Married/in a rship aspie women?

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I am about to get married. I am also a Christian. It is a big point that for a rship to work that a man must love his wife unconditionally and a woman must respect her husband unconditionally.

It is well known already about how a man must unconditionally love his wife.

But not as much about a woman unconditionally respecting her husband. We are taught in our Society that respect is earned.

I find this part really, really hard. I think being an aspie woman makes it even harder, as we have brains more similar to males than do NT females.

So in some ways I am caught between wanting respect from my partner, and also wanting love (note, both partners are indeed to give each other both of these, but the preference/priority is what I am talking about here).

Also, because I don't always understand him and am real bad at reading his thoughts, etc, I have to question him a lot, which can come across as disrespectful. Then he gets real angry and defensive and I end up hurt (not physically) and crying.

We are struggling with this, and I want to fix it. (though this may also be an issue, because I am at core a "problem solver". This may also step on his toes). Can aspie women make relationships work?

Anyone have any advice?

Thanks

Run! If he calls you disrspectful and gets angry just because you didn't understand something, he doesn't respect or love you. That is a huge red flag of an abusive relationship. He should be more accepting of you missing signals since you are on the spectrum, not less.

Don't let him use religion to control you either. Many christian wives let themselves be used and abused under the concepts of submitting and respecting thier husbans. He *does* need to earn your respect. You "submit" by not trying to be controlling, not by being a doormat. He needs to do the same and not berate you for not understand him. Communication is his responsibility too, and he needs to take his share of the blame for any misunderstandings.

Yeah I dont think you should be marrying him. He should know and understand that you have aspergers and you can't always read his thoughts and he needs to be explicit with you. It sounds like you guys have communication problems. A lot of this whole marriage stuff is meant for NTs, dynamics change with aspies.

Your fiance is getting angry and defensive with you. And you're getting married. Why? That's not a very good start to a relationship you intend lasting the rest of your life. He doesn't sound like your ideal partner. If I were you, I'd be reconsidering this.

As for the vows, where do you stay or what branch of Christianity are we talking about? Why do you have to love and respect him, but he only needs to love you? That sounds sexist and old fashioned.

I was going to respond to this an hour ago, but the more I thought about it the more I realised what a good question this is. I understand why you are asking it as well. It's based on the following:

Eph 5:28
"So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church" - New American Standard Bible

And then Eph 5:33
"However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband." - New American Standard Bible

So I see where your ideals for love and respect come from, but I think this may be a case of Aspie black and white thinking. You seem to be viewing respect as a priority for one and the other has love as a priority. I'm not entirely sure that they are meant to be priorities as such. Maybe more reminders. For example it can be hard for a man to show openly that he loves his wife. Men aren't generally openly smooshy and romantic. It's frowned upon as unmanly by society in general. But here is a reminder that it's ok to love your wife and show her that you do. On the other hand it can be hard to respect a man at times. Sometimes it is easier to belittle (well for me anyway, I tend to be sarcastic by nature - hence my Jane Lane avatar). But I must say. I couldn't marry a man I didn't respect already. I agree that respect should be earned. You dont' just get it by being male. If I was going out with someone and it became clear that I couldn't respect him I would probably end the relationship. But I understand us strangers on the internet don't know your circumstances and can't tell you what to do.

However I wanted to point out how a man is encouraged to respect his wife. If you take this into account.

1Peter 3:7
"Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect" - New International Version

"Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman" - English Standard Version

Men should respect their wives too. It's not black and white one gets love the other gets respect. There should be respect and love all round.

And I don't think that it is disrespectful to ask questions for clarification. If your man has a problem with this he needs to learn a lesson from Jesus who's disciples were always asking him questions for clarification. He should love you " just as Christ also does the church" and Christ never once chastised anyone for asking a question.

Has he mentioned why your questioning makes him angry and defensive? How often do these miscommunications happen? I'm just wondering if a different approach, or perhaps touching base at a predetermined time would help.

Thank you for you replies everyone, I appreciate the time and thought

As for me not marrying him because he gets defensive and angry at times. I am not so much a fan of telling people that just based on one piece of info that they should end their rship right there and then, especially when 10 (now 9) days away from a wedding. There are many aspects to consider.
No partner will ever be "ideal" in every single way, in my opinion. We all have our strengths and faults. And as for me, I certainly have mine too.

This is our issue. We are BOTH struggling with defensiveness and anger, not just him. Is this enough to end a rship? In my opinion, no. We all accumulate baggage. People who are not used to being understood are prone to being defensive. He is the only man I have met who is actually willing to grow and work on himself. He is aware of this flaw of his, as I am aware of mine. It is a scary thing to work on, as we are both so caught up in protecting ourselves, that to take the step away from this, is to leave ourselves vulnerable. I commend him for wanting to work on this. Apart from that, he does MANY good things. Most men that I have met are constantly eyeing off other women and lusting after other women, even acting upon this. My partner has NONE of that in him, and to me this is a treasure. On top of the fact that I totally love him and he loves me.

