By Maripat Robison
Autism Asperger’s Digest  November/December 2014

I had no idea that John had Asperger’s when we met. I did think he was interesting, but he also seemed rude, and if I hadn’t been so determined to sell him advertising in my magazine, I might not have discovered what a brilliant, funny, and kind person he is.

John became a customer, and we started working on his marketing. He was smart, and also socially challenged. He didn’t observe the niceties of typical conversation, like saying hello, goodbye, or please and thank you. He had a tendency to talk nonstop about himself, and it was hard for me to get a word in. He wasn’t unkind, but sometimes he was very blunt.

I noticed that John didn’t realize he wasn’t being polite, or that it was important to be polite in a business relationship. I chalked that up to his eccentricities and just accepted it as his way. There were so many good things about him that his seeming lack of manners wasn’t a big deal.

The breadth of John’s knowledge continually blew me away. He could always answer any question about the natural world or about the way things worked. To this day, I’m amazed by John’s ability to sweep in knowledge and formulate conclusions.

Eventually I bought a car from John’s business, which gave me the opportunity to observe his interactions with others. Once, I was sitting in the waiting room when he told a difficult customer to get out and have their car fixed somewhere else. I could clearly see that the customer was fearful and needed reassurance.

Why couldn’t he see that?

John never looked me in the eye. I didn’t understand that, because I thrived on eye contact. A major part of my communication with others was guided by reading their emotional state through eye contact. Over time, I got used to John talking to me while staring at my chin or feet, but it still made me a little uncomfortable.

A Diagnosis

One day I called John looking for advice on an engineering problem I was having at home. He told me what to expect and then said, “I just found out I have Asperger’s Syndrome. That’s why I never know what to say to people.” As John talked about his autism, my mind raced ahead, thinking about how this explained so many things about him.

John was unable to read my facial expression or body language, so when I was in tears over the cost of a repair and he started talking about his favorite trains, it wasn’t because he was cold-hearted. It was because of his mind blindness. His seeming lack of empathy was not something he could help or control, and expecting him to see into my emotional state was a little like expecting a fish to play golf.

All my life, I’ve loved people who are nonconformists. I like defending the underdog, and championing their causes. So I began to focus on what John could do, instead of what he couldn’t. As I read more about Asperger’s, I began to understand why he would sometimes blurt out socially inappropriate observations. I now had an explanation for his self-absorption and lack of personal boundaries. His neurological wiring was different, and that new understanding changed my perception of his behavior.

Now that I knew why John didn’t make eye contact, I stopped worrying about it. And more importantly, I stopped expecting it. Having an explanation for his other behaviors helped me adjust my expectations and alleviate some of my frustrations.

A Different Romance 

One day I told John that I had broken up with a man I had been dating. He shared that he had been divorced for about a year, and then said: “We’re the same age and relatively healthy, why don’t we go out?” I chuckled at this logical request for a date, and then agreed to spend some time with him. It was refreshing to be asked out in that way.

Our first date would have been a disaster if I hadn’t known about John’s autism. We went out to eat, and when the waitress approached the table, no sooner had she said hello than John blurted out what he wanted to order, without a pause to see what I wanted. I was embarrassed, because I knew she thought he was rude.

On that date, we found we had a lot in common. John and I were born in the same year, left our dysfunctional homes in our teens, and succeeded at carving out lucrative careers because we were smart and hardworking. We had owned businesses, had kids with special needs, and had experience fighting for our children and their rights. We shared a love of the outdoors, books, and liked to keep busy working on things around our homes.

John and I have very different, but complementary personalities. We both have high IQs, and where he has amazing cognitive skills, my strength is my emotional intelligence. Being friends for years took away any anxiety about dating, and our romance grew.

I continued to learn more about Asperger’s, which answered a lot of the questions that came up while we were dating. Some things gave me pause, because our courtship was different from my previous romantic relationships. When I hoped for a compliment on my appearance, I was disappointed. Sometimes I would ask, “How do you like this outfit,” and he would respond, “Not much.” Yikes!

