Marriage Encounters

Over at his Life with Aspergers blog, Gavin Bollard (a non-practicing Catholic with Asperger's) talks about how the Marriage Encounters program saved his marriage, despite his hesitations around going.

Gavin begins his 4 part series on his Marriage Encounter weekend with this:

Whether the organisers realise it or not, the marriage encounters programme is particularly tailored for the aspie mind.

Spoilers
As part of this series of posts, I'm going to have to "spoil" some of the secrets of Marriage Encounters. For this, I apologise in advance. If you're already booked in on a course, or if you're definitely going on one, you should probably ignore these posts - I think it's better if you learn via the real event.

If this doesn't apply to you, then read on...

Here are the links to Gavin's review of Marriage Encounters, which he broke into four blog posts: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four.

Marriage Encounter programs are available in the United States and Canada and are currently conducted in English, Korean, and Spanish. They are all sponsored by a Christian church (the current list on their website says Baptist, Canadian Anglican, Catholic, Episcopalian, Lutheran, Mennonite & Brethren, Pan Orthodox, Presbyterian, Reformed, Seventh-Day Adventist, United Church of Christ/Christian Church, United Methodist, and Wesleyan churches hold them). Their FAQ says "while the Weekend may be presented in a given Faith expression, each is open to couples from other orientations. The opportunities of the Weekend go beyond the boundaries of any one expression."

Their FAQ also says that "no couple is ever denied the chance to renew their marriage because they are facing financial difficulties. This concern should not influence your decision to attend a Marriage Encounter Weekend."

To find out more, visit the Marriage Encounter website here: http://www.wwme.org/new.html

I hear tea tree oil is good for that...

I was searching around for some connections and found a lot of helpful, nice people on and off the spectrum. Being in a funk and all emotional right now, the ones who dealt only in stereotypes weighed heavily on me a la: "There's nothing for an NT wife to do but to divorce her AS husband and then complain about him on message boards for decades or to continue using him as a sugar daddy while having an affair" and "If you want to be a good wife to an AS male, take it from someone in his shoes that the best thing you can do for him is to move out, leave him alone, and move on in life so he'll be free to concentrate on what he actually cares about instead of pretending to care about you." Those are my chaffed and emotional paraphrases.

Instead of wallowing in the extremism of others and allowing it to further drag me down, I decided to do a little exercise about how we, like most people, don't fit the stereotypes. It is like cleaning the mold from the shower grout of my mind without any of the cleaning or the insidious fungi! Hover your mouse over the questions and after a moment the answers will be revealed. See if you can guess where we conform to the stereotypes and where we break the mold.

• Which of us is more likely to spontaneously suggest a change in plans?
• Which of us is more sociable?
• Which of us talks more?
• Which one of us would notice things in the house all being just slightly out of their place?
• Which one of us is more likely to initiate a conversation with a stranger such as a store clerk?
• Which one of us would be happier with a predictable menu of the same foods each week?
• Which one of us would get frustrated if there were too many sounds going at once?
• Which one of us is seen as more approachable?
• Which of us would be more likely to get complaints from a superior about poor communication?
• Which of us would be more likely to say, "I'm sorry."
• Which of us would be more likely to say, "I love you."
• Which one of us would be more likely to offer kisses or cuddling to a sad child?
• Which one of us is owned by a cat?
• Which one of us would be perfectly fine with having dessert for dinner?

I believe it is common blog etiquette at this point to ask a question such as, "Any others out there who don't fit the stereotypical mold?" in order to encourage comments. Considering I have more ice cream flavors I would like to be eating now than I have people who are reading this, I'll reiterate that comments about you, your thoughts, your observations, your successes, your frustrations, your favorite desserts, or anything else of importance are appreciated on any post and leave it at that. Unless I break down and go get some ice cream, that is. Mint chocolate chip sounds awfully good...