Oh yes. We had a very rocky marraige for twenty years before we started getting diagnosed. I am ADD and have an anxiety disorder. He is Aspergers and has an anxiety disorder and paranoia and a short fuse. We both had a PTSD from childhood. Needless to say it was difficult. After diagnosis and treatment things are not perfect but disagreements stay small and we use a lot more understanding. Trying to love someone who doesn't get warm and fuzzy is a real challange. There are times when I felt more like a roomate than a wife. But now that he works very hard on his temper and trying to be positive it is obvious he is a caring person. The things he does for me are amazing the things he says can be pretty awful so I try to focus on what he does. I have learned not to make an emotional argument because it doesn't work. It is important to remember that Aspergers is on the autism spectrum. With ADD behavior can change with a lot of work. With autism the wiring is not there. They can learn behaviors but may never rally understand why something is important because they often don't understand cause and effect.
I have a nephew who is severly autistic but a really nice kid.I imagine trying to make him do or understand things like we do and know that is not realistic. My husband is the same but on a much milder scale so I don't make unrealistic demands. Another real important thing is there may be incredible intelligence and imagination but because they can't communicate as well it might be mistaken for slowness. It took me a long time to understand how intelligent he is. He has an attitude that other people are dumb because he thinks everyone should think the way he does. He does not understand that he is on a different level and the rest of the world is normal. There is much more to love than to be frustrated by. I have learned that having a diagnosis of Aspergers is not a reason to break up a marraige but marrying someone you know is Aspergers should be considered carefully. I have also learned to communicate in short bursts. A long drawn out discussion is a really bad idea. One or two important ideas stated plainly are much easier for him to digest.
I hope some of this helps. Talk to me anytime.
Kerry

hi, please share e-mails if you must via PM.

DS is open to the internet and therefore you have now given your e-mail out to not only the 1.6 million DS users, anyone else on the internet plus all the bots that harvest e-mail addresses that are put on the net.

I'll ask for the e-mail address to be removed.

As someone with Asperger's, who is a guy and who is married and have sen many such posts - my advice is the following

- get a diagnosis - you cannot diagnose someone yourself. The net isn't really helpful, most tests give false positives. It's important to get it right because if you want to get to any destination (ie a happy relationship) you have to know where you are starting from (ie get a proper diagnosis.)

- remember Asperger's is a difference in perception and cognition. So while you may feel he has outbursts over "seemingly insignificant events" is probably mirrored by his own impression that you do the same? And we know that communication issues of this type are common amongst "normal" men and women - otherwise there wouldn't be books like Men are from Mars, Women from Venus, all women's magazines would be alot smaller and about 70% of a stand up comic's (either males and female) material would be redundant.

The problem is with the difference while you almost certainly hold the majority view, ie most women and some men would agree with your assessment, a number of "normal" men and people on the Autism spectrum would see it differently - there really is no right and wrong here, only difference. You probably therefore need to work on resolving those differences in a way that work for both.

You cannot really expect him to change - you will need to do the same to a certain extent.

Remember that Asperger's has now been moved to a spectrum disorder. This isn't just a renaming, it's part of the recognition that Asperger's is actually a group of disorders - there may be some classic Asperger's people but there are a lot who aren't. Books tend to make everything black and white (isn't that supposed to be an Aspie trait?) and therefore you need to be really careful following any "receipe" in them.

Final point because I have a tendency to ramble - you need to seperate the person from the disorder. While some things you are having problems with are down to Asperger's (assuming he is) some are down to his character and personality, and some are likely to be down to yours. Remember Asperger's doesn't really change over life - you've been together for 17 years - has the relationship changed? Has he?

I missed something when I read your second reply.

I see while separated you both saw other people - and he is still seeing someone. Does that mean he has actually established a relationship with someone else?

You say you are both considering getting back together, what has he said about this? Does he believe it is possible, is he enthusiastic?

I don,t know the extent of his relationship but he was with me this past weekend and he said he would be willing to try again but he is being cautious. As far as a diagnosis, he may not be open to that- He is willing to go to counseling with me though. I know you are lumping me into a category of women who are self diagnosing their mates but I have tried to figure out why he was so uncommunicative and unsociable and a host of other behaviors that didn,t make sense to me and the only place I got answers were from reading about the syndrome. I have been more sympathetic to him as a result and my response to him has been more understanding than I have been in the past so I feel it has been a good thing that I have found some hope for us.

I'm not lumping you into any group at all.

Just explaining why making a self diagnosis can be unhelpful. Bear in mind there are a number of other disorders which are currently not so much in the public eye that present very similarly. Those disorders would have very different keys and communication strategies to help you with your relationship.

But whatever he has or doesn't have, I hope it works out for you both.

Thank you for the words of encouragement to both of you who have responded to me- I know that one thing I need to do is to show my husband how much I appreciate his actions because he does incredible acts of kindness even though he has a hard time saying words of kindness. That is the hard part- We as women want to hear words of appreciation and validation and they are few and far between. so I rely on my close friends for that. I need to remember that everyone has a different love language and show it in different ways. I guess the key is to recognize when your partner does show concern and learn to be grateful for that and not focus on what he is not doing.
I have had a hard time with verbal outbursts and critisism from him and am working on that.

I agree about the very sweet actions. My ex was(and is) adorable most of the time. But he sometimes says the most hurtful things I've ever heard and never apologises or understands why they are so painful to hear. He is very sensitive himself so I am very careful in what I say to him but it doesn't seem to be reciprocated. He also needs a lot of praise which I'm very happy to give but he never praises me at all - except when we first fell in love when he was passionate in his praise.
I don't want to nag him about it or make him miserable but the lack of feedback makes me feel invisible at times. With new people or less close friends he seems to be perfectly complimentary when one would expect it. What should I do?