'm sure)
The gaslighter is telling you that you should be seeing a therapist
The gaslighter is now telling you that your questioning his fidelity is actually you attempting to hide the fact that you're the cheater (even though you're not)
The gaslighter is further undermining your confidence in yourself
The gas lighter has successfully diverted not just the conversation about your feelings, but he's also probably gotten you the the point of apologizing.
He now has you focusing on his feelings, his needs, his wants and you feelings, needs and wants are no longer even of topic.

Mission accomplished for the gas lighter. If you've been in a conversation in the past that sounds like this, it's probably time for you to take steps to either put a stop to this or to extricate yourself from the relationship.

And one final thought to leave you with, as you're reeling from the abuses of the Aspie gaslighting you. I found this on a website I found called Live In the Moment and it's SO true and SO life affirming!

What creates your “broken heart” when you get rejected

When someone rejects you without saying anything negative about you, you will likely begin to immediately think 2 things. First, you decide what the other person thinks about you, and then you believe that their opinion must be right. In other words, you make an assumption about what they think about you, and then you form the conclusion that what they think must be true.

Here are a few common examples:

The assumption about what they think: “He thinks I’m not good enough”, “He thinks something is wrong with me”, or “He doesn’t think I am worthy of love”

The conclusion that what they think must be true: “If he thinks I’m not good enough, then I must not be good enough”, “If he thinks something is wrong with me, there must be something wrong with me”, or “If he doesn’t think I am worthy of love, then I must not be worthy of love”

You may be aware of these thoughts or you may not be. But if you’re feeling hurt, they are there.

Once we believe these negative thoughts about ourselves, we are essentially worsening our opinion of ourselves. When our opinion of ourselves worsens, we experience the feeling of hurt or being broken hearted. (I won’t get into the details of why this creates hurt in this post).

To help you with this, I'm putting some links here to help you:

Are You Being Gaslighted?

10 Signs Your Man Is 'Gaslighting' You to Make You Seem Crazy (Note: The writing on this is kind of poor and the examples given are pretty mild, innocuous and naive. This was obviously written by someone who's never been through it. But the overall message is the same as I'm trying to impart here)

Parental Alienation Syndrome and the child(ren) involved - Even adult children

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 09 Feb 2014 19:20:00 +0000

Emotional vampires will leave you exhausted following an
interaction with them. Sadly, by the time you realize you're
in the presence of an emotional vampire, it's too late.

Today's posting is for something funny and SO indicative of an Aspie/Narcissist/Bipolar Disorder sufferer. In addition, I'm going to be explaining in detail just what the Aspie/Narcissist/Bipolar Disorder sufferer will do to hurt you in the divorce.

If you've been following this blog at all, you already know my story: I'm divorcing an Aspie/Narcissist/diagnosed Bipolar Disorder sufferer. Any one of these is pretty damaging to the emotional/mental well-being of any spouse to them. I got the trifecta of abusive personality disorders when I married my STBE. And more than once, it's driven me to the point of thinking the only way out of this marriage was through suicide. Thank God, those thoughts are behind me, now, and I embrace the wonder of life and look forward to having one without the abusive Aspie/Narcissist/Bipolar Disorder sufferer in it.

The back story:

I've been working to maintain no contact with my STBE because he's so abusive in nature. He managed to trick me into contact recently, and I'm now back to no contact after the hurricane/tsunami/tornado/earthquake that came with him and am improving again. However, I've been getting messages from people over the last week from people who know my youngest son and they're worried about him a great deal.

As I've mentioned previously, when you're divorcing an Aspie/Narcissist/Bipolar Disorder sufferer, they'll use the kids to hurt you - and not just a little bit. For the above personality disorders, in any divorce, it's a "Win at all costs" attitude. Since these people have absolutely no empathy, using the kids is just another gun in their arsenal, even if it's so bad for them it means decades of therapy, if not a few suicide attempts, for the kids. They simply don't care. It's not about what's best for everyone, it's about what's best for THEM. Aspies/Narcissists/Bipolar Disorder sufferers are emotional vampires. They will suck the life out of you faster than a speeding bullet and once they've depleted your supply, they'll move onto the next person, and the next, and the next. So long as there are gullible people in the world who are willing to fall for the charms of the emotional vampire, so shall the narcissist abuse.

Because my son has me blocked on Facebook, I have an account neither he nor my STBE know about and I logged into it to see just what it was my son was saying that had everyone so alarmed. On the page, I saw my son talking about how depressed he is. The STBE responded to him with (and it pains me to have to look at the posting again to put this here, but it illustrates the Aspie mind so well):

As I well know, depression is no joke. People who don't own the black dog can't really understand, although some will genuinely try to help. Since they usually don't get it they often miss the mark. Don't discount well-meaning friends. They won't understand when it seems like you're blowing them off. Allow people to drag you off to the gym or to get some Chinese food. Those things will actually help and you find out who your friends are. Acceptance is great, just don't stop there.Take action. You know what to do. Call me anytime you need to. I'm there for you 24/7.

For the longest time, I couldn't figure out just how my STBE was alienating my son from me (See Parental Alienation Syndrome), and after seeing this post, it all became clear to me. In order to help you see just how Aspies work (and this is a form of gas lighting, altering the reality of the victim, in this case, my son), I'll break this paragraph of my STBE line-by-line to help you understand it better.

First, let me state, my son has suffered from some form of depression for quite some time. I took him to two different counselors, who seemed to be helping him. It was during his stint with one of these counselors it came out that my STBE was using that half-hour in the morning and half-hour in the afternoon, the times he drove our son to and from school, to do nothing but rant about what an awful person I am. My son was an emotional wreck and told his therapist he was beginning to feel as though he was the only one who could fix our marriage. In short, my son was being used by the STBE by forcing him to become his therapist. My son was only 15 at the time. Rather than actually SEE a therapist, the STBE was forcing others into the role. He'd done this to me for years and I'd put a stop to it by telling him I couldn't do it any longer and he needed to find an actual therapist. He refused to do so, saying he didn't need one, and turned it onto my son.

Now, let's break down the Facebook posting- and some of this will make me look paranoid to the nth degree, but after 21 years of living with my STBE, I've seen this all to much. A great deal of their mental/emotional abuse is subtle):

As I well know, depression is no joke. People who don't own the black dog can't really understand, although some will genuinely try to help. - "I'm the only one who understands you. Others might try. Others might say they do. But I'm the only one who truly does." This is his way of letting my son know it's "I" who doesn't get it since I don't suffer from depression. Never have, probably never will, outside of this marriage. I was a happy, optimistic person before I married the STBE and I shall be again, post-divorce.
Since they usually don't get it they often miss the mark. Don't discount well-meaning friends. They won't understand when it seems like you're blowing them off. - This is an extension of #1. Now my son's being told it's not just me who doesn't get it, but neither does anyone else, even well-meaning friends. This is a reinforcement of the STBE being the only one who understands him, thus he is the superior parent and human being. They are both now precious snowflakes and no one gets them BUT each other.
Allow people to drag you off to the gym or to get some Chinese food. Those things will actually help and you find out who your friends are. - On the surface, this all sounds like good advice, right? For a mentally healthy person going through a normal, average dose of depression, it is. For a narcissist like my STBE, this is a calculated statement/move. This is a form of alienation, a common tactic used by Narcissists/abusers. Now the STBE has my son judging his friends based on the amount of support they give. No one will be able to measure up to the standards a depressed person will actually have. And, let's just say it, unless you DO suffer from depression or are a therapist, you'll never truly understand it, therefore will ALWAYS fall short of the mark. And, people being people, the more my son blows them off, the less likely they become to ask him to go anywhere with him. The less they come around, the more depressed he becomes. The more depressed he becomes, the less likely they are to want to be around him at all, because who wants to spend all their time with a person who refuses to have fun or laugh nor do anything to change work towards changing it? The idea being planted in the mind of my son is: his father is the ONLY person who truly gets him, thus creating a bond of trust that supersedes all other relationships in his life. His father is now grooming him to be further abused, all in the interest of feeding the need of the STBE to have a narcissistic supply.
Acceptance is great, just don't stop there. Take action. You know what to do. - They now have a secret language that only the two of them understand. The words used here are cryptic and insinuate to the rest of the world they are conjoined and alone in this, therefore, there's no need to interfere because Dad's got it handled, right? Wrong. For a narcissist, there's no greater joy than taking advantage of an emotionally vulnerable person, as my son is due to the divorce. This is rocking his world and nothing makes sense any more. What the STBE is spoon-feeding him is something to latch onto so he can have just ONE thing that makes sense. The parental alienation is almost complete and the real abuse is about to begin. I watched this happen with his two kids from his first marriage and they STILL hate their mother, 22 years after the divorce, both of them adults aged 30 and over.
Call me anytime you need to. I'm there for you 24/7. - This is the big one. Note there's no mention in any of this to see a therapist or medical doctor. There's no mention of seeking help in any way, shape or form, outside of "Call me!" This is the reinforcement to my son that the STBE is the ONLY person he should contact, as he's the ONLY person who can help him. And that 24/7? Nope, he turns the ringer off on his phone at night. The precious snowflake that is my STBE simply CAN'T have his sleep disturbed at all. People who suffer from depression that lasts longer than what's ordinary or average, more than a few days or weeks, SHOULD see a medical doctor or therapist. For someone to suggest anything else is thoughtless, uncaring, unsympathetic and, let's just say it, dangerous. People who have been depressed for a long time are more prone to suicide than anyone else. If you know ANYONE who could be clinically depressed, encourage them to seek professional help - ALWAYS!

Now that this has all been explained for you, this leads me to Parental Alienation Syndrome, which Aspies/Narcissists/Bipolar Disorder sufferers WILL do! Like they need oxygen, they need the constant and firm adoration of those around them, even if it means they are psychologically damaging others. Remember, they have no empathy. The people in their life - their wife, their children, their "friends" - are all there to serve a purpose known only to the Narcissist. Also, the people in their life are easily replaced once that narcissistic supply runs dry, generally by the parasitic host figuring out what's going on.

Parental Alienation is insidious. How can you figure out it's happening to you? Research, research, research.

These alienating strategies worked together to give the child the following three-part message: (this is excerpted from Adult Children of Parental Alienation Syndrome)

The alienating parent is the only parent who cares,
the alienating parent is needed in order for the child to feel safe and good about him- or herself,
the targeted parent -- who is dangerous and does not love the child anyway -- must be disavowed in order to maintain the love and approval of the alienating parent.
Boldly stated this way, the message resembles the message cult leaders convey to cult members.

Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) is such a damaging emotional assault on a child (even adult children), it's described in this way: Alienated children are no less damaged than other child victims of extreme conflict, such as child soldiers and other abducted children, who identify with their tormentors to avoid pain and maintain a relationship with them, however abusive that relationship may be. (For the complete article, see here)

The article goes on to say - For the child, parental alienation is a serious mental condition, based on a false belief that the alienated parent is a dangerous and unworthy parent. The severe effects of parental alienation on children are well-documented; low self esteem and self-hatred, lack of trust, depression, and substance abuse and other forms of addiction are widespread, as children lose the capacity to give and accept love from a parent. Self-hatred is particularly disturbing among affected children, as children internalize the hatred targeted toward the alienated parent, are led to believe that the alienated parent did not love or want them, and experience severe guilt related to betraying the alienated parent. Their depression is rooted is feelings of being unloved by one of their parents, and from separation from that parent, while being denied the opportunity to mourn the loss of the parent, or to even talk about the parent.

Okay, I think I've given you enough to chew on for now. But in the beginning of this post, I'd mentioned something funny. Here it is:

What is it that makes this so funny? The Facebook account he's referring to? The one I've apparently trashed with "pretty psycho" stuff? It's been shut down since he left in November and I've never "done" anything to it at all.

Like abusers need to abuse, so shall narcissists tell huge lies about you in the interest of discrediting you to the rest of the world (meaning, the source of their narcissistic supply). And if I WERE to post anything on his former account, it would have simply been the truth. If the truth makes him look bad, then it's HE with the problem, not me. Oh, and this "make new friends"? He's trolling for his next parasitic host. And don't believe for a moment he didn't try to go to the page to see what was on there (nothing, because the account was deactivated). Aspies/Narcissists/Bipolar Disorder sufferers lie even when the truth won't hurt them. It's like breathing to them.

