Any happy relationships out there?

Post Reply New Topic

My partner of 12 years asked this question yesterday, "are there any Aspies who have happy marriages, partnerships, relationships?"

We have struggled in our relationship, but we are trying to work out our difficulties. Through individual therapy and couples therapy, we have learned a lot about each other, ourselves, and Aspergers/Autism in the process. But we're not sure that things will work out.

Looking for some other perspectives, thanks.

Are you in an AS/NT relationship?

I am in a happy relationship, but we are both rather unsocial and obsessive in our interests, so we make a nice pair. That is not to say that we do not have our differences, but they are not troublesome at this time.

You left an option off the poll question list. "Not in a relationship, and don't want to be in one." That is my situation. I am an introverted hermit type, and prefer living alone. I am not comfortable with too much people contact. I prefer to keep my contact with people infrequent. Since I am fortunate enough to live alone, I am able to do this. I spent most of my life living with relatives, and hated it. We all drove one another crazy. For me, being alone is wonderful. My life is much more peaceful, and I have far less stress now. I know that there are other introverts out there who also like going solo, so you should add the solo and liking it option to the list.

I have been married for 17 years, and we have two teenagers.

The last two years have been the happiest in our marriage for a number of reasons. We are very happy now, but I would not say we have always been happy. Marriage has been a tremendous amount of HARD WORK, no denying that. We squabble a bit about stupid things time to time, but at one point in our marriage, we had MASSIVE FIGHTS. I think part of the reason we are so happy now is that we both feel that we have fought all the fights we could fight and have found ourselves victorious in holding our marriage together.

At one point several years ago, we were at an interview together for a certain ministry position and were asked what our greatest accomplishment was. We both answered, "staying married." The people interviewing us didn't like that answer, but we both felt that was the truth.

People who are married and who stay married for the long haul know that is no small feat. Marriage is tough. People are people, and people fail. Most of the time, those failures are not of the type that would ruin a relationship in one fell swoop. Instead, they are problems that can build up over time and tear down one's resolve. To get past that and fight together for your relationship will pay off in the long run, but it takes a tremendous amount of patience, humility, generosity, forgiveness - love, in a word.

One has to be willing to be changed. As iron sharpens iron...

My husband and I both have very strong personalities, as I imagine a lot of people on this forum do. My husband likely has ADHD, I likely am an Aspie. We both bring a significant number of quirks that the other has to be willing to accommodate. Sometimes, sorting that out required a fight. Sometimes, fights were over things all couples fight about - money, sex, etc. Sometimes, fights were just an outburst that was caused by outer stress brought on by life and we weren't coping well. We deliberately turned to each other many times and declared, "YOU are not the enemy!" reminding each other that we were on the same time with the same purpose - to keep our marriage together.

I wouldn't change it for anything.

^^^
I'm glad I could read this

There is so much circulating about the dismal outlook for marriage in the long term, especially those where mental disorder or illness is present. It is great to be reminded that people do survive the downs to see the ups.

Thanks for the replies so far.

I am the AS in the AS/NT relationship. We met before I was diagnosed, when I was at my "peak" for fitting in, (mainly because I had a lot of people around me who were a lot like me or were accepting of me and I was able to do what I wanted to with my time apart from work). Adjusting to being in a relationship, changing jobs, etc. was stressful for me, and my resistance to changes and plans that my partner had hoped for as we got on with our lives together has been a big disappointment for her.

I readily admit that I'm not the guy I seemed to be when we first got together. Not that I was dishonest, or deceitful, I believed that I was more capable, more "normal" than I really am. I thought I could accomplish things that were really beyond me at the time. What I thought was optimism was really a delusion. I have learned I have a condition that comes with some level of impairment in life skills, and that has been hard for both of us to come to terms with.

Questor, I had an option for "not in a relationship/don't want one" option, but somehow it failed to stay on there. My first attempt at polling, sorry.

Me & my girlfriend are a fairly happy relationship & we've been living together about two years now.

I was in a HFA/ AS relationship for years. I am now living with a an ADD guy. I have HFA and ADHD. we seem to be ok mostly. he knows I just don't understand emotions and I need to do things my way which is nice. I feel no pressure except this giant lump of moving flesh in my abdomen which I am just not caring to deal with right now at all.

