Marina Bretherton jotted this down:
> On the other hand, my DH has mentioned to me several times that he is so glad
> he didn't marry another Aspie. 

As an autistic that was in a LTR with an NT before joining up with another
autistic, I feel exactly the opposite... See below for why. :)


> I do a lot of the things for him that he
> would rather not deal with in this world.

My partner and I do this for each other, too, as much as we can. What we also
do, that I couldn't do with an NT, is brainstorm to find out how we can do
things autism-style -- a huge portion of the stuff we "can't" do is more because
the way we were taught was NT-style and that doesn't work for us.

For example, we both have central auditory processing problems, and therefore
find dealing with the phone to be a total nightmare. I discovered that there's
a great free service for people like us that will let us type/read calls through
an operator (akin to the devices for the Deaf except through a website) and so
now we both can handle calls. Or there was that my partner figured out that if
we are going out to dinner somewhere new, we can look up the menu online or get
them to give us a copy in advance so we can look over the selection rather than
having to try to read in a noisy atmosphere -- or we can find a place that is
autism-compatible instead, which is even better.

When I was with my NT ex, though, he just wanted to either do things for me or
make me do them NT-style. It really damaged my self-esteem, since I was always
either dependent on him like a kid or struggling to handle things in a way that
didn't fit my brain, or both. Not fun!


>  I shield him from social
> encounters (be it finding good excuses to get out of attending events, doing
> all the talking so he can "blend," talking to the bank teller, car salesmen,
> etc)

In our case, we just agree that we don't do social encounters -- we're open
about being autistic and explaining to family that we just can't do that. In
the case of business things, we use ATMs, find ways of avoiding interaction and
overload, memorize scripts, or use other techniques to keep things as
autism-friendly as possible. We don't really need one another to "shield" in
that sense; we work together as equals towards changing society for our kind
instead.

The big "shielding" we do is to remind one another to take measures to "fix"
NT-centric situations, or quickly step in if the other is too stressed to do so.
So he makes sure that he's between other people and I (so I'm not stressed by
them being too close), I remind him at times to put his earplugs/earbud in to
block out noise if it's bothering him, we'll guide one another away from
troublesome individuals (or tell the problem-person to please stop), so on and
so forth.

I think that if we weren't both accepting of autism, if we insisted on doing
things NT-style, then we'd be in trouble. Luckily, that's not the case, so we
get to enjoy being autistic together instead.


> I prep new people he will be meeting (and him) which helps him feel
> more at ease when new social situations are necessary

See, I can't see any social situations beyond those involving business as
"necessary" -- luckily, neither does he. He learned pretty quickly after trying
to take me out a few times, when I got back to the apartment and had a meltdown
on his living-room floor!


>, explain social
> situations to him so he can better understand people

I do this for P since I have studied NTs, but it is so he can better understand
*NT* people, not "people" (because autistics, as a kind of person, have our own
different social interactions)... The frustraing aspect is that most NTs don't
recognize that AS folk have our own social situations/interactions, let alone
try to learn or educate others about it; they just assume NT-type is the only
way, that AS people "don't understand" social things and are bereft of our own
social language. It's like a hearing person assuming a Deaf one has no mode of
communication because the hearing-person doesn't recognize sign-language (or
anything other than speech) as a valid method of interacting. :-/


> He cannot always be "available" to my son and meet his emotional needs, so I
> am the one that has to fill in the holes.

That is one of the reasons P and I are not having children, aside from a total
lack of interest (we meet our own and each other's needs). If the kids were NT,
they would never fulfill our needs or hopes, just overload/frustrate/upset us,
and generally let us down. Autistic kids would be more likely to match our
hopes and interactive/emotional wishes as parents, I think, but the stress of
taking care of them would be more than we can handle, given life in NT society
is hard enough for us as it is.

You might check out the book "Living and Loving with Asperger Syndrome" by the
McCabe family -- it's a very good title co-written by an AS man, NT wife, and
their NT teenage son in turns. Quite insightful, and the family has a very
nice attitude towards autism.

--
Denise DeGraf ~*~ http://www.sonic.net/mustang/moggy
"People can and do live happily with AS,
but no one lives happily with a sense of self-loathing."
-- Frank Klein