I'm so glad I'm out of this farce of a marriage. After finding copies of his medical records a couple weeks ago and learning he'd been taking medication "off and on" since 1993 for Bipolar Disorder (something he'd never told me), I can safely say, our entire marriage was based on his lies.

Marriage to an Aspie - Aspies are abusive

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 04 Feb 2014 22:00:00 +0000

By the time you realize just how abused you've been, it's
become your new "normal".

Once again, all the websites will say what a wonderfully honest person your Aspie is. All the reading you do will tell you that with a little bit of understanding and an abundance of love, you and your Aspie can have a blissful co-existence.

This may be true, for some, but the reality is much, much different than anything you'll read elsewhere. Life with an Aspie spouse is awful, abusive and soul-crushing (and this last one is the one spouses of Aspies will say the most).

The abuse will be incredibly subtle, at first, and you won't even see it. For me, there were two incidents I can look back on now that set the stage for the following 20 years.

The first one was when I'd made a dinner salad for the STBE ASH and his kids from his first marriage. I'd spent the entire afternoon making this salad as it wasn't exactly complicated, but it was time-consuming. When the time came to serve it, I set the salad bowl down on the dinner table, called everyone in, asked them all, "What would you like to drink with dinner?" Once they all told me, I went back into the kitchen to get them their drinks. When I came back, all of two minutes later, my STBE ASH had served everyone. Everyone but me, that is. Yes, the salad bowl was empty, all their plates were full, mine was empty. I didn't say anything, just set their drinks down, took mine back into the kitchen with me, made a sandwich and ate it in the living room while I watched television. Then, it took my STBE about 15 minutes to realize I wasn't sitting at the table with them, noticed what happened and told the kids, "When you've eaten all you're going to eat of the salad, put it all together so Nancy can have some."

Wow, don't I feel special now!

I realize at this stage you're all thinking, "But it was just a salad!" Yes, it was just a salad, but it was also an indicator of how the rest of my life was going to go. I was never considered part of "his" family. I was a servant to him and his kids and nothing more. And thus went the next 20 years or so.

Another incident (and this happened more than once) came from Saturday mornings. Every Saturday, his kids went to a bowling league they were in. The routine became the STBE taking them to bowling while I cleaned the house. They would be gone for about four hours, if you add in his taking them to lunch afterward. During that four hours, I'd clean the entire two story row home we lived in on Lowry AFB. I'd start at the top, tossing things down to the stair landing that belong downstairs, and vice versa when I was cleaning the downstairs. I did the dishes, swept and mopped all the floors, cleaned the wood floors (every room but the kitchen and bathroom), did all the laundry, ironed his uniforms, got dinner planned and started, vacuumed all the furniture of dog hair. If I had time, I would go grab some stuff at the grocery store.

From the first time I did this, the first comment the STBE would make when he walked in the door was, "You didn't clean the baseboards". Forget I'd just cleaned a 1500 square foot home from top to bottom, all he could say was, "You didn't clean the baseboards". There was no appreciation for what I'd done to make life easier for him and his kids, just a comment on what wasn't being done.

Both of these events happened in the first few months of our marriage. I should have walked away then, but I was already pregnant with our youngest son and we'd been married less than two years. I was able to convince myself he was suffering from the stress of a baby on the way. And so the abuse begins.

Again in our first year of marriage, we were in the midst of an argument that was getting pretty heated. I've always been one to try to keep a cool head in an argument, feeling a hot argument is pointless because both people are defensive. One way of cooling down for me is to get in the car, turn up the stereo on full blast and just drive country roads. It lets me focus on something besides the argument, it allows me to gain some clarity and it's a really soothing thing for me to do. On this particular day, the STBE decided I was going to stay there and argue and he refused to allow me to leave the house. If I tried to open the door, he slammed it shut and pushed me away from it. If I went into the bedroom to separate myself from the argument, he followed me in there, continuing to berate me, demanding of me that I remain engaged in the argument. No matter what I did to get away from the argument, he kept at me to stay with it.

Finally, I was feeling desperate and trapped. I was feeling incredibly trapped and it was causing me huge confusion and distress. (Remember, I was pregnant with my youngest son at this time) My fight or flight was kicking in and I knew if that happened, things would really get out of hand. I had no choice but to call the military police to help me out of this. He heard me doing this and immediately went into "I'm the calm, rational one" mode (and this is something you'll see hundreds of times during your marriage). By the time they got there, I was still crying and I was begging them to get me out of there. He started in with, "She's pregnant and emotional." They fell for it and so began the extreme abuse. The name-calling, the hitting, the gas lighting, all of it.

The military police did tell him to let me leave the house that day, if that's what I wanted to do, which I did. I was gone for several hours, having driven up into the Rocky Mountains to an A&W Root Beer stand in Idaho Springs, for no other reason than it wasn't home where the arguing was going on. By the time I came home, he was an emotional wreck. He was afraid I wasn't coming back (this is the push me-pull me prevalent with Aspies, those with Bipolar Disorder and those with Borderline Personality Disorder) He was incredibly apologetic, promising me he would never do this again and he felt awful he'd treated me so badly! This was the first of many, many apologies for bad and abusive behavior.

Most abusers are also narcissists
#11-sympathy can also be empathy

As time went on, the abuse got worse and worse. I was in and out of therapy so much because of his abuses of me and the kids. Why was I in therapy and not him? Because part of the abuse is being convinced it's YOU who is the problem, not them. And the times we went to marriage counseling, it generally didn't take the therapist more than three or four sessions to zero in on the STBE abusing me emotionally, verbally, mentally and physically and they'd try to focus on that. That was the exact moment the STBE was done with marriage counseling. At least until the next time. The times we lasted the longest in marriage counseling were the times he was able to gas light the counselor the most. We'd had a counselor through the Air Force when we were stationed in Biloxi and he had her COMPLETELY fooled. He really liked this therapist because she ate up whatever he told her and she did everything she could to take his side. Her extreme preference for the STBE was so obvious, I had to file a complaint against her with her commander. No matter what he did, she took his side. Once, I'd reported he'd hit me and her response was, "What did you do that made him want to do that?"

Which brings me to Abuse By Proxy - This is an insidious form of abuse because now it's not just your abuser but everyone around you. This form of abuse generally begins once you start to wake up to what's going on, but with my STBE, he did this for the duration of our marriage. Abuse by proxy is the abuser enlisting others to abuse you, too. They won't believe you when you try to tell them you're being abused (AKA The Cassandra Syndrome)

He received no chastisement over hitting me. There were no consequences for his hitting me. I was the one raked over the coals by her for "making him do it". He and this therapist even cooked up between them that I'd threatened the STBE with a shotgun - the same shotgun I had no keys to (for the trigger lock), no ammunition for and no understanding of since I really hated guns at that time and refused to handle them. To this day I'm still not 100% it was all as innocent as they made it seem. For a therapist to become SO loyal and slanted towards a patient, losing her objectivity like this one did, there was more there than I was allowed to see or know. A few months later, this therapist left the military to go into private practice (so she could ruin more marriages and families on a larger scale) and she contacted my therapist at the time to have him ask me to recant my complaint against her as it was affecting her finding a job. I refused to do so and actually resented her using her professional relationship with my therapist to cover up just how bad she was as a therapist. I kind of resented, too, that he even came to me with the request. He should have flat out told her "No, I won't do that".

I tell people now, though, if only he'd kept it to hitting, his abuses of me, I might heal from that more quickly. It's the verbal, emotional and mental abuse that stays with you for so long and taints your entire life. He'd run me down physically, telling me once, "You're so fat, it makes me nauseous to see you without clothes on" or the much more subtle skill of telling me just how wrong I am all the time, thus bringing me to believe I'm stupid or not able to trust my judgment. It's a calculated thing they do so THEY can feel good about themselves.

I'll end this posting with some resources for people who read this - so you can get help to not just get away but to begin the process of healing. You WILL need help getting your abuser out of your life. All abusers are reluctant to let go of their current "person to abuse". I've seen this phrase in several places in my Asperger's Spouse world - All parasites need a host to survive.

And fair warning - your abuser will replace you very, very quickly so be prepared for the heartache. The truth is, your Aspie/abuser never really loved you not did they care about you at all as anything more than a whipping post and victim. Aspies can't love anyone but themselves. Once you leave your abuser, you'll hope they love you enough to want to change, thus keeping you in their life. But the reality is, when it comes to abusers, the moment you've figured them out, they're done with you so they can move on to abuse the next unwitting victim.

Aspies/abusers NEED someone to abuse like you need oxygen to breathe. So, yes, they will move on to another very quickly. BUT - they will first try to bring you back to them. It's easier to keep the old victim than it is to train a new one. Stand your ground. You've heard it all before, the promises to change, the promises to get help, the apologies, all of it. Ask yourself how many times you've heard this before? Too many times to count.

Don't fall for it. Love and respect yourself more than that.

Places to go for help escaping your abuser:

Find a therapist who specializes in trauma, PTSD
Contact a domestic violence hotline - The national hotline linked here isn't the most responsive one, but they have some good tips on getting out. And domestic violence and abuse isn't just physical abuse. Mental, emotional and verbal abuse are abuse, too. Do a search for a hotline specific to your state. Try Googling "Fill in state here Domestic Violence help" and odds are great there's a statewide hotline where you can talk to someone. They can also give you resources local to you. I've called my state's hotline and they've given me SO much support! The people you'll be talking to are people who have been through it, too.
Stop hiding in shame - be vocal about the abuse to friends and family. These are your best resources for help in getting out. Once you do, you'll be surprised at how much they've actually seen, in spite of your silence, and you'll learn they really DO want to help you in any way they can.

Excerpted from the National Domestic Violence Hotline page is some excellent advice for maintaining your control over your life once you've left the abusive relationship:

Why is moving on after abuse so difficult? Abuse is rooted in power and control, and an abusive partner holds that power by minimizing their victim’s self-esteem and breaking their spirit. If you’re leaving an abusive relationship, rebuilding your life can be a hard process, but with time and space, finding closure and peace is possible. A violence-free life is waiting, and you are so very worth it.

1. Cut off contact with your ex - During the healing process, you may feel the need to offer forgiveness, help your abusive partner through the break up, or show them how you’re better off. However, it’s difficult to really get closure without severing all ties with your ex.

Try different methods to avoid contacting your former partner. Delete their phone number and change yours. If you're picking up the phone to call, put the phone in a different room and walk away — or call the hotline instead.

Resist the urge to look them up on social media. Unfriend or block them, and if pictures or news keep popping up, it could be helpful to remove mutual friends as well.

Try writing a letter with all the things you want to say to your ex and don’t send it — or, if you're in counseling, send it to your therapist instead.

2. Surround yourself with support -After an abusive relationship, allow yourself to get help and support from others. Spend time with friends and family who care about you. Tell them what you need from them, whether that’s someone to talk to about what you went through, or someone to keep you from answering phone calls from your ex, stop you from texting them back, etc.

If your abusive partner isolated you from friends and family, you may find that you no longer have that support network — but there are always people who want to help. Consider finding a counselor to talk with one-on-one, or join a support group. If you call the hotline, one of our advocates can connect you to services in your area. - A note from me - It was difficult, but I contacted my family to let them know what's been going on all these years. They were remarkably supportive of me and my divorce. Never underestimate the love they have for you. And if they're anything less than supportive, walk away from them until you're in a better place emotionally to deal with them and set your boundaries. Don't exchange one abusive relationship for another.

3. Take care of yourself - Taking care of yourself is such an important part of the healing process, and that begins with understanding that the abuse that happened wasn’t your fault.

Find things that make you happy. Rediscovering what hobbies you enjoy can be a learning process, but that’s half of the fun. Join clubs or try activities like a group fitness class to meet new people.

If you have children, find ways to make time for yourself. Some gyms offer free childcare while you work out, and different domestic violence centers provide childcare while you’re attending support groups.

Praise yourself for accomplishments, little or big, and counter any negative self-talk with positive mantras or affirmations. Becoming aware of what you think and say about yourself can help shift negative thoughts.