I need to work on me, though. I am not perfect in this rship. I also need to learn how to show more respect and how to control my defensiveness. As fellow aspies, I am sure many of you understand what it is like to be defensive due to misunderstandings, but that doesn't mean you can't change nor that you are a bad person.

As for the religious aspect. Please note, I did make mention that both husband and wife need to give each other BOTH love and respect. BUT that a man prioritises receiving respect, and a woman prioritises receiving love. We both still want both.

From my understanding of the Bible, it is that a woman is to submit to her husband as the Church does to Jesus, and the husband is to love his Wife, as Jesus does the Chuch (and also as he would his own body = Church). That a husband would die for his wife. The idea is that the woman is to be submit to her husband who is also meant to be subjecting himself to her. He is meant to be a godly man who is a Christian, and leads his family in the way of the Lord. A man who is truly like this would never abuse or hurt his wife. Jesus loved the Church just as he does his own flesh.
If you are not religious, please, you do not need to comment on this. It takes a while to truly grasp what this says. If you had a man who was faithful and aware in his life towards God, then you would have a husband who you would be HAPPY to submit to. The word "submit" is a tough one to grasp, I know, trust me - I have read and researched it a LOT in order to understand it as it went completely against everything I had ever learnt initially.

My point in this post, was to talk about the respect aspect, and whether this might be harder for an aspie woman to do. We have such strong opinions and are so passionate and black and white and can't stand injustice, etc, and are pedantic and correct things a lot. None of this comes across as respectful in my opinion, or perhaps it is just the way I do it.

Thank you. He has wondered if perhaps he had a bad experience once with some scientology person asking him a bucket load of questions when he was very young, and he got caught up in the whole thing before finally pulling out before he realised it was NOT what he was interested in. he has only just realised this recently. I believe he also has a big fear of rejection and of being treated disrespectfully. He has had some very difficult life experiences.
The touching base at predetermined times is a good suggestion. He may also be an aspie himself. We both go from 0 to 100 very easily. Two people together doing this is tough to navigate through.


Thanks for quoting the Bible scriptures, you are spot on there And yes, I like this point you make. I will mention it to him and see what he thinks.

Sometimes I also wonder if he may have Alexythymia which makes him get mad because he is actually unable to identify his own feelings when I ask him my questions, and it is born of pure frustration....

Catholic

I had a Catholic wedding (I was devout at the time, but agnostic now). At no time did I ever feel that I was expected to prioritise respect more than he did. The vows felt to me like we were being treated as equals. The Catholic Church sees males and females as equals, within a marriage (obviously not in other areas, i.e. the priesthood).

You should never feel that you need to submit, it should be a matter of as and when you are willing and able, not a duty. I know what you're saying about how you should be happy to submit to your husband, because he's a godly man. If he's such a good man, he would never put his wife in a position where she felt she was submitting anyway. So, as far as I can see, submission in such a relationship should never even come into the picture. It's not something to be thinking about at all, if your husband is a good person, no matter what religion, if any, he follows. This is the relationship I have with my atheist husband.

But, anger in your relationship sounds worrying to me. How does this manifest? Does he just go into a huff or shout or something else?

Well, you posted it before I had a chance to.

My husband is a bit OCPD (lol, I called him OCD, and he looked it up and came back a few hours later and told me to say OCPD, because it would be more accurate, gosh I love him). He's an extrovert who likes to talk things out over and over and has to hear instructions verbally. I'm an introvert who prefers to mull over things in private, then deliver a succinct summary.

We have A LOT of times where we get frustrated with 'you said' or 'I obviously meant', etc.
Yes, it's frustrating.
Yes, it's normal.

Trying to address it is the best thing.
It's taken us a couple of years to get used to each others' communication styles, so, it doesn't happen as often as it did when we first got married, but, it still happens. And, it will continue to happen. But, we've both (mostly) gotten over being frustrated by it, and as soon as we feel the tensions rise, we just laugh and make fun of each other and try to get to the end or solution as quickly as possible.

Sometimes in the past, that has meant one of us having to take a walk, or having to summarize via IM to get to the real point, and not the frustration.

But, we both know that we're not perfect, and we both know that our brains don't work in the same way. In that way, we can have a happy, healthy marriage... even if it sometimes includes communication problems.

You'll have the biggest problem when one, or both, of you stops trying.

I am currently happily married, and was in a disasterous marriage for over 7 years. And I gotta say, what you said threw up a huge red flag for me. Prioritizing love over respect? not good. And yeah, respect has to be earned. And if he doesn't respect you, and show you respect, what you have is a low-paid babysitter. Thats the mess I got into with my first husband. I too am a christian, and had a Biblically acceptable reason for leaving (he had an affair with a 17-year-old-boy) but if he isn't capable of showing both love and respect, he is not the one you need to spend the rest of your life trying to please. At the same time, if he is unable to deal with you trying to understand, and questioning, and basically being an aspie, that isn't going to change.