Sometimes, you get a hug and feel understood. Sometimes, you get a kiss and feel loved. Sometimes, you get a sneer and feel rejected.
If your husband has Asperger Syndrome/Autism Spectrum, it is possible that you can do or say exactly the same thing on three separate occasions, and get three separate responses.
What happens? You feel hurt sometimes. You feel rejected sometimes. But every now and then, you feel as if you husband really understands you. You feel as if he loves you.
Because of this, you tend to disregard the times when your behavior elicits disgust or even contempt. You hope, you pray, that this time you will get what you need and what your heart so desires: you hope that this time he will show you love and understanding.
So you hang in there.
Sometimes, you attempt to tailor your behavior or your words, and though they may depart from what you actually want to say or do, you are calculating ways that you may stand a better chance of being understood, accepted, and getting what you need from your husband.
Why do you believe this? Because every now and then, you do get what you need. What you are coming to realize, however, is that you can never predict which way things will go. You are living in a constant state of low-grade anxiety because you are always in fear of the possibility of being rejected in your most vulnerable moments, those times when you are trying to express your deeply felt emotions.
This is what we call intermittent reinforcement, a term coined by early behaviorists to describe behavior in which an individual’s goals are met some of the time but not all of the time, giving rise to hope that “next time, it will be better, because it has been better before.”
This differs from the idea of staying the course in rough waters, because in the case of intermittent reinforcement, your emotional state feels as if it is in the hands of another individual, in this case, your husband. You are not facing life’s vicissitudes or rough patches. You are facing positive or negative regard from the man you chose to marry. It feels as if his responses turn on and off like a spigot – a spigot over which you have no control.
Anxiety is a normal response when you are in the bind of intermittent reinforcement. If you were listening to a friend who told you that sometimes her husband pays attention to her and sometimes he treats her with contempt, but she could never predict when or why – what would you think? Would you blame her for doing something wrong? Or would you listen with compassion as she expresses the pain she feels, and the confusion, and the frustration?
Listen to those feelings in yourself, just as you would listen to your friend. These responses are reasonable. In studies with rats, for example, those who were intermittently reinforced with food for performing the same task – sometimes being fed, sometimes not, and outside the control of the rat itself – began to exhibit signs of acute anxiety.
In this case, would you expect yourself to feel any differently? I wouldn’t.
The thing to remember is that it is not your behavior that brings on this response. It is the fact that at times your husband just can’t get the point of what you are saying. His AS can block his ability to understand things from your perspective. The chances get worse if he is under stress himself. Remember that anxiety is a nearly constant state for a person with AS. Additional stress closes off whatever pathways may have existed, shutting down further his ability to be present for you.
This could become a topic for discussion between you and your husband, in a quiet moment when you think it would be appropriate to discuss it. If he is not open to discussing it, which is not only possible but likely, you might consider finding a therapist or a coach who knows the ins and outs of the Asperger/neutotypical relationship and who can hear you while understanding him.
There is no villain in an Asperger marriage. There is immense pain, immense grief, immense misunderstanding. But both parties are wounded. No one is the bad guy.
Your husband is not setting out to hurt you, to ignore you, or to drive you crazy, even though at times it may feel that way to you.