4. Remember that you’ll get better with time - The old saying that “time heals all wounds” can be incredibly frustrating, but there is truth in it. Recovery does take time and space. Give yourself as much time as you need to heal.

Recovery looks different for everyone, and each person has to find what works for them. Note from me: You'll hear from nearly everyone, "But you're out of it now! You'll find someone new!" Don't fall into this trap of believing you need to get into another one before getting over the last one. Find out who you are, fix what's broken in you, before you bring another person into the equation that's outside your normal circle of support and friends. It might take weeks, months or even years. But #3 is the most important one in all of this. Take care of you, first. If you have kids with your abuser, take care of them, too, to help them work through the abuse and divorce/breakup.

5. Consider counseling - If you feel that therapy might be helpful, sooner is always better. Therapy can be beneficial for everyone because it’s a place where you can learn increased self-awareness, clarify your goals and look at the choices in front of you.

Counseling sessions provide a safe and confidential environment for survivors to express their feelings, thoughts and fears. Counselors are nonjudgmental third-party advisors who listen and can help survivors work through the things that they are experiencing.

Entering counseling does not necessarily mean that you are mentally ill or can’t cope on your own. Therapy is about how much you’re putting in place to support yourself in healing and succeeding.

Speaking with a trauma specialist can help survivors to deal with their remaining anxiety and find ways to relieve that stress. These specialists can help to process traumatic memories or experiences so that it is possible to move on. They can also aid survivors in learning to regulate their strong emotions like fear and anger.

A good match between therapist and client is one of the most powerful healing factors in a therapeutic relationship. Look for someone who makes you feel heard, understood, safe and comfortable. Note from me: I entered counseling the same day I filed for divorce from my abuser. I ended up finding another therapist when the first one didn't seem to work for me. If you find you're not comfortable or getting out of the therapy/counseling what you feel you should be getting, move on to another therapist; and even another one, and another one, until you find one that works for you. And again, find one that specializes in trauma and PTSD. For survivors of abuse (and that's what you are! A survivor!) we can have what's called Complex Post Traumatic Stress, which is long-term exposure to trauma (the abuse) and the inability to escape it. Defined from the link given here:

Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a psychological injury that results from prolonged exposure to social or interpersonal trauma, disempowerment, captivity or entrapment, with lack or loss of a viable escape route for the victim.

And with this, I'll bid you adieu. I'm meeting with a new attorney today to help shield me from my abusive STBE husband and his bat-shit crazy attorney.

Aspies are the most literal people you'll ever meet

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 29 Jan 2014 17:34:00 +0000

Flickr Creative Commons: Annie_Belle1

My STBE Aspie husband had several affairs while he was married to me. Some were online, a couple were live and in color with co-workers (and both of them thought they were the only one. How cute is that?) and he also dabbled (at least I think he dabbled, it could have been a raging thing with him) in going into those chat rooms where people chat each other through masturbation. Now, my STBE SWEARS he never masturbated through those conversations. He would have been the only one, I'm sure. And if you believe that, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

It's this black-and-white thinking that will drive you right over the edge, mentally and emotionally.

Once my STBE's affairs with co-workers came to light, once I got phone calls from some very angry husbands, I said to him, "I've been asking you for over a year, accusing you really, about having an affair with someone at work. You've always told me you're completely honest with me, yet you looked me in the eye and told me you weren't".

His response? And hold on to your seat...

"That's not what you asked me. We never did anything at work."

To an NT, this is a lie - a lie of omission. I won't even touch on the lies of commission, knowingly telling a lie or embellishing the facts, because Aspies tend to not do that. This is how they convince themselves they are SO honest! To an Aspie, he WAS completely honest with you. 100%. He answered the question you asked, not seeing any of the subtleties NTs see on a regular basis. They do this to confuse you, really. Leading you into a false sense of security that they really are "honest" people. They work to make you believe it's not they who lied (a lie of omission is still a lie), but simply you who misunderstood what it was you were asking.

“Just because something isn't a lie does not mean that it isn't deceptive. A liar knows that he is a liar, but one who speaks mere portions of truth in order to deceive is a craftsman of destruction.” ― Criss Jami

The Bible doesn't address lies of omission, but to lie is a sin. My STBE would hold himself up as a paragon of virtue, using the bible to back him up with this assertion, since he is the son and stepson of two Episcopalian priests. He presents himself very, very well to the outside world using this as his bedrock.

However, he's broken so many commandments, I wondered if he ever read them. He not only cheated on me but his first wife. But with an Aspie, they can make it all sound very correct and proper, thus the fault of their spouse. They leave out the part where it's they who was neglecting their spouse, staying glued to the television, probably drinking to excess or using drugs as a buffer between them and the insanity that goes on inside their heads. There were red flags with the STBE while we were still dating, but I chose to overlook them. One of the big ones was, whenever I'd ask him if he saw a certain movie, he'd tell me, "I think I did watch it at some point, but I was drunk and don't remember it." The lie of omission takes place here. They skew the reality of it all to make you believe they are the victim in this scenario.

But to him, and his "morality" of being the perfect Christian, he's honest, thus there was no lie, because he believes what he told me is the truth.

Here's a tip - most abusers of alcohol and/or drugs do so because of the "voices in their head". I don't mean the voices a person might hear if they're delusional, like the Son of Sam telling people his neighbor's dog made him do it. I mean their internal monologue that most of us have going on in our minds day-to-day. This is the internal monologue where we work to solve problems, plan our day or evening, what to make for dinner, etc. For most of us, we can shut this down and go on with our day. For someone with Asperger's, Bipolar Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder (which my therapist tells me is primarily women) they simply can't shut it down.

They'll take a minor event in your life together, one that drives them completely nuts every single time you do it, such as sweeping the kitchen floor every night before you go to bed. They won't say a word to you about it, but they WILL let it fester in their head for days, weeks or months; in my STBE's case, it would be for years and decades - he only just told me about a week and a half ago how much he hated it when I would call him and ask him if he'd like to meet me for lunch while I was in town. This is something I'd been doing for the duration of our marriage. He literally kept it inside for over 21 years. I even did this when we were dating! This, to me, is a lie of omission, or sorts. He hid from me his dislike of this rather than tell me I was doing something that bothered him. He then made it my fault for not telling me. In his head, he built it up to, "She'll just get pissed off at me if I tell her I don't like it and I don't want that argument".

But who's to say it would have been an argument? I heard from him so many times, following his being caught in his latest lie of omission, "I didn't say anything because I didn't want the argument." I would tell him, every time he would say this to me, "But how do you even KNOW it would have been an argument if you didn't give me the opportunity to address it when I first did it?" His response was always the same, "Because I know you."

And it might seem as though I'm drifting here (and I probably am) but the basis of all this ranting is: by not telling me I was doing something that upset him, he was lying to me. He allowed me to go on for months at a time thinking everything was okay, when the truth of the matter is, it wasn't. He just wasn't telling me. After several months of "not telling me", he would explode into a rant that would, at times, leave me fearing for my safety. So now, not only am I dealing with his laundry list of complaints, I'm feeling defensive because I'm feeling as though I'm being attacked from all sides. (I call this "Pulling the rug out from under me", something else Aspies like to do, in order to keep you off-balance and walking on eggshells waiting for when the next rant or explosion will come) And this is his own self-fulfilling prophecy because not only am I mad that he's kept from me about 100 things I've done that upset him, I'm now being attacked (from my point of view) and defending myself. This is all compounded with the anger I'm feeling over having the rug pulled out from under me, too. I'm so totally confused at this point, I don't know which end is up.

Using the "fight or flight" impulse all humans have, I was in a no-win situation, too. Were I to stand there and defend myself, I was being abusive (translation: to ALL Aspies, standing up for yourself and not giving them tacit agreement on just what a piece of shit you really are is "abuse"), if I left the scene of the crime, walked away to avoid the argument, I was being selfish and narcissistic, not caring about his feelings at all. If I sat there and said nothing at all, agreeing with him every step of the way, the abuse would continue and only get worse as time passed, thus enabling him even more.

But to the Aspie, not telling the whole story is not a lie of omission, nor is it a lie at all. They take no responsibility for their actions, placing the blame squarely on your shoulders. By the time they get around to telling you the whole truth, they've already convinced themselves it was entirely your fault, forcing them to be less than completely honest. Certainly, they'd have been a much more honest person were it not for you being SUCH an unreasonable person, not because of anything you said or did, but because of what they THOUGHT you said or did. His rambling mind got me in more trouble with him than anything I could have done on my own.

Taking a break from the "lessons" and sharing a bit of my life

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 25 Jan 2014 03:08:00 +0000

In looking at the nearly 100 posts on this blog over the past weeks/months/years, I realize I've not really shared much of my life with you. I looked back at some older posts, sporadically put here over the time I've lived in Arizona, averaging two or three a year. I look at the posts and see the timeline that's been my life with an Aspie.

This is me now. Also, being a little
goofy for my friends

Back when this all started, in November 2004, about a month after I moved to Arizona - there's a photo of me in this post. I've got a newer one now. This was taken just a couple of weeks ago right before I had all my hair cut off, had it dyed and picked up some highlights along the way. I've also lost a great deal of weight since this divorce started over two months ago - about 40 pounds.

Then there are two more postings about some animals we had here on the soon-to-be former homestead. Some goats, some chickens, all gone once Mark realized owning them meant work. I then see some posts about blue skies, rainbows and hot air balloons; pretty pictures that don't tell the whole story.

Then I see some posts about news stories and some rants of mine related to them. Then, in 2007, I complain a bit about my high school reunion and mention 2012's reunion to plan. 2012 went off without a hitch and I don't think there's a single person who didn't have a great time! Currently, we planning a 50th birthday party that will include a 5k to commemorate a classmate of ours who passed away from the effects of Muscular Dystrophy. There are some more ramblings, then a posting to remember my father. I still miss him everyday. I still have the coonhound, Daisy, who was bitten by a rattlesnake. She's now nearly seven years old, she hasn't been bitten by anymore rattlesnakes and she's definitely wiser. More postings, my crazy mom manifesto and then I move on again.

Which brings us to now...

Just so you know I'm not just talking off the cuff, I've been living with the man I'm describing to you for the last 21+ years. It's been an incredibly difficult 21+ years dealing with the baggage that comes with being married to an Aspie/narcissist. My life has been a roller coaster of emotions, up and down, round and round in circles, advancing, retreating, hurting, loving, crying alone in the shower on the bad days, laughing aloud on the good days, and in general, just pretty confusing.

But, like Daisy, I'm no longer being bitten by a rattlesnake. When Daisy sees a rattlesnake in the yard, now, she barks at it from a safe distance. When I see my rattlesnake coming, I don't bark, but I do prepare myself for a possible strike. I assume my rattlesnake is already coiled up and ready to strike. That way, there are no surprises.

This past week was an odd one, but no surprise. Out of the blue, Mark came to me with the suggestion we do a legal separation rather than a divorce. Seems he wants to keep me on Tricare so he doesn't have to pay for health insurance for me. And, oh, by the way, how about we keep reconciliation on the table for some point in the future? I won't bore you with a lot of the talk that went on between us over the week but I was wary. I'd been so beaten down by this guy over two decades. His lies, manipulations, half-truths, cheating, hitting, stealing money from the household funds; you name it, he did it.

What I ended up telling him was, reconciliation isn't off the table, but not now. When, then? I don't know. I need some therapy and so does he. And I would never consider reconciling if it meant things being the way they were before. I was in desperate need of some "me time". This was a couple Thursdays ago. He didn't even make it a week before reverting back to his passive-aggressive, abusive self. By this past Wednesday, he responded to a text from me with, "I'm in my cave" (which is his code for needing to be alone with his thoughts) The following morning, he was back to his "I'm mad at you for no reason other than what I've developed in my head and I'm ignoring you again." Well, that and his attorney talked him out of being "friendly" during this divorce or legal separation or whatever it is (in my mind, a divorce). Mark's need, though, for a narcissistic host means he'll go on paying her for so long as she'll let him, since she feeds his ego. And so long as his dad has a pen, a checkbook and a way to mail money to Mark, she'll let him. So long as she goes on telling him just how wonderful and right he is, he's glad to do it. She needs hours to bill and he needs someone to tell him what an amazing, wonderful person he truly is. All parasites need a host and I'm glad they found each other. We'll file that one under, "Not my problem anymore".

