Husband asked me to stop arguing with him “do you have to correct everything I say or argue with almost everything I say?”
“Yes” I replied “because this is a relationship and not North Korea, if I just agree with everything you say and never argue about a point, it’s a totalitarian regime and not a marriage”
“You can’t just let things go, you always have to correct me or have the last word” he snapped back.
“Yes, because you were wrong” I added, that was the last word and that’s how that works.
This is ironic as I was just doing to him what he does to me constantly.
I have realised something, if I do the stuff to husband in a sarcastic fashion that he does to me, then am not actually pointing out how much it annoys me, I am just confirming his behaviour that its ok to be an annoying dick. So when he constantly goes to great lengths to show me I did something wrong or to make sure that when I made a mistake and he needs it pointed out to me, me doing that to him all the time just makes us go round in circles and snipe at each other.
But he has Aspergers Syndrome and he has an excuse for being the man who has to stop a conversation to point out a small detail of what you are saying is either mis-information or plain wrong, I have no excuse for secretly planning his slow painful death by suffocating him in his sleep.
I won’t do it but I do think about it. I wonder how many women out there are married to a man who has Aspergers Syndrome and almost every day of their lives they concede defeat in a situation, despite being right they have to accept he has to say this shit because if he doesn’t he will get agitated and we have to witness the day being screwed up. The only way forward is to allow him to patronise, snicker and talk down to you about something that is totally wrong, or make him insane by proving you are right.
What do you actually win? The point? No…because he will go to further lengths to explain how he is right and we will be stuck in an anger cycle of frustration and at the end of it the answer is he has Aspergers Syndrome.
The down side for me is I tend to agree with stuff am not agreeing with just to get past this situation. OR we can debate, argue and he can constantly repeat his point, because men with Aspergers Syndrome assume if they just repeat the thing they are saying over and over again, it will win over everyone eventually. (it usually doesn’t but exhausts everyone)
I feel disloyal writing this down as my husband doesn’t mean to hurt me or wants me to be an ‘agreeing person’ it would shock him if he knew I felt like that sometimes, then it would no doubt cause another argument which would be catastrophic as he now wont be sure if I am agreeing to shut him up or agreeing because he is right and we all know how he needs to feel he is right!
The upside is I don’t have Aspergers Syndrome and neither does Ashley and we can have arguments that don’t end in Groundhog Day like tendencies.
So if you have arguing with someone today, think of me.
Oh, did I mention what started the argument? We bought a Behringer mixing desk to make better podcasts and it doesn’t work with Windows 7 and that made him slightly mental and set him off on a big Aspergic trip of jaggy anger. Yeah…if I could meet Mr Behringer today I would punch him in the balls.
My Dad has Aspergers. I mean, it hasn't been diagnosed or anything (he's 85 and doesn't go for any of that therapy crap), but from everything I've read, he fits the description. Of course, growing up in the 60's and 70's, we had no clue, but we knew he was weird. And not weird in a slightly lovable eccentric kind of way, but in a frustrating and maddening kind of way. For example, he constantly repeats the same joke phrases over and over again several times a day, each time expecting us all to fall about ourselves laughing, except by now we've heard them daily for 50 years. He also has odd reactions to some physical sensations. The smell of mustard drives him practically to violence; we never could put prepared mustard out on the kitchen table. When everyone around the dinner table is enjoying a fine side dish of fried potatoes, he's complaining that it tastes like diesel fuel.
ReplyDeleteMy mother finally figured this out about him from watching Dr. Phil (on American TV). But even so, he drives her nuts, since diabetes and old age has made him meaner. Now that I know this about him, I can cut him more slack, but still, his inability to read social cues, or interact with people in socially acceptable ways requires for me to take frequent relief breaks from his company. I don't know how my mother has lived with him for over 50 years.
My brother has a boss with Aspergers. Through interacting with him, he's been able to help me gain further insight into this condition. Of course, all the insight in the world still can't instill the patience one needs daily. I know my Dad loves us, and we love him too, but sometimes he's impossible to like.
Lest you think we had a miserable childhood, our dad could also do some really cool stuff. He was a mathematical genius, an engineer, and loved science. He helped us all have killer science projects in school. One year he and my brother built a small still for a project, and then used it to make plum brandy out of the plums from trees in our backyard. He was also on the cutting edge of technical stuff, and we had things like a hifi stereo system and calculators, and computers, long before anyone else we knew.
I wrote this only to say I think I understand your frustration, not to say I have any answers for it. The affection you and your husband have for each other shines through both in your book, and in your blog posts. That, and your sense of humor, will pull you through in the long run.