Figuring out that John was wired to tell me the truth (because logically, why would I ask if I didn’t want to know?), I learned not to ask questions I didn’t want honest answers to. I also learned that when he said, “That’s a good color,” he was complimenting me in his own way. One night, we were walking into an event and he said, “It’s good to have an appealing looking mate for these type of events,” and I thought, “Score!”

Modifying My Response

John never asks, “Are you busy?” He just assumes that I am thinking what he’s thinking, so of course I would want to talk to him at that moment. That’s mind blindness. When he calls me on the phone and I tell him I’m busy, he might just continue talking. I’ve learned not to keep repeating that I’m busy and not to get upset because he keeps talking. Now I just say, “I have to go,” and hang up the phone. He doesn’t take offense at this, so it’s a good solution for both of us.

Sometimes I’ll be watching TV and John will walk in and start a conversation, interrupting the program. Yes, this is annoying, but I know that he’s not being inconsiderate on purpose. It’s the reality of life with him. How can I deal with my frustration over that?

I can let things go by not taking his actions personally and by working instead on my reactions to his behavior. My responses are really the only thing I can change. So, instead of getting mad, I can pause the program and ask him to give me some space. We’ve worked out a hand signal that I can use to let him know not to approach me when I need space. That’s very helpful.

It’s important that I realize my own limitations and work on those. I’m not the only one with frustrations in our relationship; there is much work to do on me. John isn’t the only one “making mistakes,” and if we are both trying to be a better partner, that’s a win.

Managing My Expectations

My expectations of John need to be realistic. Sometimes that’s hard to quantify, because our brains work differently. But I do know that the more expectations I have for anyone, the greater the chance that I might be disappointed, and then if I feel resentful, I’ve set myself up. So I ask myself two things:

1. Am I expecting a fish to play golf?

2. How important is this?

If I look at things differently, I see different things. The most important principle I fall back on when I’m upset with something John’s done (or not done) is to reroute my focus from what he did wrong to what he’s done right.

This strategy came as the result of an argument over something John had promised to change, but he kept doing it like we had never talked about it at all. In the middle of my complaint, John looked at me and said, “Have you noticed the things I’ve been doing right?” I was stunned when I realized that I hadn’t given him credit for those things; in fact, I didn’t really notice them as a source of irritation, because they hardly ever happened anymore. John had been trying in many ways to alter some of his behavior and succeeding.

Changing My Focus 

Changing focus takes practice, because my first response to pain is to react with discomfort, not with understanding.

First, I have a responsibility to say something to John (who usually has no clue about what he’s done) because he can’t read my mind, expression, or body language. He takes things at face value and doesn’t fill in the blanks of how I must be feeling, so I have to be very specific.

Once I’ve told John what bothered me and he has acknowledged it, I need to let it go. Someone once told me,
“People only have to apologize once, and mean it. If you accept their apology, they shouldn’t have to keep apologizing.” That’s why I try my hardest (and sometimes fall short) not to bring it up again. Once I accept an apology, I move on. I don’t get to trot the issue out again to win a battle. Do I want to be right, or do I want to be happy?

If I find I’m replaying a negative event in my mind, I am only hurting myself. Why would I want to do that? But it does happen (usually if I’m tired or hungry) and that’s my cue to short-circuit the negative thinking.

My process is a rule: for every negative thought, I follow with a positive one. I married John because he is a wonderful person with plenty of characteristics that I love. This process helps me to be balanced, and once I start thinking about positives, I usually come up with more positives, and I start to see things differently.

When I focus more on the good things, the negative things tend to fall away. (I once gave this advice to my son Joe, and he likes to remind me of it when I take him to task for something.) That gets me laughing and I realize:

How important is it?

Bio: Maripat Robison leads workshops on relationships, family life, and mindful living. She is a retired television executive and magazine publisher. She’s raised two special needs kids and is married to an adult with autism. Maripat is the author of the popular blog and forthcoming book I Married a Geek.

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