I just shook my head when I got his nasty email. Same shit, different day. And I moved on. One thing to mention is: I did let my attorney go after the first hearing after she did pretty much nothing at all. I might as well have driven down the street tossing $2,000.00 out the car window for all the good it did me in hiring this attorney. Just for fun, I started sending emails requesting discovery from his attorney. She's been denying me access to Mark's financial records but she's never "said" she's denying it. She's just not doing it. (And here's a tip - the more they want to hide something, the more you want to see it - especially if it relates to the finance) Up until yesterday, there was really nothing that could be done. BUT - in the flurry of emails yesterday, mine requesting discovery, hers getting longer and longer, all filled with her narcissistic rage she finally said something that the Arizona Bar is VERY interested in seeing - her telling me IN WRITING that she didn't consider his financial records to be relevant to the proceedings. As soon as I got that one, I called the people at the Arizona Bar and they asked me to email them everything. This is an ethics violation and it involves hiding financial resources, something they take very seriously ever since another attorney in another part of Arizona helped a client hide a great deal of money in a divorce proceeding. He got seven years in prison.

I'm seeing two attorneys next week and one of them comes highly recommended as the one to have since Mark's attorney has the reputation of being one of the most unstable, mentally disturbed attorneys in the county. So I guess she and Mark deserve each other.

As far as how I'm doing: I'm healing. I guess there was some residual guilt left over from caring for a mentally/emotionally disturbed person for 21+ years. I think that's what last week was about. I'm here to tell you all, anyone reading this, expect the guilt. Expect them to come back during it all. Expect it all to fall apart very quickly again. Again, same shit, different day. So long as you EXPECT them to be capricious, vile, mean, apathetic, manipulative and abusive, all will be well. Which is why I never completely let down my guard, even when he was discussing with me the possibility of his quitting his job to go back to school. I was actually starting to fall for it a little bit; I guess old habits die hard. However, it didn't take me long to snap out of it once his true colors came out again.

This is me now, 40 lbs lighter
and looking pretty amazing!
I'm trying to figure out how to
take a selfie w/o looking like
I'm not taking a selfie!

But, I'm still healing. I didn't get the house I wanted in my hometown that went up for auction today. But that's okay. It just wasn't meant to be or it would have been. But, I'm still healing and will continue to heal with each day that the sun rises on a new one.

For anyone contemplating leaving their Aspie, it really will be okay. Whether the relationship is a shorter one or a longer one, it will be devastating, at first. These guys work on us DAILY to convince us we're nothing w/o them. I can remember my STBE husband would tell anyone who would listen he couldn't possibly become an Episcopalian priest because I was such a bad person with a bad background. I come from an incredible family who worked hard for everything we have. My grandparents were both farmers, my mother and father were both well-educated (but didn't have any degrees) and set an excellent example for me and my siblings. They remained married for 53 years, only ending it on the day my father died. His family, though... Well, that should be another blog post some day. Trust me when I tell you - they have issues and always will because they refuse to see it's they who are nuts. They are enablers, co-dependent, mentally ill and refuse to medicate because "Jesus will heal me".

I'm not going to lie - there were days I was positive I wouldn't be able to take the heart ache anymore. But I got up the next morning and found I could make it through another day. I don't know just when I stopped thinking about the pain in my heart on a continual basis but I did. And before I knew it, I lost the "whatever" in the pit of my stomach that was omnipresent. I was laughing again with people and looking forward to a future by myself. I started visiting Pinterest to look for decor I liked that I could do in my new home, where ever that might be. I'm seeing just what life CAN be like w/o having someone peering over my shoulder constantly to tell me how I'm scrambling the wrong egg. I'm enjoying NOT hearing someone tell me just how wrong I am all the time, not correcting me in front of other people, not telling me how I've become so unattractive over the years.\If I had a nickel for each time someone told me just how beautiful I am...

Yes, that first step is scary - but, trust me, it's worth it. And you'll come out of it okay. I promise.

And if you need some inspiration, to know you CAN get through it, try reading One Mom's Battle Divorcing a Narcissist. I know, I know, we're all talking about Aspies here, but Aspies are also narcissists.

Aspies are the masters of manipulation

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 22 Jan 2014 17:19:00 +0000

What I'm going to write here might overlap with #10 on the list - Aspies are the most literal people you'll ever meet.

You can't pay enough money to... cure that feeling of being broken and confused. ~ Winona Ryder

I know this post is supposed to be about being manipulated by your Aspie, but it's important to know that they manipulate you by keeping you confused and/or angry pretty much all the time. How do they do this? By denying they've said something you KNOW they said. Or denying doing something you KNOW they've done. The thing to remember about Aspies is - they'll lie even when the truth won't hurt them.

Aspies aren't a group of people who can just come to you and say, "Honey, I'm upset about something and I'd like to discuss it with you."

No, no, no, no, no... That would be too easy to just come out and have open, honest communication.

Let's say you made meatloaf for dinner and used a spice the Aspie didn't like, say... Mint. They won't TELL you they don't like the mint. In fact, they'll tell you how GREAT your meatloaf is, so much so you're absolutely convinced it's their favorite meal and will make it once a week for 20 years. What's going on during that 20 years, though, is quite different inside the head of an Aspie:

First time eating said meatloaf - Wow, I really don't like this spice she used in the meatloaf. But if I tell her I don't like it, she'll be upset. I suppose I'll just tell her how good it is.
Second time eating said meatloaf - I really, really don't like this spice and she's made it AGAIN! Why would she make this? Doesn't she know I don't like this mint? But if I tell her I don't like it, she'll get mad at me.
Third time eating said meatloaf - AGAIN! Mint in the meatloaf! I swear she could screw up a peanut butter and jelly sandwich! Why is she STILL making it this way?? But if I tell her I don't like it, it'll start a big fight and I'll lose. So I'll just have to *SIGH* tell her AGAIN how much I love it!
Fourth through 125th time eating said meatloaf - The Aspie hates the meatloaf every single time you make it but says nothing at all about their not liking it. Instead, they keep it in their head, allowing their anger to grow each and every time they eat it, telling you the entire time how much they love it, leading you to believe you are the Julia Child of meatloafs. However, by the time they've gotten to this point, they've already built up inside their heads that telling you will lead to an argument of epic proportions and aren't they the dear, dear man for sparing your feelings? But they've also decided they hate you for not KNOWING they don't like the meatloaf.
After about six to twelve months of serving this meatloaf to them because they told you how much they loved it, they finally blow up at you, spend a few hours ranting at you over just how stupid you are for not knowing how much they hate mint in the meatloaf and what a horrible, selfish, narcissistic person you are for not knowing this. When you ask them why they didn't tell you the first time they didn't like it and their response is always the same, "Because I knew you'd yell at me."

My STBE ASH would do this constantly. I call this "pulling the rug out from under me". I'm going along in life, thinking everything's fine and dandy, then the STBE would come along, rant at me over a variety of ills and transgressions he's imagined I committed, most of which were blown up in his head, and use the rest of his time to give you a truly good dose of "You suck and this is why".

I'm sure by now you're asking yourself - but what does this have to do with manipulation. I'm getting there now.

By doing this often enough and regularly enough, it throws you off balance with regard to your Aspie and their moods. You never know when or if they're going to blow up on you (often called a "meltdown" in the Aspie world) or about what. You've also been called so many names over time that they're starting to have the desired affect on your self-esteem and you might be starting to believe them, even a little bit. You are now ripe for manipulation by the Aspie and this is when the abuse really kicks into high gear.

From this point forward, your Aspie will hit you, maybe not really hard, but hard enough, and when you protest, they tell you, "Oh, jeez, I didn't hit you that hard at all! In fact, it was more of a nudge and you're making to much of it! Why are you so sensitive?" You might have been sent flying across the room, but your Aspie will spend the next million years if they have to in order to convince you that it's not that HE hit you, it's that YOU'RE too sensitive. Your Aspie will start saying things to you that are designed to hurt you emotionally and when you call them on this, they tell you, "Jeez Louise! I was just kidding! You're just SO sensitive!" They make your hurt feelings and hurt arm YOUR fault for not understanding they're really not the jerk you think they are, it's just that YOU'RE too sensitive. In short, it's your fault.

The bad behavior will start to escalate. Most likely, they're now into the porn and/or cheating. When I found out about my STBE's first affair, it was at a time when my father was dying of cancer and I had cancer myself. His excuse for the affair? "You weren't paying enough attention to me." No, ma'am, it's not that he's a lying, cheating prick, it's that YOU didn't pay enough attention to him while your father was dying and you were sick yourself. It ALWAYS has to be about Le Petit Prince!

No matter what the Aspie does wrong or hurtful or painful, it's going to be your fault. Always. You will find yourself taking responsibility for everything wrong in the marriage and will begin researching all sorts of therapy to get into so you can do just a little bit more to make the marriage better. Once the Aspie gets you to this point, you are his trained monkey and will do his bidding to the point of exhaustion. He now has "the perfect wife", one who will do anything to keep him happy (and not realizing there's no keeping an Aspie happy - these are people who aren't happy unless they're sad). You will do all the housework, cook all the meals, wash all the clothes, take care of everything that has to do with the kids, paint the living room by yourself, build that new garage with no help - whatever he asks, his wish is your command. It's been SO drummed into you what a horrible wife and person you are, you'll do anything to make him happy.

But the abuse doesn't stop just because you're now the equivalent of a Stepford Wife. They have to keep up a steady stream of abuse in order to keep you under their thumb. If you clean the entire house's carpets with a toothbrush and they'll find something wrong - perhaps you left the nap in the wrong direction or something else totally stupid and bizarre. Aspies refuse to acknowledge you're doing anything right. They can't have you gaining any self-esteem at all. They won't say a word about the 1,000 things you did right. They will focus solely on the one thing you didn't do, such as wipe down the baseboards. This is the ONLY thing they will notice, time and again until you give up and do it, just to get that external validation. Once you submit and wipe down the baseboards, you stand back and wait for the praise. But the praise will never come. They'll proudly tell themselves what a good job they did in getting you to submit to their will by wiping down the baseboards and then say, "Um, you didn't do the window sills" or some other innocuous thing. So begins the next cycle of abuse/submission. You will NEVER get praise from them. They only see what their next step in the manipulation/control process will be.

My advice with regard to combating this? Get out. Get out of the relationship. This will never change because it's just not in their nature to change, nor do they want to. And why should they? By doing things the way they've been doing them up to now, they get whatever they wish.

Aspies LOVE pornography, but don't like sex with you

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 10 Jan 2014 03:45:00 +0000

“Pornography is literature designed to be read with one hand. ~Angela Lambert (1990)

I really get kind of tired of all these "generalizations" related to Aspies, but are they still generalizations if they're true? Is it a stereotype if all of them do it? Or is it a fact of Asperger's? It seems Aspies really dig porn. To the exclusion of a real relationship with their spouse, who would happily get naked for them. And it would seem that Aspies would also rather masturbate than engage in sex with their spouse.

I really don't have an explanation for this that would even approach anything scientific or based on empirical evidence, just a theory.

My theory is - Aspies prefer pornography and masturbation because there's no expectation in all of it. With your spouse, you're required to meet their needs. You're required to talk to them. You're required to interact. You're required to maybe take part in a little pillow-talk afterward. You're required to actually touch them. Also, Aspies suffer from low self esteem. If their partner tells them it was wonderful, that starts a whole "thing" in their head. Did they really mean it? Were they just lying to me so as to not hurt my feelings? Was I really awful and they're just not telling me? Did I touch them right? Did I touch them too much? Did I touch them not enough? Did I kiss okay? Aspies over think EVERYTHING! Right down to the end. I would imagine sex with their spouse would bring on days and days of anxiety related to just that, much less all the other crap they have going on in their head. I remember telling a friend once that sex with my STBE was as though he'd read in a book how to do it step-by-step.

