Are you allowed to be as Aspie as you want to be?

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Or do you have to hide?

I'm a 47 year old Aspie and I've hidden my quirks as much as possible all of my life. It has been more of an effort than even the rest of life - work, marriage, children, etc. It's exhausting constantly putting on airs, pretending to be someone else, pretending to understand, etc. It drains your energy.

4 years ago I started evolving - that's the only word for it - dropping the pretenses. I learned about Asperger's. I read alot and learned and was thrilled to have this Answer finally. I started educating my family - especially my sons who are also Aspies. My husband is NT and has been very supportive and happy about this answer now and has urged me to relax and be myself.

So the past few years have been an interesting time of evolution for me. Much of the outer layer has fallen away, the phoney stuff, the pretending. I feel that I'm more me now than ever. In some ways we both love it but in some ways we don't.

Nearly everyday I hear something like "Don't think that way" or "Just relax, don't worry" In other words, a correction. Don't do something you are doing.

I am very routine - very ritualistic and my husband is absolutely NOT. He sleeps at odd hours, eats different things at all different hours whenever it strikes him. He's much more on the other side than any 'normal' NT even in my opinion. So when I need to have something because it's time for it he opposes me or tries to talk me out of it, telling me it's not good to have that habit or routine.

What this does is creates a fear around me alot. Our children are grown but they're moving back in with us for a few months with grandbabies - which is a whole other area of concern and upset at the moment but overall I think it's a good thing.

When he and I are alone I don't have this comfort feeling, as if anything were to happen to me he would not only care for me but he would respect my odd wishes and help me to be able to have my routines.

So I find myself going back the opposite direction now, hiding from him certain things just so he won't give me a big argument about them. Really simple things too - we're not talking about expensive or intrusive things, like watching a favorite tv program just before bed. Or eating the same breakfast each morning.

It doesn't seem to matter what it is, just that my doing it seems ridiculous to him because he doesn't feel the need to do it also. He has judged himself as "okay" so anything not like him is "not okay".

Even when he's vocalizing lots of good things to me about being myself, there are statements peppered in like something he read that can "get rid of Asperger's" or "Help you to get over some of these things" which tells me that's his approach. He is seeing AS not as just part of me and accept it and it's fine, but as something unfortunate and if we can we should try anything to be cured of it.

That's a sad feeling. I don't feel that way. It lets me know I'm not being accepted.

Is there such a thing as being allowed to be as Aspie as you want to be? Do we have to live totally alone? Is anyone out there really happy and not given grief for being who they truly are?

I'm also a 47 year old Aspie. I only discovered this a couple of months ago and I'm still adjusting to what it means. The big thing it means is that a lot of things now make sense. It also means I can be more comfortable about myself and not metaphorically beat myself up over various "failings". I'd say relax and be yourself. The word "cure" is abhorrent to most Aspies. I think Aspergers is so much a part of us that to "cure" us would destroy us. The only one thing I'd like cured is the periodic bouts of depression that seem to come from nowhere. Other than that I think it gives us a wonderful and different perspective on things. By comparison I find most NT's almost droid like and lacking something.

I wish you well coming to terms with Aspergers. I just wish that those around us would also come to terms with it.

I'm sure I am far from qualified to give any advice on this..but here are my 2 cents. Maybe your husband just says he understands Aspergers but he actually doesn't (b/c he didn't read enough info or b/c he just doen't get it). So he may be unable or unwilling at this point to understand some of your needs. Or he may be a bit uncomfortable with the whole idea of Aspergers (especially if you're making a big, big deal about differences etc).

I don't think your "compromise" problem is necessarily an Aspergers problem...I think compromise is something that every couple (NTs or NT-AS) has to deal with and that can create some friction and frustration (for any couple:) What does your hubbie compromise on (is he giving up on some "freedoms" and choices too?) I guess communication and an evaluation of what's trully important to you as a person and to you as a couple is important:)

Best wishes!

After years of struggling (and yes I mean years, as in about 20) to try and deal with people on their own terms, do the things they think I should do (exposing myself to social contact, noise, stress, people's demands), after I had my AS diagnosis I gave all that up. I know I will never be what people want me to be or do what they want me to do, because I can't. If I try I will get it wrong. Now I live my life the way I want to and it's much eaiser.

