My Neurodiverse Marriage – 3 Cassandra At It’s Worst. After 25 years of marriage, the first 13 horrifically confusing, to say the least, I can say I have managed my cassandra syndrome symptoms to the best of my capability. Where once I had major meltdowns on a monthly basis, I only have them every 6 or 7 weeks. As unacceptable as this may be, I am fallible and am not perfect.
Cassandra At It’s Worst
In my upcoming book, I state neurodiverse marriages need only get to “good enough” to start feeling a sense of calm and hope. With the willingness and commitment to want to move forward, “good enough” can be “amazing. It all depends on what kind of effort you both want to put into it.
On a bad day I try and get the insight needed to find out why I am so upset. Why I go “off” on my husband when he is just being himself. We all have personal issues imprinted from our childhood and feel the trauma spilling into our present state of consciousness. Meaning, when my husband goes MIA (missing in action) for too long, it triggers my abandonment issues and feelings of being not valued, and invisible. When he says he will do something and doesn’t follow through, I don’t feel prioritized and my disappointment and hurt come out at him with anger and sometimes verbal abuse. Of course, I feel terrible. It’s like an out of body experience, where I don’t even like myself.
Years of working on myself, developing a greater sense of self, helped me become grounded to be able to make adjustments to my bad behavior. Rather than be reactive, I’ve learned to be more responsive. Happy Me Happy We, helped me understand what healthy relationships looked like. We’ll talk about how I did that in the next article.
Cassandra At It’s Worst
Because we cannot change anyone but ourselves…..stop trying to! Concentrating on yourself is the first step in healing any relationship. I thought I knew what that concept meant since I write about it and counsel individuals about it. Throughout my 3 decades counseling people I realized I “talked the walk,” rather than, “walk the walk.” Meaning, I’m good at teaching, but didn’t follow through with my recommendations.
In neurodiverse marriages, there are many challenges, just as there are in neurotypical marriages. They just are more pronounced as ASD brains process information differently than non ASD brains. So ASD brains, in my personal and professional opinion, by default, concentrate on themselves. When they are overwhelmed by our bad behavior they can pull away and/or shut down. They exact opposite of what we want them to do. Rather than leaning in they lean out. Neither partner gets what they need and the vicious cycle begins.
Cassandra symptoms at its worst for me includes threatening the marriage by saying, “that’s it, I want a divorce,” “get out,” “I can’t take this anymore,” and hurtful things to attack character. Absolutely unacceptable! I’m sure some of you can totally relate. And I know you hate yourselves for it. It truly is difficult. We love our Aspie husbands but the dynamic (not the individual) can make life so miserable at times.
For more on this, please contact me at (858) 735-1139 or through my website CouplesCounselorSanDiego.com