With porn and masturbation, it's just them. They already know what they like. They already know what it takes to get them to the end. With porn, they can look and get turned on and the other person isn't demanding of them they make them happy, or even slightly okay with it all.

Also, some Aspies have sensory issues and don't like to be touched. Maybe sex with someone other than themselves is simply too much touching?

Nope, porn followed by some rigorous masturbation suits them right down to the ground. No human interaction at all, except with them.

I'm not too sure there's much more that can be said about this. It's pretty self explanatory. If you're married to an Aspie, be ready to be told "No" a lot to your initiating sex and be ready for them to be in front of the computer screen the entire time they're home since they gotta have that porn.

Marriage to an Aspie - Aspies WILL lie to you

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 09 Jan 2014 04:14:00 +0000

Everything you read online about Asperger's is they're the single most honest people you'll ever meet - bar none. In fact, they tell themselves and everyone else, it's their honest that gets them into the most trouble - yes, dear, those jeans DO make your butt look fat!

This is BULLSHIT!

Every single Aspie spouse I've talked to (again, dozens, if not hundreds) has shared their Aspie husbands are the biggest liars, and not just about big things. One of the comments I'd made so many times to people about my STBE was - he'd lie even if the truth wouldn't hurt him. And I've heard the same from other Aspie wives. Things like - Who turned down the thermostat to 45 degrees? Let's say it's just you and the Aspie living in the house. Your Aspie will look at you and say, "It wasn't me. It must have been you."

Now, you KNOW you didn't do it. Surely you'd have remembered that, right? It HAD to have been the Aspie. And, really, let's just say it; it's really not THAT big a deal. You were really just wondering, that's all. It doesn't matter to the Aspie. They imagine all sorts of scenarios and every single one of them ends with you being a massive bitch. Because of this, they'll say nothing and make it your fault for not knowing just "why" they're upset with you, thus refuse to simply say, "Oh, yeah, it was me sweetheart! I brought home a side of beef and wanted the house to be cold enough to preserve it while I cut it up for storage."

Oh, okay. I get it now. Moving on...

Aspies are also pretty creative when it comes to their lies, too. As an example, let me use my own STBE and an event from our lives several years ago:

My STBE has had four separate affairs (and every single one of them believed him when he told them they were the only time he'd ever done that - HA! Stupid fat cow bitches. That graphic designer who was screwing him while my dad was dying? He was seeing two other people while he had her believing "she" was the only one - honey, here's a tip... If he's cheating on his wife, he'll cheat on you. Seriously, get some common sense, pride and dignity) Anyway... With that graphic designer, Fat Cow Slut Pam, I'd been telling him for a year I knew he was cheating on me with someone at work. For months, here's how the conversation went, every time.

Me: STBE, I'm looking at your pay statement here and I'm not seeing anything about the overtime you told me you'd worked a couple days ago.

STBE Aspie: Oh, yeah, it'll be on my next check.

Me (two weeks later): I thought you told me that overtime you worked a couple weeks ago would be on this check?

STBE Aspie: No, I didn't. And I didn't work any overtime.

Me: Yes, you did, it was on (insert date here). STBE, I know you worked overtime! You didn't get home on... until nearly 8 o'clock that evening. Are you cheating on me with someone at work?

STBE Aspie: No, baby (he called us all baby - makes it easier to not yell out the wrong name while in the throes of screwing any slut with a vagina) I'm not cheating on you with anyone at work. I SWEAR! On a BIBLE!

Fast forward to about six months later when I started getting calls from a couple of angry husbands (he liked cheating with people who were ALSO cheating. It added to the thrill, I suppose) I confront him with it and say, "How in the WORLD were you able to look me in the eye and lie to me about cheating on me with someone at work?"

His response? "That's not what you asked me. I never cheated with her at work. We always went somewhere else."

Oh, okay, sorry for the misunderstanding.

Every Aspie Spouse I've interacted with tells me their Aspies cheated on them, too. Either with a regular person or with prostitutes. Every. Single. One. Didn't even matter if they were male or female. They ALL cheated. More than once.

Every one of these affairs - he was caught with the goods. An email, a text message, phone calls, instant messaging transcripts, you name it, he was caught every single time. Each and every time he was confronted with the evidence of this cheating, he'd get this sly smile and deny to my face, even with printouts of emails, screenshots of text messages, that I was taking "Can we meet at such-and-such hotel?" out of context and it wasn't what I thought it was. That CLEARLY I was the person in the wrong, accusing him of something he wasn't doing and, by God, I needed to apologize to him! He would always say this with just the right amount of righteous indignation, so that I understood he meant business!

Then there are the lies of omission. My STBE Aspie would tell people the most horrible things about me, such as, "She's always going through my computer, tablet and cell phone looking for something". But he wouldn't tell them he cheated like a card counter in Vegas, necessitating my snooping so much. He would tell people I threw a glass at him, leaving out the part where I was walking to the door to see what one of the dogs was barking at with a glass in my hand, that the dog jumped up on me, knocking it out of my hand and sending it sailing about three feet, where it crashed on the floor and his foot. He would tell people how I tried to hit him with the car, leaving out the part where I was backing out of the driveway with just my car keys, so I could get to a safe place to get away from one of his beatings and he threw himself on the hood to stop me from leaving. He would tell people I refused to buy him cereal, conveniently leaving out the part where I'd just bought four boxes of cereal a week earlier and he ate them all in the first five days they were in the house.

Yes, Aspies are liars, through and through.

But wait, there's more!

Which brings me to gas-lighting, an aspect of this whole lying thing. I won't go too much into it since there's a great deal about it available online (and I'll include some links), but I will say, it's the part of his lying that brought me to the brink of suicide. It had me telling our marriage counselor, "I really think I need to be admitted to the hospital for delusions."

And I was serious.

The term "gas lighting" is a fairly new psychological term, borrowed from the 1944 Ingrid Bergman movie "Gaslight". In this movie, a young woman moves into her deceased aunt's home following her marriage. She's young and in love but her husband has married her for the sole purpose of taking from her the estate she'd inherited from her aunt years earlier, including the house. To do this, he works a plan to drive her to insanity through manipulation. He would turn down the gas lights in the house, then when she asked about them being turned down, would tell her she'd done it and didn't remember. He would move furniture and when she inquired, again, as to it being moved, would tell her she'd done it. She'd protest at not remembering it, he would then work to convince her she had. The movie goes on like this until a family friend... Well, I won't tell you the ending. Find it on Netflix or Amazon and watch this frightening psychological thriller.

Gas lighting is one of the more damaging aspects of being with an Aspie. The reason this ties into the lying is this: Your Aspie will say or do something that's hurtful and/or abusive. When you call them on it, as in bring up to them this being a problem in the relationship, they'll deny ever saying or doing whatever "it" was. You will, of course, tell them you distinctly remember them saying or doing this, to which they'll work to convince you otherwise. They'll even go so far as to tell you, "You're delusional." or "You're just too sensitive" or (following their being just a little too rough with their horseplay, which they do quite a bit) "I was only kidding. What's wrong with you?" Aspies need to alter your reality to fit theirs so they can go on abusing you. This is a defense mechanism of theirs in order to protect their confusing and disjointed world. And they need you to believe everything they say, even if it means going insane yourself.

When an Aspie is gas lighting you, it's not about them being right or wrong, it's about you agreeing with them, even if it's a lie. They do this to aid in their showing the rest of the world you're the crazy one and they're perfectly normal.

There is a book I read, once an acquaintance told me what this was - what to call it - that opened my eyes so completely I read it in one day. I simply couldn't put it down. This book, written by Dr. Robin Stern, is one of the BEST books you'll ever read if you're in an abusive relationship, "The Gaslight Effect: How to Spot and Survive the Hidden Manipulation Others Use to Control Your Life". Seriously, read it. It will open your eyes like they've never been opened before. Finally, Gas Lighters are predators, pure and simple. They need you to be confused and off-balance. They WANT you to be this way so they can go on abusing you. This is part of the process of separating you from your loved ones - the very people who are in the best position to help you the most - so you're basically trapped with them, to go on being abused.

Are you being Gaslighted?

(Excerpted from Power in Relationships: Are you being Gas Lighted? - PsychologyToday.com

How do you know if you are being gaslighted? If any of the following warning signs ring true, you may be dancing the Gaslight Tango. Take care of yourself by taking another look at your relationship, talking to a trusted friend; and, begin to think about changing the dynamic of your relationship . Here are the signs:

1. You are constantly second-guessing yourself

2. You ask yourself, "Am I too sensitive?" a dozen times a day.

3. You often feel confused and even crazy... when talking to your gaslighter.

4. You're always apologizing to your mother, father, boyfriend,, boss.

5. You can't understand why, with so many apparently good things in your life, you aren't happier.

6. You frequently make excuses for your partner's behavior to friends and family.

7. You find yourself withholding information from friends and family so you don't have to explain or make excuses.

8. You know something is terribly wrong, but you can never quite express what it is, even to yourself.

9. You start lying to avoid the put downs and reality twists.

10. You have trouble making simple decisions.

11. You have the sense that you used to be a very different person - more confident, more fun-loving, more relaxed.

12. You feel hopeless and joyless.

13. You feel as though you can't do anything right.

14. You wonder if you are a "good enough" girlfriend/ wife/employee/ friend; daughter.

This post has actually gone on longer than it probably should have, but the lies and gas lighting will do you in fast than anything else will. Trust me on this one. If you even see a little bit of yourself in any of this, get out. Get out of the relationship just as fast as you can extricate yourself safely.

Your Aspie, your narcissist - Aspies will always make it about them

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 07 Jan 2014 21:09:00 +0000

“Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.” - Oscar Wilde

From the moment I found out I was pregnant with my son, I never made it a secret - NO EPIDURAL! I told my STBE, I told my doctor, I told the nurses, I'd tell total strangers in an elevator. I was dead serious about this. I knew I was being irrational, but there ARE side effects to these and I just really didn't want to risk suffering one of them. Fast forward to his day of birth. It was in a military hospital in Aurora, CO, Fitzsimons Army Medical Center. My water broke in the elevator after my seven month checkup and I was whisked into labor & delivery. I was doing great for the first few hours (the doctor had given me pitocin to get my labor going, due to the water breaking like that and me not being in labor at all) and we played Trivial Pursuit while I went through this. The doctors and nurses were telling me how amazing it was I was able to not only do that but win! The STBE started stewing. Where was HIS atta-boy? Where were the people to tell HIM how wonderful he was doing?

Then, my labor started getting serious and I was in a lot of pain. I'd made sure the doctor on duty, the obstetrician taking care of me, knew I didn't want an epidural, but I was really okay with morphine. (REALLY OKAY!) But, he went off duty and another doctor came on, a real asshole (probably an Aspie or Narcissist, too, since he felt HE knew better what was good for me than I, the patient). He kept demanding I get an epidural, in spite of the fact my records PLAINLY said I didn't want it. I kept refusing to sign the form and he kept getting angrier and angrier at me. So what'd he do? He went to my STBE and told him I was too doped up on morphine to make a clear decision about it so the STBE signed the form for me to get an epidural, knowing full good and well this went completely against my wishes! When I asked him later why he did that, he told me, "You were in so much pain I couldn't take it any more."

I'm sorry but... WHAT?

It was my labor & delivery but my STBE made it about him, even when it meant going against my medical wishes. For the duration of the rest of our marriage, I refused to give him my medical power of attorney and it infuriated him. He refused to accept he'd made such a fundamental error and violated my trust at it's most basic level, my trust that he would do what was right and best for me. I told a marriage counselor once I truly believed were I in the hospital and unable to make decisions for myself, he would order them to pull the plug, even if it wasn't warranted.