Relationships can work

Congratulations! But no need to deal with as long as in you.

14 months pregnant?

Probably all relationships have there difficulties, and I don't mean just minor ones. Its the working together to sort it out that gives it the best chance to succeed. Probably most of the 'Happy Relationships' have been in similar hard places as you are now, and got thru it. It can be done.

^^^This. We started out on top of the world when we got married. Decent jobs, 2-story, 5-bedroom McMansion just outside an affluent development, good friends/neighbors, etc. Within 3 years, we were jobless, homeless, medical bills piling up, other debts piling up, sick child, another mouth to feed besides, overall dissatisfaction with life in general and utterly miserable.

I stood my ground against bankruptcy. We were lucky to get rid of the house, though at a substantial loss in a horrible market/economy. With what little we had left, we got a pretty good deal on a small double-wide on the edge of town. She makes respectable money while I'm working to shift directions in my own career, which has had its share of turmoil over the last two years--but it really is for the best. We've paid off almost every debt we have except student loans, for which we're in IBR to buy us as much time as it takes. We don't believe in credit cards or LOCs, and what little debt we currently have was absolutely unavoidable. We've taken steps to keep that from happening again. We buy our largest consumables in bulk at wholesale prices so we can make smarter choices when grocery shopping. We buy frozen veggies instead of fresh or canned. We keep a vegetable garden--we're not good at it, but we're learning. We work to keep our electric bills low, which is easy during the cold months. We only eat out once a month IF THAT. For fun we do free stuff like go to the park. We've replaced family vacations with going to conferences that are paid for by my employer. We send our kids to a private school that offers breaks for low-income families such as ours. We overpay our income tax in order to get huge refunds every spring, which we put towards school tuition. We contribute money to a Christmas club so we can afford a few nice things for our kids at Christmas, do some nice things for other people, and put the rest towards necessities in the coming year. The wife and I get together once a week to look at our money and to plan upcoming events during the week, get honey-do lists together, etc., and we meet once a month for long-range items. I keep a journal to help track professional contacts, important conversations, and just to show what I do all day long. I take care of our youngest child to get out of paying for daycare.

I mean, we've cut our budget to the BONE while I'm looking at ways to bring in more money. We've made smarter decisions with money. Our total family income is currently just under $30k and we're making it just fine.

We don't cheat on each other or spend time alone with members of the opposite sex.

We talk about issues of concern every day, bring up the "big-fight" stuff once a week and rehash "big-fights" every month--which circumvents conflict. We can't really go out on date-dates like we want to, but we still do little things for fun. I bake bread so the kids can have sandwiches every day at school without having to buy bread at the grocery. Pizza night got replaced with Red Barron night, which got replaced with dad-bakes-pizza-at-home night (btw, for the price of one Red Barron pizza, you can make two with twice the cheese and pepperoni. My crust is thicker and contains absolutely ZERO trans fat. All I do is make my regular sandwich bread recipe, divide the dough in half, and roll it flat. Use cheap, yummy pasta sauce of your choice and you've got awesome pizza). Mom works late on Fridays, so I have time to make dough and rise it before she gets home. By taking over domestic responsibilities once a week on her longest work day, I spare the family a lot of extra work and the associated family tension that goes with it.

I mean, we're always working stuff out that way. By having fun, making smarter money decisions, and communicating, our relationship WORKS.

If you get complacent and self-centered in a relationship, it's not going to work out. I've been in relationships before that probably would have worked out better materially, but I'd have been absolutely miserable. I'd rather be a hungry, cold, lonely panhandler than warm, safe, and miserable. Relationships can set you up for that, which is why it's so important to be careful getting into relationships and to work hard at maintaining them once you do get into a good one.

There's a woman who posted a thread in this section who recently got married this past summer, and there are other people here who have been successful in finding partners and tying the not. A few have been married for over 20 years.

I think unhappiness and depression and burnout and so on are really common in people on the spectrum and that mutual unhappiness that isn't about the partner nevertheless gets in the way of a happy and good relationship.

Happy people seem to have happier and better relationships and I think the direction of which comes first goes both ways. Happy people have happier relationships, bad relationships make us unhappy, and round and round we go!!

"Any happy relationships out there?"

Yes.

Kinme and scubasteve for example.