Eh, I'm aspie whether I'm "allowed" to be or not. If people don't like it that's their problem; being lonely sucks horribly but I can take waiting for the 1% of the population that has no problem with my quirks.

Just one of those people that doesn't see his "disorder" as a...disorder.

I agree absolutely that the compromises involved in forming a relationship affect everyone. In my case, by the time I was in my 20's I had learned to cover up my most aspie-ish traits, so my husband never knew these. At 40 I had a brain aneurysm & stroke which caused me to lose many of my adaptations. My husband found himself married to a different woman than the one he'd always known. Things have been less smooth since then. My husband is a great guy, but I tread the line between being my genuine self (and at nearly 60, I think I've earned the right) and sharing my life with him. A sense of humor helps and I find myself in the "anthropologist on Mars" mode when I'm doing his activities with his friends. I try to involve him in my interests in small ways which I try to relate to his talents. He is trying to understand AS and actually can even apply his new knowledge with a few of his co-workers. I value the long relationship. On the other hand, I doubt if I would marry again, since I can see myself being very happy living alone, having it all my way. Or my cats' way.

I started letting myself becme more "myself" when I was 26 and got ssober...I knew it was the only way to stay sober for me. I didn't get the AS DX until I was 42 and that was because of the anxiety level I was experiencing at work. It certainly did explain a lot of things but I had already made many changes before the DX . I think that was only possible because I gave up relationships for about 8 years. I think it was my only way to find out "who" I actually was because all the years in relationship I had unconciously adjusted to whatever my "partner" wanted in some ways. In other ways, I experienced the same "push for change and judgements" that you are describing. It was bizzare to me that some one had said they liked me and then spent the next year trying to change me????


I met my current BF 5 years ago, before the DX but made it very clear that I was who I was and was not interested in changing based on someone elses idea of what needed to be changed. I do change, based on my own desire to improve things that cause me problems. Amazingly, he is OK with this and I am sure it helps that he has so many aspie traits himself. We both persue out own obsessive interests and have n need to socilaize other then on the "net". It works.

The problem with trying to educate your spouse on AS is that therre is so much misinformation about it and it is complex. Unless they are someone who finds it as fascinating as I do, they just can't be bothered to do the research to get the "whole picture". I don't really understand how you needing structure is a problem for him...are you attached at the hip ? I am more like you husband....I eat when I'm hungry and sleep when I'm tired. My BF has the routine and we live together fine . The problem is the "difference" it is the value judgement that one is better then the other and the desire to control .

I learned very young that sometimes the way I behaved made people react unfavorably to me. My entire life has been about learning the 'correct' way to be a person, though I didn't realize that fact until only recently when I found out about aspergers.

Because of how much attention I paid to 'being normal', I don't get those unfavorable reactions except in rare intances; people just see me as 'shy' and turn to someone more interesting. I feel that if I behaved more like an aspie though, I would be disliked and shunned. I don't even really understand what it means to be an aspie, anyway.

Thank you for some very interesting replies. I read and appreciate them all.

I sent this thread to my husband and he read it and that started a conversation that was very positive. I'm alot happier about things at the moment.

While we were talking an image came to mind that I shared with him. If the 'norm' was all a flock of birds and I was an elephant, I would spend my life hearing "She's too big. She needs to be smaller" "Her beak is too long - she should have that changed" "Why is she that color? Gray is awful - she needs to buy some products to become this nice shade of yellow like the rest of us" and I'm flapping my legs and trying to make bird sounds and never accomplishing the goal until one day I meet a herd of elephants. OMG!

Then I realize - I'm not a BAD BIRD, I'm a GREAT ELEPHANT! I don't have to change and try to be that - I'm a whole 'nuther species and there are a LOT of us!

Such celebration! Such freedom!

That's how I felt learning about AS. And I think my husband celebrated with me for several years but from time to time he gets lulled back into those things I should change. Sometimes he needs to be reminded I guess.

One more thing - all I can say is Thank God or anything else you believe in for the Internet!! !

I remember quite well when there wasn't any such thing and I am so grateful that now there is!