A few weeks after my youngest was born, I was exhausted. As easy as it was with my oldest son in his first few weeks, it was that difficult in the first few weeks of my youngest sons young life. My oldest son did everything as though he was following a set of rules in a textbook. He slept extremely well, he ate well, he reached every milestone pretty much on the day he was supposed to do so. But my youngest son, WOW! He slept two hours, was awake two hours, slept to hours, was awake two hours... He did this 24/7 and I was completely exhausted. My STBE slept through it all, every night, and though he did take leave when my youngest was born, he did nothing to help me get some sleep, demanding I take care of the baby because he was always "busy" with something else. (And this became a pattern with him throughout our life together)

By the time I was at my six-week postpartum check up, almost as soon as I walked in the door of the doctor's office, she could tell I was wiped out and why. Apparently, she'd seen more than one apathetic father. She sent me to the psychiatrist immediately because I was starting to show signs of psychosis from lack of sleep and was worried about me. I went to see the psychiatrist and told him everything, with my STBE sitting right there next to me. He prescribed me ONE halcyon and told my STBE he had a choice; he could take about three day's leave so I could sleep after taking the halcyon, he could do nothing and let me go on being sleep deprived to the extent it was dangerous, he could take care of the baby by himself while I was in the hospital for three days or he could answer to his commander as to just why he was being so abusive to his wife. My STBE chose to take leave. I slept the entire three days, with only brief wake-ups to eat or go to the bathroom.

At my follow up appointment with the psychiatrist, he was asking me if I'd gotten any sleep, how I was doing, how my son was sleeping, if the STBE was taking more of an active role in parenting, etc. After about five minutes of this, the STBE apparently couldn't take any more of the focus being on me and blurted out, "I've been thinking of killing myself!" From that point on, I was ignored. See, I wasn't thinking of killing myself so I didn't matter any longer.

And thus went the rest of my life with him and when my youngest was born, we'd only been married 19 months.

For years it went on like this, my being relegated to admiring fan, maid, cook, chauffeur, nanny and prostitute in his life. About three or four years ago, his oldest son came to spend Christmas with us bringing with him his wife and three kids. They're truly a lovely family and I adore them all so much, but the week or so they were here completely wiped me out and I ended up spending two days in bed in the midst of an RA flare up so bad I was running a fever and was incredibly sick. I'm going to guess my stepson and his wife saw what was going on because at the end of that two days, they'd cleaned the entire house and did all the cooking. See, what was going on was this - cooking and cleaning for eight people was rough on me. Every time I'd ask the STBE for help with anything at all, he'd swoop up one of the kids and say, "I'm with the grandbaby!" and walk away. He absolutely refused to help me with anything at all. I wasn't able to sleep for much more than three or four hours a night because of all the cleaning I had to do, including laundry that had somehow piled up in the laundry room and the STBE was peacefully sleeping each night while I did this. As the week wore on, I grew more and more resentful and I was angry. It completely ruined Christmas for me, which was probably his goal, since he hated any holiday and Christmas was a particular dislike of his, but more on that in another post.

However, a good illustrative part of our marriage was probably one you've seen in your marriage or relationship and this one will have you nodding in agreement - the circuitous arguing, somehow managing to make it all about them.

This particular point was made to me by our marriage counselor, who brought it up in a session with him. My guess is, he put up with it for as long as he could and finally began this particular session with this, "Mark, one thing I've noticed in all this is: when you share with Nancy something she's done that upsets you, she acknowledges it, restates it so you know she understands what it is you're saying, then has a discussion with you regarding how she can work to improve on that, thus reducing the chance of it happening again. However, when she shares with you something you do that upsets her, you respond with how that affects you and your feelings related to her concern. When do we address Nancy's concerns and feelings?"

Our "homework" related to that was that I would tell him a concern of mine, he was required to address what I'd said in the form of restating it and then he was to work with me on a solution that was JUST about my feelings. When he'd respond with his feelings about what I'd just said, how much it upset him to hear it and how it affected him, I was to say, "I understand you have feelings related to this, but before we get to those, can we please address mine and come to a resolution first?"

The STBE simply couldn't do it. He would sit there with his head in his hands, pace, stammer, you name it. I could almost see the wheels in his head turning, his eyes nearly spinning in his head. He simply couldn't address anyone's feelings but his own. The more I tried to keep him on point, the worse he got. It usually resulted in a blow up on his part, with him accusing me of being a selfish bitch with no consideration of anyone but myself. (This would be called "projection", something Aspies do this a great deal.)

Now, I can't say it was always like this. There was a time when I could go to the STBE with a concern of mine, he'd go on a rant about how I was such a thoughtless, selfish bitch, and then a couple of hours to a couple of days later, he'd come to me and apologize, telling me I was right and he'd work more on that. The rant part came to be called, "Mark the asshole". I used to beg him to bypass the asshole part of it and let us get to meaningful and healing discussion first. That was another thing he couldn't do, bypass the asshole part. If I had a nickel for every time he came back to me later to tell he finally thought about what I'd said and was ready to be more rational about it, I'd be a wealthy, wealthy person.

Another one of his "quirks" was he refused to listen to me when I talked. I would try to address with him a problem in our marriage and he would go off on one of his rambling speeches about it all. If I tried to interject anything into the conversation, he'd either talk over me or interrupt me until I'd just give up in frustration. I started saying to him, "Well, I wasn't done talking but, yeah, you're right, your thoughts and opinions are the only ones that matter." (And I'd only started doing this in the last couple of years or so...) He would call this "abusive" and it would send him into a tailspin, having him rushing to the internet to share with his fellow Aspies just how abusive I was. He'd do that for a couple days to a couple weeks, then he'd be okay until the next time.

We were never able to resolve any of our problems, not in 21 years, because he simply wasn't willing to take part in the give and take, the compromise, that goes along with being married to someone who wasn't exactly like him in every way, shape and form. I honestly think he WANTED to be able to do that, he just isn't able to. He's so married to the idea that he's the only one with anything worth saying, he simply can't grasp that there are other opinions and ideas that might actually work. Because of an Aspie's linear, black and white thinking, subtlety and nuance eludes them completely. With an Aspie, there's no such thing as a "suggestion". In addition, even were you to say outright, "I feel as though this might work..." they'll disagree with you without giving it any thought at all. I used to tell people all the time, "If you want my husband to do something for you, tell me, I'll ask him to do the opposite and it'll be done in record time."

Briefly - the circuitous arguing is part of this. What I'm talking about it your attempt to discuss something with your Aspie and they go round and round with you until they've brought you back to an argument you'd had a few days ago, a few weeks ago, even a few months ago. They manage to always bring it back to their hurt feelings, their feeling slighted, they're accusing you of "something" you'd LONG forgotten about, if you'd even done it at all. They will send you down so many rabbit holes in the argument until they've successfully gotten you off them and the discussion (to the point you're thinking to yourself, "I'd only told him I didn't like that he would toss my clean clothes on the bathroom floor. How did we get to the time I wrecked his car seven years ago, leaving him without a car for four days?") This circuitous arguing is a tactic of theirs to put you on the defensive, thus you find yourself defending yourself rather than talking about the issue you'd originally come to them with. You'll know it's happening when you suddenly realize you've gotten light years away from what the original discussion was about, if you can remember what it was you'd come to them with in the first place, and are having the same argument with them you'd had already, many times over. You'll also be incredibly confused at the end of it.

I guess to round this post out, to bring it down to the brass tacks of the Aspie and the future of your relationship with them is this: You will never matter to them. Not your thoughts, not your opinions, not your solutions, not the sound of your voice - nothing. They will always find a way to make it about them, no matter what the subject. By the time you realize this is going on, you're already well on your way to being an accessory to their life. You're the cook, the maid, the taxi/chauffeur to the kids, the personal assistant (pick up/drop off my dry cleaning, etc.), the prostitute (who doesn't get paid because, HEY, I MAKE MORE THAN YOU!) but in none of this will you EVER be an equal partner.

Update: I found a link that explains what life's been like with me. See, it was so hard to pin "Narcissist" on my STBE because he was always SO self deprecating, SO passive, SO full of, "I don't deserve this". Even when he was sick, we had to do this dance. The page's title is "The Covert Narcissist" and it explains my life to a T.

This past July, he told me at the end of the day his heart seemed to be giving him problems and that it had been going on ALL DAY! I won't go into the explanation here but he was having tachycardia and his blood pressure was through the roof. It took me two hours to convince him to go to the Emergency Room (it was a Sunday and even were it not, he waited to tell me until after any chance of seeing his primary care physician were out the window. For two hours, I'm telling him, "C'mon. Let's get you to the ER." He would always respond with something along the lines of, "I'll be fine. It's no big deal. We all have to die sometime." You get the point.

What finally got him there was me sitting on the bathroom floor, crying, begging him to go, saying things like, "You're SO important to the family! We LOVE you! We NEED you!" More crying, more begging.

And THIS was the game to him. He was putting me in the position of being his ego. He didn't need an ego or self-esteem himself (and he DOES suffer from extremely low self-esteem) because he was able to manipulate ME into doing it for him. This was the first time I'd realized this dance we'd been doing for over two decades. After this, I stopped doing it.

He would tell me he was having a tachycardia problem and I'd say, "Perhaps you should call Dr. Coghlan and see if you can get in today?"

He'd then kick into his, "Oh, I'll be fine. I'm 53 and this is to be expected at my age. We all have to die sometime. When your number's up, your number's up."

I started responding with, "Okay. You're an adult and it's your choice." I'd then go on with my day.

This must have infuriated him because I found notes and memos of his that showed this is when he started planning to divorce me. In preparation for moving, I've been packing and cleaning out closets. I've found SO many notes he made to himself, all entitled, "Reasons to hate Nancy".

Each one of them was the same, same line items, same reasons, but occasionally he'd add a new one to the list. Number 1 was always the same, though, always in large block letters - NEVER FORGET REASONS TO DIVORCE NANCY! (I also found a journal of his that he must have forgotten about. It took me nearly a month to read it all because it was filled with some sick, sick stuff. I always wondered why he and his sister seemed to have this bizarre, co-dependent relationship. Now I know why, and it's not good at all.)

Oh, and something else I found in all the paperwork in the closet? Copies of his medical records. In these medical records was proof he'd been having this "heart problem" since 1998, not long before he retired from the Air Force. Just as he'd never told me of his diagnosis early in our marriage of his Bipolar Disorder, he didn't tell me he had a heart issue.

Why was it such a big deal now? Because I'd been making plans to leave him. I'd seen an attorney. I'd started hiding money. I'd started telling a couple of close friends I thought I'd reached the end of my time with him. I started making plans to move back home. How did he know all this? He had a keystroke logger on my laptop.

He needed me to stay, not because he didn't want a divorce but because HE wanted to leave ME! So he finally pulled this rabbit out of his hat, the rabbit that had been sitting there, festering, waiting to be pulled out for just such an occasion. He needed to stall me and he knew, with me being an empathetic and caring person, that I'd stay if he fell ill and needed taking care of.

Narcissists need to be the one to leave. Always. To them, it's the ultimate in "Winning". To leave a narcissist is the ultimate narcissistic injury, in their mind. Doing this will subject you to all sorts of abuse you never dreamed imaginable.

Leaving any marriage is never easy. Leaving a narcissist is down-right impossible.

Asperger's in Adults or What the hell am I dealing with?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 05 Jan 2014 11:00:00 +0000

“One thing you can't hide - is when you're crippled inside.” ― John Lennon

Being married to someone with Asperger's is the kind of marriage where you're married to someone with no emotions, no physical reaction to emotion and refuses to be anything but "logical".

According to the medical journals, DSM and other professional diagnostic books and such, Asperger's is:

Excerpted from the DSM-IV (but with the introduction of the DSM-V, Asperger's is no longer a recognized diagnosis, being placed now inside the Autism Spectrum as "High Functioning")

1. Qualitative impairment in social interaction, as manifested by at least two of the following:

Marked impairments in the use of multiple nonverbal behaviors such as eye-to-eye gaze, facial expression, body posture, and gestures to regulate social interaction
Failure to develop peer relationships appropriate to developmental level
A lack of spontaneous seeking to share enjoyment, interest or achievements with other people, (e.g., by a lack of showing, bringing, or pointing out objects of interest to other people)
lack of social or emotional reciprocity

2. Restricted repetitive & stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests and activities
3. The disturbance causes clinically significant impairments in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
4. There is no clinically significant general delay in language
5. There is no clinically significant delay in cognitive development or in the development of age-appropriate self-help skills, adaptive behavior (other than in social interaction) and curiosity about the environment in childhood.

