Asperger Marriage Stressors. All marriages have their strengths and their weaknesses. All marriages have challenges that include work-life balance, personal issues, parenting, health and financial issues. In a neurodiverse marriage, typically a husband with Asperger’s (AS) and a wife that is neurotypical (NT) there are even more challenges. Along with these normal life stressors, add speaking a different language and processing information in ways that not always creates the stability needed to want to move forward.
Asperger Marriage Stressors
We all have survival strategies that reinforce a flight-fight or reactive modes and often to avoidance and shutdown mode leading to hopelessness and depression. In neurodiverse relationships there are added stressors that can be managed once they acknowledge what they are and how they affect one another.
Some common Asperger Marriage stressors:
Sensory Stressors
- food smells, taste, textures (figuring out what foods are not conducive to comfort helps both the AS and NT partner know what to do to prevent the discomfort)
- perfume and deodorant scents; body odor smells (we’ve all come across women who wear too much perfume. For the AS partner this can create much discomfort)
- bright lights
- noise
- touch
Relationship Stressors
- communication (It is essential to be able to speak each other’s language so both know what it is they want and how to ask for it)
- intimacy (intimacy comes in the form of sex and emotional)
- expectations (Be explicit rather than implicit in asking for what you need and want)
- quality time together (carve out time; even better schedule time weekly for emotional connection
- parenting (Discuss who does what and when and even how with child rearing
Social Stressors
- anxiety (Often an underlying challenge in AS individuals)
- boundaries (Know that you are not your husband and your husband is not you; vice versa)
- expectations
- small talk (acquire tools to initiate conversation)
- work/family gatherings (Discuss what they are and what to do when involved with them)
Day to Day Stressors
- work (Often times work can be a special interest for the AS partner)
- household (Developing a household schedule where family members know what is expected of them is beneficial to harmony and functionality.
- kids (Developing a schedule for who manages the kids’s schedule really helps with keeping the couples’ schedule for emotional connectedness in tact.
Both neurodiverse and non neurodiverse marriages can be challenging as life isn’t at all easy. Acquiring the tools to become for functional make any marriage more harmonious. As a neurodiverse couples counselor, and woman with an Asperger husband, I know first hand how to develop systems to create stability, functionality, becoming less transactional and more relational, and feeling the intimacy both desire.
For more information please contact me at (858) 735-1139 or at my website CoupleCounselorSanDiego.com