Blah-Blah-Blah-Blahbity--Blah...

Let me break this down for you, using the above as a guide (And I'm not a psychiatrist, just someone who's seen many of them with my STBE ASH):

1. They have higher than average problems with being in a social situation, and to be diagnosed with Asperger's, it should be at least two of the following:

Trouble with the use of the average non-verbal social actions most of us use. Actions such as making eye contact with the person with whom they're talking, changing their facial expression to match the conversation such as laughing when something's funny, showing sadness when something's sad, etc., having a more relaxed body language - not crossing their arms over their chest, sitting with crossed legs, etc., and more relaxed gestures directed at the other person to show engagement and to facilitate the continuance of the conversation, such as a pat on the shoulder, the shaking of hands, maybe a wink to show solidarity.
This is all about having real friends in your age group at the same maturity level as you. Aspies tend to make friends with people who are either older or younger than themselves, generally younger since they suffer from a frozen maturity level around that of a pre-teen or so.
This means sharing their lives with others, such as "Honey, I got a promotion!" or "I got an A on my final!" Aspies tend to either not say anything at all or downplay it when they do. They'll also fail to recognize your accomplishments, not really caring. They're not ones to share photos of their kids or family at all and it's rare you'll actually see a photo of an Aspie, and when you do, they're tense as all get out, not smiling, not looking at the camera or wearing sunglasses.
This is the hardest part of living with an Aspie full-time, as a spouse, child or significant other - the lack of engagement in day-to-day life. Not only do they not share their life with you, they don't want you to share your life with them. Also, these are the guys who when you say, "I love you" respond with a smile, nothing at all or "Yeah, me, too." Any conversation with them is stilted and awkward because they simply don't take part in it beyond grunts or an occasional, "uh-huh".

2. Aspies have MAJOR focus when it comes to their "special interests". They'll have a hobby and their whole life is about that hobby, to the detriment of everyone and everything else in their life. They'll do this hobby in every single free minute they have. Some Aspie might even have a tic of some kind (called a "Stim" or "Stimming", which is short for "Stimulation or Stimulator") that brings them comfort in stressful situations. The Stimming is different and individual to the Aspie, but you'll know it when you see it.

3. Asperger's causes them problems in most facets of their life, be it with friends, or at work, or in another environment that requires them to interact with others. ( My STBE ASH was recently challenged at work over his knowledge of a certain subject pertaining to his job. It was a mild challenge, but a co-worker had to come into the room to prevent my STBE from slugging the poor man)

4. They seem to have pretty normal speech patterns and such but to those of us who live with them daily, we tend to notice little "idiocyncracies", such as a slower speech pattern, saying the wrong word in certain situations, etc. Once, my STBE was told by a psychiatrist he felt my STBE was mildly retarded because of his slow, careful, measured speech pattern.

5. Aspies generally have higher than average IQs and if employed are generally EXTREMELY good at what they do. This is part of why it's so hard to get people to see just what the matter is. They can be extremely good problem solvers if you can get them to focus on the problem at hand - which is difficult to do. Most Aspies, by the time they are adults, have honed their skills of adaptability to suit most social and external (meaning outside the home) situations. They are very chameleon-like and can easily fool people.

Okay, all this being said, my STBE has ALL these problems, with the exception of stimming. I don't know I ever saw him stim at all. However, he came from an extremely dictatorial father and an apathetic and childish mother who allowed her feelings to be hurt over the slightest infraction to the extent it would send her to bed, what I've come to call the "Shrinking Violet Routine". She's a Drama Queen to the nth degree, as is my STBE. Anyway, the stimming - if I had to guess, it would be that his father spanked it out of him. His dad was never strong on letting people be who they are. It was his way or the highway. And the STBE got spanked A LOT.

But he hangs onto stuff longer than he should and makes it sound worse than it really was. Unless it was him committing some sort of action that had you gasping at its violence. Then he downplayed it completely to become the single most innocuous act known to man and wasn't I the proper fool for seeing it any other way? My STBE had a particular fondness for being too aggressive with my dog, which he hated with a passion. He told me once he hated her so much because she and I had similar personalities. However, he would get pretty aggressive with her and when she reacted the way a dog would, he'd haul off and hit her either with his fist or open hand; every so often, he'd kick her. When I'd deign to tell him what I thought of this abuse, he'd start in on me, drumming into me just how wrong I was, that I didn't see what I saw or heard what I heard. If my dog would yelp in response to his hitting her or harming her in some way, and I'd hear it and say something, he'd start in on, "That's just how she is! She over reacts to EVERYTHING!" (now he's gas-lighting a dog?)

Speaking of the "hanging onto stuff longer than he should"... My STBE is 53 years old and is STILL upset over a dirt bike his younger brother got when he was 15 and his brother was 12. He's STILL angry and hurt about it because HE wanted a dirt bike and his parents KNEW it!

He can also give you a litany of the last 21 years of every transgression he believes I've committed against him, either real or imagined. But, ask him to remember saying something horrible to you, like the time he told me he couldn't stand to see me without clothes on because I was so fat it made him nauseous, and he'll take to the grave with him the insistence he never said that and that I'm making it up because I need to find something wrong with him. (Seriously, I never had to look hard - he was always doing something that was either hurtful or annoying)

I'm starting to ramble, now. I've been forced into silence for so long, I have too much to say, all the time. That's the reason for this blog, to get it off my chest and try to help others at the same time. Misery loves company and all that, you know.

Be on the lookout for my next post and tell me what you think of this one.

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

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 03 Jan 2014 23:51:00 +0000

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

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

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

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

But they don't live with them.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Aspies and kids - not a good combination

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 03 Jan 2014 05:04:00 +0000

Image: Flickr.com- Pink Sherbet Photos

A child is not an adult, a child didn't ask to be here. Any man that doesn't take care of his responsibilities to his family and to his children, do me a favor STOP calling yourself a man..at least have the decency to admit that you're a boy. You don't know what manhood is. ~ Stephen A Smith

When I married my STBE ASH, he had two kids from his prior marriage, I had a son from my first marriage and then, later, we had our son together. It was quite the combination and there were some jealousies and issues along the way, but overall, we did okay, I guess.

One thing that became very evident very early on was: My STBE ASH had no interest in being a real parent. He was much more interested in being their friend than a responsible adult.

Throughout the marriage, I was always "the bad guy", the disciplinarian. I would try to discipline one of the kids and he'd go behind my back, telling them, "Your mom's being unreasonable. I think it's perfectly fine that you set fire to the bathroom and here, here's some more matches. How about that kitchen?" I am, of course, being facetious about his not caring about a fire but, then, in thinking about it, our youngest DID set the bathroom on fire, once, playing with a lighter and a roll of toilet paper and the STBE didn't bat an eye. Seriously, though. He wanted the kids to like him SO much, he refused to talk to them about anything that even remotely smelled of discipline. He would go behind my back and take them off grounding from "whatever" telling them, "Mom's being unreasonable." or "I know, I know, it's unfair, but you KNOW how Mom gets!" Or better still, completely undermine me with them, even my son from my first marriage, whom he hated from the moment he met him when my son was 9 years old. He couldn't stand that he lived with us and when he got out of the military, I didn't say a word to the STBE when he asked if he could move back in with us so he could go to school. I immediately said he could and the STBE blew up on me that night so much, I really thought I was going to die by his hand. He was LIVID! But when my son walked in the door, the STBE treated him like the prodigal son returned. Never in a million years would you have imagined the amount of hatred he carried towards my son.

Aspies need to be liked SO much, they throw you under the bus to do it. And they don't care about the damage it leaves in its wake. All they care about is that they're liked. Period.

But I digress - the undermining me with the kids was the subject.

This son was home on leave from the military for Christmas one year. He'd asked us if he could use the car for a date. he told us he'd clean it up and out AND return it to us with a full tank of gas. We said he could. About an hour before he was supposed to pick up his date, he came to us to ask if he could borrow about $100 ( a hundred dollars!) so he could pay for his date and fill up the car. Realizing what he'd done, manipulated us, I told him not only could he not have the money, he also couldn't use the car because of what he'd just done in an attempt to manipulate us. As far as I was concerned, that was the end of it. I went upstairs to shower and when I came back down about 45 minutes later, came downstairs and noticed the car was gone. I asked the STBE about it and he told me, "Yeah, I told Stepson he could take the car." I thought he didn't have any money? "Oh, I gave him my debit card to pay for his date and put gas in the car." My son ended up using $150. From that night on, I had absolutely NO credibility with my son. From that point on, whenever I told him "No" to something, he would say, "I'll just go to STBE and he'll let me do it."

The STBE did this with all the kids, not just my son from my first marriage. This past summer, I learned about this for the first time just how bad it was and it was ALL the kids telling me he trashed me to them constantly.

Image: Flickr.com - Chris.Violette

There was another time I was at work, our youngest left at home with dear old Dad. When I came home, my son was playing alone outside and was rubbing his eyes and in his own toddler way (he was around two or three at the time) was telling me they hurt. I went inside to find the STBE ASH sitting on his fat ass watching Sunday football, oblivious to the anything around him, not even realizing I was home until I walked in the door asking him what was wrong with our son (even though my parking space is three feet from the front door and right outside the picture window on the front of the house we lived in on Keesler AFB AND the truck had a high airflow exhaust on it, thus, was louder than normal). His answer, "Oh, yeah, he poured some brake cleaner over his head and some of it must have gotten in his eyes." WHAT??????

I scooped up my son and took him to the emergency room and thankfully there was no permanent damage. But who knows what might have happened had I not come home when I did? And to leave a toddler playing outside alone like that? Not even sitting on the porch watching him!

I have 21 years of stories like this but the bottom line is: Aspie aren't aware enough of their surroundings unless it involves their 'special interest' to be anything more than a very bad babysitter. And because of their "slow, logical, linear thinking", they don't do well in an emergency. They don't think very well on their feet.

When married to an Aspie, or just living with one, in case of emergency, DON'T call them.

However, I have another theory as to why Aspies don't do kids well. They can't stand the competition.

Not all people with Asperger's are men, but the truth of the matter is, it's predominantly men, or at least it's predominantly men who are diagnosed. Asperger's presents differently in the female of the species, which means diagnosing them is harder and different, thus leaving them undiagnosed. So, at the risk of offending anyone (and, really, I'm not too sure I care since this IS my blog), I'll be referring to men, since that's my experience with it.

Every woman I've talked to in my various groups tells me the same thing: their husbands are childish. They want to be taken care of. They want their laundry done for them and they want it done a specific way with a specific detergent and softener. They want their meals cooked and served at a certain time. They have a bathroom routine that takes much longer than it should. They have temper tantrums if any of these "needs" are deviated from in any way, shape or form. (And if you ever get into researching the whole AS thing and/or getting into some forums, temper tantrum = meltdown) In short, you're raising another kid. And you're also doing THAT alone.

Also, given you're married to an Aspie, and odds are great, his father is/was also an Aspie, odds are also great one of your kids will have Asperger's. Now, not only are you dealing with a child who has special needs, you're also dealing with an adult in your household who has special needs. And guess which one is easier to manage? if you guess the adult, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

I think the single greatest advancement in the study of Asperger's is recognizing it as a diagnosis at all. When diagnosed in a child, there's therapy, there's counseling, there's working with your child to help them grow into the amazing person you know they are and helping the rest of the world see it too. Unfortunately, unless your husband is a mere 15 to 20 years old or so, he's of the age where he was never diagnosed.

Now, back to the kids...

No, Aspies don't like having kids around. They're loud, they're messy, they take your time and thoughts away from HIM, they are needy little buggers and Aspies aren't good at being needed. They are the only ones allowed to "need" and when they ARE needed, they tend to cut and run, leaving you in their wake wondering what in the hell just happened. Like I said earlier, they don't like the competition.

When I married my STBE, the first two years or so were great. We laughed, we enjoyed each other, we watched the same shows, we took dancing lessons, he helped me cook dinner, he shared equally in the household chores and did so gladly. But then... Then, our youngest son came along. He just seemed SO uncomfortable around him. Also, he'd started drinking more heavily. He was always a drinker during our brief courtship, we were going to bars and having friends over, generally with a heavy dose of drinking going on.

Image: flickr.com - by Tobyotter

However, once I started trying to get pregnant, I stopped drinking any alcohol at all, even wine with dinner, and started getting serious about the business of having a baby. The STBE, though, started going at it hot and heavy. I didn't realize just how serious it was getting until my youngest was about four months old. I'd come home from work, baby in my arms, and the STBE was passed out on the couch. I put my son down in his crib and started dinner. Suddenly, someone was knocking on the door and it was another couple we knew. Seems Mark had invited them to dinner earlier in the afternoon when he ran into them while he was blitzed (in uniform, no less) and didn't even remember seeing them! He was drinking so much, he was to the point of blacking out. That night, I gave him the ultimatum, it's us or the alcohol but you can't have both. He chose us, but God help me, knowing what I know now, I wish I'd never made him choose and just let him go on drinking because this is when all the craziness came out. I wish I could find that web page that says Aspies can really only hold it together, at the longest, about two years, which is where we were at this point. To this day, he would wake up in the middle of the night to steal sips of alcohol, generally whiskey, sometimes brandy (that I had in the house for cooking and never opened, yet the bottle is nearly empty now)

Seems the baby being born sent him over the edge he'd been teetering on for months, I just didn't see it. I'd only been back to work about a month after my son's birth and should have seen it when we were interviewing babysitters for him. At the time, Mark was working rotating shifts (which probably contributed to his getting worse - he lost his rigid schedule) and he was two weeks on days, two weeks on swings, then two weeks on mids. Remember, I worked straight days, 6:30 AM to 2:30 AM. After arranging a schedule with the sitter, we were walking to the car and he turned to me and said, "Who's going to watch the baby while I sleep?" I responded with, "I guess the same person who's going to watch him while I sleep". End of discussion.

It went downhill from there.

No, Aspies don't like having kids around. Just a few months before I had him removed from the house and filed for divorce, he told me he never wanted any kids. Not his kids from his first marriage. Not the son we had together. None. When asked why he went ahead and did it, he said he only did it to make me and his first wife happy. See? No responsibility! He was just being a great guy! He also says, "I guess I love them, but I never wanted them." Wow... And after his first divorce, when I got cancer and my dad died, I turned it all over to him. The paying of the child support (as in, mail the check), the gifts, cards and phone calls... All handed back to him. My plate was full. It was at that point he stopped paying his child support and his reasoning was, "The bitch only spends it on herself anyway." Not long after that, he stopped trying to call them or acknowledge any important days in their lives. He didn't see his oldest son for four years, his daughter for six years. When they turned 18, the first thing they did was call me about coming to visit. Not him. Me. He's managed to convince them it was their mother's fault but the truth of the matter is, they didn't see him because he put them out of his mind. Like most Aspies, any relationship they have is quickly forgotten with, "Out of sight, out of mind". Like most Aspies, he blamed it on someone else so he's completely w/o fault.

Once the kids become adults, things improve dramatically, but still on a scale that's shallow and more like that of an acquaintance or a "Hey guy". My STBE has never had any kind of conversation of substance with any of his kids, even when his grandson was murdered at the age of two in Aurora, CO, after his daughter moved a guy in she barely knew who had a history of alcohol, drug and domestic violence crimes on his record. They weren't even living together three weeks when he beat Caden to death one night. Is it any surprise his daughter chose so poorly in her romantic life? Also, given her own father is physically abusive, not just to me but his first wife (having picked her up and throwing her into a swimming pool. She was pregnant with his oldest son - he told me later he was trying to get her to have a miscarriage. This guy is pathological - but more on that later) it's also not surprising she chose a man to live with who was just like her father. When his oldest son was in the invasion into Baghdad attached to the 3rd Infantry Division as part of C Co., 2/325 out of Fort Bragg, when he had the chance to call someone, he called me. His first call home, all 15 seconds of it on a satellite phone his unit pooled their funds for so they could buy it from some guy on the street, he called me. From the middle of a war zone, with bullets flying. When he had a problem with his girlfriend while he was over there, he called me, several times since we kept getting cut off, to talk about his heartache and anger. Not his dad. Me. When my STBE stepdaughter was considering having sex for the first time with her boyfriend, she called me to talk about it. Not her mom. Not her dad. Me.

Even they knew which side of the bread their butter was on. Even they understood I was the one to talk to when the rubber hit the road. But, like their Aspie dad, I've not heard from either of them after 21 years of being their stepmother and the one they could count on in all situations. Out of sight. Out of mind. Done.

No, Aspies don't want kids. So don't have them with them. You'll live to regret it.

Asperger's and marriage - the honeymoon period

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 26 Dec 2013 11:00:00 +0000

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 24 Dec 2013 11:00:00 +0000

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 22 Dec 2013 13:28:00 +0000

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I am the 53%

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 16:19:00 +0000

The premise behind being part of the 53% is thus: In this country, the United States of America, 47% of its citizens (and non-citizens) don't pay any taxes.

It's not that they don't work, it's that they file an income tax return every year (except for the non-citizens) and get back all they've paid in payroll taxes and sometimes get back more than they've originally paid.

That leaves 53% of the country to support the other 47% and the social welfare programs they partake of.

My husband and I are part of the 53%.

I am 47 years old and I got my first job at 12 when I started delivering papers - I earned about $15 a week.
At 13, I got a job at a local skeet shoot chasing down unbroken clay pigeons - I earned $1.50 an hour.
At 15 I had saved enough money to pay for some Red Cross classes and became a certified life guard, which I did until I graduated from high school - I earned $2.75 an hour.
Almost immediately after high school graduation, I entered the military. I earned $750 a month.
After the military, I went to college on the GI Bill. It took me 9 years to earn my degree but I graduated with no debt.
My husband earned his associate's degree while in the military. It took him 16 years but he finally got it and graduated with no debt.
We own our home, we have no credit card debt, we have two cars (both paid for) and raised four children.
Our two oldest children are in the military and are taking college classes when they can using the GI Bill. They will eventually earn their degrees and will graduate with no debt.
Our youngest, a senior in high school, entered the Delayed Enlistment Program not long after his 17th birthday. He intends to use the GI Bill to pay for college. He will graduate with no debt.
My husband and I never applied for public assistance of any kind, even when we qualified for it while he was in the military. He delivered pizzas on the weekends and I worked two different jobs while attending school.
When times got hard, as they always do, we stuck it out together, knowing it would get better with hard work, determination and faith in God. It did get better.
In 2006, I became ill and had to quit working. We drained our finances to pay bills and for two years fought bankruptcy. We had to file in 2008, which we're not proud of, but did it to save our home. We are paying back 100% of the money.
I am starting my own business. I will pay the taxes associated with it and no expect anyone else to do it for me. I will also reap the rewards of my hard work, such as pride and a sense of accomplishment.
I do not blame Wall Street, the government, large corporations or anyone else for the choices we made. In my opinion, all the corporations are guilty of is expecting people to pay back that which they borrowed.

Life is a series of choices. It is also the consequences of the choices you make. If you are not happy with your life, make different choices. Instead of wreaking havoc and leaving destruction in your wake, how about getting off your parent's couch, getting a job (and minimum wage is fine for someone with no skills, really) and taking responsibility for yourself and your choices? Be a responsible adult for a change.

I am the 53%.

To the Shiny Black Lexus in Sierra Vista the morning of Sep 16th, 2010

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 17:19:00 +0000

To the oblivious asshole driving the Black Lexus with the Texas tags this morning:

I was the white Jeep Liberty driving on Highway 92 coming into Sierra Vista, as I was taking my son to school this morning. You know me because I'm the automobile that you almost hit. I have the following to bring to your attention:

1 - Way to blaze a trail in your rush to get to where ever it was you were going. Just what DO idiot drivers such as yourself do so early in the morning? In your haste to make it to your final destination, you blew a stop sign entering onto Hwy. 92 (others might call it a "Hollywood stop" but I'm telling it like it is). I understand you're in a hurry but, seriously, getting into a major accident doesn't speed the process. Had it not been for my paying attention, we'd STILL be dealing with the police and reports and ambulances and my lawyer, who I'd call from the ER just to stand by and make sure your ass was made responsible. How does that get you to work on time?

2 - Last time I checked, stop signs were a rule, not a suggestion. A simple one-day driving class will teach you that STOP means STOP, not roll through without a care in the world as though WE are here to await YOU, your majesty

3 - I had my teenage son in the car with me. When you pulled onto the highway, after blowing aforementioned stop sign, after I had already entered the intersection (I had no stop sign, just the right-of-way - what a dumb-ass I AM, huh?) my son grabbed the "Oh shit" handle on the dash in preparation for what was sure to be a crash of near epic proportions. Had we hit you, not only would the speed of the impact have injured him but the deploying airbag would have broken both his arms, if not his nose as well. But as long as you get to where you're going, that's the important thing, right? The rest of us be damned! There's a young man driving a Black Lexus with Texas tags that HAS TO GET SOMEWHERE!!!!!

4 - I was shaking so hard I initially had to drive slowly after you finally realized what a stupid ass move you had made so I could calm down after nearly hitting another car at 50 miles per hour. You're pulling around me and screeching your tires to get away from the accident you nearly caused only served to enforce to all the other drivers around that nearly witnessed the accident what a supreme asshole you truly are. I'm sure many, many people went to work this morning with a story that began with, "You won't believe what nearly happened this morning on my way to work. Some asshole in a black Lexus with Texas tags blew a stop sign and nearly caused what was sure to be a horrible accident".

5 - I'm sure the poor driver waiting to turn left (you know, the car that prevented you from being able to blow through the ENTIRE intersection), the car that was SO STUPID as to not back off the intersection so you could see the ENTIRE world, I'm sure they shit gold bricks as they watched a potential trauma unfold mere inches from the hood of their car. My guess is they went straight to Walgreen's or the closer still Fry's to refresh their Depends following your great act of narcissism.

6 - Oh, and THAT driver actually pulled over to make sure I was okay after nearly being t-boned by you (or by my nearly t-boning you because once you realized a one and a half-ton SUV was about to hit you, you OF COURSE stopped in the road so as to prolong everyone's agony with regard to, "Is that white SUV going to hit that shiny black Lexus with the Texas tags?") to make sure I was okay. I suppose you deem your life to be so much more worthy than the rest of us that you couldn't be bothered to make sure you didn't cause injury to anyone in the OTHER car that had to go from 50 mph to Zero in, what? Two seconds? I had shit flying all over the inside of my car due to your stupidity. A book on the back seat flew up and hit my son in the back of the head. But, oh, silly me - YOU, Mr. Shiny black Lexus with the Texas tags, HAD TO GET SOMEWHERE!!!

7 - There are a large number of driving classes all over the state if not the world. Take one. Take two. Given you're so stupid, maybe three. Learn the rules of the road and always remember - STOP means STOP, not "Dude, I know the red sign SAYS Stop but what it really means is, everyone has to stop BUT the black Lexus with the Texas tags and everyone else can go pound sand". It probably couldn't hurt for you to learn that cars ENTERING the roadway DO NOT have right-of-way over cars already IN THE FUCKING INTERSECTION, ASSHOLE!!!

8 - Finally, and this is the one you should REALLY pay attention to - it's probably a good thing that you have enough money to drive a black Lexus with Texas tags given your driving skills are, well, let's just say it, non-existent. Had you caused an accident in spite of my obvious powers of observation and incredible driving, and hurt either me or (especially) my son, I'd have sued you from now until your grandchildren died of old age. I'd have made sure you could never afford, for the rest of your life, transportation beyond a tricycle or skateboard and your having even that much money would piss me off. I'd have sued you so well and for so long your descendants would be cursing you for centuries for leaving them a lawsuit so expensive they could never hope for more in their pantry other than rice and oatmeal, and oatmeal is a pipe dream.

I am done ranting here but, rest assured Mr. Shiny Black Lexus with the Texas tags, driving like yours eventually catches up to you. I just hope you don't kill someone in your haste to get to work on time. You got lucky this morning but next time, it might not have a good turn out.

On top of all of this, I had to throw down my McDonald's Egg McMuffin to maintain control of my car. You owe me an Egg McMuffin.